"Weak" Cold Front Turned Into A Thundery Vermont Powerhouse Thursday

A rainbow appeared as a line of surprisingly strong
rain and snow showers, some with lightning, approached
Alburgh,Vermont Thursday morning. 

Here in Vermont yesterday, we woke up to quite a benign weather forecast: A slight chance of a light morning shower as a lame pair of cold fronts arrived.

Temperatures would start out mild in the 40s and fall into the 30s Maybe there'd be a mountain snow flurry.  

The temperature trend forecast was spot on, but boy those showers had some oomph to them.

I was working outdoors along Lake Champlain in Alburgh when the "light showers" arrived. It didn't rain particularly hard, but those clouds were tall and dark and the gust front with this was impressive. And was that thunder I heard in the distance?

Sure was. Some of the showers with the cold front had lightning strikes within them. And it abruptly turned colder as the showers arrived, turning the precipitation to snow in some areas. So a few Vermonters - like those in Craftsbury Common - were treated to relatively rare thundersnow, which is always cool.

Why was this cold front so impressive? After all, it wasn't the strongest cold front ever, in terms of temperature change. It got colder after that and another weaker cold front went by Thursday, but it was nothing extreme.

This was another of those "shortwaves" I talked about in recent posts, fast moving, small storms that don't have a lot of moisture with them and don't spread rough weather or heavy rain or snow over wide areas. But some of these shortwaves can have a punch.

Every time a cold front or other weather system comes through, the air is rising, which encourages clouds and precipitation to form. But for a variety of reasons, sometimes this lift is stronger than usual. Such was the case on Thursday.

One area of this shortwave had stronger updrafts than is typical for this time of year.  Stronger updrafts can help showers grow into thunderstorms. And that relatively small area of stronger updrafts happened to pass right over northern Vermont.

Stronger updrafts mean stronger storms, so this one was able to trigger some rare Vermont November thunderstorms.

This was the second time this month that Vermont experience thunderstorms. There were some loud thunderstorms as a cold front passed on the the night of November 9-10. Two thundery days in one Vermont November is pretty rare.

Extreme November Warmth Greets Western Half Of The Nation

Lots of cities in the southwestern United States will
have their hottest November on record, or close to it. 

It's been sort if chilly off and on here in the Northeast, even getting down to minus 3 last night in the notorious cold spot of Saranac Lake, New York.

While our record warm October in the Northeast is a memory, November is the West's turn to blast the heat. Many places in the western half of the United States look like they're going to have their warmest November on record.

I count at least two dozen weather stations, mostly in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado, that will have their toastiest November on record

That effort toward hottest November took a great leap forward with an avalanche of record high temperatures throughout the western and central parts of the country.

A few places had their hottest November day on record, which is a feat, since you'd expect such records to be broken at the beginning of the month. (The normal temperature, as we know, is lower in late November, and so are the record highs.)

Denver reache 81 degrees yesterday, its all time November high. Tucson, Arizona sweltered at 92 degrees Sunday, its latest 90 degree reading on record.

On Monday, the record warmth extended north into the Dakotas. Record highs included 67 at Sioux Falls, South Dakota and 70 in Huron, South Dakota. My in-laws in Yankton, South Dakota basked in 74 degree warmth. I'm jealous.  The normally ice box city of Fargo, North Dakota tied its record high of 54 degrees.

Here's another wild thing that demonstrates how warm this November has been in much of North America. There is a couple inches of snow on the ground outside my St. Albans, Vermont house this morning. It turns out that makes my property an extreme exception.  Only 4 percent of the lower 48 states' land mass has snow on the ground, the lowest for this time of year in 14 years.  Usually about 20 percent of the nation is snow covered now.

Of course, snow cover is highly variable. It was actually above normal in the nation at the start of the month. And I'm sure snow cover will expand hugely next week when a weather pattern change will bring much colder weather to most of the nation.

Here's more: According to Bob Henson at his Category 6 blog over at Weather Underground, November will mark the 36th consecutive month during which there were more record highs than record lows in the United States overall.

The most consecutive months record highs outpaced record lows in the United States since they started keeping track in 1920.

As noted yesterday, we're anticipating a swing to much colder weather in about a week for much of the nation, so we'll see if that 36-month streak keeps going, or finally gets broken.

When Will Winter REALLY Get Here? (Spoiler: Possibly Around Dec. 9)

NOAA's long range forecast indicates a change to
colder weather in the Northeast (in blue) NOAA
says this forecast is conservative, and the cold
could be stronger and more extensive than shown
here. Only time will tell. 

It snowed a little bit again, as expected, across much of Vermont and surrounding areas last night and early this morning, giving another touch of winter to the landscape.

But with temperatures hovering near the freezing mark this morning and forecast highs in the 40s starting tomorrow and lasting through the week, you might be asking, when will winter really slam us?

Although I don't believe in the absolute accuracy of long range forecasts - those that look ahead more than five days or so - there are some pretty strong signals that the full force of winter will arrive around December 9 or 10.

That zonal, west to east weather pattern I talked about the other day that's been keeping Arctic cold more or less at bay looks like it will begin to break down a few days before that rough December 9 or 10 target date.

The jet stream will buckle, forming a dip centered somewhere near the Great Lakes. That will open the door for Arctic air to really stream into the Plains, Great Lakes and the Northeast. The forecast for the second and third weeks of December can't get much more specific than that because it's so far off.

Nobody is sure if it will feature subzero cold or just moderate chill. I'm sure snow will be in the mix, but there's no way of telling this far in advance if we're talking about light stuff or full fledged snowstorms.

For you winter sports enthusiasts who just can't wait until December 10 or so, remember this is snow in the mountains. Despite the relatively mild forecast, it will be cold enough to make snow at night at most resorts in New York, Vermont and the rest of the north country.

For what it's worth, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center has gone conservative with their forecast for after December 9, depicting only a small area of below normal temperatures from the Great Lakes to northern New England.

But with forecasts of the deep dip in the jet stream over eastern north America and abnormally warm air trapped in western and northern North America, NOAA says the cold could easily be more extensive than they're forecasting right now.  And some versions of these long range forecasts for mid-December are classic ones for New England, bringing lots of snow and sustained chilly weather.

One more caveat: I told you I don't fully trust long range forecasts and neither should anybody else. This December 9 or 10 target for winter weather's arrival could still be a bust.  The computer models are in general agreement on this upcoming weather pattern change, but they could still all be wrong.

I'm just giving you a heads up for a potential change, is all I'm doing. So, if you like it relatively mild, enjoy it, for now.

