Every Summer Is Hot Now in Vermont, Pretty Much

A refreshing, cool summer day on Lake Champlain in
Shelburne a few years ago. Such nice weather
is geting rare in our increasingly hot
Vermont summers

It looks like we're experiencing another hot summer here in Vermont.

After a big heat wave in late June, followed by not as hot, but still muggy weather in the past week, foreasts call for another long hot spell in the upcoming week. We're in for more 90 degree weather, folks.

I guess we should be used to it now.   I checked records from the National Weather Service office in South Burlington this morning. Turns out, the last cooler than average summer in Burlington was way back in 2009 - eleven years ago. That summer wasn't all that cool, either: It was just 0.9 degrees south of the average

In those eleven years since 2009, some summers were only a little warmer than average while others were much  hotter. Four of the top ten hottest summers in Burlington have happened since 2005.

Two years ago, 2018, we had our second hottest summer with a mean temperature of 72.1 degrees. That's just 0.1 degrees off the all time record set in 1949.

We're talking climatological summer, by the way. That's the period from June 1 through August 31.

The last time we had a cooler than average summer month was in June, 2015, which was close to one degree cooler than average. The rest of that summer was definitely on the warm side, so that kept the hot summer streak going.

There is a caveat here.  I didn't get a chance to take a look at some other towns and cities in Vermont. Burlington seems to run  hotter than other towns.  Summers that were only slightly warm in Burlington, like 2017, might actually have been marginally cooler than average in places like Montpelier and St. Johnsbury.  I'll have to check.

The number of 90-degree days in Burlington seems to be on the upswing, too. So far this year, we've had ten such days, double the average for an entire year.

There were eight such days in 2019; sixteen of them in 2018;  eight in 2017 and twelve of them in 2016, for instance.

For those of you wondering if this increased Vermont heat is caused by climate change, I would say global warming has a hand in it.  It's possible natural cycles were involved too, but in all likelihood climate change gave this increased tendency toward heat an extra boost.

The bottom line here is that Vermont's reputation as a nice cool summertime retreat has taken a bit of a hit.  It's still a lot more refreshing here, than say, Miami. However, the Green Mountain State is not quite as naturally air conditioned as it once was.

Nation's Flash Flood Season Is In Full Swing

A flash flood near St. Albans, Vermont in 2014.  A stalled thunderstorm
caused this one. 

Now that we are full on into summer, the peak of severe thunderstorm season has passed, but we're into what I regard as peak flash flood season.

We can and do often get severe storms and tornadoes in the United States through the summer. But big outbreaks of severe weather are now less common.  That's because there are no - or at least few - big storm systems with immense clashes of cold and hot/humid air to generate tornado barrages.

Instead, smaller weather fronts and weak low pressure areas meander sluggishly, or sometimes not move at all through much of the rest of summer.

There's usually plenty of very humid air to work with around these weak, slow moving systems. The result is torrential downpours.

If these downpours don't last super long, this is a good thing, as it keeps crops and gardens watered down, and tamps down the risk of wildfires. Often, though, you can get several inches of rain in just a couple hours. And these downpours sometimes tend to linger in one place, compounding the trouble.

Many of the culprits behind these flash floods, especially in the middle of the nation, are caused by something called Mesoscale Convective Systems, or MCS's. 

These are huge complexes of thunderstorms that regularly develop late in the day somewhere in the Plains or Midwest and continue on all night.

These things are very common in the summer and all things considered, have a lot of benefits. They keep the corn belt well watered during the critical growing season.

Some of the storms are really intense in these MCS's though. They can dump tremendous amounts of rain in a short period of time and cause almost daily pockets of flash flooding in the summer.

Yesterday, an MCS caused flash flooding east of St. Paul, Minnesota.  This morning, one is causing flash floods in Illinois. 

Other areas of flash flooding could develop today and tomorrow in parts of North Dakota, Kentucky,  and mountainous areas of Idaho and western Montana.  Flash flood risks are usually scattered in random fashion like this during the summer in the United States.

Slow moving cold or warm fronts, or stationary fronts, can also unleash flash floods. In these cases, thunderstorms move along the same path, one after another, over the same area like boxcars passing by on train tracks.

These are called training storms literally because they resemble a train moving down the tracks.

Weak low pressure systems can also cause cause flash flooding by generating showers and thunderstorms rotating over the same area. Early season tropical storms can cause similar problems.

Even areas that are drier than normal - and in drought - are prone to flash flooding this time of year. If it rains hard enough, creeks, streams and river can become overwhelmed with runoff, as can city streets where the storm drains can't handle the deluge.

Most of Vermont is now in drought or at least abnormally dry.  But an area of thunderstorms prompted flood advisories in some sections of southeastern Vermont yesterday.  And there's a marginal risk - very slight - of flash flooding today in much of Vermont today and tomorrow due to the risk of slow moving storms.

As is typical with most flash floods, any risk in Vermont would be limited to very localized areas, while surrounding areas just a few miles away stay relatively dry.

Climate change is probably worsening flash floods and making them more frequent.  A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor.  That means more water is available for downpours when something triggers a storm, such as a stalled front or MCS.

The resulting downpours are heavier than they otherwise would be, so the flooding is worse. And more frequent.

Vermont, like many mountainous areas, is especially prone to flash floods because a stalled thunderstorm over the Green Montains can send torrents of water down the slopes, ripping away roads, bridges and sometimes houses.

Also, our small urban areas can become flash flood zones during heavy thunderstorms.  Some nasty ones have happened in Burlington in July, 2012 and in Rutland in 2009.

At least some localized flash flooding happens in Vermont almost every year. Even dry ones.

So while we pray for continued rains this dry summer, let's just hope it won't be too much of a good thing.

A Chilly Vermont April? Will May Follow Suit?

Snow in the air in St. Albans Vermont on April 17. As you
probably know, April was on the chilly side and we have
the stats to prove it. 

The numbers for Vermont's April weather are in, and to nobody's surprise it was a chilly month.

Despite a relatively warm start, the month was between two and four degrees cooler than average over most of Vermont. Burlington was a little "warmer" as the mean temperature of 43.4 degrees was just 1.4 degrees cooler than average.

None of this chill came close to breaking records. We never came close to the frigid levels of the early 1970s, for instance.

It was notable how there were never any real spikes in temperature to interrupt last month's coolness. The warmest it ever got in Burlington was 67 degrees, which was the lowest April maximum since the peak of 64 degrees in April, 1995, which was also a much cooler than normal April.

The chill in the second half of the month was persistent, but not extreme. Every day except one from April 15 onward in Burlington was cooler than normal.  But the coldest in ever got in Burlington during the month was 26 degrees, which is kind of a warm reading for the so called coldest night in April.

April rainfall was generous in Vermont, with the notable exception of the Champlain Valley. Places like Montpelier, St. Johnsbury and Springfield were roughly a half inch to nearly an inch of rain wetter than average.

