The Spring Gloom Returns To Vermont Today, Will Last Days

Some last glimpses of blue sky and sun shining on the
other side of Lake Champlain as viewed from St.
Albans, Vermont this morning. A long spell of 
showery, dreary spring weather is about to start.

Last Sunday in this here blog thingy, I told you we were in for several days of unsettled weather.

That's just what happened, although there was some welcome sunshine between the showers Tuesday through Thursday. 

All that "meh" weather passed by Friday, and it was a gorgeous day. 

Now, history is about to repeat itself. This time it looks like we'll have several days that will probably be even rainier and cloudier than last week. 

This all starts today. With a bit of irony. 

Despite the fact a warm front is moving in, it will be cooler than it was under Friday's sunshine. Warm fronts aren't always warm, I guess. That's because any last glimpses of blue sky and sunshine early this morning will give way to clouds and showers.  The lack of sun will keep the temperatures down. 

Rain will start creeping in this morning, and by early to mid-afternoon, pretty much all of us will see some rain. You'll notice a southeasterly wind pick up today, too, adding to the rawness of the afternoon. 

Sunday isn't looking great, either, but it won't necessarily be a washout. There will be showers around, but we'll probably see some decent sized breaks between the rains.  But it will stay mostly cloudy and cool. And many areas will be kind of windy.  Not a glorious spring day by any means. 

MAIN EVENT

The main drama comes through later Sunday, Sunday night into Monday. One storm over the Great Lakes and a new, nor'easter type storm near the coast will both cause a good spell of wind and rain here in the Green Mountain State.  This is a fairly strong storm for so late in the season. But hey! At least it isn't a snowstorm, right?

One thing meteorologists are watching with this thing is something known as a low level jet. That's a packet of very strong winds several thousand feet overhead.

As lighter, lower level winds go up and over the Green Mountains from the southeast, the downward motion of winds flowing descending the slopes of the western Greens can grab some this high speed air from above and bring it to the surface.

The result is strong, sometimes damaging winds.  This kind of thing caused the destructive windstorm in Vermont around Christmas.

This time, it won't be nearly as bad. Not even close. But still, winds later Sunday and Sunday night could be locally strong along parts of the western slopes. Leaves are starting to come onto some of the trees in lower elevations. Those leaves, acting like little sails, can make it more likely for trees to fall over,.

Forecasters aren't sure how much wind will mix down from above, so there are no wind advisories or anything like that.  They're just keeping an eye on it. I suppose there will be a few isolated problems with power lines. Again, this will fall well short of the Christmas storm, and those two winter storms in March, thank goodness. 

This low level jet will also bring in lots of moisture from the Atlantic Ocean. Rain could fall pretty heavily Sunday night, especially along the eastern slopes of the Green Mountains. 

At this point, it doesn't look like we'll have enough rain to cause any real flooding. But rivers will sharply rise and water could pool in low lying areas. There's not enough of a risk to trigger any kind of flood watches, at least for now, but again, meteorologists are keeping an eye on it. 

The National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center does have much of Vermont in a marginal risk zone for localized flash floods. That's the lowest level of alert on a five-point scale. 

I imagine this rain will bring Lake Champlain closer to its 100-foot minor flood stage. I don't think the lake will get to that flood stage, but it might be close. But the water won't get high enough to cause anything other than high-ish water near the shoreline and some splash over with waves if it gets windy.

NEXT WEEK

During last week's spell of unsettled weather, the center of the storminess that brought our showers was pretty far off to our northwest. Because of that, we managed to get some sun mixed with the showers, so the weather wasn't all that bad.

This week, we're going to settle into a similar setup,  but the stagnant, stalled storm system will park itself closer to Vermont than last week's did. Although we can't rule out some peeks of sun, the coming week is looking cloudier, with more frequent showers than what we had last week.   

The weather pattern is stuck, and it will take awhile for it to pull itself together and start moving again. It might be Friday or beyond before the weather improves to any great extent.