Severe Thunderstorm Watch Up In Vermont/NY As We Can't Shake Iffy Weather

Satellite photo from Sunday afternoon shows a thunderstorm
over Lake Champlain interrupting an otherwise nice
Sunday. Click on the pic to make it bigger and easier
to see. Once you do that, if you look closely, 
you can see the storm casting a shadow on Chittenden
County. The storm mostly dissipated within an
hour after this photo was taken. 

UPDATE 1 p.m.

A severe thunderstorm watch is up for all of Vermont and much of eastern New York through 8 p.m. as storms fire up.

Local damaging winds and hail are the main threats.

Storms were rapidly firing up in New York and southern Vermont and heading northeastward as of 1 p.m. 

There was already a severe thunderstorm warning in the southeastern Adirondacks as of 1 p.m. 

More warnings might be issued, so keep an ear out for alerts and keep your eye to the sky through the afternoon.

Storms might break out at any time through evening, but I think they are most likely through 5 p.m. 

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Although the threat of flooding in Vermont has eased somewhat, it remains something of a summer of discontent. 

However, it remains hard to get a truly nice, perfect summer day. Oh sure, we've had parts of summer days that were gorgeous. Even a full day here and there, maybe five. 

But something always goes wrong in the star-crossed summer of 2023.

It floods. It rains. It gets too humid. It gets smoky. It's cloudy. We haven't really had any chilly summer weather yet, but that might be coming in the first week of August.

What we haven't had is long stretches of fine weather. The trend of iffy whether continues apace.  

Take yesterday, for instance.

It's true most of the state really did have a pleasant Sunday.  And the day started pleasantly cool. It got down to 59 degrees in Burlington Sunday morning ending a 27-day streak where we stayed continuously at or above 60 degrees. That's a weirdly long time for such a streak.

But it was supposed to be clear sailing all day. So what were those showers and thunderstorms doing entering parts of the Champlain Valley in the early afternoon?

Most of the day did stay OK even there. The storms actually dissipated as they entered Chittenden County, but they held together in Addison County. No harm done this time, but they did interrupt a pleasant day. Story of 2023.

Today's another example. 

TODAY

Forecasts from a couple days ago indicated a gorgeous Monday. Now,  not so much.   We're back to the threat of severe storms this afternoon.  The threat of new flooding is quite low, but, sigh, not zero. 

A weak weather system, combined with some particular atmospheric arrangements, will interrupt our nice weather this afternoon. 

Part of the problem is something called an "elevated mixed layer" or EML.  An EML is essentially a layer of dry air pretty high up there. It initially acts as a cap that stops the humid updrafts that create showers and storms. 

Sounds like a savior to preserve nice weather, no?  Um, no. Eventually, the updrafts bust through the EML, and it's like a dam breaking. The updrafts suddenly tower up violently, and you end up with strong, maybe even damaging wind gusts and on some occasions, large hail.

That's what we're facing today. 

Now, there's no need to panic.  Most of us will NOT see a severe storm. But enough ingredients are there to create isolated instances of damaging winds or large hail.  NOAA's Storm Prediction Center only has most of Vermont in a marginal risk zone for severe storms, which is only level 1 of 5 on the alert scale. I do suspect they might, maybe upgrade us level 2, which is slight risk. 

Normally, today's storms would fall far short of being able to produce any flash flooding. But the ground is so saturated, it's possible -  though unlikely - there could be an isolated trouble spot with a washout or something like that. 

The bottom line is you will see just scattered reports of damaging winds, and maybe hail here and there in Vermont today. Maybe an isolated flash flood, but fortunately, I'm not holding my breath on that one. Many of us will see non-severe thunderstorms. So our gorgeous Monday morning will turn into an iffy afternoon

TUESDAY

The sort of good news is that today's activity will sort of steal Tuesday's thunder, if you will, from storm chances tomorrow. Todays' weather will stabilize the atmosphere, so there will only be a few scattered showers and storms. Nothing severe. But again, an imperfect weather day.  

WEDNESDAY-FRIDAY

We'll be faced with building heat and humidity. I'm unsure if we'll make it to 90 degrees any of those days, but heat indexes will probably be in the low to mid 90s by Thursday and Friday. 

The reason I question whether we'll hit 90 is the seemingly ever present risk of showers and storms. No details are available yet about the timing, number or strength of any of those storms.

AUTUMNAL HINT, WITH SMOKE AND RAIN?

Long range forecasts are kind of all over the place at the moment,  but they're strongly hinting at a cold front this coming weekend that might feel......a bit autumnal. 

Not frigid, mind you, but a lot chillier than we've been used over the past five or six weeks.  Unfortunately, those same hints suggest unsettled weather and wildfire smoke. The fires in Quebec have tamped down somewhat, which explains our bluer skies recently. 

But western Canada is still ablaze.  If the weather pattern changes the way some forecasters think it will, then we'll have to deal with smoke and haze again. The only saving grace would be that the western smoke will be less likely to hug the ground, so air quality wouldn't suffer quite as much. 

All of this long range stuff is no guarantee.  Forecasts a week out very often change quite a bit, so don't hang your hat on it.