Partial Eclipse Of The Sun Here In Vermont/Other Areas Tomorrow

 If you're up at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning here in Vermont and have a good view of the eastern and northeastern horizon, you'll get to see a partial eclipse of the sun. 

Areas shaded in orange are where the tomorrow's annular
solar eclipse will be visible. The darkest shade of orange 
is where only the outer edges of the sun will be 
visible during the peak of the eclipse.

The eclipse will be ongoing locally when the sun rises at 5:08 a.m. It'll peak at around 5:35 a.m. with around 80 percent of the sun obscured by the moon.   It'll be all said and done by around 6:35 a.m.

Even if you're not looking at the skies, the coming of daylight after sunrise will seem a little more sluggish than usual early tomorrow as the moon blocks out part of the sun's June morning light over us. 

Since this is early, you won't see it if you're up against the west slopes of the Green Mountains, since the sun will still be behind the hills. 

On the bright side, if you do get a view, the forecast currently calls for partly to mostly clear skies, so that's good.

You don't want to look directly at the eclipse anyway. And wearing sunglasses won't cut it, either, even if you have super duper expensive "aren't I special" shades. If you have those eclipse goggles from the last eclipse in 2017, use those.  Or you can make a pinhole projector. 

This is an annular eclipse, so even in places where the moon does its best to cover the sun, you'll still see the edges of the sun.   That's why they're calling this a "ring of fire" eclipse. A lucky few people in northwestern Greenland, and parts of northern Russia and northeastern Canada will be able to see this. 

Not many people live in these areas, so they are in for a special treat.

A "ring of fire" eclipse happens when the moon is relatively far from the Earth, so it appears smaller and is unable to entirely block out the sun. A more dramatic total solar eclipse happens when the moon is a little closer to Earth. In those cases, as what parts of the U.S experience in 2017, near total darkness descends because the moon completely blocks out the sun. It's quite dramatic and exciting. 

The partial annular eclipse we'll be able to see tomorrow is practice for something spectacular. Another complete solar eclipse, like the one in 2017, is coming on April 8, 2024.   The path of totality in 2024 will pass directly over northwestern Vermont. It will be a once in a lifetime experience, for sure. 

Maybe tomorrow's partial thing isn't exactly a lifetime bucket list item, but it's still pretty cool. Except for those who like to sleep in for a couple hours past dawn. 

Not Just Us: Already, Another Global Summer Of Extreme Heat, Fires

Water beads up on a clematis in my St. Albans, Vermont
garden today after a pre-dawn thunderstorm. The storm
only deposited a quarter inch of rain, so drought 
worries will linger, even as cooler air blows
in to Vermont today and tongiht. 

The record heat that gripped Vermont the past few days was thankfully short-lived, and we have a pretty extended period of comfortable weather to look forward to.

However, across the Northern Hemisphere, this is shaping up to be another climate changed, torrid summer, with many more records sure to fall. 

It's only the first half of June, and already, some terrible heat waves have hit disparate places.  

We're in for a long, smoky summer.  Smoky, because huge wildfires inevitably come with the heat waves and droughts across vast northern and mid-latitude forests.

The hot spell here in Vermont was certainly impressive, bringing us the toastiest readings for so early in the season. 

Relief is at hand. Today will be another warm one here in Vermont, but you'll notice the humidity dropping pretty quickly. 

As of 6 a.m. dew points in Vermont were still near 70, pretty oppressive. But the dew point in Montreal had already crashed to 55 degrees and in Quebec City the dew point was a refreshing 48 degrees. That's the kind of air that's about to come toward us.

A final band of showers and thunderstorms was working its way southeastward across Vermont at dawn. Some spots got a little needed rain yesterday in southern Vermont and before dawn today in northern areas.

There was actually a flash flood warning in effect in parts of southeastern Vermont for a time Tuesday due to some torrential rains there. 

Early this morning, Burlington picked up 0.28 inches of rain, which really isn't much at all, but it was still the wettest day since May 5 - over a month! 

There are no signs of more hot weather for at least the next 10 days around here, but that doesn't mean lots of other places will avoid it. Heat is already the story of this young summer

WESTERN "DEATH RIDGE"

The heat is sloshing  back to the western United States, where another "death ridge" as I and others call it lately, is going to envelop the Rocky Mountains and Intermountain West.  This not-so-scientifically named "death ridge" is an enormous, stubborn northward bulge in the jet stream.

Underneath a summer death ridge, droughts rapidly intensify as temperatures records break under relentless sunshine. 

In the Midwest and Great Lakes the heat wave that grabbed at us in New England started last Friday, and with the "death ridge" building, it's going to stay wicked hot in the Intermountain West and Plains. 

This dry heat will probably break more record highs out west, and worsen the drought, and the wildfire situation. 

I think I mentioned it was 106 degrees the other day in North Dakota, by far a record for so early in the season, so you know that state, often an icebox, is wilting.  Since the heat is sloshing back out that way, much of the western and northern Plains are in for an extended period of torrid condition. 

Tuesday was the sixth consecutive day over 90 degrees in Minneapolis. They'll have two more hot days to go before temperatures temporarily "cool" into the upper 80s. 

In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the 90 degree heat started June 3 and escalated to 101 by June 5.  It'll be probably be in the 90s there every day through most of next week except for perhaps a break on Friday.

It's always hot in the Desert Southwest this time of year, but the  "death ridge' will really pile things on.  Phoenix should get into the mid one hundred teens early next week. Death Valley will have little trouble hitting 120 degrees. 

The United States isn't the only place that's broiling. 

GLOBAL HOT SPOTS

 As in most recent summers, pockets of extremely hot weather are popping up across much of the Northern Hemisphere. This year, it's getting an early start.

Some areas of the Middle East and Central Asia just suffered through the worst heat on record for so early in the season. In the United Arab Emirates it got up to 125.2 degrees, the hottest on record for that nation. It equals the national record set in July, 2017.  According to @extremetemps on Twitter, a city in Iran hit 51 C..  In Turkmenistan, it as 46.7 degrees. It was as hot as 44.7 in Uzbekisgan and 43.7 in Tajikistan.  

FIRES AND DROUGHT

All this heat is naturally helping fuel wildfires.  

There have been periodic forest fire alerts in the north woods of Minnesota for days, and that's expected to continue.  A wildfire in Arizona expanded dramatically over the weekend, forcing evacuation in and near the town of Superior. 

A bigger concern is the West Coast and Intermountain West, which is in the grips of a severe drought. Wildfire alerts have become a daily occurrence out there, and that's no going to change. Probably for the rest of the summer. 

Water shortages are becoming critical in the Southwest.  The dry heat expected over the next week or more exacerbates evaporation, and increases the use of water by us humans. 

Lake Oroville, a reservoir in northern California is almost
empty due to drought.  Trees on the left are scorched and
dead due to a wildfire last year. Photo by 
Noah Berger/AP

The Colorado River provides water to 40 million people in seven states. Lake Mead, the reservoir behind the famous Hoover Dam on the Colorado River,  is at just 37 percent capacity, says CBS News. 

More from CBS:

"Since 2000, Lake Mead has dropped 130 feet, about the height of a 13-story building. Islands in the lake that used to be completely submerged are now visible." 

By late summer, many areas of California, Nevada and Arizona will have cuts in water allocation for consumers, mostly farmers, due to this mega-drought.

Further north at Lake Oroville in California, the reservoir is only at 39 percent capacity and dropping.  This after a winter in which precipitation fell short by over a foot.  The dam at Lake Oroville might have to stop generating hydro power later this summer due to the low water level. To underscore the point, trees along much of the lake's shore are scorched and dead, victims of a wildfire last summer. 

New wildfires in California are inevitable this summer. They'll start any minute now.

Meanwhile, satellite images caught large wild fires already burning, very early in the season, north of the Arctic Circle in Siberia.   California vegetation is ready to explode into flames, and parts of Canada are a tinderbox, too.

And though we are about to start a pretty good stretch of comfortable weather here in Vermont, there's no telling whether we will have even bigger, longer, hotter heat waves than the one we just had once we get into July and August.

The way things are going, that's a real threat.