Burlington, though, only had 1.84 inches of rain in April, which is right around an inch on the dry side. I can attest to the dry soil conditions in the Champlain Valley. My gardens have been on the dusty side lately, and last night's rain really didn't amount to much.

Despite several high elevation snows, the Champlain Valley escaped any real accumulations. The total snowfall for the month in Burlington came to a very underwhelming 0.1 inches. That will very likely lead to a below average snow season in the Champlain Valley.

I suppose there could be a rare late season snowstorm in May, but likely not. So the snowfall for the winter o 2019-20 in Burlington will probably work out to 69.6 inches, which is about a foot below normal.

As always, I'm reluctant to forecast how the new month will turn out. However, signals are pretty strong that we will continue to be mostly colder than normal in Vermont through at least the middle of  May, possibly longer.

NOAA says odds are the Northeast will have a cool May.

It is turning out to be a bit of a reluctant spring.

Did Someone Say Snow? Again?

Despite the recent chill, I'm starting to see more pops of spring
color around the shed on my St. Albans, Vermont property. 

It's the end of April and spring should be in full swing.

But is it?  

This year, occasionally, at least, it's hard to tell. March and the first half of April in Vermont were pretty good in the spring department, at least by Vermont standards.

Temperatures during that time were generally warmer than normal, and some of the early spring garden plants got off to a roaring start.

Since the middle of the month, things went down hill,  back toward winter. Sure, there's been a couple nice days thrown in there, and today is certainly going to be nice enough. Sunshine and temperatures in the 50s to near 60 is not far from normal this time of year, after all.

But another chilly storm is on our doorstep, and for some Vermonters, it means, yes, more snow.

This next storm is going to be a pretty strong one.  It was developing around Missouri this morning and will steadily move northeastward toward New Jersey or so by Sunday night, all the while gaining more oomph.

Since it's going by to the south, central and southern Vermont, and by extension, central and southern New England, will see the most action from this.

The storm will spread a cold rain across New England Sunday, and it will come pretty hard at times Sunday afternoon and evening.  In Vermont, that's especially, I would guess, south of a Middlebury to Wells River line.

Temperatures will be close to cold enough for snow in the higher elevations. The heavier precipitation will probably bring down some even chilier air, bringing some snow Sunday evening down to elevations as low as 1,000 feet.

Having mostly survived a nasty cold wave earlier this month, spring
blooms in my St. Albans, Vermont ard bask in a little warm sunshine
this  morning before the next cold storm arrives tomorrow. 

A slushy coating is a good possibility in central and southern Vermont at 1,000 foot elevations and that will gradually increase as you go up in elevation. By the time you get to the top of Killington Peak, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a foot of new snow way up there.

Other high elevations of New Hampshire and Massachusetts will also probably see areas of accumulating snow out of this. It won't be the latest snow on record, but it is awfully late in the season.

Southern Vermont could get more than an inch of rain (and melted snow) out of this. It's been dry-ish, so this amount of rain shouldn't cause any flooding  problems.

As noted, northern areas should escape the worst of  the weather because they will be furthest away from the storm. Also,  dry air will feed down from Canada, making the precipitation a little lighter and spottier. There will only be probably a quarter inch of rain or melted snow north of Route 2, which isn't so bad. And that northern snow wil only accumulated above 1,500 feet in elevation, and amount to only an inch.

Unfortunately, there are few signs of a big warmup anytime soon, NOAA's extended outlooks call for mostly below normal temperatures in all of New England through at least May 9. Grr..

The storm from Sunday will meander off the coast until later on Tuesday, which will keep cold, light rain showers and a little bit of higher elevation snows going at least into Monday night.

The next good sized storm looks like it will arrive Thursday. I'm hoping and thinking that one will be a little warmer, so it would produce almost exclusively just rain

If you think the current weather pattern and forecast is bad, let's take a trip down memory lane. Just to prove it could be much, much worse.

Let's take the spring of 1971 for instance.  In Burlington, Vermont's banana belt, there was 33 inches of new snow in March and there was at least a foot of snow on the ground every day through March 30.

In April that year, there was at least some snow on the ground every day in April until the 22nd. Six nights that month got down into the teens, and only ten days cracked the 50 degree mark. Note it was colder and snowier, as usual, back then, outside the Champlain Valley. But we survived.

So yeah, mentioning snow in a Vermont weather forecast this time of year is a little disheartening. But we get through it. Everything does.

Remember the other day I was lamenting the likely loss of my early season flowers because of the sharp cold wave earlier this week? Well, as I said, everything copes. I would say 90 percent of the blooms and buds survived.  A little sunshine yesterday sprouted more blossoms and I expect more in today's sunshine.  Hope springs eternal. Literally.

Busier Weather Pattern Coming, Typical For March

Weather map showing the "Storm Of The Century on March 13, 1993.
We don't expect anything close to this extreme anytime soon in the
United States, but a stormier pattern is on its way, typical of March. 

Mid-March is typically a very busy time on the national weather maps.  There are frequently very big storms to contend with right around this time of year.

The past couple of days and today are the anniversaries of the Great Blizzard of 1888, which dumped up to 50 inches of snow on the Northeast with drifts to 40 feet. (!!!)

It's also the anniversary of the "Storm Of The Century" Superstorm  of 1993, which struck from the Gulf Coast to southeastern Canada (including Vermont).  It was the costliest non-tropical storm in U.S. history.

More recently, a bomb cyclone triggered record flooding in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota in mid-March last year. The Pi Day blizzard struck Vermont and surrounding areas in 2017 with more than two feet of snow in some areas.  

We don't expect anything like those storms in the coming days, but the weather pattern, already a bit active, looks like it will crank up a bit more.

An initial storm in the middle of the nation is no great shakes.  I'm out in Yankton, South Dakota at the moment and I awoke to an inch or two of snow on the ground here.  Down in Nebraska, there's up to six inches of snow. This small thing will gently slap Vermont with some rain showers on Tuesday.

The atmosphere is reloading, though.  California is in for a wet weekend, with lots of snow in the Sierra Nevada. That's actually a good thing. February was remarkably dry, so that rain is welcome. The several feet of snow expected in the highest elevations there will bring the snow pack there a little closer to normal.

That's important because California needs the melting snow from the mountains later this spring and summer to replenish reservoirs.

Eventually, a lot of this energy from California will emerge into the Plains states by the middle or end of the upcoming week.  It's way too soon to say exactly how this will evolve, but there's definitely a good chance of a northern or central Plains blizzard, and severe weather in the South.

I doubt this storm will reach the extremes I cited above, but it will probably cause trouble nonetheless.

We'll watch how this shakes out in the coming days.  I also have no idea at this point how or even if this storm will affect us in Vermont.

