Slight Uptick In Rain Hope In Vermont, But Comes With A Bit Of A Price

A fast moving gusty, quick downpour approaching
South Burlington late Sunday afternoon. A sign
that summer thunderstorm season is approaching.

 Yesterday in this here blog thingy, I whined about the lack of rain in the Green Mountain State (except in far southern Vermont). And I whined that precious little rain was coming anytime soon.

I've still got that whine, at least a little bit, but at least there is now hope for at least some rain this week, especially in northern Vermont.  

The price we'll pay is a potentially lousy, cold Wednesday afternoon and evening. 

Before I get into that, a couple interesting things happened in Vermont for us weather geeks yesterday and last night. 

First of all, I'll have to say I was taken by surprise by a broken line of gusty showers that swept southward through the northern half of Vermont late yesterday afternoon and evening. 

It was a sign that summer thunderstorm season was finally approaching. I didn't notice any lightning with these showers, but they had all the other elements of a thunderstorm: Gusty winds of up to 30 mph, brief downpours in a few spots, and even a shelf cloud to herald the arrival of these brief storms. 

Most places didn't get much rain out of them, but anything helps. 

Video of this Welcome-to-summer convective shower is at the bottom of the post. Love that kind of weather. 

Satellite view of what I call the "smoke front" over
southern Quebec late Sunday afternoon. Milky stuff
is smoke from Alberta, whiter clouds over northern
Vermont are showers just ahead of a cold front
that you can see abruptly clearing the air 
over southern Quebec. 

Those showers were ahead of a cold front, that I will also call a smoke front.  As had been forecast, quite a bit of smoke from those big Alberta wildfires hazed up the skies for a good part of Sunday. 

Overnight, a cold front swept south, and that dramatically cleared the skies. 

You could see on satellite images last evening a sharp cutoff between smoke and no smoke over far southern Quebec. It was pretty striking. 

The cold front prompted frost advisories for this morning over much of northern Vermont, but temperatures were near freezing in only the coldest hollows. So that's good. 

Now on to some rain hopes. Sort of.

UPCOMING

Today and tomorrow will be dry and sunny, so that hasn't changed. It'll be kind of cool today, with highs in the 60s this afternoon and 70s on Tuesday.

Now, remember that sharp cold front that came through last Tuesday that led to the hard freeze in Vermont during the middle of last week? Of course you do. 

Something very similar is forecast to happen this Wednesday. Before you panic, we're not expecting anything as damaging or cold as last week's freeze.

What does seem to be happening is that the upcoming strong cold front is now looking like it will have more moisture to work with as it comes through. 

This all means the northern half of Vermont could get a decent half inch of rain out of this. Not spectacular, but helpful. 

The price we'll pay is it will turn pretty nasty cold for May again.  The current forecast has temperatures crashing from the upper 60s  down to around 50 in the afternoon, with cold rains. 

Showers will continue into Wednesday night, and could actually mix with snow in the higher elevations. Pretty late, for snow if it happens, but not unprecedented.

We will have to watch out for frost Thursday and/or Friday morning but it still looks like it will not be nearly as cold as last week.  So if any frost does come our way, it won't be destructive, like last week.

The computer forecasting models, meanwhile, are still struggling with what kind of weather we'll see during the Memorial Day weekend. 

Some feature an upper level low swirling nearby most of the weekend, which would keep us on the cool side with light showers and clouds. Others push this thing off to our east, which would mean more sunshine and seasonably warm temperatures in the 70s.

It's too soon to believe any forecast for the holiday weekend. We'll just have to stay tuned.

Video: The first decent convective shower of the warm season approaches and arrives in South Burlington, Vermont with a shelf cloud, some gusts to 30 mph and a brief downpour. Click on this link to view, or click on the image below if you see it to watch it: