After A Perfect Summer Weekend, Vermont's Weather Week Turns Hot, And For Some Of Us, Scary

An enhanced, level three out of five risk for 
severe storms is up for tomorrow night in the 
orange areas of this map. That's a rare risk level
for this part of the country. Damaging winds
are the biggest risk. But there could be large
hail or even a couple of tornadoes. 

Our perfect weather weekend in Vermont is over, and it's time to face reality. 

The forecast for the first part of this week, especially Tuesday turns very hot. 

And for many people, especially in northern parts of the state, the forecast turns frightening. A significant severe storm outbreak is now expected across northern New York and northern New England Tuesday evening and night. 

That includes Vermont, especially for areas along and north of Route 2.

More on that in a bit

You probably wouldn't call Sunday's weather cool, but at least as measured in Burlington, the low temperature was 57 degrees. was the "coldest" start to the day since June 24. 

But, Sunday afternoon temperatures reached the low to mid 80s, so summer lives on,

Today to an extent, and especially Tuesday, we will briefly experience the other side of summer. The side that's no so pleasant. The side that's uncomfortable, annoying, even dangerous, as noted above Let's get into the details, in chronologicalorder

TODAY

It will try to get hotter today, but a semi-warm front will try to interfere with that process with some clouds and maybe some showers. But the sun will be out much of the time.  The scattered showers will be pretty light, and mostly in northern Vermont late this afternoon and this evening, 

Highs will get well into the 80s. 

TUESDAY 

This time period will bring Vermont some of its most dramatic weather in years. There's still some question about how hot it will get. And how humid.

The forecast, as I noted yesterday, was for hot air to blast in from Montana and North Dakota. 

Large parts of the northern and central Rocky Mountains were absolutely insane yesterday. It was as hot as 116 degrees in Montana.  Several cities set all time record highs including 115 in Miles City, Montana,  111 in Billings, Montana, 109  in both Salt Lake City, Utah and Sheridan, Wyoming.  

It won't get to 116 here in Vermont thank goodness, but we do expect a one-day flash of intense heat. 

Highs should get well into the 90s amid increasing humidity. The forecast high in Burlington tomorrow is 98 degrees.  Which, believe it or not would not be a record high, as it was 100 degrees on that date in 1995.

It is possible, though somewhat unlikely, that a couple places in Vermont could touch 100 degrees tomorrow. 

The humidity Tuesday might be a little higher than previously expected. We noticed dew points in the 70s in parts of North Dakota yesterday. So we can at least expect dew points to be in the oppressive 65 to 70 degree range. 

It'll be pretty breezy tomorrow, too, so it will be a blast furnace kind of day. Needless to say, a heat advisory is up for most of Vermont. 

That all sets us up for what could be a scary Tuesday night

TUESDAY NIGHT

I haven't seen such a threatening severe thunderstorm forecast in years. A sharp cold front will be moving south from Quebec and hitting all that hot, humid air. Conditions are just right to produce what could be a helluva severe storm outbreak in northern areas especially. 

And it will hit on the 31st anniversary of one of the worse derechos in the regions history. Early on July 15, 1995 and intense band of storms caused widespread damage in the Adirondacks and southern Vermont. 

This time, the target is, as noted, northern New England. As it stands now, the biggest risk zone is along and north of a line from Massena, New York, to Burlington and St. Johnsbury, Vermont, Berlin, New Hampshire, and on up through the northwestern half of Maine. 

Those areas are under an enhanced, level three out of five level alert for severe storms Tuesday night an evening.  That's a rare designation for our region. The last time any part of Vermont was under an enhanced risk level was on July 16, 2024. 

Straight line winds is the main, but not only risk with these potential storms. These winds could be much more powerful than your standard issue severe thunderstorm. We're talking  maybe 70 to 80 mph  or more in a few locations. (As in all severe storm outbreaks, the area affected will have spotty areas with lots of damage, with other areas not seeing anything super dramatic.)

Large hail is a definite possibility. If you have a garage, put your car inside it tomorrow night. 

There's also, once again,  a tornado risk with this outbreak. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center says one or two tornados in the northern New England risk zone could be strong. That's an extremely rare thing to say for this neck of the woods. 

And consider this: The only place in the United States that might get a tornado tomorrow or tomorrow night is northern New England. I guess we're the new tornado alley>

This is also going to be a deceptive severe storm event. Usually, things get active in the mid and late afternoon and continue into the early evening. But at 6 p.m. tomorrow, it will probably be sunny and hot, with few if any signs of impending storms. 

But the storms should start to cross the border from Quebec toward 8 p.m. The risk of severe weather will probably continue until around 2 a.m. Wednesday. 

Nighttime storms are particularly dangerous, because it's harder to see them coming. And many people have shut off their phones for the night, so they can't receive severe storm or tornado warning.s 

This is an especially dangerous situation for campers in the woods. If you know anybody is doing that, tell them to get the hell out of the woods and to a safe place by early evening tomorrow.  Note that the 1995 derecho killed at least five campers in the Adirondacks. 

Another weird thing about this potential severe outbreak is its limited location, at least in the United States. (A broad area of southern Quebec is also under the gun with this system Tuesday afternoon and night).

Given that this is happening at night, the ability to sustain the storms will wane as we get later into the night. Also, the atmospheric wind patterns that will help make these storms so intense will probably start to break down by or shortly after after midnight. l 

So the storms will begin to fall apart as they head toward the southern half of Vermont.  By the time you get south of Route 4, there is only a marginal (one out of five on the risk scale) risk of severe weather. If you are in Bennington or Brattleboro, chances are you won't see any kind of thunderstorm, not even some lame garden variety thing. 

Back north, if this thing goes the way current forecasts suggest, there's going to be some pretty widespread power outages. A lot of trees will come down, some into homes, I imagine. Suddenly, I'm not so thrilled by the large trees in my St. Albans, Vermont yard. 

Obviously, forecasts can change. Volatile weather setups like this are notorious for being either worse, or much less severe than forecast.  One thing we can hope for is if this whole thing slows down. If the storms wait until later at night than forecast, then they probably won't be as severe. That's a hope, not a forecast. 

I obviously will have a big update tomorrow morning in this here blog thingy. 

Then, when we get to tomorrow night, have a way to receive weather warnings. A NOAA weather radio is a great resource.  I'm also betting local TV meteorologists will cut into regular broadcasting to provide warnings and updates as the storms loom. 

It's been a weird summer. Sunny and nice, but also very stormy. So here we go again. 

 

Fourth Year In A Row With Vermont Weather Trouble On July 9 or 10. Next Up, Pleasant, But Maybe Smoky, Then A Hot Flash

Torrential rains in St. Albans, Vermont during a strong
thunderstorm late Thursday afternoon. The same storm
 strengthened as it moved east, eventually causing
 substantial tree and power line damage
in the Northeast Kingdom. Flooding hit central Vermont

 It turns out we had weather trouble in Vermont around July 10 for the fourth  year in a row. 

The trouble hit a little early this year, on July 9, instead of July 10 like we saw in 2023, 2024 and 2025. But yesterday, we had flooding in and around Barre, and thunderstorm wind damage in the Northeast Kingdom. 

The core of the wind damage was in Lyndon and East Burke. Video showed numerous trees down along Route 114.  

Somebody in the video background suggests it was a tornado. Perhaps, but since all the trees appeared to fall in the same direction, at least as seen in the video clip, I suspect intense straight line winds.

Another batch of thunderstorms nearly stalled over central Vermont. It was enough to flood the streets of Barre, again. This was mostly poor drainage flooding and not quite as serious as in recent years. 

In Montpelier, nearly 2.5 inches of rain fell yesterday, including 1.75 inches within two hours. 

I guess we should be grateful over a trend line. The worst flooding hit statewide on July 10, 2023. In 2024, most of the destruction was across a broad band through central Vermont. In 2025, destructive flooding was limited to just parts of the Northeast Kingdom.  And yesterday, almost all of Vermont escaped unscathed, except in the Barre-Montpelier area and a small part of the Northeast Kingdom.

Even better, we're done with the rough weather for a little while, anyway. 

TODAY

It looks like the cold front as of 8 a.m this morning was draped across central Vermont, judging from a line of very light showers drifting southward.  The front is too weak to create any dangerous downpours or high winds. We'll have no major weather today. 

This morning started humid, but light north breezes will slowly dry the moisture out of the air. The sun will break through where it hasn't already, and we should make into the low 80s this afternoon.

WEEKEND

It's still looking like a terrific weekend if you love summer.  The humidity should remain low enough, and afternoon highs will reach the 80s under sunny skies. 

Dimmed sun, though. Smoke from wildfires in Quebec near James Bay will probably drift down into Vermont on those north winds. So the Green Mountains of Vermont might well be hidden by haze. I'm not sure whether we'd have enough smoke to trigger any air quality alerts. but we'll wait for more info on that.

NEXT WEEK

A heat dome is setting up in the western United States which will create record high temperatures in places like Montana and North Dakota, and other states.

A storm way up in central and northern Canada will pull a plume of that hot air eastward, arriving here Monday and Tuesday. The National Weather Service in South Burlington is calling it a "jailbreak heat," as it's escaping the heat dome where it originated. 

We should see highs near 90 on Monday and as high as the mid-90s Tuesday. Considering where the air is coming from, it will be pretty dry air.  The kind that doesn't feel quite as bad as most heat waves, but drains the moisture from your garden plants. You'll need to water.

The heat won't last long. If there's a northward bulge in the jet stream with the heat dome in the West, you need a southward dip in the jet stream in the East.

That will start to set up midweek. A cold front will come through Tuesday night or Wednesday. Probably with little fanfare. It won't get that cold, probably seasonably warm late in the week. 

As always, long range forecasts like that are subject to change. At least we have no scary storms or floods in our immediate future.

Severe Storm Risk Is Still Iffy In Vermont Today. Rain And Much Cooler Weather Tomorrow Is NOT Iffy

A severe thunderstorm over Lake Champlain in July, 2023.
Severe storms are possible in Vermont today, if
the right factors come together. We won't know until
shortly before the storms develop. 

 We're starting the day really mild, especially in the Champlain Valley, where temperatures were in the low 60s at dawn.

Such warm temperatures to start the day might make you feel like that risk of severe storms today will come true. After all, summer-like temperatures equal summer-like storms, right?

Well, maybe.

Meteorologists are not much closer to figuring out today's severe weather risk than they were yesterday. 

As the National Weather Service in South Burlington said in their overnight forecast discussion, we're reduced to "nowcasting," which means we'll only know whether any severe weather looms just hours or even less than an hour before they actually hit. If they hit. 

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center still has northern New York and northern New England under a marginal risk of severe weather today. That's level one of five, the lowest alert level. The SPC is also sort of into "nowcasting" with this, saying they'll upgrade to a level 2 slight risk if later forecasts increase the amount of instability in the air 

For Vermont, the marginal risk covers the entire state except areas right along the Massachusetts border. 

One limiting factor might be what was going on just after dawn today.  Light rain showers were over the Champlain Valley, and somewhat more substantial showers were in central New York, heading east towards us. 

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has for now
kept a marginal risk of severe storms over norther
New England (dark green shading). I the risk
of storms seems to increase later this morning,
it'll go to level 2 slightly risk, like what you
see over Arkansas in this map. 

Showers and clouds this morning would tend to suppress instability, and that would more or less squash severe storm potential.  If skies clear up by early afternoon, we could maintain the instability and fire up the storms.  

The amount of moisture in the air is another key factor. Some forecasts show slightly higher humidity today than what was thought yesterday,  which is good if you want storms. 

But other forecasts mix drier air from aloft down to the surface this afternoon, which would lower the humidity. Pick your poison, I guess.

The wind situation thousands of feet overhead are great if severe storms are your thing. If storms can get going, they have the chance of "grabbing" pieces of that high speed air and bringing it to the surface as damaging wind gusts. 

Whether these storms develop depends on whether an approaching cold front can team up with enough instability from sunshine to allow thunderstorms to erupt. If, by noon it's nice and sunny out, we have a  good chance of some good storms to fire up. If it's cloudy and showery, you can't necessarily kiss the severe storms goodbye, but the chances of them actually happening get pretty low
. 

NOAA says if we do see severe storms today, they'll take the form of either what they call bowing echoes or brief supercells. 

Bowing echoes are short lines of thunderstorms. If you look at a bowing echo on radar, the line of storms is shaped like a backwards "C"  The front part of that backwards "C" that sticks out ahead of the rest of the line of thunderstorms is where you'd see those damaging wind gusts. 

Or, we could see some brief, or what NOAA calls transient supercells. It makes it sound like those poor supercells are unhoused. What they really mean is the supercells wouldn't last as long as they usually do. Midwestern supercells can last for many hours. In this case, not so much. 

Still, those "transient" supercells can cause damaging winds and maybe some hail.  Since supercells tend to spin, we'd still have a very, very, very, low risk of a brief tornado. A low risk but not no risk. 

If we do get those rambunctious thunderstorms, they'll come through between about 1 and 6 p.m. today. 

Overall, most of Vermont will not see severe storms today. If we get any damaging winds from the storms, it would be in just a few spots. But we don't know which spots yet, so keep an ear to weather radio or reliable weather forecasting sources like the National Weather  Service or the local TV meteorologists for updates. 

Other than the storms, today will be breezy to windy, especially in the Champlain Valley. Most of us will get well into the 70s before the showers or storms arrive. 

TONIGHT/TOMORROW

Meteorologists aren't sure about today's thunderstorms, but they are sure we're going to get pretty damned wet overnight tonight and tomorrow

Today's shower and thunderstorms will evolve into a steady rain tonight which should pretty much continue through Wednesday. It's looking like a nice soaker, which we need. 

Total rainfall today through tomorrow night looks like it'll amount to more than inch across most of Vermont. Some areas of central Vermont, especially in and near the Green Mountains, could close in on two inches. 

Aside from brief, torrential downpours if thunderstorms develop today, the rain will come down at a slow enough pace that means we shouldn't see any flooding. Rivers will rise and become turbulent, of course, so kayaking in them is probably a bad idea for a couple or few days. 

The weather misery index of Wednesday is really high, though. With the steady, day-long rain, temperatures should only hold near 50 degrees, except maybe somewhat warmer than that in far southern Vermont. 

AFTER TOMORROW

We still have another round in which we spend several days with below normal temperatures and a risk of showers at almost any time. Aside from tomorrow, it won't be as cold as it was last weekend, with highs most days in the mid 50s to low 60s.  Sunday might actually be a little warmer, getting into the near-normal 60s. 

This pattern still looks like it will hold more or less in place through at least May 18 or so.  Most of the showers between Thursday and May 18 are looking very much on the light side, at least so far. That means it's actually good that Wednesday will be so miserable and rainy.  

Risk Of Severe Thunderstorms In Vermont Today, First Big T-Storm Day of The Year Possible

There's a level two out of five threat of severe 
thunderstorms in yellow shading. That includes
southern Vermont, eastern New York and southwest
New England. There's an even greater chance of 
severe storms in parts of the Upper Midwest today. 

You know it's spring because we in Vermont have our first threat of severe thunderstorms of the season today. 

A few areas in the Green Mountain State could see strong to damaging wind gusts in a few of the storms that could form today. 

The best chances of a severe storm are south of a line from Saranac Lake, New York to Lebanon, New Hampshire, the National Weather Service office in South Burlington tells us.  

That's basically along and south of Route 4 with the risk getting into the southern Champlain Valley as well. The risk in this area is level 2 out of 5 point scale. 

All of the rest of Vermont except maybe the extreme northeast tip has a quite low, but not zero chance of an isolated thunderstorms with potentially damaging winds. 

The culprit is a cluster of thunderstorms in the central and eastern Great Lakes early this morning. They're the leftovers of severe weather that sent a few tornadoes swirling through northern Iowa, southern Minnesota and Wisconsin yesterday. 

During the heat of the day, as these storms approach us in northern New England, they might strengthen again. Not nearly enough to give us a round of tornadoes like in the Midwest, but give us the risk of strong winds. 

A "NOWCAST" DAY

The National Weather Service is calling this a "nowcast day." There are so many moving parts that have to line up, or not line up to produce our thunderstorms. And determine how rambunctious they'll get. And where they'll hit.

We won't really know for sure how this is going until things start to bubble this afternoon. Especially going to spend the day outside, you'll want to have a way to hear special weather statements, forecast updates and possibly severe thunderstorms watches or warnings. 

Remember, a watch means maybe. Think of it is as your mother calmly calling you in,  using your nickname. A warning means a severe thunderstorm is coming. That's your mother, angry, urgent, using your full name to get yourself inside. "JOHN MATTHEW SUTKOSKI, GET YOUR ASS IN THE HOUSE NOW OR YOU'LL REALLY HAVE SOMETHING TO BE SORRY FOR!!!!"

Ahem.

Anyway. back to those factors that will go into today's storms. 

One factor is sunshine. Sun heats the atmosphere, to be Captain Obvious here, and that make the air more unstable and leaves more energy for vigorous thunderstorms. We don't know exactly how much clearing we'll get so we'll have to wait and see. As of 8 a.m. today, the clouds were pretty thick across Vermont. It's a wait and see game to determine whether it will clear out at all. 

Early guesses are the best shot of any clearing later this morning and afternoon is along and south of Route 4, which  is one reason why the better chance of strong storms is down in that neck of the woods.

Also, high clouds blowing off the existing storms early this morning in the Great Lakes could race eastward, covering our neck of the woods and maybe suppressing the chances of strong storms. That's another wait and see situation right there. 

Another factor is timing. The models try to develop showers and storms in northern New York early this afternoon. Some of those models bring the shower and storms into Vermont early to mid-afternoon. If that happens, they won't have as much time to develop and won't necessarily be as strong. 

Other models bring the storms in late this afternoon, when they're more likely to be stronger. To complicate things further, the storms might or might not come through in one line. There might be several short lines of storms in various places, or clusters of them, or even isolated ones here and there. 

Upper level winds are stronger north.  If the winds are stronger up above, storms have a better shot of bringing those strong winds down to the surface. So, things aren't lining up perfectly. The best instability is south, but the best winds for strong thunderstorms are north. 

It still does look like upper level winds in southern Vermont are sufficiently strong to at least create seen risk of damaging thunderstorms. 

Here's something else I have to throw in: We have a sort of east to west weather front draped over Vermont or at least nearby in extreme southern Quebec today. You really have to watch weather fronts that are oriented that way. Especially in the spring. You get surprises sometimes from these lazy, sneaky fronts making their fainting couch the Canadian border. 

We'll see a large temperature contrast today in Vermont because of that front. Up along the Canadian border, forecast highs are around 60 degrees. That goes up to 70 by the time you get to Montpelier, low 70s in Rutland and upper 70s in Brattleboro.

The temperature contract could help strengthen storms. At least the ones in the warmer air to the south.

That front also makes it slightly possible we might get one or two storms to start rotating, maybe creating a sort of mini-supercell or two.  I know we equate spinning storms with tornadoes. And there actually is a very low, but not zero chance of a brief spinup today.  Even if a storm is spinning but does not produce a twister, it would tend to be more severe than one that is not spinning

Finally, you might have questions about flooding. Rivers are running sort of high. The ground is pretty squishy, especially where the frost hasn't entirely thawed from the soil yet. Northern Vermont in particular has gotten some rain in the past couple days. 

That will have people asking about flooding. I think we're good in that regard. It's true that some of these storms - if they do come into the state - will pack some pretty torrential downpours. A couple of these downpours might even get a couple small streams out of their banks or erode the edged so some gravel roads. Especially since the soil is so soft this time of year. 

The storms - again if they develop - will be moving right along, so torrential rain won't last long in any one place. Which really reduces the chances of flooding. In general, most of us would receive a safe half inch or so of rain today, give or take. Places that get really bullseyed by more than one storm could get up0 to an inch. 

However, so far at least, it looks like we won't have any real problems with that. But the very low but not zero flooding risk is another reason to pay attention to today's "nowcast" weather updates. 

REST OF THE WEEK

The unsettled, mild to warm weather will continue into the weekend, but we have big changes coming after that. 

Making it seem like summer, showers and possible thunderstorms - most likely in the afternoons and evenings - are a good bet each day Wednesday through Friday. No word yet on whether any of those storms will be strong. It's another thing we'll need to wait for details on.

A strong cold front Sunday will knock us back down to early spring reality.  Forecasts call for highs in the 40s by next Monday.  

Vermont's Last Shot At Rain Diminishes, Severe Threat Southeast

Forecast rainfall for day. Most of Vermont only gets
 a third to a half inch, with more possible southeast
This will be the last appreciable rain for possibly
as long as two weeks or more, so the drought
will worsen again. 

As feared, meteorologists have backed off on the amount of badly needed rain we'll get today. Plus, the southeast corner of Vermont is at risk for severe storms. 

We'll take any rain we can get, and it will rain all over Vermont today. So that will very temporarily halt the drought's worsening trend. But after today, it's over.  The sky faucets shut off again and we go back to rainless skies. 

After today, almost no rain is anticipated for at least a week, save for some scattered sprinkles Sunday and again maybe Thursday. 

The forecast weather pattern is atrocious for drought relief possibly through the rest of the month. It features one dry, huge high pressure system after another coming through, with weak, moisture-starved cold fronts announcing each one. 

I hope the following is wrong, but it's possible (not definite!) that Vermont could receive only a half inch or less of rain through the rest of the month after today.  The already nasty drought would get much, much worse under that scenario. 

We'd better hope for some surprises coming up. Perhaps a dying tropical storm could pass by. Or one of those weak cold fronts could unexpectedly pick up some good moisture from the Atlantic Ocean of Gulf of Mexico. But so far I don't see it. 

Time to do rain dances, folks!

TODAY'S RAIN/SEVERE THREAT

In general, today's cold front will bring a third to three quarters of an inch of rain. 

The Northeast Kingdom appears to be the region most cheated by this round of rain. Or lack of it.  That region got mostly just 0.05 to 0.2 inches of rain early Friday. In today's round, only another third to a half inch of rain is expected. 

Northwest Vermont will probably receive even less rain today, maybe a third of an inch or a little under that. But the rain there Thursday night and early Friday was generous, dumping as much as 1.53 inches in Fairfax, 1.3 inches in St Albans and close to an inch elsewhere in the northern half of the Champlain Valley. 

Severe thunderstorms, maybe even a brief 
tornado are possible in the dark green and
especially yellow areas of this map today. 
Notice it clips southeast Vermont.

Plus, parts of northwest Vermont got some bonus showers overnight. Burlington had about a quarter inch around midnight and my unofficial rain gauge in St. Albans, collected 0.45 inches on top of the 1.3 inches from Thursday night. 

Once again, the rest of Vermont, which needs the rain more than the northwest corner of the state, missed out on last night's showers.  

The most rain today would fall over far southeast Vermont. That's good because they've missed out on a lot of the paltry rains we've gotten.  Places like Brattleboro and Springfield could see anywhere from 0.75 to an inch of rain if the downpours line up just right. 

Southeast Vermont could pay a price for those good rains in the form of severe thunderstorms. The rain in northwest Vermont overnight was the actual cold front, which has temporarily stalled around Vermont,

In the northwestern two thirds of the Green Mountain State, it will just be rain today, with perhaps a rumble of thunder in central Vermont.

However, in the humid air ahead of the front, a narrow risk zone of severe storms extends from New Jersey through central and southern New England and on into Maine and New Hampshire. This severe weather risk zone clips southern Vermont, south and east of a line from Manchester to White River Junction, with the greatest threat south and east of a line from Bennington to Springfield. 

The atmospheric dynamics are great, so a band of strong to possibly severe storms should come through those southeast regions this afternoon.  There's going to be some spin in the atmosphere, too, so that could generate a few supercell thunderstorms. Which introduces the low but not zero chance of a brief tornado or two down in extreme southeast Vermont, and in southern New Hampshire, southwestern Maine and northwest Massachusetts. 

The rough weather should be out of Vermont before evening. You'll notice temperatures dropping statewide this afternoon, so if you're going out, bring a hoodie along with the rain gear. 

Tomorrow should be cool and partly sunny, except mostly cloudy in the northern mountains. There could be some brief, light showers, especially in the northern Greens. 

Early Afternoon Vermont Storm Update: Severe Thunderstorm Watch Likely

Early this afternoon, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center
highlighted the area in purple as the most likely
zone for scattered severe thunderstorms, and possibly
even a brief tornado spinup. Although there's a low
but not zero chance of such a spin up in Vermont,
tornadoes are slightly more likely in northwestern 
Maine of all places, and southern Quebec. 

Scattered showers and thunderstorms were already starting to break out in and around Vermont as of 1 p.m. as the air destabilizes south of a warm front and east of a cold front. 

By the time you read this, much of Vermont and parts of New Hampshire and Maine, and maybe some other areas will be under a severe thunderstorm watch. 

Early this afternoon, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center issued a statement highlighting northern New England as a potential hot spot for severe storms this afternoon and early evening. 

Very moist air - gawd that humidity! - and an approaching little disturbance and a cold front, increasing winds aloft, combined with a low pressure system in southwestern Quebec are all doing their job to get those storms going, as we expected from earlier forecasts.

The timing of all this is perfect - afternoon and early evening. Those are the hours in which the strong July sun further destabilizes the air, ultimately making the storms more powerful.

There was some question as to whether we'd have enough late morning and early afternoon sun to prime the severe thunderstorm pump. but we've seen some big breaks in the clouds, especially early the afternoon.

This has all boosted temperatures well into the 80s. Even flirting with 90 in a couple spots. All that heat, combined with the already-mentioned humidity, is a recipe for big storms. 

Some of these storms will develop into at least brief supercells. Those are those rotating, powerful thunderstorms that can produce ferocious wind gusts, incredible rain rates and maybe tornadoes. 

The United States location with the greatest chance of seeing a couple tornadoes today is northwestern Maine. Go figure. Southern Quebec is also under the gu n for those twisters - especially those expansive flat areas outside of Montreal.

It's plausible northern Vermont could see a brief, weak tornado, but the chances are lower here than in southern Quebec or those parts of Maine. 

I'm pretty sure, though, that we will see scattered instances of straight line wind damage.

Not everyone will see a severe storm. Including in central and northern Vermont, where the risk is highest. There will only be scattered instances of damage. 

But be weather aware, and have a ready source to receive severe storm warnings quickly. If you get a warning you'll need to get into a sturdy building away from windows until it passes. 

As of 1:30 p.m., storms were rapidly developing, but most of them so far seemed to be in southern Quebec. Still, development is happening everywhere. And will increase as the afternoon wears on. The atmosphere is looking agitated, with storms seemingly forming pretty easily and quickly.  

Keep an eye to those skies this afternoon, folks!

Some Severe Storms Around Vermont/Northeast Today. But First Dry Weekend Since December?

Scattered severe thunderstorms with strong wind gusts
and large hail are possible mostly in the yellow
shaded area. As you can see, this includes Vermont. 

After Wednesday's pleasant weather - marred slightly later in the day by the return of some wildfire smoke - today's going to be sort of a head's up kind of scenario. 

A cold front, a pocket of cold air aloft and some other disturbances will coordinate with each other to   bring us some strong to locally severe thunderstorms. 

After that, we have some potentially big meteorological news for this coming weekend.  More on that later, but let's get into today first.  

THURSDAY STORMS

It's looking like today might be kind of a weird thunderstorm day. Usually, on most stormy days in the summer, you get a peak in activity during the late afternoon and evening, and that will be kind of the case today. Best chances of seeing a storm are between 1 and 6 p.m. today. 

But it won't be limited to just the usual afternoon and evening rumbles and lightning strikes.  Some storms will come through this morning, as the atmosphere is unstable enough so that we don't have to wait until the sun heats up the air to help create our storms.  

Already, as of 7 a.m. today, a cluster of showers and a smattering of lightning bolts were  over the southern and central Adirondacks, making a beeline toward mostly central and southern Vermont. More storms had already gotten going over western New York and southern Ontario and were heading east.  There was already a local downpour in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont as of 7 a.m. 

Later today, a few thunderstorms could linger after a  cold front passes through this afternoon, which is odd. 

 Usually, once your cold front has passed, so has your threat of thunderstorms. But trailing disturbances in the atmosphere, along with that chilly pocket of air aloft, could keep scattered non-severe but possibly locally strong storms going until until nightfall.  

The bottom line is they'll come through in hit and miss fashion all day.  The vast majority of New England, including all of Vermont, along with New Jersey and eastern New York has a level two out of five risk alert for severe storms today. 

As usual, most places won't see damaging winds or hail today.  

But some will, and it will be kind of random. The biggest threat is those locally strong winds that could knock over some trees and power lines.  The chillier air aloft opens up the possibility of an isolated instance or two of hail big enough to dent your car or damage your garden. 

You'll need to listen for possible severe storm warnings and be ready to get inside a sturdy building. Today is NOT the day to go out on the lake, or take a hike up into the mountains. Especially with all that lightning that'll be crackling around the summits. 

In many areas of Vermont, the storms won't technically be severe or particularly damaging, but they will contain dangerous lightning, briefly torrential downpours, gusty winds and hail.  A few "lucky" towns    won't see anything at all, and others will just have a few rumbles of thunder and a little rain. 

I'm not worried about any flash flooding. Most places should get a quarter inch or less of rain. Towns that really get nailed could see up to an inch. But those higher totals will be pretty isolated.

DRY WEEKEND?

Last weekend was the 28th in a row with at least some precipitation.  In all the records at Burlington dating back to the late 1880s, there was only one other time there were more consecutive weekends with rain 

That was 30 such weekends, starting September 1, 1934 and ending March 23, 1935. 

Records are made to be broken, but this time, it's looking more and more like that Depression-era record will stand.

