Quick Hits Today: Oddball Weather Stuff Out There Again

The only tropical disturbance this morning on the National
Hurricane Center's map is near, (checks notes)
sultry Labrador, and Nova Scotia Canada.
Of course this thing will obviously disappear quickly.

A bunch of sometimes quirky things to talk about in the weather department this Sunday morning, so let's get going:;  

TROPICAL LABRADOR

Tropical Storm Elsa is long gone, and the National Hurricane Center map is quiet. 

They do daily updates on tropical disturbances they're watching, and tell us if these disturbances have a chance of developing into something serious.   

There is one such disturbance on the map, but it has really no chance of developing into a tropical storm as it heads into cooler waters. 

The only odd thing about this thing: It was no where near the tropics this morning. It was offshore of decidedly non tropical Labrador. 

MORE WESTERN RECORD HEAT

As advertised, another blistering heat wave is just melting the western United States.]

In the lovely location of Furnace Creek, in California's Death Valley, it got up to 130 degrees Friday. Though many sources cite either 134 degrees  or 136 degrees as the hottest temperatures record ever recorded on Earth, those old records are considered unreliable.  

That 130, on Friday, though, if verified, would be the hottest on record for Planet Earth. 

For the folks in Furnace Creek, Saturday turned out to be blessedly colder. It only got up to 129 degrees. 

Meanwhile, Las Vegas, Nevada, reached 117 degrees, tying its all time record high temperature.

VERMONT NICE WEEKEND/HAZE

Atmospheric smoke map today. Anything that is at least
shaded in blue has some smoke in the atmosphere.
 A lot more smoke is in areas shaded in yellow and
especially red and purple. 

Saturday was about as nice a summer day as you can possibly get in Vermont. Beautiful blue skies, comfortable temperatures and humidity. What's not to like?

Such days will be hard to come by into the fall. Don't worry, we'll have plenty of pleasant weather. But those deep blue skies will be rare. 

There's so many wildfires burning in the western United States and much of Canada, that smoke will drift high overhead most of the time for the next few months. 

The only times we'll get deep blue skies is if the air comes from northern Canada and then due south from Quebec. Or from the Maritime Provinces. Or, perhaps, if the Bermuda High really asserts itself and pure tropical air floods in from the Caribbean.  

Other than that. Haze. That's because our air usually comes from the west, or from southern Canada, where the fires are.

Today, for instance, will be very pleasant again. High clouds will gradually dim the sun during the course of the day. So will smoke thousands of feet overhead. The sun was already taking on sort of an orange-ish hue early this morning

VERMONT: WET SOUTH/DRY NORTH

The weather pattern so far this month has been a soggy, drought busting southern Vermont and continued annoyingly dry in the north 

This set up becomes writ large later tonight and Monday.  A warm front coming up into southern New York and southern New England will stall. 

Projected rainfall over the next three days. Dry north, less than 
a quarter inch (green) in northern Vermont to possibly two
or more inches far southern Vermont (purple/red)

Heavy rain will ride west to east along and just north of this front from central New York, through far southern Vermont and into parts of southern New England. 

Bennington and Windham counties are under a flood watch because of this, as up to three inches of rain will fall on already sodden ground. 

Rainfall amounts Monday will taper off rapidly as you go north, such that places north of Route 2 at this point look like they will get no rain out of this.  

The drought will continue up there, even as people on the opposite end of the state deal with mud, soggy basements, mold, mildew and possibly flooding. 

Everybody in Vermont gets really humid especially from Tuesday onward, raising the risk of showers and thunderstorms, but not everybody will get wet. Hit and miss once again. 

Note that all of the above are either signs of ongoing climate change - especially the heat and smoke - or quite possibly influenced by it, i.e. the weird tropical placement and the locally torrential rains.