After a rainy start to the summer, Vermont is currently facing a drought. Vermont’s state climatologist Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux explains that there are various types of drought that are affecting the state. These include meteorological, agricultural, hydrological, socio-economic, and flash droughts.
“The last one is ecological drought, which means that the drought is so severe and ongoing that the landscape is changing,” Dupigny-Giroux said. “For me, as a climatologist, it is perhaps one of the scariest things to study and understand, because it means critters will no longer come back. Some streams will no longer have water in them.”
Dupigny-Giroux is the head of the Vermont Drought Task Force, which met for the second time since it's creation. Dupigny-Giroux said much of the conversation revolved around the impacts they’re seeing from the dry spell and what can be done to mitigate it's effects.
“Importantly, how do we move toward being a little bit more proactive,” she said. “It’s sort of a Catch-22 because we need more ongoing monitoring in places to give us that leg up in order to activate sooner when we need to deploy resources more extensively.”
The drought has led to early leaf drop and browning in trees, particularly maples. It has also affected water supplies, with some wells running dry. University of Vermont forestry professor Bill Keeton said some people call fall the “orphaned child” of climate change research because much of the focus is on the spring.
“Fall foliage has been very poorly studied, but we’re just now beginning to wake up to the fact that climate and extreme conditions seem to be affecting our foliage season in peculiar and unexpected ways,” Keeton said. “One year because of drought, the onset of fall color may be earlier than normal. Another year, because of warming fall nights, it might arrive later. That phenomenon has to do with the warming nights, which is one of the major signals to trees to begin shutting down.”
Josh Halman, forest health program lead at the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, said he flies across the state to catalog what they see and assess the forest damage. Most of the time, the surveys focus on pests and pathogens. But this year, they were able to track drought impacts as well.
“My impression from the Champlain Valley has been that drought was all over the place,” Halman said. “The last couple of flights that we’ve had, I was pleasantly surprised that flying down into Bennington County and Lamoille County, there were some really good-looking forests there, despite what the trend has been throughout the state.”
Broadcast live on Wednesday, September 3, 2025, at noon; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.
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