After today's storms, and a very low chance of light showers over the Northeast Kingdom Friday, it looks like we'll have to wait until Monday for our next chance of rain. You never know a rogue shower could arrive in Burlington maybe Sunday night, but right now I doubt it.

The Details:

The Fourth of July weekend might turn out dry, but it will be changeable.

Friday the Fourth should be dry and cool for the season, with refreshingly low humidity. Friday evening should be clear, so Vermonters will have no trouble watching the fireworks. 

Saturday morning will dawn clear and comfortably cool, but by afternoon, you'll notice it heating up, We should get up into the 80s but the humidity still woh't be so bad.

Sunday looks HOT, with highs for many of us reaching at least 90 degrees, with increasing humidity. 

A cold front should begin to cut the hot spell short beginning on Monday. Or maybe Tuesday. There should be some showers and storms around early next week, but it's too early to provide details.  

Early Afternoon Vermont Severe Storms Update: Severe Storm Watch Issued

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center around noon
focused on this area, including Vermont that
is likely to have scattered severe thunderstorms
for the rest of this afternoon. 

 A severe thunderstorm watch is now in effect throughout Vermont and eastern New York.

The severe storm watch is effect now until 9 p.m. this evening. 

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center released what is known as a Mesoscale Discussion around noon. These focus on particular areas of interested in which potentially dangerous weather is coming soon.

This one focused on Vermont, eastern New York and part of northeast Pennsylvania. 

According to the statement, storm coverage in the region covered will be pretty scattered and not particularly widespread. But those relatively few places that do get nailed might really get it. 

By far the most likely source of problems from these storms would be damaging straight line winds. We could see a couple places deal with large hail as well.

There's still a very, very low, but not zero chance of a brief spinup tornado.

Even if a particular thunderstorm isn't quite severe when it hits you, watch out for dangerous cloud to ground lighting and torrential downpours. 

Thunderstorms were already firing up in central New York as of 1:30 p.m. They were rapidly heading northeastward toward Vermont. The fact that they were forward speed is so fast means you might not get all that much lead time between the time you might receive a severe thunderstorm warning and the time you actually get the storm. 

It's good that they're moving rapidly, because that won't give them much time to dump enough rain to trigger flash flooding. Still, a couple places could get some flash flooding today if they get "lucky "enough for storms 

After the initial scattered batches of storms that come through Vermont more storms could arrive with additional downpours and lightning. The atmosphere might be somewhat more stable by then, so that might reduce, but not eliminate the chances the evening storms being severe. 

But we're not entirely sure about that, so stay tuned. And keep your eyes to the skies this afternoon. Be ready to move indoors quickly. And have a ready source of receive severe weather warnings, such as wa weather radio or reliable local media. 

Strong/Severe Storms, Flood Risk, High Humidity, And Eventually, Heat Spices Up Vermont Forecast

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has much of the eastern
U.S. including all of Vermont in a slight risk zone
(yellow shading) for severe storms Thursday. 

The weather here in Vermont is going to be more interesting than usual for this time of year over the next few days. 

The word "interesting" when describing weather forecasts is seldom welcome, as that usually spells trouble. And sure enough, the weather might complicate your life over the next few days.  

We have high humidity, the risk of strong to severe thunderstorms, a bit of a flash flood risk (again!), and eventually some dangerous summer heat. 

Tomorrow and next Monday and Tuesday are the biggest high alert days.. But, as we usually do, let's walk you through day by day, as every day for at least the next six has something noteworthy to offer us. 

TODAY

The humid air has arrived on schedule. You might have noticed your bedroom getting a bit stuffy overnight. 

The high humidity, combined with expected high temperatures in the low to mid 80s, should be enough to set off some showers and thunderstorms this afternoon and evening.

They could happen anywhere. There's were already a batch of showers passing through far southern Vermont early this morning. But the storms are most likely this afternoon and early evening in the northwestern third of Vermont and over northern New York.

Few, if any of these storms will get exceptionally strong or severe. But one or two of these storms could provide some gusty winds and heavy downpours. The forward motion of these storms will be kinda lame, so a couple spots in northwestern Vermont could really get dumped on.  

There's no risk of widespread flash flooding or anything like that, but those one or two spots, especially north of Route 2 and west of the Green Mountain, might (or might not!)  have a little problem with driveway and back road washouts, that kind of thing. 

Some places will avoid rain altogether today. Classic hit and miss. 

THURSDAY

This is a higher risk day. The high humidity will still be in place. Sunshine in the morning and early afternoon should boost temperatures into the mid or even upper 80s. A cold front will be approaching to make the air more unstable.

Winds aloft will become stronger, and change directions with height. Those are all ingredients to set off severe thunderstorms. 

For now, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has all of Vermont under a slight risk of severe storms on Thursday. That's a level two out of five on the danger scale. It means there should be some scattered severe thunderstorms. 

As is almost always the case with this type of summer storm situation, only a small minority of us Vermonters will experience a severe storm.  Most of us will get at least some rain and hear thunder, and many of us should get at least a brief downpour.

It's just those few spots that will get nailed. It's impossible to tell more than a half hour to an hour in advance who gets the most dangerous storms. So you'll need to have a weather radio or some other source ready tomorrow to get warnings and advisories.

I'd also skip boating around Lake Champlain or hiking to the summits Thursday afternoon. 

The storms tomorrow will come at us either as relatively short lines of big storms or supercells. The biggest threat is from damaging straight line winds.  Large hail is pretty unlikely, but still possible. There's also a very low, but not zero chance of a brief spin up tornado mixed in there.

The other threat is flash flooding. Any flooding we do get - if we get any -  will be pretty isolated. Most places should be fine. 

However, the rain will be absolutely torrential in some of Thursday's  storms. Luckily, the storms will be moving right along, so they won't linger over one spot for too long to really flood things out. But if you get squarely hit by a big supercell, or microburst; or if two or more lines of storms hit you in rapid succession, there could be a local flash flood problem or too. 

The bottom line is NOAA's Weather Prediction Center has us in a low level marginal risk zone for localized flash floods 

FRIDAY

We get a break in the action. It'll be somewhat cooler and less humid since the cold front will have gone through.  There could be some lingering showers or garden variety thunderstorms scattered around here or there in the afternoon, especially north, but nothing scary. 

SATURDAY

There's an odd bit of uncertainty in Saturday's forecast.  The strong ridge of high pressure will be beginning to build toward us. That's what will set us up for next week's heat. 

We have to watch out for something called a ridge roller Saturday or Saturday night.. These are clusters of thunderstorms that rotate around the northern edge of a developing ridge of hot high pressure. They'd come in from the Midwest and then head southeastward, possibly in this case through northern New York and northern New England.

These things are super hard to predict three days in advance. Computer models are pretty insistent there will be a "ridge roller" but we don't know where it will go. Maybe through us, maybe across Quebec, maybe to our southwest toward western New York and Pennsylvania. Or maybe it won't happen at all. 

Ridge rollers can be pretty benign, and almost unnoticeable, or they could contain severe thunderstorms and flash floods.  This is just something to keep an eye on.  We'll monitor later forecasts.

SUNDAY

You'll start to notice the heat and humidity building up. It'll be a decent beach day, with a fair amount of sun and highs well into the 80s. Hottest spots could flirt with 90. 

MONDAY AND TUESDAY

Looking hot, with a very good chance of temperatures going over 90 degrees in many spots in Vermont. The humidity will be sky high.  Since this will start on Sunday, we'll have three days of this kind of weather. Which can wear on people after awhile and become dangerous. Especially for the elderly and people with health problems. 