Surprised By Some Snow Again

A couple inches of new snow surprised me when I woke
up this morning in St. Albans, Vermont

Dustings of a half inch, an inch or even two inches of snow here in Vermont in late November are really no big deal.

But, I guess I'm not as set up mentally for winter as I thought I was, especially since I keep getting surprised by these seasonal light snows. To be fair, none of these in the past weekwere necessarily in the forecast.

So it was this morning in St. Albans, Vermont when I woke up to a fresh two inches of snow on the ground.

There were multiple reports of 1 to 3 inches of snow this morning in Vermont, with 3.3 inches reported in Waterville, Vermont.

I knew there'd be some flurries behind a cold front that went through last night, but I didn't expect enough accumulation to bring the state snow plows out. At least in valley locations.

Neither did a lot of forecasters. But oh well, it's that time of year where the least little weather disturbance can unleash some snow around here.

As of mid morning, we were getting a few breaks in the clouds, and some of the snow was melting. But more snow is in the offing, and you're going to have a tricky commute in some areas Monday morning in much of Vermont and surrounding areas.

Again, the snow that's coming tonight and Monday morning won't be a blockbuster. Looks like a dusting near Lake Champlain, one to three inches a little inland from the lake and maybe several inches up in the mountains.

It doesn't take much snow to make the roads slick, though, so I'd leave more time to leave for work than usual Monday morning if you live in northern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. And southern Quebec, including the Montreal area, too.

This will all be caused by a rather weak disturbance coming in from the northwest. It will have gone by us by Monday afternoon, so we should be fine by then with a cold, mainly dry afternoon.

It'll warm up Tuesday through Thursday with temperatures a little above normal in the 40s to near 50 in the valleys. So if you still have a little fall cleanup to do, the light snow cover will melt, at least in the low elevations, you'll be able to get it in some last minute fall cleanup in your yard.

Zonal Flow And Shortwaves: Why We Haven't Had The Usual Stormy November

This is an example of zonal flow, a flat west-to east
orientation of the jet stream across the U.S. That tiny
little dip in the flow over the Great Lakes is called
a short wave. We feel it as weak, fast moving little
storms, as opposed to the much bigger storms we're
accustomed to this time of year.

After that terrible windstorm in late October, we sure weren't looking forward to November, which has a stormy reputation both here in Vermont and in the nation as a whole 

The month will draw to a close in less than a week, and so far, almost nothing in terms of storms.  And nothing big is in the forecast for the next week.

Oh sure, there's been some rain and snow locally. It's been windy at times. And other parts of the nation had spells of bad weather. But there's really been nothing dramatic, like we've seen in most past Novembers.

What's going on?

Blame something called a zonal flow.

The jet stream usually meanders quite a lot especially in the colder months. The jet stream is a river of high speed, upper atmospheric air that circles the globe. It runs generally west to east in the northern hemisphere, but takes frequent big dives southward in some spots, and lifts dramatically northward in others. Those big excursions north are called ridges.

Near where there's these big dips, you get a storm. In the United States for instance cold air might slide southward along with the jet stream, and warm air, and moisture from the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico ride northward where the jet stream curves to the north.

That clash is a recipe for the formation of storms. So you get lots of rain, snow, wind and sometimes severe weather.

This November, the portion of the jet stream that comes across the United States has been mostly just west to east, with no pronounced dips or curves to the north to speak of.  In meteorology circles, we call that a zonal flow.

The jet stream has been entering North America over the Pacific Northwest of the United States and British Columbia, Canada. That has brought repeated storms off the Pacific Ocean, which have caused flooding in that region.

The moisture from these storms gets wrung out over the mountains. The storms, now small, zip west to east across the northern United States. These are called short waves. They're basically just mini-dips in the jet stream, as opposed to the big dips that usually cause those big storms this time of year.

These shortwaves, being just part of a mini dip in the jet stream, are moisture starved, since there's no big dip in the jet stream to grab Gulf of Mexico moisture. They also move fast, so they don't last long in any one place.

Do remember that I said that the jet stream is a fast moving river of air. These shortwaves can grab some of that high speed air and bring it to the surface. That largely explains why it has been so windy this month, despite the lack of big storms.

Generally speaking, this month's zonal flow has not been perfectly west to east. The jet stream is a little further north in the western half of the nation, and that has allowed occasionally record heat to spread over the Southwest and southern Plains.

Here in the Northeast, the zonal flow jet stream has been coming our way at an angle that's more west-northwesterly. That orientation has allowed those short waves that zip on through to grab little pieces of cold Arctic air from Canada and spread it over the Northeast in brief bursts.  That's why November has been a wee bit cooler than normal this month in Vermont.

Zonal flows always end eventually. The jet stream will buckle, and we'll go back to big dips and ridges. My guess is that will happen by mid-December or even earlier. And, we'll go back to our normal stormy winter weather.

Trumps NOAA Nod, Staff Shortages, Psuedo Science Threaten NWS Effectiveness

Barry Myers, left is Donald Trump's nominee to head
NOAA, of which the National Weather Service is a part.

As anybody who's read this blog thingy knows, I'm not a big fan of President Donald Trump and his staff.

This extends into his pick to be the next head of the National Weather Service.

As journalist and weather expert Dennis Mersereau wrote last month, Trump's pick to head NOAA is Barry Myers, the AccuWeather CEO. NOAA, among many other things, runs the National Weather Service.

The pick raises questions of whether there will be renewed efforts to steer the National Weather Service toward more privitazation.  To me, that would be dangerous, because privatization could hamper the ability to warn people of severe weather, or at least confuse the public into not taking action when such dangers threaten.

Here's why: God knows the National Weather Service isn't perfect at articulating severe weather threats, but they're still pretty damned good at it. Plus the set of warnings and advisories the NWS puts out for such dangers as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, winter storms and such has pretty consistent wording, is free and accessible to everybody, and is widely desseminated.

OK, the National Weather Service isn't free. It's taxpayer supported. But we all get the benefits of the service.

Too much privatization and we might not have such access when dangerous weather threatens. Although I doubt Myers would advocate for a worst case scenario like I'm about to described, a lot of hard core free marketers and some of the rich donor class would love the following:

That worse case I've conjured up is we'd have to pay out of pocket for weather forecasts and warnings. The more you pay, the better and more timely the weather forecasts and warnings.  In other words, people who can afford timely warnings of, say, an impending tornado would get it. People who can't afford it, well, if they're lucky they'll see the tornado coming. The won't get a warning.

Now, nobody is proposing such a system, but you can see how privatizing the National Weather Service would bring this, as a logical conclusion to a purely free market system.

AccuWeather has a history of pushing for privatization.

AccuWeather in the past has advocated for a 2005 Congressional bill that would have forced the NWS to funnel its data through private weather companies, who would then sell the data back to us. (In effect, we'd pay for it twice, since the data was funded by taxpayers in the first place.

Luckily, this proposal died with little support. Still, for this and other reasons, the NWS labor union opposes Myers' appointment. 

There's nothing wrong with shared data between the NWS and private weather companies. And companies like AccuWeather and The Weather Channel play a very important role already in informing us about and warning us of weather dangers and news.  I hope these companies continue on and thrive.

It's just that we need to remember we need a taxpayer funded NWS so that everybody has access to weather news and alerts.

Another issue is climate change. We haven't yet heard what Myers' position on this is, but his company, AccuWeather is an outlier when it comes to meteorology companies' thoughts on climate change.

As Mersereau points out, here's the squishy, cop-out position that AccuWeather has on global warming:

"Global climate change is a matter of intense concern and public importance. There can be little doubt that human beings influence the world's climate. At the same time, our knowledge of the extent, progress, mechanisms and results of global climate change is still incomplete."

This all would be against a backdrop of Trump officials, like EPA head Scott Pruitt, who vehemently deny the existance and reality of climate change.

All this comes at a time when the National Weather Service already faces potentially dangerous staff shortages.

As the Burlington (VT) Free Press pointed out last month, overworked, overwhelmed National Weather Service employees might not be able to issue warnings for such things as flash floods and tornadoes in a timely enough fashion. In those kinds of weather emergencies, the earlier the warning, the more likely you are to save lives.

(Note: The Free Press article I've linked in here is excellent, but you'll have to wade through a series of annoying pop up ads and autoplays to get to it.)

According to the Burlington Free Press:

"'Given our staffing, our ability to fill our mission of protecting life and property would be nearly impossible if we had a big storm,' said Brooke Taber a weather service meteorologist and union steward in South Burlington. "We're confined to just trying to get our daily operations completed. We've been really lucky weather-wise that it's been quiet - knock on wood."

NWS administrators in Washington DC told the Burlington Free Press that concerns over staffing shortages are overblown and they're working quickly to hire more personnel.

However, several members of Congress, including the Vermont delegation, and the General Accounting Office have said the staff shortages risk harming the ability of the NWS to issue timely warnings and alerts. Already, says the GAO, staff shortages at the NWS have "at times led to their inability to complete other tasks, such as providing severe weather information support to state and local emergency managers."

Here in Burlington, Vermont, the NWS should have a staff of 13 and only 7 staffers as if October. However, two more were scheduled to join the South Burlington NWS this month.

The bottom line: We need to do whatever we can to pressure the Trump administration to keep us ready for weather disasters, fund the NWS adequate, and - probably the most difficult of all - trying to get the administration to embrace science, and not their fossil-fuel industry funded fake science.

No Bad Weather This Thanksgiving; But 1950 Great Appalachian Storm Shows How Bad It Can Get

Storm surge Southport, CT during the Great Appalachian
Storm of 1950.

As advertised, the weather across most of the nation this Thanksgiving is mercifully quiet. It can get pretty darn stormy this time of year, so we're lucky.

There have been extreme Thanksgiving weekend storms in the past that really gummed up the works.  I remember when I was a kid, a 1971 Thanksgiving storm dumped more than a foot of snow across much of the Northeast, including here in Vermont.

But the granddaddy of Thanksgiving weekend storms was the Great Appalachian Storm of 1950, which on this date that year was just getting its act together.

A strong Arctic cold front passed through the middle of the country on this date, brining temperatures to record lows in many cities, including Chicago.

A storm formed along the Arctic front, which happens quiet commonly. But this particular storm had all the ingredients to form one deadly, remarkable and scary storm. There was record cold on the west side of the front, and record warmth to the east. With extreme upper level support, it allowed the storm to attain extreme levels. We haven't seen anything like this since.

On the cold, west side of the storm, the problem was snow, and lots of it.

The temperature contrast was pretty intense. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania got 30.5 inches of snow as temperatures there held in the single digits. Just to the northeast in Buffalo, New York, it was in the 40s with no snow.

In that warm sector on the east side of the storm, the wind was incredibly intense. The weather set up was not too different than the one that created our severe wind storm in late October. But the 1950 set up was much more intense than this year's, and so were the winds.

Digging out from the Great Appalachian Storm of 1950

Winds gusted to 94 mph in New York City.  The peak gust in Newark, New Jersey was 108 mph. Concord, New Hampshire endured a gust to 110 mph.  Bear Mountain, New York reached 140 mph. Here in Vermont, gusts over 70 mph were widespread and common.

You can imagine how many trees and power lines fell across the Northeast. A million or so people had no electricity for days.

The intense winds caused a nasty storm surge along the East Coast which caused severe flooding. Ocean water breached a dike at LaGuardia airport, flooding runways.

The weather station in Bridgeport, Connecticut was inundated with five feet of water. In some areas of Long Island and Connecticut, coastal destruction was even worse than during the Great Hurricane of 1938.

In the end, the Great Appalachian Storm killed 160 people and caused the greatest damage of any United States storm up to that date.

Bet you're glad there's nothing like that in the forecast for this weekend.

Summer Thunderstorms Will Be Epic Deluges In Warmer World

Satellite view of an intense mesoscale convective complex
over Kansas in 2014. A new study says these clusters
of thunderstorms will grow more frequent and intense
as global warming ramps up. 

Another study indicates that torrential drenchings and flash floods will be more likely in the United States in a warmer world.

Several studies have linked climate change with heavier rain storms. The latest takes a look at summer thunderstorms and something called mesoscale convective systems or MCS's.

These MCS's are very common in the summer especially in the middle of the United States. They are large clusters of often torrential thunderstorms that usually erupt at night.  On average, about 60 of these things form every summer.

MCS's often bring welcome rains to the corn belt and other agricultural regions of the United States, but also sometimes cause destructive flash floods. This is especially true if a particular area is hit by several MCS's on successive nights.

In a warmer world, these MCS's would get more intense, increasing the risk of flash floods, according to the latest study, which was published Monday in Nature Climate Change.

Bob Henson, writing in Weather Underground says the study "found that increased atmospheric moisture in a warming climate will help lead to a 15 to 40 percent increase in peak MCS rainfall rates, along with a 20 to 70 percent jump in the rainfall area. Together, these lead to a 30 to 80 percent boost in the total hourly volume of rain deposited by a typical MCS."

These more vicious MCS's in the future will affect almost all of us in the United States and much of Canada and Mexico.  The study indicates the MCS's will become a bit less frequent in the central United States, (though more intense.) However, MCS's will become more frequent elsewhere, espeically in the Northeast U.S and Canada.

That increase in MCS's in the Northeast is worrisome. The Appalachian chain, including the Green Mountains here in Vermont are especially prone to flash floods as water from torrential rains tends to rush down the slopes of the mountains.

Plus, the Northeast is heavily urbanized, and storm drains aren't designed for especially heavy rains.

The bottom line: I just gave you another reason to worry about climate change.

Surprise Vermont Snow Had Source In Warm Great Lakes

A car slid off the road in yesterday's surprise snow in Williston,
Vermont. Image from WCAX-TV

Surprise!

I didn't tell you it was going to snow yesterday in Vermont, beyond flurries. Neither did the National Weather Service or all the other good meteorologists in the Vermont media.

Yet, Burlington got its first measurable snowfall of the season, with 1.3 inches.

The western slopes of the Green Mountains got clobbered, with 6 inches of new snow reported in Jericho Center and 5 inches in Jonesville, which is sandwiched between Richmond and Bolton, Vermont.

I'm sure the surprise snow cheered Thanksgiving week skiers, but motorists grumbled over the unexpectedly slick roads. There were a number of accidents and slide-offs.

So what  happened?

Forecasters knew there was enough moisture coming off the Great Lakes to pose the risk of snow flurries on Monday, especially along the western slopes of the Green Mountains.

However, when subtle weather disturbances get involved with lake effect snows from the Great Lakes this time of year, surprising things can happen.

This is prime lake effect snow season for the Great Lakes. There's virtually no ice on the any of the lakes yet, so they're wide open. Cold northwest winds can pick up moisture from anywhere on those lakes and deposit snow on downwind shores.

The lakes are also relatively warm. In fact, warmer than normal for this time of year. If the contrast between cold air and the lakes increases because the water is toastier than usual, you can get more widespread lake effect snows.

As of yesterday morning, lake effect snow was coming off all the Great Lakes.  The snows from the Great Lakes sometimes make it all the way to Vermont's Green Mountains, but usually it's only a limited amount of snow, confined to the upper elevations in a narrow area of the state's mountains.

But a very subtle weather disturbance - almost too small to be detected by meteorologists - moved over the Great Lakes and made it into northwestern New England yesterday. This disturbance was able to pick up lake effect snows from Lakes Superior, Huron, Ontario and Erie and bring it all the way over to us.

Hence the surprise snow. It is kind of cool in a weather geeky way that we managed to get lake effect snow in Vermont from four of the five Great Lakes.

It's warmer today and tonight ahead of a cold front, so some of the snow will melt. But don't worry, skiers and riders! The general trend through early next week is for chilly weather. Cold fronts tomorrow and Sunday will bring more mountain snow showers, ,and possible a little more lake effect snows courtesy of the Great Lakes.

Traveling For Thanksgiving? Looks (Mostly) Great Nationwide

Fortunately, for the vast majority of Americans, Thanksgiving
travel won't look like this this year because there are
no large storms on the horizon.

It seems like every Thanksgiving, when people are traveling all over the country to talk turkey with their far-flung families, there's a big storm mucking things up in much of the nation.

Not this year.

Most of us are going to have a quiet Thanksgiving travel week, but of course there are a few exceptions.

Broadly, there is a general west to east air flow across the country, with no big southward dips or northward leaps in the jet stream.

That means no big storms can form, since there's no real opportunity for a wannabe storm to scoop large amounts of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. And there's no big opportunity for Arctic air to plunge way south, which would set up a temperature contrast to spawn a big storm.

Instead, there are just little moisture-starved features zipping along, mostly along the northern tier of the United States.

That means not much precipitation, if, anywhere in almost all of the nation. It'll be rather chilly or the most part in the northern third of the country, but not extremely cold. The south and west of the country will be generally warm, especially in the southwest, say, southern California, Arizona and those areas, which could see record high temperatures over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Many of us will tune into the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York, and conditions look good there, too. At parade time, it will be sunny and chilly, with rather light winds so the giant inflatable characters in the parade will behave and not blow away.

One trouble spot would be the Pacific Northwest, where on onshore flow will probably bring a fair amount of rain and mountain snow, which would affect road travel and perhaps delay flights Wednesday.

It looks like some Gulf of Mexico moisture will head toward Florida so the Sunshine State isn't lookintg particularly sunny this Thanksgiving.

On Sunday, when a lot of us will be traveling back home, it looks like the same weather pattern will be holding, so I don't expect huge problems then, either.

Locally, here in Vermont, a cold front will zip on through, mostly Wednesday morning. We'll get some rain showers, changing to snow showers, especially in the mountains. There might be a few slick spots, mostly in the higher elevations, but no big mess.

Thanksgiving Day itself (when I travel from St. Albans to Rutland, Vermont) will have quiet weather, so if you have to drive somewhere in the Northeast, don't worry.

Safe travels, everyone and Happy Thanksgiving week!

Warm World Continued In October

Yearly global October temperatures from the
1880s to now. See a trend?

A strong cold front is sweeping past my house in northwestern Vermont this Sunday morning as I write this, and rain will soon change to snow showers.

It's going to be another chilly day, which has been the trend around here for the past couple of weeks.

However, the worldwide warmth seems to be continuing, at least as far as NOAA data from October is concerned.

NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information put out their monthly report late last week and said October on a global scale was the fourth warmest on record.

What makes coming in at Number 4 rather than Number 1 is that we are settling into a La Nina pattern in the Pacific, which tends to cool the world a little bit. The opposite, El Nino, warms the eastern Pacific and tends to make the entire globe a bit warmer. The record hot years of 2015 and 2016 were generally El Nino, or at least neutral years.

So far, 2017 is the third warmest year on record, with only 2015 and 2016 being hotter.

Here in Vermont, we contributed our tiny bit to make October the third hottest global one on record. Vermont had, by far, its hottest October on record.

So far here in Vermont, November is running a little cooler than normal, but that obiously won't have much of an effect on the overall global temperature readings for the month.

Because of global warming, we are permanently having warmer than normal months on a global basis. The only question about November is how much warmer than average will it be, and will it be another top 10 warmest November?

We'll watch that report when it comes out in another month.

Russians Have Problems Driving In The Winter, Too

Chaos in Vladivostok, Russia streets during the first
major snowstorm of the season. Image from RT.

Russia has a pretty wintry weather reputation, but that doesn't mean everybody can handle the cold season.  