After that, more impulses will come in from the Pacific Ocean and cross the nation through the rest of the month.  They might not be gigantic storms, but it will keep the weather interesting through the rest of the month.

That's just another example of how busy March can be for weather forecasters.

January Was Very Warm In Vermont - And In A Lot Of Other Places

Warm temperatures this January in Vermont encouraged mixed precipitation
over snow for most of the month. Here, ice accumulates on a bush
with berries on January 12 in St. Albans

Well, that wasn't so bad. At least if you don't like bitter winter cold.

January, normally the coldest month of the winter, was quite warm, at least relatively speaking here  in Vermont.  Very many other places around the world were unusually toasty in January, too. I'll get into that in a minute.

In Burlington, Vermont, January's  average temperature came to 26.1 degrees which was a substantial 7.4 degrees warmer than normal.

Even with that amount of warmth, Burlington didn't quite make it into the Top 10 list of warmest Januaries.

The 10th warmest was 26.4 degrees in 1950. The very warmest was 31.2 degrees in 1906.

This January, the coldest it ever got in Burlington was minus 4, which is nothing, considering most daily record lows in Burlington are in the minus 20s.

Elsewhere in Vermont, both Montpelier and St. Johnsbury were 5.9 degrees warmer than average during January. Morrisville was 6.5 degrees warmer than average, Springfield was 6.8 degrees on the toasty side.

The January warmth in Burlington was part of a nationwide toasty opening to the year. Arctic air stayed bottled up in northern Canada and Alaska for almost the entire month, and warmish Pacific air kept flooding the contiguous United States coast to coast.

Dozens of cities across the nation had one of their top 10 warmest Januaries.  A few places in the southern Plains and Tennessee Valley, and maybe a couple in the Pacific Northwest set all-time records for warmest January.

There are already signs of spring.  Trees in the far Southeast are starting to leaf out two or three weeks ahead of schedule. Daffodils have been blooming in Atlanta much of this month.

Much of Europe was incredibly toasty in January as well, arguably more so than in the United States.  Moscow, Russia had its first January on record in which the average temperature was marginally above freezing. Every day in Oslo, Norway got above freezing. It reportedly did not snow all month in Oslo and in Helsinki, Finland.

Hamburg, Germany also is reporting its warmest January on record.  In Amsterdam, flowers than normally start to bloom in early April are blossoming now.

The only really cold spot I could find in the world in January was Alaska.  Even there, despite the consistent cold, it wasn't as extreme as you'd think. The "warmest" temperature for the month in Fairbanks was 4 degrees, which is the lowest "highest" temperature for January. Still, January in Fairbanks was only the 17th coldest on record, says climatologist and Alaska expert Brian Brettschneider.

It will be interesting to see how January ranks globally for temperatures compared to the past. I think it has a real shot of being the warmest on record, globally.

Back here in Vermont, precipitation wasn't as extreme as the temperatures.

It was also a sort of wet January in the Champlain Valley but a little on the dry side elsewhere in Vermont. . Burlington had 2.61 inches of rain and melted snow and ice, which is about a half inch above normal for the month.

Places like Morrisville and St. Johnsbury were slightly on the dry side.

As always, we can't tell from this vantage point how February will shake out. This morning, the first day of February, it felt like the winter had already advanced a bit toward spring.  Outside my house in St. Albans, Vermont,  we had a dusting of sugar snow overnight. It was very mild for an early February dawn - upper 20s -  and the air had an aroma that I strongly associate with early March.

Temperatures are forecast to remain above normal at least through the entire first week of February, and there's a good chance the relatively mild weather could extend beyond that.  

Vermont Christmases Seem To Be Getting Less White

Snow falls from pine trees in West Rutland, Vermont on Christmas
morning, 2017. It was the only Christmas this decade when
Vermont received a decent amount of fresh snow. 

Vermont is the land of white Christmases, so goes common "knowledge."

The 1954 movie "White Christmas" cemented the idea that Vermont is a beautiful Christmas snowscape, reliable for the twinkling lights glinting beneath the snow and frost in our Currier and Ives-style quaint villages.

But at least in the state's valleys and warmer spots, Vermont is somewhat less what than it might have been decades ago.

The data from Burlington this past decade does show that the chances of white Christmases has been iffy in recent years.  Granted, Burlington is one of the warmer and drier parts of the state, which means there's more likely to be snow on the ground away from the Champlain Valley.

According to the National Climatic Data Center, Burlington has a 77 percent chance of a white Christmas and 13 percent chance of having at least ten inches on the ground.

The decade now ending fell short of that average.

Since 2010, including forecasts for this year, snow was/is on the ground seven out of 10 Christmases, which gives a 70 percent chance of having snow on the ground for the holiday. That's seven percentage points lower than average. Close but no cigar.

This stat is based on a forecast that it will not snow in Vermont by tomorrow morning. The ground in Burlington is pretty much bare, though snow remains in some parts of the state.

Even that 70 percent chance of snow stat is deceiving. Only five of those Christmases had 2 inches or more of snow on the ground. And one of those two-inch years - 2014 -  was during a thaw, so the ground was half bare on Christmas morning and had even had less snow by afternoon.

Only three Christmases had at least six inches of snow on the ground, which means those were unequivocally white.  The deepest snow cover was in 2017, with seven inches, so we fell short of having at minimum one Christmas per decade with at least ten inches of powder on the ground.

We also fell short of the NCDC stat that says five out of ten Christmases should have at least six inches of snow on the ground. This decade, there were only three such years.

By the way, it almost never snowed on Christmas Day in Burlington during this decade. The only year with measureable new snow was 2017, when 3.5 inches fell.  Trace amounts fell on four other Christmases.

If you average out the temperatures for the Christmases over the decade just ending, it was a little on the warm side. For 2019, I'm using the forecast high and low.  If you average out the decade, the mean Christmas temperature was 26.5 which is four degrees above normal.

There were some cold Christmases, but they were outweighed by warm ones. Two of those Christmases - 2014 and 2015 - had highs in the 50s.  In 2015, the high temperature in Burlington on Christmas Eve was  68 degrees, the hottest December temperature on record.

That year, last minute Christmas shoppers strolled Burlington's Church Street Marketplace in t-shirts and shorts.

The coldest Christmas this decades was in 2013, which had a low of zero degrees.

In the record books going back to the late 1880s, the hottest Christmas was in 1964, when it reached 62 degrees. No snow on the ground that holiday!

The coldest Christmas was in 1980, and it was brutal!  The low temperature was 25 degrees, and the high was minus 5, and that occured just after midnight.  Strong north winds made wind chills unbearable. On the bright side, there was nine inches of snow on the ground that year.

On Christmas Day, 1970, there was a whopping 32 inches of snow on the ground in Burlington. This was during the snowiest month on record.

The most new snow on Christmas Day was in 1978, when 16.9 inches fell on December 25 in Burlington.