The humidity will ensure that nights will stay very warm and muggy, so you won't get any relief after dark.  If there are people in your life who you worry about in this kind of weather,  it would be a good idea to check up on them early next week. Or better yet, "kidnap" them and take them to a chilly movie matinee, a nice cool air conditioned restaurant or shopping center or something. 

BEYOND TUESDAY

It looks like a cold front will cool things down somewhat by Wednesday. It will be no means get "cold" after the cold front, but it should at least feel more reasonable out there. 

1 PM Thursday Update: Severe Storm Threat Grows In Vermont/New York, Watch Issued

Northern and central New York and extreme western
Vermont have been upgraded to "enhanced" risk
of severe storms today. That means numerous
severe storms are likely. Slight risk means
scattered instances of severe weather. 

A severe thunderstorm watch is now in effect for all of Vermont and all of New York except for the extreme west out by Buffalo.   

Moreover, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has increased the alert level for severe thunderstorms from "slight" to "enhanced."  The rest of Vermont is still listed under "slight" risk.

Enhanced risk is level three on a five point scale of thunderstorm risk. It's the first enhanced level we've seen in Vermont this year.  Slight risk means there will likely be scattered instances of severe storms, defined as having winds of greater than 58 mph and/or hail one inch in diameter or bigger.

An enhanced risk means there should be numerous severe thunderstorms. Western Vermont in particular ought to keep an eye on the skies and pay attention to warnings. 

There continues to be a very small, but not zero risk of a tornado in the Champlain Valley or elsewhere in western Vermont. But the main threat is strong straight line winds.

Even though the risk of a tornado is low, it will feel like tornado weather out ahead of the storms in the Champlain Valley this afternoon. South winds will be gusty, possibly reaching as high as 35 mph.  Avoid boating on Lake Champlain today.

Amid the winds, it will continue to get increasingly hot and humid ahead of the storms. 

A severe thunderstorm watch, which we are now under, just means conditions are favorable for bad storms. If you see a severe thunderstorm warning for your area, that means a bad storm is about to hit.

If/when you get a severe thunderstorm warning today, go into a sturdy building and try to stay away from windows. This risk is somewhat higher than the usual hit and miss stuff we get.

As of 1 p.m., the developing line of severe storms was approaching Syracuse and Watertown, New York and was making steady progress east while strengthening. 

FLOODING

Of course, with all this going on, the flooding risk remains. The thinking from this morning so far hasn't changed much. The storms late this afternoon and evening will have the potential to cause renewed flash flooding anywhere in Vermont.

The greatest risk, though is in the southern half of the state. That risk will last well into the night. 

Bottom line: Vermont is about suffer more storm damage, which we surely don't need. The damage we will incur today and tonight will be much, much less than what we went through Monday and Tuesday. 

But every little bit hurts all the more. Stay safe and stay Vermont Strong. 

Another Interesting Weather Day On Monday And Things Look To Stay Active

As is typical of March, winter blew in again overnight
in St. Albans, Vermont after a couple of days of big thawing
More highly variable weather is in the forecast. 

 The "second storm" that went through yesterday and last night might not have deposited that much precipitation, but it still definitely packed a punch. 

Additional interesting weather is coming, too. More on that in a bit. 

It was another wild one up and down the East Coast Monday. Record highs were set from around New York City to the Carolinas. 

Sorry, Vermont, we missed out on a second day of record highs, we were too far north. Bennington did briefly sneak into the warm air and got to 61 degrees just ahead of the storm's cold front last night.

And what a cold front! At one point last evening, severe thunderstorm warnings extended in solid line from Bennington to Philadelphia.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center received no fewer than 241 reports of damaging thunderstorm winds last night in the Northeast.  The severe storms crossed far southern Vermont, though I haven't seen confirmed wind damage reports there. I do know the thunderstorm wind gusted to 64 mph in Bennington, which is impressive. 

Further north in Vermont, we lacked thunderstorms, but the cold front did bring brief downpours.  A rush of wind accompanied the cold front, gusting to 50 mph in some spots.  Rutland reported a gust to 52 mph and Montpelier reached 44 mph. 

There were at least 3,000 power outages in Vermont early this morning, mostly in southern Vermont. It's unclear whether most of the outages were from the severe storms or gusty winds that followed the cold front. 

Today will be rather cold and windy, but those winds will slowly diminish. There was some light snow around this morning, including one persistent narrow band that ran from Alburgh to St. Albans to northern Lamoille County. At least an inch of snow fell beneath that band, and I imagine there was a couple to a few inches on a few western slopes of the northern Green Mountains. 

Next up, a weak storm later Wednesday will probably spread a little light snow across Vermont Wednesday night, possibly starting as sprinkles of rain. This won't be a biggie by any stretch of the imagination. 

We get a pleasant March day Thursday (Sap run alert: Lows in the 20s, highs in the 40s that day!).

Then things get interesting again. 

The devil is in the details, and those details aren't available yet. But it looks like a strong storm will affect the eastern third of the nation Friday and Saturday.

The storm will likely cause severe weather and possible tornadoes in the Southeast. Behind it, snow will fall unusually far south for this time of year, possibly getting into Louisiana and Mississippi. The Deep South all the way into northern Florida could get a nasty frost and freeze Sunday night.

The rest of the East will get rain, wind and inland snow with this. Much of this precipitation will come down hard in the Northeast.

So what's in it for Vermont? It could be a big snowstorm, especially over northwestern Vermont and the northern Green Mountains. Or it could be a mainly rain storm, with snow at the end. But chances are it will be a pretty decent amount of something. 

It'll get pretty windy around this strengthening storm, too.  If there's wet snow and wind, that could be a real problem. 

After a quick shot of winter cold Sunday, it'll start to warm up and thaw a little bit a couple days after the weekend storm. We'll have more details as this draws closer. 

East Coast A Hot Spot For Severe Storms This Year; Vermont, Not So Much

A strong thunderstorm over Georgia, Vermont on August
11 that would go on to earn a severe thunderstorm warning
in eastern Franklin County.  It was one of a below 
average 45 severe thunderstorm warnings issued so far
this year from the Burlington, VT NWS office. 

You'd expect the place that has had the most severe thunderstorm warnings this year would be some place like tornado alley in Oklahoma or Texas, or maybe the Deep South, or the lightning capital of the nation, Florida.  

Nope. The 2021 hot spot for severe, damaging storms is in the Baltimore-Washington DC area, according to the Washington Post Capital Weather Gang. 

That wouldn't seem like the most likely place.  Sure, there is plenty hot, humid spring and summer air in that neck of the woods to fuel big storms.  But you wouldn't expect that area to be the king of severe.  

Maybe Ma Nature is fed up with the kookiness of Washington and is trying to send a message?  

A severe thunderstorm is defined as one with winds of at least 58 mph and/or hail the diameter of quarters or bigger.  A severe thunderstorm warning means a storm that likely contains those conditions was detected.  It usually, but not always means there really is a severe thunderstorm. Every once in awhile, no damage is reported with a storm that had been deemed severe.

In those cases, the storm really wasn't severe or it hit an area where nobody was around to report or even see damage.  Basically, though, if you receive a severe thunderstorm warning, you should expect such a storm and take shelter right away. A severe thunderstorm warning means trouble looms.

In the Mid-Atlantic, trouble loomed a LOT this  year.

The Washington Post says:

This map shows the number of severe thunderstorm warnings
issued by each National Weather Service local office in the 
nation. Click on the map to make it bigger and easier
to see. Image is from the Washington Post. 

