Thursday Morning Update: New Weather Pattern Spells Trouble For Nation's Middle, But Lets Us In Vermont Off The Hook

This patch of almost ready for prime time daffodils
in St. Albans, Vermont survived Wednesday's day
long snow showers just fine. 

 Well, that was fun yesterday. 

It pretty much snowed all day, at least where I was, but it being well into April, it amounted to what I'd call white rain. 

In other words, the snow melted on contact, even grassy surfaces which still can tend to collect snow this time of year. It amounted to a bit of beneficial water for those new daffodils blooming out there. 

Go up slightly in elevation and the snow did stick, at least a little. 

I know it snowed pretty hard on the mountain summits of the central and northern Green Mountains, but I haven't seen many accumulation reports yet. Jay Peak got three to six inches of snow, less than the foot some forecasts had called for. 

For now, the snow is (mostly) done for the season. On to spring

NEW WEATHER PATTERN

After a relative lull, almost daily severe storms, floods
and tornadoes will strike the middle of the nation
from now probably at least into early May.

The weather pattern has shifted, which turns out to be bad news for much of the United States but good news for us here in Vermont. 

 Dangerous weather will hit parts of the nation almost daily going forward for the next couple of weeks.  

Here in Vermont, things mostly look benign, uneventful and mild enough to keep us happy for the most part. 

There's been a bit of a lull in our national severe weather and tornado season for the past week or so, after some terrible tornado outbreaks in March and early April. 

The severe weather, and flooding are now coming back. They might not be as intense as we saw earlier this month, at least not at first, but we're getting into the heart of tornado season now. So things will get active. 

Here's how it's setting up: 

Storm systems will keep developing just east of the Rocky Mountains and head into the Plains and Midwest. For now, none of these storms will be blockbuster huge, but they'll pull plenty of moisture fro the Gulf. 

That moisture, combined with the spin in the atmosphere created by the low pressure systems, and chillier air trying to come in from the north, will be more than enough to create repeated rounds of severe storms and flooding. 

It's hard to tease out who gets what more than a few days in advance. Today will start the trend with strong storms, maybe some "gorilla hail" and a tornado or two around Iowa and Nebraska.

Gorilla hail is a colloquialism coined by storm chaser Reed Simmer to describe hail that's at least two inches in diameter or greater. Two inch diameter hail is about the size of a lime.  Such hail is obviously dangerous and causes a LOT of damage to cars, roofs, crops and many other objects. 

In any event, the severe weather threat moves on to cover a broad strip from northern Texas through most of Michigan. Again, hail, high winds and maybe a few tornadoes will develop in this zone on Friday. 

Severe weather threats will then continue daily in different areas in the nation's middle and South. Some days will only have a few bad storms, others many. This state of affairs looks like it will go on at least into early May. 

Flooding looks like a sure bet, too with this weather pattern featuring such wet, warm air coming off the Gulf. In the short term, the greatest threat of dangerous flash flooding looks like it will be over the weekend in Arkansas and Missouri. 

VERMONT

This new weather pattern is a good one for Vermont if you don't like wild extremes.

That long series of Midwest storms will end up coming toward or fairly near Vermont, but by the time they get here, they'll be pretty unimpressive.  Most of the time, we'll  have risks of rain and showers every second or third day, but, unless a surprise or two enters the picture, these rainy periods will just be your typical spring showers. 

It looks like this weather pattern will also keep temperatures more or less close to normal or maybe a tad warmer than average for the remainder of April, at least on most days. Normal for this time of year is highs in the 50s to low 60s. 

Each storm might hold a minor surprise to make things interesting, but don't expect big bouts of severe storms, flooding or other super  dangerous stuff. 

This should lead to a long spell of Vermont weather that for the most part will be uneventful, but with maybe some quick surprise moments of relative excitement from time to time. Excitement might be too strong a word, because I don't see anything gobsmacking coming toward us for awhile. 

In general, this weather pattern will keep temperatures near normal around here for the next couple of weeks, with highs in the 50s and 60s. Not bad.  Rainfall will be on the light side, though with springtime showers and thunderstorms possibly thrown in from time to time, there might be some locally heavier downpours or other excitement from time to time. 

Because there will be a series of fronts coming through, there might well be some quick excursions into much above normal temperatures, and back to chilly readings, too.

The first example should arrive this weekend.  As the first of those disturbances arrives, there could be some loud but not severe thunderstorms Friday night, especially the further north and west you go in Vermont. 

There could be some decent downpours with a couple storms, but most places north of Route 2 should only receive a quarter inch of rain, with less than that the further south you go.

Depending upon how much sun breaks through Saturday, many spots could also top 70 degrees. A few computer models put us well into the 70s, so we'll see.

By Sunday,  though, it will be chilly again with below normal highs in the 48 to 54 degree range and a pretty hard freeze by Monday morning. 

Beyond that, the forecast gets fuzzy, so we'll just leave it at that. Except to say there's no more snow in the forecast, except for maybe a the tippy top of some of the highest mountains.