Vermont Heat Wanes A Bit, But Humidity Soars

Seems like this never used to happen: Some sun and heat
scorch damage to hosta leaves in my northern Vermont
gardens, despite liberal watering. This is the fourth summer
in a row this has happened and second in a row it's
happened so early in the season. 

OK, it's not nearly as hot out there today as it was yesterday here in Vermont, but it doesn't feel any better.  

At least yet.  

Quite a few clouds are cluttering the sky, keeping yesterday's scorching sunshine at bay. But the humidity has come up dramatically.  

The dew point is around 70 today, which is the highest it's been so far this summer and a level that makes everybody feel miserable. 

I'll get into what's in store for us in a bit, but first we really have to marvel at yesterday's heat. Burlington, Vermont got up to 96 degrees, a record for the date and the hottest for so early in the season. 

Had this hot spell hit in early July instead of early June, we would have had a rare day of 100 degree weather. (Temperatures of 100 degrees have happened only four times in Burlington since the late 1880s).

Across the pond, Plattsburgh got up to 95 degrees, enough to beat the old record for the date of 94 degrees. Montpelier, Vermont mustered a relatively "frigid" high of 89 degrees Monday, enough to tie the record high for the date there. 

The low this morning in Burlington was a stuffy 75 degrees.

Those hard core hot, humid nights make the heat all the more dangerous because it doesn't give us the opportunity to recover from a hot day. Lots of Vermont homes still don't have air conditioning. 

It used to be we never needed air conditioning, since extreme hot spells were so far and few between.  We finally broke down and bought an air conditioner ahead of an extreme hot spell in 2018 for our bedroom in St. Albans, Vermont. 

Sure glad we did!  We've had extreme heat now every summer since. I think it will be the cool summers that will be few and far between going forward. 

The early season heat is confusing to us, animals and nature.  Our dogs know something as wrong, looking at us with pleading eyes to stop the heat, and happily joining us in our cool basement. Still, the basement move is not the normal routine, so the dogs are unsettled.

Out in the garden, for the fourth year in a row, my hosta leaves are sun scorched and damaged, and for the second year in a row, this happened at the start of the season, well before the heat normally hits.  I thought I had a cool climate garden, being in northern Vermont. Maybe I should have had a cactus garden instead. 

On the bright side, we do have some substantial relief coming to us eventually. 

The clouds will more or less hang on this afternoon across Vermont, keeping most of us from reaching 90 degrees again. A few places could reach that magical figure if they have a long enough break of sun. That to me is most likely in the northern Champlain Valley near the Canadian border and in the Connecticut River Valley south of White River Junction.

A shower or thunderstorm could pop up at any time this afternoon, mostly along and south of Route 2. That's be good for everybody who's parched and needs rain.  But many of us, especially in the north, won't get any real good rains, so that's bad.

The scattered here and there showers and storms will be slow moving today, and the humid air means we could get some torrential downpours in a few scattered spots today.  Despite the dry conditions, this could lead to minor washouts on gravel driveways and roads and some ponding of water in just a few spots. So watch out for that 

Other than the downpours and the lightning with any storms, there won't be any severe weather. 

That cold front is still scheduled to come through tomorrow, with not much fanfare. It'll still be warmish north, hot south before the cool air can work i.

You'll notice a change in the air developing as the day wears on, with it getting less and less humid. Starting Wednesday night and Thursday, we're still getting an extended stretch of comfortable weather, lasting well into next week. 

No more 90s for awhile around here.  

Hot, Fiery Summer Off To A Blazing Start. More Record Highs, Then Cooler Times Ahead?

All those red dots on this map show where daily
record highs were tied or broken on Sunday. Quite
a few more high temperature records will fall day,
probably including here in Vermont 

If you thought Sunday was hot as blazes here in Vermont, you're not going to like today. It'll be just as toasty in Vermont today as it was yesterday. More records will fall.

This is part of a familiar pattern we've seen in recent years. Most summers in the past decade have been punctuated by bouts of record heat.   

The high temperature yesterday in Burlington was 95 degrees, a new record for the date, besting the old record by one degree.

That 95 degrees would have been the hottest for so early in the season in Burlington, had we not broken the record for heat for the entire month of May just last year when it got to 95 degrees on May 27, 2020.

 Elsewhere around the region, Montpelier reached 90 degrees, breaking the old record of 85 set in 1985.  Plattsburgh, New York got to 93, breaking the old record of 88 degrees.

Numerous other record highs were reported in the Northeast, the northern Great Lakes, the northeastern Plains, Ontario and Quebec. 

We haven't even reached the start of astronomical summer yet, and we've already had about half the normal number of 90 degree days for an entire year. We've had three so far. Today will be the fourth such day. There's a chance Tuesday could be number five.

Locally, record highs will be challenged again today.  The record high in Burlington today is 94 degree. Montpelier's record high is 89 degrees.

It's hard to say whether today will be even hotter than Sunday. If Burlington gets to 96 degrees, we would break that record for the hottest for so early in the season. 

Factors in favor of the 96 or better are the fact we're starting the day a bit warmer than Sunday, and the overall air mass over us is a it toastier than Sunday. If we get full sunshine like yesterday, temperatures that high are within reach.

A factor working against it getting that hot is it's slightly more humid today than on Sunday. It takes more of the sun's energy to heat the air if there's more water in it. Higher humidity feels worse than dry heat, but it's harder for actual temperatures to get extreme when it's humid.

By the way, part of the reason temperatures are breaking record highs, both now and during that hot spell just a few weeks ago in May, is the lack of rain we've been having. 

Wet ground emits more moisture into the air, making it harder to get super hot, for the reasons described above.  

Areas in orange are under heat advisories today. Even
in the mountains, where it's slightly cooler, it's still
hot enough today to avoid strenuous activities

For those looking for full relief from the heat will need to wait until Wednesday or Wednesday night. But, starting Wednesday night, we're in for a long period of temperatures near, or even slightly below normal.  By long period, I mean at least a week, possibly more. 

Before we get there, we need to get through a muggy night tonight and an oppressive day Tuesday. 

Tuesday won't be as hot as today, but still up there, in the 85-90 degree range. It will be "cooler" because it will be more humid.  And there will be more clouds around than today.  

We're also in for some hit and miss showers and thunderstorms, but other than local heavy downpours and lightning, the threat of severe storms is pretty low. 

It'll be another sticky night Tuesday night, but Wednesday will be a transition day as a Canadian cold front works its way south. It will still get into the low 80s at least, especially in southern Vermont.  But you'll notice a change in the air as we go through the day as humidity wanes. 

It looks like Thursday through at least Sunday and probably beyond will feature a series of comfortable days with highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s. You'll be able to give that air conditioner a rest at that point 

Saturday's Storm Forecast Was A Bust; Heat Forecast Is The Real Deal

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center at midafternoon 
Saturday was contemplating issuing a severe thunderstorm
watch for northern New England. They ultimately
decided not to, which was smart, since
turned out widely expected severe thunderstorms
failed to materialize. The storm initiation that
the SPC expected in this map also didn't form.

Saturday was surely a lot quieter than expected.

Severe thunderstorms that were widely forecast to develop across northern Vermont failed to materialize, as we now know. 

I suppose if there's a botched forecast it's good that we didn't have damaging storms, instead of the other way around.  It would have been worse had un-forecasted storms materialized.

One forecast I'm much more confident will come true - and is coming true as we move into this Sunday afternoon - is a real early season hot spell in the Green Mountain State.

But first, let's get into what went wrong with Saturday's forecast for storms.

On paper, everything looked set for scattered severe storms from mid-afternoon into the evening Saturday.  Temperatures were rapidly rising into the 80s across Vermont by late morning. Montpelier managed to tie a record high of 85 degrees for the date.

Weather disturbances were marching across Ontario toward Quebec to help pull the trigger on the storms that would then move southward into Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. 

Pretty much all the weather models were on board with this. Remember the other day when I said weather models had gotten a lot better than they used to be on forecasting small scale features, like thunderstorms in a narrow area?

That's true, but they still have their shortcomings.  The models didn't handle Saturday's situation well at all. 

Before noon, a band of clouds and light showers formed in New York's St. Lawrence Valley.  They blotted out the sun in northwestern Vermont by noon, and dropped some sprinkles. This light band of showers blossomed into a line of moderate thunderstorms on a line from just south of Burlington to St. Johnsbury, then continued to march east into New Hampshire. 

This band of lighter activity was not forecast to develop, and even as it did, wasn't expected to hold together all the way southeast to the Massachusetts coast.

This initial band was not at all forecasted.  Instead of continued sun the band stabilized the atmosphere, helping to prevent the kinds of towering clouds you get as thunderstorms develop. This band also left behind a whole bunch of what I would call debris clouds. That meant the sun really couldn't come back out and start to churn the atmosphere and make it unstable again.  

WMUR meteorologist Eric Weglarz noticed a boundary running across
northern Vermont and New Hampshire Saturday evening
that under many circumstances would have triggered some
hefty storms, but not all the ingredients were there to 
set them off, so no severe weather occured.

The forecasted disturbances did make it into southern Quebec in the late afternoon and evening. Thunderstorms, some severe, blossomed in the Montreal area and started heading southeast. 

One cell had together for hours and ended up crossing the border near Newport, Vermont. But the relatively stable air prevented this storm from growing into something severe. 

Even during the time of day when the storms were forecast to blow up and failed to do so, most of the ingredients were there. 

The weather disturbances were trying to add lift to the atmosphere. There was a subtle but sharp temperature boundary last evening running from about Ottawa to Burlington to northern New Hampshire near Conway. 

This was a recipe for strong to severe storms, but that instability wasn't enough to create chaos.  You could tell we were almost there.  Last evening, small downpours appeared seemingly out of nowhere north of Route 2.  

An example was around my place in St. Albans. One swing of the radar showed almost nothing around us. A couple minutes later, we had a brief downpour.  Another look at the radar just a few minutes after my previous peek showed a brand new cell zipping rapidly away from St. Albans and heading east. The Northeast Kingdom was also suddenly pockmarked by little downpours. 

At the time these little downpours were popping up, the sun was setting.  The sun wasn't going to add any energy to an otherwise volatile atmosphere. The severe threat was over. 

HOT WEATHER

The forecast for today and tomorrow is a lot more straight forward and less prone to complications and mishaps.

The atmosphere today is just a tiny bit warmer than yesterday, but there's a lot more sunshine.  That is allowing today's temperatures to go well above those on Saturday. 

It was already 87 degrees at noon in Burlington, so we're almost a shoo-in for reaching 90 degrees.  That's despite the fact that there will be more clouds mixing with the hazy blue skies as the afternoon wears on. 

There are no strange and risky weather disturbances to trigger widespread thunderstorms. But lake breezes along Lake Champlain, updrafts that mountains are helping to create, and just some residual general instability will probably trigger a few widely scattered showers and storms later this afternoon and evening. 

It'll be very hit and miss, with most of us probably not getting any rain. If thunderstorms do develop later today, they won't be severe. 

Monday will be the hottest day of the hot spell, and if more record highs are set, Monday will be the most likely day.  The record high in Burlington tomorrow is 94 degrees and Montpelier's record is 89.  Both are definitely in jeopardy. 

A cold front from Quebec will be approaching us Tuesday, so temperatures might be a couple degrees cooler, especially north and east of Interstate 89. But it will still be hot and humid. 

The cold front is expected to fully come through Wednesday.  If the front is a bit slower than forecast, we'll endure more warmth and humidity, along with the risk of storms.  If the front is faster, it'll get more comfortable, especially later in the day, and there would be fewer showers and storms. We'll see.

Today's Severe Storm Outlook. Also, Brief Heat Builds, But Nothing Like Plains!

A severe thunderstorm that came in from Quebec looms 
over St. Albans Bay, Vermont in July, 2013. There
could be similar scenes and threats in northern New
England, including northern Vermont today.

We are still watching the risk of severe thunderstorms later today over northern Vermont and surrounding areas.  Just to keep you on your toes. 

As usual, not everybody will get clobbered by a nasty storm, but some of us will.   It seems almost certain a few places could have damaging wind gusts from afternoon and evening storms.   

It'll be hit and miss. One town will find themselves cleaning up a bunch of fallen trees and branches, while the next town over will be wondering what all the fuss is about. 