"The National Weather Service office serving the Washington-Baltimore region has issued a whopping 528 severe thunderstorm warnings for its zone of responsibility from eastern West Virginia to the Chesapeake Bay.  That number even surpasses the warning count for the area around storm-prone Norman, Oklahoma, which has received a second-most 489 warnings."

The number of storm warnings in the Washington-Baltimore area is about 223 more than normal.

National Weather Service offices surrounding the Washington-Baltimore NWS district also had much more storm warnings that average.

In our neck of the woods in northern New England and northern New York, though, we've had a light storm season.  

 The National Weather Service Burlington office forecast area covers all of Vermont except our southernmost two counties and northern New York from about Whitehall on the Rutland County, Vermont border to northeast of Watertown, New York along the St. Lawrence River valley.

In this zone, there have been 45 severe thunderstorm warnings so far this year, which is 16 fewer than normal.  

Again, click on map to make it bigger and easier to see.
The departure above or below normal of severe thunderstorm
warnings issued so far this year. Image from the 
Washington Post. 

The rest of northern New England, covered by NWS offices headquartered in Gray, and Caribou, Maine have had a similarly light year.  A vast area of the Great Plains and Mid-South of the United States also had a very light severe storm year so far, relative to average, anyway. 

Up here in northern New England, severe thunderstorm warnings are usually few and far between from now until next spring, so I don't expect the number of severe storm warnings to go up much.  In general, the further south you go, the more likely there will be more severe thunderstorms before the close of 2021.  

Generally speaking, a persistent dip in the jet stream centered over the Great Lakes created this pattern.  The weather pattern favored dry, stable west to northwest winds over the Midwest that helped squelch storms.

This same pattern kept bringing storm systems, cold fronts and lots of humid air to the eastern United States, which encouraged storms. 

In northern New England, persistent ridges of high pressure over southeastern Canada often suppressed the rough weather to our south.  While this Canadian ridge mostly kept us warmer than average, it also kept those storm systems in the East from working their way far enough north to influence much. 

The cold fronts also ran into dry air associated with the southeastern Canadian high pressure, and that helped keep storms to a minimum. 

  

Wednesday Vermont Storm Update And Nicholas

Best chances of severe storms Wednesday look to be in
the yellow zone. Marginal risk in dark green. Graphic
is from the National Weather Service in South 
Burlington, using data from NOAA's Storm
Prediction Center.

We're still looking at just one day over the next week or more in which we here in Vermont could have some tricky weather.  

That's tomorrow.  

The forecast still calls for the risk of some strong to severe storms, especially in southern and eastern Vermont. 

You know the drill: Some storms might have damaging winds, torrential downpours could set off a local flash flood or two, and the lightning will be dangerous.

You know this part of the drill, too: Southern Vermont will be the real target, while northern Vermont, especially the northwest, escapes the weather to an extent. 

The best chance of severe storms for now looks to be south and east of a roughly Rutland to St. Johnsbury line. Still, there could be a few isolated instances of strong winds in central and even northern Vermont. In this area. NOAA"s Storm Prediction Center has at least a slight risk of severe storms Wednesday afternoon and evening.

The Storm Prediction Center has been toying with the idea of boosting the risk level of severe weather to "enhanced," which is level 3 in a 5 point risk scale. But due to some uncertainty in the forecast, they're keeping it at slight risk for now. That's level 2 in the 5 point risk scale.

As a warm front comes through tonight, you might be awakened by the sound of rain on the roof and maybe a few rumbles of thunder. Nothing severe with that batch of showers and storms, though. 

When you get up tomorrow morning, the air will have a more humid feel to it. That'll set us up for the storms as a cold front slowly comes in from northern New York.

Up in northwest Vermont, lots of clouds will hold down instability, and the best upper air support for strong storms will be to the south. So, there could be some downpours, some lightning, maybe just a little wind up in the that neck of woods.

The morning and early afternoon will feature at least some sun in southern Vermont, which will help to make the atmosphere more unstable.  That means it'll be easier to form strong updrafts that give rise to those towering thunderstorm clouds. 

Stronger winds aloft will help maintain the storms.  When the upper level winds aren't very strong, the towering thunderstorm clouds remain more or less vertical.  That means the warm moist updraft with thunderstorms gets mixed up with the cold downdraft with the storm's rain, and the overall storm falls apart. It's too disorganized.

If there's strong wind aloft, the big towers of the thunderstorms are tilted. That means the warm, wet updraft that sustains the thunderstorm stays on one side of big towering cloud, while the cold, gusty downpours stay out ahead of the updraft, and doesn't interfere with it.   The updrafts and downdrafts don't get mixed up with each other, so the storm can sustain itself and get stronger.  

That's the kind of deal southern Vermont faces tomorrow. It's a pretty typical setup for strong to severe thunderstorms. 

Those strong upper level winds will also change direction with height. That could cause some storms to rotate. Which in some cases can actually spin up a tornado.  The Storm Prediction Center has a very low, but not zero risk of a couple tornadoes in southeastern Vermont, southern New Hampshire and southern Maine Wednesday.

But the main threat will be damaging straight line winds with the storms.

After all that goes by, we stay in some benign, warm weather for several days at least.  There could be a couple showers Saturday, but nothing widespread. Temperatures on many afternoons over the next week will flirt with a summery 80 degrees.

NICHOLAS

Tropical Storm Nicholas managed to increase to hurricane status for a short time overnight just before making landfall in Texas.  Top winds at landfall were 75 mph.

But as we mentioned yesterday, wind isn't the big problem here.  There was a fair bit of storm surge flooding overnight.  Most of the streets in downtown Galveston, Texas were under water from the surge that came in from the Gulf of Mexico, and there is storm surge damage throughout the mid-Texas coast.

Nicholas is forecast to more or less stall over 
Louisiana, which will unleash another disaster
on the state, this time devastating floods.

The even bigger problem is the torrential rain falling on the upper Texas coast and moving into Louisiana. They're still forecasting up to 20 inches of rain. 

Video from Live Storms Media from the Texas Coast last night showed an incredible amount of water pouring from the skies on top of the storm surge.  

Nicholas will diminish to a tropical depression, but will nearly stall over Louisiana this week. That will unleash tremendous amounts of rain on the storm-beleaguered state, and they will have another big disaster on their hands, this time from flooding. 

Even though the wind wasn't extreme, more than a half million people are without power in Houston, surrounding areas and into Louisiana. That doesn't include the people in Louisiana still without electricity from Hurricane Ida a few weeks ago.

The United States really seems to be a target for hurricanes and tropical storms this year. So far, eight such storms have hit the U.S.  

After Nicholas, there's nothing in the next couple of days that is threatening the United States, but there's still plenty of time left in hurricane season for more to hit.

 

You Don't Want To Receive THIS New Type Of Severe Thunderstorm Warning

Damage from a severe thunderstorm in Sheldon, Vermont
in July, 2019.  From now on, particularly dangerous
thunderstorms will trigger Wireless Emergency 
Alerts on your smartphone

If you ever receive a "destructive" severe thunderstorm emergency alert on your smartphone, you're in BIG trouble. 

The National Weather Service has introduced a new scale of severe thunderstorm warnings, one of which will trigger a Wireless Emergency Alert on your phone. 

Tornado warnings and warnings of particularly dangerous flash flood warnings automatically go to most phones, triggering an alert wherever you are that danger is on the way.  

Severe thunderstorm warnings don't trigger automatic phone warnings.  At least they didn't, until August 2.

Now, sort-of-bad severe thunderstorms still won't trigger a phone alert. But the nastiest ones will. If meteorologists think the storm heading your way packs winds of at least 80 mph and/or has hail as big or bigger than baseballs, you get an alert. 

