Stormy Weather Update: In Vermont, Not So Bad North, Very Wet South, Coastal NE To Be Blasted

National Weather Service in South Burlington put out this
forecast map for rainfall today through midday
Wednesday. Less than an inch of rain in northern
Vermont, but up to two inches or even locally
more in southern Vermont. 

 As expected, it's a cold, rainy morning in Vermont, with even some wet snow up in the mountains and the Northeast Kingdom. 

The snow won't amount to much, and we'll just have general gloom and wetness today. 

The main show is tomorrow. Here in Vermont, northern parts of the state look to be once again largely bystanders, while central and southern New England, and parts of the Mid-Atlantic States get blasted.

A storm coming in from the Ohio Valley - partly responsible for today's murkiness - won't "capture" the developing nor'easter enough to pull it inland. 

Instead, the storm will bomb out, which means it will intensify super fast, and then perform sort of a loop as a relatively small sized but powerful storm just off the New England coast. A huge amount of moisture will be blown in off the Atlantic Ocean.

Southern New England could see three to five inches of rain out of this with as much as two or three inches in just six hours.  Flood watches are naturally up for that neck of the woods. Winds could gust up to 70 mph on Cape Cod and the islands. With leaves still mostly on trees in that area, the wind would knock over the trees much more easily than if this hit in the dead of winter. 

The New York City area and New Jersey have been socked by flooding repeatedly this year, most devastatingly in September with the remnants of Hurricane Ida.

New flooding is likely with this storm in that area. Though it probably won't be as bad as the Ida floods, more damage and more danger will come out of this storm. 

Once again, up here in Vermont we appear to be lucking out. No disaster here.  I wonder when the other shoe will drop?

Anyway, there could be as little as a quarter inch of rain for a storm total from this morning to Wednesday morning in the far northeast corner of Vermont to locally as much as three inches in the east facing slopes of the far southern Green Mountains. 

For most areas north of Route 2, the National Weather Service in South Burlington is going for an inch or less of rain. and 1 to 2 inches in southern Vermont, with of course locally more in Bennington and Windham counties. 

There could be minor flooding out of this in southern Vermont, but I don't expect an enormous problem out of this in the Green Mountain State.

Though foliage was past peak, there was still quite a bit of color
left yesterday in the Champlain Valley of Vermont, as this
photo from St. Albans indicates. A lot of those leaves will
be blowing off in the wind and rain this week.

Sunday was the last truly sunny day we'll have for awhile. Though foliage was a bit past peak in Vermont's Champlain Valley yesterday, there was still a remarkable amount of color for October 24. Very late in the season. 

A lot of those remaining leaves should be blowing off in the rain and wind gusts in the 25 mph range. 

We're still expecting a break until the weekend, when another storm will loom, but it's still too soon to figure out exactly how that one will evolve.

Elsewhere, at least 15 tornadoes were reported in Missouri and Illinois yesterday.  More severe weather will probably rake the middle of the nation over the coming couple of days.

And, as expected, there were landslides, flooding and debris flows from a torrential storm in northern California yesterday. 

Sacramento, California had its wettest day - not just the wettest October 24 but the wettest day period - on record Sunday with about 5.4 inches of rain.  There was also quite a bit of flooding in the San Francisco Bay area.