A Welcome Rinse, And Then A Hot Repeat ThIs Afternoon

I awoke to the delicious sound this morning of rain drumming on the roof of my St. Albans, Vermont house.

The weather deck of our place in St. Albans, Vermont was tropical
humid and wet this morning after some welcome showers.
More heat, humidity the rest of the day, into tomorrow, I'm afraid. 

I've been constantly whining about too-dry weather in Vermont since May, so this nice round of downpours will shut me up for a little while.

I'll still cry about the hot weather - more on that in a minute - but this was one of the better rains of the summer.  

That's not saying much, but I'll take it.

The showers were mostly focused along and north of Route 2, so the southern half to two thirds of Vermont missed out.  But the showers this morning were widespread, and many areas got a few hours of rain, sometimes heavy.

As of 8 a.m., Burlington had received just over a half inch of rain. That's not exactly an incredible amount, but still manages to make this the wettest day of the month.

The showers were clearing out by mid-morning, setting me up for my hot weather whine.

We all felt the humidity, even during those showers. The weather disturbance that caused them is zipping off to our east.  The air mass hasn't changed since yesterday, except for the fact that it's even more humid than it was on Sunday.

Today will be the 32nd consecutive day in Burlington in which the temperature has not fallen below 60 degrees. Only one other year, back in 1898, had a longer streak, with 37 such days.   Also, Burlington got above 90 degrees yesterday for the 16th time this year.

Hot summer, anyone?

Before the next weather disturbance in the pipeline comes through, it looks like we will get at least some sunshine, so once again, the warmer valleys will probably hit 90 degrees.

Heat advisories are up for the valleys of western Vermont from north of Burlington to Massachusetts, and for the Connecticut River Valley from Brattleboro to north of White River Jumction. Between the hot air and the humidity, the heat index will be between 95 and 100 degrees.

The rest of Vermont won't quite meet the criteria for a heat advisory, but it will still be damn uncomfortable.

Another one of those pesky weather disturbances will approach us this afternoon.  Combined with the hot, humid air, scattered thunderstorms will erupt very nicely.  Of course, the word "scattered" should tell you 1. Your weather reporter here has a scattered brain and 2. Only some of us will get a storm.

A small minority of these storms could contain strong gusty winds and torrential downpours. Northern Vermont, along with northern New Hampshire, northern and western New York and most of Maine, are in a marginal risk zone for severe storms today. 

That means there will probably some isolated, rather short-lived episodes of severe storms here and there today.   It's possible some of the area might be bumped up to the next level of risk, called "slight" but that just means a slightly greater coverage of severe storms. This potential upgrade is just speculation on my part. to be honest.

An alleged cold front is coming through tomorrow, but don't break out those ski parkas.  Just like a cold front exactly a week earlier, any cooler air will lag far behind the front, so Tuesday will be another very warm, humid day. Some 90s might pop up again in southeastern Vermont. Southern New England will flirt with 100 degrees in spots.

On the bright side, you'll start to notice the humidity come down late in the day, especially north and west.

Then we get another round of average summer weather, just like we did during the second half of last week.  Another rinse and repeat.

Except after today, there won't be much rinsing in Vermont.  Scattered showers and thunderstorms are possible daily Tuesday through Thursday, but don't hold your breath.  It will trend drier and warm by next weekend.

As we head into early August, it looks like we might go back into an above normal temperature/below normal rainfall regime again.  Time will tell.

Unlike some chilly seasons in the rather distant past, this will be another year in which we Vermonters won't feel cheated out of a summer.

We're now just past the meteorological midpoint of summer, and temperatures will start falling soon enough.  In just five or six months, on some dark and frigid winter day, we will be looking back on this month's high heat and humidity with some real fondness.

More Vermont 90s, And Interesting Hot Green Mountain State Trends

Burlington managed to eek out another day above 90 degrees on Monday, making it the 15th day this year already in which it has gotten to the 90 degree mark.

A so-called cold front had passed through earlier in the day, but the slightly cooler air lagged far back in Ontario, so it wasn't really until evening that we began to feel some refreshing breezes from the northwest.

Ben Frechette, a meteorologist at WPTZ-TV, loves looking at data, as I do, shared some more stats yesterday.

I've been saying all along that the average number of days that get to 90 degrees in Burlington each year is five.

That's true if you look at the data starting in the 1880s and going through until now.  However, many climatologists look at the average going back the past 30 years or so.  If you do that, the average number of 90 days in Burlington is eight.

Frechette shared the chart you see in this post.  (Click on it to make it bigger and easier to see).

The chart shows the yearly number of 90 degree days in Burlington dating back to 1883. The darker line you see in the chart is the 30 year rolling average for the entire data set.

As you can, there is a definite trend toward increasing numbers. Such a long term trend suggests to me that climate change is playing a role, but it's probably not the only thing going on.

There are probably some cycles thrown in amid the general climate change warming. You can clearly see a spike in the number of 90 degree days in the 1940s.

Part of that might be because there was less forest in Vermont back then than there is now.  If you have more forests, you tend to have cooler temperatures in the summer because of all the transpiration and water evaporation from the trees.