Since it's impossible as of this writing early Saturday morning to tell which towns will be under the gun, just have a way of receiving any potential severe thunderstorms warnings and take shelter when and if you do hear one of these warnings. 

All that said, we can certainly broad brush this for you to give you some idea what's probably in store. 

The afternoon timing of a weak cold front in Quebec and a batch of somewhat stronger winds aloft creates the risk of severe storms.   Those all hit today during peak heating for the day, which helps add instability to the atmosphere. 

It will be warm and moderately humid this afternoon to help fuel the storms, and a cooler pocket of air aloft over southern Quebec will help create some of the lift necessary for strong storms. 

The areas where this setup is most likely to create some severe storms is in Quebec south and east of a Montreal to Quebec City line, extreme northeastern New York, Vermont from Route 2 north,  New Hampshire roughly north of a line from Littleton to Conway, and central and western Maine. 

Strong to severe storms could start to fire up as soon as noon, but are most likely between about mid afternoon to a little after sunset (possibly lasting longer than that in Maine).  Given the risk of storms, this is not the day to go hiking in northern New England or to take your boat out on the lakes in the region. 

Even if any particular storm isn't officially severe, all that lightning zapping around, the gusty winds, the possible hail and locally torrential rains make it a bad idea to be caught outdoors without shelter. 

As far as what kind of severe weather to expect, as usual, the biggest risk is for strong, damaging straight line winds. 

Chances are thunderstorms would form into short lines shaped like backwards "Cs" which would enhance those winds.  

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center is maintaining a risk of
severe thunderstorms over northern New England today.

The second biggest threat is locally big hail.

There's a chance that some thunderstorms might be discrete, meaning not attached to a line of several other storms. 

Those discrete storms have the potential to develop into supercells. That means that in the areas most likely to have severe storms today, there's a very low, but not zero chance of a brief tornado or two, so that's not good. 

Things will die down overnight.  On Sunday, there might be a widely scattered storm here or there, but they won't be severe. But that's when the heat comes in. At least it will be relatively brief

HOT SPELL

The hotter air is starting make itself felt.  You'll notice it a bit today ahead of the storms in the north, as highs get into the 80s. 

The thermostat goes up a little more Sunday, with highs in the mid to upper 80s, with a few spot 90 degree highs. 

Monday will be the blast furnace day, with temperatures expected in the low to mid 90s for most Vermont valleys. Record highs could fall. The record high in Burlington Monday is 94 degrees, so it will be close. 

We'll start to lose the heat a bit on Tuesday, but it'll still be toasty, especially in southern Vermont.  Then a refreshing cold front comes in from Quebec - probably not accompanied by severe storms. By the end of the week, it'll actually be a bit cool for the season.  Some places won't even make it to 70 degrees Thursday and Friday afternoon.

The heat by then will slosh back to the northern Plains and western Great Lakes, which already have suffered from some intense early season heat. 

Cities that you've heard of having extreme cold are having extreme heat instead. Bismarck, North Dakota hit 106 degrees, certainly the hottest for so early in the season for them, and breaking the old record high for the date by a full 11 degrees. Minot, North Dakota managed 105 degrees.

Emerson, Manitoba, Canada got to 104 degrees.  That's the hottest temperature in that Canadian province for any date in over 30 years. 

International Falls, Minnesota, known as the nation's ice box, must have something wrong with their chiller. It got up to 98 degrees there Friday, the hottest for so early in the season and the toastiest it's gotten there for any date in 26 years.

Unlike here in New England, the heat in the northern Plains will probably continue to drag on through mid-month.  

Storms And Heat: Vermont Update Has A Little Of Everything

A little wetting helped some of my leafy garden greens
yesterday in St. Albans, Vermont, but wish we could have
gotten more rain. 

Today, we look at a damn accurate forecast from yesterday, lingering drought, a rising risk of severe storms in Vermont Saturday, and a heat wave that's still coming, but might be tempered a bit.  

ACCURACY WINS 

As a weather geek, I'm impressed by how far forecasting computer modeling has become, and by extension, how much more skillful meteorologists are these days. 

