Wide Variety Of Dangerous Weather To Hit U.S. This Week. It's Already Starting

One proposed weather map for Wednesday shows a
large storm in middle of the nation that will cause
a wide variety of dangerous weather across
most of the nation. 

If you like weather excitement across the U.S., this will be your week, as a variety of rough weather is anticipated across wide areas.

That's all thanks to a large storm that's forecast to affect most of the nation from the Rockies east over the next few days. 

Ahead of the storm, dry, windy conditions fanned wildfires in the Carolinas Saturday, threatening homes and forcing evacuations. 

A 400-acre fire about 40 miles south of Asheville, North Carolina was zero percent contained as of Saturday evening and was forcing evacuations near the towns of Tyron and Saluda. 

Western North Carolina is now at a higher fire risk when it's dry due to all the fallen trees from Hurricane Helene last September. The tree debris is now fuel for wildfires. 

A separate fire was burning about 10 miles west of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  That fire had grown to 1,200 acres as of Sunday morning, double the size it was Saturday evening. 

Video shows flames reaching tree tops right behind homes as firefighters tried to soak down the houses to prevent them from burning down.

UP NEXT

The  large storm will be crossing the nation over the next few days, raising the risks of severe weather, tornadoes, flooding, even blizzards.

The storm will start off in Colorado Monday, then strengthen rapidly as travels to somewhere around Kansas on Tuesday, near Michigan on Wednesday, and then it will finally move to Quebec Thursday will it will begin to diminish. 

This will be the first truly spring season-type large storm of the season.  Large storms in March, April and sometimes May start over the Rockies and move toward the Great Lakes and Northeast, spreading severe weather and tornado outbreaks to the south and late season winter storms to the north. 

Severe Weather/Tornadoes

With this storm, the severe storm risk will last for four days, starting today. 

This afternoon and evening, a relatively small area of southwest Oklahoma and northern Texas is potentially under the gun with severe thunderstorms, giant hail and maybe a tornado or two. The severe weather threat then moves to a somewhat larger area of central Oklahoma and north central Texas on Monday. 

The big, dangerous show is probably on Tuesday and quite possibly on Wednesday. A large area of the Gulf Coast and South might have severe storms and tornadoes Tuesday.  That threat will move to the southeastern United States Wednesday. 

Snowstorms

Winter storm watches are already in effect for parts of Colorado, northwest Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota.  The snow will eventually extend into parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin an the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. 

The forecast is still uncertain, but very heavy snow could end up piling up in parts of Wisconsin and Michigan, and near blizzard conditions are possible by Wednesday. 

Flooding/Fires

The storm might have enough rain to produce flooding in parts of the Midwest and South, and even possibly parts of the Northeast. 

Meanwhile strong, very dry winds behind the storm will create an exceptionally high fire risk today through Tuesday in much of New Mexico and western Texas. 

VERMONT EFFECTS

This storm will affect us here in the Green Mountain State, too, first by quickly ending the late season cold wave we're having. Then by giving us quite a thaw again, some rain and maybe a little flooding. 

Starting tomorrow, we'll begin to escape this Arctic snap. After lows tonight near or below zero, we'll make it into the 20s Monday. Still quite a bit colder than normal, but better than today.

Then, the storm's warm front will bring light precipitation and temperatures well into the 30s Tuesday. 

Wednesday and Wednesday night, part of Thursday, too look rainy and mild, with highs Wednesday and maybe Thursday getting well into the 40s to possibly near 50. 

At this point, it's not looking like the rain will be tremendously heavy. But it might be enough, combined with melting snow, to set off some flooding. The thaw and rain could start breaking up river ice, which could cause local ice jam flooding. 

We'll have more on this when we get closer to the event.

Meteorological Spring Began Saturday. Doesn't Feel Like It Now, But...

If NOAA's seasonal forecast is right, chance lean
toward a generally warm spring here in Vermont 

We did the February weather summary in Saturday's post, and now we can also take a look at Vermont's meteorological winter, and what spring might look like. 

Meteorological winter runs from December 1 through February 28- except of course in Leap Years, when it's February 29.

Meteorological spring goes from March 1 through May 31.  The seasons are divided this way mostly just to make it easier for climatologists to compare seasons. 

While each winter month in Vermont was wildly different from each other - for instance, January was super dry and December and February were a little on the wet side - the winter of 2024-25 worked out to be right around average, as measure in Burlington, anyway.

