Helene Update: Death Toll Soars As Aid Tries To Come From All Over, Including Vermont

Debris that used to be peoples' homes and businesses 
completely cover the surface of this lake outside
of Asheville, North Carolina, 

 Horrifying damage videos and images have been emerging from western North Carolina all day as more and more people access the region to offer aid, and begin to help at least some of the people traumatized by what has been an incredible disaster.  

At last count this afternoon, at least 132 people have died in the storm. That includes 40 in the North Carolina county that includes Asheville, according to the Associated Press. 

At least 600 people are still regarded as missing, but the thought and the hope is that most of them are OK, but isolated by washed out roads and a lack of telephone and cell service. 

The AP continues:

"A crisis was unfolding in western North Carolina, where residents stranded by washed-out roads and a lack of power and cellular service line up Monday for fresh water and a chance to message loved ones days after the storm that they were alive."

Since the roads are in such bad shape, what aid is trickling in is being delivered via helicopter and even mules. 

Vermonters, no stranger to devastating floods and receiving aid from other states, are trying to return the favor. 

Members of Vermonts Urban Search and Rescue Team have been in Florida, combing through wrecked buildings to ensure they've reached everyone. They've performed swift water rescues near Pensacola and the Tampa Bay areas, WCAX reports. Through Sunday night, the team has searched through 41,000 buildings. 

When they get done in Florida, the team will move on to North Carolina.

About 50 people with Green Mountain Power are also in the region trying to help restore power. 

 

Environmental Group Sues State Of Vermont Over Greenhouse Emissions

The Conservation Law Foundation is suing Vermont
over its greenhouse emissions targets.

 An issue as wide ranging and ever present as climate change inevitably leads to one staple of American life: The lawsuit.  

Such as it is in Green Mountain State, where last week the environmental group Conservation Law Foundation last week sued Vermont because they said the state isn't doing enough to reduce carbon emissions. 

According to Seven Days: 

"The Conservation Law Foundation accuses the Agency of Natural Resources of not taking the steps necessary to ensure that Vermont is on track to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions as required under the state's 2020 Global Warming Solutions Act."

Basically, the CLF doesn't really believe Vermont Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore, who says the state is likely to meet its 2025 emissions target, which is 26 percent below the 2005 level.

Seven Days goes on to explain:

"The environmental group argues that this claim is based on modeling that is 'technically and mathematically insufficient.' Honest modeling 'shows that Vermont is not, and by a significant margin, on track to achieve the 2025 Reduction Requirement, the group claimed it its sued, filed on Tuesday in Washington County Superior Court."

CLF announced its intent to sue back in July, but the state didn't participate in settlement discussions. 

As is always the case when there's lawsuits, the state's response was terse. "We received notice of CLF's lawsuit and will review it. We intend to defend the Agency of Natural Resources," said Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark in a statement released shortly after the suit was announced.

The lawsuit by CLF says that Vermont should increase rules and incentives for people to install heat pumps and buy electric vehicles.

As it stands now, Vermont does have rules that require an increasing share of new cars and light trucks sold in Vermont need to be electric. By 2035 all new vehicles of this type must be EVs. 

Even Moore agrees that Vermont won't hit its 2030 targets for emissions reductions, with the regulations now in place. One tricky thing:  A LOT of Vermont homes are heated by fuel oil or wood, both of which of course release greenhouse gases. So how do you fix that?

That topic looks like it will come up in the next Vermont legislative session, which starts in January. 

Vermont - and pretty much everybody - should probably get used to climate related lawsuits, as I imagine they will be a dime a dozen. If they aren't already.

The big Vermont lawsuits will probably come as a result of a new law enacted this past spring. It's a climate "superfund" law. The first in the nation law would make fossil fuel and other industries pay for climate-related disasters that are costing the state Big Bucks.

The fossil fuel industry and others are guaranteed to sue to try and stop the law, lest other states follow suit. (Other states ARE looking at similar legislation).

If your career goal is to be an environmental lawyer, you're going to have a busy life.  

Worries Grow About Isolated North Carolina/Tennessee Wracked By Helene

 I, along with lots of other people, are especially worried about the people in the mountains of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. 

Western North Carolina's 
road network is virtually
destroyed by the Helene
flooding, as can be seen here 

It's isolated from the catastrophic flooding from Hurricane Helene. I'm not just talking about a few backwoods hollows in the mountains. It's virtually the whole region. The crisis is worsening, and I fear the death toll up there will skyrocket.

Much like Vermont, there's tons of narrow, winding mountain roads in the region leading to an unknown number of houses, trailers, camps, resorts and local tourist attractions.  The flooding and mudslides up there were cataclysmic. Since there's no communications and electricity working, and nobody can get up there, nobody knows how many people have passed away, or are dying while they wait.

"This is looking to be Buncombe County's own Hurricane Katrina," Avril Pinder, the manager of the county which includes Asheville, told the Washington Post.  

And this from CNN:

"Officials in Buncombe County, North Carolina have received more than a thousand missing person reports through an online form, County Manager Avril Pinder said Sunday, cautioning that figure likely includes duplicate submissions and that communications outages mean people are struggling to reach one another, 

Gov. Cooper echoed that, telling reporters in a news conference, 'We know that a lot of these people are simply out of communication and are OK,"

In other words, there are certainly not 1,000 people out there that have lost their lives. The vast majority - I hope - just can't be reached via roads or phone or any means. 

But that doesn't mean everybody. Social media posts described people being swept away and not found. As the Washington Post tells us:

"The toll from the storm is likely to rise. Taylor Jones, Buncombe County's director of emergency management, said there had been multiple fatalities there, though he declined to provide exact figures. He said officials were resorting to their 'mass fatality plan' and trying to notify relatives, a process complicated by service outages."

 At 10 a.m. today, officials at a press conference confirmed at least 10 deaths in Buncombe County, reports the Asheville Citizen Times. 

As of Sunday morning, Asheville, an absolutely lovely, artsy city of about 94,000 at the foot of the Smokey Mountains, is pretty much cut off.  (Think Burlington, Vermont, only somewhat bigger and generally more upscale).

Most roads in and out of the city were still impassable. True, only parts of the city were inundated and destroyed by flood waters. But the entire metro area had no electricity, no cell service, in internet, no water through Saturday and into today at least.  

A scene from western North Carolina this week that 
almost exactly matches a similar photo taken after
devastating floods in Lyndonville, Vermont on July 30.

One news crew from Raleigh found a long roundabout way out of Asheville via South Carolina, but the service station was almost out of gas and probably is by now.  

