Weird, Cool Clouds At Edge Of Nor'easter Over Vermont

Puffs of clouds with little streaks beneath them over
northwest Vermont today. Those wisps were
actually rain strangely coming from the tiny 
clouds, but evaporating well before 
hitting the ground. 

People (correctly) tell me I have my head in the clouds. 

And it's true I'm always staring up into the sky. Which makes me notice things. 

My sky gazing today gave me a couple of rewards: The tiniest little showers I've seen in ages, and quite a contrast between clear and cloudy.

The first photo in this post show the sky looking north from Colchester, Vermont. They're just a patch of bumpy mid-level clouds. 

But notice those wisps beneath many of them. That's rain falling from them. It shows that even the tiniest clouds can form rain under the right conditions 

The rain never came close to reaching the ground. The raindrops evaporated in the very dry air overhead. The relative humidity was only about 35 percent at the time, so that's really dry air. 

Sharp line between clear skies and overcast looking
southwest from Colchester, Vermont this afternoon. 

The second photo is looking southwest from the same spot in Colchester at about the same time as our tiny little rain showers were hovering off to the north. 

It's a remarkably sharp cutoff between mostly clear skies and overcast. 

It was part of the northern edge of a huge cloud shield associated with the big nor'easter hitting the East Coast today. 

I'm guessing the clouds, running into the dry air over northern New York and Vermont, was having an effect on these clouds

Satellite photos show that this sharp band between clear and cloudy extended from northwest Vermont clear across far northern New York. 

That sharp cut off of clear skies and overcast is 
visible on satellite photos across northern 
New York and a piece of northwest Vermont
If you click on the image to make it bigger,
you can see the shadow the clouds cast on
areas near Burlington. 

In the satellite photo, also in this post, if you look closely, you can see the shadow cast by the cloud shield as well. 

The sun was fairly low in the sky when the phot was taken around 3:30 p.m this afternoon.

The satellite photo also shows a southwest to northeast band of feathery clouds across Vermont. That is part of the upper level outflow of moisture from the big storm. 

You can also see in the satellite photo thicker clouds off to the south. 

Those will be in Vermont tomorrow, though far northern Vermont is still not likely to see much rain. 

Southern Vermont is still up for a half inch to an inch of rain, which will be nice for a bit of drought relief. 

The gray overcast we expect on Monday won't make the sky as interesting as it was today, though.