Tropics Stay Weird. Also Fire Danger In New England Of All Places

There's a tropical storm watch today in frigid Newfoundland. Another tropical storm rose from the dead nearly a week after dissipating. Yet another one is pretty sitting and spinning over the same location, unleashing dangerous floods. 

Gorgeous satellite view of the Northeast this
morning. Big curved cloud shield is outer
edge of Hurricane Teddy. Just west of 
that cloud shield over Vermont that got
entrained in Teddy's circulation.Then
there's a narrow band of smoke-free
air in northeastern New York, with
more smoke coming in behind it from 
the west.

The weird tropical storm season of 2020 continues on. I'l also get to the fire danger in a bit, which is in part being caused by yes, a hurricane. 

TROPICAL STORM BETA 

I'll start with the relatively "least" weird one first. Tropical Storm Beta splashed ashore along the mid Texas coast last night. Maximum winds were estimated to be near 50 mph, and I think even that was generous. 

The problem is Beta is stalling just inland, and is drawing feeder bands of torrential rain into the Texas coast and into southwestern Louisiana all day today and into tomorrow.

This location can NOT be worse than it is.  Houston, still traumatized by the extreme Hurricane Harvey floods of 2017,  is at a high risk of some substantial flash flooding today. It won't be as bad as Harvey, but that's not much comfort. 

Three to six inches of rain has already fallen around Houston as of early this morning, and at least another four inches is due today. Flash flooding is already ongoing in the massive Houston area, and that is likely to get worse as the day goes on. Flood warnings are up for most area creeks and rivers.  There are lingering storm surges along the coast, and that would limit the ability of creeks and bayous to drain into the Gulf of Mexico.

The torrential rains are likely to move into southwestern Louisiana which was totally wrecked by Hurricane Laura last month. Those tarps over destroyed roofs might not hold up to this much rain, adding to the wreckage of severely damaged houses. Renewed flooding will interfere with hurricane cleanup, and create added damage.  

TROPICAL STORM PAULETTE

This one has risen from the dead. Over a week ago, Hurricane Paulette smacked Bermuda with 90 mph winds, then raced off to the North Atlantic Ocean to die in the cold waters up there. 

Turns out Paulette is some kind of zombie. The remains of Paulette moved south into somewhat warmer waters kind of near the Azores. As of last night, it was reborn as a 60 mph tropical storm.

Paulette has turned east heading slowly toward southern Portugal, but will never get there. Cooler ocean water and high upper level winds should kill Paulette again over the next few days. However, there are some suggestions that its remains could turn on a dime and move westward again. 

If the ghost of Paulette gets far enough west and loses the upper level winds, who knows? It could become a zombie storm again. That's unlikely, but the way this year is going, you never know. 

HURRICANE TEDDY

Hurricane Teddy is gradually losing its tropical characteristics, but is still only half way through that process. When hurricanes do this, their areas of high winds expand.  Teddy is moving north toward Nova Scotia and is expected to give them a pretty nasty blow later today, and the bad weather will move up toward Newfoundland tomorrow. 

As of early this morning, Teddy still had top winds of 105 mph, and hurricane force winds extended as far as 100 miles from its center. That's a big area for a hurricane. 

That set up is helping Tedday cause huge waves and elevated water levels along the Atlantic Coast from Newfoundland to Florida. Coastal flooding is ongoing up and down the East Coast, even as skies remain sunny well outside Teddy's core of clouds and rain.

New England is on the western edge of Teddy's expanding wind field, so breezy to gusty north winds will come through today, especially east of the Connecticut River.

New England is in a drought. The winds today, gusting to 30 mph or more in the eastern half of the region,  could help spread any fires that start.  So I guess we're getting a very mini version of what's been going on in the western United States for weeks now. 

Red flag warnings that indicate fire danger are up for almost all of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and southwestern Maine. 

Here in Vermont, the fire danger isn't quite as high because the wind will be lighter than areas to our east. However, the northerly breezes, low humidity and especially the very dry conditions from this month's lack of rain raises the risk of fires. 

Note that smoke from western wildfires is getting caught up in Teddy's circulation, so we will be back to smoky skies overhead, especially this afternoon. We first started noticing this return to smoke overhead yesterday, ,and I think it might thicken up some this afternoon. 

Some relief from the dry weather is possibly due later in the weekend and early next week. Two fairlky wet cold fronts, one Sunday night, the other Monday night and Tuesday, have the potential at least to give us some decent rains for once. 

Boy, It WAS Cold This Morning In New England. More Coming

 Temperatures dropped like a rock last night in Vermont and surrounding areas, even more than some forecasts anticipated. 

Everyone in Vermont had a frost and/or freeze except for places right along Champlain Valley and some of the urban cores, like Burlington. 

Some of these temperatures were ridiculous. Island Pond reached at least 23 degrees. Saranac Lake, New York got down to 21 degrees. Saranac Lake is a notorious cold spot, but here's a bit of perspective: There were nine mornings last January in that Adirondacks town that were actually warmer this morning.

Montpelier reached 28 degrees, breaking a record low for the date by one degree.

Editor's Note: Because new Blogger is extremely glitchy and bad, and they're not interested in fixing anything, we are apparently no longer allowed to caption photos. Photo in this post is my truck windshield, very definitely iced in this Saturday morning. 

We've got two more nights of this to go, so this is an odd one.  Usually, a freeze this time of year hits on one night and it's gone. 

A few clouds tonight could make Sunday morning's lows a tiny bit warmer than this morning, but still, most of us will get another frost and freeze. Monday morning looks as if it will be as cold as this morning, so yeah, gardens are doomed. 

It will finally warm up next week to readings that are more or less near normal.

The dry weather will continue, too, unfortunately. We'll get little to no rain for at least the next week. Expect the drought to worsen

TROPICS ARE ZOOMING!

Yesterday was probably among the busiest on record for new tropical storms. In the course of just one afternoon, we had new tropical storms Wilfred, Alpha and Beta.

We've already run out of letters for names, so we've moved on to Greek letters.  This is only the second time on record this has happened. The last time, in 2005, we didn't have to move on to Greek letters until the third week in October. 

The only big threat among these three new characters is Beta.  It was the third tropical storm to form on Saturday, and it is threatening the Gulf Coast with potentially drenching rains. 

Beta is going to be one of those dreaded slow movers. It'll sit in basically the same region in the western Gulf of Mexico for a few days.  It might become a hurricane later by Sunday afternoon as it slowly presses toward the central Texas coast 

Once it gets to a point near that coast, chances are it will reverse course and move eastward across the northern Gulf of Mexico. This is all uncertain at this point, so everybody along the Gulf Coast ought to watch this one.  As if they needed another tropical storm or hurricane this year. 

Elsewhere, Subtropical Storm Alpha formed just off the coast of Portugal Saturday.  That's a VERY weird place for any kind of tropical storm to form. I've never seen anything like it. It moved inland into Portugal during the day, causing some damaging winds, flooding and a couple tornadoes.

Tropical Storm Wilfred also formed in the eastern Atlantic Ocean Saturday. The National Hurricane Center is calling it "Woeful Wilfred" because it's weak, disorganized, and expected to dissipate in the next few days. 

Meanwhile, Hurricane Teddy is going to buffet Bermuda before smashing into Nova Scotia while transitioning to a non-tropical storm. 

Teddy will create big waves over the western Atlantic Ocean. Between the storm itself, stiff northeasterly winds on the back side of the storm along the East Coast, and the timing with unusually high astronomical tides, coastal flooding, beach erosion and scary rip currents are likely all up and down the East Coast.

As far south as Charleston, South Carolina, this weather situation will cause some substantial tidal flooding. 

Then there's the ghost of Paulette. That's the hurricane that smacked Bermuda before heading up into the North Atlantic and dying. 

Now, the remnants of Paulette are heading south again and could spin up as a new tropical storm somewhere south of the Azores.

This is one bizarre hurricane season. It's so 2020, isn't it?