A Small Storm Chance Today Followed By Weird, Stormy Vermont Day Tomorrow

Much like this past Sunday, much of the Northeast
including Vermont is in a level two out of five risk
for severe thunderstorms tomorrow (yellow
shading). Whether we get severe storms 
tomorrow depends on whether building storms
can grab high speed air screaming overhead.

 Yesterday was another gorgeous day in Vermont, although a couple late afternoon and evening showers and storms in the Adirondacks. 

Now, we're gearing up for another weird storm in Vermont. It's the "winter storm" I talked about yesterday. More on that  mess in a minute, but let's just look at today's forecast first. Just so we can relax a bit

TODAY

It'll generally be a not bad day. It started off gorgeous with blue skies and in some areas, a nice breeze.

The clouds will tend to increase today, and a couple showers or thunderstorms might pop up this afternoon. Many of us will stay dry, but others will have one or two wet periods. Not a washout at all. Highs should flirt with 80 degrees today. 

THURSDAY 

Kind of a complicated mess of a day with gusty winds, bursts of rain and the risk of severe thunderstorms. 

Our winter-like storm looks like it will set off a nasty tornado and severe thunderstorm outbreak across Illinois and Indiana today. By tomorrow morning, the storm should be somewhere in the general vicinity of Ottawa. 

As I mentioned yesterday, storm systems, if they exist at all in the summer, are almost always very weak. This will be a strong one, the kind of storm you see pretty often in the winter, when storms tend to be a lot more energetic 

In general, the lower the air pressure, the stronger the storm. This one looks like it might have a barometric pressure below 990 millibars, which is near record territory for June. Since the storm will be passing so close to Vermont, we might  have barometer readings that might be close to record lows.

But that's not what we have to worry about. 

The problem with this storm will be wind. We'll have just the regular strong winds that a strong low pressure system stirs up, and the possibility of even more damaging winds with a few strong to severe afternoon thunderstorms. 

Wind

In the summer, since storm systems are weak, we almost never had strong, gusty winds, except of course in thunderstorms. And those thunderstorm winds only cover a small fraction of the state when they do occur.

With our strong storm, it will be windy almost everywhere in Vermont tomorrow. Gusts will reach 35 to 40 mph at times across most of the state, with locally higher winds of up to 45 or 50 mph in a couple spots.  

Those kinds of gusts hit all the time in the winter when the trees are leafless. But now, the trees are heavy with leaves. Each leaf will act like a little sail tugging at trees as the winds blow through. That means a few trees and branches might give up the ghost and crash to the ground. 

Some of those trees will take down power lines. This won't be an anywhere near a blackout situation, but a few scattered power outages seem possible.  I'd stay off of Lake Champlain, too. The broad lake should have at least two to four foot waves, which isn't great for small boats. 

Thunderstorms

A warm front that's part of the storm will throw a burst of moderate to heavy rain at us for a few hours in the morning. There might be a rumble of thunder or two with this, but they won't be severe. It'll just be sort of a stormy, unpleasant morning. 

Then, in the afternoon, the warm front will be in Quebec and the storm's cold front will be to our west, heading our way.

In this zone, we are at risk of severe storms.  But it's iffy. We indeed might see those severe storms. But there's a chance it could end up being like this past Sunday, where no severe storms really developed,

Like last Sunday, Vermont is in a slight risk zone, (alert level 2 out of 5) for severe storms tomorrow, according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center. 

There will be a lot of clouds around, and it won't get super warm tomorrow (highs in the mid 70s to near 80).  Those conditions would tend to dampen the risk of storms. 

But remember, our parent storm system in southern Canada is super intense for this time of year. Winds several thousand feet overhead will be screaming along. Storms that do develop could grab some of that high speed air and blast it down on us, leading to locally damaging gusts. 

Or, the winds aloft might be so strong that they tilt wannabe thunderstorms so they have trouble getting severe. We don't know yet. 

It's a maybe, maybe not proposition, so stay tuned and be prepared in case there are severe storms tomorrow. The storms will be moving very fast because of those strong upper level winds. So there might not be much warning for you if a severe storm develops. 

Do note that just because we didn't see severe storms last Sunday, we're not immune from such storms tomorrow. This is an entirely different weather setup that we had a few days ago, so you can't rely on last Sunday's weather maps for clues.  

Flooding

I'm not really that worried about flooding. Sure, rain might come down hard at times. But everything will be moving so fast that the downpours will zip on through before they can cause much trouble.

NOAA's Weather Prediction Center does have us in marginal risk zone (Level 1 out of 4) for flash flooding. That's because a few areas of Vermont have gotten really sodden from recent rains, so it might not take much to set off some high water. But if something like that does occur, it will be pretty isolated and scattered.

In general, we should expect a half inch to an inch of rain out of this storm, give or take

AFTER THE STORM

In the winter, storms like this often stalls or slows down way up north in Quebec or in the Canadian Maritime provinces, creating cold northwest winds, wind chills and snow showers. Those snow showers usually focus over northern Vermont and the mountains. 

None of that will happen, but it will be cool. And breezy. With showers. Rain showers, not snow showers, of course! Those showers could happen anywhere, but yes, they'll focus over northern Vermont and the mountains. 

The cool air won't be really established yet on Friday, so it'll get into the 70s. Best chance of shower is i the afternoon and evening. 

Saturday will be the cold, blustery post-"winter storm" day. Highs will only get into the 60s to around 70, and there will be quite a few showers around. Nothing heavy, but just enough to make the day exactly the opposite of the warm, bright sunny Saturday we had last weekend. 

Sunday will be somewhat better, but we'll still have a risk of light showers. 

Very often, after a winter storm passes just to our north in, say, January,  a follow up storm comes by and tracks across southern New England. That gives Vermont a nice snowstorm, especially south. 

Again, no snow this time, it's a zillion times too warm. But Monday could turn out cool and rainy as a storm comes by and tracks across southern New England. It's still too soon to know how much rain, but the best chances are across southern Vermont. 

This "winter weather pattern" won't last all summer, of course. Temperatures should warm up to more seasonal levels later next week, with no cold season type storms in sight.