As You Know, November Was Brutal Here In Vermont

The weather story of November, 2019 in my St. Albans, Vermont yard.
Tree debris left by the November 1 storm buried in snow, making it
difficult to remove.  This was easily the coldest November since 1996.

In this age of global warming, without thinking, you sort of expect temperatures to be on the warm side, or at least  not too far from normal.

But of course, there's a difference between weather and climate. You might be in a general warming trend, but weather still happens. So do odd weather patterns. And persistent ones. Sometimes the roll of the dice keeps bringing you onto the cold side.  

That was certainly the case here in Vermont in November.

It was easily the coldest November since 1996. In some places in the Green Mountain State, it probably made the Top 10 list of coldest Novembers. Plus, it was snowy in most of the state. November could have easily passed as December.

Let's dive into the stats. The mean temperature for the month was 33.0 degrees in Burlington, just missing the Top 10 list of chilliest Novembers.

Only nine days managed to be warmer than normal.  In an era where daily record highs outnumber daily record lows, we reversed that trend this November. There were record lows on three days, including a reading of 9 degrees on November 13, the coldest for so early in the season.

That's an impressive record, given Burlington's records go way back to the 1880s. (The longer the period of record, the less likely you are to break a record, since you've had tons of chances to be super warm or super cold over the course of more than a century.)

This was also the second November in a row Burlington had a "coldest for so early in the season" record. In  November, 2018, it was 1 below in Burlington, the earliest subzero reading on record.

With 12.5 inches of snow, Burlington missed out on being one of the top 10 snowiest Novembers, but this early winter is certainly off to a snowy start. (The top 10 snowiest Novembers had accumulations ranging from 14.9 to 24 inches).

As of November 30, snowfall is running 7.1 inches above normal for the beginning of the winter season. Of course, anything can happen, as we can normally expect more than 80 inches of snow in a typical winter.

Other places in Vermont were actually colder than Burlington, both in actual temperature and how far it was below normal. Montpelier had a mean November temperature of 28.8 degrees which was 6.6 degrees colder than normal.

St. Johnsbury was also quite frosty, with a mean temperature of 29.8 degrees, or 6.3 degrees below normal. Morrisville and Springfield were both also more than six degrees chillier than normal in November, 2019.

Precipitation was mostly below normal in Vermont, except in the Champlain Valley, where it was wetter than normal. Precipitation was mostly within an inch of where it should have been, except in southeastern Vermont, where it was pretty dry.

In Burlington, the year 2019 has a good shot of cracking the Top 10 list of wettest years, but barely.  As of November 30, there had been 41.88 inches of rain and melted snow so far in 2019. We only need 0.3 inches of precipitation in December to make this year the 10th wettest. That will surely happen. There was already another 0.09 inches of precipitation Sunday, so we're almost there.

This November will also be remembered for the storm that began on Halloween and continued into November 1.  It was probably the most destructive Vermont storm since Irene in 2011.

Parts of Vermont will likely be declared a federal disaster area from this storm, due to the flooding and wind damage it caused.

In my 57 years in Vermont so far, I've been blissfully immune somehow from the disasters and extremes Mother Nature can fling at our state. Sure, I suffered some minor flash flood damage in 2011, and some other minor inconveniences over  the years, but I really got hit with this storm.

By "really hit," I know I'm being dramatic, because me and husband Jeff didn't exactly go through much loss and suffering. Still a favorite tree on our property fell and destroyed one of our vehicles.

Other falling trees ripped away our electrical box, causing damage to electronics inside the house, including the furnace, power cords, and a few appliances.

So yeah, between the storms and the unusual cold, this was not my favorite November. Serves me right for waxing poetic about how this September and October were probably among my favorire months I can remember. No good weather in Vermont goes unpunished, I always say.

The sharp November chill in Vermont and much of the United States was an aberration globally. Most of the world was hot. Final stats aren't in yet, but November, 2019, will probably go down as one of the Top 5 hottest Novembers on record for the Earth as a whole.

Record Winter Weather Persisting In Vermont; Wintry Week Ahead, Too

As can be seen with this map (click on it to make it bigger and easier to
see) ice accumulations with the upcoming storm look like they
will be around a tenth of an inch. That's not enough to bring down
trees and power lines, but more than enough to make road
conditions dangerous. Map is from the National Weather
Service in South Burlington, Vermont. 

It seems like winter has gone on forever already, even though it's only mid-November and our early siege of mid-winter type weather has only gone on for about a week to ten days.

As expected, the cold intensified overnight, with low temperatures tying and setting records, and falling to levels that would be considered chiller than normal for mid-January.

Quite a few places across Vermont managed to get below zero last night, which really is something for this time of year. Island Pond bottomed out at a remarkable 11 below, and Averill was close at 9 below.

In the tropical part of Vermont, Burlington tied its record low for the date at 7 degrees above zero. St. Johnsbury had a record low of 1 below.

Temperatures are moderating under sunshine as we get into Sunday afternoon, but it's still a lot colder than normal.  As mentioned yesterday, we are also in for much more ugly winter weather to come.

We are still due for freezing rain, sleet and finishing off with snow Monday afternoon, night and Tuesday. As is always the case with these situations, some places might be marginal between the rain and ice line, but count on slippery roads and sidewalks starting by Monday afternoon at the latest.

The drive home Monday evening will be lousy, and so will the trip into work Tuesday morning. The precipitation is not going to be especially heavy, but a little bit of ice goes a long way toward making life miserable.

It's also unclear at what pace Monday night and Tuesday morning we'll transition from freezing rain to sleet to snow, but I guess most places in Vermont can expect at least one to three inches of snow and ice, with locally higher amounts.

Unsettled weather will continue pretty much all of this coming week, with rain and snow showers around.  It will stay about ten degrees colder than normal during the week, but I suppose that's better than the 20 to 30 degree below normal air we've had over the past couple of days

It's hard to say whether this frigid November is a harbinger of an exceptionally rough upcoming winter in Vermont.

This is ancedontal, but a November and awful lot like the current one came in 1967.   If the rest of this winter follows like it did in December, 1967 through early 1968, the news isn't good.  December, 1967 was slightly colder than normal. January, 1968 was brutal. That month set a record for the most consecutive hours of subzero weather in Burlington, though that record was broken in February, 1979.

January, 1968 was the fifth coldest on record. February, 1968 was much colder than normal, too. Mild air did not return that winter until late March.  So yeah, I'm hoping history doesn't repeat itself in this case.

No Snow In Forecast, But Now's The Time We Can Start Getting It

A bit of snow in my St. Albans, Vermont yard one year ago today.
No snow in the forecast for the next few days, but it's surely coming.

On this date last year - October 24 - it snowed a little in most of northern Vermont.

It wasn't much in most places.  I got about an inch in St. Albans and a some places in the Northeast Kingdom picked up a few inches.

