Weather Surprises Keep Popping Up Nearby And Beyond

Storm chaser Simon Brewer, who usually spends his time in the
Great Plains chasing tornadoes, had to travel to Glens Falls, New York
to capture this impressive wall cloud, that did produce a tornado. 

Although I don't have super shocking weather news to bring up today, there are still plenty of reports to confirm the weather is always surprising, in small and big ways.

First of all, I'm a little surprised I have to make this correction: 

Unlike what I said in yesterday's post, "no tornado is known to have touched down in that area," a tornado DID in fact touch down in that thunderstorm with the impressive wall cloud around Glens Falls.

The National Weather Service office in Albany New York confirms that Glens Falls storm, and presumably its wall cloud, DID produce a tornado.

The tornado was an EF-1 with winds of between 75 and 110 mph. It damaged at least one home and sheared off and uprooted many trees not far from Interstate 87 in Glens Falls. It actually crossed that busy highway, but luckily, it was a bit weaker by the time it hit that Interstate.

I'm impressed by how wide and long-tracked the tornado was for this far into the interior Northeast. Usually tornadoes are narrow and very brief.  This one was at one point as much as a quarter mile wide and the tornado traveled a total of 8.6 miles before lifting.

This was the second time within two weeks that a tornado touched down close to the southwestern Vermont border. In both cases, the tornado's parent thunderstorm moved into Vermont, caused straight line wind damage.  This time, Poultney was pretty hard hit by those winds.

WASHINGTON/OREGON STORMS

Speaking of surprising severe thunderstorms, it was eastern Washington State and Oregon's turn to endure supercells and damaging storms. It's fairly rare for conditions to come together in this part of the country for a lot of severe weather, but they sure did on Saturday.

Winds with these storms gusted as high as 97 mph in Washington, 85 mph in Oregon and 83 mph in Idaho.  I'm unsure if any tornadoes touched down with these storms. I'm sure local National Weather Service offices will be checking on that. There were certainly plenty of reports of damage in this area.

QUEBEC/CANADIAN YO-YO WEATHER

We here in Vermont have certainly cooled down from that record heat we and Quebec had last week.

That heat spread into much of eastern Canada as the week closed. Record highs included 93 degrees in Bathurst, New Brunswick,  31.8 in Gaspe, Quebec, 84 in Gander, Newfoundland and 82 in St. John's Newfoundland.

Up in Quebec, where temperatures were in the 80s and well into the 90s,  things had gotten ridiculously cool by this morning. Snow was reported in the Laurentian highlands this morning.

Don't worry, that snow won't work itself nearly this far south. We're done with snow until autumn.  But it will be remarkably cool for the season, with high temperatures in most of northern Vermont not making it past 60 degrees today. That's more typical for late April.  Monday will be quite cool as well before a warming trend kicks in to bring us up into the seasonable 70s by the end of the week.

The secondary cold front that brought in today's cool weather also managed to surprise me last night. It was expected to only produce sprinkles.  But there was widespread rains last evening across northern Vermont.  It wasn't super heavy, but my rain gauge in St. Albans, Vermont collected 0.12 inches of rain, and I was expecting nothing more than a trace.

Weird Storms, Just Not Here

Turns out this probably WAS a tornado in Wilton, New York which
is in Saratoga County, not too far from the Vermont border. 

That strong weather system that affected New York and New England did create at least one tornado, and meanwhile, new storms are brewing that could cause trouble in parts of the eastern United States. Just not in Vermont.

Let's get into Friday's storm damage, then we'll get into the new storms that are pretty interesting.

In yesterday's post, I showed a photo that might have been a tornado in Wilton, New York. I wondered if it might have actually been a microburst or a hail shaft.

Nope. Looks as if that Saratoga County storm DID produce a tornado.

The National Weather  Service office in Albany, New York said the EF-1 tornado had top wind speeds of between 85 and 90 mph, traveled 1.8 miles and was about 50 yards wide. It damaged the roof of a warehouse, and toppled many trees, some onto houses.

The National Weather Service in Albany also reported something called a macroburst caused damage in an international sounding section of Herkimer County, New York, particularly affecting the towns of Russia, Norway and Ohio.

A macroburst is a burst of wind from a strong downdraft reaching the surface. As the name implies, it's bigger than a microburst, which cover much smaller of an area, but still causes a lot of damage.

The New York microburst had winds of 80 to 100 mph and covered an area 10 miles wide and 25 miles long.

Now that those storms are long gone, we have others to deal with. And they're a little strange.

First, there's Tropical Storm Arthur off the northeast coast of Florida. I'm calling this one weird because it formed pretty early in the year.  You usually don't start seeing the first purely tropical storms unti July.

Arthur is going to remain weak as it heads north. It'll brush the North Carolina coast with gusty winds and heavy showers on Monday, Top winds with Arthur are expected to stay at 60 mph or less, and most if not all of those winds will remain offshore.

Early season tropical storms aren't as weird as they used to be, though.  There has been one before July 1 every year since 2014.  In 2014, the first tropical storm didn't form until July 1. Coincidentally, its name was Arthur.

The second weird storm is something that will meander around the Midwest and East through the week.  It's a cut off low, meaning it has removed itself from the flow of the jet stream. There's nothing to push it along.

So it will sit and spin, spreading heavy, slow moving rains around the Great Lakes today and tomorrow. That's bad news, because the Great Lakes are already at near record high levels, so they don't need more runoff.

The heavy rains will shift to the Mid-Atlantic later in the week, especially around Virginia and North Carolina, raising the risking of flooding there.

This isn't cast in stone, because cut off lows are notoriously hard to forecast. The heavy rains might set up in different locations than currently forecast.

However, depending upon your outlook, this cut off is either great news or somewhat bad news for us here in Vermont.

It's good news in that it will allow that high pressure system in Quebec to sink south over us during the week, creating a long stretch of at least partly sunny and mild weather.

It's bad news in a way for northern Vermont. We finally got some good rains Friday, and could use a little more. It looks like it's going to be a dry week, though southern Vermont could get some rain early in the week.

Worst Storms Were In Central New York/New England; Unknown If Tornadoes

Radar image of a dangerous storm heading into southwestern Vermont
last evening. Where the blue line and arrow is drawn in, the apex
of the backward "C' shape likely had damaging straight line
winds.  The red box was a tornado warning as radar
detected some spinning in the northern part of this storm. 

The severe weather in the Northeast materialized pretty much as expected yesterday, cutting a swath through western and central New York and finally through central New England.

