Severe Weather Outbreak Hits Vermont: Damage, Oddities, Photos, Analysis

Mobile home shoved off foundation by severe thunderstorm near
Highgate, VT Tuesday. Note the mobile mobile home knocked
over kerosene tank, causing a leak. 

Well, that was an exciting afternoon Tuesday in Vermont, wasn't it?

I have to say the severe weather outbreak that hit the Green Mountain State was the most intense of this summer. It overperformed, in my opinion.

It doesn't take much to push a lackluster setup for severe weather to something relatively impressive, at least by Vermont standards. We're not exactly the Tornado Capital Of The World, as we all know.

Some relatively meager ingredients for severe storms really came together nicely to produce Tuesday's wild weather. It made it a bigger storm day than many of us anticipated.

There was some big time damage in a few spots in Vermont, and one tragedy possibly caused by the storm.  A kayaker drowned and another is missing after they disappeared in Malletts Bay in Colchester. The storms were blowing through the area at the time, but it's unclear whether the storms caused or contributed to the deaths.

Car smushed by fallen tree after the severe storm in St Albans, Vermont.
My house is two miles from this location and not so much as a twig
fell. Very localized damage.

A home in North Hero caught fire, probably because it was struck by lightning. I saw a mobile home pushed off its foundation in Highgate. The mobile home pushed over a kerosene tank and the fuel was leaking.

I also saw trees down throughout the northern part of St. Albans and the surrounding towns of Highgate, Swanton and Sheldon.  There are many other storm reports from the NWS/South Burlington.

Trees are also down on houses in Burlington's New North End. Lots of trees came down on Grand Isle. No wonder: Winds gusted to an incredible 76 mph in North Hero

Yeah, this was impressive.

We knew there would be some severe storms. We knew in advance Tuesday would be hot and humid, one good ingredient to destabilize the atmosphere to produce the risk of severe storms. It turned out the heat got hotter than some of us expected, because the intense sunshine lasted into mid-afternoon.

That led to temperatures in much of Vermont to get above 90 degrees, a couple degrees warmer than expected. That, in turn, made the atmosphere a bit more unstable than it otherwise would have been.

Numerous trees down around a house in Sheldon, Vermont after Tuesday's storm.
Miraculously, neither the house nor cars parked in the driveway were damaged.

We also knew winds were changing in speed and direction with height, which would promote a lot of storms some severe. I guess those conditions led to an even better setup for storms than at least I suspected.

As the event unfolded, instability was highest in a narrow Champlain Valley band from Burlington northward. And that's where the worst storms hit. This system certainly produced!

LUCKY AND UNLUCKY

Big disaters and little hiccups, like we had today, bring winners and losers.

As is always the case, a few places got nailed, while others, nothing. Note that the National Weather Service in South Burlington only had a gust to 36 mph and a trace of rain, while they got nailed across town in the New North End of Burlington.

I was certainly alarmed when I found myself trying to drive through a blinding microburst on Interstate 89 just two miles north of my house. Tree branches flew by in the wind that was trying to shift my truck off the road into the median. It was rather frightening.

My house is surrounded by large trees, some of which could fall on my house and perennial gardens full of fragile plants. I went home to check. Despite the microburst being just two or three miles from my house, no so much as one twig came down. The day lilies danced happily in a light lingering breeze as the violent storm rumbled off toward Sheldon and points beyond.
At one home in Sheldon, several large trees fell on one property. Aside from a few twigs on the roof, the house was undamaged. A half dozen trees were across the driveway. The trees fell around the cars, but not on them, leaving them unharmed.

Meanwhile, a single tree fell into a small parking lot behind Danform Shoes in St. Albans.  The tree crushed a car.  Had the owner parked in any other space at the store, things would have been just fine. Go figure.


ROTATION? PROBABLY NOT

Looks like a funnel cloud as the storm approached St. Albans, Vermont
Tuesday, but the National Weather Service says this was probably
just an eddie and convective debris ahead of the strong downburst.

I want to first emphasize that it appears all the damage from these storms appear to be from straight line winds. The problems I saw after the Franklin County storm all literally pointed that way.

In areas where there were numerous trees and branches down, they all fell in the same direction, indicating straight line winds, and not a tornado.

The same was true for a flattened corn field near Highgate. All the corn stocks had fallen in the same direction.

That said, many strong to severe storms rotate, and most of those rotating storms actually do NOT produce a tornado.

However,  I thought I might have saw some interesting things as the storm moved across Lake Champlain toward St. Albans and Sheldon.  An area of dark clouds on the southern end of the storm appeared to be rotating and I might have caught a funnel cloud.

Or not.

I showed the photo to the National Weather Service in South Burlington. They got back to me very quickly and said, "It would likely be some convective debris caused by eddies and cooling from the downburst winds. Funnel clouds typically do not form ahead of downburst winds."

Proof that not every "funnel cloud" is indeed a funnel cloud.

Still, it was fun to watch Scud clouds rose rapidly into and near this area into the storm, which you sometimes see with a rotating storm. Then again, scud clouds often get caught in storm updrafts, so I'm sure that it was just the typical big storm ingesting more warm, humid air to feed on.

Gorgeous rainbow after the storm in Sheldon, Vermont Tuesday

Too bad I wasn't videoing when I saw this, but oh well. You can't think of everything.

It's more proof that as destructive as these storms are, they are beautiful.

As I was checking out the damage in Sheldon, a second, weaker thunderstorm passed through. It delivered a beautiful parting shot: A brilliant rainbow, with lightning streaking through it.

TODAY

More showers and thunderstorms will be scattered around today, but things won't be nearly as bad as yesterday in Vermont.  (It could get a little interesting today in the Mid-Atlantic states and southern New England.)

Some thunderstorms could produce heavy downpours, frequent lightning and gusty winds especially in the southeastern half of Vermont, but it will be relatively manageable.

Tonight the cold front will have moved through, and Thursday will prove to be a beautiful Vermont summer day, with sunny skies, low humidity and temperatures for all of us staying at or below 80 degrees during the afternoon.

More Storms, Some Maybe Strong, Developing In Northeast, Including Vermont

The first thunderstorm of the day is seen here weakening east of
St. Albans, Vermont shortly after noon today after dumping a
brief downpour on Georgia, Vermont. Stronger storms, a few
possibly severe, are possible later this afternoon. 

It's a little before 1 p.m. Tuesday afternoon here in Vermont, and I could just change a word or two and begin this post the way I began it Sunday.

Which was like this: "As of a little before 1 p.m. this humid Sunday afternoon, showers and thunderstorms were rapidly firing in much of Vermont and northern New York."

Just change "Sunday" to "Tuesday" and away we go.

Of course, there are differences.  The storms are actually less widespread than they were at this time Sunday, as the peak conditions for the storms are coming a little later than they did Sunday.  They will become much more numerous soon.