Though no snow is in the forecast for the next few days, last year's events are a reminder. Time to get the snow tires on, as we can get winter weather at any time now.

Vermont does have a history of October snows, some of them pretty substantial. And some of them came earlier than this.

I turn to the Vermont Weather Book by David Ludlum for examples. Details are sketchy on one the biggest Vermont October snowstorm on record because it happened so long ago. But on October 9, 1804 a moisture-rich hurricane swept up from the south.

A very cold air mass was in place over interior New England, so a lot of this came down as snow. Some places got a foot and a half of snow, with major tree damage because leaves were still on.

In modern times, nothing can beat the epic snow on October 4, 1987.  More than 18 inches of snow fell on southwestern Vermont and adjacent parts of Massachusettts and New York, including in the Albany, New York area.

 Totals of more than six inches extended through most of Vermont, except the Champlain Valley.

Wild scene in Bennington Vermont on October 4, 1987.

Of course in this instance, too, leaves were on the trees, so there was massive destruction and long power outages during the height of the fall foliage tourism season in Vermont.

Another biggie on October 10, 1925 dumped up to 18 inches of snow on the high elevations and up to a foot in the low and middle elevations of Vermont.

The storm was accompanied by high winds, so there was a lot of drifting. Road clearing wasn't great in those days and cars were relatively new.  Many got stuck in drifts up to five feet high. Some cars around Stowe were snowed in until the next spring.

Substantial October snowstorms also hit Vermont in 1933, 1969 and 1979. A few towns in southern Vermont got more than six inches of snow in the Octobers of 2005,  2011 and 2016.  The October 25, 2005 storm was particularly bad. Some leaves were still on the trees - it had been an otherwise warm autumn.  About 100,000 Vermont customers lost power, some for a week. Up to 14 inches of snow fell in Underhill.

So yeah, it can get wintry this time of year. It's just a matter of time before we get hit.

Frost/Freeze To End Growing Season In Most Of Vermont

It was the chilliest early morning since last spring today when I took the dogs out to their business here in  St. Albans.

Just before dawn, drizzle was propelled by winds gusting over 25 mph and the temperature was only in the mid-40s. Raw!

That sets the stage for tonight. It'll clear up during the day today, and winds will die down tonight. Those are perfect conditions for a fall frost and freeze. It also won't get that warm today, so temperatures won't have to drop much tonight to get into the danger zone.

Most of Vermont is under a freeze warning, except for the Champlain Valley, which is under a frost advisory.

Some sections of Vermont have already had frost and freezes, but tonight's will be the most widespread of the season.  It's the end of the garden for most of us, I'm afraid.

This is actually coming right about on schedule.

For instance, in Rutland and Montpelier, the average first freeze of the season is on September 30.  In Burlington, the average first freeze is October 7.  So we're right in the ballpark this year.

In the Champlain Valley, including Burlington, it might not even get below freezing tonight.  But it doesn't have to get down to 32 degrees to have frost. Temperatures are typically measured at about five feet off the ground.

On clear, calm nights, like what is in the forecast tonight, it can be 35 degrees at eye level, but 32 degrees right on the ground. (cold air sinks, right?)  That's why the Champlain Valley is under a frost advisory, and not a freeze warning in other parts of Vermont.  Away from the lake, temperatures are indeed forecast to go below 32 degrees tonight.

Two corners of Vermont are not under any advisories tonight. Grand Isle, with its proximity to relatively warm Lake Champlain waters, will stay relatively warm and should mostly avoid a frost.

Essex County, way up there in the Northeast Kingdom, is also not under any freeze alerts. That's because that area has already had a killing freeze, so it's pretty much pointless to issue another freeze warning up there.

It'll be a crisp, nice fall day Saturday, but it will cloud up Sunday in advance of the next rainstorm.

Heat And Storms: Let's Update Things This Wet Tuesday

Almost all of those orange, red and burgundy shades on today's
National Weather Service map represent heat warnings, advisories
and watches. 

Excessive heat warnings and watches have expanded over a huge section of the United States today, covering an area from the central Plains to the Ohio Valley and on to parts of the East Coast.

More heat warnings and advisories will go up in the coming days in the eastern half of the country as the hot spell takes hold.  I'll update Vermont impacts a bit further down.

This is a particularly humid one. The air is tropical. Many areas subjected to this heat wave have had lots and lots of rain in recent months. So that will add moisture to the air.

The high humidity, then, will be the danger part of this heat wave. There will probably be only a few afternoon record high temperatures during this, as there have been more intense heat waves.

But the incredible humidity will not allow temperatures to fall much at night. Forecasters expect a lot of new records for warmest overnight lows.  This is a dangerous type of heat wave. Drier heat waves create hotter afternoon temperatures, but readings quickly cool at night.

Humid ones like this spell keep nighttime temperatures up. That gives people without air conditioning no break.  It wears people down, especially those with underlying health problems.

By the way, heat waves are not the kind of disasters you see on television. They are not telegenic. But heat is usually the Number One killer of all types of bad weather in the United States. Heat in most years is deadlier than floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards and lightning.

A supercell thunderstorm this morning near Beresford, SD.
Photo by Joe Zweifel, via Twitter

As expected, the heat contributes to pockets of severe thunderstorms if there are any disturbances or weather boundaries around to act as triggers.

On particularly nasty batch of thunderstorms went across South Dakota and on into Iowa early this morning.

I'm sure my relatives in Yankton, South Dakota were around 6 a.m. local time today by a storm that had warnings of winds that could gust to 80 mph. A tornado warning was in effect for a time just northeast of Yankton.

A wind gust of 89 mph was reported in Parkston, South Dakota, west of Sioux Falls, early this morning.

There will continue to be pockets of locally severe storms around the edges of this heat wave. Today, the risk zones are in the northern and central Plains, western Great Lakes, southern New England, the NYC metro area and parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

There will be pockets of severe weather here and there on the northern fringes of the heat wave through Saturday.

The humid air also raises the risk of flash floods. You can get an incredible amount of rain in a short period of time.  I don't think there will be widespread areas of flooding, like we just had with Tropical Storm Barry, but some individual towns will get nailed.

VERMONT IMPACTS

The humidity is here, and so is the rain, as the last of Barry's remnants sweep by. As of 9 a.m. this morning the first batch of rain was already beginning to taper off in western areas of Vermont, but more is on the way.

It won't rain all day, but there will be a constant threat of showers and some afternoon thunderstorms. With this juicy air, some of the storms will produce torrential downpours.

Rainfall totals will be uneven as a result. Some areas might only get less than a half an inch of rain today or even less, while others who get bullseyed by downpours clock in with up to two inches.

This might be enough to cause a few local water problems. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington says there won't be any widespread flooding, but a few small streams and creeks could get a little wild. If a downpour hits a more urban area, we run the risk of some street flooding. (You know the drill: If the road is flooded, don't drive through it!)

