Weird, Cool Clouds At Edge Of Nor'easter Over Vermont

Puffs of clouds with little streaks beneath them over
northwest Vermont today. Those wisps were
actually rain strangely coming from the tiny 
clouds, but evaporating well before 
hitting the ground. 

People (correctly) tell me I have my head in the clouds. 

And it's true I'm always staring up into the sky. Which makes me notice things. 

My sky gazing today gave me a couple of rewards: The tiniest little showers I've seen in ages, and quite a contrast between clear and cloudy.

The first photo in this post show the sky looking north from Colchester, Vermont. They're just a patch of bumpy mid-level clouds. 

But notice those wisps beneath many of them. That's rain falling from them. It shows that even the tiniest clouds can form rain under the right conditions 

The rain never came close to reaching the ground. The raindrops evaporated in the very dry air overhead. The relative humidity was only about 35 percent at the time, so that's really dry air. 

Sharp line between clear skies and overcast looking
southwest from Colchester, Vermont this afternoon. 

The second photo is looking southwest from the same spot in Colchester at about the same time as our tiny little rain showers were hovering off to the north. 

It's a remarkably sharp cutoff between mostly clear skies and overcast. 

It was part of the northern edge of a huge cloud shield associated with the big nor'easter hitting the East Coast today. 

I'm guessing the clouds, running into the dry air over northern New York and Vermont, was having an effect on these clouds

Satellite photos show that this sharp band between clear and cloudy extended from northwest Vermont clear across far northern New York. 

That sharp cut off of clear skies and overcast is 
visible on satellite photos across northern 
New York and a piece of northwest Vermont
If you click on the image to make it bigger,
you can see the shadow the clouds cast on
areas near Burlington. 

In the satellite photo, also in this post, if you look closely, you can see the shadow cast by the cloud shield as well. 

The sun was fairly low in the sky when the phot was taken around 3:30 p.m this afternoon.

The satellite photo also shows a southwest to northeast band of feathery clouds across Vermont. That is part of the upper level outflow of moisture from the big storm. 

You can also see in the satellite photo thicker clouds off to the south. 

Those will be in Vermont tomorrow, though far northern Vermont is still not likely to see much rain. 

Southern Vermont is still up for a half inch to an inch of rain, which will be nice for a bit of drought relief. 

The gray overcast we expect on Monday won't make the sky as interesting as it was today, though.  

Vermont Snow Today Showed Up On Satellite Photos

Visible satellite view of the Northeast this morning.
That fuzzy whitish patch in northern Vermont is
snow cover from last night's early season snow.

 There wasn't all that much snow in Vermont this morning, but eagle eyed visible satellite imagery caught the snow cover pretty clearly in north central Vermont. 

Click on the photo in the post here to make it bigger and easier to see. 

That fuzzy whitish patch in north central Vermont, along with another one over the Adirondacks and still another in northern New Hampshire, is snow cover this morning. 

That bright white streak of clouds through central New York, southern Vermont and central New England is the remnants of the cold front that helped create the snow.

You don't see snow on the ground near the Canadian border in Vermont because moisture streaking in from New York State last night mostly went just south of that region, so there wasn't much in any kind of precipitation,

At my house in St. Albans, Vermont, we had some brief snow flurries Sunday evening but no measurable precipitation.

Some areas along the west slopes of the Green Mountains had two or three inches of snow, but most places only managed 1.5 inches or less.

At mid and high elevations, some of the snow was still on the ground at the end of today. Web cams along Route 108 in Stowe and Route 17 in Buels Gore still showed quite a few patches of snow on the ground.

Temperatures only got into the upper 30s and 40s today. Plus, the humidity in the air was extremely low, about as low as it can possibly get in Vermont. Snow or ice in shade does not melt readily when there's so little moisture in the air, even if it's above freezing. 

That will change, as we are still expecting a warm front tomorrow night that will bring near record high temperatures, and some oddly high humidity for this time of  year Wednesday and Thursday. 

