Vote Today In Good Weather; Vermont Snow; Horrible Hurricane Eta

You can't use weather as an excuse not to vote.
Weather across the nation is very quiet today. If you
haven't already voted, go out and do it! 

 It's voting day in America. If you haven't voted yet, get your butt out there and do it! We always say it's important, and it is. Especially this year, though. 

I don't want to hear any weather excuses for not voting either.  Yes, here in Vermont, we have some of the "worst" weather in the United States right now. 

That's not saying much. Sure it snowed last night (more on that in a bit), and it's chilly out there, but the roads have pretty much cleared out and you're a wimp if you can't bear to get out and do your civic duty just because it's slightly nippy.

Nationwide, you can't ask for better voting weather.  The extremes of last week are gone, and the weather for most of the United States today is gloriously boring. 

There are no big storms.  Temperatures in most places are moderate. The only weather I'm seeing anywhere is rainy conditions in the Pacific Northwest.  Yeah, breaking news. Rain in Seattle. They can deal with it. 

An air quality advisory is still up in central California and strong winds are possible in northern Montana. That's it.  Extremely quiet weather for November in the United States.

Go. Vote. Now. 

VERMONT SNOW

It's a bit of a winter wonderland out side my St. Albans, Vermont house this morning. We had a blizzardish spell last night, and now the ground is covered by two inches of snow.  Nothing extreme for early November, really, but it's a reminder that winter is on its way. 

Two inches of snow on my deck in St. Albans, Vermont this
morning.  Up to a foot of new snow was reported in 
the Green Mountains. 

As expected, there were some impressive snow totals near the western slopes of the Green Mountains.  

A solid foot of snow accumulated at a 1,200 foot elevation near Moretown. At an elevation of 1,550 feet a spot near Smuggler's Notch was buried in 11 inches of new powder.  Stowe had 10 inches. Morrisville reported eight inches. East Enosburg clocked in at 7.5 inches. Hyde Park had seven inches. Calais and Woodbury reported six inches. 

It's basically over, aside from a few lingering snow showers.  A strong November Indian Summer is still on its way, so we'll have several days of warm, dry weather Thursday through the weekend. (Tomorrow will be a transition day: A cold start with a mild, thawing afternoon).  By the weekend, we can expect near record highs in the 60s to near 70. 

Winter hasn't fully grasped us yet.

HORRIBLE HURRICANE ETA

Now we have some terrible weather news: 

Extremely powerful Hurricane Eta was about to make landfall in Nicaragua as of this mid-morning writing.  Eta blew up explosively Monday to become a borderline Category 4/5 storm.  As of mid-morning, Hurricane Eta had top sustained winds of 145 mph. 

This means it's the most powerful hurricane of the 2020 season.  One remarkable thing is how late in the season this is happening.  Late season tropical storms tend to be somewhat weaker and short-lived than those at the peak of the season.  

It turns out Hurricane Eta is the third strongest November hurricane on record for the Atlantic basin. 

Hurricane Eta is also moving very slowly. Which means that on top of the devastating winds and catastrophic storm surges, the flash flooding from two to three feet of rain in mountainous Nicaragua and Honduras are going to be extreme and highly deadly. 

There will be a lot of bad news coming out of Nicaragua and Honduras over the next few days.