More importantly, there is a somewhat greater risk of some scattered severe storms than there was on Sunday, when only a couple locations in Vermont experienced a little damage.

Both on Sunday and this morning, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center had Vermont and surrounding areas under a marginal risk zone for severe storms. That would mean isolated severe storms that don't last long, cover very few areas and are barely severe.

Before noon, the Storm Prediction Center upgraded us, if you will, to a slight risk zone. That means scattered severe storms, a bit more numerous than under a marginal risk, and there is a chance of an isolated really intense storm.

As of noon, the Storm Prediction Center said they will fairly likely issue a severe thunderstorm watch in a band through central Pennsylvania, central and northeastern New York, and the northwestern half of Vermont.

Like on Sunday, we've gotten quite a bit of sun, which has helped heat and destabilize the air, making us ripe for storms. (It was already 90 degrees in Burlington, Vermont as of 1 p.m.)

Unlike Sunday, there's a bit more wind shear in the atmosphere. That means winds are changing speed and direction with height over us, which helps power the storms.

The best chances for strong to severe storms this afternoon and early evening are over northern New York and in Vermont west of the Green Mountains and north of Rutland.

The first storms to form late this morning over northern New York faded as they moved into Vermont, but the upper level dynamics to support subsequent storms is sneaking into northwest Vermont, so I don't think some of the storms will weaken much before reaching New Hampshire.

The biggest threat - other than the obvious lightning and downpours - from today's storms are local strong, damaging winds, possibly going to 60 mph or even a little higher.

Most of us won't experience such mayhem. But a few places in northern New York and Vermont probably will.  It's probably best to postpone that lake boat ride or that long hike through the woods for another day. It's supposed to be nice on Thursday!

Sunday's storms made for highly variable rainfall totals across Vermont. A few places got nothing, a few others got more than 1.5 inches. Town A got soaked, and Town B three miles down the road stayed dusty.

It'll be like that today, too. Although some of the peak rainfall totals will be higher than Sunday's. The storms will have a bit more organization than they did Sunday, which could produce bigger, heavier areas of rain.  Many of us could still use the rain, so that's OK.

However there is also a bit of the risk of those dreaded training thunderstorms. That's when storms line up like boxcars on a railroad track, so several storms end up going over the same spot. That can lead to local flash flooding, even it it has been dry up until now. A few inches of rain in a couple hours can create high water, no matter how dusty it was before the storms arrived.

The storms will peter out pretty quickly after sunset this evening, but there's still a chance of some showers and maybe a rumble of thunder all night as a cold front approaches.

More humid weather with showers and storms will come Wednesday as the front limps through. Chances of severe weather will be further east, more likely in southern and eastern New England than in Vermont or New York.

Vermont Thunderstorms Rumbled, But At Least There Are No Las Vegas Style Grasshoppers.

This "profile" in the sky looks like it's surprised bu something off
to the west. This is a thunderhead that passed north of
St. Albans, Vermont Sunday evening. 

Sunday's storms worked out just as expected - hitting most of us with a couple quick dashes of downpours, with only a handful of places getting nailed.

From what I could tell, there was a severe thunderstorm in Stowe around 3:30 p.m., based on reports of trees down there and an impressive radar return at that hour.

There was a report of some tree damage on Colchester Avenue in Burlington a little earlier in the afternoon.  For most of the rest of us, no biggie.

Except for some places that really got bullseyed by storms, the rainfall was inadequate, too. It was still fairly dry under the trees around my house in St. Albans, Vermont, despite two or three brief downpours.

And it was frustrating to see one thunderstorm after another go by a few miles north of my house on Sunday while most of them seemed to avoid me. Oh well.

There are chances of showers and storms Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday because of a slow moving cold front.  Similar to Sunday, most storms won't be severe, but there might be a couple strong ones mostly over New York Tuesday and mostly east of the Champlain Valley Wednesday, as forecasts look now. The timing and location of these storms could change as forecasts get updated, but that's the way it looks now.

As luck would have it, the timing of the front means they'd fire up pretty well over New York State Tuesday afternoon, wane before getting to my place in northwestern Vermont, then fire up just to my east on Wednesday. I can't catch a break.

At least I didn't have to contend with dense clouds of grasshoppers, like Las Vegas is experiencing

LAS VEGAS "LOCUST" PLAGUE



Grasshoppers swarming in Las Vegas. Photo via television station KSNV.

OK, they're not really locusts, but grasshoppers. But still, things always seem unique in Las Vegas.

National Weather Service offices all over the nation routinely release special weather statements on local weather hazards. The NWS office in South Burlington put out several such statements on Sunday regarding the thunderstorms, for instance.

But this statement the other day from the National Weather Service office in Las Vegas is a new one:

"Outflow winds from earlier storms over Nye County have just entered NW Las Vegas. Wind gusts betweeen 30-40 mph will be likely as these winds move through the valley. Watch for areas of blowing dust and grasshoppers which may limit visibility."

Catch that? Be careful driving through that area of wind because blowing grasshoppers might interfere with visibility.

And you think you had problems?

Grasshoppers normally make an appearance in Las Vegas this time of year as they migrate northward toward the central part of Nevada. But there's an extraordinary number of them this year, due to a wet and cool spring in that region.  (Well, wet and cool by Las Vegas standards, anyway.)

They're attracted to light, so they swarm around street lights and all those bright lights of Las Vegas. They're kind of gross looking in such large numbers. But on the bright side, they don't bite or carry diseases.

Here's a CBS News video of the grasshopper invasion

We Vermonters Have A Good Shot At Thunderstorms This Sunday Afternoon

An isolated thunderstorm where New York, Vermont and Quebec meet
casts a shadow over the northern Champlain Valley Saturday evening
Coverage of storms will be greater this afternoon.

As of a little before 1 p.m. this humid Sunday afternoon, showers and thunderstorms were rapidly firing in much of Vermont and northern New York.

I hate to ruin your Sunday afternoon, but I really hope we do get some decent rains out of these. We need it.

The trouble is, as is almost always the case with thunderstorms, it will be hit or miss. It's just that today, more ingredients have come together for storms than on many humid days this month, so the coverage will be greater.  

At this point, it looks something like 70 percent of us will get at least a little rain before sunset today.

On days like yesterday, updrafts near mountains and isolated lake breezes were the only things available to trigger some widely scattered thunderstorms.  Today, a weak disturbance from Quebec has been added to the mix, allowing for more storms.

A small minority of the storms could cause a bit of damage. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has us in a marginal risk zone for severe weather. That means a very few isolated places around here could see some damaging wind gusts.

Since the humidity is fairly high, several thunderstorms will have heavy rain. They're moving right along, so it won't rain super hard in any one place for that long, so don't worry about epic flash floods.

But you might get ponding of water on roads and small creek and stream flooding, gully washers, damaged steep driveways, that sort of thing.

Also, there might be quite a bit of cloud to ground lightning with some of the storms today.

All this means this afternoon is probably not the day to go out on the lake, or take a long hike. You'll want to find a spot where you can quickly take shelter in a sturdy building while storms pass.

It'll be a very changeable rest of the afternoon. Here's one example: A shower abruptly formed directly over my St. Albans house at around 1:50 p.m.  The large rain drops were as warm as bath water. Then, by 1:55 p.m., the sun was back out. We didn't get nearly enough rain for my parched gardens to get a drink. I hope I get a much bigger downpour later today!

The storms will quickly weaken and fall apart near and after sunset this evening.

On Monday, it will be back to just isolated storms in the mountains. Warmer valleys like Burlington could easily make it to 90 degrees, just like on Saturday.

Showers and storms become more likely Tuesday and Wednesday as a very slow moving cold front approaches and limps through. If Tuesday's clouds and rain hold off until later in the day, it could hit 90 again.  Humidity will stay high on Wednesday before waning Thursday.

Doesn't Seem It, But We're Experiencing One Of The Hottest Julys On Record

Last July was easily the hottest on record in Vermont, at least judging by records kept at the National Weather Service in South Burlington.

The view from my upper deck toward my lower deck at my St. Albans,
Vermont home demonstrates my Quick Fire hydrangeas are doing
pretty well, despite the heat of this July.

You might think, at least by comparison, this July has a nice chilly feel to it for a change.

Think again. This July will surely be among the top 10 hottest on record, and probably among the top five hottest. 

Through Friday, the mean temperature in July so far in Burlington is 74.2 degrees, which if it stays there, would tie the month for the fifth hottest July on record.

With generally above normal temperatures expected through the final days of the month, it looks like it will score in the top five.

At least we have no shot of breaking last year's July heat record. Plus, there hasn't been as many 90 degree days. So far this month, it's gotten to 90 degrees four times. We've got a good shot at making it to 90 today, which would bring the month's total to five such days.

Last July, there were ten days that were 90 degrees or more.

This month's warmth has been as consistent as last year's though, with no real cool periods to talk about. Last July, all but two days made it to 80 degrees or more. So far this month, I could say the same, though there's a chance it won't make it to 80 degrees on July 31, according to current forecasts. We'll see.

Other cities in New England and parts of the Northeast are expected to have one of their top 10 Julys this year. Some places might even score with the #1 hottest.

Another thing we Vermonters have in common with last July is the dryness in the northern part of the state, with relative wetness in the south. Unlike last year, we haven't broken into any kind of drought situation in the north. At least not yet.

Last year, the heat extended through September. Last August was the hottest on record and September, 2018 was the second hottest. I'm doubting we'll match last year in that respect.

In fact, long range forecasts call for occasional periods of relatively cool weather during the first half of August. Nothing far below normal, but nothing particularly hot either.

Update: Europe Heat Indeed Shattered Records

People trying to keep cool in Europe this week. Photo by Nicolas
Economou/NurPhoto/Getty Images

As expected, more all-time heat records were set in western Europe Thursday as the second unprecedented heat wave of the summer grilled the region.

Paris soared to incredible 108 degrees, beating the old record of 104 degrees to be the hottest temperature anyone has seen there. Breaking an all-time record is one thing. Breaking it by four degrees is just incredible. 

Records in Paris go back to 1658, so it's not like they just started keeping track of temperatures in Paris and missed something a few years back. The heat really was just out of this world.

Germany on Thursday had that nation's hottest temperature on record, when it got to 106.7 degrees in the town of Lingen. That breaks a national record that was established just 24 hours earlier.

In the Netherlands, the temperature reached 104 .7 degrees, also breaking the national record set a day earlier. Before that, the Netherlands hottest temperature on record of 101.5 degrees  had stood for 75 years.

As has been the case with many other recent extremes, a lot of experts say the hands of climate chang were all over this heat wave.

Says Reuters:

"Peter Inness, senior research fellow at the University of Reading (Great Britain) said: 'The fact that so many recent years have had very high summer temperatures both globally and across Europe is very much in line with what we expect from man-made global warming."

Climate change might be influencing these kinds of hot spells in two ways. The baseline temperature is just warmer than it was decades ago, which means the chances have increased for record breaking spikes in temperature.

Additionally, it's possible climate change is messing with the jet stream, making blocked, stalled and much wavier patterns, like the one that caused the Europe heat wave this week, to become more common.

Of course, these blocky patterns create areas of cool weather, too, where the jet stream dips. It's just that most of the time, the cool waves aren't as chilly as they used to be.

The pattern that caused the western Europe heat wave is creating a pretty sizeable area of chilly weather in parts of Russia and surrounding areas. There might be a few record lows there, but it won't match the extraordinary departures from normal in western Europe.

Similarly, as noted yesterday, a surge of dry air into the southern United States created some record low temperatures. Austin, Texas, dropped to 58 degrees, the first time on record there that a July temperature sank below 60 degrees. But, by afternoon, it was 90 degrees in Austin, which is only a few degrees below normal.

As the heat dome works its way north through places like Norway and finally the Arctic, it could also re-jigger the jet stream over our neck of the woods to give Vermont relatively cool weather during much of the first half of August.

It won't be extremely cold, and there's no guarantee that it will actually be refreshingly cool, but there is a decent chance that could happen. Stay tuned......

Europe Heat Sets All-Time Records Again, Plus More Bad Climate News

Forecast map of the departure from normal in Europe for expected
high temperatures today. Areas that are whitish will be about
30 degrees hotter than normal, which is uncharted territory
for these regions. 

The second super intense heat wave of the summer is now underway in western Europe, and like in the June heat wave, all-time record hot temperature records are falling.

This isn't your grandfather's heat wave. This one is much worse.

Germany broke its national all-time record high Wednesday when one town reached 105 degrees. Belgium had its hottest day on record with a reading of 103.8 degrees. The Netherlands also broke its all time record, reaching 102.7 degrees.

The city of Bordeaux, France, reached its all time record high of 106.1 degrees.

Incredibly, these new records are in danger of falling today as the heat wave, if anything might grow more intense. And expand. Paris, France, might break its all-time heat record. So might the United Kingdom.

Already this summer, 25 percent of France's weather stations have reported all time record high temperatures, according to the Category 6 blog. Forty-four of Germany's 490 stations have also done so, and that will surely increase today.

Most European homes don't have air conditioning, so this is a dangerous situation. Governments have learned from other, recent deadly heat waves and have set up cooling centers, air conditioned places and other options for vulnerable people to go.

By Saturday, cooler air will undercut the heat ridge and push it north into Scandanavia. That would probably make all time record highs fall up there, too.  It's possible the heat dome will extend as far as the North Pole, which isn't exactly great news for the already scant Arctic sea ice pack.

There's other types of climate related trouble and news, too:

ARCTIC FIRES

The center of this heat wave will move to Scandanavia and parts of the
Arctic this weekend, which is bad news for the ice up there. 

Extensive probably unprecedented wildfires burning in Alaska, northern Canada and Siberia and cloaking the Arctic in smoke, Forbes reports. Wildfires in such northern areas are bad to begin with, but these could contribute a bit toward making climate change worse.'

Especially in areas were peat is on fire, the blazes are belching carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which adds to the surplus that's causing climate change in the first place.

Soot particles from the fire are landing on Arctic ice. Bright white ice reflects sunlight, but darker material draws the sun's warmth in. The soot would therefore make the ice melt faster in the summer than it otherwise would.

ICELAND GLACIER DEATH

An Icelandic glacier dubbed OK is officially dead, the apparent victim of climate change. Summers in Iceland have gotten hotter in recent years and decades. That means the island's 400 or so glaciers are in retreat.

OK is the first of Iceland glaciers to be declared dead but it won't be the least. A glacier "dies" when it becomes so thin that it can't move on its own because it doesn't have enough weight.

According to Slate, the OK glacier probably died several years ago, and there's likely a few other glaciers in Iceland that have also died.

PAST CLIMATE CHANGE SMALLER

People who say climate change doesn't exist point to other climate shifts that happened before we started pushing all that CO2 into the atmosphere. They point to the Roman Warm Period between the years 0 and 300 AD, the Dark Ages cold period around the year 500 AD, the Little Ice Age in the 1300s through 1700s and the Medieval Warm Period around the year 1000 as examples.

According to Science News, these past climate events were regional, covering only sections of the Earth. That's unlike the current global warming, says Science. They report that 98 percent of the Earth is warmer now that it has been at any time in the previous 2,000 years.

This new study appears in the journal Nature.  The scientists conducting this study came to their conclusion by using proxies for temperatures from tree rings, glacier ice cores, lake and ocean sediments, cave deposits and historical documents.

Extremes: Cape Cod Tornado, Southern Chill, Europe, California Heat

Tornado damage in Yarmouth, Massachusetts Tuesday.
Photo by Steve Heaslip/Cape Cod Times

It almost seems like the only place on Planet Earth not experiencing extreme weather this week is right here in Vermont.

Temperatures are pretty close to normal, and no big storms are in the offing that I can see. Elsewhere, it's wild.  

That's all due to a jet stream in the Northern Hemisphere that's weird for July. It's what we call amplified, meaning northward bulges and southward plunges ain the jet stream are more pronounced than they normally are this time of year.

Which means we get extremes in weather. Some examples:

CAPE COD TORNADO

A rare tornado struck Cape Cod Tuesday as a supercell thunderstorm rampaged through. Again, that dip. A relatively sharp dip in the jet stream to the west of New England was one of many ingredients to cause this.

It looks like it was a high end EF-1 tornado, with winds estimated at 110 mph. I'm not sure, but I think the last tornado before this on Cape Cod was in 1977, so it's pretty rare.

The tornado and supercell had something called a tornado debris signature on radar, meaning radar was detecting debris blown aloft by the tornado. That enabled meteorologists to confirm the tornado via radar.

Strong rotation in the storm was detected off of Block Island, Rhode Island, well before it reached Cape Cod. That enabled the National Weather Service to issue timely warnings.  Supercells usually have strong straight line winds, too, and this one was no exception. Winds in some places were clocked as high as 90 mph.

The roof of an inn was blown off in the tornado and there was massive tree damage. Dramatic videos of the tornado and supercell are at the bottom of this post.

SOUTHERN CHILL

July is normally a time of relentless heat and humidity across the South. But that dip in the jet stream to the west of New England I told you about is bring oddly low humidity to places south of the Mason-Dixon line.

When the air is relatively dry, nighttime temperatures usually get cooler than when the air is really humid. This rare burst of dry southern air is bringing some record low temperatures, which I'm sure nobody in the South is complaining about.

Cities in Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and elsewhere reported record lows this morning. Houston, Texas might get three consecutive mornings with lows in the 60s, which to us Vermonters doesn't seem chilly, but is frigid for a Houston July. They haven't had three consecutive 60s in July for at least 25 years.

EUROPE HEAT

Western Europe is in the throes of the second record breaking heat wave of the summer.

The worst of it in many areas is expected to peak Thursday, when the United Kingdom could break its all-time record high of 101 degrees. Paris, France, which endured some of the strongest effects of the June heat wave, when it set its all time national high temperature record, might do it again.

Paris is in line to break its all-time record high temperature as readings could get to 105 or 106 degrees there.

Record heat and the risk of wildfires exists not only in France but in Spain and Portugal.  Record heat looks like it will also extend northward through Scandanavia.

Meanwhile, there's a dip in the jet stream to the east of these countries, so it will be unusually cool in parts of Russia and surrounding regions.

Still, the magnitude of the heat is greater than the extent of the cold, another possible sign of climate change.

CALIFORNIA HEAT

The west coast of the United States is heating up, too. Cities like Bakersfield, Modesto and Fresno could challenge all time heat records, with readings possibly exceeding 115 degrees in some areas.

Back to the Cape Cod tornado with videos:

Here's the roof of the motel blowing off in the tornadic winds:



A view out a window of the intense winds in or near the tornado:



Notice the wind change directions in this time lapse out of Dennis Port, Massachusetts.  I'm guessing this was in the outer circulation of the tornado, and I think it was in the background in this video. Hard to tell, since there was so much rain:



Finally, a very nice analysis of what meteorologists were seeing on radar, from television station WCVB:

Heat Wave's End Causes Lots Of Severe Weather, Except In Vermont

Clouds tried to build over St. Albans during the heat wave
this past weekend, but the triggers weren't there to set off
much in the way of real storms.

Toward the end of a big heat wave, severe thunderstorms often break the heat.

That was certainly true with the just-ended heat wave. Tornadoes and derechos in the upper Midwest over the weekend prompted a state of emergency in Wisconsin, where hundreds of acres of forest were leveled by straight line winds that probably exceeded 100 mph in spots.

Storms in the Mid-Atlantic states and southern New England that ended the heat caused widespread tree damage and flash flooding.  Wind gusts hit as high as 80 mph in a couple spots.

There was even a tornado warning for a time on Cape Cod last night.

It all went around Vermont. True, far southern Vermont got a nice soaker yesterday, with rainfall totals exceedeing two inches. But there were very few reports of severe weather. Maybe an isolated incident or two Saturday evening, but that's about it.

That Vermont escaped the storms was probably just dumb luck.  The timing and set up of the cold front around us just wasn't right to trigger lots of big storms this time. Unlike much of the rest of tje nation, the Green Mountain State has so far had a mellow severe storm season. There have just not been that many damaging storms.

Of course, summer isn't over yet so we can still get hit. We do know that there's nothing major coming our way through the next week or so. It will turn very warm and humid again by the weekend, which are good ingredients for storms.

But like last weekend, there will be no real triggers to set off storms, so there will only be a few isolated storms. At least that's the way it looks now.

Some videos:

Here's the storm destruction in Post Lake, Wisconsin:



Acres and acres of forests leveled in northern Wisconsin:


During the beginning of the storm in Wisconsin. Apparently, it got a lot worse after they went
inside after the conclusion of this video:



This brief video looks like the midst of a hurricane, but it was a New Jersey severe storm:



News report here gives a pretty good summary of how things went in New Jersey and New York:

Heat Gone For Now; Soaker To South, Too Dry To North

If you water enough, flowers thrive in this hot July. Photo taken
Sunday near the front door of my St. Albans, Vermont house.

That cold front, or pair of cold fronts came through Vermont on schedule Sunday and I'm sure you can feel the improvement out there.

Enjoy it, because this fresh air is only temporary.  Unfortunately, a nice soaker of a rain is going to mostly miss northern Vermont, which could use a good dousing. 

As expected, the cold front has gotten hung up in southern New England on into the Ohio Valley. Little disturbances rippling along the front will create a storm day from Kentucky to southern New England.

Flood watches are up for a good stretch between Tennessee and the New York City area. Strong storms could also cause some damaging wind gusts and perhaps a brief spin up tornado in this stretch, too.

The soaking rains will work their way up into southern Vermont, but will struggle to reach the north.  North of Route 2, there will be less than a tenth of an inch of rain.

This July is shaping up to be much like last July. It's been quite hot and dry across northern areas (though not as hot as last July, thank goodness.)  Like last July, the heavy rain and flooding has been going on from southern New England into the Middle Atlantic States.

The comfortable weather up here in northern New England looks like it won't last as long as originally hoped. The temperature will start to creep up starting Thursday. By the weekend, it's going to be quite warm and humid again, but not as bad as it's been the past couple of days.

Right now, early indications are that temperatures will be in the mid to upper 80s over the weekend, with somewhat sticky dewpoints in the mid-60s. (A dewpoint over 60 is a wee bit humid, over 70 and it's oppressive, so we'll be somewhat in the middle.)

As usual, people are wondering if the recent heat had anything to do with climate change. That climate change might have influenced the heat wave and made it a little worse, but heat waves do happen in the summer, as we all know.

Nights during this heat wave were the worst, and set some records. Boston only got down to 83 degrees Sunday tying the record there for the highest minimum temperature for any date.

Very high humidities prevent nighttime temperatures from falling much.

Heat waves seem to have gotten more humid in recent decades. I think part of it might be climate change, as a warmer general atmosphere can hold more water, making it more humid. Another reason for the increase in humidity is probably land use.

During the epic dust bowl heatwaves of the 1930s, which brought by far the highest temperatures on record to the Great Plains and parts of the Midwest, poor agricultural practices led to a rather barren landscape.

With less vegetation, there was less humidity due to reduced transpiration from plants.  Temperatures in the 1930s soared well into the 100 to 120 range in the middle ofthe country, but dew points during the worst heat waves were in the dry 50s for the most part. Lower dew points can create higher daytime high temperatures but lower overnight lows.

Nowadays, places like Iowa are wall to wall corn and soybean fields, which means lots of plant transpiration adding water to the air. The biggest hot spells of the summer now can bring dew points as high as 80 degrees to Iowa. That happened there this past Friday and Saturday, for instance.

I'm not aware of any particular research into this, but I'm guessing heat waves in Vermont were generally not as humid a century ago as they are now. Again, climate change would be a a part of that but land use is probably playing a sizeable role. 

In the 19th century, as little as 35 percent of Vermont was forested, as people cut down swaths of trees for pastureland. Today, the Green Mountain State is roughly 75 percent forested. That's a lot more leaves adding water (and oxygen!) to the atmosphere.

That possibly translates to higher summer humidity.

Just don't start cutting trees to make it less humid. It ain't worth it.

My Favorite Cold Front Of The Year Comes Through Today

Yesterday, July 20, afternoon temperatures were in the 90s with
heat indexes around 100 degrees. Exactly six moths earlier,
on the afternoon of January 20, this was the scene in
front of my St. Albans, Vermont house. 

Dozens of cold fronts pass through Vermont every year. Some of them bring improvement to the weather, others make things worse.

Today's cold front, a true gift from Canada, will surely become my favorite cold front of the year.

I wilt in heat and humidity, and this has most certainly been wilt weather over the past couple of days.

This hasn't been a long heat wave, but it sure has been oppressive. The old saying, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity," is certainly true.

Dew point temperatures are a good measure of how humid it is. If the dew point is over 60, you begin to notice a bit of stickiness to the air. If the dew point is 70 degrees, it is truely oppressive.

Yesterday, Vermont's dewpoints were mostly in the 70 to 75 degree range. At one point last evening, Highgate reported a dewpoint of 80. If accurate, which is admittedly iffy, it would be the highest dew point I've ever seen in Vermont.

For perspective, dew points of 80 degrees happen a few times every summer in places like New Orleans and Miami, but even there, it's not an everyday occurance.

High dew points mean temperatures warm at night. Drier air leads to cooler nights. The high dew points were the main reason it stayed so stuffy last night.

The cold front I referred to is actually coming through in two pieces. The first one was entering northern Vermont as of 11 a.m. or so, when I was writing this. I noticed from my perch in St. Albans, Vermont that the wind has picked up a bit and the sky darkened a bit as a narrow, broken line of showers approaches.

That line will probably intensify as it moves southeastward through Vermont today. There won't be widespread trouble with this, but a few isolated storms will become strong.

In northern Vermont, you'll notice that the humidity will have waned a bit behind this first boundary this afternoon. This first front comes through later in southern Vermont, so it will stay hot and humid, with heat advisories remaining in effect there.

The second, main cold front will come through Vermont this evening and overnight. There won't be much weather along this one either. Just scattered showers and thunderstorms, one or two of which might be strong.

You'll really notice the humidity drop down overnight.

The lack of rain with this cold front is a little concerning. There were scattered storms last evening, but not everybody was hit. The same is true today.

The cold front is still expected to get hung up in southern New England tomorrow. A disturbance riding along this front will bring a soaking rain into southern and central New England, including southern Vermont

Far northwestern Vermont seems to be getting a little dry, despite some downpours last Wednesday. It's uncertain, but it looks like this soaker might miss northern Vermont. Which is too bad.

At least it will be comfortably cool for a few days. But it looks like warmth and humidity will make a return starting next weekend. It's a little soon to determine how icky it will get. But at least we get a break.

Heat Wave Peaks Today; Iffy Forecast For Storms And Rain

Yesterday's heat and humidity made the lower atmosphere unstable
over St. Albans, Vermont last evening, resulting in these pretty clouds.
Storms did not develop because there was another warm layer above,
which prevented the strong updrafts you need for storms
So we got these nice little clouds instead.

The heat wave that has engulfed Vermont and most of the rest of the nation's eastern half should peak today, then slowly begin to wane in most places

It's a doozy, even if not that many records are being set. There will be a few record highs, but what's striking is the warm overnight lows. Several cities will set a record today for the highest minimum temperature for the date. 

Burlington, Vermont did manage to get down to 72 degrees this morning, which is hot, but not unprecedented. It'll get into the 90s today in Vermont, with heat indexes approaching 100 degrees.

Needless to say, we're still under a heat advisory.

It's worse elsewhere, of course. I don't think it got below 80 degree last night in Boston, for instance. 
There's a chance it could reach 100 degrees in Boston today or Sunday. If it does make it to 100 in Boston, it'll be something like only the 25th time in 140 plus years of record keeping.

Cities like New York and Washington have a good shot at cracking 100 degrees today.  People are wisely cancelling strenuous outdoor events, which can give people heat stroke. In New York City, for instance, a triathlon is off the table for today, as is something called OZY Fest, which would have drawn big, eclectic names like John Legend, Trevor Noah, Rachael Ray and Beto O'Rourke.

Some events in Vermont are canceled or postponed due to the heat, too. Ironically, this heat wave is a bit like a blizzard in that it's cancelling events.

It is good though that strenuous things are being put off. This heat is dangerous. Among the people succumbing to heat stroke yesterday was former NFL player Mitch Petrus, who died while working outside his Arkansas shop on Friday.

Here in Vermont, as hot as it is, I doubt we will have a record high temperature. On this date in 1977 there was a super impressive heat wave that brought temperatures up to 99 degrees in Burlington. It won't get that hot today.

Still, be careful! The humidity is way up there, so heat indexes will be up around 100 degrees, as I've already noted.

It's still unclear whether thunderstorms will help break the heat, even when a cold front comes into play on Sunday. Often, heat and humidity ends with an outbreak of frequent thunderstorms, but not always.

This appears to be the case. Depending on whether anything can get triggered, some thunderstorms could erupt this afternoon and evening. I don't think they'll be particularly widespread, but given the rich environment, any that do get going could get pretty strong pretty fast.

We still have that layer of warm air which would block updrafts, but a weak boundary coming through today might provide just enough lift in the atmosphere to trigger a storm or two.

It is a bit unpredictable when you're on the northern edge of a heat wave, like we are now.  Big complexes of storms or derechos can form. One derecho or severe storm complex has gotten going early this morning in South Dakota and is beginning to race eastward. Even if it aims towards us late tonight, I imagine it will weaken greatly before it gets here. Still, it's worth watching.

The Storm Prediction Center has us in a marginal risk zone for severe storms today and tonight.

Even as the cold front comes through Sunday, the storms will be hit and miss. Not everyone will get 'em. It will remain hot and humid Sunday, especially in southern Vermont, which will be the last to see the cold front.  You'll start to notice the fresher air in the evening across the north, and statewide overnight Sunday night.

The front will get hung up in southern New England Monday, and a little storm will ripple along it. That would bring rains to parts of the area Monday and Tuesday. Nobody is quite sure yet where the front will stall, which means nobody knows where the heaviest rain might fall. There is a chance that parts of Vermont could get some pretty heavy downpours Monday and/or the first half of Tuesday.

It's still looking nice and cool next week, though as we get toward Friday it might start to warm up again. But not to the extent we're dealing with now.

Hot Times For Us Vermonters, And The Rest Of The World

Huge areas of the country, red and orange, are under
heat warnings and advisories today.

Right on schedule, the heat wave is rolling into Vermont and the rest of New England today.  If it didn't feel too bad early this morning, you're lucky. By afternoon, Ugh!

According to NOAA, 194 million Americans, or 59 percent of the nation's population, is under some sort of heat warning, advisory or watch. This figure includes everybody who lives here in Vermont.

With high temperatures in the lower 90s and dewpoints in the lower 70s both today and tomorrow, it will feel like it's about 100 degrees outside. If you can, stay in the air conditioning. If you know somebody who is elderly or ill and lives in a place with no air conditioning drag them kicking and screaming if you have to into a cool place somewhere.

And let's just say that 3 p.m. this afternoon or Saturday afternoon is NOT the time to take your daily jog.

This heat looks like it will last a bit longer than originally thought. Forecasts earlier this week had a very welcome cold front coming through Saturday night. Now, it looks like it won't arrive until sometime on Sunday.

That means there is little chance for relief from cooling thunderstorms today or Saturday, though isolated ones might develop in the hot, muggy air. (In fact, as the hot air was arriving this morning, there were some thunderstorms in Quebec and a couple isolated ones zipping close to the International Border.)

There's also a chance a cluster of thunderstorms known as a mesoscale convective complex could come across southern Ontario and Quebec and affect northern Vermont overnight. That's iffy, but something to watch.

The computer models are arguing over when the cold front comes through on Sunday.  Some models suggest it will breeze through in the late morning and early afternoon Sunday.  That would mean some refreshing air late in the day, and help minimize the chance of strong thunderstorms.

Thunderstorms peak in the heat of the day in the late afternoon and evening, so an early cold front arrival would mean not as many storms.

Other computer models don't bring the cold front through until Sunday evening or night, which would mean another hot, terrible humid day with an increased chance of strong thunderstorms. I think it will take until Saturday morning for the computer models to make up their minds.

It still looks seasonably comfortable next week with highs in the 70s to around 80 and lows in the nice 50s to low 60s.

Of course, there's always the good chance of another nasty heat wave in August. They do come more frequently in this climate change world. Yesterday, as if we needed it, we got more evidence of the ongoing worsening climate change.

JUNE WORLD'S HOTTEST

According to NOAA's Centers for Environmental Information, June, 2019 was the world's hottest on record, with data going back to 1880.

NOAA says:

Hard to find any blue (cool) spots in the world in
June, 2019, the hottest on record for the world.

"The June temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.71 degrees above the 20th century average of 59.9 degrees and was the highest for June in the 1880-2019 record. June 2019 bested the previous record set in 2016 by 0.04 degrees."

The global heat has been consistent in the past four years, even more consistent than the hot years in the first decade of the 21st century. Remember, this data set goes back more than 130 years.

Since January, 2015, the "coolest" month in the rankings was April, 2015, which at the time was "only" the seventh warmest on record out of the 130+ years of data.

The ice caps were less icy than usual in June, too.  The Arctic ice extent was the second lowest for June on record, with data going back 41 years. Antarctica had the least ice for June on record, again in data going back those 41 years.

