Another Weather Off The Rails Weekend (Not In Vermont, Though)

From 9 News:  A severe thunderstorm associated with a derecho
knocked this billboard down on a Denver building Saturday. 

As we forecasted yesterday morning, weather is definitely going off the rails in different parts of the nation this weekend, and that trend will continue for the next few days.

We here in Vermont will pretty much be an island of tranquility in the weather department, but that won't be the case elsewhere.

The most remarkable weather event Saturday was a long lasting derecho that got going near the Arizona/Utah border and raced north and northeastward during the day through the central and eastern Rocky Mountains and on into the western Dakotas.

Derechos are relatively rare events and almost unheard of in the Intermountain West. Yes, I know we just had a derecho in Pennsylvania and New Jersey last week, but they still don't happen all that often.

On average derechos happen once every year or every other year in much of the Midwest and South. On the East Coast, you average one every four years or so.  In the Intermountain West, there have maybe been a handful over the past several decades.

The one that swept through yesterday was a doozy, too, judging by wind reports. Just a sampling:

110 mph near Copper Mountain, Colorado
94 mph Butte County, South Dakota
92 mph near Cactus Plateau, South Dakota
85 mph, Four Corners, Wyoming

There were numerous reports of gusts above 75 mph, including in metro areas like Denver.

Meanwhile, Florida got in on the action, thanks to Tropical Storm Cristobal.  Most of the heavy weather with this system was east of its center.  This mass of storms spun off at several tornadoes in Florida, including one that passed through Orlando.

The Orlando Sentinel reported that at least 50 residents of apartment blocks and houses were displaced near the city's downtown because of tornado damage.

MORE ROUGH WEATHER COMING

Tropical Storm Cristobal will splash ashore around Louisiana later today. Storm surges and flooding is already happening in Louisiana and Mississippi, and that will continue the rest of the day.

However, the bigger drama from Cristobal will come over the next few days, as its remnants head north through the Arkansas, Missouri and into Wisconsin by Wednesday.

It won't really be a tropical storm by the time it hits the Great Lakes, but it will manage to intensify. It'll form into a mean storm for this time of year over or near Lake Superior.  Expect reports of wind damage, battering waves and erosion on the lakes and maybe some flash flooding.

VERMONT CALM

All this weather action will pretty much miss Vermont. The fact that Cristobol will be going by to our west will give us a squirt of warm to hot, and windy weather midweek, but nothing extreme.  Not a lot of rain is in the forecast either.  A cold front associated with the remnants of Cristobol might bring a few showers and thunderstorms late Wednesday night and Thursday.