 |
| The storm later this week in Vermont has a bunch of potential hazards, including wind...... |
The problem is Wednesday into Friday. Not only for us in the Green Mountain State, but for large areas of the nation.
Talk about multifaceted! Here are the risks different parts of the U.S. are facing from this: Wildfires, severe thunderstorms, hail, tornadoes, flooding, freezing rain, rain, flooding, ice jams, snow, strong non-thunderstorm winds, wind chills, flash freezes.
On the bright side, the storm is unlikely to bring much in the way of locust accumulations.
We'll get into Vermont in a bit, as we are expecting several of those problems listed above, but let's get into some details in other areas.
The storm system responsible for all the bad weather will be strong, but not exactly the strongest ever. But it will be taking advantage of a great moisture supply, a great wind field and sharp temperature contrasts to really pump itself up.
The wildfires will focus in New Mexico and Texas, and on up into parts of Oklahoma and Kansas today. Western Texas in particular is under a critical fire risk, and the state has readied fire fighting teams in anticipation of a rough day.
Further east, severe thunderstorms and possible tornadoes are expected to blossom later today, especially in central and eastern Oklahoma, northern Texas and western Arkansas. Those severe storms and maybe tornadoes are likely to move into the southern Mississippi Valley tomorrow.
 |
| The risk of ice jams like this one in Enosburg back in January, 2018..... |
Meanwhile, flooding is a concern in parts of the Southeast and Ohio valleys over the next couple of days. And a stripe of heavy snow will develop from eastern Kansas then northeastward through the central Great Lakes and on into Ontario and Quebec.
VERMONT IMPACTS
Overall, it's a tricky forecast still especially Thursday night and early Friday, because a lot depends on the position of the expected storm and cold front.
We've been talking about this problem for a couple days now, and it will remain a forecasting challenge right up through the storm. If the forecasts are off by as little as 50 miles, which is easy to do, parts of the forecast could be big time wrong.
The National Weather Service in Burlington has a list of problems this period of stormy weather wants to at least potentially cause us. Here we go:
Wind
 |
| Some areas could have issues with freezing rain.... |
Places from roughly New Haven north will deal with the heaviest gusts, so a wind advisory is up for the central and northern Champlain Valley.
Places near the lake and on the islands could easily see gusts to 55 mph. That'll bring the usual litany of scattered power outages and tree damage.
There's still open water in the middle of Lake Champlain, and that could afford the winds a chance to shift ice around quite a bit.
I'd call ahead if planning on using the Grand Isle-Plattsburgh ferry tomorrow afternoon and evening, as that might get screwed up by the ice. A few south facing lake shore properties could also be dealing with ice shoves, in which ice gets pushed onshore, potentially causing some damage.
The wind will continue all night Wednesday and Thursday, but won't be quite as bad late Wednesday night and during the day Thursday.
Warm/Rain/Flood?
The next problem is a period of near record warmth to melt the snow, followed by some rain early Thursday night. This could set off some ice jams in the rivers. Also the ground is solidly frozen. That means water will run off quickly, or pool in some areas instead of soaking in, causing some basements to flood.
The extent of any flooding depends upon how fast the cold air rushes in Thursday night or early Friday morning, which leads us to our next problem.vv
Ice/Snow/Flash Freeze
The super difficult part of this forecast is how fast the cold air behind the cold front rushes in. We still don't know how close the storm center itself will come to sweeping directly over northern Vermont, or go by just to our west.
 |
| And a good possibility of snow, ice and a flash freeze for your Friday morning commute |
We do know there will be a sharp cold front associated with this. There is a risk that a shallow layer of cold air near the surface could sweep into northwestern Vermont overnight, and that would lead to a nasty period of freezing rain.
The strong cold front will inevitably blast through later Thursday night and Friday, causing ice, then a burst of snow and rapidly falling temperatures. In Vermont, temperatures could abruptly fall from near 50 late Thursday night to the 20s in just a couple hours.
That would lead to a flash freeze on the roads. Combined with the ice and snow coming down, the Friday morning commute could turn into the most nightmarish of the winter. We'll see.
The forecasts on this will shift, and there could be a surprise here or there. As always, I'll update this as we go along. If you're looking for a bright side, wildfires, tornadoes and locusts are not on the Vermont forecast menu with this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment