Tropical Start To Autumn And After Series Of Lame Tropical Storms, But Now One To Watch?

Photo taken just as astronomical autumn arrived in 
St. Albans, Vermont Wednesday afternoon.  Hints of
color in the trees, but high humidity and a tropical 
shower in the distance felt surely unseasonable.

You almost surely missed it, but there's been a good handful of tropical storms lately. It's another busy season.  

Luckily, the reason why you haven't heard of them is because the tropical storms have all been wimpy and haven't hit anything.  It's a welcome reprieve from another destructive hurricane season. That's not to say there won't be more trouble later this autumn. More on that in a minute. 

In the past week or so, Tropical Storm Odette sideswiped Newfoundland and its remnants are still meandering in the North Atlantic. Odette might briefly turn into a zombie tropical storm as it temporarily heads south into warmer water, but that won't last long.

Tropical Storms Peter and Rose also got going in the open Atlantic over the past week but strong upper level winds tore them apart. They were headed north toward oblivion anyway, so if the strong high level winds didn't kill them, cold northern waters would have eventually done the trick. 

Next up is Sam.  It's in the process of organizing itself and should be officially declared Tropical Storm Sam later today.  

Unlike the last few storms, wannabe Sam looks like it will be a powerhouse. The National Hurricane  Center forecasts Sam to be a major hurricane with top winds of 115 mph by Tuesday. 

At this point, wannabe Sam is expected to be northeast of the Leeward Islands, way out over the Atlantic Ocean. 

Most of the computer models at the moment anyway want eventually to re-curve Sam northward into the open Atlantic, well east of the U.S. Seaboard. That would be the ideal way to go. 

But not all those computer models are on board with those scenarios.  So this will be the first tropical storm or hurricane for people in the United States to really want to watch since Nicholas back on September 13-14.  

Even if Sam does become a threat to the United States, that won't happen for quite awhile.  It would take until the very end of this month or the first of October for Sam to become a real worry, if it does at all.

Of course, even if Sam avoids us, hurricane season ain't over.  It's been busy, and there's still a lot of potential for real tropical trouble in October.

There's lots of examples running through both distant and past history. Hurricane Hazel in 1954, which killed about 500 people in Haiti before crashing into the Carolinas as a Category 4 hurricane. It moved northwestward all the way to Ontario, Canada killing about 90 people in the U.S. and 80 people in and near Toronto. (Hazel managed to produce gusts to 70 mph in Burlington)

More recently, Hurricane Wilma in October, 2005 was a Category 5 storm over open waters in the northwest Caribbean. It "weakened" to a still nasty Category 3 with 120 miles winds when it eventually whipped through Florida. 

Hurricane Sandy, though technically not a hurricane when it made landfall in New Jersey in late October, 2012 was arguably that state's worst weather disaster on record. 

Hurricane Michael came ashore in the Florida Panhandle as a Category 5 storm in 2018 unleashing near total destruction in and near Mexico Beach, Florida. 

So October  an be rough.  We'll see if that happens this year. 

Meanwhile, back here in Vermont, astronomical autumn arrived Wednesday afternoon amid tropical-like humidity. It didn't really feel like autumn, did it?

It remains humid and warm today, but it IS autumn, so changes are afoot. A slow moving, wet cold front that's been lurking to our west will finally, slowly lumber through Vermont Friday.

It'll have a decent, but not extreme slug of rain with it.  We need the rain at this point, especially north, so that will be a good thing.

After that, we're down into average late September weather, with highs mostly in the 60s as we head into next week.