As Kerrin Jeromin writes in the Washington Post, the most severe thunderstorms are every bit as dangerous as a tornado, so they should prompt smartphone alerts, as the National Weather Service has decided.

One instance where this type of uber-severe storm would have triggered such warnings was the huge derecho in Iowa last August. These storms had winds as high as 140 mph.  This was the most expensive thunderstorm disaster in U.S. history, causing at least $7.5 billion in damage. The storms also killed four people.

This new warning system was not in place at the time of the August, 2020 Iowa derecho. There were plenty of warnings the storms were coming, and those were well broadcast via Iowa media. But if somebody wasn't near a radio or TV, or weather radio, there was little warning, since there was no automatic Wireless Emergency Alert on their phones. 

Under the new policy if God forbid the Iowa derecho happened again, there'd be that automatic alert on everyone's phones.

There are two other levels of severe thunderstorm warnings under this new system that will not trigger those smartphone Wireless Emergency Alerts. 

 "Base" warnings tell you to expect wind gusts of at least 58 mph hail the size of quarters. The "considerable" version gives you winds of 70 mph and/or hail the size of golf balls.   

These two lower level thunderstorm warnings should still be taken very seriously. As always, local media and a handy weather radio will broadcast these quote,  unquote lower level warnings, and you can get phone apps that will alert you as well.

The type of huge 80+ mph storms that will trigger the Wireless Emergency Alerts comprise about 10 percent of all severe thunderstorms.  The rest are in the 58 to 79 mph range, or have hail smaller than baseballs.

The 80+ mph storms are pretty rare here in Vermont but they can and do occur. On occasion, we've had derechos roar in from Ontario and Quebec or from the Great Lakes to cause destructive thunderstorm winds here. 

Information is power. Those Wireless Emergency Alerts can be annoying, but boy they come in handy when the crap is about to hit the fan. 

Statewide Line Of Severe Storms Tuesday, But At Least The Smoke (Temporarily) Cleared

Interesting visible satellite view of the Northeast U.S.
and southeast Canada this morning. You can see
the milky tone of the thick smoke in the Mid-Atlantic
states that affected Vermont Tuessday. There's clouds
over Vermont/northern New York and clear, smoke-
free air in Quebec the cleaner air is headed 
in our direction. 
Vermont Tuesday

 It's actually kind of rare that the entire state of Vermont goes under a series of severe thunderstorm warnings for a single line of storms, but we accomplished that last evening. 

Everybody from Alburgh to Vernon got a good thunderstorm out of this.  Not everyone had severe, damaging storms, but reports of high winds and flooding came from all corners of Vermont with this. 

On the bright side, everybody got beneficial rain out of it, though southern Vermont at this point doesn't really need the rain.  

The storms also temporarily dramatically improved air quality, as the rain washed the dense wildfire smoke that had been hanging in the air, prompting air quality alerts.

Fancy pants meteorologists would define what went through Vermont last evening as a quasi-linear convective system or QLCS.   A QLCS is a particular type of squall line ahead of a cold front, and they can be pretty nasty. 

For our purposes, we'll just call it a line of thunderstorms, or a squall line. It originated way up in central Ontario, Canada during the late morning and made its way southeastward into northwestern New York in the afternoon and into and across Vermont in the evening. The line of damaging storms made its way all the way across southern and central New Hampshire to the coast.

Parts of this squall line had some pretty intense lightning. I have to wonder if the smoke particles in the atmosphere encouraged some of that. 

While there was tree and wire damage reported in spots across Vermont, it appears two of the hardest hit areas were around Burlington, and around Orange County in eastern Vermont. 

In Burlington, more than an inch of rain fell in less than an hour, flooding streets. The city reported a total of 1.24 inches of rain yesterday. Right around an inch of rain fell on my St. Albans, Vermont property. Not exactly record breaking, but it was still the wettest day here so far this year. 

A large tree fell on St. Paul Street in Burlington, smushing two vehicles. Another tree fell on Interstate 89 in Burlington. 

It looks like a power outage or wind screwed up automatic weather data at the Burlington International Airport as we still don't know the peak wind gust in the storm there. Hourly Burlington weather observations were still not working on the National Weather Service web site as of 7 a.m. today, but it looks like it was fixed soon after that. 

After the storm, a brighter setting sun as the rain washed
smoke out of the air, and a bit of a rainbow, too. Photo
taken in St. Albans, Vermont 

In Norwich and Thetford  there were reports of many, many trees down, blocking roads. Some power outages lingered in Orange County, Vermont early this morning. 

An area along the squall line near those two towns seems to exhibit some rotation, but it's unknown whether any tornadic activity occurred. 

Yesterday's storms might be the end of the decent rains most of Vermont has been getting lately.  

In northern Vermont this morning, it was murky with fog and drizzle. Showers and a few thundershowers will blossom and be scattered about this afternoon, but no severe weather is forecast. 

North winds over the next couple of days is bringing much cleaner air in from northern Quebec. At least for now, air pollution from western wildfires shouldn't be nearly as much of a problem as it was on Tuesday. 

We'll go into a northwesterly flow for the next week or more. That means frequent quick moving weather systems will come through, each of them with their own batch of showers and storms. But they won't have all that much moisture to work with, so any showers will be quick hitting and not amount to all that much in this upcoming weather pattern.

A Humid Spell: Let's See How Much Rain That Actually Brings

The sky looked unsettled and vaguely threatening outside
my St. Albans, Vermont home this morning. We'll wait
and see as to whether this results in any rain later
today. 

 While much of southern and central New England is saying enough with the rain already, we're still waiting for our share in northern Vermont.  

We at least have a shot at some today, and again Friday and Saturday.  But we'll see how that pans out. 

A band of rain did make it into northern Vermont Tuesday morning, which managed to deposit a half inch on Burlington and a quarter inch here in St. Albans. We'll take anything we can get. 

Severe thunderstorms with damaging winds and heavy rain came as close as the western Adirondacks and St. Lawrence Valley of New York Tuesday afternoon and evening, but were held at bay from Vermont by some stable air from offshore New England waters that was brought here by southeast winds.

Today, that stable air has been flushed out and a disturbance in the atmosphere is set to shoot off some showers and storms over Vermont and surrounding areas, especially after noon.

The question is where will the best heavy rainers set up and how widespread will they be?  We'll just have to wait and see how things play out this afternoon.

Best case scenario is more activity north, where the rain is needed and less south, where it isn't. But things don't always go that way. It's always luck of the draw.

One or two storms might have a hefty enough downpour to cause some local street flooding or some washouts and damage to gravel driveways and roads, especially on steep hills. The overwhelming majority of us won't get boffo amounts of rain. This will be just isolated cases.

The National Weather Service Prediction Center has Vermont in a marginal risk for flash flooding, which does mean isolated instances of that kind of trouble.  Just watch yourself, especially on the roads, if there's a torrential downpour where you are. 

Don't drive onto a street or road that has water covering it.  You won't know how deep it is, or whether the road has been washed away beneath that water.

There is a chance a few storms could be strong to severe today.  To be sure, it won't be a widespread event, but a couple storms could knock down some trees or power lines here or there. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has us in a marginal risk zone for severe storms, the lowest of five levels of alerts for nasty storms. 

Despite continued warmth and humidity, it doesn't look like there will be any rain to speak of Thursday. High pressure will promote sinking air, which fights off chances of any pop up showers and storms.  One or two might manage to get going in the hills and mountains, but don't bet the farm on it. 

A nearly stalled weather front will set up shop overhead or nearby Friday and Saturday, setting up the chance of some heavy rainers - like it or not. Too soon to say who gets what and how much.