A tornado watch was in effect for this event, and some of the storms were definitely rotating. However, it's unknown whether any tornadoes touched down.

 I'm sure National Weather Service offices in Albany, New York and in Massachusetts and New Hampshire will look into this.

The most interesting and dangerous cluster of storms got going north of Utica, New York. It promptly triggered a tornado warning.  A house in the path of this tornado warning lost its roof in the storm, but it's unclear if it was a twister or straight line winds.

The storm continued to cause damage, and occasional tornado warnings as it moved eastward into Saratoga, Washington and Warren counties of New York, just west of the Vermont border.  There were a lot of trees down, some damaged houses and roads blocked by debris. At least 36,000 people lost power in that area, according to the Glens Falls Post Star. 

The Post Star posted a photo of what they said was a tornado in Wilton, New York, but I'm not convinced by the photo. It could also be a downburst or a hail shaft, in my opinion.

The Glens Falls Post Star displayed this photo taken by Adam Colver
of what they said is a possible tornado in Wilton, New York. (Behind
the red brick part of the building). This feature in the storm could
also be a shaft of falling hail or a microburst. 

The line of storms then moved through Bennington and Windham counties, triggering tornado warnings around Sunderland, in southwestern Vermont, and the Brattleboro/Dummerston area in the southeast.

Again, it's unclear whether there were any actual tornadoes. The rotation on radar images in this storm did not look particularly intense. But this area is pretty distant from radar sites, so the quality of the storm images wasn't great.

There were reports of trees and wires down along the path of this storm and particularly where the tornado warnings went off. But this damage could easily have been caused by straight line winds and not anything tornadic.  If it was a tornado (which I kind of doubt) it would have been a fairly weak one.

The cluster of storms moved on into southwestern New Hampshire. I think slightly flatter ground there helped the storm intensify, and damage to trees and even buildings was greater than in Vermont.

On the southern end of this cluster of storms, high winds tore the roof off an apartment building in Holyoke, Massachusetts, displacing about 140 people. Again, it could have been straight line winds. I imagine weather experts will examine the damage in Holyoke to determine what caused it.

Further north in Vermont, there were strong to severe storms from about Middlebury to Montpelier to Bradford and points south, exactly as forecasters expected. There were reports of some trees and wires down with these storms. The storms in central Vermont were not tornadic. No tornado warnings were issued for this area, and there is no evidence of any kind of spin up that I could see.

Further north, in the quote, unquote more stable air, the parent storm system created a pretty good punch.  The line of heavy downpours, with some embedded thunder, managed to produce a wind gust to 47 mph in South Burlington. That's not severe, but still was kind of impressive.

The same storm system did more good than harm around my area in St. Albans, Vermont.  I got 0.88 inches of rain, with most of it coming within an hour during gusty showers.  We needed the rain, so I'm grateful that came through.

There's no severe storms in the forecasts now, but the predictions are pretty uncertain as to what will happen with our weather over the next few days.

A storm system will set up and sort of sit and spin over the central Appalachians over the next few days.  An early season subtropical storm seems to be forming off the coast of Florida and will get absorbed by that sitting and spinning storm

Meanwhile, fair weather high pressure will want to sink into northern New England from Quebec.  This will want to clear the skies over us.  So which wins? The rain to the south or the fair weather tothe north? Hard to tell, but as it looks now, we might get a period of rain Monday, then things will start clear out for the rest of next week. No promises, though.

Also, don't worry about any new outbreaks of late season chill if the Canadian high pressure system wins. Yes, it is from Canada, but it's not a cold batch of air.  Also, this fair weather system is, or will be, sitting over southern Quebec.

That's far enough south so that the warm May sun will keep raising the temperatures within this zone of fair weather, The upshot for us is we'll get near normal,  to perhaps slightly above normal temperatures by the end of the upcoming week.

New York Homes Turned Into Ice Castles

One of the houses at Hoover Beach in Hamburg, New York covered
with ice after large waves from Lake Erie sprayed the houses
with water amid subfreezing temperatures last week. 

Not all areas of western New York were hit by heavy lake effect snow squalls last week

Depending upon where the bands set up, you either measured the snow in feet, or you got out a broom and swept away a dusting of it.

The town of Hamburg, New York, right on the shores of Lake Erie, only managed about six inches of new snow.

Still,  Lake Erie is oddly unfrozen for this time of year.  Which is why those heavy lake effect snows happen. The unfrozen Lake Erie also created another problem besides blizzards.  

For a couple days last week the winds absolutely screamed from the west off the lakes. This generated some awfully big waves on those  lakes. Plus, lake levels are much above normal, so the water is already closer than it usually is to lakeshore homes.

In Hamburg, New York, Lake Erie waves crashing onto the shore created some odd ice castles. At least three homes were encased in thick ice from waves hitting the shore, causing spray to fly through the  air in the gale and onto the houses.

During the storm, occupants had to basically chisel their way out of at least one of the homes.  Ed Mis, the owner of one of the houses, told television station WGRZ that the front of his house is encased in ice one to three feet thick.  One side of a neighbor's house is buried in ice almost to the roof.

It's unclear how badly damaged the houses are. It could be minor, who knows?  Homeowners will need to wait for the ice to melt before figuring that out.  Daytime temperatures in the area are forecast to be in the 40s for much of this week, so maybe at least some of the ice will come off the structures.

Here's a video of what it looked like:

That Lake Effect Snow Band Was Wild, Even In Vermont

In this photo taken a little after sunset near Georgia, Vermont looking
to the Northwest. That dark line of clouds off in the distance is
that lake effect snow band. It was snowing hard under
those clouds. 

I was absolutely fascinated by that incredible lake effect snow band that stretched from Lake Superior, over to get more energy from Lake Huron, before crossing Lake Ontario to blast the New York shore near and just south of Watertown.

At least 48 inches of snow fell in Carthage, New York and 33 inches buried Watertown, and these aren't final figures.

Lake effect snows are very common, and those snow totals didn't break all time records.

But the huge length of the lake effect snow band, the persistence of it, its unusual influence here in Vermont and the timing of it are all pretty fascinating.

Equally impressive was how well forecast it was.  Weather computer models and meteorologists accurately anticipated this entire scenario at least two days in advance.

First, I'll get into the timing of this thing.  You can get lake effect snow off the Great Lakes this time of year, but it's unusual. And something this impressive is quite rare for the end of February.

To get a decent lake effect storm, you need open, unfrozen water on the lakes. Cold air coming in from Canada picks up moisture from the lakes and then dumps it as snow on the shore. Usually, the Great Lakes are largely frozen this time of year, which means there's not much open water to gather moisture. Which means any lake effect snows in late winter are usually pretty paltry.

Radar image of the lake effect snow band Friday coming ashore
on the left by Lake Ontario and extending toward the northeast
to near St. Albans.  Click on the image to make it bigger and
easier to see. The apparent gap in the snow band near
Lake Placid is just mountains blocking the radar beam from
picking up the fallling snow in that region. 

Ice extent on the lakes right now is close to the lowest on record for this time of year, so there was plenty of open water for this thing to feed on

It was rare and fascinating to see how long this narrow snow band stretched.

In most places, it was not more than 15 miles wide, but at one point Friday, it stretched more than 1,200 miles from Lake Superior to northern New England and southern Quebec.

That the snow band affected Vermont so much was also a wild moment for me.

Strong lake effect snow bands often extend into Vermont, but in weakened form. A lot of the moisture from these things gets dumped out in the Adirondacks.

By the time a snow band gets to the mountains of Vermont, there's not much left. So you get accumulation of perhaps several inches to, sometimes as much as 10 inches or so in the northern Green Mountains.

In this case, the band stayed pretty much intact all the way to northern Vermont and southern Quebec on Friday.  True, it wasn't nearly as strong as it was near the shore of Lake Ontario, but it still had some oomph left.

The exception is the Champlain Valley, because the Adirondacks formed a "shadow" which kept the moisture from reaching the ground there. The snow largely skipped over the valley and hit the western slopes of the Green Mountains instead. That's how it usually works with Great Lakes snow bands.

Like most snow bands, this one wavered back and forth. It lifted north to just along the Quebec and New York and northwestern tip of Vermont by late Friday afternoon, then settled south again Friday evening.

It was fascinating to see that band of clouds to the northwest of my place in St. Albans, Vermont early Friday evening, wih the moon and Venus shining overhead.  The snow band settled slowly south later, and it snowed heavily for a time in St. Albans around 9 a.m. We picked up just 1.5 inches of new snow last night, but I'm sure it was much heavier to my east, out toward the Green Mountains near Bakersfield.

It is hard to tease out exactly how much snow was from the snow band itself and just wrap around moisture behind the storm that had passed well to our Northeast by Friday.

But preliminary totals are pretty amazing nonetheless. The summit of Mount Mansfield received 10 inches of snow from the actual storm system on Thursday, then 16 inches in lake effect and wrap around moisture on Friday.

Storm totals since Thursday, including the main storm, wrap around moisture and the lake effect band, amounted to a very impressive 17 inches in Greensboro by 7 a.m. Friday, 14 inches by 10 a.m. Friday in Eden, an 13.1 inches in Glover.

Since the snow kept coming Friday afternoon and night, I can't wait until snow total updates come in later today.

By this Saturday morning, the lake effect band had broken up, but lingering lake moisture and more damp, cold air coming down from Canada will keep light snow showers going for much of today.  Valleys will get two inches or less of new snow today, but the mountains could pull off a few more inches.

Enjoy the deep powder on the mountains Sunday, because it's going to warm up for much of next week, which will settle the snow, make it wet and/or a bit crusty. Sunday will certainly be the best powder day in northern Vermont in the winter of 2019-20.

Here's a video of people driving through the lake effect snow near Watertown, New York. As you can see, some motorists weren't all that smart:

Dangerous Ice Storm Likely In Parts Of New England, New York

Areas in red are expected to be most likely to get enough freezing
rain to damage trees and power lines Monday. 

The forecast for New England and New York is coming into better focus, and it looks like parts of that region are in for a dangerous ice storm.

Areas surrounding the worst of the expected ice won't have a picnic with this, either.

The big storm in the northern Plains is still unleashing lots snow, ice and rain as of Sunday morning.  The snow and rain since yesterday has made 2019 the wettest year on record in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The old record was set just last year.  

Total snowfall amid near blizzard conditions in parts of the Dakotas and Minnesota should go over a foot in many places

This storm is dumping, or will dump, a lot of rain and create a severe weather risk today in the South a the system draws lots of moisture fron the Gulf of Mexico.

If all this makes you think the storm has a lot of moisture to work with, you're right.  And that's one key ingredient toward making life miserable in New England and New York on Monday.

That huge influx of moisture will ride up and over a warm front coming at us from the southwest. The problem is, the warm front won't make it through the northern half of New York and New England because of a stubborn chilly high pressure system in Quebec.

The warm air from the south will ride up and over the cold air near the surface that will be draining down from Quebec, setting the region up for the icy mess.

The weather setup has a few simularities to the Great Ice Storm of 1998, but luckily, this one won't be as intense and it won't last nearly as long.  So we won't have a disaster like that.

Areas in yellow are likely to get at least six inches of snow
and sleet accumulation.  Blue areas will get two to four
inches of sleet, snow and some freezing rain 

Still, at this point, it looks like a zone from the Adirondacks, southward into New York's Hudson Valley, southern Vermont, southwestern New Hampshire, western and central Massachusetts and northwestern Connecticut are under the gun for a potentially damaging ice storm.

Ice on trees and power lines really starts to cause damage when ice is a quarter inch thick or more. Some spots in the zone I've outlined could easily get more than half an inch of ice from freezing rain.

As you go north and east, more into Vermont and New Hampshire, the amount of freezing rain would decrease if the forecast comes true, but they would get more sleet and snow.

Northern areas, as it stands now, should start as snow, with sleet and a little freezing rain mixing in during the day Monday. Current forecasts indicate four to six inches of sleet and snow - but not much freezing rain - roughly along and north and east of Interstate 89.

The more you head south and west of Interstate 89, the more likely you are to encounter freezing rain on Monday, though these southern areas will get some snow and sleet, too.

Another problem will be wind. Gusts will reach 30 mph, and closer to 40 or 45 mph in some of the western slopes of the Green and Adirondack mountains. Where these strong winds occur along with the freezing rain, the damage to trees and power lines would be magnified.

In the areas where the ice will accumulate the most, be ready for power outages that could last for a couple days. Even longer in more rural areas.

Those of us who will get sleet and snow can expect very difficult travel conditions all day Monday.

Some of this will last into Tuesday as mostly light snow, areas of freezing drizzle and perhaps a bit of plain non-freezing drizzle in the warm pockets continues.