But there was about the same or even even less forest cover in the decades before the 1940s, and no corresponding higher number of 90 degree days.  For whatever reason, though, the 1940s were generally warmer and drier than previous decades.

Vermont had as little as 20 percent forest cover in the late 1800s due to farmers clearing the land. By the 1980s, forest cover had reached about 75 percent.  It has stayed relatively steady since.

Moreover, rainfall has increased in Vermont during the past few decades, at a rate of about 1.5 inches per decade since 1960 or so.

Scientists think climate change is largely behind the increased rainfall. Remember, all that water from the trees and those rain storms might make it feel more humid in the summer, but the moisture also works to keep the temperatures from spiking.

That's because in wet times, more of the sun's energy goes toward evaporating water than heating the air. Plus, excess moisture can at times create extra clouds, blocking the sun, though that's not always the case.

You'd think the increasing forests and the heavier rainfall would work against an increasing trend of summertime 90 degree weather. But you see the rising trend in Frechette's chart.

One big caveat:  The immediate Burlington area has seen more suburbanization and sprawl over the past four decades than most other parts of Vermont.  The National Weather Service in South Burlington makes sure to calibrate things to ensure accurate temperature readings.

Still, I don't see as much of a warming trend in areas of Vermont that haven't changed as much as the Champlain Valley has. This part of the Champlain Valley has probably lost of bit of forest cover since 1970 or so.

I admit I have not deeply analyzed data from places like Montpelier or St Johnsbury, but I suspect the rising temperature trend lines in those communities might be a bit more tempered.

Maybe Frechette can look at that, although the dude is already incredibly busy with his weather duties at WPTZ.

Not 100 Degrees, Here's Why (But Still Plenty Hot!)

It's still hot, so I'll try again to cool you off with a winter
photo of my St. Albans, Vermont driveway. 

Burlington, Vermont fell well short of the speculated 100 degree reading many of us were contemplating on Sunday.

Things have to line up just perfectly to reach the triple digits during Burlington heat waves and they assuredly did NOT line up correctly on Sunday.

It's only gotten to 100 degrees four times in the past 150 years or so in Burlington, so it's a pretty high bar to cross.

If the atmosphere is hot enough for 100 degrees, you're not actually going to get there in  Vermont unless you have full sunshine.  We didn't have that on Sunday

The writing almost seemed on the wall by early to mid morning Sunday.   A dying complex of shower and storms up in Quebec sent some clouds across the northern half of Vermont that didn't clear out unti mid-mid morning.

That delayed the days warming and put us behind schedule to reach that magic triple digit figure.

We had a few hours of full sunshine that brought temperatures up above 90 by shortly after noon.  However, a powerful line of thunderstorms in southern Ontario had blossomed and blew a veil of high, thin clouds our way, starting in the early afternoon.

The clouds dimmed the sun, preventing it from fully heating us.  Burlington "only" reached 95 degrees. It wasn't even quite the hottest day this summer, but it was pretty damn hot by anyone's standard

Burlington fell short of the record high for the date, which was 98 degrees. However, St. Johnsbury broke their record high, reaching 95 degrees besting the town's old record for the date of 93.  Montpelier tied its record high of 91, and Springfield in Vermont's southeast tied its record high of 92.

RAIN MOSTLY MISSES, AGAIN

It was interesting to see the Champlain Valley's 2020 anti-rain force field in action yesterday. That powerful line of storms in Ontario basically went "poof" on its way here.  In the tragic remnants of that line of storms, a new batch of storms formed in northwestern New York, prompting severe thunderstorm warnings in the Adirondacks.

That line fell apart on the way to the Champlain Valley so we only got light showers. More storms then redeveloped east of the Champlain Valley.

A small local downpour did go over my house early this morning.  I guess the anti-rain force field was taking a pre-dawn nap. Between light showers last evening and a 4 a.m. - ish  downpour, I collected a respectable 0.7 inches of rain in St. Albans.  Burlington could only muster 0.07 inches.

STILL A HOT SUMMER

We've got one more hot one to go today.  A cold front has gone through, but you wouldn't know it.  It's still hot and muggy.  There's a slight chance Burlington could reach 90 degrees again today, but it most likely will be well into the 80s instead.

Somewhat cooler, but still warmish weather will continue the rest of the week.

So far this summer in Burlington, it's gotten to at least 95 degrees six times.  The record for the most such days is nine, in 1944 followed by eight in 2018.

Burlington has had 14 days in which it got to 90 or better so far this year, The most in a single year is 26.

Sunday was the 24th consecutive day in which the temperature failed to drop below 60 degrees in Burlington. The record is 30 such days in 1988.  I don't think we'll break that record because I suspect we might have a couple days this week in which it'll go into the upper 50s at night.

For what they're worth, the long range forecasts don't really promise us any strong Canadian cold fronts anytime soon. The 8 to 14 day outlook calls for continued generally warmer than average weather for us into the first days of August.

Vermont Temperatures In June Were A Roller Coaster

Story of June, 2020. In a dry month, this thunderstorm teased
by poking above the treeline behind my St. Albans, Vermont house
then quickly scooted away, making sure I didn't get
any needed rain. Photo taken June 23.

Most of the time, I rate June and September in Vermont as the mellowest times of the year in the weather department.

True, months like June can have some pretty impressive rainfalls, floods and severe storms. But the two months I mention aren't generally known for temperature extremes, or big swings from one day or week to the next.

This June, though, was a roller coaster for sure.

In the first half of the month there were a couple days setting date records for the chilliest high temperatures - reaching only the 50s.

By the second half of the month, we were in a record heat wave.

Burlington's swings were common for what the state saw in June. We awoke to temperatures in the 30s on June 1, with frost in the cold spots. By the 5th, it was 90 degrees.  On the 13th, high temperatures were only in the 50s. By the 18th, Burlington was starting its June record breaking six consecutive days in the 90s.

Also in Burlington, there was very little rain all month, until the last two days, when 1.14 fell.

Overall in Burlington, the average temperatures for the month worked out to 69.0 degrees. That was 3.1 degrees above normal and enough to make June the tenth warmest on record.

June's temperature was closer to normal in towns away from the Champlain Valley, I think mostly because unlike the Champlain Valley, partial clouds and daily scattered thunderstorms tempered that long heat wave a little over the Green Mountains and points east.

So far this year, we've had nine days at or above 90 degrees in Burlington. Average for an entire year is five, so were off to a fast start in the hot weather department.

Pretty much everyone in Vermont was dry in June. Despite the rainfall in the last two days of the month, Burlington ended with only 1.88 inches of precipitation for June, which is right around half of normal.

Most other places in Vermont had similar precipitation deficits. An exception was Montpelier, which was lucky enough to be in the path of several thunderstorms during the month. They were only a third of an inch shy in rainfall, with a June total of 3.47 inches.

As always, what the next month will bring could be anything. However, there is a pretty remarkable, but not universal consensus that July will be hotter than average in New England. The first few days of the month, at least, look to be warmer than average.

Long range forecasts have been putting us in a moderate risk of a heat wave during the second week of July. We'll see how that pans out.

It could have been worse.  Miami, Florida just endured more than six days in which the heat index was 90 or more. This includes every hour during that period, including nights. Ugh!

June Is The New July In Vermont

A hot, steamy day in Burlington, Vermont in 2018.  In June
we've re-written the heat records of June in recent years. 

I noticed quite a June trend in recent years in the weather record books for Burlington, Vermont.

The last several years have totally transformed the listed record highs in the second half of June.

The National Weather Service has been keeping track of the weather in Burlington since the 1880a.  records.

Over the more than 100 years from around 1885 to 1994, the warmest it ever got in Burlington during June was 96 degrees.

Since 1994 just the last quarter century or so, it has gotten to 96 degrees in June at least another 11 times including twice last week.

And let's not even talk about the record for longest June heat wave - six days in a row - set just this past week.

We've almost totally re-written the record book for June highs since 1991. In the last 14 days of June, eight of the daily record highs have been set just since 2007.  All but one of the record highs in that period came after 1990.

We tied the record for the second hottest reading in Burlington with a high of 100 degrees on June 19,1995.  It was only the third day on record it had been 100 degrees in the Queen City

We still get record daily lows in Burlington, of course.  I did find a single recent daily record low in June -  a reading of 36 degrees on June 2, 2003. But other than that, I can't find a daily record low in June newer than one set on June 24, 1988 when it was 40 degrees.

Consistent with climate change, daily record highs have been exceeding record lows, though of course you can still get cold snaps in a warmer world.

By my quick count - and somebody can check this if they'd like - I see 29 daily record highs tied or broken in Burlington since July 1 2017 and just five record lows tied or broken.

We're not expecting any record highs or lows in the next few days, of course. But fasten your seat belts, we're sure to have more record warm episodes to come.

Roller Coaster May Was Near "Average" But Not Really

A St. Albans, Vermont daffodil shivers in the snow on May 9. By
the end of the month  the same gardens were wilting in record heat

If you like changeable weather, May was surely your month here in Vermont.

The weather gave us a little bit of everything: Snow, record heat, subfreezing cold and severe weather.  No locusts that I'm are of, though.

This was the only May on record in Burlington with both measurable snow and 90 degree heat. As reported last week, that 95 degree reading on the 27th was the hottest temperature on record for the month of May, besting the old record by two degrees.

If you take all the extremes we had this month, you end up with a May with near normal temperatures.  Never mind that there were few actual days that were near normal.  Combine near record cold with record heat and you get something lukewarm, I guess.

In Burlington, the mean temperature for May, 2020 was 57.9 degrees, or 1.6 degrees above normal. Most other weather stations in northern Vermont, including Montpelier, St Johnsbury and Morrisville,  had a month that averaged out a little on the cool side.

If you ignore the Mother's Day weekend snows, the record heat near the end of the month and two severe weather outbreaks - which is a lot to ignore - the month overall was quite pleasant, with plenty of sunny days.

It was a dry May in Vermont, meaning garden irrigation got off
to an early start 

The inevitable result of all those sunny days, of course, is a dearth of precipitation. All of Vermont was solidly on the dry side in May.

That ranged from just a bit below normal in St. Johnsbury to more than a half inch below normal in precipitation elsewhere.

Both Burlington and Montpelier were on the dry side by nearly an inch, and Springfield's May precipitation was nearly an inch and a half below normal.