A very weak cold front will actually give us some slight relief from the humidity late tonight and much of Thursday, which will be a rather quiet day.

Then Friday comes. So does the heat. I won't be at all surprised if we go under a heat advisory on Friday. The heat index by then could go up to 95 degrees or a little higher.

Such extreme heat and humidity mean thunderstorms can develop explosively. But there won't be much in the way of triggers to set them off on Friday. A cap of warm air will largely prevent clouds from billowing upward, so that will make it hard for storms to form

It's possible that clouds could break through the cap in a few spots in the late afternoon and evening, so a few strong storms could fire up toward the end of the day. Most spots won't get a storm, but the few places that do could get strong gusty winds and heavy downpours.

Saturday looks downright ugly.  First of all, we will have (hopefully!) survived a very hot, humid Friday night. Then the temperature will once again get up to 90 or so Saturday afternoon, with heat indexes well into the 90s.

A cold front will be approaching from the northwest on Saturday meaning we have a good shot of some strong or severe thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening We'll have to keep an eye on that, because it could get nasty.

The good news is that cold front is the start of a weather pattern change that will gradually drop temperatures to comfortable levels during the first half of next week.

It's Classic Fourth of July Vermont Weather -- Hot!

A gorgeous summer day last year in Burlington, Vermont. This
year's Fourth of July weather - today - will be about the same.

"Hot as the Fourth of July," is a timeworn cliche, but hey, cliches are often true, right?

Such as the case today, the Fourth of July 2019, as we in Vermont are setting up for a hot one. Great beach weather. Great barbecue weather. Great fireworks watching weather. What's not to love?

Well, it will be a bit too hot for some people today.  (I've become a hot weather wimp in my old age, for instance.)

Everybody in Vermont, except those on the tippy tops of the tallest mountains will see high temperatures in the 80s today. Warmer valleys (I see you, Champlain and lower Connecticut valleys!) will have a great shot of getting to 90 degrees or even a little above that this afternoon. Thank goodness humidity levels will only be moderate. Not super dry, mind you, but not awful, either.

Plus the sun will be out most if not all of the day. Bottom line: The Fourth of July this year is a classic in the weather department.

The time around the Fourth of July has had its extreme weather. Two of Vermont's most historic, biggest heat waves happened on and around July 4.

In 1911, Vermont had it's hottest day on record on July 4, reaching 105 degrees at Vernon, in the southeastern corner of the state. Neighboring New Hampshire also had its hottest day on record on July 4, 1911, reaching 106 degrees.

Burlington, Vermont, was relatively "chilly" on July 4, 1911, only reaching a high of 98 degrees (ugh!) But that was down from 100 degrees the day before.

The 1911 heat wave was long, with a break in the middle of it. According to the Vermont Weather Book, Burlington's daily high temperature from July 1 to 12 was as follows: 86. 94, 100, 98, 98, 91, 75, 88, 95, 96, 96, and finally on July 12, a cooling trend started when the high only reached 86 degrees.

It's possible the 1911 heat wave was New England's worst weather disaster. Some estimates are that 2,000 New Englanders died in those pre-air conditioning days.

The other historic July 4 heat wave happened just last year, in 2018. On July 4 last year, Burlington reached 95 degrees on the Fourth of July, so the record for the date from 1911 still stands.

But the heat wave that lasted from June 30 through July 5 last year was among the most extreme on record. The low temperature in Burlington on July 2 was 80 degrees, the hottest "low" temperature on record. Burlington also suffered through six consecutive days with highs of 93 degrees or more.

Not to be morbid again, but the July, 2018 heat wave was Vermont's worst weather disaster since the Hurricane Irene floods of 2011.  The heat caused little physical damage but caused at least six deaths in the Green Mountain State.  (The link has four deaths, but two more fatalities were confirmed later.)

The 2018 Fourth of July  heat wave was part of what was to become the hottest summer on record in Burlington.

Sometimes, Mother Nature creates her own fireworks display on the Fourth of July weekend. We've had some doozies in Vermont.

Some examples: In 1999, a derecho formed in North Dakota on July 4, and sped rapidly over a long distance through Minnesota, upper Michigan, Ontario, Quebec and on into northern Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine in the pre-dawn hours of July 5.

The path of a long lasting derecho on the Fourth of July
weekend, 1999. It caused one death in the Northeast
Kingdom. No storms anylike this in the forecast today!

Winds in that 1999 Derecho reached 90 mph Colbrook, New Hampshire. In Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, one person died and others were injured as the derecho winds slammed through crowded camp grounds.

In 2012, Vermont was hit by more very severe storms on the Fourth of July. The day was classically hot, reaching 90 degrees in Burlington. But thunderstorms quickly erupted that afternoon and evening.

The first round headed southeastward across eastern Vermont in the afternoon, causing lots of tree damage. A second round moved southeastward through the Champlain Valley, with winds gusting to 70 mph in Colchester and 63 mph in South Burlington.

There was, predictably a lot of wind damage, mostly to trees. There was also extensive street flooding in Burlington, causing damage to several buildings. (See the video I took of this storm in Burlington. The rain amid the wind was so heavy that visibility was almost zero.)

On this Fourth of July, 2019, there is a slightest chance of an isolated shower or storm, but don't hold your breath.  The air is too stable to support much more than some cumulus clouds.

Here's a video of the July, 2012 wildness in Burlington. I know it looks like I was in a weird spot, but I was trying to shoot the video from a protected area behind buildings and tanks. Love the close lightning strike about two minutes in:

So, How Did February And The Whole Winter Stack Up Here In Vermont

Heavy snow falls on St. Albans, Vermont on January 20, during
the biggest snowstorm of the winter.

Welcome to meterological spring, when climatologists, just for ease of record keeping, say spring starts. They deem it to begin today, March 1, so there you go.

Which give us the opportunity to look back and see how February stacked up in Vermont, and also, winter as a whole.

First, let's tackle February. Around Burlington, despite a lot of ups and downs, the mean temperature for the month came out close to average. It averaged out at 22.2, which is just 0.7 degrees above normal.

Elsewhere in Vermont, in places like Montpelier and St. Johnsbury, the month came out at about a degree cooler than normal. Which is essentially typical for February.

When it did get cold in February, 2019, it was never that cold. Burlington got to zero or below on five mornings, but the chilliest one was only minus 5, which is well within what we'd expect in the winter. The hottest day was February 5, which reached 53 degrees - good enough to be a record high for the date.

The month was on the wet side. Burlington had 2.34 inches of precipitation, which was a little more than a half inch soggier than average.

Freezing rain glazes trees in Burlington, Vermont on February 6. There
was a lot of mixed precipitation during the winter of 2018-19,
so there was a lot of ice underfoot. 

