This And That: Vermont Blue Skies; Another Nor'easter to Tropical Storm and Vancouver Tornado

Wall to wall sunshine and deep blue skies over 
West Rutland, Vermont on Sunday. Such bright days 
are relatively are in Vermont in November. 

Wow, yesterday was a spectacular day in Vermont, especially by November standards.

For the second day in a row, most areas had wall to wall sunshine. As mentioned before, that's kind of unusual in this part of the world this time of year. 

If you missed it, you have other chances.. It might not be completely clear the next few days, but the sun will be out.  

The northern half of Vermont was pretty cloudy this morning due to a weak weather disturbance. But things should get clearer this afternoon. 

Another weak system could make things cloudy again later Tuesday afternoon and night. This one could squeeze out a few light showers, but nothing to get excited about. Skies should clear again by Wednesday afternoon.

Thursday will have some sun too, though that large storm in the Great Lakes I mentioned yesterday should start to make inroads with increasing clouds as the day wears on.

Then we get that slug of wind and rain Friday with this storm, and from there we'll settle back into our normal gloomy, cloudy, sprinkly and snowflaky November weather.

VANCOUVER TORNADO

A very rare tornado appears to have hit an area around Vancouver, British Columbia. That's not exactly tornado alley, folks!

A really big waterspout was widely videoed and photographed just off the coast, near a major airport serving the city.  

Screen shot of a likely tornado hitting a golf course in
Vancouver, British Columbia Saturday. That blue glow
on the left is power lines snapping. 

Though not confirmed yet by Environment Canada it looks like the waterspout came ashore as a tornado.  (Environment Canada is the equivalent of the United States' National Weather Service).

Video on social media appears to show a tornado at a golf course on the University of British Columbia campus. 

 The video shows rotating clouds, falling trees, breaking power lines and a blizzard of twigs and branches swirling in a circular fashion in the air.  To me, that looks like an EF0-or even EF-1 tornado. 

This rare tornado comes after a busy October across the border in the United States for tornadoes.  The counting might not be done yet, but it appears the nation endured 119 tornadoes in October, the second highest on record for that month. 

Usually, the U.S sees half that number of twisters in October. If meteorologists find evidence of a few more October tornadoes, it will break the monthly record of 123 in 2018. Remarkably,  there were 14 days in October in which at least one tornado was reported somewhere in the United States.

Still, for the year as a whole, the U.S. has had fewer tornadoes than average due to a quiet spring, notes the Washington Post. Spring is usually the peak season for twisters.

ANOTHER NOR'EASTER TO TROPICAL STORM?

We mentioned previously how a late October nor'easter that slammed coastal New England went out to sea and converted itself into Tropical Storm Wanda.  That tropical storm meandered out in the open Atlantic for at least a week before turning back into a regular storm headed for Ireland. 

We might now have a second odd nor'easter to tropical storm scenario looming. 

This nor'easter was much further south, along and off the Southeastern coast.  It caused a lot of coastal flooding and beach erosion from Florida to North Carolina. 

The nor'easter is heading out to sea and will not threaten the Northeast.  

Regular storms like a nor'easter have a cold core in the atmosphere around their center and are accompanied by cold and warm fronts. 

Tropical storms have a warm core and no weather fronts. Much like what happened with Wanda, this storm looks like it will meander out over the Gulf Stream.  That could help heat the atmosphere around the storm, converting its cold core to something much warmer. It would also lose its cold and warm fronts. 

If this happens - and forecasters say it might later this week - we'd have another tropical storm on our hands. We're out of letters in the list of 2021 storms. (The list does not include names starting with Q, X, Y and Z) so we would have to go to the substitute list of names for the second year in a row. That would be only the third time we've had to do that. The others were in 2005 and just last year. 

They used Greek names in 2005 and 2020 after the list ran out, but that proved confusing to the public. So the National Hurricane Center came up with a supplemental list in case we ran out of names. So, if this nor'easter turns into a subtropical or tropical storm, they'll name it Adria.