Crowds gathered at the public library in downtown Asheville Sunday morning because wifi was available there. It was perhaps the only place in town where wifi was reachable. It does look like a crew arrived in Asheville this afternoon to set up Starlink so that other people could access wifi.

Still, it might be two or more days before electricity is restored. Power lines are down everywhere, and the city's water treatment plant was badly damaged by the flooding. 

As of Sunday morning, water and food distribution sites had not yet been set up, mostly because of transportation problems caused by the flooding. Helicopters have begun dropping supplies in remote areas. 

Small towns outside of Asheville like Castle Rock, Old Fort, Roan Mountain and Swannanoa have been almost completely destroyed. Accessing them will be harder than getting into Asheville.

I've vacationed in this part of North Carolina in the past and absolutely loved it. I hope the death toll doesn't really go up, and I hope, like everyone, that adequate aid gets there right away. As bad as the flooding and the suffering from it was in Vermont in the summers of 2023 and 2024, North Carolina and surrounding areas are far worse. 

Vermont Weather Week Ahead: No Drama As A Reluctant Autumn Continues

Outflow from former Hurricane Helene sent these feathery
high clouds across the sky over St. Albans,
Vermont Saturday morning. Helene is having no
effect on us, and it's going to be a quiet weather week.

It's Sunday, time to look ahead at another autumn week.

With so much drama happening in the weather news, it's a relief to report that we in Vermont are involved in none of that. And that will continue through the week. 

This is going to go down as another September that will make the top five warmest list, at least as measured in Burlington. It's remarkable that only the very coldest hollows in the Northeast Kingdom and Adirondacks have had any frost yet as we head into October.

The opening days of the new month look like they'll be frost-free, too.

In Burlington, normal lows for the last couple of days of September are in the upper 40s. Remarkably again, it has stayed constantly above 50 degrees in Burlington since the morning of September 11. The next time it will go below 50 degrees will probably be Wednesday night, and then probably just barely. 

Despite the warmth, the fall foliage in Vermont is getting real, at least in the high elevations and in the Northeast Kingdom. There's color elsewhere, too, but it's a way from peak.  The color will continue to get better and better this week, and the viewing weather should be mostly good to great, too.

Since it's been a warm month, it's fitting that today and Monday, the final two days of September, 2024 will be on the balmy side, too. Many of us should make it into the low 70s today, under sunshine. Those of you who were in the usual autumn fog and low clouds this morning should see increasingly sunny skies. 

It'll probably get foggy again in many spots Monday morning. 

The weather maker of the week, such as it is, will be  cold front coming through Wednesday. This one isn't exactly a powerhouse.  The remnants of horrible Hurricane Helene are still swirling aimlessly in the Ohio Valley. The cold front will finally give that a swift kick eastward, out to sea.

Those remnants will pass by too far south of Vermont to have any effect. Instead, it looks like a line of showers will come through sometime Wednesday. Nothing heavy, as there's nothing in the atmosphere to gather a lot of moisture or create a lot of lift. 

Outflow from former Hurricane Helene sent these odd
looking cirrus clouds over Vermont Saturday. 

Plus, the contrast between the air ahead of the cold front and the air behind it isn't much.  So the cold front will be a yawner. 

But the air behind that front is a little cooler. It is autumn, after all. You can get days with highs in the 40s and low 50s and even snow flurries in early October.  That won't happen this time. 

Instead, we'll enjoy a second half of the week with daytime temperatures well into the 60s, and lows mostly in the frost-free 40s. 

 There's another little cold front that will zip through maybe Friday or Saturday, but that one will be even more lame than Wednesday's. Don't expect a whole lot of weather with that one.  Just some clouds and maybe a light shower or two to mix with the sunshine.  It'll just have the effect of adding a little extra interest to your autumn foliage photos. 

Eventually, as we head into October, those cold fronts will pack more and more oomph, so the warm weather will disappear for good until next spring. 

Helene Aftermath Remains Scary As Death Toll Rises, Crisis In Appalachians, Tens Of Billions In Damage

Flood destruction from Helene in North Carolina. 

 The death toll keeps rising from wide-ranging Hurricane Helene, with the latest figure being around 52 people. 

Unfortunately, this toll will rise, as searches are continuing. This is especially true up in North Carolina and parts of Tennessee, where flood waters haven't yet subsided enough to do any thorough searches. 

Electronic road signs on the edge of the worst disaster zone read "DO NOT TRAVEL IN WESTERN NC" 

Areas of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee are the scariest as of Saturday morning and early afternoon. Pretty much all the roads in the region are closed and in many cases destroyed. That makes it hard to rescue people, and sadly, find bodies.

There are plenty of unconfirmed reports of people who climbed onto roofs, only to be swept away when the structures collapsed beneath them. There are so many back roads and hollows that nobody can get to, so we don't know what's going on.

In Asheville, most of the city had no electricity, internet service, cell service or running water. The news out of the southern Appalachians is going to keep getting more and more grim in the coming days, I fear. 

Emergency responders were overwhelmed, too. Buncombe County 911 fielded 3,300 calls within eight hours on Friday.

Meanwhile, damage assessments are only beginning to be thought of.  Moody's Analytics said it expects anywhere from $15 billion to $26 billion in damages from Helene, reports the Associated Press. I've seen other estimates that are even higher. 

Rainfall totals were extreme, to say the least. Busick, North Carolina reported 39.58 inches. Mount Mitchell State Park has 24.5 inches, Sumatra, Florida 15.5 inches and Dillard, Georgia 14 inches. 

Atlanta had 11.12 inches with 48 hours, the biggest two day total since record keeping began there in 1878.  Asheville, North Carolina collected over 12 inches of rain. 

Some radar estimates indicate 30 to 40 inches of rain fell on some of the Smokey Mountains. 

At one point, 4.3 million homes and businesses were without power due to Helene. 

Helene made landfall late Thursday night in the Big Bend area of Florida, an area that has become pretty luckless in terms of hurricanes lately. It was the third hurricane to strike there in the past 13 months, with Helene being the strongest of the bunch.

Three of the last five hurricanes to strike the United States hit the Big Bend, according to The Weather Channel.  

 The rain and wind have tapered off. Aside from possible dam failures, the risk of new flooding has largely ended, as the remains of Helene have finally faded to something tame. 

There's no threat of a new hurricane strike on the United States for at least a week. But it's still hurricane season, so the threat of another one of these monsters isn't over yet for the year. 