For the winter as a whole, taking in meteorological winter from December 1 to February 28, temperatures bounced all over the place but landed just about normal if you average it all out.

Burlingon was a whopping one tenth of one degree warmer than average for the winter. Essentially spot on normal.

It was a wet winter. Burlington had 8.46 inches of rain over the three months, which is 2.26 inches above normal. Although we had plenty of snow, there was a lot of rain, too. That kept snow cover modest, at least in the Champlain Valley.

There was briefly 18 inches of snow on the ground in mid-January, but only ten days out of the entire winter had at least 10 inches of snow covering the Queen City's lawns and parks.

Snow cover is much healthier in the Northeast Kingdom, and in mid and high elevations. As of yesterday, there was 39 inches of snow on the ground in Granby and 37 inches in Sutton, both up in the NEK. Averill had 34 inches of snow on the ground Corinth had 32 inches. The summit of Mount Mansfield was up above 100 inches.

Vermont In 2018: Mostly Hot, Kinda Wet

One of many hot, sunny days during July, 2018 in Burlington, Vermont
July and August were the hottest on record. The year 2018 as a whole
was tied for the sixth warmest on record. 

I'll take my first crack at looking back at the climate of 2018 here, but I'll go over the top Vermont 2018 weather events at a subsquent post soon.

It's the first day of 2019, I don't want to work too hard. Let's ease into things, right?

So I'll start with a skimming review of the weather data from Burlington, Vermont in 2018.  Statistics? I got statistics. Here we go:

Despite rather intense cold periods here and there, 2018 was a hot one.

The mean temperature for the entire year was 48.0 degrees, which is 2.2 degrees warmer than normal. It was enough to make the year tie for the 6th warmest on record, with data going back to the 1880s.

For comparison's sake, 2018 for the Earth as a whole looks like it will be fourth warmest on record.

This Vermont warmth from 2018 is part of a definite trend. There are actually 13 years in the Top 10 warmest, because some years had ties with other years.

Of the 13 years that are among Burlington Top 10 Warmest, nine of those have occurred since 1998.

The last time a year in Burlington was among the Top 10 Coldest was 1978.

The only cold months in 2018 were April and November, but neither were chilly enough to be in the Top 10 coldest. By contrast, July and August, 2018 were the hottest on record. February was the second hottest, May was the fourth hottest and September was second hottest.

The low temperature on July 2 in Burlington was 80 degrees, the warmest overnight low on record in Burlington.  February 21, 2018 was the second warmest February day on record. It would have beat the hottest February day on record by a whopping seven degrees had we not established an incredible February record a year earlier in 2017, when it got to 72 degrees.

Sixteen daily record highs were tied or broken in Burlngton during 2018, but only two daily record lows were tied or broken.

Precipitation for the year was much less exciting than the temperatures. Many weather stations in the eastern two thirds of the United States had their wettest year on record in 2018, or at least close to it.

Burlington bucked that trend. The Queen City recorded 39.27 inches of rain and melted snow in 2018. That makes the year 2.45 inches wetter than normal, but we were nowhere near the Top 10 list of wettest years. The wettest year, by the way, was 2011, with 50.92 inches of precipitation.

We did have some snow excitement. March was the sixth snowiest on record with 30.1 inches. November was fifth snowiest with 19.5 inches.

Oklahoma Wildfires Are Becoming An Ugly Pattern

A wildfire explodes viciously as it encounters parched eastern redcedar durimg
devastating Oklahoma wildfires this past week.
Photo by Alan Broerse. 

Oklahoma never used to be famous for earthquakes and wildfires.

That's California's job.

People associate Oklahoma with tornadoes, and they still happen there very frequently. (That said there has so far been a real dearth of Oklahoma tornadoes this year.)

But earthquakes, and now wildfires are very Oklahoman, and it's pretty easy to blame the fossil fuel industry, which is such a large part of the Oklahoma economy. Especially the earthquakes, though the wildfires might just be tangentally related to the fossil fuel industry.

Oklahoma is now the most earthquake prone state in the United States. Most of them are caused by wastewater disposal. Oil is extracted from the ground, but a lot of is mixed with briny water. The water needs to be disposed of, so it's injected well below the earth's surface, below the aquafers so drinking water won't be contaminated. This causes earthquakes.

But this is a weather and climate blog, and we're really here to talk about wildfires. This is the third year in a row Oklahoma has had devastating wildfires, and this year appears to be the worst.

At least two people have died in the wildfires over the past week or so and dozens of homes have been destroyed.  One fire in Oklahoma had burned 440 square miles and was only 15 percent contained as of Thursday morning.

There was at least some temporary relief Friday and Friday night for Oklahoma: Numerous showers and thunderstorms dumped some fairly decent rains on the worst of the fire zone. And some more showers are in the forecast this week. But the damage is really done. And extreme.

So what's the deal with all these Oklahoma wildfires over the past three years?

Bob Henson in his Category 6 blog has a great overview of what's been happening.

In the late winter and early spring, strong, dry winds often blow in from the west. The winds warm up and often become hot once they get down the slopes of the eastern Rockies, so it's basically a blowtorch by the time you get to Oklahoma.

Relative humidities can often drop into the single digits during these episodes and winds can gust to between 40 and 60 mph, or even more in some instances.

These hot, dry early spring winds aren't new to Oklahoma, and they have always spawned wildfires.

In recent years, though, droughts have gotten extraordinarily bad, particularly in western Oklahoma and northwestern Texas.

Mixed in with these droughts have been extraordinarily wet periods, which encourages vegetation to grow vigorously. For instance, 2015 was a record wet year, and it was warm. Things grew well into the late fall, so there's lots of extra grasses, shrubs and whatnot out there.

Then there was a flash drought in early 2016, and a lot of that extra vegetation went up in flames. This boom/bust cycle of heavy rain and drought has continued. This feast and famine regime could be related to climate change, so there's your fossil fuel link to this wildfire story.

Then there's shrubby tree called the eastern redcedar. It's a tree-sized juniper that you commonly see in the Plains. (I see a lot of them when I visit my in-laws in South Dakota, for instance.)

Before Europeans came into the picture a zillion years ago, lightning or fires set by Native Americans meant the eastern redcedars only lived in small canyons, ravines and outcroppings.

Now, eastern redcedars are spreading super fast across the Oklahoma landscape. Cedar smells great, doesn't it? But the oils that cause that nice aroma turn the trees into firebombs when it gets dry. Basically throw flammable oil on a discarded Christmas tree and thats what you get when eastern redcedars get hit by wildfires.

Instead of low flames skittering across open grasslands, you get the wildfires hitting groves of these trees, creating hot, big, explosive flames that are extremely dangerous, and more likely to set nearby homes and other structures on fire.

Bottom line: The past three years might be a fluke in Oklahoma wildfire history. But the real fear is that this could be a tragic, dangerous new normal for the Sooner State.

