After Yesterday's Weird Storm, A Brief Delightful Vermont Day Today. Smoke, Rain To Return

Yesterday's cold front packed some surprisingly 
strong winds. This tree in Georgia, Vermont
fell victims to those winds. Fallen trees and 
damaged power lines were reported across
much of the state. 

That was one weird storm in Vermont yesterday. 

On radar, it didn't look like much: Just a band of light to moderate showers. It was weird to see a severe thunderstorm warning ahead of what appeared to be a patch of light rain in the Champlain Valley. 

But the cold front had in incredible gust front.  Trees fell down in a wide area of northern and central Vermont. 

One tree blocked all lanes of Route 7 in Colchester near Poor Farm Road. Other trees fell in Georgia, Milton, Hyde Park and other towns. Winds gusted to 47 mph in Burlington. 

It was another surprisingly strong storm in a stormy summer. We might have more on the way Saturday. I'll get into that in a bit, but first, a calm interlude

TODAY

Today will be gorgeous. And placid.  The good new for us is that gusty cold front removed most of the smoke from Vermont. For now, anyway.   That left was a calm, comfortable sleeping night, and a pleasant, sunny day, with low humidity. 

It should get to 80 degrees in the warmer spots this afternoon.  That would make this the 21st day in a row in which it got to at least 80 degrees in Burlington. Today would make it the fourth longest stretch of consecutive 80 degree days on record,

The record for most consecutive 80 degree days is 29 days in 2018. I doubt we will break that record as we have some sub-80 degree days coming up. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Meanwhile, the weather goes downhill from here.

TOMORROW

That smoke that got suppressed to our south by yesterday's cold front looks like it wants to come back   at us tomorrow as south winds take over. I'm not sure whether it will be enough to trigger new air quality alerts, but I imagine it will be at least noticeable. 

On top of that - here we go again - an unusually strong storm is going to go by to our north tomorrow and tomorrow night.  It'll be one of several oddly intense storms this summer. Not sure, but I think the onset of the strong El Nino now underway is helping to produce these vigorous systems. 

A strong storm like the one forecast for tomorrow might remind you of that day in June, when a similarly powerful storm helped set off two tornadoes in Vermont.

I wouldn't count on tornadoes this time, as if anybody wants something like that to happen again. 

There are some differences between the June storm and what we're going to see Saturday and Saturday night. The storm in June had a cold front with a sharp change in wind direction. It also had sharp changes in wind direction and wind speed  aloft. That's a recipe for tornadoes 

This storm doesn't look like it will  have such a big change in wind direction. Which reduces the chances of tornadoes. 

It also looks like we'll be dealing with wildfire smoke. As we saw earlier this week, smoke can reduce the intensity or number of thunderstorms. We think, anyway. 

That's not to say we won't have any strong storms. For now, anyway, most of Vermont is in a marginal risk (level one out of five alert) for severe thunderstorms. Southwest Vermont is at level two out of five.  Forecasting storminess like this even one day in advance can be tricky. The risk level for Vermont storms could rise or fall by the time we get tomorrow, so stay tuned.  

It does seen like there could be a relatively decent amount of rain with this. Current forecasts have us receiving a half to three quarters of an inch of rain, give or take. With thunderstorms around, actual amounts will be pretty variable. A couple places might get well over an inch of rain. A couple places might largely miss on the rain. 

Some parts of Vermont could use the rain. Here in St. Albans, those big thunderstorms this month have pretty much missed our area. We picked up a whopping 0.07 inches of rain yesterday, so that didn't really help. 

Overall, with the smoke, the showers, the risk of storms, the rising humidity and gusty non-thunderstorms winds, this won't be the glorious weather Saturday a lot of people would hope for.  On the bright side, it won't rain all day, and it feels like most of the rain will come later in the day.

SUNDAY

If you want a decent weather day this weekend, you'll want to wait until Sunday. That storm will blow by, sweep its cold front through, and leave us with dry, cool weather. Hopefully, it will also blow the smoke away. Temperatures will probably fall short of 80 degrees in Burlington, breaking the streak of 80 degree weather. 

LOOKING AHEAD

It looks like we have a fairly active weather pattern ahead. I don't see any signs of temperature extremes, neither too hot nor particularly chilly for this time of year.  Another fairly vigorous storm for this time of year looks like it might swing through Tuesday or Wednesday with the potential for locally heavy rain and thunderstorms, 

It's way too soon to get into specifics, so we'll put that on the back burner for now.