Severe Weather/Tornado Outbreak Upper Midwest Today, We In Vermont Could See Severe Storms Later Tuesday

Widespread severe storms and likely tornadoes are 
likely today, especially in red and orange areas 
on this map. 

The Upper Midwest if bracing for a rough day today of potentially strong tornadoes, giant hail and destructive winds as the weather set up is almost ideal for a severe weather outbreak in that neck of the woods. 

That severe weather is forecast to some extent migrate toward the Northeast, maybe affecting Vermont later tomorrow. More on that in a bit. First, today's Midwest threats.

TORNADO RISK DETAILS

Even before our storm really got going, things were looking ominous Sunday evening. Some supercells spit out a handful of large tornadoes in western and central Nebraska.

Some pretty strong storms were ongoing early this morning in eastern South Dakota and southwest Minnesota.

These are just a preview. The main show will get going this afternoon

The area under the biggest threat for dangerous weather today includes most of Wisconsin and Iowa, southern and central Minnesota and northwest Illinois.  

Major cities most likely to be under the gun are Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota; Madison, Wisconsin; Des Moines, Iowa and Rockford, Illinois.

A somewhat lesser but real threat extends southwestward all the way down to Texas.  

We know we'll see severe storms and tornadoes in the Upper Midwest today, but we don't 100 percent know exactly how they'll evolve.

If supercells manage to form and maintain themselves ahead of the main line of storms later today, then we end up with the risk of strong, long-lasting tornadoes plowing through Iowa, southeastern Minnesota and Wisconsin. 

That scenario is a maybe/maybe not. But if these dangerous supercells erupt, they'll go from nothingburgers to extremely dangerous monsters in minutes. The National Weather Service office in the Minneapolis area is not mincing words in their forecast discussion:

"The takeaway from today's severe storm potential is to remain vigilant of the potential for storms to go up quickly. This may mean checking your phone more often or keeping an eye to the sky, but don't let your guard down in this environment."

 If, instead, the main line of storms exerts itself more, there might not necessarily be those supercells out ahead of the storm  This second scenario is still bad news, as there will be zones of destructive straight line winds and quite a few embedded tornadoes in this mess.

The most likely outcome  today is a combination of what I described above. The main question will be how many supercells form ahead of the main blast of storms. 

TUESDAY'S STORM ADVANCE

Tuesday's severe storm risk area is in yellow, with the
orange area at a somewhat higher risk. Note how the
yellow risk area extends into parts of Vermont, 

By Tuesday, the main threat from this dynamic storm heads east. The storm center itself will race up into central Quebec, but its powerful cold front will press east into the Great Lakes. 

Tuesday's threat area runs from southern Quebec and Ontario, then southwestward through northwest New England, the eastern Great Lakes, northern Ohio Valley then all the way down to central Texas. 

The greatest threat looks go from central Ohio, through northwest Pennsylvania and on into western and central New York.  

While there might be a couple tornadoes in this area, the main threat is damaging winds and large, destructive hail.

As noted, the severe threat extend into Quebec and northwest New England, so that puts Vermont in play. Details next:

VERMONT THREAT

This daffodil looks completely defeated and possibly 
dead after Sunday's snow in St. Albans, but....

Before we get into the severe storm threat, a final word or two on Sunday's snow.

A couple places got an impressive amount of snow. A high elevation spot in Greensboro reported .1 inches of snow. Brownington reported 3.5 inches.  

Here in St. Albans, it was striking how snowy and miserable it was in the early afternoon.

 By evening, it was a downright pleasant spring evening, with sunshine and relatively mild air. Go figure.

Today, by the way, will be gorgeous, with sunshine and temperatures in the 60s to near 70. Enjoy!

Now onto our next threat. 

But same daffodil three hours after above photo was taken
shows a nice recovery. This daffodil, and the rest of
them in the gardens, might have to endure some
severe thunderstorms Tuesday evening in northwest Vermont.

South winds ahead of that approaching cold front will throw a squirt of warm, somewhat humid air into Vermont. 

 Most of the day will actually be nice with highs reaching well into the 70s, with maybe an 80 degree reading or two in a couple of Vermont's more "tropical" towns. 

Dew points - a measure of how humid it will get - should reach the mid 50s to around 60. That's kinda humid for this time of year but not oppressive. 

Thunderstorms thrive on humid air, so the more muggy the air is, the more fuel for these storms. 

So the outlook for the thunderstorms in the humidity category is so-so.  

However, there will be strong winds aloft. Storms that do form can grab that high altitude air and shove it down to the surface, where we are. That's why there's the risk of severe storms.  A few of these could have wind gusts to 60 mph or even a little more. 

The heat from sunshine created instability, which is part of the reason why the thunderstorms are likely to be so strong over New York, since they'll hit there in the afternoon.

Timing is such that the storms look like they'll come in very late in the afternoon and evening. For instance, current forecasts have the best chance for thunderstorms in Burlington between 6 and 8 p.m. Tuesday,

By the time they reach Vermont, the storms will be beginning to diminish. At this point, it looks like a few storms still might have enough oomph to be severe generally in an area north and west of a line running from roughly Rutland to Montpelier to east of Newport. 

As the storms head toward southeastern Vermont later in the evening they'll diminish to nothing scary. 

Note that not everyone will get a severe storm. Northwest Vermont is in a level two of a five point risk scale, five being the hair-on-fire top scary alert. Our level two "slight risk" means scattered severe storms are possible, but they'll tend to be relatively short-lived and not terribly widespread.

So, just keep your eye to the sky Tuesday evening if you're in northwest Vermont and head inside if you receive a severe thunderstorm warning or see ominous skies to the west and north. 

The cold front might also produce some fairly strong winds after the thunderstorms go by.  These winds won't be associated with any thunderstorms, but they could cause very isolated power outages in a  few spots.

Unlike the cold front we saw this past weekend, it won't get nearly cold enough for snow.  Instead, Wednesday looks bright, refreshingly cool and breezy.