Vermont Tuesday Evening Update: We're Likely To Escape Severe Thunderstorms, Hope I'm Not Jinxing It

Threatening clouds over St. Albans, Vermont as 
downpours approached this afternoon. There was
potential for severe storms today, but luckily,
it appears they did not materialize. 

 Numerous showers, thunderstorms and downpours passed through the state this afternoon and they were still ongoing in eastern Vermont late this afternoon.   

Some of the storms had briefly gusty winds but nothing outrageous. So far, there's been no reports of any severe thunderstorms.

 Burlington, which had winds gusting from the south at about 35 mph all morning and early afternoon, had a gust of 32 mph from the northwest as outflow from a nearby storm hit. 

There were a fair number of lightning strikes, but again, nothing too scary. 

By late afternoon around 8,000 homes and businesses were without electricity. They surged shortly before 5 p.m. as a line of fairly strong showers moved through the Connecticut River Valley. They weren't thunderstorms at this point, but there was probably an outflow boundary. 

Many of the power outages had nothing to do with showers and thunderstorms. This time of year, trees are leafing out. Leaves are amazingly heavy, if you get enough of them. Like on a big tree. Trees and branches that had gotten weakened over the winter finally gave way on a windy day as leaves grew in the warmth of gusty south winds. 

Bottom line: I don't see any reports of severe thunderstorm damage, and no severe storm warnings came from the National Weather Service. It looks like the atmosphere was able to produce a lot of thunderstorms, but the "magic" wasn't quite there to create severe ones. 

National Weather Service radar showed a line of downpours
across central Vermont, and scattered elsewhere, but it
looks like nothing severe arose from the showers and storms. 

We could still see a couple strong storms this evening, but the chances of that happening are diminishing fast.  

Today's showers were quick movers so most places didn't get much rain. Burlington so far has had 0.14 inches and Montpelier was at 0.09 inches by late afternoon, though the showers hadn't finished moving through central Vermont yet.  My unofficial rain gauge in St. Albans collected 0.25. 

If you didn't get wet enough, we've still got a soaking rain scheduled for tomorrow. 

As it stands now, the northwestern two thirds of Vermont should see an inch of additional rain or a bit more than that. The southeaster corner of the state is in for a bit less, maybe three quarters of an inch. 

That's too bad, since that is the driest part of the state and needs the most rain. 

We'll have a bit of a temperature gradient across Vermont, too. Highs in the far northwest, places like Highgate and Swanton down to about Burlington will see afternoon temperatures only in the mid and upper 40s. Really chilly for this time of year. 

Temperatures should reach the low 60s in far southern Vermont, but might tend to back off through the 50s tomorrow afternoon.

As always, I'll have a full update tomorrow morning.