Yes, Vermont Has Had Much Worse Weather In May Than This Year

It's true that this May in Vermont has been cool, damp, cloudy and
rainy, but the weather has definitely been worse in other Vermont Mays

After yet another round of rain Friday morning, the sun came out in Vermont's Champlain Valley during the afternoon. The temperature in Burlington sneaked up to 77 degrees, the warmest reading so far this year.

The nice weather was welcome, as lots of people have been grumbling about the cool, damp, cloudy nature of May, 2019.

I've had a few people ask if this is the worst May for weather in memory. I can't speak for the rest of the cloudy Northeast, but we've had much, much, MUCH worse weather in Vermont this time of year.

I've got lots of examples. We run to David Ludlum's Vermont Weather Book, which tells plenty of tales of May misery.

On May 15, 1834, for instance. snow fell at a rate of one inch every 10 minutes for two hours in Newbury, Vermont, reaching a depth of three feet(!!) In low elevation Rutland, a foot of snow accumulated.

May, 1966 was probably the worst modern May on record. On May 3 that year, it reached 24 degrees in Burlington, which is still the coldest May temperature on record in the Queen City. It was 18 degrees that morning in Bloomfield and Chelsea.

Then, on May 8-10, 1966, Vermont had three consecutive days of snow. It accumulated to 3.5 inches in Burlington, 5.2 inches in Newport and 11 inches in Peru, Vermont.

My subjective vote for the worst May weather in my lifetime was in 1997. It wasn't the coldest May on record, but it was quite chilly, and constantly cloudy. Snowflakes made it all the way down into the Champlain Valley on May 7. It was 27 degrees on May 5, so anything that was trying to grow early got zapped by frost.

Under the persistent overcast, the temperature never made it above 70 degrees until May 28 in 1997, and the trees didn't leaf out until the end of the month. Ugh.

The first half of May, 1996 was at least as bad, with a general snowfall hitting most of the state, including the Champlain Valley on May 12 that year. Even Burlington got 0.3 inches of snow, which I think is the last time measureable snow fell in Burlington during May. (The weather got much better during the second half of May, 1996.)

This May surely won't be among the wettest on record, even as rainfall has been running above average. It does seem as though most recent Mays have been wet. The soggiest Mays on record in Burlington are 2013 (8.74 inches); 2011 (8.67 inches) and May 2006 (7.10 inches).  Those three wet Mays were not chilly, however. They were all warmer than average.

Looking ahead, the weather pattern looks like it will stay active, but maybe not as persistently overcast as it has been. Temperatures will bounce around a fair amount, but overall it won't be too far from average for this time of year.