Ma Nature Partied On The Fourth Of July In Vermont/New England, Too! Heat, More Storms Due

Blossoming thunderstorms created all kinds of cloud
structures over St. Albans Vermont late Tuesday afternoon.

 If you're all partied out from the July 4th holiday, welcome to the club. Ma Nature had a grand old time in Vermont, and much of the rest of New England, too.

While most of us got through the holiday with tolerable weather, with a few stormy interruptions, some places endured severe thunderstorms, wind same and flash floods. 

I've been throwing out esoteric weather terms in this here blog thingy recently, and here's another. 

An outflow boundary. 

A bunch of thunderstorms got going late Tuesday morning and early afternoon near and west of Montreal. They tended to collapse  by mid-afternoon.

When they did that, they sent out a push of rain-cooled air toward northern New York and Vermont. This was kind of a min cold front. The cool outflow from the dying Quebec storms sort of pushed the stuffy, warm, humid air out ahead of it, kind of like a truck with a snowplow pushing snow out of the way. 

That created an updraft that took hold in the unstable, humid air to create a broken line of severe thunderstorms that swept south and southeastward across northern and central Vermont in the early evening. 

It turned out to be the first real severe storm outbreak of the summer in Vermont. That's a late arrival, but it was inevitable 

For the most part these were so-called pulse storms. They blossomed quickly along that outflow boundary from Quebec, transitioning from nothing burger little updrafts to full blown severe thunderstorms in minutes, then collapsing into remnant lighter showers with a few lingering rumbles of thunder. Next to these dying storms, new ones quickly erupted and repeated the cycle.

This is pretty common in a Vermont summer. 

Those of you who were unlucky enough to get caught in the peak strength of any of these storms saw some nasty winds, and hail to make things worse. Flooding became an issue I'm some areas, too, according to a list of storm reports from the National Weather Service office in South Burlington. 

While high winds and hail were reported in several spots, it seems like two areas got nailed the worst. 

A complex of thunderstorms, with microbursts mixed in, hit near the western shores of Lake Champlain in New York and also affected the northern Champlain Islands of Vermont.  Numerous trees toppled in and around Grand Isle State Park. Quarter sized hail hit Alburgh.  

The storms weakened as the moved southeast toward Burlington. Still, Burlington managed a wind gust of 38 mph out of the storms. 

It was even worse in and near sections of Caledonia County.  East Hardwick took the brunt as that town was hit by two separate severe thunderstorms. Each of them toppled trees in the area and caused some flash flooding.   High water blocked two roads in East Hardwick

Flash flooding was worse and more widespread in New Hampshire and southern New England, as forecasts had indicated. New Hampshire really has had a challenge with flooding over the past ten days or so. 

HOT, HUMID, WET

Next up, a hot spell. Before the storms rolled in yesterday, the temperature over-performed in Burlington, reaching 90 degrees before the thunderstorms rolled in. Temperatures are forecast to top 90 degrees today and tomorrow, too, so three days in a row would make it an "official" heat wave.

The humidity remains high, so the "real feel" of this heat will be in the mid-90s. A heat advisory is up for the Champlain Valley this afternoon through Thursday. 

Amid all this humidity, a few storms might erupt again today. They should be much fewer and far between than yesterday. However, an isolated storm could cause one or two very local microbursts of damaging winds, and/or a local flash flood. 

Thunderstorms are even less likely amid the hot air and humidity Thursday. 

It ramps up again Friday as a dying cold front approaches. Guess what? Hot and humid again, but numerous storms will probably erupt in the afternoon.

Not sure yet where the strongest and most numerous ones might go on Friday, but early indications are some storms could be strong. And wet, with a renewed possibility of local flooding. 

We still have a  shower risk over the weekend, with the risk of heavier rain Sunday night and Monday.