Another interesting tidbit is the hottest months on record tend to be during strong El Ninos, which give an added boost to world temperatures. June, 2019 featured a weak and fading El Nino.

One thing I'd like to address is what climate skeptics and deniers accuse people, sometimes including me,  of doing. They call it "climate ambulance chasing," as when climate activists point to heat waves like the record one in Europe in June and the relatively intense one we are now experiencing in the eastern and central United States.

These skeptics point to areas of chillier weather that don't get media attention while the hot spells do get the spotlight. 

Some showers and isolated thunderstorms zipped across
northern Vermont early Friday morning, as a warm front
marked the start of an oppressive spell of weather.

Even with climate change, you're going to get cool pockets. You'll remember that central North America was on the cold side in late winter and early spring. (And by the way, that did get media attention.)

July so far has been kind of chilly in northeastern Europe and western Russia, we've been told on Twitter. And that's absolutely true. Twitter is accurate for once.

But the warmer than normal conditions in most of the world totally overwhelm these cold pockets. I'm sure July will turn out to easily be among the world's Top 10 warmest.

The current heat wave in the United States is not the worst ever, we're again told by the skeptics. Again, that's totally true. But it's still a pretty intense, dangerous heat wave and is being pointed at as an example of what will continue to become more frequent in a warming world.

Here's another argument against the skeptics. The cold waves are indeed cold, but the heat waves are often record setting.

According to the Category 6 blog, here's an interesting factoid: Sixty-nine nations and territories have  broken or tied their all time hottest temperatures so far in 2019. The number of nations and territories that have broken or tied their all time lowest temperature? A big fat zero.

See a trend?

Vermont Gets One-Day Reprieve From Heat, Humidity, Storms

High humidity helped lead to this brief but very torrential
downpour in St. Albans on Wednesday. 

It was actually nice out when I wrote this blog post thingy at 7:30 this Thursday morning.

The sun was out, the temperature was reasonable and so was the humidity. The dewpoint, the best measure of how humid it is, was under 60 degrees in northern Vermont, which is terrific for July.

Temperatures will get into the low to mid 80s this afternoon, and the humidity might creep up a bit, but it'll be a nice day.

It's a nice break from the downpours and the oppressive, soupy air of yesterday, and the brief but intense bout of potentially stormy heat and humidity we're about to get.

Dewpoints were over 70 degrees yesterday and any little shower cloud that formed took advantage of the wet air and dumped lots of rain in short periods of time. I've heard Westford, Vermont got an inch of rain in 30 minutes.

Luckily, the storms were small in size and moved right along, so we didn't get any real flash flooding, like the spot flash floods that occured in southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic states.

Overnight and especially Friday, the heat and humidity is still expected to blast in. I'm betting the National Weather Service in South Burlington will issue some sort of heat advisory for Friday and Saturday as heat indexes go into the upper 90s.

Actual temperatures during the day Friday and Saturday will probably top 90 degrees, with lows in many areas of Vermont not getting below 70 degrees at night. Yuck.

The thunderstorm outlook for this hot spell that we've been talking about is more uncertain. I suppose as the hot, humid air comes in early Friday, there might be some pre-dawn storms, especially near the Canadian border.

The heat and humidity will provide the ingredients for some strong storms Friday afternoon and evening, but the triggers to set them off are lacking. So there might not be much in the way of fireworks.

You want temperatures to cool with elevation as another ingredient for storms. But there is likely to be a warmer layer of the atmosphere above us on Friday. That's known as a cap, and these caps inhibit storms. Sometimes an updraft can break through the cap, leading to an isolated strong storm or two.

That'll probably happen Friday afternoon and evening, but it will be hit and miss, mostly a miss. The majority of us won't get a storm.

Saturday is iffy when it comes to storms. It surely will be hot and humid, with highs getting past 90 again and heat indexes approaching 100.

Again, the ingredients are there for strong storms. But will they materialize?  It's tricky.  It all depends on the position of a cold front to our north in Canada. If it gets close to the International Border, that would cool off the air aloft and help trigger strong updrafts with potentially severe storms.

If, as other computer models suggest, the front stays way north - north of Montreal - that cap I talked about would stay intact and we won't get much in the way of storms.

Finally, that cold front will come through Sunday. As it stands now, central and southern Vermont would get the most storms on Sunday.  Current forecasts have the front coming through in the late morning across northern Vermont, which would be too early in the day to take advantage of heat and humidity to trigger big storms

The front would hit southern Vermont later, leading to a chance of strong storms. This forecast is very much subject to change.

The good news is this cold front still looks like it will represent a weather pattern change. It looks like temperatures next week in Vermont will be near to a bit below normal. Humidity levels will crash downward, too.

Long-range forecasts suggest this relatively cool pattern could last through the end of the month. So we just have three or so days of awfullness to get through. Not as bad as last summer, right?

For an idea how soupy the air was over the Northeast yesterday, watch this time lapse of a storm moving into New York City. The rain is so heavy eventually in the video that even nearby high rises seem to disappear:

Heat And Storms: Let's Update Things This Wet Tuesday

Almost all of those orange, red and burgundy shades on today's
National Weather Service map represent heat warnings, advisories
and watches. 

Excessive heat warnings and watches have expanded over a huge section of the United States today, covering an area from the central Plains to the Ohio Valley and on to parts of the East Coast.

More heat warnings and advisories will go up in the coming days in the eastern half of the country as the hot spell takes hold.  I'll update Vermont impacts a bit further down.

This is a particularly humid one. The air is tropical. Many areas subjected to this heat wave have had lots and lots of rain in recent months. So that will add moisture to the air.

The high humidity, then, will be the danger part of this heat wave. There will probably be only a few afternoon record high temperatures during this, as there have been more intense heat waves.

But the incredible humidity will not allow temperatures to fall much at night. Forecasters expect a lot of new records for warmest overnight lows.  This is a dangerous type of heat wave. Drier heat waves create hotter afternoon temperatures, but readings quickly cool at night.

Humid ones like this spell keep nighttime temperatures up. That gives people without air conditioning no break.  It wears people down, especially those with underlying health problems.

By the way, heat waves are not the kind of disasters you see on television. They are not telegenic. But heat is usually the Number One killer of all types of bad weather in the United States. Heat in most years is deadlier than floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards and lightning.

A supercell thunderstorm this morning near Beresford, SD.
Photo by Joe Zweifel, via Twitter

As expected, the heat contributes to pockets of severe thunderstorms if there are any disturbances or weather boundaries around to act as triggers.

On particularly nasty batch of thunderstorms went across South Dakota and on into Iowa early this morning.

I'm sure my relatives in Yankton, South Dakota were around 6 a.m. local time today by a storm that had warnings of winds that could gust to 80 mph. A tornado warning was in effect for a time just northeast of Yankton.

A wind gust of 89 mph was reported in Parkston, South Dakota, west of Sioux Falls, early this morning.

There will continue to be pockets of locally severe storms around the edges of this heat wave. Today, the risk zones are in the northern and central Plains, western Great Lakes, southern New England, the NYC metro area and parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

There will be pockets of severe weather here and there on the northern fringes of the heat wave through Saturday.

The humid air also raises the risk of flash floods. You can get an incredible amount of rain in a short period of time.  I don't think there will be widespread areas of flooding, like we just had with Tropical Storm Barry, but some individual towns will get nailed.

VERMONT IMPACTS

The humidity is here, and so is the rain, as the last of Barry's remnants sweep by. As of 9 a.m. this morning the first batch of rain was already beginning to taper off in western areas of Vermont, but more is on the way.

It won't rain all day, but there will be a constant threat of showers and some afternoon thunderstorms. With this juicy air, some of the storms will produce torrential downpours.

Rainfall totals will be uneven as a result. Some areas might only get less than a half an inch of rain today or even less, while others who get bullseyed by downpours clock in with up to two inches.

This might be enough to cause a few local water problems. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington says there won't be any widespread flooding, but a few small streams and creeks could get a little wild. If a downpour hits a more urban area, we run the risk of some street flooding. (You know the drill: If the road is flooded, don't drive through it!)

A very weak cold front will actually give us some slight relief from the humidity late tonight and much of Thursday, which will be a rather quiet day.

Then Friday comes. So does the heat. I won't be at all surprised if we go under a heat advisory on Friday. The heat index by then could go up to 95 degrees or a little higher.

Such extreme heat and humidity mean thunderstorms can develop explosively. But there won't be much in the way of triggers to set them off on Friday. A cap of warm air will largely prevent clouds from billowing upward, so that will make it hard for storms to form

It's possible that clouds could break through the cap in a few spots in the late afternoon and evening, so a few strong storms could fire up toward the end of the day. Most spots won't get a storm, but the few places that do could get strong gusty winds and heavy downpours.

Saturday looks downright ugly.  First of all, we will have (hopefully!) survived a very hot, humid Friday night. Then the temperature will once again get up to 90 or so Saturday afternoon, with heat indexes well into the 90s.

A cold front will be approaching from the northwest on Saturday meaning we have a good shot of some strong or severe thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening We'll have to keep an eye on that, because it could get nasty.

The good news is that cold front is the start of a weather pattern change that will gradually drop temperatures to comfortable levels during the first half of next week.

The Height Of Summer This Year Is As Ugly As It Usually Is

This schematic from the Weather Channel shows how a ridge of
high pressure in the upper atmosphere will keep most of the
nation very hot over the next few days. Along the edge of
this heat ridge, where the jet stream is, there's a risk of
severe storms as disturbances riding the jet stream
feed on the hot, humid air. 

Mid-July is generally regarding as the height of summer in most of the nation.

It's the time of year where we generally have the hottest temperatures, the highest humidity, the sultriest weather and the wettest thunderstorms.

That trend is true big time in most of the United States, including here in Vermont.

For starters, there's an excessive heat watch in effect Wednesday through Saturday in a huge area of the middle of the country.  During this period, temperatures in the 90s, with humidity that will bring dew points into the 70s will bring heat indexes as high as 110 degrees.

Excessive heat and humidity are also anticipated late this week through most of the nation east of the Rockies, including here in Vermont. It will be ugly out there. More on Vermont in a bit.

Actual temperatures could top 100 degrees in a few spots in a huge area from the Plains to the East Coast, possibly as far north as southern New England later in the week.

Even Florida is getting into the act. Yes, I know, Florida is always brutally hot and humid in the summer, but this is even worse than usual.

On Sunday, the low temperature in Miami was a sultry 84 degrees, which tied the record for the hottest overnight low on record there. For perspective, 84 degrees is three degrees hotter than the normal high temperature this time of year locally in Burlington, Vermont.

Although this won't be the worst heat wave ever, it's certainly up there, and something to be reckoned with. I'm sure there will be a few deaths.

Especially since unusually high humidity will keep temperatures up at night most everywhere east of the the Plains States. That gives people little relief, so that the days on end of heat and humidity can wear people down. Especially if they have underlying health issues. People should be careful.

Wet dogs rescued from an Arkansas Humane Society shelter that
was hit by a dangerous flash flood early Tuesday.
Photo via The Weather Channel

When it's hot and humid, there's plenty of water in the atmosphere to unleash some torrential downpours. The remains of Tropical Storm Barry are certainly accomplishing that in Arkansas today.

At least ten inches of rain fell this morning in parts of Arkansas and it was still pouring as of early this afternoon. Some of the most distressing images out of that part of the country was a Humane Society shelter in which water blasted in.  

At least one dog was killed and other dogs and cats were swimming for their lives, some with their heads barely above water inside this shelter. Calls went out for people to grab these terrified animals, and if they had a fenced in yard on high ground, to take as many as they could temporarily. I hope people heeded the call.

Thankfully, community members rushed to the Humane Society building and took the animals to their homes on dry ground to stay temporarily.

There will be areas of flash flood risk tomorrow and the day after in the northeastern Plains, Great Lakes and parts of the East.

Very hot weather can also trigger severe thunderstorms, especially along the northern periphery of heat ridges. So, severe thunderstorms might happen today through Wednesday in the Northern Plains and Great Lakes. Those severe storms could easily extend into northern New England by the end o the week.

VERMONT IMPACTS

As advertised, the Green Mountain State will share in this hot, humid, wet, stormy, downpour-ish pattern for the rest of today going on at least through Saturday.

A warm front has been moving through Vermont today, and I'm sure you noticed the humidity increasing.

As I write this at 3 p.m., it's not too bad yet, but will definitely get worse.

At first, it will be just very humid, but not very hot. The remnants of Barry will affect us on Wednesday, with pretty frequent showers and a few thunderstorms. Though the deepest moisture will go by to our south, some of the showers Wednesday will have heavy downpours. That means we'll have to be on the lookout for scattered bouts of street flooding, small stream rushes, driveway washouts and that sort of thing.

No widespread flooding is expected. The clouds from all these showers will hold daytime temperatures down to around 80 degrees Wednesday, but you will notice the humidity.

An incredibly weak cold front will hold the worst of the heat and humidity at bay Thursday, but it will still feel sticky.

Then we in Vermont get blasted by lots of heat and humidity Friday and Saturday. Unless it's cloudier than expected, high temperature in the broader valleys at least will reach the low 90s. Dewpoints will be in the low 70s so it will feel insufferable.

At least we might have some excitement. Forecasters still think that a few weak boundaries will act as triggers to prompt some thunderstorms Friday and Saturday. The heat and humidity will encourage some of these storms to quickly turn strong to severe.

Details are lacking this far out but it's something to watch out for.

Early signs point toward a significant cooling trend early next week.