Morning Vermont Rain Turns To Brief Hot Spell. Strong Storms Tomorrow?

National Weather Service weather radar this morning
was much busier than many forecasters expected.
The rain was quickly moving out and we'll have
 a sunny, summery afternoon. 

 I called it. 

Up until yesterdays afternoon, many forecasters were pretty unconcerned about any showers coming through Vermont this morning with a warm front. 

I was suspicious, and noted in previous posts that some of us would wake up to showers this morning. Turns out the rain is even more widespread that I originally thought. 

As of 8:30 a.m today, rain was falling across most of northern Vermont, and there were embedded patches of fairly heavy rain. There has even been a few rumbles of thunder in northern New York and north central Vermont. 

Oh well, we had a gorgeous weekend, with Burlington have its first 80 degree day of the season on Sunday. The weather is also still expected to vastly improve this afternoon. 

We're still looking at some summertime highs in the 80s, and there's a few more storm threats after this morning.  Here are the picky details:

TODAY

It was a rather stormy, rainy, sort of raw early morning today in northern Vermont. It was raining steadily outside my St. Albans, Vermont house and gusty winds were tossing the new lilac blooms around. 

I wish the rain hit southern Vermont instead, because it's more needed down there, but you take what you can get. 

Skies should rapidly clear late this morning  into a balmy, summery afternoon after this warm front races on northward into Quebec. 

Hard to believe when you start the day rainy and in the low 50s. But trust me, the warmth is on its way. The warm front had already passed through southern Vermont by 8 a.m. and temperatures down there at dawn had already risen into the 60s.

Most places should hit the low to mid 80s for highs this afternoon.  Tonight will be pretty warm, too, with lows in the 50s away from Lake Champlain and low 60s in the Champlain Valley

TUESDAY

We know it's going to be very warm and increasingly humid, but thunderstorms are kind of a crapshoot. 

There's a level two out of five risk of severe storms tomorrow
in the areas in yellow on this map. Notice a good chunk
of Vermont is in that risk area. 

Temperatures should get into the 80s statewide. A spot 90 degrees isn't out of the question if clouds and showers and storms hold off.  There's some conflicting information on whether we'll have some big time storms tomorrow, or whether any attempt at storms go pfft.   

A big severe weather and tornado outbreak got underway in the Plains and Midwest yesterday, and it is expected to worsen today. 

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center indicates we in Vermont might get a taste of that. No, we're not going to endure tornadoes that wipe out whole communities or hail the size of canned hams, as David Letterman once forecasted for Indiana in his early days as a TV weatherman back in the day. 

Still, the SPC has a slight risk - alert level 2 for severe storms in the northwestern half of Vermont and a marginal risk, alert level 1, in southeastern Vermont. 

According to NOAA, some storms that develop in the hot, increasingly humid air over Vermont Tuesday afternoon could unleash strong, gusty winds in a few spots. Once again, the Storm Prediction Center says we also have a really, really low, but not zero chance of a spin up tornado, too. 

On the other hand, precipitation forecast call for hardly any rain tomorrow, which doesn't exactly scream severe thunderstorms. 

The National Weather Service in South Burlington says we'll have plenty of atmospheric instability over Vermont tomorrow. Instability is what can fire thunderstorms, but you need a spark that would get them going. 

That spark tomorrow would be a weak disturbance in the atmosphere teaming up with air current rising near mountain slopes. Will that be enough to trigger severe storms? Stay tuned for updates tomorrow morning. 

WEDNESDAY

We're still working out the timing of a cold front due to come through. The consensus is it might come through midday, which could leave us with a wide range of high temperatures. Don't hold me to this, but we could have a situation in which highs are only in the upper 60s far northwest to upper 80s far southeast. 

Depending on the timing of the front, we could have more strong thunderstorms. If it waits until the mid afternoon to evening to come through, maybe we'll see a few more strong storms. 

THURSDAY

We're back to cool weather, temporarily. The sun should come back out. But some places north might not even get out of the 50s for highs. Areas away from the Champlain Valley could see a few areas of frost. 

FRIDAY/WEEKEND

I might as well say it: I have no idea. The weather looks like it might turn unsettled. The computer models disagree on when some rain might return.  Friday looks safe at this point. Some of the models postpone rain until Sunday. We'll figure this out eventually. 