Will The Snow This Week Finally Be The End Of It?

For the fifth consecutive morning, the daffodils attempting to grow in
my St. Albans, Vermont gardens are shivering in the snow. 

For the fifth consecutive day, frozen precipitation is falling outside my window this morning in St. Albans, Vermont.

And it's going to snow tomorrow. And Friday. Make it stop!

It probably will.

I'm not going to promise anything, but there's a decent chance that the snow that falls in Vermont through the rest of the week will be the last of it for the season.  At least in the lower elevations.

I'm pretty sure it will snow in the mountains in May. It almost always does.

Once we get into late April, it should be hard to get snow in the valleys. Certainly not impossible, but definitely more difficult. Normal daytime temperatures are approaching 60 degrees by the last week of the month, and normal lows are above freezing.

Signs are getting stronger that the weather pattern is changing, and next week should be warmer, which would pre-empt any snow. I'm guessing that by the time we get any new cool spell sometimes in May, that cool weather would still be too mild to support snow.

Again, that's not a promise. It can certainly snow in Vermont's valleys in May. Sometimes quite heavily.

The worst example of a May snowstorm, according to David Ludlum's trusty "Vermont Weather Book." was on May 15, 1834, when the storm total came in at three feet deep in the hills above Newbury. It snowed at a rate of one inch every 10 minutes, which is an incredible rate for a mid-winter storm, never mind May. In that snowstorm low elevation Randolph and Rutland got a foot.

In more modern times, we've gotten May snowstorms. In May, 1966, it snowed for three days in a row up in Newport. Burlington got 3.5 inches of snow on May 9. 1966.  That was the latest in the season Burlington has ever gotten so much snow.

For the record, the average date of the last one inch snowfall in Burlington during the spring is April 5. That 1966 storm is the record for the latest one inch.

The average date for the last snow flurry in Burlington, just a trace of snow, is April 15, so we're already passed that, too. Though I think Burlington will get at least a trace of snow Thursday and/or Friday.

The latest trace of snow on record in Burlington came on May 31, 1945. So yeah, it can happen.

But just for laughs and giggles, let's just hope that this week's snow is the last of it for the season. A man can dream, can't he?

Winter In Vermont: Now A Lot Warmer, And Oddly, A Lot Snowier

Who knows what this winter will bring, but in general,
Vermont winters  have gotten much warmer and snowier
in recent decades. Here's a street scene in Burlington
Vermont after a two-foot snowstorm in March, 2011.

As we prepare to go into winter, with a series of cold fronts due starting now and going into next week to bring us to near normal December temperatures and weather, here's some contradictory long term trends in Vermont winters:  

We are much warmer than we used to be decades ago. But also snowier.

According to Climate Central, Burlington, Vermont is the American city with the fastest warming winter, up about 7 degrees since 1970.

Though most of this is definitely real warming, a bit of it might be a function of the start date of this study, which is 1970.

That year was unusually cold here in Vermont. In fact, we had the coldest January on record that year.

Still, all data points to the fact that winters are warmer than they used to be in the northern tier of states, including Vermont as global warming has taken hold.

As always, the trend is uneven, with cold winters interspersed with warm ones. It's just the warm ones have gotten more frequent. And the winter heat waves have gotten more intense. Witness the unprecedented near 70 degree warmth on Christmas Eve 2015 and the previously unheard of 70 degree weather in late February this year.

There's no telling whether this winter will be cold or warm or all over the place. Stay tuned on that one.

It seems odd, but as Vermont has warmed, it has gotten snowier. Too bad the warmth does not allow the snow to accumulate all that much, or stay around for all that long.

The snow stats are striking. Five of the top 10 snowiest years in Burlington have occured since 1992. Seven of the top 10 occured since 1970.  Fourteen of the past 17 winters have had more than the average annual snowfall for Burlington.  Snowfall so far in this young winter is running a little behind normal, but the season is still extremely young, and that could change.

The big snows seem in large part to come from bigger individual snowstorms. Records in Burlington go back to the 1880s. But four of the top five biggest snowstorms have occured since 2007. Of the 20 biggest snowstorms on record, 13 of them have happened since 1993.

This all makes sense in a strange sort of way. Storms in a warmer atmosphere can draw in more moisture, and drop heavier precipitation that they could in a cooler world. If the temperature remains below freezing, storms in general now have the power to drop more snow than they could in the past.

As far as this winter goes, we'll just have to wait and see.

Reversal Of Fortunes In May For A Formerly Chilly Vermont Spring

Despite a cool April and beginning of May,
flowers reliably bloomed in my St. Albans,
Vermont garden. The heat blasted in during
the second half of May  

Spring seemed reluctant this year after a record warm winter in Vermont, and May seemed to be following this pattern.

By the middle of May this year, it had snowed twice during the month and temperatures were running  a good two degrees below normal.

Certainly a switch from May, 2015, which was the hottest on record in Vermont.

The coolest day of the month in Burlington got down to 33 degrees on the 10th, which means the last freeze of the season there (April 29) was a little earlier than average.

However, much of Vermont had a number of frosty mornings during the first half of May.

But, as things often do around here, thinks reversed course dramatically.

The end of the month was very warm, making May 2016 more than three degrees warmer than average at Burlington.

Each of the last nine days of the month got up to 80 or above, which is a very remarkable stretch for May. Two of those days were in the 90s.

Summer is here, I guess. At least maybe. More on that in a moment.

Worryingly, though, May continued a dry trend that's really been going on since last fall in Vermont. Sure, we've had our wet periods. February was rainy, for example. But it's getting drier and drier.

Precipitation in May was an inch below normal. There was some welcome rain at the end of the month, though that came in the form of severe thunderstorms in the far northwest corner of the state. 

June is getting off to a warmish and definitely dry start, too, but there are signs that starting this weekend, we'll temporarily get into a cool, wetter pattern, at least off and on, through the middle of June

We'll see about that.

Wet Summer In Vermont, Yes, But Not the Wettest

Yep, it was indeed a wet summer in much of Vermont, but it wasn't the wettest.

A relatively dry August helped keep the water from completely driving us nuts

In Burlington, 17.42 inches of rain fell between June 1 and August 31, the period for climatology purposes is considered summer.

That's 5.66 inches above normal and good enough for the summer of 2013 becoming the sixth wettest summer on record.

As you might remember, we had repeated big flash floods amid endless downpours in June and the first part of July.

Things definitely settled down after that. Just over three inches of rain fell on Burlington in August, which is meant it was 0.87 inches on the dry side.

As you can see on the the map in this post the National Weather Service in South Burlington, rainfall was highly variable in Vermont during the summer, which is often the case.  (Click on the image so you can make it bigger and easier to read)

In the northern Green Mountains, some places got a whopping 22 inches or more of rain in the summer. Soggy, indeed!