When it did rain in May, it was sometimes accompanied by dangerous weather. One round of severe weather prompted a tornado warning in southwestern Vermont on May 15. Though no tornadoes touched down in Vermont, there were aeveral reports of wind damage in the southern half of the state.

Another round of severe weather caused scattered damage throughout Vermont, but especially in the southwestern part of the state again.  I also saw some minor erosion damage around from torrential downpours. You can get that during dry months, even.

True to form, May closed with another wild shift in the weather with another cold shot. Snow was reported yesterday atop Mount Mansfield. Especially during light rain showers, mid-afternoon temperatures dipped into the 40s across northern Vermont at a time of day and year when it should have been around 70 degrees.

As June opened this morning, scattered frost iced up a few parts of Vermont and surrounding areas. It was 27 degrees in Saranac Lake, New York this morning and 32 degrees in Bennington. It was 39 degrees in Burlington, making it I believe the first time in several years that Burlington got under 40 degrees in June.

Mount St. Helens Blew Up 40 Years Ago This Week

Mount St. Helens erupting in May, 1980. At this point in the photo, the entire
north side of the volcano is falling away in a massive landslide
as the ash cloud just begins to rocket upward and laterally. 

This isn't a weather or climate story per se, but it is related.

People in Washington State are this week marking the 40th anniversary of the dramatic eruption of Mount St. Helens.  

It was the worst volcanic eruption on record in the continental United States, killing 57 people.

As the Seattle Times notes, the north flank of the volcano collapsed in an enormous landslide that buried 23 square miles of a river valley to an average depth of 150 feet. The blast sent rocks and a superheate ash cloud that toppled 230 square miles of forest in just three minutes.

Large swaths of a Washington State went dark as night under the immense ash cloud.

The blast had some effects on the skies around the nation for days afterwards.  I remember the ash cloud a few days after the eruption turning the May blue sky over Vermont a sickly slate gray.  The setting sun didn't seem to hit the horizon. Instead, it faded to nothing in the haze as the sun sank low in the west.

As dramatic and huge as this eruption was, it was actually too small in the grand scheme of things to actually affect worldwide weather and climate to any noticeable degree.  Or even that week here in Vermont. As the ash dimmed the skies over Vermont, daytime temperatures the week after the Mount St. Helens eruption rose into the 70s and 80s.

Large volcanic eruptions - much bigger than Mount St. Helens - can belch so much ash and soot into the air that it circles the globe and dims the sun, temporarily cooling the surface of the Earth.

One relatively recent example of this was Mount Pinatubo, which erupted in the Philippines in 1991. It pumped enough gunk into the upper atmosphere to briefly stop the upward trend in global warming around 1992.

A more dramatic example was Mount Tambora in what is now Indonesia back in 1815.  That massive volcano is thought to have created the "Year Without A Summer" in 1816. It caused global cooling, with some examples of that in Vermont. There was a June snowstorm that year, and hard frosts and freezes in July and August.

The effects of these massive eruptions on climate tend to last only a couple years as the ash particles from these volcanos slowly fall out of the atmosphere.

As You Suspected, Vermont Had A Very Warm March

Daffodils in my garden in northwestern Vermont were getting ready
to bloom yesterday, March 31, among the earliest I can remember.

Up until this year, the past few Marches in Vermont have been pretty wintry, with big, sometimes immense snowstorms and subzero chilly periods.

This year certainly broke the pattern, didn't it?

The stats from Burlington are kind of impressive, actually. The average temperature for March was 37.3 degrees, which was 6.3 degrees on the toasty side.

That was good enough to make the month the ninth warmest March on record, out of the past 135 years or so.

The warmest March on record was the insanely summerlike March of 2012, which feature three days that topped 80 degrees!

The warmth was statewide, with most places running around four or five degrees warmer than average this March.

This March, the warmth wasn't nearly as extreme as 2012, but if anything, was more consistent than in 2012.  The coolest it ever got all month in Burlington was 11 degrees above zero. There have been a handful of Aprils with colder temperatures than that.  The only day all month that failed to rise above freezing was March 1.

The result is one of the earliest starts to spring I can remember, as far as what the Vermont landscape looks like. In my memory, only 2012 had a "greener" look at the end of March..

Yesterday, the final day of March in Vermont, lawns are greening up around me in and near St. Albans, up in the northwest corner of the state. Most of my perennials in my gardens are up, and some early daffodils have flower buds and are almost ready to bloom.  That usually doesn't happen until the middle or third week in April.

March, 2020 was also relatively gentle in Vermont in terms of storms, especially compared to what many Marches bring.  Precipitation across the state was near average, with snowfall at or below normal.

A mourning dove, lower left, checks out some very early season
green spring shoots in my St. Albans, Vermont garden on Tuesday.

No storms were particularly heavy, so the typical March ice jams and flooding during thaws never happened.

There were some early season thunderstorms in parts of the state on March 20 and especially on March 29, which is about a month before we Green Mountain boys and girls usually start seeing lightning an hearing thunder.

The March warmth this year was widespread, covering most of the nation, especially from the central Plains eastward.  Final numbers aren't in, but I know many cities in the East will list March 2020 as one of their top five warmest on record.

An exception is northern Maine, where Caribou still had around a couple feet of snow on the ground as of yesterday. It was snowing there this morning.

As always, who knows what this new month will bring in terms of weather.  The first couple of days will be coolish, but a milder trend is forecast to start Friday.  Which means our very early spring will continue on, at least for now.

It Wasn't Just Vermont: Nation Had Warm Winter

This, believe it or not, is a weird map. (Click on it to make it bigger
and easier to see).  It shows how each state's overall winter
temperature ranked compared to the coolest and hottest. No
state had a cooler than average winter. Almoat always, there
is at least one region that is cool every season. Not this winter.

As I mentioned several days ago, we in Vermont got a break this year with a mild winter. This, despite a late autumn that was ominously cold, snowy and icy.

It wasn't just us that had that kind of winter.  It started rough in many spots.  Out in Ohio, it turned out that the coldest days of the winter hit before the winter solstice well before Christmas. Since then, it's been toasty, aside from a few "meh" cold spells.

Officially, the Lower 48 had its 6th warmest winter on record, says NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.  Winter here is defined as the period from December 1 through February 29.

Winter in the United States had been on pace to be the warmest on record after a remarkably coast to coast bout of  toastyness in December and January.  However, February was only the 34th warmest out of 126 years of record.  Still among the warmest one-third of Februaries, but not record breaking

That brought this winter's ranking down to sixth place. .

The odd thing about national February temperatures is that almost no part of the nation was cooler than normal, aside from Colorado and Wyoming, which were slightly on the cool side. Alaska did have a significantly colder than normal February, though.

For the winter as a whole, every state except Alaska was warmer than normal.

Usually, even in the warmest winters, or any season for that matter, a few parts of the nation end up being colder than normal.  (In particularly cold months or season, at least a small part of the nation are usually warmer than average). This certainly didn't happen this year.

By my count 25 states- half the nation, had one of the top 10 warmest winters on record. Vermont is included amont those 25 states. The Green Mountain State barely made it, scoring  its 10th warmest winter on record.

The nation as a whole was wetter than normal during February, too. That was mostly led by the Southeast, which had one its wettest Februaries on record.  The contrast was California, which was very dry.  San Francisco had its first rainless February since the Civil War.

Climate figures for February for the entire world are due out in a week or so, which means I'll update you then. It's widely expected February, 2020 will be among the hottest on record.  The first month ofthe year was the world's hottest January on record. 

Vermont February, No Surprise, Was Wet And Warm For Winter

Snow and ice cover trees in St. Albans, Vermont on February 9.
February was somewhat warm, with plenty of mixed precipitation
across Vermont. 

Today, March 1, represents the start of spring. At least to climatologists.

True, it's a wintry day out there in Vermont, with fresh snow on the ground in many places and temperatures that are expected to only make it into the low 20s.

However, climatologists who measure the weather in seasons regard meteorological spring as the period from March 1 through May 31. So winter is over. Yay.  

Not that the last part of winter was extreme.  I'll admit February in Vermont was a true winter month, with plenty of snow in many areas and temperatures that didn't break any record highs to speak of.

But it was warm, and on the wet side. Consistent with the rest of the winter, we had our share of mixed precipitation in the Green Mountain State.

Official, the mean February temperature in Burlington was 24.8 degrees, which was 3.3 degrees on the warm side. That's not remotely close to even the top 10 warmest Februaries, but there's no doubt we didn't exact have icebox conditions, either.

There was 2.3 inches of rain and melted snow and ice in Burlington during February, which was about a half inch on the plus side. Again, wet, but not in the top ten wettest list.

It was also a snowy February in Burlington. It amounted to 21.4 inches, which is five inches snowier than average. Once again, nowhere near any records for snow, though.

Elsewhere in Vermont, departures from normal in February were remarkably consistent, much more than in most months.  Montpelier, St. Johnsbury, Morrisville and St. Johnsbury were all near or somewhat more than two degrees warmer than normal. All of these stations were wetter than normal for February, but not by a large margin.

February was good for snow in many of Vermont's mountains. The month started with about 46 inches of snow on the ground atop Mount Mansfield and ended with 83 inches covering the ground near the summit.

While February temperatures didn't set records for warmth, the winter as a whole was quite warm.  December 1 through February 29 averaged 26.1 degrees for what is climatological winter in Burlington.  That's the seventh warmest winter on record. This means five of the top ten warmest winters in Burlington were in this century, the 2000s.

Elsewhere in New England, Boston had its second warmest winter on record. Providence was fifth warmest, and Worcester was seventh warmest.

It wasn't just New England. You're going to hear of a number of United States and overseas citys and even nations having their warmest winter on record this year as data comes in over the next coming days.

Last Year Was A Soggy One For The United States

According to the National Centers For Environmental Information,
the contiguous U.S. had its second wettest year on record. Only
the Pacific Northwest, South Texas and a bit of the Southeast
were dry. 

Figures came in the other day for how the climate fared in the United States in 2019.

Early indications are that the world as a whole had its second warmest year on record in 2019.  We should get more information on that in the next few days.

Meanwhile, the United States only had its 34th warmest out of 125 years of keeping track. It was also the coolest year overall for the nation since 2014, says the National Centers for Environmental Information.  

Nothing extreme, but not totally in line with the global warming trend, either.

That's not to say parts of the United States weren't hot.  And I mean hot, big time.  North Carolina and Georgia had their hottest years on record, and other Southeastern States came close to that, ranking in the top 10.  Alaska also had by far its hottest year on record.

The real news is how wet the nation was in 2019. It was the second wettest year in the Lower 48, with only 1973 being wetter, says NCEI.  Average precipitation across the contiguous United States was 34.78. That's 4.84 inches above average, which doesn't sound like much. But when you consider that some areas will naturally be very wet and others very dry in a typical year, this departure from normal is pretty damn large.

The Northern Plains had an especially miserable year.  It was quite a bit colder than normal in 2019 and a lot wetter than normal.

South Dakota had it the worst. It was the wettest year on record there, and the 12th coldest in 125 years of record keeping.

Four other states - North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan - also had their wettest year on record in 2019, but those states weren't as cold as South Dakota, at least relative to average, notes the NCEI.   North Carolina, Georgia and Alaska had their hottest years on record. Other states in the Southeast were in the Top 10 warmest.

For the record, for the entire state of Vermont, it was the 45th warmest out of 125 years. So yeah, a bit on the warm side, but nothing breathtaking.

Vernont also only had its 47th wettest year on record, again no great shakes. But interestingly, the northern parts of the state were unusually wet, with Burlington having one of its top ten wettest years on record. Southern Vermont was much drier, which explains the lackluster rain year in the Green Mountain State.

The United States had 14 weather-related disasters that each caused at least $1 billion in damage. These included eight severe storm and tornado outbreaks, three inland floods, a hurricane (Dorian), a tropical storm (Imelda) and one wildfire.

The billion dollar events cost a total of $45 billion in damage, just over the long term, inflation adjusted average of $43.9 billion per year.

Billion dollar disasters are getting more frequent and costly. Although part of that is likely due to climate change, another large part of the problem is more people are in the way of storms and other weather events, and many of the properties damaged are more elaborate than those in the past.

I'm actually wondering if we're starting the new decade with a new billion dollar disaster already. The expected tornadoes, severe storms, ice storms and flooding for a huge section of the nation today through Sunday will almost surely come to more than $1 billion.  Part of that is just because of the huge area the storm is covering.

Of course, it remains to be seen what the coming year and decade hold, but I'm sure there will be a warming and stormier trend.

Vermont December Was Two-Faced: Winter To Mild

Snow squalls lurk west of St. Albans, Vermont on December 18. The
first three weeks of the month were wintry in the state. The end of the
month, not so much.

After a very wintry November in Vermont, December brought more of the same, making us think we are going to have a long, long, hard winter.  Then, suddenly, right before Christmas, everything changed and winter ended, sort of, for now.

Before I get into my December in review, a program note: I'll get to a Vermont weather review for 2019, and the just-ended decade, within the coming days. It's New Year's Day. I'm starting slowly.

Through the first astronomical day of winter on December 21, Burlington was running about 2.8 degrees colder than normal.  Not really the coldest ever, but there was a noticeable chill for sure for the first three weeks of the month.

The weather then went rogue with the start of astronomical winter. Every day from December 22 through the end of the month got above freezing. In fact, Burlington was still just above freezing as the clock struck midnight and 2020 arrived overnight.

Elsewhere in Vermont, a cold start to December and the warm end made the month come out right around normal, temperature wise. Montpelier, St. Johnsbury and Springfield all ended up the month at between 0.2 and 0.6 degrees on the warm side.

In northern Vermont, no big storms hit until the closing days of December, when that wintry mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain passed through.  That left precipitation near to below normal there, with the driest region being in the Champlain Valley. Burlington ha only 1.59 inches of precipitation for the month, which was 0.79 inches below normal.

Southern Vermont was bookended by larger storms. On December 1, the two southern counties of Vermont were socked by more than a foot of snow.  Also, that mixed precipitation mess leading up to New Year's Eve was much more dramatic than in the north.

In the far south of Vermont, ice accumulated enough to cause a bit of damage to trees.  The storm down there was also punctuated by lightning and thunder.

Despite North American Cold Blob, Globe Was Second Warmest In October

The western and central United States had one of their coldest Octobers on record this year.

That was a big anomaly: Pretty much all of the rest of the world was unusually warm, enough to make October, 2019, the second warmest on record for Earth as a whole.   Which goes to prove, if it's cold in your backyard, that doesn't mean climate change is canceled.

Accordig to the NOAA's National Centers for Climate Information, the central United States was the only real cold spot in a warm world last month. Says the agency:

"Record warm October temperatures were mainly present across parts of the North and Western Pacific Ocean and northeastern Canada, as well as scattered across parts of the South Atlantic Ocean, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, the Indian Ocean and South America."

Additionally, Arctic sea ice extent was the lowest on record for October.  Antarctic sea ice extent was also below normal.

Some scientists are tying the unusually cold weather in the central and western United States in October, and the record chill in the eastern two thirds of the United States so far in November to that lack of sea ice.

When the jet stream is wavier than usual - meaning bigger northward bulges toward the north and deeper dips southward, the weather gets more extreme.  A big dip in the jet stream has repeatedly set up over central North America, causing the cold waves in the United States.

