Tornadoes Slam Southeast; Up Here We'll See Quite A Lot Of Rain

This maelstrom is a still from a video taken by Cliff
Horton. He was accidentally locked out of a golf
clubhouse when a tornado hit it. He was on the porch
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 For the second day in a row, tornadoes slammed parts of the southern United States, this time focusing mostly on Georgia and South Carolina. 

Today will be a tornado three-peat in the same area of the nation. 

The storm systems spinning off all these twisters will affect us here in Vermont. Not with tornadoes, but with a bunch of rain.  More on that in a bit.  

At least one person died in Pembroke, Georgia in a tornado.   At least three others were injured in Allendale, Georgia. Two hours after that tornado hit Allendale, a second tornado warning was issued for the same city as another storm dropped a possible twister on the town. 

There were also some close calls. Never do what this guy did;  He had been golfing, apparently, but accidentally got locked out of the clubhouse. So he watched the tornado from the porch.  Pretty terrifying!  The man survived with few if any injuries, but don't try this at home, kiddies! 

In all, there were 54 preliminary reports of tornadoes from Mississippi to South Carolina on Tuesday. 

That area of the nation is not done yet. The Southeast is in for another day of severe storms and scattered tornadoes today.  There's a lesser, but still real chance of severe weather and maybe a tornado or two tomorrow in eastern North Carolina and Florida. 

The tornado season is young, but it's turning out to be a busy one, with seemingly a fairly substantial outbreak happening every week. 

The pattern seems set to continue. There are signs of another potential outbreak in the southern Plains and Mississippi Valley next week. 

VERMONT IMPACTS

All these tornado producing storms in the United States this spring seem to peter out by the time they get to Vermont.  They've just been throwing light to moderate precipitation at us, no biggie.

This one looks like it will pack just a little more oomph than the previous systems. 

Northern Vermont in particular is set up for a really nice day today ahead of this storm, with some sun and temperatures poking up to near 60 degrees. Clouds in southern Vermont will hold temperatures down a bit there. 

The parent storm for these tornadoes will be parked over the Great Lakes and will throw quite a slug of moisture at us tomorrow. It will totally be a rainy day, a washout really. The rain will continue Thursday night. 

We're in for a good one to two inches of rain with this. That'll be more than enough to get rivers rising, especially if you take into consideration some snow melt from the high elevations.  Minor flooding seems like a good bet along some Vermont rivers if this forecast holds. 

For what it's worth, NOAA's Weather Prediction Center has us in a marginal risk zone for excessive rain and flooding Thursday into Friday. 

The National Weather Service in South Burlington also says there might be pockets of freezing rain in some mountain locations and protected valleys of the Northeast Kingdom at the onset of precipitation tomorrow morning, and again Thursday night. 

It doesn't look like the freezing rain will be widespread, so most of us won't have to worry about it. 

Relatively cool, showery weather is in the offing Saturday and Sunday before things dry out some for early next week.