Wet weather spoils plans, but heat is on the way
Today (June 20) is the first day of summer, but if you feel like you’ve been stuck inside more often than not during the last seven soggy weeks of spring, it’s because you probably have.
Jesse Stacken, a weather monitor who is part of the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (CoCoRaHS), has recorded rainfall at his Beacon home 31 out of 50 days since the beginning of May. He’s seen measurable precipitation 14 of the last 15 weekends, dating to March 16.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 3.72 inches of rain is normal for May in Beacon. Stacken measured 10.29 inches, “so we doubled it and then some,” he said. Normal rainfall for June is 4.47 inches; Stacken’s gauge had seen 3.54 inches through Thursday, including a Wednesday downpour that dumped nearly an inch in 45 minutes.
In Philipstown, CoCoRaHS monitors Joe Hirsch and Heidi Wendel have measured 24.12 inches of precipitation from Jan. 1 through Thursday, including 8.66 inches in May and 3.23 in June. During the same year-to-date period last year, the Nelsonville residents had seen 26.78 inches, with 4.33 inches falling in May 2024 and 1 inch in June through the 19th.
The rain has flooded fields and set production back at Common Ground Farm in Wappingers Falls. In addition to losing about 200 feet of kale — a third of what had been planted — and tomatoes to flooding, Rhys Bethke, Common Ground’s farm manager, said it was difficult this spring using a tractor on wet, compacted soil.
“If you can’t get the fields prepared in time, you don’t have crops in time,” Bethke said. Fungal and bacterial infections have also been more common because they thrive in wet conditions.
Foot traffic, particularly on the weekends, has been down on Main Street in Cold Spring, said Fran Farnorotto, the owner of The Gift Hut. “There are a lot of things that are impacting sales,” she said, “weather being one of the issues.”
Ben Noll, a meteorologist who grew up in Orange County and now lives in New Zealand, tracks weather for The Washington Post. He noted via email this week that rainfall in the Hudson Valley has been close to average in 2025.
January through April saw below-average precipitation, but May was the “big, wet standout.” June could end up having above-average rainfall, as well, he said.
And while it’s felt cool lately, temperatures in April, May and June were slightly warmer than the long-term (1991 to 2020) average. But because the climate is changing quickly, Noll said, people have grown accustomed to above-average temperatures. When conditions are more “old normal” than “new normal,” it may feel cooler than it really is.
“The polar vortex, which is responsible for keeping cold air locked up in the Arctic, has been more disturbed than normal this year, allowing strands of cold air to surge southward in the central and eastern United States with greater regularity,” Noll said, adding that the same pattern led temperatures to reach near 80 degrees in Iceland in May, a record for that country. “That pattern is finished now and we’re about to see a big, warmer and more humid change in our weather.”
Indeed, we are. Temperatures are expected to reach 98 degrees on Monday and Tuesday. Rombout Middle School in Beacon will dismiss students at 11:15 a.m. both days; the district’s four elementary schools will dismiss at 12:10 p.m. The Regents week schedule at Beacon High School, which is air-conditioned, is unchanged.
Here’s why extreme heat is coming. The jet stream is about to be pushed north of the U.S., Noll said, creating a “heat dome” effect. “This essentially lumps our weather into the same basket as Florida, Texas and the rest of the South,” he said.
Noll’s outlook for the rest of summer is hot and humid, especially at night, “because of extremely warm ocean temperatures in the western Atlantic and Gulf.” He predicts that downpours will never be far away, although “I expect there to be plenty of sultry, sunny days, too.”
SplashDown Beach announced Wednesday that instead of closing for the season after Labor Day, the Fishkill water park will open Sept. 6 and 7 to make up for conditions that, as of Thursday, had only allowed it to open three days since Memorial Day weekend.
“The team is ready, the park is ready, but it just hasn’t been in the cards,” said Steven Vittoria, the director of marketing. “We can’t get cooperation on Mother Nature’s side.”
The last time the temperature in Poughkeepsie reached 100 degrees was in July 2011, and it has happened only twice in June, dating to 1931. “Let’s see if it happens next week,” Noll said.
