Weather Calms, For Now. Faux "Polar Vortex" To Wane Quickly

That stubborn eastern United States cold front, kept moving only grudgingly by that cool air mass plunging southward instead of eastward in the Midwest, is finally getting ready to leave.

From @RobWhite11 on Twitter, this huge
tree fell in York, Maine Tuesday. Do
you think the car beneath it can be saved? 

With it will go the severe storms and the flooding that have plagued the Northeast for the past few days

As of early Wednesday morning, there was still a band of heavy rain through New England, and the eastern half of that region is still at risk for flooding through much of today.

Everybody else in the Northeast will start drying out today.

Severe weather was reported in the Northeast again yesterday and there was LOTS of flash flooding, especially in places like New Jersey, the New York metro area and southwestern New England.

Maine took the brunt of the severe storms, and weather experts will likely investigate today whether any tornadoes touched down. There were tornado warnings last evening in central Maine, and  a lot of wind damage was reported up that way.

And that Midwest cold snap that everybody is fighting about whether to call a "Polar Vortex" or not?  That is weakening fast under pressure from the warm July sun and a jet stream that is snapping back into a more normal summer pattern.

Here's how storms can cause false alarms. In this
photo I took during a thunderstorm in Milton, Vt
Tuesday, it looks like a funnel is forming. But it was
just a harmless scud cloud hanging from the base
of the thunderstorm. The storm was somewhat
strong but not severe and caused little if any damage.

There were some daily record lows and record low high temperatures in the Midwest yesterday, and maybe there will be some today in the central Plains and mid-Mississippi Valley today.

But it will warm up. Places that were autumn like early this week could go into the 90s by the weekend or early next week.

Here in Vermont, the "cold wave" isn't going to be that cold.

Temperatures over the next couple of days will be well in the 70s during the day, which is maybe five degrees cooler than average. We ALWAYS get occasional spells of weather like that in mid-summer.

By the weekend and next week, temperatures will be back up into the 80s.