One More Wicked Hot Day In; Gordon Unleashes Floods, Florence Confounds

Heat indexes in the Champlain Valley later this afternoon could
get over 100 degrees. In September1

I'm still in Yankton, South Dakota missing, or more accurately, not missing the latest big hot spell in Vermont.

Once again, it's one of those never ending summers, although the break in the heat that's coming is HUGE. You're going to be shocked.

First, the North Country has to get through today. You know the drill. There's heat advisories in the valleys, as heat indexes will get into the 95 to 100 degree range.

The record high in Burlington today is 90 degrees set in 1973. That should be broken today.

Last week I said I doubted it would get into the 90s again, but, well here we are. I'm thinking this will be the last 90 degree day of 2018, but there's no guarantees of that.

The glorious cold front from Canada will come through Thursday morning. After today and tonight, we're into autumn. Or at least a less horrible version of summer.

The humidity will keep you awake tonight, and some rumbles of thunder might also do the same. When you wake up in the morning, it will be oppressively humid. When you get home from work in the evening, well, welcome to autumn.

And autumnal it will be this weekend. High temperatures will only get into the 60s, with some upper 50s in the cool spots. Everybody except those right along the shores of Lake Champlain will be down in the 40s Saturday night.

The cold hollows will get into the 30s Saturday night, and I have to wonder if the first frost advisory of the fall season will be issued for those regions.  Don't worry, most of us won't lose our remaining gardens to the frost.

Warmer, more summerlike weather will be back next week, but don't worry. It won't be in the 90s.

TROPICAL STORM GORDON

The future potential track of Gordon will hit Arkansas and
surrounding areas with heavy rain. The remains of Gordon
might give us Vermonters a little rain early next week.

Tropical Storm Gordon made landfall as expected on the northern Gulf Coast last night. It didn't quite make it to hurricane status, but it's still a big troublemaker.

One person has died after a tree fell on a mobile home and killed a child. Which is tragic enough. Gordon hasn't done its worse yet.

True, the winds have died down to safe levels. But the storm will continue to dump heavy rain from Alabama to Arkansas over the next few days, and serious flooding is a virtual certainty.

The Midwest is still soggy from days and days of rain, and the flooding from Gordon will likely extend into Missouri and Illinois

The remnants of Gordon will probably be entrained into a weather front coming into New England Monday. That means we here in dry Vermont still have a shot of getting some needed rain. At this point, the Gordon remnants do NOT look like any kind of blockbuster for Vermont, but any rain would help.

HURRICANE FLORENCE

As you can see by this map of different computer model
predictions for Hurricane Florence, nobody knows
where it's going, so don't even think about it just yet. 

Hurricane Florence is still way out over the central Atlantic, but it's confounding forecasters with its strength and unpredictable path.

Florence, defying all forecasts, has become the first major hurricane of the season in the Atlantic, witih top sustained winds as of late this morning of 125 mph.

Projections had indicated it would stay a tropical storm or at most barely a hurricane, then weaken some due to strong upper level winds.

The National Hurricane Center is guessing that Florence is in a pocket of light upper level winds in an area where those winds are generally stronger. For now, the NHC has pretty much given up on forecasting the storm's intensity over the next few days. It's hard to say if those upper level winds will weaken the storm again, or cause it to grow.

The eventual path of Florence is an even bigger wildcard.  When hurricanes get as far north as Florence is now, they almost always recurve to the north and miss the United States.

But not always.

This could be one of those "but not always" scenarios. Strong high pressure to the north could steer the storm toward the United States. Some computer models emphasized that westward turn this morning.

Don't count on it, though. As noted, the computer forecasting models are really struggling with how to figure out Florence. Some projections keep it going west. Some turn it north and away from the East Coast. Some of the computer models are so flummuxed that they're coming up with bizarre scenarios.

One model actually had Florence eventually becoming an enormous storm over Maine or Quebec, tapping into polar air and causing a very gusty, nasty snowstorm over Vermont and other areas of northern New England on September 19.

I don't know what Florence will do, but I guarantee she WON'T do that. Don't bother getting your snow shovels out yet.

Bottom line: For now, people should just keep Florence in the back of their minds, and if it comes close to the East Coast next week, then start paying attention.