The most recent example comes from Vladivostok, which had just had a slippery snowstorm (which is not at all unusual for mid-November in that city. )

It was the first major storm of the winter, which always seems to catch people off guard.

Like in cities in the United States and elsewhere, things did not go well on the roads and highways around Vladivostok.

The Russian news and propaganda agency RT says there were at least 256 accidents around the city due to the storm.

Let's not get too smug here in the U.S. There's already been plenty of winter-related car mishaps and there will be many, many more before winter ends.

The video below shows you the traffic jams and the wrecks that ensued during the snow in Vladivostok and is an instructional video of what not to do when it snows. Although the cat at the very end gets it right by staying indoors and just observing.

Watch:

Geeky But Wicked Cool NASA Video Shows Sea Salt, Smoke And Hurricane Interaction

An image from NASA's visualization of aerosols in the
atmosphere during the hurricane season. The blue and
white swirls over the oceans are hurricanes and other
storms concentrating sea salt in the atmosphere. The ghostly
white stuff in western North America is smoke from wildfires.

I just came across a cool visualization video that shows how aerosols in the atmosphere such as sea salt, smoke from wild fires and dust from the Sahara Desert interact and move around the world.

I know, I know, it sounds just a bit dull and science-y, but definitely watch the video at the bottom of this post. It's mesmerizing. Even to people who aren't weather geeks.

Says NASA:

"This visualization uses data from NASA satellites, combined with mathematical models in a computer simulation (that) allows scientists to study physical processes in our atmosphere. By following the sea salt that is evaporated from the oceans, you can see the storms of the 2017 hurricane season."

That is perhaps the most striking feature of the video. You can see high concentrations of salt gathered up in strengthening and strong hurricanes like Harvey, Irma, Maria and Ophelia.

A unique feature of Ophelia that you can see in the video is how it sucked up sea salt, like all hurricanes do, but also Saharan dust and smoke from deadly wildfires in Portugal, and that helps explain the odd smoky skies over Britain as Ophelia and its post-tropical remnants blustered through.

Another fascinating part of the video is how you can see wildfires break out in western and northern Canada, and in the western United States, then watch the smoke blow across the continent and over to  Europe and Asia.

The erupting wildfires are seen as dense pinpoint plumes of smoke before the smoke and ash disperse over wide areas.

The video sure helps explain why the sky was so often hazy and smoky over Vermont in August and September. A lot of wildfire smoke blew our way.

Smoke from the increasing trend of wildfires is raising health concerns as all the additional smoke from longer and more intense fire seasons is affecting human health, especially in areas relatively close to the fires.

You'll probably want to watch the video repeatedly to catch all the activity going on with the hurricanes, salt and smoke.

Here's the video:

Watch Out In Vermont During Friday A.M. Commute: Looks Icy To Me

A rainbow graced the November skies over St. Albans
Vermont Thursday. Snow will probably grace the ground
by Friday morning, with a dusting to two inches
likely in the valleys, maybe more in the mountains.

Today was a pleasant, classic November day in Vermont.

Lots of dark, brooding clouds overlooking a landscape of gray, leafless trees. Shafts of sunlight cut through the clouds, and a few rain showers managed to produce some rainbows to light up the otherwise dark late autumn vibe.

Also typical of November, things are about to change abruptly, as they always do this time of year.

It was pretty mild today, but a sharp cold front is on our doorstep. Upper level support, moisture - a lot of it from the Great Lakes - and favorable winds will give many of us some snow late tonight.

The weather set up looks like that - unlike last Friday - the snow showers will extend into the Champlain Valley. That means most of us are in for a dicey, icy Friday morning commute, not just the people who live up in the high elevations or in central Vermont away from the lake. Those places will get some snow, too, so it looks like we're all in for it.

There's a good chance Burlington could see its first measurable snowfall of the season. It won't be much - probably less than an inch - but with rapidly falling temperatures, melting snow will then refreeze on the roads.

The western slopes of the Green Mountains stand to get more snow out of this, probably one to three inches. And the summits of the central and northern Green Mountains, , like the top of Mount Mansfield and Jay Peak, could come in with six inches of fresh powder.

I'm sure that will encourage the skiers. The resorts are opening at a fast pace, thanks to chilly weather that is encouraging snow making. The snowfall tonight and tomorrow morning will just add to the mood.

Another storm over the weekend will produce first a little mix, then rain regionwide, then mountain snow showers Sunday. The mountains could pick up a few inches on Sunday.

Winter is settling in.

Flooding In Greece Kills At Least 14 Damage, More Floods Feared

Destruction from severe flash flooding in Greece
this week

The weather across the United States is relatively quiet, other than quite a bit of wind and rain over the Pacific Northwest. 

However, as usual, the weather isn't staying quiet in other parts of the world.

The worst and most tragic situation is in Greece, where flash flooding has killed at least 15 people and has left widespread destruction.

The hardest hit area seems to be a heavily populated region called Attica, near Athens. The Greek government has declared three days of mourning because of the disaster.

Forecasters fear a that the weather pattern over the Mediterranean will encourage more heavy rain and flooding in Greece over the next couple of days.

Here's a video of a the powerful floodwaters, and a Greek highway overrun with water, with scary results. It reminds me of an even worse version of the extremely frightening 2016 flash flood in downtown Ellicott City, Maryland.  


This video shows the destruction in the aftermath of the powerful flood:

You MUST Skip Stones Across A Frozen Pond Or Lake

This dude reacts after, for the first time in his life,
he skipped a stone across a frozen lake.  He's
obviously amazed at the sound. 

As yesterday's weather proved in Vermont, there's usually not much  joy or action or beauty during November in the North Country.  

Typical of this time of year, it was overcast and dark and dreary and quiet and gray. A few snowflakes descended through the chilly air from time to time. The forests, now devoid of leaves, was as gray as the depressing sky.

So you've got to find the cool things. Here's one thing I have done, especially as a kid, that you should go out and do, too.

Ponds and quiet coves in lakes are beginning to freeze this time of year. Please don't walk out on the ice, as it's way too thin to support you. You'll fall through.

Instead, pick up a rock and skip it across the frozen surface. Many of us Vermonters and other northerners have done this, and it's rewarding for the cool sounds it makes. If you have not given yourself the pleasure of doing this, please do it!

If you want a preview, watch this guy's reaction when he tries this for the first time in his life.

Live Science explains why you get sci-fi sounds when you skip a rock out onto a frozen lake:

".......The lake ice acts like a vibrating plate. When the stone hits, the impact launches a bending wave           (also called a flexural wave) in the ice. The bending wave travels at supersonic speed and continuously radiates sound into the air while it zips forward (away from the impact).......Because short waves travel faster than long waves, the higher pitches, or frequencies, hit your ear first."

