Sunday Wildfire Smoke Attack In Vermont To Partly Interrupt Very Wet Spell

The brassy hue of the sun cutting through the humidity
and fog at around 9:30 a.m. this morning was a 
signal that wildfire smoke from Canada was returning.

 We had our first really rainy day in what will be a long stretch of wet weather in at least part of Vermont today. 

The good news is for northern Vermont especially, today will be quite a bit drier than Saturday, as we're sort of between systems. 

The bad news is the very weak cold front that will at least partly interrupt the wet weather is bringing a boatload of smoke from Canadian wildfires into the northern half of Vermont today.  

This might well be the thickest smoke of the summer so far. Even worse than the thick smoke on June 6.  

An air quality alert is in effect for the northern half of Vermont this afternoon and evening. 

Meanwhile, some flood threats will linger all week in the Green Mountain State.

So let's get into the details of what happened, and what's going to happen

SATURDAY RAINS

The heaviest rains in Vermont Saturday seemed to focus on a stripe of northwestern Vermont from Burlington, north, contained in an area sandwiched between Interstate 89 and the spine of the Green Mountains. 

The most rain I saw from yesterday was 2.18 inches in Underhill. There were several reports of rainfall of well over an inch. 

Luckily, this same region will be among the drier spots today, with just low chances of scattered showers and thunderstorms. More on that next when we get into today's weather. 

TODAY: SMOKE AND SCATTERED DOWNPOURS

It was still oppressively humid early this morning across all of Vermont, but at least the air quality was terrific. 

That won't last. 

A weak cold front had just crossed the International Border this morning and will sink slowly into Vermont while dissipating. 

This will make the humidity go down a little, which will be a nice break.  It will also suppress thunderstorms and downpours across the north.  There still might be some, but they will be pretty few and far between north of Route 2.

Southern Vermont has a better chance of thunderstorms today. Since the air there will still be quite humid and any thunderstorms that form will move ever so slowly, there is a risk of some isolated instances of flash flooding. So we're not completely out of the woods.

Then there's the smoke. It'll be something of a glancing blow, but it will still create a lot of haze across the north. The closer you are to Canada, the worse it will be. Air quality alerts are also in effect for much of New Hampshire and Maine, and of course southern Quebec. 

 I wouldn't overexert too much outside today in northern areas. Between the moderately high humidity and the smoke, it ain't good for you. 

At least the worst of the smoke will have cleared out by tomorrow. But the rains return. And stick around. 

MONDAY

The number of showers and a few thunderstorms will begin to ramp up late tonight and early Monday, then really blossom in the afternoon. Virtually all of us will get rain. As usual, in most place, the amount of rain that falls will be perfectly manageable. But again, if storms go over the same spot over and over again, there could be an isolated flash flood threat.

The thunderstorms in general won't be severe, but there might be one or two instances of microbursts, which can really cause a lot of wind damage in very small areas. 

TUESDAY THROUGH THURSDAY

The weather pattern stays stalled, so it'll be daily round of torrential showers and thunderstorms amid humid air. This far in advance, you can't say precisely who will get the heaviest rain and the highest flash flood potential. 

In general, the most dangerous downpours will hit in the afternoons and evenings. As the soils get wetter and wetter through the week, the chances of flooding also creep up. Nobody is yet talking about widespread river flooding, since they're starting at pretty low levels now.

The problem is the torrents of water that can come roaring of steep slopes if the rain is especially torrential and persistent in any particular spot.  That's your local flash flood threat all week. 

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has Vermont and surrounding areas under at least some chance, albeit somewhat low chance, of flash flooding every day today through Thursday. It's quite unusual to have that threat in effect five days in a row. 

This state of affairs might even go beyond Thursday. Tropical Storm Cindy, or at least its remains, seems like it wants to head out of the tropics and make a beeline toward Nova Scotia toward Friday and Saturday. That would prevent the storminess over us from departing to our east, or at least delay its departure. 

And the weather pattern seems like it wants to continue more of the same into the opening days of July, but that of course is uncertain for now.