The Other Side Of Summer: Peak Of The Season Is Passed, But Not Autumn Yet!

The end of a brief downpour Sunday evening over
St. Albans, Vermont yielded this lovely sunset. 
Some people in Franklin County and the northern
Lake Champlain islands with a view to the east
were also treated to a spectacular, giant rainbow.

 It looks like we ended what I can "peak summer" on August 5.  That's when a long, long stretch of heat and humidity finally broke. 

Now, we're on what I call the other side of summer, the beginning of a long slide toward autumn. We can still get big heat waves. We can still endure insufferable humidity any time in the next few weeks. 

But at least slightly cooler air should keep making intrusions. It's a reminder that those store back to school sales, which started the day after school let out in June, should properly be beginning right about now. 

The weather here in Vermont since August 5 has varied from warm but not hot, to just kind of comfortable. We should expect the same stuff for at least a week.  Though humidity might make a comeback for awhile beginning toward the weekend. 

Right now, there's a chilly pool of air high overhead. The snow level over Vermont was expected to get as low as 7,500 feet above sea level last night and part of today, so it's that cold way up there. If we had tall mountains like out West, we'd have snow capped peaks this morning. 

The contrast between the relative warmth down here and the cold air up there creates instability. Which means quite a few scattered showers. That explains the very changeable weather we had Sunday. 

NEW YORK TORNADO?

As a side note, New York State just can't catch a break. I guess the Empire State is a new Tornado Alley.

This kind of weather pattern, the cold air aloft and the kinda warmish air down here, usually sets off a bunch of showers and garden-variety thunderstorms. Nothing severe or scary.

That's just what happened yesterday. Everybody in the region saw those mild-mannered showers and friendly little thunderstorms.

Except northeast of Utica, New York. One weird thunderstorm last evening got intense for some reason and started spinning, prompting a tornado warning in that region. I don't know whether a tornado actually touched down. Luckily, the storm weakened quite a bit not long after, ending the threat. That thunderstorm eventually entered southwestern Vermont as a run of the mill brief, harmless downpour. 

New York State has already had 27 tornadoes this year, shattering a previous record for most tornadoes in a year. Just on Friday, the 27th New York tornado of 2024 was confirmed. It was a weak EF-0 twister was confirmed along the New York State Thruway near New Paltz, in the lower Hudson Valley on Friday.

FORECAST

Back here in Vermont, we have those garden variety showers and storms to dodge again today. Since it's so cold aloft, don't be surprised to see a bit of pea-sized hail mixed in if you're caught in a somewhat stronger storm.  

The air aloft will tend to warm up a bit starting tomorrow, so showers should be much fewer and further between. For the rest of the week, at least through Friday, it's going to be a battle between high pressure trying to scoot in for fair weather and upper level cool air and low pressure trying to keep the showers going. 

Best guess is Wednesday will be the nicest day, while we might end up dodging showers again Thursday. 

Some sort of new storm system looks like it wants to come in next weekend, but it's unclear how that will play out. We'll probably end up with somewhat higher humidity and more showers. I have no idea yet if those showers will be heavy and plentiful, or just nuisance sprinkles. 

HURRICANE ERNESTO?

For starters, just to make you relax, this doesn't look like the following will be Vermont's problem. 

A disturbance is organizing in the middle of the tropical Atlantic, and it's widely forecasted to eventually become Hurricane Ernesto.

It's a threat to the Lesser Antilles and Puerto Rico.  It'll be moving westward at first. However, toward Wednesday or Thursday, what will be Ernesto will take a hard right turn, and head northward over the open Atlantic far, far to the east of the United States. It looks like it could become quite a powerful hurricane out there, though.