So, you hear the higher pitch sounds separated from the lower pitches that are combined when the rock hits the ice. You need to be a little distance away from impact. If you drop the rock on the ice next to you, you just get a boring thud. So give the rock a good throw when you try this.

I will surely find a frozen pond soon to do this, as I often do. I'm still a kid at heart.

Here's a video of what you'll hear:

Carbon Emissions To Hit Record High This Year

Global carbon emissions are expected to rise this year
after three years of no growth, disappointing c
climate change activists

Carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels will reach a record high this year, according to news from the UN world climate summit ongoing now in Bonn, Germany.

Emissions had been flat for the past three years, which raised some hopes that the long decades long increase in carbon emissions had finally peaked. The carbon emissions are of course what is behind global warming.

As the Guardian points out, however, you can't read too, too much into one year. The increase this year was driven by an improved world economy. Increased industrial and economic output corresponds to increased carbon emissions.

Also, a piece of the problem was dry weather in China, which reduced hydroelectric power output. So  China resorted to fossil fuels to make up the difference.

Growing economic powers like China are emphasizing more renewable resources, like wind and solar, though coal and oil are still mainstays of China and the rest of the industrialized world.

The Guardian article reflected mixed reactions in the world of climate change watchers.

"The news that emissions are rising after the three-year hiatus is a giant leap backwards for humankind....Pushing the Earth closer to tipping points is deeply concerning. Emissions need to peak soon and approach zero by 2050," said Amy Luers, executive director of the global research initiative Future Earth.

Other officials said there's naturally going to be year to year fluctuations in carbon emissions. It's possible 2017 will turn out to be a blip in an otherwise steady or slowly falling carbon emissions trend. Who knows?

Pine Cones And Acorns: Why There's So Many This Year

White pines weighed down by a multitude of pine
cones in Burlington this past summer

The other day, I brought a load of yard waste from a client to a Chittenden Solid Waste District drop off site and nearly fell trying to walk across a big patch of acorns somebody left there. It was like walking on marbles.  

It turns out lots of people are cleaning up TONS of acorns and pine cones and such from their yards this fall. And there's a meteorological reason why. (With me, everything turns to the weather, doesn't it?)

An excellent article by Rebecca Way in the Vermont State Parks blog has an excellent explanation why, but I'll summarize it here.

The summer and fall of 2016 were quite dry here in Vermont, and much of the rest of the Northeast for that matter. When trees are stressed, they produce more cones, seeds and acorns than normal.

These cones and seeds and such started to develop in 2016 as a survival mechanism against the drought. (Produce a lot of seeds and you're more likely to get more seedlings to start growing, which would help perpetrate the species despite the strains of the drought, had it continued on into 2017.)

The summer of 2017 turned out to be rainy enough for trees to survive and thrive just fine. So all those pine cones and acorns and seeds developed just fine, too. You might have noticed over the summer the new pine cones were so plentiful that they weighed down the branches of white pines as if the branches were burdened with a snow or ice storm.

There's also a lot of acorns for the squirrels and you to clean up. And there were plenty of apples this year, too, so that means lots of apple pies for us to enjoy this year.  On top of that, you have plenty of pine cones and red berries to add to your natural holiday decor.

I imagine there will be fewer pine cones and acorns next year, since there were not particular drought stresses on trees this year. True, much of September and October were pretty dry, but that came at the tail end of the growing season, so it won't affect trees all that much. Especially since the rains returned in recent weeks, which put moisture in the ground to start off next spring.

Record Cold Over; But It Was Impressive

After a remarkably warm fall, a record cold snap hit the
Northeast the past couple of days, including New York
City. Photo bu Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

It's still kind of cold this Sunday in the Northeast, but we are climbing out of a pretty remarkable cold snap.

High temperature records are still far outpacing record lows, but this brief frigid spell was impressive.

Dozens of record lows were reported over the past couple of days from Minnesota to New England.

One of the record lows, 24 in New York City's Central Park, was the first time they had any kind of record low in the first half of November since 1976.

Other record lows included 5 in Saranac Lake, New York. In Dubois, Pennsylvania, the record low of 9 was impressive because it far, far exceeded the previous record low of 23.

Here in Vermont, Burlington avoided a record low, but Springfield had a record 15 degrees and Morrisville hit a record low of 16 degrees.

The weather this week here in Vermont will return to something pretty normal for mid-November. Highs will be in the upper 30s and 40s, but there will be little precipitation, if any, until Thursday, when some rain showers will move in. Expect a lot of clouds, through the period, though, as is typical for November.

We're watching a potential storm for next weekend that will probably give us some rain around Saturday, and possibly some snow Sunday.

New Delhi, India, Choking In Toxic Smog

Thick smog in New Delhi this month. Photo by Altaf
Qadri/Associated Press

In 1952, a deadly smog enveloped London, England.   

In those days, coal and polluting fuels heated homes and businesses and basically powered the city.

During one of those famous London fogs, all those pollutants got trapped within the fog, causing a four-day dense cloud of smog that killed an estimated 4,000 people.

London has literally cleaned up its act, and pollution there rarely gets to dangerous levels.

Not so in other cities in the world.  Beijing, China is famous for its toxic pollution.

So is New Delhi, India, which is now enveloped in a smog so bad that it's being compared to that terrible London smog of 1952.

The smog cloud in New Delhi, like most pollution outbreaks is caused by an inversion, which is warm air over the top of cooler air that acts like a lid, preventing pollutants and smoke and such from rising and moving away. So it sits there.

Illegal crop burning at farms surrounding New Delhi, vehicle emissions and construction activity and dust are pouring into the New Delhi air, and the pollutants keep accumulating under this inversion.

The Straights Times says New Delhi is trying to deal with the immediate crisis by reducing the number of cars allowed to be driven on its streets each day, banning commercial trucks unless they're carrying essential commodities, new construction has been stopped and charges for parking cars has quadrupled to force people into public transportation. Schools are shut down.

But that's not really doing the trick. There has been a 20 percent spike in hospitalizations due to heart and lung problems. The amount of microscopic particles in the polluted air is 75 times what the World Health Organization considers safe. Breathing the air is the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes per day. 

And this pollution attack isn't a one-off. It's happening with increasing frequency in New Delhi and other cities in India and elsewhere in Asia.

And remember how I said London and England's air is cleaner? That's true, but it's still too polluted even there. Of 51 British towns and cities in a WHO database, 44 have too much air pollution, the Independent said.

