Fascinating Time Lapse Of A Severe, Rotating Storm Over Rutland County, Vermont

Screen grab from a Jeffery Smith-created time lapse of a
rotating mini supercell thunderstorm last Friday. This is
looking north from West Rutland, Vermont. The lower
cloud over the slight ridge on the right side of the 
photo appears to be a possible wall cloud, which
can be a precursor ro a tornado, No tornadoes
occurred with this storm. 

That powerful thunderstorm last Friday that rolled through central Vermont and southern New Hampshire was unique. And we have video proof of just how cool that storm was. 

It developed near Ticonderoga, New York and by the time it traveled the short distance into northern and central Rutland County, it was rotating and spewing damaging winds and hail. 

The storm passed just north of West Rutland before thrashing Proctor and the north and east sides of Rutland with winds that tossed down trees and power lines. 

In West Rutland, photographer Jeffrey Smith, who does a lot of fantastic drone and surface shots in and around the town, captured an absolutely fascinating time lapse of the storm as it passed just to the north of West Rutland and slammed into Proctor. 

Here's the video. A description of what's going on is below.

The time lapse video is over West Rutland, looking north toward Hanley Mountain. The center of the storm is right behind the mountain. 

The National Weather Service in South Burlington had issued a severe thunderstorm warning pretty much as it entered Vermont around the town of Benson. The severe storm warning was still in effect when this video was shot. 

Meteorologists had noticed broad rotation in the storm by the time it reached its position seen in the video. But correctly, in my opinion, they did not issue a tornado warning as the storm did not appear to be preparing to form one, 

However, the video shows the storm might have come close to creating a brief one. 

Despite the extremely high quality of Smith's video, it's hard to tell exactly what some aspects of the storm meant. 

As you can see in the time lapse, the storm was clearly rotating, left to right. Near the beginning of the photo, it seems like a spot with lower clouds might be spinning, but it quickly gets disrupted, probably an effect from Hanley Mountain .

Especially when you see a gush of rain start to come over the mountain, a lower cloud becomes much more visible on the right side of the screen. Toward the end of the video, that cloud lowers further, becomes more round shaped and clearly starts to spin. 

That to me really looks like a wall cloud.  If a real meteorologist wants to weigh in and correct me, please do! If a tornado were to form, a wall cloud is where it would originate 

When my alleged wall cloud started spinning, that's when radar would have seen the tightening spin, and the National Weather Service would have been tempted to issue a tornado warning. But the spin was probably between scans and was very brief.

The video cuts off, but it looks like that gush of wind and rain. would have destroyed the spin on the cloud, ensuring that this supercell remained just a severe storm. Many wall clouds do not produce tornadoes, and here was an example of that. 

Still, with this storm, Vermont could have had its fourth tornado of the year. But, thankfully, it didn't happen. 

My alleged wall cloud was over the western edge of Proctor when the film was taken. There was tree damage in Proctor, but that was due to straight line winds. 

Also, notice the trees at the very bottom of the film. You can see the wind is blowing toward the storm. That supercell was ingesting warm, humid air to keep it alive. 

The storm went on to produce straight line wind damage on the north and east sides of Rutland and in Mendon. The storm appears to weaken a bit after crossing the green mountains. But it regrouped, and continued on as a spinning supercell through central and southern New Hampshire, leaving a trail of wind and hail damage behind.  

Again, Many thanks to Jeffrey Smith for permission to use the video!

 

Vermont Update: Yesterday's Extra Snow Melts Away To Warmth, Maybe Few Strong T-Storms?

Vermont Agency of Transportation Web cam along 
Interstate 89 in Brookfield looked like mid-winter
at dawn today after yesterday's heavier than anticipated
snow. That snow should melt fast in mild weather today. 

 We got an early April Fool's Day "gift" on Friday as snow once again over-performed in Vermont. 

What had been forecast to be a brief, light interlude of wet snow before changing to rain ended up being more than that. 

Most of us got some snow accumulation, and some places went right back into winter. Some of the deeper snow reports are 4.1 inches in Bradford, 4 inches in Brookfield, and 2.8 inches in Greensboro. 

Even the Champlain Valley had some unexpected accumulation with one inch in Charlotte and 0.8 inches in both Burlington and St. Albans. 

A fairly brief but soaking rain was beginning to wash that snow away as dawn broke today. The rain was a warm front that is heading through the region. We'll only see a few hours of this cold rain. Then, as advertised, we get a brief squirt of nice, warm air. 

Sun will break through the clouds for most of us, and temperatures will soar into the 50s to low 60s.  That'll be a welcome change from yesterday, won't it?

In the unstable air in that patch of warm weather we'll experience today, it still looks like some showers and thunderstorms will blossom. 

The best chance is in the southern half of Vermont. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has upgraded the risk there to "slight" level two out of five alert levels. That means we could end up with scattered reports of wind damage from some of the strongest storms. 

A little further to the south, in southern New York, New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, there's actually a low but real chance of a tornado or two today.

Back in Vermont, showers and storms will tend to be more scattered and weaker in the north.   There's a minimal, at most, chance of any really gusty thunderstorm up there. 

There's actually a slight chance of severe thunderstorms
in much of the Northeast, including southern Vermont
today, which is an early sign of spring. 

This is kind of early in the season to have any kind of severe thunderstorm threat in Vermont. Not unprecedented, but it's definitely before we see this sort of thing. 

The snow melt, and the rain, and the scattered showers and storms will produce enough runoff to raise river levels. But if there's any flooding between now and Sunday morning, it will be pretty minor. 

Just don't be stupid enough to drive your car into any low lying roads that get covered by water in this wet spring episode. 

If you like today's short visit by the forces of spring, don't get used to it.  That sharp cold front will come through tonight, and by morning it will be far below freezing. Probably in the low 20s

The sun will come out on Sunday, but most of us will see daytime highs struggle to reach the 30s.  Some colder spots might not even get above freezing.

At least temperatures will warm back up to kind of average readings, or maybe even a tad above that. The expected highs in the 50s for most of us Monday through Thursday isn't so bad for this time of year. 

Video: Cool Thunderstorms Last Week, Northwest Vermont

A developing thunderstorm begins to produce rain
as it intensified last Tuesday near St. Albans, Vermont. 

Last week, I talked about some backward moving thunderstorms in Vermont, thanks to an out of season offshore nor'easter.  

We were on the outskirts of its circulation. We were outside the storm's main cloud shield. Which meant the sun could interact with relatively high humidity last Tuesday to create some scattered thunderstorms. 

The video I finally put together shows the rapid development of what was initially an isolated thunderstorm that formed near the borders of St. Albans, Sheldon and Highgate. 

The first views in the video were taken from Fairfield, east of  St. Albans, but later, around the 1:14 mark in the video I repositioned on St. Albans Hill, where I had a great view of the downpour and storm structure. 

The storm moved southwestward, the opposite of the usual path for Vermont thunderstorms. It 's neat to see in the video that the storm developed a nice rain shaft. It was almost indiscernible at first, as it started wit almost not rain, but then turned into a gushing downpour as the storm moved over parts of St. Albans.  The storm the began to dissipate as it moved over Lake Champlain.

A picturesque gush of rain pours from an isolated thunderstorm
last Tuesday in St. Albans, Vermont. 

Hot on the heels of that storm was a larger, stronger storm.   Starting at the 1:42 mark, you can see me turning my attention away from the first storm and focusing on the larger storm coming in from the Northeast.

I rushed home, and enjoyed the show of the second storm from my shed. Nothing extreme, really, about the storm. However, I don't know about you, but I just enjoy the kind of gusty downpour (with small hail) that I caught in the video.  

Too bad the sound quality isn't great. The thunder wasn't loud, really, but it was absolutely continuous. That's because there were pretty much no cloud to ground strikes. The instability in the air wasn't strong enough to support that. Instead, all the lightning was up in the clouds. 

Click on the image below to view the video.  If you like nice summer thunderstorms this is for you.  On some devices, you might not see the image below that I'm talking about. In that case, click on this link to watch the YouTube video. 

One More Awfully Hot Day In Vermont; Hurricane Threat In Gulf?

Another tropical dawn today over St. Albans, Vermont.

It's almost September, so the heat and humidity will

have to disappear at some point, right?

UPDATE: 4:00 pm. THURSDAY

Heat indexes, as expected, are in the upper 90s this afternoon in the Champlain Valley of Vermont. So it's awful. Actual temperatures are in the low 90s in the Champlain Valley, and in the upper 80s elsewhere

On the bright side, this will very, very likely be the hottest day until next summer. 

As expected, thunderstorms are few and far between this afternoon. A layer of warm air overhead is preventing the tall clouds you need for thunderstorms to really take off

Every once in awhile, thunderstorms can break that "cap" and really develop. So the rest of the day and evening in Vermont will feature few thunderstorms, but a few of the ones that do develop could get strong very quickly. One such storm abruptly developed northeast of Middlebury at mid afternoon, and it was probably causing a pocket of gusty winds and torrential downpours.

The few storms that are forming aren't moving forward all that fast, so there could be small pockets of flash flooding with these. 

That disturbance in the Caribbean I mentioned this morning has developed into a tropical depression, and will grow into a tropical storm pretty much any minute from now. It still looks like a very bad threat to somewhere on the U.S Gulf Coast by around Sunday. 

More on that in tomorrow's post

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

 

As noted yesterday, it's been awfully hot and humid in Vermont for over a week now, and today will offer absolutely no relief. Unless you count an isolated thunderstorm or two, which will only add to the humidity.  

There is still a cold front in the schedule, though, and you'll really feel the difference tomorrow. 

Yesterday actually felt a little better than it has been lately because, despite temperatures that reached 90 in some spots, a bit of drier air was able to mix down from aloft during the afternoon.

Dew points went into the low 60s, which is still a little humid, but not nearly as bad as dew points of near 70, which has been the case lately.

Unfortunately, the dew points are back up, and there's no drier air a few thousand feet above us to mix down when the sun shines strongly this afternoon.  Heat advisories are up for the broader valleys of Vermont today, as it'll feel like its in the mid or upper 90s. 

The actual temperatures will be well into the 80s to near 90.  If Burlington makes it to 90 today, we'll have an official heat wave, meaning three days in a row will have gotten to 90 degrees or more. 

Because there is a cold front lurking to our north, there will be enough instability to fire off some thunderstorms this afternoon.  It's not an ideal set up for storms, so there will be hit and miss, mostly miss.

A few spots could get torrential downpours but a lot of places will get nothing, or at least very little rain.

You'll go to bed tonight in yet another muggy, icky evening, but changes will be afoot as you try to sleep.

That cold front will slip down from Canada in the pre-dawn hours with little fanfare.   Especially in northern Vermont, you'll notice a change in the air when you wake up, and that relief will fully engulf the state during the day. It will feel awesome. Sunny, breezy, much cooler and the long period of high humidity will be gone at last.

Or will it?

First the bad news. It's going to quickly get wicked humid again.  You might notice it a little later Saturday and it will get worse Sunday and even more awful Monday.

Then the good news. The next bout of oppressive weather won't last so long.  As it stands now, the humidity will get whisked away by another cold front or cold fronts. 

Also, we're needing the rain again in northern Vermont.  The weekend and early next week look unsettled, on top of all that humidity. That means there will be a good chance of on and off showers Saturday through Monday.

HURRICANE FEARS

As of this writing early this Thursday morning, there were not full-blown tropical storms or hurricanes anywhere in the Atlantic Ocean, but that seems destined to change and soon.

I usually don't like to hype a big storm before it forms and before I think I know where it's going.

However, there's so much agreement among the computer models that a hurricane is targeting the Gulf of Mexico and possibly the U.S. Gulf Coast that I have to say something.  There was a disturbance south of Jamaica this morning that was getting better organized, and pretty quickly at that.

It's expected to move northwest toward the Gulf of Mexico.  It also appears as if atmospheric conditions are ripe enough to organize this thing into a tropical storm, then probably a hurricane. 

The water in the Gulf of Mexico is pretty much as hot as it can get.  Hot water is jet fuel for hurricanes, so if there is not much in the way of strong upper level winds to tear a nascent hurricane apart, there's a chance this thing could turn into a monster.

We don't know where this possible hurricane will make landfall, but Texas and Louisiana could well be under the gun. 

Some of the models bring this wannabe hurricane into southwestern Louisiana as a powerhouse. Which would be incredibly bad since that region was devastated by Hurricanes Laura and Delta last year. Plus that region's health care network is next to collapsing under the weight of surging coronavirus cases.

A big weather disaster would just be beyond awful.

Since this wannabe hurricane hasn't even formed yet, big changes are coming in the forecast for this thing? Will it interact with land and weaken as a result?  Will it take full advantage of the hot water in the Gulf of Mexico and turn into something particularly dangerous?  Where will it hit land? At this stage, it could be Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama.

Stay tuned.

A "Yoda Storm" Viewed From Maryland

A giant, distant "Yoda Cloud" looms over Interstate
70 near Frederick, Maryland last Friday. 
Photo by Laura Stark 

 Summer skies tend to be more interesting in the summer than in the winter, which is why watching the clouds go by is such a iconic seasonal activity. 

The most relaxing way to do that is to lay down in a field and watch the clouds go by, and decide which cloud looks like what person, place, or thing. 

But doing anything else in the summer can yield fun results too, if you think to look at the sky from time to time. 

Which yields, at least for me, this excellent and entertaining photo by dear friend Laura Stark. The pic was taken last Friday evening along Interstate 70 near Frederick, Maryland.  It's the Yoda cloud. 

For the three people in the world who have no idea who Yoda is, well. Yoda is of course from Star Wars, small in stature but incredibly wise and powerful.  

To be honest, though the cloud resembles Yoda, I'm not sure how much it has in common with the Star Wars character. 

The cloud is a a cumulonimbus. It's an isolated thunderstorm off in the distance. They can be seen from long distances away.  This one is likely 60 or more miles away.

It's hard to tell from the photo, but the uppermost part of it might be an overshooting top.  The Yoda cloud's "ears" are probably the anvil top of the thunderstorm, and the top of its head could be an overshooting top, a powerful updraft that pushed above what had earlier been the uppermost ceiling for the thunderstorm to grow up to.

Thunderstorms with overshooting tops are very often severe, so this one might have been. I can't figure out exactly where it was located at the time Laura snapped the photo. Severe thunderstorm reports came in that evening from northern West Virginia and southeastern Pennsylvania, so this "Yoda" storm might have been one of those. 

I don't know if the Yoda thunderstorm was wise or not, but it was almost certainly powerful.

If you have photos of fun and/or interesting clouds, send them my way.  If you want a dose of deep weather geekdom, let me know if you want me to analyze them, like I did for the now-famous Great Frederick, Maryland Distant Yoda Storm of '21.