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| Smoke obscuring Lake Champlain Saturday, as seen at St. Albans Bay, Vermont. |
Boy, yesterday was rough in Vermont. Sure, it was a nice day, except for the thick clouds of smoke and haze we endured.
Unexpectedly, Saturday probably brought Vermont the most polluted air of the year, thanks to wildfire smoke from Canada.
We knew days in advance there would be smoke in the air, but most forecasters expected the bulk of it to remain aloft, with just some relatively minor dents to our air quality down here on the ground.
Instead, a zone of sinking air pushed the smoke to the ground in a band from southern Quebec down through western New England and extreme eastern New York. The result was some of the worst air I've ever seen, even worse than what we saw in 2023.
Montreal Saturday morning became the most polluted city in the world,
The air quality index fell to near 200 in some places across northern Vermont. The air endangered people with pre-existing health issues, and was generally bad for everyone. The air improved somewhat toward Saturday evening, but was still pretty bad.
Like it or not, we all smoked at least a couple cigarettes Saturday.
The air quality alert in northern and central Vermont has expired, at least for now. Far southern Vermont remains under an air quality alert, though. Still, the air isn't great. As of this morning, the air quality index was somewhere in the 115 to 125 range, which is considered unhealthy for sensitive groups.
Smoke forecasts look better later today as the air cleans up a little more, but not completely. That's temporary. It looks like another batch of smoke might come down from the north tomorrow, so it's not over.
Since we're going to have repeated batches of northwest winds from Canada through the upcoming week, and since there's still a lot of large fires burning in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, we can expect more smoky, unhealthy air to blow through probably until at least next weekend.
TODAY
This is turning into a long post, as things are actually pretty busy in the weather department.
As expected, a lot of us in Vermont woke up to a rainy early Sunday morning. But the rain wasn't working out quite as predicted, especially in the north.
It was suppose to barely rain in far northern Vermont, so why did I wake up to a torrential downpour before 7 a.m, in St. Albans?
I'm not blaming the National Weather Service or anybody else. The subtlest shifts in the atmosphere can radially change things at the last moment.
The result was a split into two rainy areas. Southern Vermont saw steady, sometimes briefly heavy rain, Sunday morning rains, just as predicted. In fact, forecasters were carefully watching central and eastern New York and perhaps into Bennington County in Vermont for the risk of rains torrential enough to cause flash flooding.
As of 9 a.m. there was no trouble, at least in Vermont. Any flood threat in these areas should end by late morning or early afternoon.
But another batch of occasionally heavy rain set up in far northern Vermont. So places like St. Albans, Jay Peak and Newport that were expected perhaps a tenth of an inch of rain at most got much, much more than that.
It looks like a push of humid air acted like a snow plow, causing a narrow band of rising air that formed into a line of downpours that found its way to the Canadian border.
Central Vermont mostly missed out, at least through 9 a.m. Some rain did fall in Burlington, making this the 32nd weekend in a row with at least some rain. We broke the record for most such consecutive weekends last Sunday, and this solidified the record even more,.
Still, central Vermont is getting a bit on the dry side, so it's too bad they missed out, especially since it appears not much rain is in the forecast for the next week.
REST OF TODAY
After the morning weather disturbance with its locally heavy rain move out, we'll be left with a return to very humid conditions.
That means cloudy skies will give way to some sun, and temperatures should get into the low 80s. The humidity and subtle left over disturbances in the atmosphere could touch off some widely scattered thunderstorms. Most places won't see a storm this afternoon and evening, but some of us will.
I don't see anything severe, just local downpours here and there and some lightning. There might be a bit of an uptick in scattered storms this evening as a weak wind shift line come through.
GOING FORWARD
The forecast we've been touting hasn't changed much for the upcoming week, other than a few tweaks.
Monday and Tuesday now both look quite warm, with highs in the 80s to maybe near 90 both days in a couple spots.
Some thunderstorms might develop Tuesday as the first of a series of cold fronts come in. Wednesday should be slightly cooler, but another cold front could set off more thunderstorms. It's too soon to determine how many and how strong they might be.
Then, after that, we have that cool spell we've been talking about. It doesn't look like it will be quite as chilly or as long lasting as first thought. Only one day - Friday - will be much cooler than normal. It now looks like the coldest air will stay up in Quebec.
But otherwise, Thursday through Sunday look bright, dry, sunny, mild and refreshing. Then it will warm up again. Don't know how much yet.
cold snap\
While some guidance continues to show lingering rain behind yet another boundary on Thursday, our region will largely be high and dry Thursday through Sunday as an expansive ridge of high pressure slowly migrates eastward. Only Friday looks to be anomalously cool, per NAEFS mean and EFI climatological tools, with temperatures probably resembling what we saw this past Monday. Generally the much cooler air mass that was on the table is looking more likely to bypass us to the northeast, but for those who desire warm, but not hot, days with low humidity should have a nice weekend in store. As noted by the previous forecaster, we`ll still need to monitor potential for wildfire smoke to be advected in from the north, as it may be present not far away later this week in northern Ontario.