Meanwhile, in the United States, air quality has also improved since the 1960s and 1970s but still sometimes falls short.

Don't expect even cleaner U.S. air in the coming years. Robert Phalen is an appointee to a Trump White House environmental panel. Phalen has said that "Modern air is a little too clean for optimum health."

He claims that children should be exposed to some dirty air to teach their immunie systems to ward off irritants, or something like that.

Hope you love breathing microscopic, toxic particles, folks!

That Impressive Cold Front Last Night Will Bring Near Record Cold To Some Northeast Cities

Boy, that was as impressive of a November cold front as you could get last night.

City forecast that are circled are where record
lows are threatened Saturday morning. Click on
the map to make it bigger and easier to see

When it rolled past my house shortly before 12:30 a.m. it was accompanied by thunderstorms, which brought cloud to ground lightning, loud thunder and quite a bit of pea-sized hail.

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington also reported thunderstorms.

As expected, the temperature plummeted behind the front, as strong northwest winds are blasting the cold air into the Northeast.

The strong winds will continue today and wind advisories are up for sizeable portions of New York and New England. Winds could gust to 45 mph, which would cause some scattered power outages once again

Temperatures before dawn ranged from the teens in northern New York to the 30s in central New England. Those temperatures will either stay steady or continue to fall the rest of the day.

Although not unprecedented, this is a strong cold snap for mid-November, and quite a few record lows for the date will be broken across the Northeast. The record low for Saturday in Burlington is 16 degrees, and current forecasts have the temperature dropping to 14 degrees.

I still wouldn't be surprised if a few of the cold pockets in the mountains get to zero.

The last time I saw a cold snap that threatened so many record lows was Valentine's Day, 2016.

Already, some records in the Midwest have fallen. It's even worse than here in some northern zones out that way.

International Falls, Minnesota, normally considered an icebox, is even more so. Both yesterday and this morning, it got down to 13 below in International Falls, breaking yesterday's daily record of 0 and today's daily record of -6. Duluth, Minnesota also saw record cold yesterday and today.

The record low of 18 degrees in Chicago was tied. At last check, Green Bay, Wisconsin had set a new low temperature record for today's date with 11 degrees.

However, like that Valentine's cold snap, the current one will be brief. We just have to endure a couple days of cold. By Sunday afternoon, temperatures will not exactly be warm, but not far from average for November.

Those highs Sunday in the upper 30s to mid 40s in Vermont will seem tropical after today and Saturday.

We're Still On For Biting Cold Tomorrow, Saturday

Get ready for midwinter cold Friday
and Saturday in the Northeast

November so far isn't following the playbook of September and October playbook here in Vermont and the rest of the Northeast.  

Gone is the persistent warm to record warm weather, and welcome to winter.

The first week of November here in Vermont was a little warmer than normal, but not to the extreme of the previous two months. And we're still bracing for quite a blast of Arctic weather tomorrow and Saturday.

The coming slam of cold air is far from unprecedented for mid-November; we do get this sort of thing from time to time in November. Still, a few towns and cities in the Northeast could have some near record cold for the date Saturday morning.

Here in Vermont, I'd still expect some icy roads for the Friday morning commute, especially in the north and mountains. When the cold front comes through tonight, there will initially be some rain, them some snow showers and snow squalls.

Accumulations won't amount to much, and in some areas, there will be no snow accumulation at all. But the temperature will plummet sharply after the cold front and any water on the roads and sidewalks will freeze super quickly.

This is the first time this fall that there is a risk of icy roads. People are particularly stupid the first time of the year we get this type of thing, so you're probably going to be late for work. Because the people ahead of you will probably cause car crashes. Leave for work early.

And take your ski parka. With expected high temperatures in the 20s Friday with wind chills in the single digits, it'll basically be a typical mid-January day.

Temperatures Friday night will bottom out in the single numbers, with some lower teens in the "warmer" spots near Lake Champlain. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the coldest hollows flirt with zero degrees.

There might be clouds and flurries near the east shores of Lake Champlain as the contrast between the very cold air and the relatively warm waters will produce clouds and perhaps lake effect flurries. The overall air mass will be quite dry Friday and Friday night, though, so I don't expect anything substantial off the lakes.

In western New York, south of Lake Ontario especially, there could easily be a brief period of lake effect snow as well. The dynamics of the cold front, and the sharp drop in temperature and the contrast with the warmish water of the lake, could actually trigger a thundersnow squall or two.

Saturday will also feature mid-winter cold, but with lighter winds and sunshine, it won't be quite a bad. Then from Sunday onward, it's back to seasonable November weather -- highs in the 40s. Which means winter hasn't permanently settled in just yet. Give it time.

Reality Show Host As President Creates Own Climate "Reality"

Trump is running a fake climate "reality" show that is
anything but reality 

We all know that those "reality shows" on TV aren't actually reality. They're pretty scripted.

These shows create the illusion of reality and we're entertained by it. It's all harmless fun, really.

What do you do, though, when a reality show host and huckster lands in the White House, like Donald Trump somehow did.

Trump's good at one thing: Putting on a show to obscure reality and give us a bunch of fiction. And his crowning achievement in this realm is climate change.

He and his minions are trying so hard to pretend climate change doesn't exist that they've created their own reality. And the number of efforts in this regard are breathtaking.

I'll list just some of them in a minute, but Trump the reality show host keeps having actual reality thrust on him. Though I'm sure he doesn't care. The show must go on.

As noted in the Category 6 weather and climate blog, the latest salvo is a Climate Science Special Report, an initial report from a congressionally mandated effort by hundreds of U.S. scientists that assesses how climate is changing in the United States.

The report says humans are likely responsible for 93 to 123 percent of Earth's net global warming after 1950, notes Category 6. 

Wait a minute, how can humans be reponsible for more than 100 percent of the warming, as the report suggests?

It turns out there's a decent chance that if it weren't for us burning fossil fuels and releaseing tons and tons of greenhouses gases into the air, the world might have actually slightly cooled since 1950.

Trump and his group, though, continue their full court press to obscure facts like those that appear in this assessment, and facts agreed upon by almost all climate scientists.  There's so many examples I don't know where to begin.

This week, Syria signed the Paris Climate Accord. Last month Nicaragua did. That makes the United States under Trump a rogue nation. Because now, the United States is the only nation on the planet not to sign on to the accord. We were in, of course, but now Trump is trying to back us out.

Trump's move is deeply unpopular both globally and within the United States, but what does he care about what voters want?