The big caveat is this:  Computer models are in good agreement with how this storm will turn out.  But if the forecasts are off by only a degree or two either way anywhere in the Northeast, the outcome where you sit could turn out very different.

It's always possible that the worst of the freezing rain will set up north, east, south or west of where current forecasts put it. So keep paying attention for forecast updates.

The year 2019 was pretty stormy in the Northeast. The year is ending true to form.

Snow Squalls Moving Through Vermont Late This Afternoon; Be Careful

Very dark clouds in the distance looking west from St. Albans,
Vermont earlier this afternoon as snow squalls gathered
steam and headed toward Vermont. It snowed hard in St. Albans
about 90 minutes after this photo was taken. 

Snow squalls along an Arctic front were moving through Vermont late this afternoon. They were in the Champlain Valley as of 4:15 p.m. and heading east.  

Do know that visibility will go down to near zero during these brief but intense episodes and roads quickly slicken up. If you can wait to drive until after the snow squalls pass, that would be good.

Much of the Northeast has been subjected to lines of snow squalls today with that Arctic cold front.

This is probably one of the most extensive instances of snow squalls I've seen in quite some time. These are more like outbreaks of severe summer thunderstorms, except this time it's snow.

The squalls have already caused a huge highway crash in Pennsylvania, with at least 25 injuries.

These squalls will quickly move away later tonight as the frigid air flows in.

The exception is along the snowbelts in western New York, where blizzard warnings are in effect. Three to four FEET of snow is expected in some of the worst hit areas near Watertown, New York.

At 4 p.m. today, the visibility in Buffalo, New York was at absolutely zero. with very heavy snow, blowing snow, a temperature of 0 degrees and winds gusting to 39 mph.  Yeah, that's bad.

The National Weather Service in Buffalo has declared their blizzard as a "particularly dangerous situation," verbiage only used when a weather event is extreme, like a tornado or something.

Says the Buffalo NWS: "Blinding snow and whiteout conditions are occurring. A casual drive or trip outsie can quickly lead to a life threatening situations without proper winter gear. Please heed all travel bans." 

Even back here in Vermont, where the snow squalls are much more brief, it's best just to stay in this evening if you can.

Mediocre Snowstorm Shuts Down A Major U.S City, Again

Just lovely. Highways 40 and 64 in the St. Louis
metro area on Friday. 

A winter storm is moving west to east across the central U.S. having started in the Rockies, moving through the mid-Mississippi Valley, with an eye on eventually getting to places like Virginia.

For areas in the Midwest being affected, it's a pretty big snowstorm. It won't be the worst ever, but it's substantial, dumping six to 12 inches in a wide swath from Kansas to the Mid-Atlantic.

By the way, us New Englanders are going to completely miss this snowstorm. It's passing by well to our south.

This pretty good but not enormous storm has had an outsized effect in St. Louis, Missouri. As the snow flew, cars also flew off icy highways. The result was absolute gridlock Friday evening and overnight. People were stuck local freeways for many hours as people got stuck on icy roads, or people couldn't get past traffic accidents.

Video is at the bottom of this post.

People in the St. Louis area reported that it took five or six hours to get home from work on trips that normally take 15 minutes or so. As of early this morning, there are reports of numerous people in cars and trucks stuck on Interstate 44 in Eureka, Missouri, west of St. Louis, with no end in sight.

I get it that St. Louis is not exactly in the Arctic, and they aren't nearly as used to snowstorms as, say,Minneapolis or Buffalo.

Timing had a lot to do with this mess, as it does often when cities get gridlocked in snowstorms. The worst of the storm came into St. Louis during the day, when everybody was at work. When they tried to get home, chaos ensued, as they say.

The snowy traffic nightmare continued well into the night around
St. Louis. This is Interstate 44 on a traffic cam image

This is the second time this winter that a major metropolitan area got gridlocked by a daytime snowstorm. In November, the same thing happened in the New York City metro area.

People then were trapped in cars almost overnight. That snowstorm dropped a whopping six inches of snow. You'd think that wouldn't be a big deal, but whatever.

Before I get too smug as a winter-hardy Vermonter, I've seen this situation happen around here, too.

It  usually takes me a half hour to get home to St Albans from work in Burlington. I can remember being trapped on local roads and Interstate 89 for up to three hours during snowstorms.

It seems like everywhere, people just don't know how to drive in the snow. Or don't want to drive properly in the snow.

I guess that's human nature, so we will always hear of these tales of people stuck unnecssariily in big storms.

Here's motorists trying, and largely failing, to move along Interstate 44 in downtown St. Louis last evening:

New England Remains Weird Tornado Alley, And The Secret Queens, New York Twister

Extensive tornado damage in Webster, Massachusetts Saturday.

More tornadoes hit New England Saturday morning, continuing an incredible year of severe weather in the region. Meanwhile, the nation as a whole is having a quiet, relatively calm tornado year.

Here's a statistic that's pretty wild: New England has had 12 tornadoes so far this year. Oklahoma, the  heart of tornado alley, has also had a total of 12 tornadoes this year. There have been years in which Oklahoma has had more than 12 tornadoes in a week.

Small sized Connecticut is really tornado ground zero this year. They've had six twisters. There have been three tornadoes in Massachusetts and three in New Hampshire. So far, Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont have had no tornadoes, but they've had close misses

Here in Vermont, on two occasions, on May 4 and possibly on Friday, tornadoes touched down in western New Hampshire near the Vermont border from storms that were already rotating as they passed over the Green Mountain State.

The yellow and red streaks in this map show where there were
rotating thunderstorms in New England Friday and Saturday.
Most of the time, the rotation does not result in tornadoes,
but occasionally it happens. Notice the streaks of rotation
in far southern Vermont. No tornado reports, there though. 

Another May 4 storm showed significant rotation and seemed ready to drop a twister in far northern Vermont. But the circulation passed near the high hills and mountains around Jay Peak, and the rotation was disrupted. Thankfully, no tornado.

SATURDAY TWISTERS, MAYBE FRIDAY, TOO?

Two tornadoes hit New England Saturday. The first, in Woodstock, Connecticut, was weak, short lived and caused little damage. However, the supercell that caused the Connecticut tornado dropped a stronger one on the towns of Webster and Dudley, Massachusetts. 

A pair of buildings in Webster were so damaged by the EF-1 tornado that they had to be torn down. Other homes and businesses also suffered damage. It was almost an EF-2 tornado, as the National Weather Service office in Boston, Massachusetts said it had 100 to 110 mph winds. EF-2 tornadoes have winds of 111 to 135 mph.