December Throwback: Wild Tornado Video

The incredibly narrow main circulation of a tornado on
 December 15, 2021 in Columbus, Nebraska. Hard to see
but the main circulation is roughly from the hood of the 
car across the street to the end of the driveway on the left
The tornado's forward speed was also a remarkable 
80 mph, nearly three times that of a typical twister.

 Just because it's fun to look at super interesting weather events after we've had a chance to catch our breaths, its time to really look at some weird stuff from a couple months ago. 

Back in December, there was a really weird severe weather outbreak in the middle of the nation.  

Record warmth, strong damaging non-thunderstorm winds and an incredibly powerful cold front combined forces on the 15th of that month. 

As the Weather Channel notes, an incredible 99 tornadoes spun up in an unprecedented derecho that extended from Kansas to Wisconsin.  These tornadoes were weaker than some of the super-destructive ones that hit in and around Kentucky a week earlier.

But the fact there were so many, an so far north is off the charts. Two months later, I still can't get over how odd that December 15 outbreak was.  Up until that day, Minnesota had never seen a tornado in December. That day there were 20 of them. 

Iowa had 44 tornadoes, the most of any day in that state's history.  Remember, tornadoes are exceedingly rare in Iowa in December.  The vast majority of Iowa tornadoes happen in the spring or summer. 

The tornadoes sprung up along the line of storms that comprised the derecho. These type of spin up tornadoes tend to spin up quickly, never get super strong, then quickly fall apart. That's not to minimize these tornadoes. They are still very dangerous and can cause a lot of damage. Most of the tornadoes that spin up along squall lines and derechos are EF-0, EF-1, or EF-2, which have wind speeds of 65 to 157 mph. 

The reason I'm bringing all this up is I recently stumbled upon a video taken in Columbus Nebraska by Maritza Moya Garcia.

The spin up tornadoes along squall lines like this are usually quite narrow, and this video demonstrates how tiny but powerful they can be.  As the video opens, the neighborhood is already getting well into the circulation of the tornado.   A screen door flies off the house across the street, and the large tree across the street begins to sway dramatically.

Then, 15 seconds into the tornado's real core arrives. It's amazingly small, roughly the width of a driveway.  It smacks into the house and moves on. You might have to rewind the video to see it clearly as it's incredibly sudden. 

Luckily, it appears the house is not seriously damaged, but you can see how that core abruptly tears limbs from the tree in the front yard.

Another aspect of this is how fast the forward speed of the tornado was.  It was zipping through the neighborhood at 80 mph, which is incredibly fast for a tornado.  The forward speed of most of the tornadoes in this outbreak were about that fast.  This is also incredible, as the average forward speed of a tornado is roughly 30 mph.

The tornado in the video looks like it caused EF-0 or possibly EF-1 level damage in the videographer's neighborhood, which would indicate wind speeds of up to 112 mph. The tornado ended up doing damage rated at EF-2 in Columbus, Nebraska, probably after it passed the videographer's location. An EF-2 tornado has winds of 113 to 157 mph. 

If you're on a mobile phone especially, you might not see the video, below. So instead, click on this hyperlink.

Otherwise, click on the image below. For best viewing, click on the right arrow, then on the YouTube logo. 

Spectacular And Really Cool Lightning Records Set In Gulf Of Mexico And South America

A radar image from April 29, 2020 from Accuweather  shows a
large thunderstorm complex in the northwestern Gulf of 
Mexico. That storm produced a lightning bolt that was 477
miles long, a new world record. 

 We apparently have a new weather term to deal with. A megaflash.

This involves lightning, and a couple new records set. It's all been something just confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization, reports Accuweather and other news organizations.  

A megaflash is a very, very long bolt of lightning.  The new record was a lightning bolt - a megaflash, that on April 29, 2020 extended from Texas, through part of the Gulf of Mexico to over Louisiana and Mississippi, covering a distance of 477 miles. 

That's roughly the distance between Burlington, Vermont and Baltimore, Maryland. 

The storm that caused this wild lightning strike was quite powerful.

Before moving off the Texas coast and creating the lightning bolt, the storm caused extensive wind and hail damage in and near Houston. 

The WMO also confirmed another record, this one involving a long lasting lightning bolt. In June, 2020 a lightning bolt lasted 17 seconds in a thunderstorm over Uruguay and northern Argentina, NPR reports.  

Adds NPR: "Prior to these records, a megaflash in Brazil held the record for the longest flash by distance, at about 441 miles. A 16.73 second megaflash in Argentina, recorded in March, 2019, held the record for the longest duration." 

We will almost certainly see more records, even more spectacular than the two I just described, because of advances in measuring technology.

Until relatively recently, ground based lightning mapping networks measured the size and duration of lightning bolts, but that method surely missed some spectacular lightning events. 

As NPR explains, researchers are now using space-based technology to measure megaflashes.  The space based technology is really doing a bang up job of accurately gauging lightning intensity and size.

Since the space technology is relatively new, we're probably going to see lightning bolts even more wild than the one's I've just described here. We'll keep an eye out for that!

UPDATE: Waterspout On Lake Champlain Likely A Steam Devil Instead

Steam devils southwest of Burlington,
Vermont on January 3, 2013.  I was reminded of this pic
I took after an arctic air waterspout was reported near
Willsboro Point, New York Monday. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Post updated throughout with new information from the International Centre For Waterspout Research:

Temperatures last Monday morning was near or below zero in much of the region.  The water in Lake Champlain at the time was near a relatively toasty 40 degrees.  

That was a recipe for a relatively rare phenomenon: What looked like a waterspout on Lake Champlain.

I thought it was a waterspout too, and posted it as a spout.  

A person named Sophie Clark filmed the tall, skinny steam devil drifting past her windows overlooking the lake in Willsboro Point, New York.  

There's a chance this was a waterspout, but the International Centre for Waterspout Research saw the video and said it's a steam devil. 

Here is, in part, their explanation: 

"Steam devils.... are whirls of steam that form when very cold air moves over open water. They vary in size, appearing most often as thin and rope-like, but occasionally are seen as large wide columns with a clear central core extending several hundred meters in height."

 The waterspout researchers explain further:

"Each winter, the public often mistakes steam devils for waterspouts. This occurs when a steam devil extends to a cloud base. The main difference between steam devils and waterspouts is that steam devils are much weaker than waterspouts. Steam devils do not exhibit the characteristic 'spray ring' that waterspouts do near the surface of the water."

Me again here. Yes, we're getting into semantics, of course, When a steam devil connects with a cloud overhead, there's presumably a bit of rotation at that cloud connection.  That would make me call it a waterspout.  However, the International Centre for Waterspout Research deems this set up too weak to be called a true waterspout. 

I couldn't tell from the video whether whatever that was near Willsboro Point was a steam devil or waterspout. I couldn't tell whether there was any kind of "spray ring" at its base. 

The researchers say wintertime waterspouts can and do occur over frigid winter lakes, but these waterspouts are almost always obscured by falling snow. 

Steam devils, or maybe waterspouts sometime form on very cold mornings over open lake water.  On any such morning, you can look out over the lake and see "steam devils," whirls of steam rising above the water.

Every once in awhile, a steam devil will make a connection with the clouds above.  That's when we enter the gray area between steam devil and water spout.  But, if they stay weak, as they pretty much always do, they're a steam devil. ,

These frigid weather steam devils aren't dangerous, perhaps unless you're stupid enough to be out in those frigid conditions in a kayak or row boat.  

I'm not aware of any of these winter waterspouts coming ashore along Lake Champlain but if one did, I can't imagine it would cause any damage, except perhaps a few small branches or twigs breaking. 

Following some Lake Champlain steam devils or perhaps waterspouts in January, 2009, meteorologists at the National Weather Service in South Burlington wondered why there were so few confirmed instances of Arctic weather waterspouts on Lake Champlain.  

There'd been reports of winter waterspouts on Lake Champlain in 1954, and to a lesser extent, 2014.  

