Heat Is Flushed Out, Humidity Not So Much, Weekend Storm/Flood Threat?

Roiling storm clouds over Milton, Vermont Thursday.

 Just as expected, some powerful thunderstorms formed over much of Vermont yesterday, with scattered reports of damage here and there.  

The worst of it was probably across the pond in Plattsburgh. The airport there measured gust of 61 mph.  There might have been higher gusts on those grounds, given the fact a small plane was flipped over and a few other planes moved around. 

Here in Vermont, it seems the strongest storms were in Chittenden County, where some trees came down in the North End of Burlington, along the lake in spots and in Charlotte.  The National Weather Service office in South Burlington reported a 48 mph gust. The storms extended into central Vermont, as Stowe reported some tree damage.

With that extremely humid air in place, the storms had a lot of moisture to work with and boy, did they take advantage of it! One report had an inch of rain in Burlington in just 15 minutes. We saw quite a bit of street flooding in parts of Burlington and South Burlington. 

Some local flash flooding was also reported in far southeastern Vermont. 

The good news is the heat advisory that had been in effect for three days has been dropped. It is a little cooler out there, and the humidity has diminished a little, too. At least in northern Vermont. 

We're by no means in the clear, though. We have more humid weather to get through, and the risk of storms and heavy rain/flooding through at least Sunday.  The weather is still going to be pretty active, folks! 

Let's take a walk through what's lined up next. 

TODAY

Dew points, a rough measure of how sticky it feels, were in the 60s this morning across Vermont. That's rather humid, but not quite as bad as this past week has been. 

Storm clouds loom over Colchester, Vermont
Thursday afternoon.

Dew points are in the more comfortable 50s up in southern Quebec and a little bit of that drier air might bleed briefly into far northern Vermont, which will be nice.

Yesterday's cold front is hung up in central New England. That means new rounds of showers and storms today, mostly in the the southern half of Vermont.

 Some of the storms could produce local deluges, and there might be some isolated instances of flash flooding.

The showers will be more scattered the more north you go, with not much excitement at all north of Route 2.

SATURDAY

That stalled front will start to lift back north through Vermont Saturday.  The humidity will become more and more noticeable during the day. But clouds will keep temperatures mostly in the 75 to 82 degree range, so the heat's not coming back. At least not here. It'll be torrid in the Mid-Atlantic states and Ohio Valley this weekend, but not really here. So that's good. 

The risk of showers and storms will last all day in the south, and there will be increasing chances through the day north. Saturday night looks pretty rainy, too.

With all the humidity around, we once again have the risk of heavy rainers in some of these showers and storms, so isolated flash flooding is again a risk.  This time statewide, not just in the south. 

SUNDAY

Depending on how things arrange themselves, Sunday could have its dangers. If that slowly moving front stalls across northern Vermont, the risk of flash floods would ramp up.  Storms will train along the front. You know what I mean, those proverbial boxcars following each other one after another. 

You could get inches of rain out of such a situation. 

Storms create chaotic looking skies over
St. Albans, Vermont late Thursday afternoon.

The computer models keep subtlety changing their minds on this, but the early bets are leaning toward the front stalling in far southern Quebec instead.

 If that happens, it would shift most of the flash flood risk across the border and not here. So stay tuned.

We're not completely out of the woods if the front stalls in Quebec. If it does, that puts all of Vermont in warm, soupy air. 

With a front and storm system approaching from the west, that would put us in play for strong, possibly severe storms. 

We'll have more on Sunday as we get closer to the event, stay tuned.

In central and southern Vermont, all this storminess might do more good than harm. Despite the storms yesterday, it's still pretty dry in those parts of the state, and more rain would come in handy. 

NEXT WEEK

Instead of one big heat blast, we're going to have pretty changeable weather.  Things could change, but Monday looks showery, Tuesday looks nice, Wednesday could be warmer and more humid with possible storms. 

But here's something you'll like. A cold front Wednesday or Wednesday night looks like it means business.  If that really does happen, we might get a nice, cool, dry blast from Canada. Bonus: There's far fewer wildfires up there than last year, so when we do get some refreshing air from Canada this summer, it's not full of smoke. 

However, even if we do get that nice cold front, hot air will be lurking not far to our south, and it would probably have an easy time oozing back into our neck of the woods.