The Winooski River raging in downtown Winooski due to flood emergency
The Winooski River was raging in downtown Winooski around 6:30pm on July 10, as heavy rainfall causes a flood emergency in many parts of Vermont.
Lilly St. Angelo and April Fisher, Burlington Free Press
Vermont made at least one weather record and neared others as it closed out 2023.
The past year saw an abundance of extreme highs and lows, totals and natural disasters indicating climate change is impacting not only the treasured landscape but also the economy and well-being of Vermonters.
In 2023, a warmer winter was followed by a hard freeze during the spring that took out a significant portion of the state’s apple and stone fruit crop. A wet summer raised the water table and saturated the ground while hazy wildfire smoke from Canada hovered over the area and affected air quality on multiple days. The Great Vermont Flood of July 2023 claimed two lives and caused millions in damage, including to the state’s capital city, Montpelier. Precipitation in December, which is usually in the form of snow, turned to rain melting the early snow pack and causing flooding across the state, once again. Vermont ended the year with days of dense fog, limiting visibility.
Hottest year ever
Last year, 2023, was the hottest year on record, according to the National Weather Service Burlington office, which covers much of Vermont and northern New York state. The average mean temperature reached 50 degrees for the year, a first ever for the region.
The record beat out 49.9 degrees which had been held since 2012. An indicator of a warming planet, a majority of the top 10 years come from the past decade. Sharing the third hottest year is 2020 and 2021; 2016 and 2017 are listed as the fifth and sixth hottest; 2022 takes seventh on the list; and 2018 rounds out the tenth hottest year on record at 48 degrees, making the spread two degrees between the top ten.
December neared records
Early snowfall on Oct. 16 at Mount Mansfield and subsequent snows had ski resorts across the region opening earlier than normal for the season. And a three-inch-and-more snow storm for many areas on Dec. 10 seemed to herald a winter full of abundant snowfall. However, the weather quickly shifted.
December was odd and made its own run at records: “2023’s December will be remembered for the early season snow that gave way to very warm conditions and snowmelt, followed by flooding rain, and then a prolonged stretch of fog,” wrote the National Weather Service on X.
Comparing past December totals, Burlington and St. Johnsbury hit their second highest average temperature for the month, while Montpelier hit its third warmest in recorded history.
Burlington’s average temperature of 35 degrees was 6.8 degrees above normal for the time period. St. Johnsbury was 6.9 degrees above average at 32 degrees. Montpelier was 7 degrees warmer than normal for December at 30.2 degrees.
Consequently, snowfall neared record lows while rainfall was elevated. At 2.9 inches of snow, Burlington had it’s 8th lowest snowfall totals for the month. Normally, Burlington receives 19.5 inches in December.
At 5.78 inches of precipitation, this December was Burlington’s second wettest. For St. Johnsbury at 5.61 inches, it was the NEK city’s fourth wettest on record.
Had the temperatures been slightly colder, it’s possible much of the rain would have fallen as snow. This may have prevented December flooding in areas like Waitsfield and given the region a white Christmas.
You are not imagining it − there were more overcast days this year
If you felt like you got fewer glimpses of the sun this past year − perhaps aided by the frequent showers interrupting summer recreation − you are likely right.
It’s difficult to measure cloudy days for the purposes of record setting, according to the National Weather Service, based on the fact that weather stations make reports of clear, scattered, broken, or overcast skies which can differ in interpretation. However, utilizing a tool from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet, the Burlington office of the weather service was able to plot cloudy days in 2023 versus the average for the region.
Data from 1951 through 2023 taken at noon each day provided average cloud cover frequency percentages for each month. In all but in April and May, 2023’s percentage of overcast days were higher than average. August, January and October were at least 20 percentage points higher than average for that month through the years. August had a 55 percent frequency, 29 percentage points higher than the average for that month; January was 77 percent overcast which was 27 percentage points higher than average; and October at 55 percent overcast was 26 percentage points above the average for past Octobers.
Contact reporter April Barton at abarton@freepressmedia.com or 802-660-1854. Follow her on Twitter @aprildbarton.
