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| A perfect autumn afternoon in St Albans, Vermont on Saturday. Those will be the last clear blue skies we see for several days. |
What could be better? Deep blue skies, a few puffy clouds, a cool breeze, and spots of fall color here and there, promising more to come.
I'm sure more sunshine is on the way, eventually, but not for awhile. Starting today, we're stuck under the clouds again for several days.
An upper level area of low pressure looks like it's getting stuck just to our west, and will only slowly get its act in gear and move slowly out of our hair. But not until Thursday at the earliest.
Within this big patch of unsettled weather, several disturbances will come through, each triggering some rain. It's not always easy to time out the worst of the rains, but it looks like one batch comes through this afternoon and evening, and another during the day Monday.
Unlike the past two storms, this one won't include particularly heavy rain. But it will add to this September's reputation as a soggy month. Burlington only needs 0.16 inches of rain out of this to have us enter the top 10 list of wettest Septembers.
Total rainfall today through Wednesday night looks to be about a half inch, give or take.
Light showers and clouds will persist midweek. Some flurries might hit the mountain summits again Wednesday or Thursday nights, but again, it won't amount to anything. We might get some clearing by the end of the week, but that will set us up for a risk of some frost Thursday night. We'll see!
Another sign of impending winter is what this upper level low will do to areas just downwind from the Great Lakes. Heavy lake effect rain showers are likely for the next few days downwind of lakes Erie and Ontario. It will be too warm for the more famous lake effect snows. But the same process that causes the lake effects snows will be responsible for the rain.
Cool winds blowing across warmer lake waters will pull up moisture and create those showers.
FIONA UPDATE
Hurricane Fiona is finally gone, but the devastation in Atlantic Canada is something else.
Video taken during the storm shows houses washed out to sea, especially around Channel Port Aux Basques, Newfoundland. One person is reported to be missing after possibly being swept out to sea. Another woman was rescued when the house she was in collapsed into the waves.
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| Screen grab from video showing houses being swept out to sea in Canada by storm Fiona. |
Many other Atlantic Canada homes suffered serious damage as roofs blew off, and windows caved in under the pressure of the hurricane gusts. Many other homes were damaged as large trees fell on them.
In Halifax, Nova Scotia, just as a for instance, 100 people were hastily evacuated from an apartment complex when the roof blew off. In Prince Edward Island, 95 percent of the population lost electricity.
This storm is consistent with climate change. Sea surface temperatures are way above normal off the Canadian coast, and that allowed the storm to maintain its intensity, even as it transitioned from a true hurricane to a sort of North Atlantic storm hybrid.
Hurricanes or transitioning hurricanes have hit Atlantic Canada before, but this one was very likely the most intense on record.
TROPICAL STORM IAN
Despite extra efforts by the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service to obtain more detailed atmospheric data, we still don't have a lot of clarity yet on how Tropical Storm Ian will affect Florida.
It does still seem Florida is the target, but at this point, it could hit anywhere on Florida's west coast or in the state's panhandle.
The tropical storm as of early this morning had top winds of just 50 mph, which isn't that big a deal. But it does look poised to rapidly intensify into a powerful hurricane as it makes its way northwest toward Cuba.
Forecasts for Ian's strength as it approaches Florida is also divided. Some forecasts call for some weakening, while others keep it pretty powerful as it nears the coastline late this week.
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