Even just a few years ago, I would have never expected that 12 or more hours before an event, the forecasts would pinpoint exactly where a line of showers and storms would set up.  There's just too much variability in the atmosphere. 

But early yesterday, the forecasts were pretty bullish on a slow moving train of showers and storms from roughly Glens Falls, New York to near and just south of Rutland, Vermont to north of White River Junction.

That's exactly what happened. The only inaccuracy in this forecast was a good thing. Though the rain was locally heavy, it did not lead to any substantial flash flooding, which was a minor fear in Thursay morning forecasts.

There was one to two inches of needed rain in this batch of storms, with possibly local higher amounts.  There might have been a few minor driveway washouts and town road crews might have to shore up a few edges to some gravel roads, but that's about it. 

DROUGHT UPDATE

Thursday's rain was largely beneficial.

Where it actually rained.  

Some needed rain fell in southern Vermont Thursday,
but not much fell where it's needed most, up north.

The central Champlain Valley, especially around Burlington, missed out entirely on the rain, and the dry conditions are deepening there.

 Since May 6, Burlington has had only a half inch of rain during a period when they should have had about 3.5 inches of precipitation.

Two bands of lighter showers, one early in the morning, one in the evening, gave a little wetting in far northern Vermont.  We'll take anything we can get, except severe weather, more on that in a minute. 

My very unofficial rain gauge up in St. Albans, Vermont collected just 0.2 inches precipitation Thursday. Not much, but oh, well. 

The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor came out yesterday, with no real changes in Vermont. All but the far southern end of Vermont was regarded as abnormally dry, with drought conditions continuing in most of eastern Vermont north of around Springfield.

SEVERE SATURDAY?

Things are beginning to look interesting for Saturday afternoon and evening in northern Vermont. 

Yesterday, I mentioned a weather disturbance that was destined to produce severe thunderstorms and possibly even a tornado or two in Ontario and southern Quebec Saturday.  

It now looks like that activity might spill across the International Border a bit more than earlier expected. That raises the possibility of severe thunderstorms in northern Vermont (along with northern New Hampshire and interior Maine) Saturday.  

It all depends on how that weather disturbance behaves and the timing of it. That thing was over Saskatchewan this morning, so there's still a lot of time for its expected path and behavior to change. 

As of this morning, it looked healthy, with a fair amount of lightning with it. 

If the disturbance holds together well, and gets to Quebec before sunset, northern areas could get in on the severe storm action that will have unfolded roughly from Ottawa to Montreal. 

The Storm Prediction Center has northern Vermont as part of a slight risk zone for severe weather on Saturday afternoon and evening.  

Northern New England is under threat from severe
thunderstorms late Saturday afternoon and evening
as rough weather in Quebec might cross the border.

If the bad storms do hit, the most likely time frame is between 5 p.m. and midnight, with a weakening trend in the storms starting around sunset.

The biggest threat from any storms that do get going are strong, damaging straight line winds from those bowing echoes I've talked about in the past. 

A bowing echo is a line of thunderstorms shaped like a backwards "C". Fierce winds can develop at the apex of that "C."  That's what caused damaging thunderstorm winds in central Vermont on May 26.

It's even possible there could be some supercells with this, which would bring a very low, but not zero chance of a brief tornado in far northern New England.  

HOT SPELL TEMPERED?

The scheduled big hot spell that's been advertised for days now is still coming, but there are changes to this forecast in the offing. For those who hate hot weather, some good news: It looks like it will be a big shorter than previously forecast, and maybe not as intense. 

Sunday still looks pretty hot, but not as roasting as originally thought. The weather that might cause Saturday's severe storms would bring the teensiest bit of cooler air with it. Instead of 90s, we'd get well into the 80s, with maybe a couple spot 90s in the warmest valleys. 

Monday still looks pretty torrid, and probably Tuesday, too. 

But unlike previous forecasts, another cold front looks like it wants to sneak down from Quebec Wednesday. This would put a quick end to the heat and drop our daytime temperatures to somewhere near normal - 70s for highs instead of 90 degrees for late week. 

It's too soon to tell if this cold front will come through dry, or give us more needed rain.