70s In Vermont; Feet Of Rain In South: Weather Is Way Off The Rails Again

Flooding up to the rooftops in homes in
Bossier Parish, Louisiana. Photo from CBS News.

It was a bit quote, unquote chillier when I woke up this morning in St. Albans, Vermont than it was yesterday.

I use quote unquote because at 6 a.m. it was still 50 degrees, which is typical for early morning in late May, not March. It's supposed to be in the upper teens first thing in the morning in Vermont this time of year.

Supposed to be has long since gone out the window as the weather keeps going off the rails.

I thought the high temperature in Burlington yesterday reached 68 degrees, which is pretty incredible for March 9, and it was the hottest for so early in the season.

But, nope, the temperature, weirdly, kept climbing after dark and it reached 70 degrees at 7:49 p.m. in    Burlington. This was the earliest 70 degree reading on record, beating the old record of earliest 70 from March 15, 1990.

Normally, we Vermonters have to wait about six months between the last 70 degree reading the autumn and the first 70 degree reading in the spring.

This off the rails winter, down in Rutland, Vermont, they only had to wait 76 days, just two and a half months between the 70 degree temperatures last December 24 and yesterday's warmth.

This truly was The Year Without A Winter, on par but the (non) polar opposite of the famous 1816 Year Without A Summer. By my count, only 30 days in Burlington, Vermont failed to get above freezing all winter.

By contrast, last winter there were 76 such days.

As noted yesterday, the warmth will be tempered a bit in New England from yesterday's incredible levels, but will remain far, far warmer than normal for at least the next week. Record high temperatures are expected again today further south in the Mid-Atlantic states.

SOGGY SOUTH

Meanwhile, in the South, the rain keeps coming, as yet another epic flood has hit part of the country. This kind of thing is happening much more frequently than it used to, too. Recall South Carolina last fall, and the off and on extreme floods in Texas and Oklahoma last year.

This time, more than a foot of rain has fallen in parts of Louisiana and surrounding areas, and up to a foot more is expected. Shreveport, one bigger city, had already received almost 11 inches of rain as of early this morning, and it was still coming down.

Not surprisingly, there's extreme flooding going on in that neck of the woods, with water up to the rooftops of some homes.

The flooding is going to get worse as the rain continues. Flood warnings are up for a broad area from eastern Texas to southern Illinois.

At least three people have died in the flooding across the South, and we're not even close to being done with this yet.

Northern California, Oregon and Washington are in for also in for it again today through next Monday as Pacific storms, even more powerful than the ones last weekend, will unleash four to ten inches of  flooding rains and feet of snow in the mountains.

Widespread flood watches are already up for most of the northern half of the United States West Coast.

Here's news video of the flooding in Louisiana: