June Heat Wave Intensifies, So Does "Ring Of Fire" Vermont Sits On Sidelines

National Weather Service home page this morning shows
huge areas under varying heat alerts (the pinks, purples
and oranges on the map). The heat is not headed
toward us here in Vermont. 

 It's been a rather rough weekend weather wise for a good portion of the United States with widespread heat, and large patches of severe storms on the edges of that heat wave.  

Once again, Vermont if blissfully sitting on the sidelines of this bad weather. 

Nothing notable will happen here in the next few days. No extremes in temperatures, nothing impressive with rainfall, and little if any risk of severe storms. 

The Green Mountain State has been lucky in the past couple of years, really, missing out on most of the constant parade of extreme weather events afflicting the nation in the world. 

Over the past two years or so we in Vermont have had a few spells of record heat, and some weird storms, but nothing as off the charts as many other areas have seen. 

The heat, as expected, is expanding eastward from the Desert Southwest. Heat warnings and advisories cover an enormous patch of real estate. These advisories extend from California to Nebraska to Alabama. CNN reports 65 million people are covered by these heat alerts. 

Record highs keep falling. Denver on Saturday tied the mark for the earliest 100 degree reading on record. 

Record highs on Friday included 113 in Phoenix, 109 in Las Vegas, 103 in Austin, 100 in Grand Junction, Colorado and 87 degrees up in the mountains at Flagstaff, Arizona.

Between now and Wednesday, record high temperatures are forecast to be scattered across almost the entire southern two thirds of the United States. These high temperatures will even sneak up to the upper Midwest and Great Lakes early and midweek with highs in the mid and upper 90s forecast in places like Minneapolis, Des Moines, Chicago and Detroit.

While it will briefly turn warm and humid here in Vermont around Thursday, the worst of the heat will miss us as cold fronts will shove the heat to our south.

Normally, along the edges of heat waves, batches of severe storms often form. The heat can make the air highly unstable.  Little pushes of cooler air, or nearby cold fronts just to the north of the heat can be triggers for intense clusters of storms. 

Huge areas of the nation have at least a little risk of severe
thunderstorms today. (dark green and yellow). Light green
areas might have some non-severe storms. Once again,
Vermont avoids the extreme stuff. 

That's precisely what we've been seeing this weekend and will see for the next few days. There were a smattering of tornadoes in Nebraska and Kansas Saturday, with many other reports of baseball and tennis ball sized hail.

Today, areas of severe storms are forecast in a broad area from the Dakotas to Virginia and North Carolina. Many of those same areas are under the gun tomorrow.

Back here in Vermont, all is quiet once again. We should see some showers and rumbles of thunder scattered around very late today and tonight. This won't be a big deal at all and some areas might not see any rain at all. Or very little. It'll be hit and miss.

Then it will be very pleasant again Monday through Wednesday with near normal temperatures (highs in the mid 70s to around 80).  Showers come back into the picture Thursday and Friday, again not looking like that big a deal. 

Then we turn cool again.  No heat waves for you, kiddies in Vermont. We'll just stay in our calm little Green Mountain bubble.