Arthur Gone. So Are East Coast Storms. For Now

The weather is calmer over this Sunday over the East Coast now that Hurricane Arthur is gone and that weather front that was hung up over the Northeast also went out to sea.  

Hurricane Arthur south of New England Saturday. 

Damage from the front and Arthur hit a wide swath, from North Carolina all the way up into the Canadian Maritimes.

It was odd to see a still well-formed hurricane off the New England coast on satellite pictures on July 4, but there you have it. More odd weather.

As Arthur was departing it caused what had to be the WORST possible July afternoon weather in Caribou Maine.

At 3 p.m. Saturday, Caribou reported heavy rain, winds gusting to 46 mph and a temperature of just 50 degrees. Yuck!

The weather front that was to the west of Arthur as it passed by was probably in some respects worse than Arthur itself. The hurricane's moisture interacted with the front to cause substantial flooding in southeastern New England Saturday, especially around New Bedford.

And of course there were those severe thunderstorms that raked the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic on Friday. Here in northern Vermont, I was just to the north of the worst storms, but while I was out watching the storms, I did see something curious.

I was on the south end of a strong, but not severe storm. A cloud lowered over Charlotte, Vermont. It totally mimicked a wall cloud, the type of cloud that produces tornadoes.  You can a picture of it in this post. It wasn't a wall cloud, at least I don't THINK it was, but it just goes to show how sometimes storms can scare people into thinking it's worse than it is.  

An odd, low cloud over Mount Philo in
Charlotte, Vermont, as a strong thunderstorm
passed just to the north.  

Which causes a false sense of security, because storms can initially appear not severe at all, then prove to be very dangerous. It can catch people unaware.

One of the worst storms of the outbreak Friday caused a swath of pretty substantial damage from the southern Adirondacks, then north of Saratoga Springs, New York, then on into Rutland County, Vermont, where there was a lot of wind and hail damage, then east central Vermont.

From there, it formed a bow echo, which caused enormous wind damage in central New Hampshire and western Maine.

The storms will come back to the interior Northeast as another cold front approaches. Some of the storms could be strong or even somewhat severe, but I don't think Monday's storms will be as bad as last Friday's.

Here's a speeded up version of the severe storm in Rutland, Vermont which shows the intensity of that long tracked, severe storm I mentioned above: