Vermont Finally Finds Autumn, Will Get Breezy As Hurricane Lee Blows By To East

Satellite view of large Hurricane Lee heading northward
off the East Coast, headed to Nova Scotia or the eastern
tip of Maine by Saturday.

 Southern New England, lately in the cross hairs of severe weather, got socked again Wednesday with more floods and even some reports of possible tornadoes.  

The tornadoes aren't confirmed yet, but evidence is pretty strong that there might have been one or more twisters in Connecticut, Rhode Island and possibly southeastern Massachusetts.

Video taken at a small airport in Smithfield, Rhode Island showed what appeared to be a tornado on the ground. In Scituate, Rhode Island, trees fell in opposite directions, a sign of a possible tornado.

If a tornado is confirmed in Scituate, Rhode Island, it would be the second time in a month the town was hit by a twister. Rhode Island: Tornado Alley. Go figure.

Here in Vermont, we just had some rain showers Wednesday, no biggie.

HURRICANE LEE

Wednesday's bad weather is pretty much out of New England, and now everybody is watching Hurricane Lee, and getting sick of it. At least the vigil is almost over. 

The forecasts for Lee have been pretty consistent, bringing it ashore Saturday in western Nova Scotia. There's still a chance it could land on the nearby eastern tip of Maine. 

The upper Maine coast is under a hurricane watch for the first time since Hurricane Kyle threatened the state in 2008. Hurricane Kyle took a similar path to what is expected out of Lee.  It causes hurricane force gusts in Nova Scotia and produced some flooding in eastern Maine. 

It looks like Hurricane Lee will be something of a rinse and repeat of Kyle. 

Tropical storm watches and warnings extend along most of the New England coast. 

Hurricane Lee will be transitioning to a non-tropical system by the time it reaches Maine or Nova Scotia. Also, top winds might - or might not - be just below hurricane speeds.

Nevertheless the storm spells a lot of trouble on Cape Cod and the Islands, and especially Downeast Maine, Nova Scotia and parts of New Brunswick. 

Nova Scotia in particular does not need this storm.  The Canadian Province is still reeling from destructive wildfires in May and June, extreme flooding in July, and damage from Hurricane Fiona last year. 

With soggy ground and trees still leafed out, officials in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick expect lots of long lasting power outages as many of those trees topple onto power lines.

Eastern Maine is likely to see flooding as well

Hurricane Lee is a large storm with a big zone of strong winds. And storms like Lee that move north into New England or Atlantic Canada tend to grow even larger, so a pretty big area will likely see some tropical storm force gusts.

VERMONT EFFECTS

We're still expecting a windy, rather cloudy Saturday here in the Green Mountain State. The western edge of that large wind field from Hurricane Lee will overspread our area. Many of us, especially for people east of the Green  Mountains could see gusts in the 30 to 35 mph range.

That's not terrible. But since the ground is so soggy and we haven't had much wind this summer, those gusts might take down an isolated tree or two. There might even be a few local, brief power outages, but I don't expect that to be a big deal.

Larger lakes, especially Lake Champlain could have some issues with waves and choppy seas, so Saturday is the wrong day for a boat ride on the lake. Try Sunday. It'll be sunnier and calmer.

A little rain from Hurricane Lee might spread into the Northeast Kingdom, but it won't amount to much. 

Hurricanes are big heat pumps, sending lots of warm air into the the upper atmosphere. Up there, it's like automobile exhaust on a cold winter day, when you see steam coming out of everybody's tail pipe.

The warm, wet air will create steam of sort, which will take the form of a large shield of high level overcast extending far outward from the center of Hurricane Lee.. There might be a little dim sun coming through that high overcast Saturday, but it probably won't be a bright sunny day. 

Meanwhile, yesterday's cold front finally flushed out the humid air we've been dealing with since around September 3, so it finally eels like early autumn. 

That trend will continue all weekend, with nice weather, except for the Hurricane Lee interruption on Saturday. 

For once, it also looks like we have a long period of mostly dry weather coming up. As it looks now, anyway, there might be jus a bit of light rain next Monday, then little or no rain for about a week after that.