Saturday Lee Update: For Vermont, More Entertaining Than Dangerous

 If we have to be affected by a hurricane or tropical storm in Vermont, this is the way to do it. 

The setting sun shining into high clouds streaming off 
from Hurricane Lee Friday evening lit up 
the skies over St. Albans, Vermont. 

What was once Hurricane Lee, as expected, threw a bunch of high clouds overhead in Vermont Saturday, leading to a kinda interesting sky during much of the day. That led to a gorgeous sunset.

There is a chance we might have a repeat nice sunset this evening. It depends upon how Lee's shield of high clouds that's over us now behaves. 

Lee is not even considered a tropical system anymore.  It does have a warm core, still, which tropical storms have. But on satellite, the clouds with Lee are not circular anymore, but more of a comma shape you see with regular storms. It's also developing a cold and warm front. 

This technicality doesn't matter much on the ground. I don't want to minimize the effects Lee is having on eastern Maine, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick where storm damage is ongoing today from near-hurricane force wind gusts and storm surges.

This won't be as bad up there as Hurricane Fiona last year, but it will still sting.

For us in Vermont, we get off with barely a worry. 

GUSTS ARE COMING

After all the weather drama we've had in Vermont this year, it's nice to see a major weather system not create havoc. Lee might cause some minor inconveniences around here today, but I hardly think this will cause yet another disaster declaration in the Green Mountain State. 

At dawn today, they're barely a breeze in Vermont, thanks to a temperature inversion that often sets up at night. That was mixing out and by mid morning, gusts were ramping up, and will hit the 30 to 40 mph range in many spots across the Green Mountain State.  

 hat's enough to create a few very isolated power outages around the state, but most of us will be fine. 

Gusts in that range are pretty common in Vermont during the winter and usually don't lead to anything noteworthy. But the trees are bare during gusty winter storms in January. 

This time of year, the trees are still leafed out. Each leaf acts like a little sale, pulling trees sideways during gusty weather. That can pull a few trees down. Especially since the ground is still soggy after our awful summer.  It's easier to uproot trees when the soil is wet.

The sharp line between clear skies and a high overcast
from Hurricane Lee was visible over Georgia, Vermont Friday. 

Again, I want to emphasize this won't be that big a deal.  I'm talking isolated, scattered power outages that will be fixed pretty quickly.  You have a really low chance of losing your electricity, and if it happens, it won't last long. 

Like I've said in previous posts, I'd cancel plans to take your boat onto Lake Champlain or other lakes in Vermont. The water will be too choppy and actually kind of dangerous A lake wind advisory is up today, naturally. 

One thing  you might notice if you hit the web page for the National Weather Service in South Burlington. It will look like the radar is lit up with rain.   Actually, some rain is falling from the high overcast that's with us now. But the north winds with Lee are pulling in some dry air, so that rain will keep evaporating well before it hits the ground. 

There might be just a little bit of rain in the Northeast Kingdom, but that's it. 

VERMONT'S "NICE" TROPICAL STORM

Usually, tropical storms and hurricanes are bad news anywhere, including here in Vermont. We only have to look at the catastrophic floods with Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 and the destruction from the Great New England Hurricane of 1938 for examples.

But there's also rare but real precedent for tropical storms that are either harmless for us, like Lee today, or actually do more good than harm locally.   

In August, 2020, Hurricane Isaias made landfall in North Carolina as a hurricane and went up the East Coast as a tropical storm.  All along the way from North Carolina to New England, Isaias let loose with dozens of tornadoes, and flash flooding along the way. 

However, when it got to Vermont, ti was different. The center of Tropical Storm Isaias went literally right over Rutland on the evening of August 4 on its way northward through Vermont to Quebec. 

The tropical storm dumped heavy rain on Vermont, especially the western half of the state. .But a drought was going on at the time, so Tropical Storm Isaias was a rare happy big storm for Vermont. It did cause a few power outages, but we survived, right?