The average temperature for the three months was 23.8, which is just 0.2 degrees cooler than the average of the years 1990-2020.  

As I always do, I'll note that the 1990-2020 average is warmer than the 20th century average, because climate change had notably taken over by then.  Had the winter of 2024-25 actually then place in the mid-20th century, it would have been considered a warmer than average winter. 

Also at Burlington, precipitation from December 1, 2024 through February 28, 2025 amounted to 6.31 inches. That's a mere 0.09 inches below average - essentially normal.

The winter outlook for our region, released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) last October 17 indicated chances skewed slightly toward a warm winter in Vermont, and there were equal chances of above or below normal precipitation. So they were pretty close. 

For what it's worth, the spring outlook has been released. Predictions lean toward a warm spring across the South and up the eastern seaboard, including here in Vermont. If this forecast works out the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies would have a cool spring. 

For us here in Vermont, NOAA has equal chances of it being wet or dry, with maybe a slight lean toward being on the wetter side. 

Vermont February Was Snowy, Stormy, Still Not Historically Wildly Out Of Whack

A snow squall cuts visibility in St. Albans to near zero
on February 7.  This year brought Vermont one of the 
snowier Februaries on record. 

 The February climate data is in for Vermont, and as you've probably already guessed, we had a true winter month for a change. 

Even so, it wasn't really that out of the ordinary compared to past Februarys in the state.

Temperatures.

We were pretty consistent statewide, with pretty much all weather stations running between about 1.5 to 2 degrees cooler than normal, give or take. 

Remember, though, "normal" is the new normal. It's based on the average of the years 1990 to 2020. Those years were already warmer than the 20th century average, thanks to climate change.

Based on this "new normal," February, 2025 in Burlington came in at 1.7 degrees chillier than average. But had this exact same month occurred in the 1960s or 1970s, it would have been regarded as slightly warmer than average. 

Still, the month just ended was Burlington's coldest February in a decade.  

Temperatures never went to extremes at any time in February, really. February temperatures historically in Burlington have ranged as high as 72 degrees (in 2017) to as low as minus 30 (in 1979).

This year, the highest it ever got in Burlington was 47 and the lowest was 8 below.  No daily record high or low temperatures were set. 

Climate change has made daily record highs in Burlington generally more frequent. But we haven't had a record high since December 30. I wonder if we're overdue for that. 

Snow

It took a lot of shoveling to keep up with the snow in
Vermont during February, 2025

As you might have noticed, we definitely had a snowy month. Burlington accumulated a total of 33.2 inches in February, making it the fifth snowiest February on record. (Top spot goes to the very snowy year of 2011, when 43.1 inches of snow fell in February). 

The snow depth atop Mount Mansfield reached 98 inches by February 27 and 28. That's far above the average depth of 65 inches there for late February. 

I hope all this snow gave a boost to Vermont's economy. There were no thaws in Vermont to the very end of the month, and even then, temperatures weren't that hot.  Which means snow conditions for all kinds of winter sports were primo. 

Even though February was snowy, low elevations have not had a particular snowy winter. Burlington through February 28 has had 64.4 inches of snow since the first flurries came in November. That's jus slightly below the average for this date of 65.

Melted Precipitation

With all that snow, the water equivalent of the frozen precipitation and any rain that fell was above normal for February across Vermont.  That's a good thing, since most of the state still has a few lingering effects from last autumn's drought. All this snow melting in the spring will help with replenishing ground water. 

Burlington had 2.58 inches of rain and melted snow in February, which is a little over three quarters of an inch above normal. By my count, this February was Burlington's 21st wettest out of the past 141 years. 

Most everyone else in Vermont had about the same amount of precipitation as Burlington, except of course in the mountains, which had more. Most Vermont weather stations had about a half to two thirds of an inch more precipitation than average.

Looking Ahead.

More than perhaps any other month, March is a weather wildcard in Vermont. Early indications are this month will be no exception. 

We woke up this morning in much of the state with a little new snow on the ground, which is starting to melt as temperatures briefly rise above freezing. Then, temperatures will horrible crash starting this afternoon and continuing into Monday morning. 

After some below zero temperatures Sunday and Monday morning, it looks like we'll warm up to thawing and rain by midweek. From there, I imagine we'll have the kind of roller coaster we almost always have in March: One day wintry, the next springlike then back to winter.