Eight years to the day before the Willsboro waterspout was filmed, I photographed and videod what were either cold air waterspouts or steam devils that almost became waterspouts on January 3, 2013.  Video is at the bottom of this post. 

Steve devils forming
on Lake Champlain January 3, 2013.
It was unclear if a full waterspout
formed from this attempt. 

I see that somebody from the International Centre for Waterspout Research did see my video.  They declared what I filmed steam devils, so we'll go with that. 

Part of the reason there had been so few reports of winter waterspouts, or anybody parsing the distinction between spouts and devils, is that few people are nuts enough to stand on the lake shore in 20s below wind chills looking for waterspouts. (As I've already spilled, I  confess to doing this). 

 I expect we might see more reports of winter waterspouts as everybody keeps cameras in their pockets nowadays.

Another reason few Lake Champlain waterspouts have been spotted is because the convective clouds helping to produce them are also dumping snow showers. The falling snow would obscure the waterspouts.  You also need open water on the lake, of course. 

The National Weather Service meteorologists said it's also possible you need the clouds above the lake to not have a height much more than 2,000 feet. 

The meteorologists said you might also need the right combination of converging air currents.   The 2009 waterspouts came on a day with winds from the northeast near the surface of the lake and winds from the west at 3,000 feet overhead. That mix of wind directions at different levels could have been a needed ingredient for the spouts. 

NWS meteorologists said the Arctic waterspouts are probably more common than confirmed reports suggest.  You have to be in the right place at the right time to see them.  And freezing your butt off when you do see them. 

We're due for a sharp Arctic tomorrow and Tuesday. I don't know whether any waterspouts will form then. But if you're willing to basically dress for a lovely January beach vacation in Ninavut, go to the shores of Lake Champlain and see what develops.  At the very least, the steam rising from the lake will be pretty. 

Here's the video taken by Sophie Clark of the waterspout passing by Willsboro Point, New York Monday. Click on this hyperlink to view, or click on the arrow on the image below, then the YouTube logo.  Below this video is the one I took on January 3, 2013 from Burlington, Vermont's Waterfront Park 

Next up:  Video I took in the late afternoon, January 3, 2013 as temperatures plunged to near or just below zero.  You can see the steam devils in my video making connections with the clouds overhead. I 

Click on this hyperlink or view below: 

Cool, Classic Gravity Waves Over Delaware Coast Monday

Clouds showing well defined gravity waves over
Bethany Beach, Delaware on Monday. 

 I'm on a getaway and spending a few days on the Delaware coast. We arrived in Bethany Beach Monday under gray skies that spit bits of rain.  

But even the gloomy sky was interesting.

A warm front to the south Delaware set up what are known as gravity waves in the atmosphere. Winds aloft from the south were forced to ride up and over the warm front, which sort of acted as a block to the wind flow.

The set up was kind of like how water flows over a submerged rock in a fast-flowing river. Have you ever noticed when the water in that river flows over that rock, there's a series of waves in the water that continue well past the rock?

The rock set up that series of repeating waves. A blockage in the atmosphere, be it a mountain or a weather front, can do the same thing. So you have waves in sky, Up where we live in Vermont, gravity waves are very common as air flows over mountains. 

The gravity waves I saw in Bethany Beach were a little different than I'm used to seeing because the space between the peaks and valleys of the waves, so to speak, was longer than what I see in mountainous Vermont. The Bethany Beach sky wasn't super unusual, but new to me. 

By the way,the air has to be rather stable in general to support gravity waves. By stable, I mean the temperature in the atmosphere does not increase very fast with height, or at all. If the air were unstable, with temperatures cooling quickly with height, there wouldn't be waves. As the air starts to go up over the blockage, it would keep going up instead of sinking again.  In that case, you'd end up with a band of showers and thunderstorms.

The warm front ended up going through, leaving us in Bethany Beach to enjoy a partly sunny, unseasonably warm Tuesday.

Here's the video of those neat gravity wave skies over coastal Delaware. As always, many people on mobile devices will need to click on this hyperlink to see it. To see the video clearly, click on the arrow, then the YouTube logo. 

Otherwise, here's the video: