Rare, Strong November Tornado Outbreak Likely Today

Unfortunately, you're likely to see news of destructive tornados and storms later today as a strong November storm is likely to cause a rare late season tornado outbreak in the upper Ohio Valley and parts of the Great Lakes states today.

This enormous double tornado hit
Indiana in 1965, killing 14 people.
Similar destructive tornados are possible
in Indiana and surrounding states today.  

This storminess is also going to affect Vermont and the rest of the Northeast tonight, but luckily, we'll get no tornados are anything extreme like that.

The National Storm Prediction Center has put an area centered around Indiana under a high risk of severe storms today.

That's unusual. They put any given region in the United States  under a high risk alert only a handful of times a year, and not often in November.

Big tornado outbreaks, like the one that might happen today, are usually creatures of the spring and early summer, but there is normally a smaller, secondary peak in tornado activity in November.

That's especially true in the past couple of decades for some reason. The November peak in tornados seems to have gotten a little bigger.

Today's expected tornado outbreak is also more north than you'd normally expect in November.

The culprit is a storm that's very strong and getting stronger as it heads into the Midwest.  The storm has something called a negative tilt.

What that means is the dip in the jet stream that supports the storm has a northwest to southeast orientation, instead of the usual direct north to south arrangement.

When a storm has a negative tilt, it can cause a lot of extra instability and a lot of wind that changes direction as you go upward in the atmosphere.

Such an arrangement can make thunderstorms spin, and create tornados. That's what's expected to go on today.  Even in places in the Midwest and parts of the Northeast that don't get any tornados, a strong squall line will cause damaging thunderstorm winds.

I did say the storm will also affect the Northeast. The storm will move up into Canada and swing a cold front through tonight.

Up here in Vermont and surrounding states, you'll notice the wind really start to pick up later today and tonight from the south, gusting as high as 50 mph.  It'll be a rainy, stormy night. And when the cold front comes through, before dawn in Vermont, you're likely to hear a particularly gusty downpour, possibly with a rumble or two of thunder.

After the front goes by, it'll be another gusty day Monday with temperatures falling in the afternoon. By Tuesday, we'll be in another early season chilly spell, with highs not getting out of the 30s.

But that won't be a problem, compared to the havoc that might hit the Midwest today. Let's hope any big tornados that do form stay in open country, away from any towns or cities.