May Was Second Wettest On Record As The Rains Keep Pouring Down

Green areas are parts of the nation that were wetter than normal
in May. The darker the green the greater departure from
nornal rainfall. 

It seems as if every day, floods capture the attention in weather news.

Yesterday, it was Louisiana and the Oklahoma City metro area that suffered through damaging, dangerous floods. It's just been a continuous drumbeat for it seems like a couple years at least now.

As if to prove that point, NOAA's National Centers for Climate Information released their summary for the month of May, which showed the month was the second wettest on record for the United States.

If you average it out. 4.41 inches of precipitation fell across the nation. Only May, 2015 was wetter and just barely - that month four years ago had 0.03 inches more rain than May, 2019.

The only dry areas of the nation during May, 2019 were in parts of the Southeast, western Washington and along the immediate Canadian border in Idaho, Montana and North Dakota.

Three states - Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri - had their wettest Mays on record. Twelve other states had one of their top 10 wettest Mays. (Here in Vermont it was the 18th wettest May out of the past 125 years, so pretty soggy, but not record breaking.)

Also, the 12 month period ending on May 31 was the wettest such stretch on record. The period ending April 30, 2019 (this year) was the previous wet record holder for a 12-month period. Records go back 125 years.

During that 12 month period, an average of 37.68 inches of precipitation fell across the nation, which is a whopping 7.73 inches above average.

This wetness is consistent with climate change. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor that cooler air. That added water vapor in the toastier air leaves the potential for heavier downpours.

The atmosphere in general has gotten warmer across the globe. It's interesting to note that six of the top ten wettest 12 month periods in the United States have been since 2016 and all of them have been since 1974. Remember, these records go back to 1895.

That said, month to month precipitation in the United States is highly variable. With or without climate change, a given month for the nation can be very wet, very dry, or just average.

But the overall trend has for wetter months overall, especially in the eastern half of the United States.

It's hard to say whether the rest of the year will be wet, but the first half of June is not proving to be particularly encouraging.

There were those floods yesteday in parts of the South. A slow moving collection of weather systems threatens quite a bit of flooding and heavy rain over the next several days in the Southeast. Many areas from Florida to Virginia could see five or more inches of rain over the next seven days.

Long range forecasts into the third week of June suggest that larger areas of the United States will be wetter than normal compared to those that will be drier than normal. (For the record, Vermont is forecast to be overall cooler and wetter than normal into the third week of June, despite an expected warm, dry weekend coming up.)  

Flash flooding in Tulsa, OK
Thursday. Photo via Twitter by
Jonathan Torrio

This next part will get confusing, but bear with me. The overall temperature for the nation as a whole was a little cooler than average during May.

This, after I just got done explaining that a warmer atmosphere holds more water, so that might help explain why we had such a wet national month.

Storms are at least in part a clash between warm and cold air. Although final numbers aren't in yet, May, 2019 was almost certainly in the top 10 warmest for the world as a whole. Warmer air feeding into the storms that affected the nation might have increased rainfall somewhat. Some of this warm air came from outside the nation.

And note the heaviest precipitation was in the middle of country. The Southeast was warmer than average in May, and that's where much of the humid air was coming from to feed the precipitation in those Midwest storms.

However, parts of the United States was on the cool side, bucking a worldwide trend in May, because the weather patterns during the month favored cool air flowing into the middle of the nation.

Wet, Wet, Wet: Incredible Rainfall In Nation's Middle; Vermont Soggy, Too

A sad aerial view of farmland in Illinois, near the Indiana border. Image
via Twitter by Chad Colby @TheChadColby

I've begun my annual late spring/early summer sabbatical in Yankton, South Dakota and I was very dismayed by the landscape as our plane began its descent Friday afternoon into the airport in Sioux Falls.

It was May 31, and most of the expansive fields beneath us hadn't been planted yet. Too wet. The Big Sioux River had also spread out into rich farmland, forming a long lake near Sioux Falls. The Big Sioux River is now way, way too big.

During the 90 minute car drive to Yankton, many fields looked like marshes. Rural side roads were closed either by mud, or the fact that the flooding Big Sioux, Little Sioux, Vermillion, James and other rivers had submerged all the low water crossings.

This was all a testament to how incredibly wet it has been in the middle of the nation. Shockingly, this swampy scene in southeastern South Dakota is nothing compared to incredible rains in floods just to the south, in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and other states.

Yes, it's been quite wet in my home state of Vermont (more on that further down in this post) but the never-ending rains are just overwhelming for millions of people in the Plains and Midwest.

MIDWEST SWAMPED

The Weather Channel says that parts of southern Kansas picked up about 60 percent of their normal annual rainfall in May alone.

Kansas City had more than a foot of rain, good enough to make this May the wettest on record and the third wettest of any month. Bartlesville, Oklahoma had more than 15 inches of rain during the month. Some pockets of northeastern Oklahoma reported more than 20 inches of rain during May.

As you've seen on the news, record, devastating flooding continues, especially along the Arkansas River in Oklahoma and Arkansas.

NPR reports that Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said the Arkansas River flood is costing the state $23 million a day. The flooding will go on for at least a week - if it doesn't rain. Unfortunately, the area around the river can expect another one to five inches of rain over the next week, with locally higher amounts.

Levees built 60 years ago along the Arkansas River were not designed to withstand a flood this high, and lasting this long. The longer the flooding lasts, the more water can seep into the levees, which can cause failures. The Arkansas River has been high since March.

Even worse for the overall national economy, much of the Mississippi River has been flooding since March. It's the longest flood on the mighty river since 1927. When this river floods, barges can't move along the river. Farmers who actually have fields dry enough to plant can't because critical seeds, fertilizers and other supplies that normally come up on barges along the Mississippi can't, reports Fox News. 

The Mississippi has been blocked by flooding so that locks and dams don't work between St. Paul, Minnesota and St. Louis, Missouri. "We have never had the river closed for this long in a single year, Tom Heinfold, chief of operations for the U.S Army Corps of Engineers told Fox News.

WET VERMONT

Storm clouds gather over Lake Champlain near St. Albans on
May 10. It was a wet day in a very wet month. 

The situation has not been nearly as desperate in Vermont. There's really no flooding of note during May.

Lake Champlain had been in minor flood stage all month, just yesterday finally falling below flood stage for the first time since April 20. It was the second longest flood recorded on Lake Champlain. Only the epic flood of 2011 lasted longer.

