Yesterday's Cold Front Was Beginning Of End Of Summer

Won't be long until things start looking like this.

I was miserable working outside late Thursday morning in Burlington, Vermont. The air was still with no wind, the humidity was horrendous and sweat was pouring off of me with the intensity of a downpour, I swear.

Suddenly, a breeze pushed in from the west and the humidity vanished almost instantaneously. A cold front had arrived. The dew point, a measure of how humid it is, dropped from an oppressive 66 degrees to a comfortable 54 degrees in just an hour.

I continued to work - much happier now - well into the afternoon. It's amazing how a shot of cooler air can help one's ambitious.

Cold fronts and bouts of lower humidity always come through Vermont during the summer. This one, though, felt like the first hint that summer will end.

Oh sure, there will be more warm to hot days as we finish out August and head into September.  And the humidity will eventually creep back up again. But the average temperature is now falling with shorter days. We'll be getting into what Vermonters call "fair weather."  Kinda even today and tomorrow.

Fair weather is not necessarily the sunny skies the term implies, but in this case the skies will be mostly blue.

Fair weather is that kind of in-between temperature you get in late August and early September when it's not really warm, but not really cool. You wear a t-shirt in the afternoon and snuggle into a hoodie in the evening. This kind of weather comes when local fairs do their annual runs, hence the term.

In this case, the next few days will feature highs in the low to mid 70s under mostly to partly sunny skies. Nights will get into the 40s in many areas. Bring those sweaters and hoodies with you!

You can see other signs of the changing seasons. Some of the weaker sugar maples show hints of color, a preview to the big annual foliage show nature puts on every year.

This has been the second summer in a row in which cold fronts have been lacking in Vermont. It's been consistently toasty.

There are summers in which we feel cheated out of them. You know, the ones where it never seems to get hot, and always rains.

This summer and last featured plenty of true summer weather. I usually feel wistful when "fair weather" hits, confirming that summer is ending. But we had our share this year. I'm ready for autumn.