BTV November 2020 Recap

With the start of December and meteorological winter, it's time to take a look back at November and examine the weather that we saw in Vermont at Burlington International Airport (BTV).

Temperatures

It was an extremely warm month at BTV, with the mean temperature being 43.3 °F when normal is 38.2 °F, giving a departure from normal of 5.1 °F. Even more interestingly, the average maximum temperature for November was 51.8 °F, when normal is 45.5 °F, for a departure from normal of 6.3 °F! That's a sure sign of a warm month. November 2019 was much colder than 2020, as the average maximum temperature was 40.0 °F.

November 2020 BTV Temperature Graph (NOAA Regional Climate Centers/xmACIS)

The high average maximum temperature was largely caused by the stretch of impressive November warmth that we saw from November 5th to November 12th, when temperatures were greater than or equal to 60 °F each day, and greater than 70 °F on four of those days. Note that a more typical November high temperature is in the mid to upper 40s. The temperatures that we saw this month ranged from 72 °F on December 8 and 10 to 18 °F on December 18 and 19. 

Overall, November was a very warm month at BTV, largely due to the stretch of unusual heat during the beginning of the month.

Precipitation

November often brings its first true precipitation to BTV, and this year followed that trend early on. On November 2nd, we saw 1.1 inches of snow, giving us our first measurable snow for the year. And on the 25th we had an additional 1.3 inches of snow.  We've had a total of 2.7 inches of snow so far this year, and in a typical year, we would have had 5.4 inches.

Although not extremely so, November was another drier than normal month at BTV. We had a total of 2.08 inches of rain, when normal is 3.13, giving us a departure from normal of -1.05 inches. Interestingly, we saw 0.67 inches of rain on Monday, November 30th, which bolstered rainfall totals for the month, giving us a closer-to-normal total precipitation than we would have had.

November 2020 BTV Precipitation Graph (NOAA Regional Climate Centers/xmACIS)

As the above precipitation graph shows, during the beginning of the month when we had that prolonged stretch of warmer than normal conditions, we saw very little precipitation, causing us to play catch-up for the rest of the month.

Overall, it was a warm month at BTV - after a warm start to December yesterday, it'll be interesting to see if that warm trend continues for the rest of 2020.