Friday, a funnel cloud was spotted not far from Keene, New Hampshire. A photo that looks like a funnel touching the ground near Troy, New Hampshire circulated on social media. If it was indeed a funnel that landed, it would be New Hampshire's fourth tornado this year, and New England's thirteenth.

The rotating storm that prompted the New Hampshire funnel earlier very briefly had a particularly strong circulation in a remote area west of Putney, Vermont. If a tornado touched ground in that spot, it's likely nobody would know about it since no-oe was around and the spot is likely not easily accessible. Some tree damage was reported in southeastern Vermont Friday,  but that damage looks like it was caused by straight line winds, not a tornado.

MORE SEVERE WEATHER?

More severe storms are possible in far northern New England Monday, and in much of the region Tuesday and possibly Wednesday. Nobody is talking tornadoes at this point, but the way this year is going, who knows?

Monday's possible storms will be created by a weak weather disturbance brushing past the Canadian border. With very hot, humid air in place, isolated strong to locally severe storms could erupt late in the afternoon or evening north of Route 2 in Vermont, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and northwestern Maine.

Possible funnel cloud or brief tornado near Troy, New Hampshire Friday.

A cold front approaching from the west will start to run into the hot, humid air Tuesday. Depending on when the front makes its approach, that could trigger additional strong storms. But if the cold front holds off more until Wednesday, the storms are less likely.

On Wednesday, the cold front will still be drifting through eastern New England, possibly triggering strong storms there.

QUEENS, NY SECRET TORNADO

Another tornado touched down late Thursday night in Queens, New York. I'm calling it secret, though the National Weather Service did its due diligence. They issued a tornado warning for that area before the twister touched down.

Mystifyingly, for such a populated area, no TV station that I know of in the New York metro area cut into regular programming to announce the warning. That lack of action is dangerous, since people would be out and about in such a populated area.

I know people get annoyed with severe weather warnings interrupting television programming, especially when the storms aren't particularly close to the person watching the tube. But there's no technology for television stations to limit their warning broadcasts to a small specific area. And I'd rather people be warned about incoming danger, even if I don't immediately learn who won the latest episode of "America's Got Talent."

The lack of broadcast warnings in New York might be due to the fact there was no time for hyping the oncoming bad weather. There was no tornado watch issued hours beforehand, because forecasters knew any severe weather would be brief and localized.

In the end, the Queens tornado was rather weak, an EF-0 with 70 to 85 mph winds, says the National Weather Service in New York. It caused some siding and roof damage on a few buildings, and knocked down dozens of trees, especially in a local park. No injuries were reported.

WILD Nor'easter For Some; Meh For Others. Sifting Through The Reports

The scene in Morristown, New Jersey yesterday.
Photo by Bob Karp/The Record via AP

Sorry for the last start with this post here on Thursday morning, but I'm finally getting my act together.

What a storm last night!!  What, you only got some light snow? Yeah, me too.

A grand total of 2.9 inches new in my yard at St. Albans, in northwestern Vermont. We will get some more snow out of this in northern Vermont. More on that in a while.

But first:

The general forecast of who would get a lot of snow and who would get a little panned out, but the people who got the heavy snow really got it. And some of the people were were expecting lighter accumulations didn't get much at all.

 t was a snowstorm to remember in some parts of the Northeast.  There's a couple videos at the bottom of this post, by the way.

Here in Vermont, Woodford, in the far southern Green Mountains, clocked in with a whopping 36 inches of snow. Searsburg got 32.5 inches. Landgrove and Wilmington got 25 inches.

In a band from New Jersey through areas near New York City, the lower Hudson Valley, Connecticut,  western Massachusetts, and, yes, the far southern Green Mountains, it was absolutely wild yesterday afternoon and last night.

Thundersnow was very common in New Jersey up through the Big Apple and into Connecticut. One woman in New Jersey was hospitalized after she was struck by lightning. It's the first time I can remember somebody being injured by lightning in thundersnow.  

Incredible snowfall rate, Springfield, Pennsylvania.
Photo by Matt Slocum/AP

One death was reported so far with this storm, that of an 88 year old woman hit by a falling tree.

The incredible snowfall south of Vermont in many areas was very wet and heavy. More than a million people lost electricity, after last week's nor'easter cut power to more than two million.

More than 3,000 flights were canceled. The heaviest snow hit during the afternoon rush hour in and near the big cities, so there were lots of trapped cars, crashes and other highway nightmares.

Snowfall totals outside the southern Green Mountains were also incredibly impressive - 32 inches was reported from Clarksburg, Massachusetts, with North Adams, Massachusetts close at 30 inches. In Connecticut, 28 inches was reported in Warren. In New Jersey, 26.8 inches was reported at Montville.

It was the rate of snowfall that really crushed some areas and gummed up the works.  One town in the Massachusetts Berkshires got 18 inches of new snow in three hours - that's six inches per hour!

STORM OVER, EXCEPT IN NORTH 

The storm is pretty much over from Massachusetts and far southern Vermont and points south all the way down into the New Jersey storm zone.

Things will keep cranking today in northern New England, especially in Maine and New Hampshire, where many places will get at least half a foot of new snow today.

Here in Vermont, it looks like it will keep snowing in most of the central and northern Vermont the rest of the day today.

Tree on a house, Walpole, Massachusetts with this storm.
Photo from AP

In fact, it looks like the snow might pick up a bit in intensity this afternoon, with another two to six inches of snow likely. (We could easily double the amount of snow we've gotten so far in St. Albans, for example.)

Light snow will probably continue on and off Friday, Friday night and maybe into Saturday across northern Vermont, too, with a little additional accumulation.

By the way, the early and middle parts of next week in Vermont look interesting, too. By "interesting" I mean we could get more snow. I have no idea how much yet.

Some videos:

CBS New York has this report of how awful it was out there on I-280 in East Orange, New Jersey and other areas. Even their news van took a minor hit:



Thundersnow in Moorestown, New Jersey:

Weird, Challenging Nor'easter Snowstorm Continues To Keep Forecasters On Toes

Extremely heavy snow falling in Bucks
County, Pennsylvania today. There were
widespread reports of thundersnow and
snowfall rates of at least two inches per hour

The long-promised nor'easter is now well underway in the Northeast, and it's continuing to frustrate the heck of out many meteorologists.

Early runs of computer models a few days before this storm were remarkably consistent in forecasting what this thing would do. Those same models have been all over the place - not knowing what to predict - as the storm got underway.

That's the opposite of how it usually works out. Forecasts usually get more accurate as we get closer to the storm. Not this time, really.

Broad brush: The latest trends suggest northwest Vermont will get a little less snow than we were thinking last night. As I say that, parts of New Jersey, southern New York and inland southern New England are getting blasted even more than many forecasters thought.

The bad news is this worst of the storm seems to be hitting New Jersey, the New York City metro area and on up into the lower Hudson Valley and Connecticut right at rush hour today.

Things weren't too bad earlier today in that neck of the woods, so a lot of people went to work. Now that it's time to go home, YIKES!

Snow late this afternoon is coming down at a rate of two to three inches per hour, which is amazing. Visibility sucks. And since temperatures are near 32, that wet snow compacts under car tires to create slick ice, then deep accumulations pile up on top of that. And throw in some lightning and thunder to make things really dramatic.

By the way, there's LOTS of thundersnow in New Jersey, southern New York and Connecticut. More than I've seen in a nor'easter in a long time.

Yeah, just try driving in that crap.

Additionally, this is very wet, heavy snow down there. A lot of trees and power lines are coming down.

Those bands of heavy snow are, as expected, moving north into northern New England, but the question is, how intense will the snow be tonight, given the latest computer guidance that the storm will go a little further east than earlier anticipated?

One band of snow moved northward through Vermont this morning and early afternoon, laying down a half inch ot an inch and a half of snow. But it's March, and when a weak sun temporarily struggled through the clouds, most of that melted.

The bigger band will come through tonight, so there's no snow to cause any melting

An initial band of snow with the current nor'easter dropped
0.7 inches of snow on my property in St. Albans, Vermont
late this morning and early this afternoon, but the
higher sun angle in March meant that a lot of it
melted when the sun struggled to come through the clouds

So the latest thought is that anything in Vermont east of a line from Middlebury to Newport can still expect at least six inches of snow by the end of the day Thursday. In the Champlain Valley, it may - or may not - end up being a little less than that.

It depends upon how the northward moving snow bands hold together.

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington, Vermont has a fairly doubtful outlook on this, so they've downgraded winter storm warnings in the Champlain Valley to winter weather advisories. 

They're saying four to six inches - total - in the Champlain Valley. They're probably right, but this storm has held so many surprises that I'm not counting on that forecast, even though we're right at the cusp of the storm starting, when we're supposed to know what's going on.

I guess just expect lousy travel conditions overnight and on Thursday morning as we deal with this snow.

It still looks like whatever snow we get will get lighter during the day Thursday, but it will continue off and on into Saturday. There will be light additional accumulations each day through Saturday up here in Vermont, but nothing spectacular.

In the warmer valleys, there will also probably be a small amount of melting as temperatures rise just above freezing, and the stronger solar radiation in March will get through the clouds.

Speaking of computer forecasting models not knowing what's next: Nobody has any idea what the frig the weather will be like early next week. I guess we'll have to wait to find out.

Another Day Of Weather Extremes Across Vermont, Northeast And It Ain't Over Yet

Boston Post Road near Enosburg, Vermot covered
with ice chunks and water as the Missisquoi River rises
amid rain and record high January temperatures Friday.

As of late afternoon Friday, we're still experiencing quite an extreme weather day here in Vermont and in the rest of the Northeast.

Flood watches and warnings, and a variety of winter weather alerts remain in play overnight and into Saturday as some truly bizarre weather moves through.

Record highs were abundant today across the region, just five days after record cold. As of last report, it got up to 61 degrees in Burlington, Vermont, breaking the old record of 55 degrees set back in 1980.

That's a full 81 degrees warmer than the record low of 20 below set just this past Sunday. Elsewhere in Vermont and eastern New York, there were a few reports of temperatures as high as 64 degrees.

Two more kind of weather geeky observations from today: Dewpoints got into the mid 50s. (The dewpoint is the level the temperature has to fall to fully saturate the air. It's a decent measure of how humid it feels out there.)

A dewpoint of 60 degrees in the summer makes us feel a little sweaty. Dewpoints in the mid-50s, like today, are actually quite common in July here in Vermont. Remember, if you can, one of hose pleasantly warm summer days when you're at the beach and it's sunny and 80 and the sky is blue and the humidity isn't so bad and it's a perfect out for swimming and picnicking and anything else. The dewpoint was probably in the mid-50s on that day you are remembering.

Another indication is something called precipitable water. It's kind of technical, but it's a measure of how much water is in the air that's available to come down as rain or some other form of precipitation.

Precipitable water is usually much higher in the summer than in the winter, since warm air can hold more moisture than cold air. In New England, precipitable water values were at record highs for this time of year.

No wonder. Much of the moisture feed for this current storm is coming straight from the Caribbean Sea. That's a lot of warm, moist air. No wonder the precipitation has been so heavy, and the air has been so warm and humid today.

Everybody in the Northeast is getting heavy precipitation and that will largely continue through tonight, and in some areas, well into Saturday.

One river of heavy rain has been moving today from southwestern New England into central western and central Massachusetts, central New Hampshire and into Maine.

Here in Vermont, the rain hasn't been quite as heavy, but it's still substantial. (Burlington, on top of its record high temperature, today had its wettest January 11th on record. - 0.64 inches of precipitation as of late afternoon and still counting.)

Add to it this warm, humid, which melts snow at the fastest rate possible, and no wonder pretty much all the snow has disappeared from valleys and melted substantially from mountains. And no wonder flooding is a problem.

Now, of course, that long promised sharp cold front is entering the region as of Friday evening.  The cold air will blast in near the surface of the earth first, and the warm air will linger a bit higher overhead.

That moisture feed from the Caribbean is continuing tonight, but will glide up and over that onrushing cold air.

We're still looking at the rain changing to freezing rain from northwest to southeast across the region tonight. Since temperatures will be crashing so fast, any standing water will freeze, too. It's called a flash freeze and you can get why.

Over New York, and the northwest corner of Vermont, the precipitation will be quicker to change to sleet and then snow overnight and into Saturday as the cold air really establishes itself. Which means the forecast is still on track for only relatively light icing from freezing rain tonight,  followed by four to as much as 10 inches of sleet and snow accumulation throught Saturday.

Further south in Vermont, forecasters are still expected a longer period of freezing rain before the sleet and snow come in on Saturday. There still might be enough ice accumulation to cause scattered power failures and broken tree limbs.

