Vermont Mostly Spared From Dangerous Line Of Storms, One More Humid, Stormy Day Then Relief

A badly damaged church in Rome, New York
after a tornado hit the city Tuesday.
Photo from Courtney Finnerty via 
Facebook. 

 A wildly dangerous intense line of storms crossed New York State Tuesday, causing tornadoes, wind damage and flooding. 

Vermont got pretty lucky. Just as that line of storms entered southern and central Vermont, it weakened a little, sparing us from major damage and flooding. 

Yes, there were problems. Trees came down in Danby, Springfield and a handful of other southern Vermont towns. 

Close to 5,000 Vermont homes and businesses lost electricity. Flood alerts popped up i parts of Addison and Rutland counties, and I'm sure there were some instances of relatively minor road and driveway damage.

But it was a close miss, considering what happened in neighboring New York. 

Radar images pretty much confirmed a tornado touchdowns in four places between Rome, New York and just west of Lake George. Winds gusted to 87 mph in nearby Glens Falls, New York. 

The tornado in Rome, New York caused major damage to the city's downtown and nearby neighborhoods. Two churches lost large sections of their roofs, the Capitol Theater in Rome had its windows blown out, and an iconic mural in town was destroyed. Photos on Facebook showed many homes, apartment buildings and businesses with collapsed walls, destroyed roofs and shattered windows

Winds gusted to 79 mph at nearby Griffiss Air Field, and a B-52 at the entrance to the Air Force base was blown several feet off its platform. 

So you see, Vermont really dodged a bullet. Let's see if we can do it again today

HOT AND STORMY

Clouds and an approaching cold front will temper the heat today in the northwestern part of Vermont this afternoon, but the southern and eastern half faces another hot one.

Lebanon, New Hampshire, just across the river from White River Junction, has now had an astounding 11 consecutive days with temperatures of 90 degrees or more. They might do it one more time today. 

Nights have been torturous in Vermont as well. Burlington has had 13 days in which the overnight low was 66 or above, with five of those nights not dipping below 70.

Today's the last day of it, but we'll need to deal with more storm and isolated flash flood risks.  

Some scattered showers and storms were beginning to form in New York State ahead of the cold front by mid-morning.

They'll grow stronger and more organized as they head into Vermont. The more south and east you go in Vermont today, the more likely you are to see locally strong to severe storms. That's because they'll be able to take advantage of more heat in the atmosphere by afternoon. That created more instability.

The risk is locally damaging winds, but most places won't see that. We'll probably see isolated reports of tree damage and downed power lines, especially in Vermont's southern most two counties.

The storms will be moving right along, which means chances are it won't rain for too long in any given spot.

But since the ground is sodden and unstable in many places in the northern half of the state, we could see a couple instances of renewed flash flooding, especially if any particular storm is a bit more persistent the others

There's still plenty of water in the atmosphere, so any storm can produce torrential rains. You know the drill by now, right?

THE RELIEF

The dry, refreshing air is lagging behind the cold front a bit. So we won't really begin to feel it until after midnight tonight, at least, and probably not until tomorrow morning. 

But don't worry, we're still in the path of an upcoming air flow from the northwest. That will bring dry air into Vermont for an extended stay - at least through Monday.   The coolest days appear to be tomorrow, and Sunday, when we get hit by a reinforcing shots of Canadian air. 

In between, Saturday might prove to be a warm one, possibly reaching well into the 80s in some spots. but the humidity will stay down regardless.  

The overall pattern does seems to suggest more air coming at us from the northwest   - at least occasionally - through the end of the month. So we might have more opportunities between now and the beginning of August 

But it won't be constant pleasant air. Some shots of humid, possibly hot air will intrude from time to time between cold fronts. It is summer, after all.