Videos:

This video shows a house floating downstream and collapsing in Asheville, North Carolina. Click on this link to view, or click on image below if you see it. 

Next video shows all the challenges of even trying to get around Boone and Blowing Rock, in the mountains of North Carolina, during Friday's Helene calamity. Again, click on this link to view or if you see image below click on that.

Drone video captured a bridge collapsing Friday in Greene County, Tennessee on Friday. As always, click on this link to view or if you see image below, click on that. 

Biden Grants Disaster Approval For Vermont NEK Floods On July 30; FEMA Money In Question

President Biden just declared three Northeast Kingdom
counties disaster zones due to intense flash flooding
back on July 30.  This frees up assistance funds, but
that money might be slow in coming due to
federal funding shortfalls and delays. 

In a widely expected move,  President Joe Biden has declared three Vermont counties disaster areas due to catastrophic flooding in the Northeast Kingdom back on July 30.  

It seems like every time we turn around, part of Vermont is declared a disaster zone. 

This declaration involves Caledonia, Essex and Orleans counties affected by a rather localized but intense storm on the night of July 30. 

The overnight storm dumped over eight inches of rain on St. Johnsbury and surrounding areas in just a few hours, causing catastrophic flooding. 

This declaration, like the other ones declared this year in other parts of the state, means federal grants and low cost loans are becoming available to fix homes and businesses. 

Local municipalities, and the state government, along with some non-profit outfits might also get some funds on a cost-sharing basis to repair or replace damaged roads and other infrastructure. That money can also be used to build some mitigation projects to help fend off future disasters. 

Earlier this summer Lamoille County was declared a disaster area due to flash flooding and severe storms on June 23.  And of course seven Vermont counties were declare disaster zones due to July 10 and 11 flooding. 

NO FEMA MONEY?

The money for this newest disaster declaration - along with those two other declared for summer flooding in Vermont - might be slow in coming. 

Congress just passed - and Biden just signed - a bill for stopgap federal funding to keep the government lights on through December 20.  That prevented a partial government shutdown. 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, had requested additional funds in the stopgap bill to cope with all the disasters that have been happening this year around the nation. That money was not included in this bill. 

On top of everything else, Hurricane Helene hit right after this bill lacking FEMA money was signed into law. Helene will likely be the nation's biggest and most expensive disaster this year, so I don't know how everybody in Vermont and elsewhere who needs the assistance will receive it. Or it might take forever to arrive. 

FEMA has money left to meet immediate needs. They can swoop into places like Florida and North Carolina this week to ensure the very short term emergency needs of disaster victims. 

But those kind of loans and grants to help businesses get back on their feet or to towns that have run out of money after fixing destroyed roads will probably have to wait. 

Under these lack of funding circumstances, "They delay anything that is not an urgent spending necessary for protection of life and property, and that means people return to their homes slower," Peter Muller, a senior officer with the Managing Risks Projects at Pew Charitable Trusts told Marketplace. 

"It means that businesses will reopen slower. It also means that projects that are intended to reduce the impact of the next disaster are going to be delayed." 

Helene Death Toll Soars As Appalachians Awash In Catastrophic Flood, Extreme Florida Storm Surge Damage

Homes near Asheville, North Carolina flooded almost
to the roofs. If you look closely you see a person stranded
on one of the roofs. 

 As of late this afternoon the death toll from Hurricane Helene has soared to 25 amid the storm surges, wind, tornadoes and catastrophic flooding wrought by the wide ranging storm. 

Helene is no longer even a tropical storm, but was still producing intense flooding, some tornadoes, and gusty winds in the southern Appalachians and parts of the Midwest.  Meanwhile, the cleanup is only just beginning in Florida and Georgia. 

In Florida at least seven people died and  Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that number could rise as searchers sift through the debris of coastal communities destroyed by storm surges that in some cases reached 15 feet. 

The storm surge at Cedar Key, Florida topped ten feet, easily a record. Drone video shows numerous destroyed and washed out buildings in the town, with debris covering everything. 

The storm surge was expected to be more than 15 feet north of Cedar Key. However, there were no tidal gauges in that area to record how high the water got. There are reports of a 16-foot storm surge in Steinhatchee, Florida.  

Storm surges reached record levels of over seven feet in Tampa and Clearwater Beach. 

The action first shifted out of Florida late last night and moved into Georgia, where strong winds and intense flooding raked much of the state. Widespread flooding was reported in Atlanta. At one point, an on air meteorologist had to interrupt his report to dive into water to rescue a woman in a car flooded up to its window. 

 In Tennessee, about 50 staff and patients were stranded on the roof of a hospital as the building was "engulfed by extremely dangerous and rapidly moving water," according to Ballard Health.  High winds at first made helicopter rescues impossible, but later in the afternoon, helicopter crews had managed to retrieve everyone on the roof.

 Large sections on Interstate 40 in the Great Smokey Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee were closed by mudslides. 

Photos on social media showed water reaching the roofs of some homes in and near Asheville. Rainfall totals neared 20 inches over the past few days in some spots.  

At least nine tornadoes spun out of Helene, mostly in North Carolina and Virginia. A particularly strong one destroyed buildings and injured at least 15 people in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Tornado warnings from Helene were issued for places as far north as southern Ohio. 

Screen grab from WxChasing video shows extreme
storm surge destruction in Cedar Key, Florida. 

There's really too many instances of destruction to describe. In addition to the rising death toll, Helene has surely caused many billions of dollars in damage. It will probably be the most expensive United State disaster this year. 

What was Helene has merged with an upper level low and is still producing flooding rains and gusty winds through a wide area from Missouri to Indiana to North Carolina. The wind and rain should subside gradually over the next couple days.  

The tropics have gotten quite active. In what had been a quieter hurricane season than some experts anticipated, Helene introduce at least a mini-barrage of storms. 

Luckily, two that have formed do not appear to pose much danger. Hurricane Isaac, way out in the Atlantic Ocean about half way between Virginia and Portugal, has winds of 85 mph. It will soon move northeastward into colder waters in the middle of nowhere and slowly die.

Tropical Storm Joyce with top winds of 50 mph growing more organized far northeast of the Windward Islands. This storm is expected to run into a buzzsaw of dry air and hostile upper level winds and will weaken as it curves northward away from any land threats.

Another disturbance having recently moved off the African coast, is moving westward over the eastern Atlantic and could develop, maybe. 

The ominous threat is a possible new tropical storm that could form in the Caribbean or southern Gulf of Mexico next week. Gawd knows what that will do.