The Lake Champlain flood sustained itself through May because of the incessant rains in Vermont and New York. Burlington had 5.15 inches of rain during May, which is 1.7 inches above normal. That's not any kind of record, but the rain was consistent. Measurable rain fell on 19 days during the month.

It was also cool and cloudy, which helped prevent evaportation. The mean temperature in Burlington ws 54.9 degrees, which was 1.4 degrees cooler than normal.

It was even wetter and colder in eastern Vermont. Montpelier had 5.75 inches of rain which is 2.38 inches above normal. Temperatures in the Capital City ran three degrees colder than normal for May.

St. Johnsbury takes the prize for a miserable May. They had 7.04 inches of rain in May, which is 3.68 inches above normal and has to make this May among the top 10 wettest on record there. St. Johnsbury also had a bone chilling May, with the temperature running four degrees colder than normal.

CLIMATE CHANGE FOOTPRINTS

The nation's wet weather is consistent with climate change. Yes, a hotter world can make droughts worse, because if there are no  handy storms around to drop rain, the higher temperatures encourage evaporation, drying things out faster.

(As an example, northwestern Vermont had a very humid summer last year, but had few storm systems to interact with the humidity. The summer was also record hot, so the combination of heat and missed opportunities for storms made us temporarily fall into a drought.)

But hotter air can hold more moisture. If there are storms that create lift in the atmosphere, you're going to get precipitation. If there's more "precipitable water" as they call it in the air because of a warming climate, it will rain harder.

As NPR reports: "According to the most recent National Climate Assessment, 'The frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events across the United States have increased,' especially in the northern and central parts of the country.

That means, although this flood is breaking records across the central U.S., it may not be the last time officials, in infrastructure, will be forced to deal with a disaster of this magnitude. On the Arkansas River, levees were built more than 60 years ago in most cases, and were not necessarily designed to withstand the kind of constant onslaught of high water that comes with a multiweek flood."

This flood is all part of a recent trend, we can say that. Last year was the wettest on record for the nation as a whole. This year, at least so far, is giving that 2018 wet record a run for its money.

.....But Those Floods Are Anything BUT Normal

This aerial view shows many homes already flooded in Oklahoma
by the Arkansas River. Photo via Twitter from the Tulsa World newspaper.

Yesterday, I remarked upon our nation's busy tornado year. I said that as tragic as it has been, it's not that far from what is regarded as "normal," at least so far.

What's really, really abnormal this year is the flooding. I've been saying this since March, when the opening salvos of severe flooding hit the Midwest. Since then, it's only been getting worse and worse.

This is more and more reminding me of 1993, which is considered the epic, worst year of Midwest flooding. That year, broad areas of the middle of nation, basically from Wisconsin south and down along much of the Missouri and Mississippi Valleys, spend months in the spring and summer dealing with devastating floods.

So far this year, the flooding has been going on for more than two months and shows few signs of stopping. The Weather Channel reports 70-year-old earthen levees are just barely holding back the record high Arkansas River in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and parts of that city might flood.

In Fort Smith, Arkansas, the Arkansas River is expected to crest at a level four feet higher than the previous record high crest, set in 1945.

This same general areas, from Iowa down to Missouri and Oklahoma and Arkansas, can expect another three to six inches of rain in the next seven days, with locally higher amounts.

Some rivers have been above flood stage since March, and this forecast is sure to prolong this agony.

In Louisiana, officials expect to open the Morganza Spillway for only the third time in history, beause the Mississippi River remains so high, and is expected to be at major flood stage into early June at least.

The spillway, built in 1954, diverts excess Mississippi River floodwater onto an expanse of farmland. It's a last ditch effort as the water coming through the open spillway ends up in the Atchafalaya River to the west, which of course would worsen flooding there.

The last time the spillway was open, in 2011, it flooded about 4,600 square miles of rural Louisiana near the Atchafalaya River, says the Category 6 blog. So as you can see, there are no really great solutions to dealing with this large amount of water.

Flooding does seem to be becoming more frequent and serious in recent years and decades. Part of that has to do with land use. More parking lots, roofs, roads, houses, etc. mean water can't soak into the ground so much. So it runs off, worsening flooding.

Part of it has to do with climate change. Warmer air can hold more water vapor, and if the right kind of storm comes along, that extra water vapor gets released as extra heavy downpours, which makes floods worse than they otherwise would be.

After this week, it's unclear whether the relentless rains in the Midwest will finally taper off. The weather pattern is changing somewhat, which could cut down on the amount of rain drenching the middle of the nation.

Terrible Tornadoes This Year Are "Normal," But Of Course That's Not Good

This chart is a little hard to read so click on it to make it bigger
and easier to see, but it shows the building number of
tornadoes each year since 2005. The black line is this year,
and we are off to the fastest first half of tornado season
since 2011.

It seems every day lately we get news of another terrible tornado. Deaths. Neighborhoods destroyed. Farms blown to pieces.

So it was last night when yet another tornado slammed into El Reno, Oklahoma, killing at least two people. A motel was blown apart, as was a good chunk of a mobile home park in El Reno, which is about 25 miles west of Oklahoma City.

If the words "El Reno" and "tornado" sound familiar, that's because the widest tornado on record 2.6 miles wide - hit El Reno in 2013, killing eight people, including storm chaser Tim Samaras.

There are unconfirmed reports of somewhat smaller tornadoes last night right in Oklahoma City, and in the southern part of Tulsa.

Preliminary reports indicate there have been 820 tornadoes in the United States so far this year, as of May 24. That sounds like a lot, and it is. But it's actually not anywhere near a record. Still, it's the most tornadoes as of this time of year since 2011.

By May 24 of the terrible tornado year of 2011, there had already been 1,252 twisters. In another awful year, 2008, there had been 1,139 tornadoes.

So far this year 34 people have died in United States tornadoes. On average about 75 or so people die in tornadoes annually. Last year, only ten people died in tornadoes, one of the lowest annual tolls on record. By contrast, 2011 saw 553 tornado deaths, the second worst year on record. In 1925, 774 people died.

It's still only midway through the tornado season, so it remains to be seen whether the year will keep trending busier than recent ones, and whether there will be more deaths.  The busy season could keep going, or the activity can abruptly shut down. You never know.

In the short term, the tornado forecast isn't really good. Tornadoes are forecast daily in the middle of the nation through Wednesday, and there could be quite a few of them on Tuesday, at least according to latest forecasts.

Indications are that the threat of severe weather and tornadoes will start to wane somewhat toward the end of the week.

Tornadoes Didn't Hit Big Towns, But Extreme Weather Continues

News9 in Oklahoma City captured these twin tornadoes
north of Oklahoma City Monday. Photo via Matt Mahler
on Twitter. 

That highly anticipated tornado outbreak in Texas and Oklahoma did roar into being on Monday, but thankfully, none of the larger tornadoes went right through major towns.

There was plenty of damage from the 22 tornadoes reported in the region so far, but no deaths. A particularly nasty tornado hit the outskirts of Magnum, Oklahoma, causing lots of damage.

Tornado warnings are still going out in eastern Oklahoma this morning, and more twisters are a definite possibility, especially in Missouri and Arkansas later today.  

FLOODING WORSE THAN TORNADOES

As I alluded to yesterday, the flooding in the region is actually worse than the tornadoes. There is widespread, serious flooding going on in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri, and the rains keep falling.

Areas in red can expect several inches more of rain over
the next seven days with continued serious flooding. 

The weather pattern is "stuck" again, with a ridge of hot high pressure in the Southeast and a deep dip in the jet stream in the West. This is creating a parade of storms moving diagonally southwest to northeast in the middle of the nation.

This is, of course, very bad news, as the severe storm risk will continue all week in the Midwest.  Worse, repeated bursts of heavy rain will fall on already flooded areas, worsening the situation Parts of Oklahoma got six inches or more of rain just yesterday.

Parts of Interstate 40 west of Oklahoma City were closed by flooding this morning. Water was invading the Ponca City, Oklahoma police station. Cars were swept off roads by flooding in Joplin, Missouri, says the Weather Channel.

Parts of Missouri, Iowa and Kansas can expect at least six inches more rain in the next seven days. This is on top of serious flooding going on already in those states.

COLORADO SNOW, AGAIN

In the cold air to the west of the storminess, odd late season snow continues to fall in Colorado, Wyoming and in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Denver reported three inched of new snow, one of only seven times since 1882 that an inch or  more of snow has fallen in the city.

Unfortunately, the wet, heavy snow was snapping branches on trees that had already leafed out. Car crashes on snowy highways led to the temporary closure on Interstate 70 through the mountains.

SUBTROPICAL STORM ANDREA

In one more unusual weather event in a week of odd weather, Subtropical Storm Andrea formed yesterday well off the Southeast U.S. coast. It's weak and will probably dissipate tomorrow, but this is yet another year in which a tropical or tropical type storm formed ahead of the normal hurricane season, which starts June 1.

VERMONT/NEW ENGLAND UPDATE

The Storm Prediction Center has Vermont in
a marginal risk zone for severe thunderstorms
Thursday, with a somewhat greater chance off to our west

Luckily, little in the way of severe weather developed in New England Monday, despite much of the region being under a severe thunderstorm watch. Storms did cause some tree damage in and around Providence, Rhode Island.

Here in Vermont, we were lucky that most places didn't get any additional torrential downpours during the day Monday.

The storms Sunday night dumped up to three inches of rain in a few hours in parts of central Vermont, leading to minor flooding and road washouts.

Sunday night's heavy rain will prolong the Lake Champlain flooding. By Sunday, the lake had fallen to 100.25 feet, which is just four inches or so above flood stage. It looked like the very long, but minor flood that began on April 20 would end soon.

But the lake is temporarily rising again, getting up to around 100.4 feet by this morning. It'll start to fall again soon, unless we get more heavy rain.

The next shot of rain is Thursday, when another round of showers and thunderstorms will blow through. There's even a marginal chance of perhaps a few more severe storms. We'll see.

All those storms in the Plains will keep ejected northeastward toward us over the next week, so we'll get frequent bouts of rain with just short intervals of dry weather in between. Luckily, they won't be as intense as they were in the Plains by the time they get here, but we'll still have to watch occasionally for locally heavy rain through next week.

Today: Some Severe Risk New England; Ominous Tornado Threat Southern Plains

Areas in dark green have a chance of a
few isolated severe thunderstorms today.
Area in yellow has a somewhat greater
chance of severe storms, but this won't
be nearly as widespread as the dangerous
weather in the southern Plains today. 

1:15 p.m. Update

Maybe it's because I'm from rather tornado-free Vermont, but I'd be scared right now if I lived in Oklahoma.

As of this writing the National Weather Service was just about to issue a rare "Particularly Dangerous Situation" tornado watch for western and central Oklahoma.

Supercells are expected to explosive develop there in the next couple of hours in an atmosphere that has a rare combination of extreme factors that can form violent and long lasting tornadoes.

This kind of thing happens only once every few years, so forecasters are right that this is a very dangerous situation. Everyone in this region should be on high alert for the rest of this afternoon and evening. 

Here in the Northeast, things still aren't too bad as of 1 p.m. There are a couple of broken lines of storms forming, the most well developed one so far in east central New York and starting to run into southwestern Vermont.

This line will continue to develop and might cause some severe storms later this afternoon.  Other storms will develop, and some might still become severe, especially from the Green Mountains east.

Some storms were already developing near Burlington and near the Canadian border as of 1 p.m. Keep a watchful eye to the skies this afternoon for scattered strong to locally severe storms. We're still in line to get this.

At least it's not remotely comparable to the situation in Oklahoma.

UPDATE 10:15 a.m. Monday:

The first hints of a line of storms looks like they are about to form in the northwestern Adirondacks and then head east. There's still a chance of some scattered severe thunderstorms in Vermont and the rest of New England, starting in the northwest in about an hour or two.

The storms should be through Vermont by late afternoon, with the greatest but still uncertain risk of strong to severe storms in the eastern half of Vermont.

I'm thinking the Champlain Valley should be through the brief window of severe thunderstorm risk by about 3 p.m. or so.

Meanwhile, that high risk zone of potentially dangerous tornadoes today has been expanded slightly east to encompass the Oklahoma City metro area.

Earlier, Oklahoma City was still in a serious, but ever so slightly less dire Moderate Risk. People in Oklahoma and Texas should be ready to seek shelter at a moment's notice today. It's still a dangerous situation out there today.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

The chances of some very, very dangerous tornadoes is high in the southern Plains today as the atmospheric conditions are almost off the charts to create such an ominous hazard.

That, of course, is the big weather headline of the day, and I'll get into the major threats in Oklahoma and Texas in a bit. But since we're in New England, I'll talk about a lesser, but still real threat of severe thunderstorms in our neck of the woods today.

I was surprised by the amount of severe weather in New York and Pennsylvania yesterday.  There were quite a few tornado warnings, though I don't know yet if any touched down in those states.

The severe weather made a run at southwestern Vermont, but the storms weakened a little just before reaching the Green Mountain State.

But it was a close call. There are no reports of significant damage in Vermont, but just over the western border into Fort Edward, New York and the Glens Falls area, it was something! Tornado warning went up west of Glens Falls, a roof blew off a house in South Glens Falls, and there was a ot of damage in Fort Edward.

Some of the storms in Vermont overnight produced torrential downpours, with up to three inches of rain reported near Worcester. That caused minor flooding and some areas of road washouts.

It's possible some of today's storms, if they're persistent, could cause some local flash flooding, but that problem won't be widespread.

We're still in a severe thunderstorm threat today in Vermont and the rest of New England. As always, only a few people will receive any severe storms, but stay weather alert.

A cold front will be intruding on warm, humid air in place right now. There was a round of thunderstorms early this morning, which often tends to stabilize the air and reduce the chances of severe weather.

But there will be some sun during the rest of this morning, and that will destabilize the air again enough to raise the threat of storms.

While anyplace in Vermont and the rest of New England could get a strong storm today, the best chances seem to be in the southeastern third of Vermont, most of New Hampshire, and western Massachusetts and Connecticut. 

The biggest threat from today's storms would be strong straight line winds. There is actually a very minimal but still real threat of a brief tornado in southeastern Vermont, western Massachusetts and New Hampshire. But nothing like what the southern Plains will experience today.

Conditions in Vermont will quickly calm down this evening and in the early part of tonight further east into New England.

So just go about your business, and if you hear a severe thunderstorm warning, just get into a sturdy house or building and wait it out. It won't last long.

SOUTHERN PLAINS DANGER

A rare high risk zone (in pink) today for potentially strong,
violent, long-lived tornadoes. Areas in red, including
Oklahoma City are at nearly as high of risk as the pink zone.

I can certain understand why a lot of people are worried about the weather today in northern Texas and Oklahoma. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has declared a pretty rare high risk zone for significant and very dangerous tornadoes in much of that region, including the cities of Lawton, Altus and El Reno, Oklahoma.

This is the first high risk alert the Storm Prediction Center has issued for anywhere in the nation since May 18, 2017.

The much larger metro area of Oklahoma City is just outside the edge of the high risk zone, but still in a moderate risk zone for big tornadoes, which is something to take super seriously.

A lot of schools are closed in the Oklahoma City metro area today so that kids are not stuck in potentially unsafe schools, or worse, out on the road in school buses when dangerous weather hits.

Tornado outbreaks often peak around the time of the evening rush hour, so I imagine a lot of people in that region are calling in "sick" to work today, so they're not caught out on jam packed roads if dangerous weather hits.

Nobody knows for sure whether Oklahoma City and its populous suburbs wil get nailed today, but somebody will probably see a very bad tornado. Everyone hopes, of course, the worst tornadoes stay out in open country.

The wording on the Storm Prediction Center's advisory this morning isn't pretty: "This event should result in a significant threat to life and property," says the advisory. It adds that conditions are favorable for "long-track strong tornadoes and possibly violent tornadoes."

There will be at least two rounds of bad storms with this unusually strong storm system. The first is already creating severe thunderstorms in western Texas and those should grow and sweep across northern Texas and Oklahoma this morning and early afternoon. These storms will carry the risk of some tornadoes and large hail.

There have already been reports of baseball sized hail early this morning in northwestern Texas. Usually, you don't see hailstones that big with early morning thunderstorm. That gives you an idea of how volatile this situation is.

Then the second, most serious round gets going this afternoon into the evening. That's when the region I described is under the gun for violent tornadoes, hail up to the size of softballs and straight line winds of 80 mph or even more.

Not everybody in this area will get some extreme weather, but a few places probably will. This will be in the news headlines tonight and tomorrow.

Tornadoes obviously capture attention, but another big threat is looming with these storms, especially up in Oklahoma and in particular the Oklahoma City area.

It's been wet there, and extreme amounts of rain will accompany these dangerous, tornadic thunderstorms. There's a high risk of flash flooding in central Oklahoma today, says NOAA's Weather Prediction Center.

It's only somewhat more common to have a high risk zone for flash floods than a high risk zone for tornadoes. Whatever the case, Oklahoma and some surrounding areas are in for a very, very rough day.

Nation Might Just Have Its Busiest Severe Weather/Tornado Week Of The Year

Photographer/chaser Max Olson (Twitter handle @MesoMax919) captured
  this big Texas tornado over the weekend

Things are setting up in the middle of the nation in such a way that it looks like this week could be the busiest one of the year in terms of tornadoes and other severe weather.

Nothing's guaranteed, of course, but a slow moving storm, a clash of air masses (cold to the northwest, humid to the southeast, dry to the west) are setting the stage for some wild weather.

Things got off to a bang Sunday, with 22 reports of tornadoes from Nebraska to Texas. Most of them happened over open country, so there were no major injuries and not a lot of damage, so that's good. 

It might well be a little quieter today, as the next storm is still organizing. Still, severe weather is possible, centered in Kansas. There might be a tornado or two, but it doesn't look like a widespread outbreak today

A dry line is expected to develop in western Texas. A dry line is just what the name implies. To the east of the dry line, the air is very humid. When the dry line passes through from the west, the humidity crashed downward abruptly. Supercells often form just to the east of dry lines.

Which is what is expected to happen Tuesday. I'm sure there will be LOTS of storm chasers in the Texas Panhandle Tuesday afternoon and evening. Forecasters say there is a high chance of supercells, which could easily drop tornadoes and enormous hailstones.

With visibility great across the flat Texas plains, I'm sure the storm chasers will provide plenty of photos and videos of the action.

Wednesday has the potential to be a classic Tornado Alley twister day. That dry line I talked about will be somewhere in southwestern Oklahoma and northwestern Texas.  Strong winds aloft and a developing storm system will help start up some more quickly developing supercells in Oklahoma and Texas.

At this point, large metro areas like Oklahoma City and Dallas-Fort Worth ought to keep an eye on this. The area that seems to be the Wednesday target is the classic spot in early May for big tornadoes. As I've said below, things could change, but this is almost a textbook example of tornado weather setting up in this area.

