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| A waterspout turned tornado seen here damaging a beach resort on Long Island, NY. Severe weather and tornadoes hit the Mid-Atlantic states, but we in Vermont stayed on the quiet sidelines. |
The storm unleashed tornadoes, severe thunderstorms and flash flooding across the Mid-Atlantic states.
A tornado ripped through Dover, Delaware of all places. A Kraft Foods plant was also damaged. Two hotels were badly damaged, and the city was strewn with broken trees, debris an downed power lines. Streets were flooded. Miraculously, no injuries were reported.
On Long Island, in Nassau County a waterspout came off of Reynolds Channel from Far Rockaway, Queens, and came ashore at a beach club. About 30 cabanas at the Sun and Surf Beach Club were damaged or destroyed by the likely tornado. Luckily, there was only one minor injury, to a worker at the beach club. A state of emergency was declared in Nassau County because of the likely tornado.
Another possible tornado hit the city of Columbia, in central Pennsylvania, partially collapsing several buildings.
Up here in Vermont, of course we were bystanders to all that, thank goodness. The clouds were a bit thicker than forecast, but not by much. Some rain actually worked its way into far southern Vermont, with Bennington reporting 0.2 inches. So a bit of needed water down there.
It seems like it's getting kind of dry here in Vermont, despite the scattered, sometimes even violent thunderstorms we've seen this month. The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, released yesterday, has expanded the area of abnormally dry conditions in the Northeast Kingdom. That dry area now encompasses nearly a third of the state.
"Abnormally dry" is a condition that is just shy of a drought.
Not much rain is in the forecast, either. As usual, let's get into the daily forecast
TODAY
It still looks like today will be the pick of the week in terms of weather conditions. We started the day quite cool, with dawn temperatures within a few degrees either side of 50 amid the usual patches of fog. Autumn is creeping up on us.
The day will turn out gorgeous, with mostly sunny skies, low humidity and highs well into the 70s, possibly near 80 in the warmest valley floors. Then, we enjoy Another clear, cool nigh.
SATURDAY
Increasing clouds but still nice, highs in the 70s to near 80. A couple light showers could work their way into southern and eastern sections of the state during the afternoon and evening.
SUNDAY
A risk of showers, but unfortunately, it looks like soaking rains will go by to our west and to our east. One low pressure system will move northward west of here, going through the eastern Great Lakes into western Quebec. Another, small but potentially wetter system will move northward near coastal New England and then head toward Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Vermont will be caught in the middle. Which mean we'll have clouds and a shower risk, but light amounts of rain since most of the energy to produce downpours will be to our west and east.
That said, a few showers could have locally moderate to briefly heavy rain, but that will only hit a small percentage of us. As it stands now, it looks like most of us will have a quarter inch of rain or less. There might be little more than that in far southern parts of the state.
MONDAY
The two storms I mentioned above will consolidate in northern Quebec. That will send cool, sort of moist air down in our direction. That means partly to at times mostly cloudy skies both days. Light showers should be scattered about, especially in the north and in the mountains.
The cool north flow won't grab as much cold air as it could this time of year. Sometimes this weather set up keeps daytime temperatures in the 60s. Instead, we should be mostly in the 70s, with some 60s in the Northeast Kingdom