 Videos:

Asheville, Nor....   Click on this link to view or if you see the image below, click on that. 

A daring rescue of a man and his dog from a sinking sailboat in the Gulf of Mexico as Hurricane Helene raged. Again, click on this link to view or click on image below if you see it. 

Jumpy video, but scary. Video taken by one of the more than 50 people stranded on a Tennessee hospital roof by swift water from a flooding river. Click on this link or click on image below if you see it. 

Drenching Vermont Rains Blunted A Building Dry Spell

A rainy September Thursday in downtown St. Albans,
Vermont. Drenching rains ended a dry spell in
the Green Mountain State that lasted more than two weeks. 

 The rainstorm that swept Vermont Wednesday and especially Thursday will go a long way toward blunting conditions that were threatening to get too dry. 

The latest weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, released Thursday, put the southern third to half of Vermont in the "abnormally dry' category, a precursor to drought.  Soil moistures were still regarded as adequate in northern and central Vermont. 

Drought was physically on our doorstep, too. A stripe of central New Hampshire all the way to the Connecticut River was declared in "moderate" drought.

The rain this week ended a 16-day dry spell for most of the Green Mountain State. 

All of Vermont saw rain but unfortunately for southern Vermont, the heaviest of it fell mostly in the north. Pretty much all of the state saw at least an inch of rain, except much of the southernmost two counties. 

The most rain reported by far was in Johnson, with 3.7 inches. The downpours might have made some residents of the flood prone town nervous, but they were in absolutely no danger. The Lamoille River in Johnson rose from a very low two feet deep or so to a harmless 4.5 feet. That, by the way is more than nine feet below minor flood stage. 

Elsewhere, Worcester has 2.28 inches and Jericho reported 2.26.  Burlington totaled out at 1.81 inches. Here in St. Albans, I had a solid 1.1 inches of new rain, 

The rain this week in Vermont caused a few problems, mostly on the roads. People have apparently forgotten how to drive on the roads, so there were a few slide offs and accidents. Two separate crashes briefly closed sections of Interstate 89 near Colchester and a little south of St. Albans on Thursday. 

Looking ahead, there's not much rain in the forecast for several days, so I'm glad the landscape had a chance to drink up on Thursday.   The next chance of rain is probably on Tuesday night or Wednesday. Early guesses is we could get a meh total of about a half inch of rain around then. 

The remnants of deadly Hurricane Helene are still expected to have no effect on us here in Vermont .

It'll stay on the warm side through Tuesday. It will cool off thereafter, but I still so far don't see  any signs of widespread frost, which we can easily get this time of year.  

Helene Smashed Ashore Last Night With 140 MPH Winds, Now We Wait On Casuality/Damage Assessments

Screen grab from television station KSDK of a destructive
storm surge from Hurricane Helene plowing into
buildings in Cedar Key, Florida last night. 

 As of early this morning, at least three people have died in Hurricane Helene, and that number is expected to rise as people begin to look around once dawn breaks on trashed Florida and Georgia.

The disaster is ongoing. As of the pre-dawn hours, Helene was well inland with top sustained winds down to 70 mph. 

But it was unleashing torrents of rain and the likelihood of catastrophic flooding in parts of Georgia and the western Carolinas. 

The National Hurricane Center said Helene made landfall at 11:10 EDT time Thursday as expected just east of the mouth of the Aucilla River in Florida's Big Bend region. That's about 45 miles east, southeast of Tallahassee.  It was a Category 4 with top winds of 140 mph. 

On the bright side, Tallahassee just barely missed the worst of the winds from Helene as the eyewall passed a smidge east of town.  There's a lot of trees down and the power is out in the city, but the wind wasn't strong enough to blow houses and buildings apart, as had been feared. Some homes have been damaged in Tallahassee by falling trees.

Here's one sign that climate change might be making at least some hurricanes stronger and more dangerous:  Since 2017, eight Category 4 or 5 hurricanes have hit the United States, with seven of them in the continental U.S. That's as many Cat 4s and 5s in the previous 57 years, reports hurricane expert Jeff Masters. 

Videos beginning to emerge from Florida show deep storm surge flooding in Steinhatchee and numerous other places. The Weather Channel showed video of the storm surge in Cedar Key nearly reaching some roofs. Another video shows severe building damage in Lee, Florida.

The storm surge flooding extended well south of where Helene came ashore, causing a lot of damage in places like Tampa and Fort Myers Beach. The surge in Tampa and Clearwater reached record highs. 

That Fort Myers Beach was so damaged and flooded is especially sad since that community was absolutely devastated by Hurricane Ian in 2022 and was just starting to fully come back from that disaster.  At least this time, the destruction at Fort Myers Beach isn't nearly as bad as it was with Ian. 

Yet another video shows a storm surge blasting into the interior of a St. Petersburg Beach home. 

Further north and inland, water rescues were ongoing in interior Georgia and western North Carolina. Asheville, North Carolina was awash in severe flooding from heavy rain even before the core of Helene arrived early today. 

Weather radar shows the eye of Hurricane Helene approaching
northwest Florida last evening. 

Video showed rescuers pulling dozens of people from a flooded apartment complex in Atlanta, Georgia. In a very close call, a woman, baby and dogs were stuck atop a flooded car near Atlanta amid rushing waters for about an hour, but rescuers finally got them to safety. 

Both Atlanta and Asheville were under a rare flash flood emergency early this morning, which is the most dire of this type of warning. As of 7 a.m. there were unconfirmed reports of deaths and injuries around Atlanta.  There have already been reports of at least 16 inches of rain in the mountains of North Carolina.

As of 6 a.m. about 3.2 million customers were without electricity in the Southeast and that number was growing. 

Helene will continue to grind away at the Southeast today with torrential rains, floods and gusty, sometimes damaging winds. High wind warnings have now been extended as far north as Indianapolis, Indiana, where gusts are expected to reach at least 60 mph today.

Helene will fade away and merge with an upper level low over the mid-South later today and tomorrow. That complex could continue to cause flooding rains for the next couple days. 

Since dawn is just breaking in the hurricane zone as I write this early Friday morning, details are still sketchy, of course. I'm sure there will be more updates as the day goes by. 

As has been stated before, the remains of Helene will not affect us here in Vermont. 

Meanwhile, hurricane experts are beginning to watch another disturbance off the coast of Mexico which could eventually become yet another tropical storm or hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico in about a week or so. 

Hurricane Helene Will Be Category 4 Monster At Landfall Later This Evening

Satellite photo of Hurricane Helene as of around 5 p.m.
today is a classic example of an extremely powerful
and strengthening hurricane. Note the small eye with
the nearly perfectly circular core. 

Hurricane Helene, which was steadily getting stronger last night and this morning, picked up the pace of its growing power this afternoon, and that will make the scary forecast scenarios come true.

As of 5 p.m. Hurricane Helene had top winds of 125 mph, up from 105 mph late this morning. It's now a Category 3 storm. 

Oops. That just got outdated in the middle writing this. As of 6:30, winds had increased to 130 mph, so now Helene is a category 4 storm. 

All signs point toward more fast strengthening in the few hours it has left over water. 

The National Hurricane Center noted that the eye of the storm has gotten smaller, the powerful thunderstorms around the eye have wrapped fully around that eye, and the storm is over a perfect environment to keep getting more monstrous. 

Satellite photos of Helene late this afternoon showed a perfectly symmetrical core around a well-defined eye. That's a real sign it's getting stronger. 

NHC expects Helene to be possibly a high end a category 4 storm at landfall with perhaps top winds of 145 to 156 mph.

All the awful things we've been talking about with Helene are about to happen. It's already starting with storm surges, tornadoes ahead of the storm and flooding well ahead of the storm up in the southern Appalachians.  

Gusty winds and rain bands are already sweeping Florida. By late afternoon, 130,000 customers were without power already. That will increase exponentially overnight in Florida, Georgia and beyond. 

The storm surges have begun well ahead of Helene, which is ominous. It reminds me of Hurricane Ike in Texas back in September, 2008.  Flooding from high tides began a good 12 hours before the storm hit. Then, when the true center of storm arrived, Bolivar Peninsula was pretty much swept clean by the storm surge. 

A total of 113 people died in Hurricane Ike, which wasn't even as strong as Helene is. 

The storm surge in northwestern Florida, especially in and around Apalachee Bay, is still expected to be up to 20 feet. There are a few people there in the path of the surge that we suspect haven't evacuated, with is a terrible move.  

The Taylor County sheriff's office is reportedly asking those who stay behind to write their name and date of birth on their arm with a permanent marker so their body can be identified after the storm. 

Helene has a forward motion of 23 mph. That's awfully fast for a Gulf of Mexico hurricane. That might make people in and near the area where Helene comes ashore get taken by surprise. The scenario means winds in the Helene target zone probably won't be all that bad into this evening. Then all of a sudden all hell will break loose.

As of 6 p.m., Helene was about 165 miles or so south of Tallahassee. At 6 p.m. winds in that city were from the northeast at 12 gusting to 22 mph. 

Very tame. Within a few hours from now, those breezes will become frightening gales gusting to 110 mph or more. 

Meanwhile, the storm is so large in area that western Florida was being battered by high winds even though the storm is centered 100 miles or more offshore. Sarasota, Florida was gusting to 67 mph as of 6 p.m. Most other southwestern and western Florida cities were seeing winds gusting over 50 mph

The strongest winds overnight will occur in a fairly narrow swath through Tallahassee, then Macon, Georgia and just to the east of Atlanta. 

Macon, far from the coast, can expect wind gusts to 90 mph late tonight and tomorrow. Areas east of Atlanta could easily see gusts approach 80 mph.

Expected high wind forecasts keep punching further and further inland. A high wind warning is now up for southeastern Kentucky, where expected gusts will be over 60 mph. Wind advisories for gusts to 50 mph now extend all the way to northwestern Indiana and eastern Illinois. 

The forecast hasn't changed for the cataclysmic flooding expected in the southern Appalachians. 

 This post probably comes off as scattered and disorganized. It is. This, more than most hurricanes I remember, has so many rapidly changing, moving, wide ranging parts and it's hard to keep straight. 

All I know is godspeed to the people in the path of Hurricane Helene. It's going to be a long, tragic night in Florida, Georgia and the southern Appalachians tonight. And that will continue through Friday. 

Getting Real In Florida: Helene Keeps Strengthening, Damage Already Reported

Satellite view of Hurricane Helene shortly
before noon today

 The all-important 11 a.m. update on Helene from the National Hurricane Center shows the storm continuing to strengthen as expected on its crash course toward landfall in northwest Florida this evening.  

Highest sustained winds have steadily increased from 90 mph at 4 a.m to 105 mph as of 11 a.m. We know Hurricane Helene will keep strengthening until landfall, but by how much?

The signs remain ominous. Satellite photos of the storm late this morning show it looking more symmetrical and circular than it did earlier today. 

Increasingly intense thunderstorms are getting better at wrapping fully around Helene's eye. The storm is about to move over the most favorable spot for strengthening on its path to the coast.

At this point, it doesn't matter a whole lot whether Hurricane Helene is a Category 3 (sustained winds of 111 to 129 mph) or a Category 4 (winds at 130 to 156 mph) at landfall. 

STORM SURGE

It's such a large storm that its biggest weapon through landfall is storm surge. This hurricane is covering a bigger area in the Gulf of Mexico than almost any storm there in history. That'll enable it to grab a lot of ocean water and push it onshore. 

That's why forecasters and are so worried that the storm surge in and near Florida's Big Bend area.  

Storm surges were already starting to affect the western coast of Florida by late morning. Worsening storm surges have been reported in Key West and Sarasota and near Tampa. Ocean water was also beginning to rise in the expected landfall zone as of late morning. 

Gov. Ron DeSantis this morning issued a last ditch plea for those who have not evacuated from the expected worst storm surge zone northwest Florida to do so now if not sooner, so to speak. There was still a short window of opportunity to flee ahead of what keeps being described as an "unsurvivable" storm surge.

DeSantis and others advised people not to flee north to Georgia, which will have its own problems with destructive winds and severe flooding.  Probably the best bet would be to head west toward Mississippi and Alabama, where the effects of the storm shouldn't be nearly as severe. 

WIND

So far tropical storm force winds have already started raking western Florida. Some outer rain bands have produced gusts to at least 50 mph. This is just a tiny foretaste of what's to come.

As we mentioned yesterday, Helene's size and fast forward pace will ensure high winds cover an enormous amount of real estate.

Near where Helene comes ashore, many homes and businesses will have their roofs blown off. Exterior walls could collapse under the weight of the wind, too. 

The winds dozens and hundreds of miles inland might not be catastrophic as what will happen along the coast. But the giant and highly populated parts of the Southeast will see widespread tree and power line damage. Plus a lot of houses and other buildings will suffer serious damage from trees falling on them. 