It'll stay relatively cool into the weekend, with highs in the 60s. This is temporary. The overall weather pattern favors warm weather, so I suspect a nice return to almost balmy weather to conclude the month. 

Rumbles Of Thunder This Morning Are Another Big Sign Of Vermont Spring

Lightning detector map from shortly before 5:30 a.m today
shows strikes especially across central Vermont and in
the far northern Champlain Valley. 

Many of us across Vermont, New York an New Hampshire woke up to the sound of thunder before dawn today.  

I would imagine some found the noise vaguely annoying. I happily found it that best confirmation yet that spring is here. 

Thunderstorms get more common as we head into the warmer months.  The warmer air and the increased moisture in spring and summer can create the rapidly rising air needed to create lightning. 

Now, it wasn't exactly warm while these storms were coming through northern New England this morning. In fact. a few spots in eastern Vermont and New Hampshire might have been getting freezing rain while lightning was flashing. Thunderice?  Not sure what to call it. 

But there was warm air.  The storms were triggered by a warm front moving in.  The warm air aloft pushed ahead of the front helped create the balmy lift in the air, leading to the lightning flashes. 

For some reason warm fronts coming through in the pre-dawn hours in April often turn out to be create the first thunderstorms of the year in Vermont. So the timing and nature of our thunder early today was pretty classic. Judging from lightning detector maps, the storm with the most lightning cut across central Vermont early this morning. 

Another area of lightning just clipped northwest Vermont.  Here in St. Albans, I heard a few rumbles around 4:30 a.m., along with a brief downpour and strong, gusty winds. So it was noticeable. 

The showers and thunderstorms were moving along at a fast pace, so nobody is getting all that much rain. Even if a thunderstorm has a downpour associated with it, the heavier rain hasn't been staying in one place very long. 

Bottom line: The storms are cool, but are not causing any real trouble. 

REST OF TODAY

As of 6:30 a.m., a little more lightning was flashing near Rutland, and in central New York, so we're probably not quite done with it yet. The warm front will pass through later this morning, ending the threat of more thunder and most showers. 

It was in the 30s to near 40 early this morning amid the showers and rumbles of thunder ahead of the warm front. Once it passes through, temperatures will zoom into the low 60s for most of us. This will be the mildest day we'll have for awhile, so enjoy it. Some sun will mix in, too, to give the crocuses a little boost. 

Winds were really screaming from the south early this morning, especially in the Champlain Valley. I'm on an exposed hillside in St Albans, and I would estimate some gusts were up to around 50 mph. I'm noticing a smattering of power outages in northwest Vermont, so don't be surprised if your power at least flickers this morning in the Champlain Valley. 

It'll stay breezy to windy all day, but the strongest winds were probably happening as I wrote this around 7 a.m. They'll diminish some as we go through the day. 

All in all, despite the stormy start of the day, it'll be a rather nice one. 

THE WEEKEND

Our storm will drag a lame cold front through tonight, cooling us off only slightly. Saturday will be generally cloudy and mild-ish as the next storm approaches. By mild-ish, I mean low 50s, just a few degrees above average.

This one probably won't have any thunder an lightning with it. The showers will definitely ramp up, though, Saturday night and Sunday morning.  We'll have more rain than the light stuff we're having this morning. 

Between Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon, it looks like we'll have roughly half an inch of rain, with perhaps a little more than that up along the Canadian border and a little less in far southern Vermont.  Don't worry about any flooding: Rivers will probably rise somewhat, but fall short of any real flooding. 

Highs Sunday will be in the 50s. 

BRIEF WINTER

The cold front with the second storm will be much stronger than tonight's so it will get much colder Sunday. Lingering rain showers will at least mix with, if not change to snow showers Sunday night and continue into Monday. 

Don't worry too much about the snow showers, They'll the light and scattered and mostly in the hills ad mountains. 

The first half of the week will be cold, with highs in the mid 30s to mid 40s and lows solidly below freezing. Yes, that's chilly for this time of year, but not really odd for early April. We should be able to sneak back up into the pleasant 50s for the second half of the week.