Enjoy Gorgeous Vermont Morning: Smoke, Haze Heat, Humidity, Downpours On The Wy

A brief, tropical type downpour Tuesday in
St. Albans, Vermont overwhelmed our
gutter system. Expect more tropical downpours 
here and there between Thursday and early next week.

 What a pleasant Wednesday morning in Vermont! 

What's not to love? Blue skies, cool temperatures - most of us were in the 50s with a few 40s in the cold spots - and low humidity. 

I hope you enjoyed it. It ain't going to last long. 

Today will be a pleasant enough day, but you'll see some changes. High clouds will stream in this afternoon. That'll be just debris clouds from storms far to our west. 

Wildfire smoke from out west will probably make an appearance this afternoon, too.  Most of it will be aloft, so there won't be much of a health danger. But it'll make things hazy, and I always find that disheartening. I guess because of why that smoky haze is there in the first place. I prefer deep blue skies and a mountains that looks a crisp green, not a blurry, sickly, bluish grey. 

The humidity will start to creep up today, too, as temperatures rise into the 80s for most of us. You might not notice the sultry air that much today, but when you go to bed tonight, it will start to hit you.

Thursday, frankly, looks yucky. A squirt of hot, humid air will engulf us, prompting heat advisories for the Champlain and lower Connecticut River valleys. It won't be anywhere near record warmth, but temperatures around 90 and dew points around 70 will yield an afternoon heat index of between 95 and 100 degrees. 

At least we won't suffer as much as my relatives did in Yankton, South Dakota yesterday. There, it was 103 degrees with a heat index of 113 degrees. I don't think I would have survived.  Sioux Falls, South Dakota reached 105 degrees Tuesday, beating the old record high of 101 degrees set in the torrid summer of 1936. 

It was also Sioux Falls' hottest day in 27 years. This is the partly the source region for our air in Vermont tomorrow, but luckily it will cool some on its way here. 

We'll also have to worry about thunderstorms and downpours starting in the afternoon. A cold front of sorts will be approaching. It will be a cold front in name only, as the air behind it isn't much cooler or less humid than the air in front of it. 

The sky over St. Albans, Vermont Tuesday had a vaguely
South Florida type humid vibe.

This wimp of a cold front will slowly pass southeastward through Vermont later Thursday and into Friday while slowly washing out and dissipating. 

Since it will be so hot and humid Thursday, the air will be unstable enough to support some scattered thunderstorms. One or two of them might end up being strong to severe, but don't expect widespread severe weather. 

The real problem is the air flow will be parallel to this supposed cold front.  That raises the risk of that infamous "training" I've so often brought up. You know, the thunderstorms that follow each other, one after another over the same area.

This all could lead to scattered, local instances of flash flooding Thursday night and Friday in some parts of Vermont. I certainly don't anticipate anything like Kentucky, and the vast majority of us won't see trouble. But there is that risk. For the record,  NOAA's Weather Prediction Center has Vermont in a marginal risk zone for isolated instances of flash flooding both Thursday and Friday. 

The weekend looks humid, too, with scattered showers and storms. By Sunday, we might be seeing new heat advisories for some areas. Another cold front, this one probably being a real one, will approach us early next week. 

Again, it's beginning to look like the air flow will be parallel to the cold front, so it will probably be a slow mover that could - again - create a flash flood risk. 

If you don't like heat and humidity, there are some preliminary, iffy signs that we could be in for a somewhat cooler weather pattern starting around the middle of this month.