Winds in the rather forested Atlanta metro region and Asheville, North Carolina could gust to 65 mph.  Gusts will probably reach hurricane force in the higher elevations often southern Appalachians

Wind advisories are in effect for places as far inland from the Gulf of Mexico as southern Indiana, where gusts could reach 55 mph on Friday.

Power repair crews from across the nation are staging in and near the storm zone, ready to start getting the lights back on after the storm. But the process in many areas could take weeks. 

EXTREME FLOODING

Destructive inland flooding almost always happens after a hurricane makes landfall. But the flooding in this case looks like it will be much, much worse than usual. 

The downpours that started in the southern Appalachians yesterday due to a "predecessor rain event" has already caused one in 100 year type flooding in western North Carolina, the mountains of South Carolina and eastern Tennessee.

Asheville, North Carolina has already had more than seven inches of rain since Wednesday morning, and that total could easily double by the time the storm is done. 

Some areas in the southern Appalachians have already received up to ten inches of rain, and another incredible 15 to 20 inches could fall in some spots. 

NOAA's Weather Prediction Center has defined a high risk zone for severe flooding covering an area larger than I've ever seen before. It comprises a broad band from northwest Florida, through the length of central Georgia including Atlanta, and covering western North Carolina. 

These high risk designations are relatively rare to begin with. A high risk is declared on only about four percent of the days in a year. But high risk days comprise a third of all annual flood deaths and perhaps 80 percent of all flood related damage.

On top of all the flooding, numerous landslides are also likely in the southern Appalachians. 

RIPPLE EFFECTS

 The effects of Helene are already being felt far and wide. The number of canceled flights as of midmorning was around 1,000 and growing. 

Tampa International St. Pete-Clearwater International  and Tallahassee International airports are all shut down today. More might be added to the list. 

Funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency is depleted because the nation has had so many weather and climate disasters this year. This storm will be extraordinarily expensive, and cover a much wider area than most calamities. 

Recovery will be slow to say the least. To the point that it will probably have a slight but real drag on the U.S. economy.

 

Helene Continues Dangerous March Toward Florida Coast

Projected path of Hurricane Helene today and tonight.
That sort of yellow shading is where tropical storm
force winds are occurring. These were already starting
to brush southwest Florida before dawn. It's going
to be a long day in Florida. 

 Doing a quick update on dangerous Hurricane Helene early this morning ahead of an appointment, and I'll do a more comprehensive look at it when I'm back later this morning.  

The overall forecast for Hurricane Helene hasn't changed much overnight. As of 4 a.m. top winds with the storm were at 90 mph. 

The bottom line is Hurricane Helene is still expected to be a catastrophic major hurricane before and during its landfall in northwest Florida this evening, and continuing on into Friday with likely wild, extremely dangerous flooding and landslides in the southern Appalachians.

Storm surges are still expected to reach 20 feet above normal water levels in parts of coastal northwest Florida. 

I hope people have left this area. That kind of storm surge, combined with battering waves and extreme winds, is not survivable. 

Helene's forward speed is fast, so destructive winds will extend all the way inland to western North Carolina where a rare tropical storm warning is in effect.  

The weather is already kind of rough in much of Florida with rain bands from Helene. Tropical storm force winds were starting to sweep through coastal southwest Florida before dawn today. 

The game we're playing today is looking/hoping for ways to blunt Helene's potential power.  The more powerful the winds, the more destructive the storm, including its cataclysmic storm surge. 

Helene will move over a prime atmosphere to strengthen today. It'll be over record warm water and in a moist environment with little in the way of the type of upper level winds that would inhibit the storm's towering thunderstorms. 

That's why it's expected to strengthen quickly. 

Two things are sort of working to hopefully prevent Helene from reaching a most serious high end Category 4 or even Category 5.  It's moving forward so fast that it will run out of time to keep strengthening before it hits land.

Another interesting thing is its eyewall early this morning, according to the National Hurricane Center. The eyewall is the most intense part of the storm. It's the ring of intense storms that surround the calm eye. 

Helene actually had two concentric eyewalls early today.  That could temporarily slow its strengthening. No guarantees, but we'll see.   

Even if Helene miraculously falls a little short of its forecast strength (don't count on it!), it's simply too late for anything to fall apart to prevent a major, life threatening disaster for swaths of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and eastern Tennessee. 

OTHER STORMS

Way out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Tropical Storm Isaac has formed. It's in the middle of nowhere, about a third of the way between North Carolina and Portugal.

It formed kind of far north for a tropical storm, and might even become a hurricane for a time. Eventually, as it heads east or northeast, Isaac will move over colder water and sputter out. It doesn't look like much of a threat to land. 

Another disturbance out there, halfway between Africa and the Lesser Antilles, has a very good chance of soon becoming Tropical Storm Joyce.  It's too soon to say what, if any effect wannabe Joyce will have on any land areas. 

In the eastern Pacific, we have weird Tropical Storm John, soon to be Hurricane John.

It's weird because Hurricane John slammed into Mexico north of Acapulco a few days ago, then dissipated inland. But its remnants moved back over very warm Pacific Ocean water and quickly redeveloped. It's now expected to come ashore again in very roughly the same general area it did before.

The result will be catastrophic flash flooding and mudslides now through the end of the week in the Mexican states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Michoacan, according to the National Hurricane Center. 

 

Wednesday Evening Helene Update: Even Worse Than I Told You Earlier Today

Hurricane Helene already looking like a monster in the
southern Gulf of Mexico early this evening. This
is increasingly looking like it will be a catastrophic
storm for Florida and many other parts of 
the Southeast now through Friday 

Earlier today, I told you that the news about Hurricane Helene is pretty much all bad.

As of this evening, the news is even worse. This will be a historic storm. 

Latest forecasts have Hurricane Helene getting even stronger at landfall than earlier predicted. Forecasts for the destructive storm surges are worse, too.

As of late afternoon, top winds in Hurricane Helene had increased a bit to 85 mph. The next 24 hours will probably bring a huge transition in the storm to an absolute monster.  

Top sustained winds at this time tomorrow could be up to 140 mph with higher gusts. 

That's right around the fastest observers have seen a hurricane intensity in the Gulf of Mexico. Helene, like super hurricane Michael that hit the same general area in 2018, could well still be getting stronger right until it slams into the coast of northwest Florida Thursday evening. 

The storm surge forecast with Hurricane Helene is insane. Water could rise up to 20 feet above normal levels along the northwestern coast of Florida, which promises to cause massive, catastrophic destruction.