I always worry about Moore, Oklahoma, a highly populated suburb of Oklahoma City. For some reason, Moore has a target on its back. In the past 25 years, Moore has suffered through eight tornadoes. Four of those were EF4's or EF5's, the strongest, most dangerous tornadoes possible.

Thursday, as the parent storm system reaches maturity, the severe storm and possible tornado risk will probably extend over a broad region from eastern Texas to the southern Great Lakes.

Sometimes, the tail end of  Midwestern severe outbreaks result in strong thunderstorms here in Vermont. It looks like that will NOT be the case this time. The storm causing the expected tornadoes this week will probably send a good slug of rain through the Green Mountain State Thursday and Friday, but at this point, it looks there will be nothing stronger than a rumble of thunder or two.

Selfish People Think It's OK To Let People DIe To Avoid Hail Dings On Their Cars

In this image from The Weather Channel, parked cars beneath an
Oklahoma overpass block traffic during a weekend hail storm. 

UPDATE:

Kudos to the Twittersphere, namely Becks DePodwin and Nevin deMelliano for pointing out that some insurance companies actually encourage people to park beneath overpasses when it hails.

Yes, as the discussion below shows, doing that endangers other people. But apparently as long as insurance companies don't have to file claims for their own customers, who cares if other people get hurt or killed?

It's all right there. Nationwide's web site tells people to "help protect your car by seeking shelter under an overpass or in a structure with a strong roof."

Not all insurance companies suggest this. Progressive, for instance, tells people who don't have garages or are worried about hail to temporarily stow their car in a covered parking garage at the local mall, which is reasonable enough. No mention of overpasses on the Progressive web site, though I would suggest a disclaimer NOT to do that.

This is an improvement over a couple years ago, when I reported in 2017 that Progressive advised people to stop beneath overpasses. From what I can tell, Progressive has mercifully dropped that advice.

Geico tells people to "pull over to the side of the road and wait out the storm." Fine, but people should pull over well off travel lanes.

The advice from Esurance is actually pretty good: "If you can, pull over into a covered parking area. Pull over to the side of the road (provided its safe to do so."  My quibble: Esurance should say that the "covered parking area" does not include overpasses.

Clearly, despite the advice of weather and severe storm safety experts for the past few decades, the public, insurance companies and others still need a lot more education on the folly of trying to avoid hail and other hazards beneath overpasses.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Cars block an underpass on a busy highway during a hailstorm
in this undated photo from Reuters. 

Some serious hail storms hit parts of Texas, Oklahoma and other places in the past few days severe thunderstorm season continues to ramp up.

Big hail causes a lot of damage, of course. I also get it that people don't want to get their cars all dented up by giant hail stones.

However, as usual, as we see every year, there are a number of thoughtless, selfish people who decide that the safety and lives of their fellow motorists are expendable if it means they can avoid a couple little hail dings on their cars.

So they park beneath overpasses. Which jams up the highways behind them.

 There's lots of "for instances." Like on Saturday, when parts of Interstate 44 in Oklahoma got jammed up because morons parked beneath bridges and overpasses during a hail storm.

There are so many reasons why parking beneath overpasses in hailstorms is is dangerous. Here are just a few:

1. Visibility is naturally very poor in a thunderstorm with heavy rain and large hail. People trying to manage driving through the hail and rain won't see the traffic jam until it's too late. This is a recipe for a deadly pileup.

2. Even while the hail is pounding down and you're beneath the overpass blocking traffic, the storm has probably already caused damage and maybe injuries up ahead. Emergency vehicles are already racing to the scene. And here the ambulances and firetrucks are coming up behind you and you're blocking their way.

Seconds count in emergencies. And you're wasting time by trying to keep a couple dings off your ride.

3. Thunderstorms with big hail often produce tornadoes. More often than not, as the tornadic thunderstorm approaches, the places affected first get a barrage of hail. Unseen through all this hail is the tornado. People sheltering beneath the overpass, and those trapped behind them, are sitting ducks for the tornado when it follows closely on the heels of the hail.

People are blocked in, so they can't flee the approaching tornado. So that's another way to kill people by parking beneath an overpass.

By the way, the myth still somehow exists that an overpass is a good place to shelter when a tornado approaches. The opposite is true. The structure of the overpass funnels strong winds, so the tornadic gusts are stronger beneath the overpass than elsewhere. Which means if you're sheltering there, you and your car will get blown way. Or sandblasted and impaled by debris. This will kill you. Or worse.

Andrew Pritchard (@skydrama) recently tweeted this recounting from the National Weather Service of people in Oklahoma who "sheltered" beneath an overpass as a strong tornado came in.  There were 12 people there. Only one died. Not so bad, right?

Here's a quote Pritchard repeated from a report of that 1999 tornado, which about what happened the remaining: "Unfortunately, what has not been well publicized is the horrific injuries suffered by all but one of the survivors under the bridge.......These injuries included but were not limited to compound fractures, shattered bones, missing fingers, missing ears, missing noses and being impaled by shingles, 2X4's etc."

So don't shelter under overpasses during severe weather. It's something out of a horror movie.

Not to mention the risk of killing others by stopping beneath these bridges. The 1999 bridge incident, described above was in part created by people stopping beneath that span. Some of the gruesome injuries were because people were blocking the road, and a quarter mile long traffic jam formed there as the EF-5 tornado passed over.

Even with that terrible story,  I know many of those entitled idiots will just flip me the bird and continue to stop at underpasses, not giving a damn if they hurt or kill others.  However, these tips are also great for those of us who want to do the right thing and not hog an overpass.

1. Pay attention to forecasts. If there's alerts, and especially if there's severe thunderstorm or tornado warnings, postpone driving if possible until the threat is over.

2. Watch the skies. If you see what looks like a bad thunderstorm a few miles up ahead, see if you can take the next exit and wait out the storm in a substantial shelter.  One sign that the thunderstorm up ahead might contain a lot of hail is if the storm clouds have a green or blue tint.

3. If caught driving in a hailstorm, slow down and put your blinkers on. By all means do NOT stop under that overpass. It's unsafe to pull to the side of a busy highway, too. But if conditions are so serious you can't see what you're doing, or if the hail breaks your windshield, definitely pull over as far off the roadway as possible. Also, do everything you can to protect your eyes if the car glass is breaking.

4. Remember, it's just a car. Insurance almost always covers the hail damage. Better to ding up your car than kill someone by blocking the highway.

We here in Vermont don't have giant hail or tornadoes as frequently as other places in the nation. But it can still happen. Plus, you might be driving somewhere else when this kind of weather happens.

Please don't be a jerk, and kill or hurt someone by parking beneath an overpass. I do think there's sometimes such a a thing as karma. If you look at it that way, the life you save might be your own.

Here's a harrowing video taken several years ago after an Oklahoma tornado hit an overpass where cars had parked beneath. One person died and several were injured:

Odd Midwest Tornado Outbreak Creates Havoc, Damage

Massive tornado approaching Taylerville, Illinois
Saturday evening. Photo by Robert Wolfe.

UPDATE: DECEMBER 4:

This proved to be the largest December Illinois on record. So far, they've counted 26 tornadoes in Illinois on December 1, beating the previous December record of 21 set in 1957. Shout out to Mike Bettes at the Weather Channel for pointing this out.

The National Weather Service in Springfield, Illinois said Saturday's outbreak was the third largest tornado outbreak for any month of the year.

Tornadoes in Illinois are much more of a springtime type of event. The largest Illinois tornado outbreak had 39 of them on April 16, 1996. There were 32 twisters in Illinois on April 2, 2006.

The worst tornado, the one I describe in my pre-updated post, below, was an EF3 with winds of up to 155 mph. It was up to a half mile wide and stay on the ground for nearly 13 miles.

It thankfully killed nobody, but left 22 injured, destroyed 34 homes, left 66 homes too damaged to inhabit, and left another 406 homes damaged but inhabitable. says the Springfield NWS.  

On Sunday, the severe weather continued, this time in the Southeast. One twister tore through King's Bay Naval Base in Georgia, causing relatively minor injuries to five people and leaving a trail of damage.

It surprisingly hasn't been a particularly busy end of year tornado period. There were 42 tornado reports in November in the United States, which isn't far from average. We're up to about 30 so far in this young December month. If we don't get many more twisters before the end of the year, December, too, will come out pretty close to normal in the tornado department.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Over the past two days, a rather out of season tornado outbreak has been causing big trouble from Oklahoma to Illinois to Georgia.

A strong, sprawling storm in the middle of the country is to blame.

Friday, the first day of the tornadoes wasn't much of a surprise. Forecasters had alerted people days in advance that eastern Oklahoma, Arkansas and southern Missouri were under the gun. And these regions indeed got hit Friday.

One person died Friday night in a Missouri tornado, and another twister that might have tracked for as long as 60 miles through eastern Oklahoma caused a lot of damage, especially around Lake Tenkiller.

Saturday was more of a surprise. We knew there was the risk of severe storms and possible tornadoes in Illinois on Saturday. but things got out of control beyond what most people imagined.

So far there have been 22 reports of tornadoes in Illinois. Most of those tornadoes came from three or four supercell thunderstorms that kept dropping twister.

An especially strong one smashed the Illinois town of Taylorville, population approximately 11,000. Meteorologists watched in horror as radar indicated a strong tornado heading toward that town for as much as an hour before hitting. Everyone hoped it would weaken, but it didn't.

At least Taylorville residents got plenty of warning. The National Weather Service in Lincoln, Illinois  issued a tornado warning for the Taylorville area 42 minutes before the twister struck.

Another tornado spinning in Illinois yesterday.

Despite extensive damage to more than 100 homes, there were no deaths reported. About thirty people were injured.

Not necessarily fun fact: The high school sports teams in this town are the Taylorville Tornadoes.

The supercell responsible for this tornado lasted a long time, starting east of St. Louis and ending east of Bloomington, Illinois, a distance of 140 miles. As noted, this storm kept spitting out tornadoes along its path.

This morning, tornado warnings went up in parts of southern Georgia.

Tornado outbreaks do happen from time to time this time of year, if there's a strong enough parent storm system, as there was over the past couple of days.  It's a pretty odd to have such powerful tornadoes go as far north as central Illinois in early December, but it's not completely unprecedented.

Tornadoes have touched down as far north as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts in past Decembers. However most twisters in the final month of the year are confined to near the Gulf Coast and lower Mississippi Valley.

One ingredient for tornadoes is warm, humid air, which is something of a rarity during the first month of winter.

Tornadoes are especially dangerous this time of year because people tend not to expect them. Plus, they're more likely to happen in darkness, since days are so short. People might not be aware of a twister approaching under cover of darkness.

After today, tornadoes seem unlikely in the United States until at least next Saturday, when a new storm along the Gulf Coast might create some Deep South severe weather.

Hurricane Michael A Big Threat To Florida Panhandle

Here's the projected path of soon-to-be Hurricane Michael
at least as of this morning. 

UPDATE 11 AM MONDAY

The National Hurricane Center says Michael, as expected, is now a hurricane. The 11 a.m. update has it at 75 mph.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

OK, the headline in this post is temporarily inaccurate.

As of this writing early Monday morning, Tropical Storm Michael was not yet a hurricane. But it extremely likely will be by later today, and it's a big threat to the Florida Panhandle.

This storm developed more quickly and more robustly than expected. Early yesterday morning it was a sloppy mess of a tropical depression, with top winds of just 30 mph. Yawn.

Forecasters thought at first it wouldn't strenghten too quickly, because upper level winds were preventing it from organizing. They figured it would get into the Gulf of Mexico, then rev up.

Nope, by the end of the day Sunday, Tropical Storm Michael had top winds of 60 mph, despite the high upper level winds, called wind shear, that were trying to rip the storm apart.

By this morning, top winds in Michael had increased to 70 mph. As Michael moves north into the Gulf of Mexico, the wind shear is expected to lessen, and the storm will be moving over very warm water.

That's a recipe for a very fast increase in intensity, and Michael could be a very dangerous hurricane by the time it reaches the Florida Panhandle late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning. By this time it could be a Category 2 or 3 hurricane, with top sustained winds of 110 to 125 mph.

All that said, meteorologists and hurricane experts have gotten a lot better in recent years in predicting the track of hurricanes, but not so good at predicting a hurricane's strength.

That's not a slap or insult at the National Hurricane Center or any other meterologist. It's just that the science isn't there yet. We humans have not completely figured out the ins and outs of why or when a hurricane will strengthen or weaken.

All this means is that people in the Florida Panhandle can expect anything from a gusty storm that causes some damage to a hurricane with major damage.

The hurricane will move inland and the winds will quickly weaken during the day Thursday. It will move through the southeast, and go over or near the flood disaster zone in the Carolinas, left behind by Hurricane Florence.

Michael, or its remains will dump heavy rain on the Carolinas, which of course is really bad. The good news is that Michael, unlike stalled Florence, will zip right through, so it won't have the opportunity to dump heavy rain over the course of many days. It will pour during many hours, just not many days.

By the way, Michael won't affect us here in Vermont. It will be too far south. It'll rain here Thursday, but that will be because a cold front will be approaching, then passing through.

REMEMBER HURRICANE LESLIE?

Way back at the end of September, one of my blog posts mentioned the formation of Hurricane Leslie, way out over the central Atlantic.

Believe it or not, all this time later, Leslie is still there, alternating between tropical storm force and hurricane force, as its top winds fluctuated above and below 75 mph. Right now it's a tropical storm, with top winds of around 50 mph

It looks like Leslie will finally get moving, moving southeast, then east, then northeast across the central and eastern Atlantic Ocean.  It was over cool-ish waters this morning, which is preventing it from getting stronger, but soon it will move over warmer waters, and the National Hurricane Center thinks Leslie will become a hurricane again. 

Leslie could threaten Portugal and Spain toward next weekend. By then, Leslie will likely be converting itselt from a hurricane to a regular storm, albeit a strong and windy one. That's something those two countries need to keep an eye on.

HURRICANE SERGIO'S WET U-TURN

Meanwhile, out in the eastern Pacific Ocean, Hurricane Sergio last week was heading harmlessly westward, where it would have encountered colder water and died. But then it did a U-Turn, and is heading toward Baja California.

It will have greatly weakened by the time it gets there, but it will probably end of pushing another surge of very odd, wet weather into the Desert Southwest.

That's bad, because the remains of Hurricane Rose set up lots of flash flooding in that region last week, especially in Arizona.

The Southwestern deserts are now oddly wet, so Sergio could set them up for a lot more flooding. Stay tuned on that one.

SPEAKING OF FLOODING....

There's a big risk of flash flooding today and tomorrow in a broad swath in the middle of the nation from western and central Texas all the way up to southern Minnesota and Wisconsin.

A nearlh stalled weather front is dumping heavy rain in the region. Today, the biggest threat of flash flooding is in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, where the National Weather Service says there is a high risk of possibly life threatening flash flooding.

This region has been plagued by heavy rain for many weeks, and there have been repeated flash flood. This could be the worst round het in the three states I mentioned. We'll follow the news today and tomorrow to see where this goes.

Oklahoma Wildfires Are Becoming An Ugly Pattern

A wildfire explodes viciously as it encounters parched eastern redcedar durimg
devastating Oklahoma wildfires this past week.
Photo by Alan Broerse. 

Oklahoma never used to be famous for earthquakes and wildfires.

That's California's job.

People associate Oklahoma with tornadoes, and they still happen there very frequently. (That said there has so far been a real dearth of Oklahoma tornadoes this year.)

But earthquakes, and now wildfires are very Oklahoman, and it's pretty easy to blame the fossil fuel industry, which is such a large part of the Oklahoma economy. Especially the earthquakes, though the wildfires might just be tangentally related to the fossil fuel industry.

Oklahoma is now the most earthquake prone state in the United States. Most of them are caused by wastewater disposal. Oil is extracted from the ground, but a lot of is mixed with briny water. The water needs to be disposed of, so it's injected well below the earth's surface, below the aquafers so drinking water won't be contaminated. This causes earthquakes.

But this is a weather and climate blog, and we're really here to talk about wildfires. This is the third year in a row Oklahoma has had devastating wildfires, and this year appears to be the worst.

At least two people have died in the wildfires over the past week or so and dozens of homes have been destroyed.  One fire in Oklahoma had burned 440 square miles and was only 15 percent contained as of Thursday morning.

There was at least some temporary relief Friday and Friday night for Oklahoma: Numerous showers and thunderstorms dumped some fairly decent rains on the worst of the fire zone. And some more showers are in the forecast this week. But the damage is really done. And extreme.

So what's the deal with all these Oklahoma wildfires over the past three years?

Bob Henson in his Category 6 blog has a great overview of what's been happening.

In the late winter and early spring, strong, dry winds often blow in from the west. The winds warm up and often become hot once they get down the slopes of the eastern Rockies, so it's basically a blowtorch by the time you get to Oklahoma.

Relative humidities can often drop into the single digits during these episodes and winds can gust to between 40 and 60 mph, or even more in some instances.

These hot, dry early spring winds aren't new to Oklahoma, and they have always spawned wildfires.

In recent years, though, droughts have gotten extraordinarily bad, particularly in western Oklahoma and northwestern Texas.

Mixed in with these droughts have been extraordinarily wet periods, which encourages vegetation to grow vigorously. For instance, 2015 was a record wet year, and it was warm. Things grew well into the late fall, so there's lots of extra grasses, shrubs and whatnot out there.

Then there was a flash drought in early 2016, and a lot of that extra vegetation went up in flames. This boom/bust cycle of heavy rain and drought has continued. This feast and famine regime could be related to climate change, so there's your fossil fuel link to this wildfire story.

Then there's shrubby tree called the eastern redcedar. It's a tree-sized juniper that you commonly see in the Plains. (I see a lot of them when I visit my in-laws in South Dakota, for instance.)

Before Europeans came into the picture a zillion years ago, lightning or fires set by Native Americans meant the eastern redcedars only lived in small canyons, ravines and outcroppings.

Now, eastern redcedars are spreading super fast across the Oklahoma landscape. Cedar smells great, doesn't it? But the oils that cause that nice aroma turn the trees into firebombs when it gets dry. Basically throw flammable oil on a discarded Christmas tree and thats what you get when eastern redcedars get hit by wildfires.

Instead of low flames skittering across open grasslands, you get the wildfires hitting groves of these trees, creating hot, big, explosive flames that are extremely dangerous, and more likely to set nearby homes and other structures on fire.

Bottom line: The past three years might be a fluke in Oklahoma wildfire history. But the real fear is that this could be a tragic, dangerous new normal for the Sooner State.

April Winter Goes On And On (But A Glimmer Of Hope?)

As I write this at mid-morning today, it is snowing again outside my window in St. Albans, Vermont.