Trump's Environmental Protection Agency would not allow its scientists to speak at a recent Rhode Island climate change conference. The Trump administration won't replace aging satellites that monitor Arctic sea ice, and the Republican-led Congress ordered an alternative sea ice monitoring system dismantled because it doesn't want to pay for storage costs.

Yep, keep pretending climate change isn't reality. Just keep "enjoying' Trump's alternative reality show. It'll all come back to bite us.

Winter To Finally (Briefly) Hit At The End Of The Week

We might get a dusting of snow, like this one pictured last
November in St. Albans, with a strong cold front Thursday
night. Winter cold to follow Friday, Saturday.

Yesterday's post remarked about how warm the autumn has been and how things are still growing in the garden and all that jazz.  

True, but we New Englanders now need to rush our winter preparation to completion, as winter is going to hit very abruptly, but probably rather briefly late in the week.

It'll be seasonably cold through Thursday, with highs in the upper 30s and 40s across Vermont, but then, watch out! A strong cold front will arrive Thursday night.

Some snow showers or even snow squalls will probably accompany the front, especially in the north and mountains.

Accumulations won't amount to all that much, but the dustings of snow along with the rapidly falling temperatures will almost certainly slicken up many roads later Thursday night and for the Friday commute.

Yeah, it's that time of year.

For many of us in northern Vermont, the temperature will fall below freezing Thursday night and not rise above freezing again until Sunday. Friday will seem brutal, even though we can get this type of weather in mid-November.

But how brutal? Try high temperatures in the 20s with winds gusting to 30 mph. That translates to a wind chill in the single digits. Some of us have yet to see an overnight low in the 20s, so this will seem like quite a shock. By the way, the last time we had a day with a high temperature that stayed below freezing, at least in Burlington, Vermont, was way back on March 16.

On the bright side, this will finally get the Vermont and other north country ski areas to get their snow guns out, and start covering slopes with what will hopefully be ski-able snow soon.

On the even brighter side, if you don't like deep cold, winter will ease its grip for a little while after Saturday. Temperatures will begin to ease up later Saturday and by Sunday and Monday, we'll be back in the 40s again. Not warm, exactly, but not midwinter conditions either.

Incredibly Warm Autumn Creates Unheard Of November Vermont Gardens

Once again, we're waking up to incredibly warm autumn weather here in Vermont, just as we consistently have all season.

The end is nigh, at least temporarily, as we are in for a week of seasonable November weather. That means highs in the 30s and 40s lows in the 20s Tuesday through next Sunday, with maybe some snow Thursday night and Friday.

That kind of weather is perfectly normal in a Vermont November, but it will feel abnormal because of the warmth we had.

We've come off the hottest October on record, by far, and one of the hottest Septembers. The first week of November was well above normal. Totally unprecedented for these parts.

Which makes putting my gardens to bed weird, since things were still going in early November. This in a location so far into northern Vermont that I can literally see Canada from my house.

Until last year, I never picked an edible tomato from a Vermont garden in October. This year, I picked on in early November. No frost protection, no nothing.

I ate salad greens from the garden yesterday. My zinnias are hanging in there. And a patch of hyacinth near the shed, which usually blooms in early spring, is attempting to blossom.

Meanwhile, it's supposed to be stick season. All the leaves should be off the trees in Vermont by now. Most of them are, but there are still flashes of color as we begin the second week of November.

Lots of people have asked me if this warm autumn will have any influence on what kind of winter we will have. The answer is probably not.

Despite the variety of long range forecasts you hear, it's really impossible to tell precisely what kind of winter we'll have. Will the other shoe drop? After all, no good weather in Vermont goes unpunished, so that would bring us intense cold and snow.

On the other hand, winters are not the same as they used to be, thanks in large part to global warming. Will this be another mild winter? Could be.

A Busy Weather Day Great Lakes To NE To Canada; Storms, Wind, Rain

One of thousands of trees that blew over in Vermont during
last week's windstorm. This one is in Milton. Gusty winds
today could bring down a few more branches and power
lines, but today's gusts won't be as bad as last week's.

Welcome to another active Sunday in the weather department.

Parts of the Midwest, Northeast, Great Lakes region and into southern Ontario and Quebec can expect a variety of things to watch out for.

Here in Vermont, wind will be the problem, but it won't be as big a problem as last Sunday and Monday, that's for sure. I'll have more on the Vermont wind in a moment.

We'll first pick today's hazards apart one at a time:

TORNADOES, SEVERE WEATHER

As expected, parts of Illimois, Indiana, Ohio and some surrounding areas are under the gun for severe storms and possible tornadoes today.

I was impressed by how rapidly the first volley of storms formed in eastern Illinois this morning. Went from nothing to hailers in seemingly a half hour or less. This first wave won't be the severest of them. The tornado and big hail and damaging wind threat comes this afternoon.

It looks like the target zone for tornadoes today would be southern Illinois, southern and central Indiana and western and central Ohio. Big hail and strong damaging winds are a definite possibility in this area as well.

FLOODING

The highest flooding threat because of locally heavy rain today and tonight from central Indiana, much of Ohio and on into Pennsylvania.  Training thunderstorms - repeated storms that roll over the same area - could dump up to six inches of rain in this area, which of course would trigger flash flooding.

Heavy rain could extend tonight up through western New York, the St. Lawrence River valley and parts of southern Ontario and Quebec.

These areas had two to five inches of rain in last weekend's storm, so it wouldn't take much to trigger some flooding in these areas. Further east into Vermont and the rest of New England, some of the showers could be briefly heavy tonight and Monday, but will fall well short of being able to cause flooding, so no worries there.

STRONG WINDS

The actual worry, especially in northwestern Vermont, is strong winds today. I'll emphasize the wind today will definitely NOT be nearly as severe as what we had late Sunday night and Monday morning.

Still, the wind was picking up outside my house in St. Albans, Vermont as of mid-morning.  I already saw a couple more small branches come down.  Gusts were already as high as 47 mph out on Lake Champlain at Colchester Reef. The wind will only get stronger late this morning and through the afternoon.

Northern New York and the northern half of the Champlain Valley is under a wind advisory for gusts to around 50 mph. Winds will be somewhat less strong elsewhere in Vermont and the rest of New England.

This kind of wind is enough to take down some trees and power lines. This is especially true now, because we have trees and branches weakened by the even stronger gusts nearly a week ago. And although utility crews had power back to almost everybody in Vermont by Saturday, not all line and pole repairs are finished. Some temporarily jury rigged lines might not hold up in today's wind. We'll see.

Just to be on the safe side, I'd fully charge your smart phones and have those flashlights ready again.

After the rain pushes through tonight and tomorrow, dry, seasonably cool weather should take over for the middle of the week around here