I hope everybody who's been told to evacuate the storm surge zone has done so, or will do so tonight. A storm surge like that is not survivable. 

The entire west and Gulf coasts of Florida will get hit by crushing storm surges. Even in southwest Florida, which is pretty far away from where Helene will come ashore. Record storm surges are expected across most of the Florida panhandle and down the coast all the way to Tampa. 

Usually, hurricane winds diminish quickly once the storm moves inland. 

But as noted in this morning's post, I talked about how the fast forward motion of Hurricane Helene would allow damaging winds to go much further inland than most hurricanes can muster. That prospect is even worse now. With top winds expected to be even stronger than earlier forecast at landfall, Helene will be able to maintain tropical force winds all the way to Asheville, North Carolina and a little beyond that. 

Tallahassee, Florida's state capitol, is a little inland and normally a little bit protected from the worst of hurricane winds, isn't so protected this time.

Depending on the exact track of Helene, that city could be devastated. In any event, areas hit by the core of Helene can expect extreme damage, with areas unlivable for weeks or months. Power outages will last weeks, too. 

The tropical storm watches for places as far north as northern Georgia and western parts of the Carolinas have been upgraded to warnings. Winds could gust to 70 mph at inland cities like Atlanta and Asheville, which is highly unusual for a tropical system. Full-fledged hurricane warnings extend as far inland as Macon, Georgia, which is 200 miles from the Gulf Coast. 

Inland flooding also continues to look catastrophic. It's been raining like hell today in much of the Southeast and southern Appalachians.  The intense rains from Helene will trigger massive flash floods and some mudslides through Georgia, and much of the Carolinas, eastern Tennessee and southwest Virginia. 

Here in Vermont, given the horrors we've seen from flooding this year, we are justified in calling ourselves lucky with Helene. This  hurricane will have pretty much no effect on the Green Mountain State. Maybe a few high, thin clouds this weekend. Maybe some very briefly moderate rain toward the middle of next week. That's it.

Back down in the hurricane zone, the only way we're going to avoid a huge loss of life is if everyone heeds evacuation warnings, and follows the advice of meteorologists and emergency managers.

If you know anyone who is in the path of Hurricane Helene and they're saying, "Meh, we've been through a lot of hurricanes, so we're not worried." 

Tell them to worry. A lot. This is no run-of-the-mill hurricane. 

It's Pretty Much All Bad News With Hurricane Helene

Satellite view of Hurricane Helene entering the southern
Gulf of Mexico early this afternoon. It's a monster,
and getting stronger 

Hurricane Helene is about to become the nation's next multi-billion dollar disaster. 

As of late this morning, Helene, freshly upgraded from a tropical storm to a hurricane with top winds of 80 mph, was scooting northward past Cancun, Mexico and heading into a storm-welcoming Gulf of Mexico. 

Florida, of course, is most under the gun, since Helene is expected to make landfall sometime Thursday evening in the Big Bend area.

That's the part of northwest Florida that curves from the Gulf Coast panhandle southward to start forming the main Florida peninsula.

 It's not just that estimated landfall point that's in danger. This punishing storm is about to cause widespread destruction throughout much of the Southeast.

Everything about this storm so far is bad news, frankly.

WHY IT'S BAD

All the ingredients are there for Helene to explode in strength today and tonight as it makes its way northward through the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Water temperatures are at record high levels. The hotter the water, the better chances that a hurricane can grow strong, given the right atmospheric conditions.

Those atmospheric conditions are just right to nurture this rapidly growing hurricane.  Upper level winds are light, so there's nothing up there to disrupt the swirling thunderstorms that construct the storm. 

Sometimes, areas of dry air just outside a hurricanes' circulation gets pulled into the storm, weakening it. There's really no drier air surrounding Helene to threaten its growth rate. 

High above Helene is something called upper level divergence.  That means air is moving outward away from the storm and its path. That allows air in Helene to rise into all the more tall thunderstorms, helping it get stronger. 

This combination of factors are conspiring to make Helene a true, dreadful danger, with a bunch of hazards, some of which we explain next:

STORM SURGE

Storm surges are usually the most destructive part of a hurricane. The ocean, fortified with huge, battering waves, invades coastal communities with feet of water.  Pretty much everything in their path is destroyed, and if you're caught in a hurricane storm surge, chances are you won't survive. 

That's why there's so many evacuations going on in coastal western and northern Florida. Mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders are in effect in large swaths of 13 Florida counties, including heavily populated Sarasota and Charlotte counties. 

The path, size and strength of Helene are all conspiring to make a near worst case scenario for storm surges in Florida. 

Hurricane Helene's projected path as of noon today.
Note that the storm's effects will be felt far
beyond the center of its path.

Helene is large in area, so it can stir up and push a lot of Gulf Water toward the coast. 

Where and just east of where Helene comes ashore, the storm surge could go as high as 15 feet. Which is really bad considering the land doesn't rise much in elevation near the shoreline. 

Helene will go west of Tampa, meaning the winds will come from the south.  Those winds, along with the coastline's orientation, will shove a LOT of water up into Tampa Bay. 

Storm surges there are expected to be in the five to eight foot range, which would flood thousands of buildings. 

Storm surge warnings are up for the entire west coast of Florida. That involves an incredible amount of property, so just the storm surge, never mind anything else, could cause $1 billion or more in damage. 

WIND

Top winds with Hurricane Helene at landfall could be 125 mph or greater - a major Category 3 storm. There's a fairly decent chance that Helene's rapid intensification could over-perform, creating a Category 4 storm with winds of 130 to 156 mph.  

There's even a quite low but not zero chance it could turn into a Category 5 - the worst kind - with winds of at least 157 mph. 

Helen's large size will also mean strong, damaging winds will hit an unusually large area for a hurricane.

As the Washington Post explains:

"....its size could be in the top 10 percent of hurricanes observed in the region, according to the National Hurricane Center. That means its surge and wind impacts will be greater more more wide-reaching that typical.

Tropical storm force winds could extend more than 200 miles from the center, and tropical storm warnings even extend into Miami, far from where Helene will come ashore. Tropical storm watches also stretch into coastal Georgia and South Carolina.

Helene is forecast to barrel inland at high speeds, allowing severe winds to penetrate much farther inland than typical for a hurricane across eastern Georgia. It could be Georgia's most serious weather event in quite awhile, with gusts of 80 to 90 mph possible over southeastern portions of the state."

Damaging winds will probably punch even further north. Just before noon, tropical storm watches were extended northward to  encompassing all of Georgia, including metro Atlanta,  and the high elevations of the western Carolinas. 

