Wednesday Morning In Vermont, Smoke Clears A Little, Summer Weather Rolls On

This morning's air pollution map form iqair.com show
improved air in northern New England (green dots) as
the worst of the smoke is suppressed to our south
and west for now, Air quality alerts are still in effect
across central and southern Vermont. 

 This morning was actually a pretty pleasant, cool start to the day in Vermont, especially in the northern half of the state. 

The smoke is greatly diminished in the north so the air quality alert is off the table  up there. 

Air quality up here is actually pretty damn good. For now, anyway,  Further south, that alert is still in effect, though the smoke isn't as thick as it was. Air quality in southern Vermont is moderate. 

Part of the reason for the better air is the remnants of that weak cold front that arrived from Quebec Monday.  

The front is now barely discernible, but it's there, hanging out in somewhere near or south of Rutland and White River Junction.  

To the north, not only is it less smoky, it's a little cooler and less humid than in southern Vermont. I noticed Newport was at 49 degrees this morning while most of the rest of the north was in the low to mid 50s - just a touch cooler than average for early August. 

Meanwhile, in the smokier south, temperatures were near 60 or so.

TODAY/TOMORROW

That old front will influence our weather in subtle ways today, just as it did on Tuesday. 

Yesterday, the front helped set off a few widely scattered thunderstorms mostly along and south of Route 4. A slow moving one in southwest New Hampshire actually managed to prompt a fairly brief severe storm and flood warning for small area down there.

Rinse and repeat today, with a few thunderstorms and showers in the southern half of Vermont today. One or two could pop up in the north, too, but chances are even lower up there.  Whoever does get rain is damn lucky. It's dry out there. 

Speaking of rinse and repeat, tomorrow should be nearly a carbon copy to today. On both days, the isolated storm won't be severe, and really don't pose a local flood hazard, even though they will be slow moving. We could have a scenario in which 90 percent of us get no rain or just a few hundredths of an inch at best, while parts of one or two towns get close to an inch.

Temperatures both days should be close to normal for this time of year, with highs within a few degrees either side of 80 with lows in the 50s most places, low 60s in the warmer valleys. 

The smoke will keep lingering, and even maybe drift back into northern Vermont. But the smoke is  thinner than it was, as the particles slowly fall out of the air.  

Big wildfires are still belching a hell of a lot of smoke up in Canada. The western United States is now also contributing to that mess as fires grow in number and size out there.  

However, for the next couple of days anyway, the winds are not blowing any new smoke into New England. We'll have more very smoky days this summer, I'm sure, bur the worst of this episode is over. 

HEATING UP

Temperatures and humidity have been pretty nice the past few days.  It hasn't been sweaty.  Days have been warm but management, early mornings have been cool. It's just the smoke that's been bothersome. Today and tomorrow look comfortable, too, but don't get used to it. Hot times are coming. 

You'll really start to notice it Friday as temperatures get well up into the 80s. By the weekend and early next week, many of us will be above 90 degrees each afternoon.  The humidity won't be too bad at first, but will slowly increase through the weekend.  It'll feel truly ugly out there by early next week. 

This hot spell looks to last awhile, but how long and how intense is anybody's guess.  For what it's worth, long range forecasts keep us warmer than normal most of the time through at least August 19.