Saturday Morning Vermont Weather Update: Flood Threat Disappears Amid Odd Weather Pattern

Unexpected wind gusts of over 40 mph overnight sent
some of our deck furniture askew, and, not shown
here, knocked over a few plants. We're still expecting
showers today, but rainfall will be much 
less than originally expected. 

Aside from some unexpected winds in the Champlain Valley of Vermont and New York and rains mostly limited to near the Canadian border overnight, the weather might not have seemed all that weird to you overnight and early this morning. 

But from a meteorological standpoint, it got strange. 

The unexpected overnight gusts were a symptom of the odd conditions overhead.  Before you get nervous, our "weird weather" does not mean anything scary for everybody just living their lives today. 

Most of us are still expected some showers today. But trends on rainfall amounts keep dropping. 

 A few days ago we were worried about flash flooding in northern Vermont today.  Now, the chances of such an event are pretty much nil.  So that's good news.

THE WEIRDNESS

It was supposed to grow increasingly humid overnight as south winds drew wetter air northward.  But a funny thing happened to that on the way moment.   Something called a low level jet got cranking a few thousand feet overhead last night. A low level jet is a ribbon of higher speed air, in this case created by a storm system over Ontario.

As the National Weather Service explains it, that high level wind was able to mix downward, especially into the Champlain Valley, which created overnight gusts as high as 45 mph. That's pretty unusual for late June. Even weirder, that gusty air that was pulled down from aloft is quite dry.

So instead of increasing humidity, the air got super dry for this time of year, especially in the Champlain Valley. The dew point, a rough measure of the humidity in the air, dropped from the mid-50s yesterday afternoon to around 40 degrees before dawn today.   That's super low for summer.

The dry air evaporated showers coming in from the west, so there was little or no rain in Vermont, except for those of us near the Canadian border.  

The expected conveyer belt of showers and some storms did move west to east across southern Quebec and far northern Vermont overnight.  The heaviest stuff was in Quebec, but places right near the border in Vermont probably got a half inch to three quarters of an inch of rain, based on radar estimates.

Here in St. Albans, I have been on the southern edge of the activity and had picked up 0.31 inches of rain through 6:30 a.m today. 

REST OF TODAY

The showers that have been trying to come out of New York and drying up before reaching Vermont will probably finally overcome the dry air and drop a little rain on places like Burlington, ensuring that we do officially end up with the 28th weekend in a row with at least a trace of precipitation 

However, the showers will not amount to much. There might be a local downpour here or there in Vermont today especially in southern Vermont where the more humid air will reach. But this system, which we originally thought would have some real oomph, is turning out to be very, very, well, "meh."

So, it'll be a mixed sort of day. We'll have an ever-present risk of showers, but there will be dry periods in between.

After such a wet May and what had  looked like was going to be a wet June, it's actually getting sort of dry in northern Vermont.  For instance, through yesterday, Burlington has had only about two inches of rain so far this month, which is roughly half of normal. 

We're still far from any drought worries, but I kinda want the rain to get a little more consistent for the rest of the summer.  

Without overdoing it, of course. We don't need any more flooding, which is why I'm relieved today's weather system turned out so blah. 

It's been much wetter this month in southern parts of the state than in the north, so no dryness worries there!  

LOOKING AHEAD

Sunday still looks like we'll have a lovely summer day in Vermont. Chamber of Commerce weather, really, with highs within a few degrees of 80 with blue skies dotted by a few clouds here and there for the pictures. Humidity looks like it will be fairly reasonable, too.

We're still looking at a quick squirt of hot, humid air Monday, which will take afternoon temperatures into the mid 80s in the "cool" spots and low 90s in the Champlain and lower Connecticut River valleys, and lowlands of southwest Vermont.

It still looks like some showers and storms will come through Tuesday, but at this point rainfall doesn't look like it will be all that impressive. We might have to be on the lookout for some strong storms that day, so we'll watch that.

As we head through the rest of next week,  we should have some pretty uneventful weather, and it might be slightly on the cool side by the time we hit the Fourth of July.