Widespread Severe Storms, Floods Striking Much Of U.S., Vermont Spared As Usual

A SD DOT traffic cam caught the eerie green hue
of a derecho blowing into Sioux Falls, South Dakota Tuesday

Very often, when a severe heat wave hits parts of the United States, severe weather, including sometimes derechos, blast areas just to the north of the hot zone.  

That has certainly been the case the past couple of days, and will be the case for a couple more.  

A long lasting heat wave has settled in over the south central U.S. Meanwhile a large area north of the heat is being raked by repeated intense storms and flash floods. 

 The severe weather over the weekend and into this week has extended from Montana, through the nation's midsection, then on the Mid-Atlantic States.  The rough weather has been passing far to the south and west of Vermont, and that trend will continue for at least a week or so. No scary weather for us.

It's certainly been scary elsewhere. South Dakota and parts of Minnesota and Iowa were smacked by a derecho yesterday, the second one to hit that region this year. To remind  you of the definition of a derecho, it's a packet of intense, persistent thunderstorms that travel at least 240 miles, and creating numerous reports of winds gusting to more than 58 mph.

Winds sure gusted past that in South Dakota Tuesday. Howard, South Dakota, saw a gust of 99 mph. Frequent wind gusts of 70 mph or more were recorded there for more than 20 minutes. Huron reported a gust to 96 mph, the second time in two months that a thunderstorm brought 90 mp gusts to Huron.'

The airport in Sioux Falls clocked a peak wind of 80 mph. Gusts of over 58 mph lasted for a good 45 minutes there. I saw numerous reports from South Dakota and Iowa of gusts in the 65 to 85 mph range. 

In Sioux Falls, the storm blew in with an intense, otherworldly green color in the sky. As the National Weather Service describes it, the sky takes on a bit of a reddish color in the late afternoon and evening as the sun begins to approach the horizon. All that rain and hail in the storm cloud scatters blue light. when the reddish light is scattered by the blue water/hail tones in the storms, you get green. 

Judging from the photos, the green sky really outdid itself yesterday in Sioux Falls.  

Another pocket of severe weather hit areas around Maryland, Virginia and the Washington DC area. A tornado touched down and caused damage around Bowie, Maryland. 

While anyone in that band from Montana to the East Coast could see more severe weather today, the places to watch in particular are Montana, the Ohio Valley and the Carolinas. Same is true Wedneday and Thursday. 

Another outbreak of severe storms is then likely later in the week in and around North Dakota and Minnesota.

I'm also struck by how widespread the flood risk is with this. A huge band from northeastern Colorado to Virginia is at risk for flash floods today. Not everyone in this zone will see a flood, but there will be pockets in this big area with dangerous floods.  Fort Wayne, Indiana, hit by its highest wind gust (98 mph) on record during a severe thunderstorm in June, suffered a nasty flash flood Tuesday. 

Five to as much as eight inches of rain poured down near Fort Wayne Tuesday. Fort Wayne itself had 2.83 inches of rain, tying the record for most rain on a single July day. That city, along with swaths of Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia, are under threat for more torrential rain today. Columbus Ohio already dealt with flash floods early this morning.  

Many of these same areas are under the gun Thursday and Friday, too, especially east of the Mississippi River'

Well away from the heat dome and its "ring of fire" storms, we in Vermont sit in a northwest air flow from Canada. That has lasted for weeks now and shows few signs of letting up. 

The good news is this is giving us frequent spells of sunshine, pleasant temperatures and low humidity. The bad news is any weather system that comes through doesn't have all that much moisture to work with. So rainfall over the past week to 10 days has been fairly lame. Little rain is in the forecast until at least next Tuesday.    

VIDEO

YouTuber 8th C.Elisabeth shot this video of Tuesday's very green severe storm rolling into Sioux Falls, South Dakota, The videographer said they did not color correct the video, so the green you see is what people in Sioux Falls saw Click on this link to view, or watch below: