Surprisingly Heavy Downpours Sunday. Will We Do It Again Tuesday?

Heavy looking clouds near South Burlington, Vermont
Sunday afternoon portended some unexpectedly
heavy downpours in parts of northern Vermont. 
We might see some more heavy showers Tuesday. 

 UPDATE 10:30 a.m.:

Surprised again.

More rain showers are making inroads into what we thought was too-dry air for much activity.

So at least parts of Vermont should be more showery today than I indicated below.

It won't rain all the time.  But we are under some risk of showers today. Especially central and southern Vermont as it looks now.

It will probably be even a little cooler than first forecast because of the extra clouds associated with the showers

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

After the morning thunderstorms Sunday, I thought any showers we'd receive later in the day would be pretty scattered and probably not that impressive. 

If there were to be any downpours, they'd be really brief, and most of us would only get a little rain.

So much for that idea.

Some of those downpours late Sunday afternoon were remarkably heavy and persistent. 

They lacked the spark and crackle of the morning lightning storms. But much of northern Vermont received a half inch to an inch of rain Sunday. I'm sure a few spots had a little more than that. 

I didn't have my rain gauge out yet, silly me. But judging from the sudden river flowing through my property late Sunday afternoon, I wouldn't be surprised if I had more than an inch of rain.

By the way, the lightning Sunday morning had some sad consequences. Lightning struck a four unit apartment building in Morristown, Vermont.  The lightning caused a fire that left extensive damage and occupants of all four units displaced. 

The storms Sunday left things pretty squishy underfoot once again.  That leaves us at risk for perhaps some minor flooding Tuesday if things come together a certain way in the atmosphere.  It's a tricky forecast. It's all about temperature gradients and stubborn weather systems. 

We'll go through it here

TODAY

A cold front came through last night.  That's why we had all that rain.  The air got quite humid Sunday afternoon for this time of year.  The cold front provided enough lift to wring out that moisture. 

The front has sagged south into southern Vermont.  That will set up quite a temperature gradient today. Highs will only reach the mid 50s in many spots north of Route 2 but reach 70 in southeastern Vermont. 

The cool high pressure system is feeding in dry air in at least some layers of the atmosphere. The result will be a fair amount of clouds today, but very little in the way of showers. There might be some spot sprinkles here or there, but that's it. 

TONIGHT/TUESDAY

A surge of very warm, humid air will try to make a run at us. That cold front that came through last night will start to move north as a warm front. But that strong, stubborn cool high pressure over northern Quebec will push back against that surging muggy air.

That places Vermont square in the battleground. We'll mostly stay in the cooler air, but the humid air will try to go up and over that cooler air. The result could be more downpours.  

The question is where those heavy showers will set up. Will they repeat over the same area? How much rain will fall and where?

Those are questions that are tough to answer with this kind of weather pattern. The National Weather Service in South Burlington is going with a round of showers late tonight and tomorrow morning, and another one Tuesday evening. 

As always, forecasts are subject to change. 

Early bets have the heaviest rain in northern Vermont, but we'll see. NOAA's Weather Prediction Center has most of Vermont in a low level marginal risk zone for possible flooding.  If anything does materialize it looks like it will be pretty minor. 

So we're not about to re-live last summer's mess.

Better yet, the rain won't persist for days.  It looks drier and somewhat warmer once we get into midweek with only very low chances of light showers. Another storm system might affect us on the weekend. But computer models are all over the place on that one, so we have no idea yet now the weekend weather will shake out.