Mega-Storm That Killed 42 Finally Gone, New Storm Causing New Trouble. We'll See Effects Here In Vermont, Too

Video still from storm chaser Aaron Rigsby shows the
capriciousness of tornadoes. Home in foreground
was destroyed by an Arkansas tornado last weekend
while the house next door looks fine. 

 The last vestiges of that enormous, super-destructive and deadly storm departed the Northeast Monday, leaving some flooding in New England and Quebec, but otherwise finishing up its rampage. 

The U.S. death toll from tornadoes, wildfires and dust storms generated by the super storm has risen to 42.   

So far, a total of at least 132 tornadoes have been counted from the Midwest to the East Coast, and more assessments are being done. 

A total of 400 homes in Oklahoma alone were destroyed or damaged in wildfires over the past few days. 

Wildfires are still burning in the Plains, and now a new storm is about to cause new trouble.

NEWEST HAVOC

The latest storm won't be as strong or as widespread and likely not as destructive of the last one. But it's still causing problems already.

The central and southern Plains are taking the brunt of it again. Places that were under fire weather alerts for dry air and strong winds yesterday and today are also now under blizzard warnings for tonight and Wednesday. 

To give you an idea of the extremes going on in the Midwest, the forecast for Lincoln, Nebraska calls for dry air and a high of 80 degrees today. There could be wildfires in the region.

By Wednesday morning's commute time, Lincoln will be at or below freezing with blizzard conditions and wind gusts as high as 65 mph. Then, by Thursday, everything will be hunky dory again in Lincoln with sunshine and a  high near 50. 

That blizzard warning actually extents from western Kansas, through Nebraska, northwester western Iowa and into southern Minnesota. 

Further south, things are even more dangerous.

Another bout of hot, strong, dry winds are forecast in New Mexico, western Kansas and especially in Oklahoma and western Texas. This region can expect more wind damage, more blinding dust storms and more nearly impossible to control wildfires. 

Even after the storm departs tomorrow, strong winds and dry air should continue over western Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma through at least Saturday, continuing the wildfire siege there.  

 Thankfully, this new storm does not look like it will manage to produce another major tornado outbreak.  Some severe thunderstorms seem likely in parts of Illinois and Indiana tomorrow, but if there are any tornadoes at all, they should be few and far between and not as strong as those over the weekend. 

VERMONT EFFECTS

High water continues to recede this morning across Vermont, though a few roads in low lying areas are likely still closed due to continued flooding. 

Will that little nor'easter depicted on this
forecast map for Friday morning give
Vermont a late season forecast, or will
it miss?  Computer models disagree.

After a frosty morning, we still have another weird March heat wave in the forecast, but it won't be as extreme as we saw over the weekend.  Still, highs should get into the 60s Wednesday and Thursday. 

Then the weather potentially gets weird again. 

The cold front will slow down to allow a storm to form in the Mid-Atlantic states. And turn into a nor'easter. 

It'll cool off rapidly Thursday night behind the front as the nor'easter approaches, so rain should change to snow.  The question remains: Will we get a lot of heavy, wet snow with this, or just a little. 

It depends on its exact path, as to how much of anything we get. If the storm goes a little more inland, it'll be mostly rain with a little snow at the end. 

 Or it could put Vermont in the sweet spot for a burst of heavy snow late Thursday or Friday. Or, the storm could go far enough east so moderate rain with the cold front just ends as a little bit of light snow.

For what it's worth, earlier runs of the American computer model had the storm smacking us pretty good early Friday. This morning's run of the same computer model  has it missing entirely. Basically the computer models are still all over the place with this one, so stay tuned. 

Time will tell, but it could be an interesting storm.  

On the bright side, so far, no new flooding is expected Thursday night and Friday.  There won't be enough rain to send rivers into flood stage. And if it snows, that won't cause much in the way of flooding. 

Watch this space for updates. We probably won't know a lot of details with this until we get well into Wednesday and Thursday.