Super Hot July Ends With Another Big Bang

A distant thunderstorm looms over a still, muggy Malletts Bay,
Colchester, Vermont Wednesday to close out the
the third hottest July o record. 

July ended with a bang - literally - across parts of Vermont as another round of thunderstorms ushered out a near-record hot month.

Wednesday's storms weren't as extensive or destructive as those on Tuesday. Still, one strong storm cut power and flooded streets across St. Albans, Vermont.  Trees and power lines went down in Bridport.

The storms ushered in a welcome cold front. It's much nicer - and cooler - as we open up August today. but it remains to be seen whether August will be another hot one or not.

In Burlington, Vermont, the mean temperature for July was 74.9 degrees, which was 4.3 degrees hotter than normal. It was also the third hottest July on record, with data going back to the 1880s.

Temperatures in Burlington reached 90 or more on seven days. We normally get about five days per year with 90 degree temperatures, so we're already ahead of the game heading into August. Only two days in July failed to make it to 80 degrees. We usually get many more cool days than that.

The only hotter Julys in the data base are 76.0 degrees just last year and 75.3 degrees in 1921. Interesting, four of the top ten hottest Julys in Burlington have happened since the year 2000.

A thunderstorm approaches Georgia, Vermont Wednesday afternoon,
signalling the arrival of cooler air. July was the third hottest on record.

It was a hotter than normal month throughout the rest of Vermont and New England, too. Boston, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut both clocked in with their hottest month on record this year.  Not just hottest July, but hottest month.

Eric Fisher, meteorologist at WBZ in Boston, explains that Boston  had a record number of July nights that failed to drop below 70 degrees.

Also, the only two months in Boston that had a mean low temperature of 70 degrees or higher were August, 2018, yes, last year and July, 2019.  Nights are getting warmer, it seems.

For the most part, July was dry up here in Vermont, as thunderstorms were few and far between. But they had some gusto where they did hit. Montpelier was the exception to the dry July.  They had 5.62 inches of rain, which is 1.5 inches above normal. Half of that total came in just the last four days of the month.

If you're sick of muggy, hot air, I do have a bit of good news. There's no real sign of another significant spell of sticky weather for at least a week or more.