If you were planning on traveling anywhere in eastern New York, Vermont or most of the rest of New England Saturday morning, don't bother. Between the ice left over from the flash freeze tonight, the occasionally heavy freezing rain, sleet and snow coming down, increasing north winds, blowing snow and crashing temperatures, it will be downright scary out there.

Things will slowly start to improve Saturday afternoon and night, but the temperatures will keep crashing. falling well below zero Saturday night - somewhere near 10 below.

It'll stay cold during the first half of the week and then start moderating some - but not up to 60 degrees again!

The computer models are still disagreeing about a possible storm sometime around the Tuesday to Thursday time frame. Some of the models keep insisting on a substantial snowstorm for our area, while others are saying, meh! just some light stuff.

Let's just get through this storm and deal with any other problems afterwards. Dizzy yet?

I do have to say what I keep saying: That extreme weather in one location is no proof of global warming or the lack thereof. However, we here in Vermont have had an oddly large number of completely off the rails weather events over the past few years, and they seem to be coming faster and more furiously. Today just added to that growing list.

That seems to be happeneing in many other parts of the world, too. That, trend, of an increasing frequency of bizarre weather events, IS consistent with climate change. I do think this string of oddball weather happenings is a symptom.

 

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.

Storm Recap: No Tornadoes, But Definitely Scattered Vermont Damage

Flooding after a torrential thunderstorm in
Burlington, Vermont on Tuesday. 

As expected, several lines of storms swept through Vermont, New York and the rest of the Northeast on Tuesday.  

Seems like the hardest hit places were the western Adirondacks, Addison County, Vermont, northeastern Vermont and the far southern counties of the state.

There had been a tornado watch for northwestern Vermont and much of New York state.

I'm not aware of any twisters in Vermont, but meteorologists will inspect damage in central and western New York to determine if any tornadoes touched down.

There were quite a few reports of wind damage. Most of it involved trees and wires down, but in a couple places things got even more extreme.

In Vergennes, a barn roof blew off and other outbuildings were damaged. Green Mountain Power reported about 1,200 customers without power.

In Burlington, the wind wasn't too bad. It got windy and there were some small branches down. Winds at the National Weather Service office in South Burlington gusted to 47 mph, which is pretty decent for a summer storm.

But the highlight was the torrential rain. Given the high humidity in the air, the downpour was absolutely wild. Some streets were flooded and I saw at least one car stall out when the motorist foolishly tried to drive through deep water on Lakeside Avenue.

I made a rough cut video of the torrential Burlington rain and flooding. I didn't bother with nice production values, so excuse the amateur nature of the video, which you can see at the bottom of this post.

One interesting phenomenon I saw with these lines of storms was they'd be very powerful and severe as the got most of the way through Adirondacks of New York as they rumbled eastbound.

On the eastern slopes of the Adirondacks, the storms would all weaken incredibly rapidly to just broad areas of moderate to briefly heavy rain.

Taking some street flooding in Burlington, Vermont too
fast after a torrential thunderstorm Tuesday/ 

The storms would then start to quickly regenerate over Lake Champlain, and become locally severe again as they headed toward the western slopes of Vermont's Green Mountains and beyond.

I asked a National Weather Service meteorologist in South Burlington, who said when there's an overall southwesterly airflow, as there was Tuesday, thunderstorms will often weaken in the eastern Adirondacks.

As air flows over the mountains, in descends on the east slopes. Descending air is killer for storms as they need strong updrafts to survive.

Once the remnants of the storms got over Lake Champlain, the air was once again unstable and rising, so the storms could begin to form again.

The storms are obviously over, so we don't have to worry about more severe weather. We've now launched into an extended period of dry, cool weather. Basically a fall preview.

Temperatures will be near normal today, but several towns won't even break 70 degrees Thursday, Friday and maybe Saturday.

Humidity will be low, and nights will be noticeably chilly. Look for lots of 40s at night, with some upper 30s in the cold spots over the next few nights.

Autumn is on the way.

Here's the storm video from Burlington Tuesday:

Tornadoes Strike Near Buffalo, New York Of All Places

Debris and a picnic table on a roof after
a tornado in Hamburg, New York Thursday.
Image from WKBW.

Quite a huge supercell thunderstorm managed to get going near Buffalo, New York Thursday, sending two tornadoes charging through the city's suburbs.

The area around Hamburg, New York - much more famous for epic lake effect snowstorms than tornadoes - was hardest hit.  (Hamburg famously got up to seven feet of snow in a 2014 storm.)

An EF2 tornado with winds of up to 105 mph blew through the town, especially trashing the Hamburg Fairgrounds, reports television station WKBW.

There, dozens of cars had their windows blown out and lots of structures, including the grandstand, were badly damaged.

A second tornado struck the nearby town of Holland, New York. It was an EF1 with 95 mph winds.

One video that you might have already seen bears showing in this post.  Look at the bottom of this post for it.

The storms then moved toward the southeast, causing a swath of straight line wind damage through western and southern New York and northeastern Pennsylvania.

At the same time, more locally, a smaller severe thunderstorm, mostly in southern Quebec, clipped extreme northeastern New York and the northwestern tip of Vermont. Trees ane a barn were damaged in Champlain, New York shortly after noon and a tractor trailer blew over.

Tornadoes are not unheard of in western New York, or anywhere in New York for that matter.

WKBW says the last tornado to hit the region near Buffalo before Thursday was on November 14, 2011.

Here's the home security video that shows a quick tornado lifting an SUV off the ground even as the house itself appears undamaged:

More Random Notes From Weekend's Wild New England Weather

Map shows all the tornado warnings issued by the
National Weather Service office in Gray, Maine Saturday.

As we enjoy a gorgeous stretch of weather today through Wednesday - quite a bit of sun, cool temperatures, low humidity - some of us are still cleaning up from the wild weather we had in northern New York and northern New England.

Here's a few random items:

The National Weather Service in Gray, Maine issued seven different tornado warnings on Saturday. Before this, the most tornado warnings that NWS office had ever issued in an entire year was six.

At least three tornadoes were confirmed in Maine.

In Campton, New Hampshire, campers did not heed flood warnings and had to be rescued, says the Manchester Union Leader. Fifty or so campers were rescued, and two people and a dog were stranded atop a picnic table until 2 a.m.  Sunday,

In New York state, severe flooding struck Utica and Hoosic Falls, and a tornado was confirmed Friday in Broadalbin, New York.

