Henri Gone; Underperformed Thank Goodness But Still A Very Weird Storm

  Check out this graphic from NBC10 in Boston showing
the bizarre path of Henri through New England. Notice
at one point it ended up passing over the spot
where it came ashore a day earlier.

 I've been intentionally mean to former Hurricane/Tropical Storm Henri because I've been calling it a weird storm right along.  

I can't help it. It was a  very weird storm, with its odd path almost north from a spot off of North Carolina straight to New England. 

Then, almost due west from landfall in Rhode Island to the Catskills, then it's remnants staggering very slowly east again across southern New England to near the Maine coast this morning. 

I brought this tidbit up once, but I'll have to do it again, because this is weird, too.   

Earlier this summer, Tropical Storm Elsa made landfall on July 9 at 12:15 p.m. in Westerly, Rhode Island. On Sunday, Henri made landfall at 12:15 p.m. in - you guessed it- Westerly, Rhode Island.  The exact center of Henri's remnants was hard to discern late yesterday, but it appears that center passed over Westerly again on its way eastward toward the coast.  

Oh, and get this: In 1985 there was another Tropical Storm Henri, a weak thing that limped ashore in - oh why not? Westerly, Rhode Island. 

I'm joking around a bit with 2021's version of Henri, but of course it did do quite a bit of damage, just not nearly as much as it could have had things gone just a little differently. 

Rainfall totals from Henri closed in on nine inches in and near New York City.  Quite a few homes and buildings suffered serious flood damage and many highways closed because they were under water.

As Henri's remains drifted across southern New England Monday, it managed to produce at least three weak tornadoes in Massachusetts.  Each one had winds of only 60 to 70 mph, had brief paths and caused minor damage.

Here in Vermont, there was a tremendous sigh of relief on Monday.  Nothing really bad happened with Henri.  There could have been some very destructive flooding in southern Vermont. Those expected floods would have come during the same week as the tenth anniversary of Tropical Storm Irene's deadly, massive flood in Vermont. 

Henri's rains mostly missed the Green Mountain state. Instead, benign tropical showers scattered themselves through southern Vermont Sunday and Monday amid all the humidity hanging around the state.  Northern areas got pretty much no rain at all from Henri.

To the folks that are mad or upset that Henri turned out not as bad as feared and the forecasts were "hype," listen up.

Yeah, if the forecasts disrupted your plans, that's an inconvenience. Count yourself lucky.  What if it was worse than expected, enough to threaten your life? As for me, I'll go with the inconvenience, thanks.

We're now just entering the peak of hurricane season, and several systems are starting to bubble up in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.  It's way too soon whether any of these will have an effect on the United States.

If any of these storms do approach land, I'm OK if they are as weird as Henri was.  I just don't want them to be any worse than Henri. Time will tell.