Atmospheric Traffic Jam To Keep Vermont Occasionally Showery, Occasionally Smoky

On a quiet morning today in St. Albans, a rabbit
wonders if he should chomp on the flowers on either
side of him. 

 Mid August is peak season for summer doldrums in the atmosphere.

Most weather systems are in no hurry to get anywhere. Aside from hurricanes, almost all of these systems are relatively weak. And they sort of linger around instead of zipping right along.  

The classic August dog days for sure. 

In these cases, which happen almost every August, you end up with fairly long spells of vaguely unsettled, often kind of humid, warm but not super hot weather with an almost constant threat of a few hit or miss showers or storms. 

Which is our fate for the next several days. 

As an added bonus this year,  smoke from western and Canadian forest fires keeps recirculating in this lazy mix of atmospheric meandering. So we get some of that, too.

The upper level low pressure that gave us scattered showers and garden variety storms Sunday and Monday is still not far to our east. The north flow behind it is sucking occasional bursts of smoke down from Canada.

We saw somewhat smoky skies on an otherwise nice Tuesday. It looks kind of hazy again this morning, and a thicker batch of smoke looks like it's on its way from the north for Thursday. Most of the smoke seems to be aloft, so the air quality shouldn't get too awful. 

But the blue skies between showers will not be all that blue. 

The system to the east will also send weak weather disturbances running north to south today and tomorrow, so there's the ever present risk of a shower.  Today, the vast majority of us will stay dry. But a few lucky devils could get a fair amount of rain in some isolated downpours. That's because the showers are in no hurry to move in this blah weather pattern. 

Showers and some storms will be a bit more widespread Thursday, but again, not everyone gets wet. Despite the very lame northerly flow, humidity is starting to creep up. It won't be extreme, but dew points in the 60s starting today and lasting into the weekend don't make for refreshing air.

THE NEXT SLOTH

That little thing to our northeast will gradually move off, only to be replaced by another upper level storm system that will set up shop in over the Great Lakes starting Friday and going into early next week. 

This thing will only very slowly move east. The traffic jam will be made worse by soon-to-be Hurricane Ernesto.

It will become a powerful hurricane as it moves north in the Atlantic Ocean over the next several days far off the East Coast.

Ernesto will have no direct effects on us here in Vermont. But Ernesto will help maintain the atmospheric traffic jam.

As a result,  that Great Lakes disturbance acting like a sloth, moving ever so slowly across the Great Lakes  and Northeast through the early part or middle of next week. Kind of like an annoying lost, whiny tourist. 

Bottom line: A constant risk of shower and storms for several days in a row. 

It won't rain all the time, and I'm not especially worried about a lot of flooding, at least so far. Some of the downpours with this might end up being pretty heavy. And of course won't be in a hurry to move much. So that could cause some local problems here and there. Especially Sunday and Monday, when this thing should peak. 

Eventually, this sluggish pattern will shift gears into autumn. Sometime, probably in September, you'll really see weather systems step up the pace, and things will get much more changeable.