Some research suggests that a lack of Arctic sea ice can make the jet stream wavier, and make it stick in more persistent patterns.  This could be one major contributing factor making muh of the United States cold while most of the rest of the world bakes.

I would add that this research still isn't conclusive. Plus, with or without climate change, there is still going to be variability in weather and climate month to month and in different locations.  Climate change does not cancel out other factors that can influence the weather in your back yard, as I've already noted.

On top of all this, the year 2019 so far is the second warmest on record for the Globe.  Highlighting the persistence of weather patterns this year, it looks like parts of the central United States will be an outlier.  The whole year has been generally chilly in that part of the world.

Usually and traditionally,  when global temperatures are near record highs, there's an El Nino pattern going on, which is a warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean off South America.  El Ninos tend to make the world a little hotter than it otherwise would be. But there's no El Nino going on now, which makes the October heat pretty impressive.

November, as we well know, has been brutally cold around here in Vermont. Still, I bet on a global basis, the current month will be another very warm one.

Rare Tornado In Northeast Maine On Monday

A confirmed tornado in a remote part of Washington County, in
northeastern Maine on Monday. Photo by David Cofin.

Here in Vermont this past Monday, it was a gorgeous day, aside from some mild evening showers and thundershowers over far northern areas.

You didn't have to go to far to the northeast to get into some wild weather, though. A cold front was drifting down into northern New England from Quebec Monday afternoon and evening. Near Vermont, the dynamics weren't there to create anything in the way of strong storms.

But up in Maine, the cold front had some power to it.  Strong to severe thunderstorms swept across northern Maine, culminating in a tornado touchdown in remote Kossuth Township in the northeastern part of the state.

The EF-1 tornado was in an area not far from the New Brunswick border and southeast of Millinocket.  It was a small tornado, only 200 yards wide with a path length of a quarter mile. Estimated winds were 90 mph and about 120 softwood trees were snapped or uprooted.  Nobody was injured and no homes were damaged.

As you can see in the photo, a passerby named David Coffin got a great photo of the tornado.

Tornadoes do happen from time to time in Maine, as they do pretty much everywhere in the nation. This was the first confirmed tornado in Maine this year, the National Weather Service in Caribou says.

Maine averages two tornadoes per year.  Here in Vermont, we average one per year.  Maybe I'm jinxing things, but I'm not aware of any twisters in the Green Mountain State since at least 2014.

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.

Doesn't Seem It, But We're Experiencing One Of The Hottest Julys On Record

Last July was easily the hottest on record in Vermont, at least judging by records kept at the National Weather Service in South Burlington.

The view from my upper deck toward my lower deck at my St. Albans,
Vermont home demonstrates my Quick Fire hydrangeas are doing
pretty well, despite the heat of this July.

You might think, at least by comparison, this July has a nice chilly feel to it for a change.

Think again. This July will surely be among the top 10 hottest on record, and probably among the top five hottest. 

Through Friday, the mean temperature in July so far in Burlington is 74.2 degrees, which if it stays there, would tie the month for the fifth hottest July on record.

With generally above normal temperatures expected through the final days of the month, it looks like it will score in the top five.

At least we have no shot of breaking last year's July heat record. Plus, there hasn't been as many 90 degree days. So far this month, it's gotten to 90 degrees four times. We've got a good shot at making it to 90 today, which would bring the month's total to five such days.

Last July, there were ten days that were 90 degrees or more.

This month's warmth has been as consistent as last year's though, with no real cool periods to talk about. Last July, all but two days made it to 80 degrees or more. So far this month, I could say the same, though there's a chance it won't make it to 80 degrees on July 31, according to current forecasts. We'll see.

Other cities in New England and parts of the Northeast are expected to have one of their top 10 Julys this year. Some places might even score with the #1 hottest.

Another thing we Vermonters have in common with last July is the dryness in the northern part of the state, with relative wetness in the south. Unlike last year, we haven't broken into any kind of drought situation in the north. At least not yet.

Last year, the heat extended through September. Last August was the hottest on record and September, 2018 was the second hottest. I'm doubting we'll match last year in that respect.

In fact, long range forecasts call for occasional periods of relatively cool weather during the first half of August. Nothing far below normal, but nothing particularly hot either.

Global Heat Goes On: April Was World's Second Hottest On Record

Canada, the ocean off the west coast of Australia and parts of the
Mideast were a bit cool in April, but most of the rest
of the world was warm. Again. It was globally
the second warmest April on record 

Once again in April, parts of the United States and Canada didn't get the memo:

While a few sections of North America were a little on the cool side, the world as a whole had its second hottest April on record, says NOAA's Centers for Environmental Information.

Only April 2016 had a toastier global temperature in records that date back to 1880.

The warm April follows March, which was also the second warmest on record for Earth.

For those of you keeping track, this was the 43rd warmer than average April in a row. It was also the 412th consecutive month with above normal global temperatures. If you're younger than 34 years old, you've never seen a cooler-than-average global month.

In April, the hottest spots, relative to average, were Greenland, Scandinavia and northern and central Asia. Relative cool spots were mostly limited to Canada, areas near the Great Lakes, and the southern Ocean near Australia.

