Hot, Hot, Hot and Wet, Wet Wet (Yes, This Is Still A Weather/Climate Blog)

A distant thunderstorm erupts from behind the trees in
St. Albans, Vermont Tuesday.  Hot humid weather today
will lead to yet more storms Friday, with a bit of a
flood threat yet again. 

 It is turning into that kind of summer. 

It's uncomfortable out in Vermont. There's (almost) always the threat of rain. And occasionally, the heat gets too hot, and the rain gets too, well, flood-ish.  That's the way it's been for nearly two weeks now, and that's the way it will be for at least a week. 

Today through the weekend seems to be a peak with this scenario. Today will be the hottest of the stretch, and this weekend and early next week, might be the wettest of this stalled weather pattern. 

We'll get into the heat first

HOT THURSDAY

As advertised, today is not your day to run a marathon.  Or do anything more strenuous than get off the couch for that matter. 

Temperatures in most Vermont valleys will get past 90 degrees, and the humidity will make it feel much worse. There won't even be much of a breeze to help out. Plus the air quality is still kind of meh from all those Canadian wildfires. It's not a smoke out, and it's not super dangerous. But between the heat, humidity and the somewhat smoky haze, people with issues like asthma ought to be really careful today. 

Heat advisories are in effect for the Champlain Valley, the lower elevations of Rutland County, and the lower Connecticut River valley. The "real feel" in these areas will be in the mid to upper 90s, even if actual temperatures are in the chilly (ha!) 88 to 95 degree range. 

Those of you who are not in the heat advisory zones are still going to wilt. 

The expected high temperature in Burlington today is 94 degrees, close to the record high for the date of 95, so we might actually tie that record. Montpelier should come close to a record, too, with an expected high of 89 compared to the record for the date of 91. 

This will be the third day in a row of 90 degree weather in Burlington. That qualifies this as an "official" heat wave, because it's defined in Vermont anyway as three or more days in a  row that make it to at least 90. 

I don't like that construction, because say you get this theoretical string of high temperatures:  90, 94, 89, 91,92,89, 90.  That's one hell of a hot spell, but those 89s in there mean that this isn't a heat wave. Really?

In any event, this will be Burlington's 81st official heat wave since 1886.

By the end of the day, this will be Burlington's fifth day of 90 degree weather this year.  That's sort of in line with the past decade. By July 6, we've had between zero and 10 days with 90 degree weather through this date. (The most being in 2020. That year, we ended up with 20 such days by the time autumn arrived).

Oh, by the way, tomorrow and Saturday will be oppressively hot and humid, too.  It might not make it to 90, but it will get kind of close. Showers and storms should interfere with both day's ability to make it to 90, but you never know.

That leads us into the rain and storm threat

HEAVY STORMS?

A dying cold front will be approaching us tomorrow. It will fall apart by the time it makes it here, but the remnants will be more than enough to trigger numerous showers and storms during the afternoon. 

There will be enough oomph in the atmosphere to make some of the storms fairly strong.  Most won't be, but a few lucky devils will see damaging winds and possibly some hail. Kind of like what we saw on the Fourth of July. 

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington notes that the ground is now quite wet from all the rain we've had. That makes it easier for strong thunderstorm winds to uproot and knock over trees.

The bigger problem is again, all this humidity. The storms will use this wet air to their advantage, and create some torrential downpours in spots. The thunderstorms probably won't move along very fast either, giving them time to drop a lot of rain.

So, once again, there is risk of local flash floods. It's hard to predict where these incidents might happen.  It'll be a case of one town or one section of a town seeing some roads washed out, while the next town over barely gets any rain at all.

Things will settle down Friday night. 

The remains of that dead cold front will be over eastern Vermont Saturday, so that's where the best chance of more thunderstorms with heavy rain will set up.  Western Vermont could see a couple storms, but they will be pretty widely scattered.

I'm still seeing signs of possible heavy rain Sunday and Monday, which could lead to more widespread flooding. We're not sure on that yet, though. I'll have more on that as we get closer to the event.