In Vermont, several businesses around Hartford were damaged by flooding and mudslides, and an 800 foot section of railroad track shifted as saturated ground slid downhill. Amtrak passengers are being bussed around the area for now.

About a half dozen Vermont state highways were damaged, and towns are being asked to assess damage to see if the state can qualify for federal funding to help recover from the flooding.

Vermont, New York Get Surprise Downpours, Flood Threat Dramatically Worsens

Chaos in Barre, Vermont after a May, 2011 flash flood.
There's some risk we could see scenes like this again this weekend.

Much more rain fell across northern New York and the northern half of Vermont overnight, and this sets the stage for a real flood threat.

The threat is even higher than I had been expecting earlier this week.

Last night's torrential rains, amounted to two to three inches, locally even a little more from the St. Lawrence Valley of New York, across Lake Champlain and the northern half of Vermont.

Burlington got 2.16 inches of rain and Colchester piled up 2.71 inches.

By the way, June rainfall in Burlington has so far amounted to 6.79 inches. If we don't get a drop of rain today, it'll still be the seventh wettest June on record.

Flood warnings were issued across a stripe of northern Vermont, along and roughly 30 miles either side of a line from Burlington to a little south of St. Johnsbury.

There's been no major flooding in that zone, but there is high water, washouts and that kind of thing.

Mainstem rivers are already getting into the act, too. There's a flood warning for the Winooski River at Waterbury. Today's flooding won't be as bad as during Tropical Storm Irene, when the Winooski flooded most of downtown Waterbury.

But low spots, and low roads are going to go underwater. Flooding will cover fields and damage crops downstream to Richmond, and possibly all the way down to the famed vegetable farms in Burlington's Intervale.

The rain was temporarily waning early this morning and the flood warnings will have probably been dropped, at least for awhile across northern Vermont by the time you read this. With the exception of the Winooski River flood warning, which will probably remain in effect most of the day, even if we don't get much more rain.

However, this flood event is only just beginning.

A flash flood watch is up across northern New York, the northern half of Vermont, northern New Hampshire and western Maine through Saturday night.

The warm front that caused the torrential rains last night is lifting toward Quebec and we'll get firmly entrenched in the warm, very humid air today.

Disturbances riding along a front to our west will fire up plenty of showers and thunderstorms this afternoon and evening, and some will of course have torrential rain.  Even as I write this at 7 a.m. Friday, heavy downpours were lurking in western New York, heading east.

Here's how high the risk is: It would only take about an inch of rain in an hour to cause a flash flood. Some of the thunderstorms today and even more numerous ones Saturday and Saturday night could easily drop two inches of rain in an hour.

Flash flooding in Richmond,  Vermont in June, 2013. This
kind of thing could easily happen again today, and
especially Saturday in Vermont. 

And some locations that are unlucky enough to get repeated storms could get three to five inches of rain between now and Saturday night.

We get flash flood watches fairly often, but this to me is the most precarious situation since the big spring and summer floods of 2011.

Some of today's storms could also be severe, with strong gusty winds. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has Vermont in part of a broad zone of a slight severe storm risk today.

The storms will subside tonight, but there's still a chance of locally heavy downpours overnight.

For what it's worth, one weather model has a band of heavy rain lingering for several hours across northern Vermont this evening. That might or might not actually happen, but it's something to watch.

Saturday afternoon and night is looking even more dangerous. The cold front to our west will be closer, and the thunderstorms will be much more numerous Saturday than they will be today.

Even worse, the air will be even more humid than today, providing the fuel for even more torrential rains. And some of those storms could be severe, with gusty winds.

Not only is flash flooding a threat, but some of the bigger rivers in the North Country could flood. We already mentioned today's flood warning on the Winooski.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Winooski flooded again by Saturday, along with other rivers like the Ausable in New York, and Vermont's Lamoille, Mississquoi and Mad rivers. This all depends, of course, on how widespread and heavy the rain is.

So heads up. It's going to be a rough weekend. The threat of flooding is pretty damn high. We could get lucky and not get so many storms, but I'm not holding my breath. This could be one for the record books.

Bit Of A Severe Storm Threat In Vermont, New York Today

Areas in yellow stand a slight chance of getting severe
thunderstorms this afternoon. This includes parts
of western Vermont. 

There's a chance of some severe thunderstorms today in parts of our region, especially around southern Vermont and eastern New York from about Ticonderoga south.

Not everybody is going to get a severe storm, but a few places might.  

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center says the best chance of severe weather - a slight chance -  runs from Addison and Rutland counties in Vermont southwestward through eastern and central New York and then down into central Pennsylvania.

In this zone, a few storms could produce gusty winds, hail, and torrential downpours. Within this slight risk zone, there is even a miniscule chance of a tornado or two. But don't hold your breath on that prospect.

I'll stress that most of Vermont and New York will just get showers and garden variety thunderstorms today. Only a few places will get scary storms.  In fact, there's still a chance we'll get lucky and see absolutely no severe weather.

And no, we can't tell you in advance which towns get the scary storms and which towns just get May showers.

One thing that might inhibit the development of severe storms is overcast skies ahead of the expected storms. Sunshine would have increased atmospheric instability, which would help with the development of storms.

Also, an initial band of showers coming into eastern New York late this morning and Vermont by around noon could also help quash storms later.

However, there's plenty of cold air aloft and a weather disturbance coming in from the west, so that could help set up some pretty good activity.

There is a weather model called the HRRR which forecasts conditions over the next few hours. It's usually relatively accurate with predicted showers and thunderstorms in the near term, but of course it's not perfect.

The HRRR has that initial band of showers and maybe embedded thunderstorms coming into Vermont by noon.

Following that, the HRRR depicts a stronger band of thunderstorms forming in central New York and then moving into central Vermont around 4 or 5 p.m today.  For what it's worth, this forecast model has the strongest storms late this afternoon very roughly within 30 miles of a line from Middlebury to St. Johnsbury.

Within this zone, there could be some locally very heavy rain. Widespread flash flooding is NOT expected, but there could be a couple trouble spots with water here and there if the rain is particularly heavy in a few towns.

Remember, that forecast is NOT a guarantee and NOT set in stone. It's just a general idea. Could come true, or maybe not.

Your best bet today is just to keep an eye on the sky and head indoors if you hear thunder or see dark clouds gathering to your west and south.

By the way, there's also a very good chance of showers and thunderstorms Wednesday afternoon, too.  A few of the storms could be on the strong side, but most won't be.