Near Record Highs, Strong Thunderstorms In Vermont Today

A large part of the eastern U.S., including
most of Vermont, is under a level 2
slight risk of severe thunderstorms today. 
Level 2 out of 5 risk levels is 
in the yellow shaded areas. 

Heat and storms is the story today, as our hot weather peaks and a what is technically considered a cold front lurks to our west today.
 

We got a preview yesterday as the heat over-performed in at least some places. 

The heat over-performed a bit on Thursday, Burlington reached 91 degrees. It was a little sunnier than expected during the afternoon, which helped raise the temperatures a bit. .

Burlington tied the record for lowest high for the date Thursday, with a muggy low of 71 degrees. 

Storms were also thankfully more lackluster than expected on Thursday. 

A few small storms popped up here and there, but didn't amount to much, just some local downpours in a handful of spots. Then we get into today, which should be dreadful 

TODAY

Stormy and hot and humid is the word. Definitely a busy day. Most of us should get through much of the day without storms. They should become a problem later in the day.

Heat

The low temperature -  if you can call it that - this morning was 73 degrees in Burlington. If that holds through midnight, which is iffy, we'll have another record high "low" temperature for the date. 

That sets the stage or record highs, which we have a good shot at  being tied or broken. 

 The expected high temperature in Burlington is 95 or 96 degrees. The record high for today is 94 set in 2017. In Montpelier, the expected high today is 93 04 94 or so.  The record high there today is 88 degrees.

St. Johnsbury probably won't break their record high, but they should get close.  The record high there is 94 degrees, and the forecast high is in the low 90s.  In southeast Vermont, in the lower Connecticut River Valley, highs today are expected to be in the 93 to 96 degree range. 

Needless to say, heat advisories are in effect for low elevations in western and southeast Vermont. Other parts of the state don't quite it the criteria for a heat advisory, but it will be close.  It will be a dangerous day for vigorous outdoor activity. Stay in the shade if you can, drink plenty of fluids,  and stay in the air conditioning if at all possible.  

Today would be a great day to "kidnap" your elderly neighbor, relative or friend who does not have air conditioning in their house. Take them to a cool movie, or a restaurant with drafty air conditioning. They'll need it. 

Storms

We started this morning with a few showers and downpours across eastern Vermont, but that's not the main show. 

Things should begin to fire up  this afternoon.  The heat and humidity puts us on a hair trigger for fast developing storms.  It doesn't take much to set off some instant potentially strong thunderstorms in this environment.  

However, the actual triggers for storms today are  somewhat lacking. You need strong winds aloft that change direction with elevation to really get a severe weather outbreak going. 

We're sort of missing  the strong upper winds. Also, the "cold front" is coming through basically in pieces later today and tonight, so there's no big change of air. And it's barely cooler behind the front. 

All that is working against severe weather. But not preventing it. 

The models still disagree as of this morning about how many storms will form, and how bad they'll be, ad how they'll behave.  Something called the HRRR (a rapid refresh model that's updated every hour) has a fair number of storms, some possibly severe entering western Vermont by mid-afternoon. Other models wait until early evening to bring on the storms.  

The American computer model seems to think today will turn into something of a yawner. I'm not buying the American model, really. (The American model doesn't provide as much detail as some of the others). Other models bring in some potential strong storms, but not as aggressively as the HRRR. Pick your poison. 

I think the end result is a few of us will end up blasted by strong to severe storms. Many of us will at least hear thunder and get some rain, maybe a downpour.  Some towns will get nothing at all. 

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center pretty much has nearly all of Vermont in a slight risk for severe storms. That's a level 2 out of 5 risk. It means scattered severe storms are a good bet. Far eastern Vermont as of early this morning was in a level 1 marginal risk of isolated severe storms. 

This risk zone might be updated or changed later this morning. The key is the upper level winds. If they're even more lame than forecast, the risk of bad storms goes down. .If those winds increase, so does the risk of wild storms. Stay tuned on that as well. 

As always, we don't know who gets the severe storms until right before it happens. Between the heat, humidity and the storm risk, jettison your hiking plans.  Making today more complicated, the lack of high winds aloft means a severe storm could develop in a snap, then choke itself off quickly, only to be replaced by another strong storm not all that far away. 

Have a way to receive severe storm warnings. And, to be Captain Obvious once again, if you see dark clouds and hear thunder, it's time to get off the water, off the beach, out of the garden and head indoors.

Any storms that do form could have really torrential downpours. That could lead to isolated instances of flash flooding. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has placed us in a marginal risk zone for such floods. The vast majority of us will be fine, but again, you'll won't know where the damaging gullywashers will hit until they actually arrive.  

I'd say a storm could pop off anytime after about noon, but the best chances are from about 3 to 8 p.m. or so. 

WEEKEND

We're calling it a "cold front" coming through later Friday but that's pretty highfalutin way of describing the lame thing that's actually arriving. Sure, it will fire up some storms today, as mentioned. But when it's oppressively steamy out there, it doesn't take much to get storms going. 

The truth of the matter is it won't really be "colder" behind our cold front. The temperature will drop a few degrees, but it will stay awfully warm. It will be less humid, but not exactly bone-dry, either. 

Some details:

Saturday: 

Very warm and sunny, a perfect summer day in Vermont. Highs should get up into the mid and upper 80s, so it should be a nice beach or swimming hole day. A few puffy clouds might decorate the skies, making it all the more scenic . 

Sunday

Very warm to hot again. A few places in the lower Connecticut Valley and Champlain Valley could reach 90 degrees again. But a cold front will be approaching. A real one this time. It looks like the front will stir up a bunch of shower and thunderstorms again during the afternoon. We're waiting on more information, but for now, there's a chance of a few severe storms too. 

In fact, there might be a better chance of severe storms Sunday than we have today. We'll provide updates as we get closer to the event. 

EARLY WEEK

Behind the honest to goodness real cold front, it will, turn, obviously, cooler. But not cold. This won't really be weather whiplash. Instead, we'll see highs generally in the 70s for the first half of the week, maybe ticking up toward 80 degrees once we get toward Wednesday.   

A storm spinning up near Hudson Bay might swing a few light showers our way during the first half of the week, but it won't be anything to worry about. It'll be dry most of the time.