All this areas could see winds of 58 to as much as 80 mph with locally higher gusts. Soggy ground combined with the high winds will make lots of trees in these heavily forested areas topple. Some of them will surely crush parts or all of houses, buildings, power lines and other structures.  

FLOODING

Intense inland flooding looks inevitable through huge swaths of Florida, Georgia and the southern Appalachians. 

Helene as of noon wasn't even anywhere close to Georgia and the southern Appalachians and already serious flooding is breaking out there. 

They're experiencing a classic and dangerous predecessor rain event or PRE.  These happen when deep moisture is drawn far northward from the developing hurricane and that moisture smacks into a stalled weather front or mountains or a combination. These usually happen more or less 500 or more miles north often actual hurricane.  

The southern Appalachians have already had two to five inches of rain in the past couple of day, and expect downpours that will deposit another three to six inches of rain for the rest of the day. Flash flooding was already ongoing near the Tennessee/North Carolina border this morning, and it will get worse this afternoon.

Then, by Thursday and Friday, the actual storm center of Helene will pass through the region. By later Friday, six inches to as much as a foot of rain, possibly with locally higher amounts will drown the southern Appalachians, This will cause catastrophic flash floods in the steep terrain, along with landslides.

You surely remember how this type of downpour, with water rushing off of Vermont's steep mountains, caused the catastrophic floods in the summers of 2023 and 2024.  The southern Appalachians will experience something like that, except maybe even worse. 

TORNADOES

Hurricanes that come ashore often spin off a number of tornadoes, especially near and east of the storm track.  Florida, eastern Georgia and the Carolinas are under a tornado threat Thursday and Friday. 

BOTTOM LINE

Unless something unexpected happens, this is frankly a mess.  The forecasts have been consistent, and there's not a lot of spread in the various computer models.  Sure, there will be surprises, but nobody should be shocked that Helene will create yet another huge path of destruction. 

Climate change, by the way, isn't "causing" Helene. But the extreme heat content of the Gulf of Mexico waters, likely brought on by climate change, are contributing to making this hurricane worse than it would otherwise be.

Also, a warmer world can carry more atmospheric moisture than a cooler world.  With or without climate change, Helene would cause a lot of flooding in the Southeast.  But perhaps because of climate change, the flooding could be more intense than if the same weather situation hit decades ago.

I'm really hoping the millions of people caught in the crosshairs of this storm heed all evacuation warnings, and do what emergency managers tell them to do. 

This one is a pretty scary one, folks.

 

No Hurricane Helene In Vermont, But Surprisingly Drenching Rain Beginning

Clouds streaming into the skies over Lake Champlain
near Burlington, Vermont Tuesday evening heralded
our current brief but needed spell of wet weather.

It almost seemed odd this morning. 

I awoke to a dark and rainy and dreary start to the day here in Vermont, something we haven't seen in a long, long time. 

At least as recorded in Burlington, a 16 day streak with no measurable precipitation has come to end. 

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington ranks this as the 20th longest dry streak in records dating back to the 1880s.

The longest dry streak, for those of you keeping track, is 52 days from April 9 to June 6, 1903. 

Now, we're in a wet spell, and forecasters have greatly increased the amount of rain we'll get out of this. A few days ago, I thought this week's rain would only amount to maybe half inch or less. Now, we're expected a total of one to two inches through tomorrow, with locally higher amounts.

This, without any moisture assistance from soon-to-be Hurricane Helene, which still looks like it won't have much of an effect on us here in the Green Mountain State.

PROGRAM NOTE: I'll have a separate post on Helene later this morning. There's a LOT to talk about with Helene, and unfortunately it's pretty much all really bad news. 

For now, on to Vermont's blissfully wet situation. Unlike in the Helene zone of the southeastern United States, the rain coming to the Green Mountain State will do far more good than harm. 

TODAY

An initial cluster of rain and shower has been moving Vermont this morning, with central and northern Vermont seeing the most.  I am a little surprised by amounts of around a third of an inch so far. I anticipated some lighter stuff today.

The rain was beginning to move on, so we'll have a drier break later this morning and much of this afternoon. By "drier" I mean little or no rain during that period. But it still will be cloudy, kind of raw and breezy, with the most wind in the Champlain Valley. 

This will belated be the first truly chilly autumn day, with highs only within a few degrees of 60, all made to feel cooler by the clouds and winds. It's not at all unusual to have this kind of weather in late September. The lowest high temperature on record on this date in Burlington is 48 back in 1925, so we're not anywhere near the realm of true autumn cold.

Plus, we have more pretty warm weather on the way

Before we get there, the rain will move back in tonight. 

TONIGHT/THURSDAY MORNING

That high pressure system in southeast Canada that's been helping to keep us dry for so long is helping to play a part in making this new storm wetter than perhaps some of us originally thought. 

This forecast map from the National Weather Service office
in South Burlington shows the vast majority of us seeing 
a nice one to two inch rain soaker today, tomorrow.

The air flow between that and an approaching front from the Great Lakes is bringing quite a bit of atmospheric moisture our way from the warm Atlantic waters off the Mid-Atlantic and southeast coast.

The front and all that moisture will unleash drenching rains, with a few embedded downpours and maybe even a rumble of thunder overnight and the first half of Thursday. 

That's when most of the one to two inches of rain will fall.  Some places that really get bullseyed by the heaviest showers could manage a good 2.5 inches of rain. 

Aside from some ponding of water on a few roads, this rain will not cause any flooding. It's been so dry that the rain will soak into the ground nicely.  You might see river levels rise slightly tomorrow, but they will stay well within the range of normal stream flow for autumn. 

LATER THURSDAY AND BEYOND

The real rains will shut off as the front passes through by afternoon, but there could be some lingering showers around. Maybe even a couple weak, isolated thunderstorms. It will be seasonably mild - well into the 60s by afternoon. 

That high pressure that's been so persistent over southeastern Canada this month will re-assert itself, giving us yet another stretch of generally sunny, mild weather Friday through probably next Tuesday.  Highs each day will reach or get a little over 70 most places, with lows staying far, far above any frost dangers.

HELENE

As mentioned, so far, it looks like the only effects Vermont. These things often throw off a huge expanse of high, thin clouds far and wide, and we might see some of that toward Friday and the weekend, but it won't diminish how pleasant the weather will be.

Lingering moisture from Helene might make an expected cold front next Wednesday a bit wetter than it otherwise would be, but we won't have any huge amounts of rain from that.