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| Storm chaser Colton Flint (@Tornadof123) captured this rotating part of a thunderstorm near Wallingford, Vermont on Monday. |
The severe weather came in stages.
The first round were a smattering of mini supercells that formed ahead of the main line. Most of the supercells either formed in Quebec or stayed up there, or got going in northwestern New York and moved to Quebec, largely sparing Vermont.
This was expected. Though forecasters said there was a low, but not zero risk of tornadoes in Vermont, Quebec was in bigger danger.
While no tornadoes are known to have touched down Monday in New York and Vermont, at least so far, there was at least one destructive tornado north of the border.
In Quebec, a tornado touched down in Mascouche, north of Montreal, killing one man and damaging between 75 and 100 homes. Video images of the damage makes me guess this was probably a good EF-2 category tornado. One destroyed home was pushed fully off its foundation. Other homes in Mascouche lost part of or even all of their roofs.
Another supercell very likely produced a tornado a little south of Quebec City. Radar images from Caribou, Maine suggest it might have been quite a strong one.
There were rotating supercells in Vermont during yesterday's outbreak of storms.
One supercell formed in Essex County New York and moved into Addison County, causing damage there, especially around Addison and New Haven. Bristol was pelted by hail the size of half dollars. Storm chaser Ethan Moriarty photographed what appeared to be a nascent wall cloud near Bristol.
Wall clouds are on an area of lower, menacing clouds, usually rotating in a supercell thunderstorm. Wall clouds sometimes, but often do not, produce tornadoes. There was no sign of a tornado or funnel around Bristol.
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| Lightning over my house in St. Albans, Vermont last evening. |
The storm weakened over the Green Mountains in its trek northeastward, but revived a bit near St. Johnsbury. In St. Johnsbury, quarter sized hail fell.
As expected a line of thunderstorms then crossed Vermont in the late afternoon and early evening. Although many of the storms carried severe thunderstorm warnings, there were only scattered pockets of damage
The exception was the tail end of this line in Rutland and Windsor counties, where there appears to have been another rotating supercell. Moriarty skipped down to Granville, New York and took video of the storm's wall cloud that you can see in the video in this link. It's speeded up to show its progress.
Moriarty and another storm chaser, Colton Flint, (@Tornadof123 on Twitter) caught either that storm or another trailing one with a rotating meso cyclone near Wallingford, Vermont. It's reminiscent of those spinning "mothership" towers in the tornado-prone Great Plains, except this is smaller and over mountains. Surely a sign of rotation there. Again, no sign of a tornado touchdown, though.
Between Granville and Wallingford, tree damage was reported in Tinmouth and other areas in southern Rutland County.
Straight line winds, not a tornado, are likely the culprits in Tinmouth, though I'm not sure whether there will be any further investigation into that.
Those storms moved into southeastern Vermont, causing a lot of tree and wire damage around Quechee, Norwich and Hartford, cutting power to about 6,000 people.
A last line of storms came in from New York State toward sunset. These were concentrated in southern Vermont, but a northward extension of this line abruptly blossomed, causing a nice lightning show at and just after sunset.
As you might expect with thunderstorm outbreaks, rainfall - which we all need - was spotty. Lunenburg, in the Northeast Kingdom, received a deluge of 2.72 inches, and there were spot locations with over an inch of rain, especially around Lamoille County.
Other places missed out almost entirely. Some spots up in Franklin County, Vermont and the extreme southeast corner of the state received less than a tenth of an inch of rain from the storms. At my place in St. Albans, I only managed to received 0.2 inches of rain. (Southeastern Vermont was getting some additional rain this morning, though.
Temperatures ahead of the storms really got hot. Burlington reached 92 degrees. Thats' already the fifth 90 degree reading of the summer there, and summer has just barely started. Montpelier had a record high of 93 degrees, besting the old record by one degree, which was set in 1953.
Much cooler, drier air is filtering in this morning. It will actually be quite a bit cooler than normal for this time of year today through tomorrow. The coldest hollows could get into the 30s tonight, while the rest of us will bottom out in the 40s.
Enjoy the cool, dry air while you can. By the weekend, we'll start a long period of warm, and quite humid weather that will probably last well into next week.
Depending upon where weather fronts stall out, we could get some more beneficial showers and thunderstorms in the soupy air starting Saturday and hopefully lasting into the new week.
Quick video of lightning and thunder over St. Albans last evening:
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