"Historic" Oregon Storm Could Have Vermont Effects, Too

When the national map of the National Weather Service home page is
very colorful, you know it's stormy and there are lots of hazards.
This year, just in time for the Thanksgiving travel week.

Our stormy Thanksgiving week continues apace in the United States as two large storms continue to have a big impact on travel and in some cases, just the day to day life for people.

Fellow Vermonters might be asking me what the hell I'm talking about, since the weather Monday was so mellow, and nothing special is going to happen today in the weather department.

 (Burlington, Vermont made it to 50 degrees Monday, which is no big deal for this time of year, but still the hottest day since way back on November 4.)

But, as noted yesterday, two big storms are affecting other parts of the United States, so us Vermonters are kind of getting spared this time.

 The first storm coming across the United States is a strong one, the second one even worse.

There's a remarkably broad strip of the central United States stretching from Colorado and Wyoming all the way to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that's under a winter storm warning for the first storm. A blizzard warning is up for parts of Colorado.

 I guess my in-laws over in Yankton, South Dakota are going to have a white Thanksgiving, since they are under that winter storm warning. Expect four to nine inches of snow there, with winds of up to 40 mph. Ugh.

Another big area just to the south of this storm is under high wind warnings and wind advisories.  Also, a few severe thunderstorms and a tornado or two could pop up today in the mid-Mississippi Valley today.

For us in Vermont, this first storm won't be too bad. We'll get a decent slug of rain Wednesday afternoon and night. Falling temperatures on Thanksgiving will change the rain to snow showers, but accumulations won't be all that much -- maybe a couple inches in the mountains.

It will be quite windy Wednesday night and Thanksgiving with this storm, so there might be isolated power outages. But it won't be anything close to what we had to deal with in that epic Halloween storm a few weeks back.

Then it's that "historic" storm in Oregon.  A powerhouse of a tempest is coming ashore in Oregon today, with hurricane force gusts along the coast and heavy inland snows. In many areas of Oregon and northwestern California, this has the makings of being among the worst storms in decades. Power will be out for some people in that region through Thanksgiving.

This storm will remain very powerful as it crosses the Lower 48 between now and Sunday. Expect severe weather in the South, and blizzardy weather in the northern Plains and lots of wind in between.

For us, this storm has an uncertain future. Some computer models have the storm producing another snowstorm for Vermont on Sunday. Other models take it too far south to give us much of anything, and a few models take it far enough north to give us mixed precipitation.

Stay tuned, is what I always say.