Extremely Weird Warmth, Humidity In Vermont; Northeast Downpours, Too.

A bright rainbow amid lingering fall foliage Tuesday
in St. Albans, Vermont.

I've just got to say what a truly bizarrely warm, humid day Tuesday was here in Vermont, especially the western parts of the state.

It would have been a run of the mill day for July, as very humid air spawned showers, clouds, with breaks of sun working in, too.

Burlington, Vermont had a record high of 78 degrees, which is 24 degrees hotter than normal. The low temperature for the day was 65 degrees, or a full 28 degrees toastier than average for this time of year.

The most remarkable thing for the weather geek in me was the humidity. The dew point, which is one good way to measure how sticky things are out there, got as high as 66 degrees. In mid-summer we start complaining a little bit about the humidity when the dew point gets to 60 and we whine loudly when it approaches 70 degrees.

So you see how oddly humid it was.

The month of October has so far been spectacularly warm. As of Tuesday, Burlington was running 10 degrees above normal for the month so far, on pace to make October, 2017 the warmest on record.

This is coming in a year with lots of odd hot spells, like the 72 reading in late February and the four day stretch of 90 degree heat in late September. It's a weird year, for sure.

The long advertised heavy rain band that was to have slowly moved through the region yesterday did so, but faster than anticipated across eastern New York and all but far eastern Vermont. That meant rainfall totals weren't has heavy there as anticipated, but at least we got some nice rainbows as the sun popped out on the tail end of the showers late Tuesday afternoon.

The rain band did slow down a lot once it got into New Hampshire, central Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. A flash flood warning was up for much of New Hampshire's White Mountains early this morning as some areas got three or more inches of rain last night. Pinkham Notch, New Hampshire reported 4.77 inches of rain last night.

Eastern Massachusetts is under the gun for downpours today, with possible local flash floods. Further west in Vermont, it will be a partly sunny, nice and warm day, but not nearly as hot as Tuesday.

The overall weather pattern favors continued storminess in the Northeast, with a gradual cooldown toward near normal temperatures.

A small storm will ride north along the nearly stalled weather front over far eastern New England, which will throw back showers westward as far as eastern New York.

Another very wet, windy storm is due Sunday or Sunday night, which promises to dump some heavy rain somewhere in the Northeast. I'm not sure yet who will be in the bullseye, but Vermont will get some more needed rain. However, eastern New England, which does not need the rain, could also get seriously dumped on.

By the way, Vermont wasn't the only place in the nation oddly hot on Tuesday.  A record heat wave engulfed southern California. It was 108 degrees in San Luis Obispo,  California, tying the record for the hottest temperature for so late in the season anywhere in the United States.

At the start of Game 1 of the World Series last night in Los Angeles, it was an incredibly sweltering 103 degrees. Yikes!