Some Weather Excitement Around Vermont This Week?

Don't count on a gorgeous early morning like this today
in St Albans, Vermont. It doesn't necessarily promise
a nice day........

 The way storm systems and weather fronts act in the North Country this time of year can be interesting.

In full summer, storm systems are weak, and you need a lot of instability and heat and humidity to trigger strong thunderstorms.  

Now, we have a hybrid situation. Storm systems are stronger, so you get more non-thunderstorm winds, and possibly more widespread rain than in midsummer. The heat is weaker, but with stronger upper level support, you can still get some fairly strong thunderstorms.

It looks like we have two examples of that coming in Vermont. One today, one Wednesday. At this point, neither storm system looks like it will cause anything super scary, but we'll have to watch the skies on both occasions. 

The first one comes through Vermont today, mostly hitting from late morning through mid to possibly late afternoon.  It will mostly affect the northern half of the state.

Already, as of 8 a.m. an initial batch of showers was darkening what had been clear blue skies early this morning over St. Albans, Vermont. These weren't amounting to much of anything, but stronger storms were already lurking over Lake Ontario and were edging into the St. Lawrence Valley of New York. 

With strong winds and a pool of cool air organizing aloft, a few storms could end up giving us some gusty winds and small hail. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has us in a marginal risk zone for severe thunderstorms, meaning we could end up with isolated reports of wind damage or hail as we get through this today.  

Sure enough by 9 a.m., an hour after the above photo was
taken, skies were much more threatening. Showers and possibly
a strong storm or two is likely today in Vermont.

I wouldn't cancel Labor Day plans, but do count on at least some rain today, despite our sunny dawn.  

A few places will have to watch out for lightning, strong winds and local downpours.  If you've got some outdoor fun planned, you'll need to set yourself up to be able to run into a building at short notice. 

On the bright side, northern Vermont is really starting to need the rain again, so if the forecast pans out for today, that'll be mostly a good thing. 

After a break and some pretty nice weather Tuesday, Wednesday and Wednesday night are starting to look interesting again, the National Weather Service in South Burlington tells us.

Another potent early autumn storm will be approaching from the west.  This one will be able to pull up even more moisture from the south than this one. 

Out ahead of this storm, gusty south winds will get going, especially in the Champlain Valley.  That's another feature we see at the onset of autumn.  Stronger storm systems can mean stronger winds, especially when south winds get channeled up the Champlain Valley.

We saw that yesterday, with gusts to 32 mph in the Burlington area. We'll see something like that or even a bit stronger Wednesday.

The heavy showers and thunderstorms with this one could end up moving fairly slowly generally east to west Wednesday afternoon and night.  This might raise the risk of some flash flooding, especially in central and southern Vermont, which had a much wetter summer than the north.

The Wednesday forecast will need to be fine tuned as we approach the event, so expect some changes in that forecast. 

Somewhat cool weather with scattered light showers will close out the week behind Wednesday night's storminess.