(Here in Vermont, April's temperatures were pretty close to normal.)

Arctic sea ice extent was also the lowest on record in April, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

That doesn't necessarily mean this summer will be the most ice-free on record way up at the top of the Earth. It all depends on weather and ocean currents. There have been some springs in recent years with very low Arctic ice extent, followed by summers in which the ice was puny, but not at record lows.

These monthly updates on global climate come out about two weeks or so after the month closes. We'll see how May went when the next report appears in mid-June.

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.

Wettest 12 Month Period On Record For The United States

It seems like for the past year, almost all I've written about in this blog thingy is flooding somewhere in the nation. Just yesterday I mentioned flooding, and it's still ongoing in the South.

If it seemed wet across the nation to me in the past year, I was on to something.

According to a factoid I came across in the Category 6 weather blog, the 12 months ending on April 30 were the wettest 12 month period on record in the United States as a whole.

As Bob Henson wrote in the blog post:

"Averaged across the contiguous U.S., the total of 36.20 inches made the period from May 2018 to April 2019 the first year-long span ever to top 36 inches. The old record for any 12-month period was 35.78 inches from April, 2015 to March, 2016."

Henson got his data from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.

Of course, the nation is big an the weather is highly variable from place to place and month to month and even day to day.

However, the United States has been trending wetter. Yearly average rainfall in the United States has increased by about two inches over the past century. That makes sense with climate change. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water, which can be unleashed in the form of heavier precipitation.

Here in Vermont, things seem to be trending wetter, too. Records in Burlington go all the way back to the 1880s.  The six wettest years have all occurred since 1973. Only one of the Top 10 driest years have occurred in the past 50 years or so.

The wet nation is resulting in a lot of flooding, but is minimizing droughts, at least for now. Nearly 90 percent of the nation is currently free of drought or abnormally dry conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

That doesn't necessarily mean the nation will avoid drought. With or without climate change, there can be wild swings from wet to dry to wet again. As you can see by the chart in this post, the trend line for the nation has been generally wetter, but with big changes year to year. Some periods are very dry, some very wet. You never know.

I guess it's just human nature that we complain about too much or too little water.

March In Vermont Seemed Bad, But It Was Only Because Of Long Winter

Scene in my yard this morning definitely felt like an April Fool!
After a snowy March, the snow cover had finally mostly disappeared
by yesterday, only to return overnight to greet me this morning.
After a chilly day today, seasonable temperatures the
rest of the week should get rid of this inch of snow cover.

It's April Fool's Day! Which means its time to assess Vermont's weather in March.

The statistics show, at least from my perspective, that it wasn't as bad as I thought. 

In Burlington, it was essentially a normal March. Temperatures were just a tad cooler than normal, with a mean temperature of 30.4 degrees.

It was actually about 0.6 degrees cooler than average in the Queen City, but that's essentially run of the mill normal.

Precipitation - rain and melted snow - was pretty much spot on average at around 2.3 inches.

The month's snowfall, 15.2 inches, was only a little more than an inch above normal. Remember, though, that many areas of the state had much more snow than that during March.

I would have guessed the March statistics would have come out worse than they did. But it was psychological. Vermont did not have a particularly harsh winter, though snowfall was definitely above average.

What made us weary by March was the fact that winter came in early, sudden and fast in mid-November and there were few if any breaks to the relatively cold weather and nearly constant snows.

In March, the Champlain Valley benefitted at times from southerly winds that warmed that region more than other parts of Vermont.  Also, most of the time, deeper snow cover means chillier nights, dragging down the average temperature for the month.  Snow cover was definitely thicker away from the Champlain Valley, and that refrigerated other parts of the state.

For instance, Montpelier's March is coming in around three degrees chillier than average. St. Johnsbury had a shivery month, coming in a little more than four degrees colder than normal.

Looking ahead into April, we can definitely say winter is over. I know that sounds like an April Fool's Day joke, given that there's a coating of fresh snow on the ground in many places across northern Vermont this morning. (We had nearly an inch of new snow at my place in St. Albans last night.)

It was so wintry during this opening dawn of April that Vermont State Police reported that a number of cars slid off icy Interstate 89 between Montpelier and Richmond this morning.

There will probably be some wintry reminders this month, for sure. For instance, normal April snowfall in Burlington is 4.1 inches.

Still, we can finally say goodbye to any extended periods of wintry weather.

Unlike last April, when we had to endure frequent bursts of snow, ice and chill during the first three weeks of the month, forecasts for the first half of April, 2019 seem OK.

There's still what will be an intense nor'easter to watch around Tuesday night and Wednesday that still looks promisingly like it will completely miss Vermont.  If it were to hug the coast, we'd probably get another fairly significant wet snowstorm.  But so far, all the guidance has it much too far to the east to do us any harm. By that I mean, no snow.

While wintry surprises can certainly happen, it's still looking like temperatures during at least the first half of April will be near or above normal, which is nice.  Again, though things can change, I also don't see any blockbuster storms in the near future, so major flooding is pretty much out of the question for now.

However, there's still a lot of snow left in the mountains yet to melt, so we'll need to keep an eye on that.

Time to watch the landscape slowly wake up and turn greener this month after a long, long winter.