More Vermont Heat Records Fell Friday More Today, Then Storms?

This week's very warm weather is really rushing the 
spring season along. This is the lilac tree in front of
my house six days ago, also note the trees in the 
background........

More record high temperatures baked Vermont yesterday, as expected. 

Burlington reached 88 degrees, besting the old record of 84 set in 1985.  As you can see, Burlington eluded that magical first 90 degree temperature of the season.  I'm doubting we'll make it to 90 today. 

However, St. Johnsbury did come in with an impressive record high of 90 degrees on Friday. That shattered the old record for the date, which was 77 back in 2011. In the rather rare weather pattern we've had the past few days, far northern New England tends to be the hottest part of the region.

Way up in normally icy Caribou, Maine, the temperature reached 90 degrees, smashing the old record of 78 degrees. This was the second earliest 90 degree reading on record for Caribou. 

Back here in Vermont Montpelier broke its record high for the date by a wide margin. It got up to 87 degrees, exceeding the old record by five degrees.

The blocky weather pattern that has caused this record warmth is now starting to break down. We'll squeeze out one more day of near record highs, but for the next few days, we'll have more clouds, some showers and maybe even some strong thunderstorms by Monday. 

.....and the exact same lilac tree this morning. Quite a
change in six days. Nice aroma, too!

Since the heat wave is just starting to erode today, things in Vermont won't be too much different than they were Thursday and Friday. 

This afternoon, you'll see more to those puffy clouds you typically see in the summer - cumulus and towering cumulus mainly over the mountains. 

A few of these clouds will blossom into full-blown, but isolated thunderstorms that will hug the mountains.

You'll probably see these thunderstorms billow up, move slowly northward and dissipate before they get anywhere near most of us valley dwellers.  

Because of the extra clouds this afternoon, it might be a degree or two "cooler" today than Thursday and Friday were. Burlington's record high for today is 86 degrees. I suspect we might just tie that record, but we'll see. Montpelier has a decent shot of at least tying its record high of 85 degrees this afternoon.

After today, the record highs are done for at least awhile, but it'll probably take until later Monday or Monday night to return to truly cool spring weather. 

Remember that big ocean storm well south of New England that was part of this blocking pattern? Some of the remnant moisture from that will blow in Sunday, providing us with chances of hit and miss showers and thunderstorms.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center includes 
Vermont in a large slight risk zone for
severe thunderstorms on Monday

None of the storms will be severe, and not all of us will get needed rain. But at least there's a decent chance of it. Though it will be cooler, with highs in the 75 to 82 degree range, it will be noticeably more humid, so we'll have that to deal with it. 

Monday is kind of a wild card at this point. A cold front will be approaching.  If it doesn't make it here until late afternoon, we could be looking at some scattered severe thunderstorm.  This could be the first outbreak of summer-like strong thunderstorms we've seen this year in Vermont. 

But it's still a maybe.  Things have to line up correctly to give us some big boomers, and it's a little early to tell if that will actually happen. For what it's worth, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has us in a slight risk zone for severe storms Monday. That's level two on a five point threat scale. 

We then finally get into the cool air, especially on Tuesday and Wednesday, when we expect highs only in the mid 60s, which would actually be just a tad cooler than average for this time of year. 

There are some signs in the long range forecasts that we could get quite warm again by next weekend, but that's a huge maybe.  It almost certainly won't be as toasty as it's been the past few days, but stay tuned!