Despite lingering snow on the ground and falling snow, these plants
in my St. Albans, Vermont perennial bed are giving it the old
spring college try. 

Granted, it's not really sticking, but come on! It's April 17! And this is the fourth day in a row we've had some sort of frozen precipitation.  

Plus it's incredibly soggy out there, too. In most of northern Vermont, we've had more than two inches of rain and melted snow and ice over the past six days. And it's still coming down, albeit lightly at the moment.

It's interesting that atop Mount Mansfield, snow cover has actually increased a little since the first of the month, and it will increase more this week.

On April 1, there was 80 inches of snow up there. As of yesterday, there was 88 inches. Normally, the snow cover on Mount Mansfield would be shrinking at a pretty good clip at this point.

At least yesterday's wind along the western slopes of the Green Mountains wasn't as bad as it could have been. Peak gusts reported include 72 mph in Wells, 65 mph at Breadloaf, east of Middlebury and 64 mph in Mendon. Pleasant Valley, northeast of Underhill clocked in at 59 mph.

As of mid-morning, about 1,400 homes and businesses still had no power. Not as bad or widespread as the April 4 windstorm, which is good.

Today, we'll continue on with the cold rain and wet snow, which will accumulate some in the higher elevations.

Rain and snow showers will be more scattered and lighter across Vermont Wednesday than they are today, so I guess that's a break. I suppose.

NEXT WEATHER MAKER

This week, a new storm is creating much of the same coast to coast weather misery as the last one. Just not nearly as extreme as last week, with the exception of Texas and Oklahoma and that neck of the woods. There, wildfires, already fatal and bad, will probably get even more extreme today.

Another storm, certainly weaker than the last one, is taking a somewhat similar path as the epic one the nation just had. It's coming off the lee of the Rockies in Colorado, and will trudge across the Midwest and into New England by Thursday.

Like the last storm, it's pulling extremely dry and windy air into the Southwest, where the fire danger is once again extreme today. Many of the wildfires that started out there Thursday and Friday aren't even out yet. New ones will start today, so this is awful.

Two people have already died in the fires, and there's fear today could bring more.

Next the storm goes out in the Midwest, where it collect more moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and will drop the wetness, as yes, snow in those hard hit areas out there.

Incredibly deep snow drifts in the Upper Penninula of
Michigan this weekend. 

Can we just say how incredible the snow has been out there in South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan this month?

And it's sticking around, since this area has also had easily its coldest first half of April on record.  

Green Bay, Wisconsin got two feet of snow in that last storm. Amherst, Wisconsin got 33 inches.

In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 24.9 inches of snow has fallen so far this month, making it easily the snowiest April on record. And Sioux Falls is in for two or three more inches of snow tonight and Wednesday with this latest storm.

Winter weather advisories and winter storm warnings are again flying in eastern South Dakota, northern Iowa and southern Minnesota. Parts of far northern Iowa and far southern Minnesota could get eight or more inches of snow out of this.

NEXT STORM'S EFFECTS ON VERMONT

That new snowstorm from the Plains will get here on Thursday, ensuring we get a continuation of the cold wet, dreary and snowy weather we've been seeing in Vermont for all too long in April.

Originally I was thinking there would hardly be any snow coming with Thursday's system, but of course, we must get the snow, and snow we'll get!

The early thinking from the National Weather Service in South Burlington is three to five inches in the mountains and a dusting to an inch in the valleys. Most of the valley snow would come Thursday night.

Conditions should slowly improve Friday and Saturday

GLIMMER OF HOPE?

Long range forecasts are hinting at possibly warmer
than normal temperatures in the Northern Plains
and Northern New England during the closing
days of April. 

There are signs that the weather pattern is about to change somewhat, giving everybody something of a break. It'll start in the Texas and Oklahoma fire zones on Thursday, when highly welcome showers and thunderstorms are forecast.

Things will dry out and warm up in the Dakotas and Minnesota, too, so the snow will finally melt there, too.  

Finally, the weather looks like it will turn drier and sunnier with temperatures much closer to normal levels starting Sunday (Highs in the 50s. )

Despite the cold and the snow, spring is chomping at the bit. Grass is starting to green up, and against all odds, some of the daffodil and hyacinth plants in my yard have grown a bit. Lilac buds were encased in ice yesterday, but they made it through like troupers.

The warmer weather next week will surely accelerate the long-awaiting spring greening we've been pining for.

Turns Out Dangerous High Winds Will Be Worst Part Of Vermont Wintry Storm

Midwinter conditions: I took this photo of my St. Albans, Vermont
yard today, April 15. I swear I did not take this image on
January 15, but it sure looks like it. 

Well, this sucks.

On this Sunday morning, we're still stuck here in frigid temperatures - in the 20s. Most of us are getting light snow, sleet and freezing rain, and that state of affairs should continue all day.

Temperatures which should be in the 50s by afternoon will stay stuck remarkably below freezing all day.

Some parts of far northern Vermont will have close to 48 hours of continuously below freezing temperatures before this is over -- in April!  

I guess I try to console myself by saying it's worse elsewhere and it is (I've got news and video at the bottom of this post to prove it. You'll want to take a look.. However, it's not much worse elsewhere than it is here in Vermont, I'm afraid.

Still, we don't have all that much ice on the trees. At least not yet. And snowfall has been relatively light. Most areas in the north received 2.5 inches of snow and sleet or less. Here in St. Albans, I was at an even two inches as of 7:30 this morning

Today, precipitation won't come down particularly hard, and might stop altogether for some brief periods. But it'll all be snow, sleet and freezing rain, with less snow and more freezing rain by afternoon.

More occasional freezing rain, possibly turning into a cold rain later on, should continue tonight.

However the worst is not here yet. It turns out the worst isn't going to be ice or snow or flooding. It looks like high winds will be the most dangerous and destructive aspect of this storm. 

DANGEROUS WINDS MONDAY

Things are coming together to produce a destructive high wind event, mostly along the western slopes of the Green Mountains. This one could turn out to be as dangerous and damaging as the epic wind storm last October, and the extreme nor'easter winds that trashed Rutland and surrounding areas in April, 2007.

The wind direction, the pressure gradient between the storm approaching from the Ohio Valley and that frigid high pressure system in Canada that has been torturing us this weekend looks like they might come together perfectly to create very strong downslope winds Monday along the western slopes of the Greens.

There's danger anywhere in that range Monday from east of Bennington to northeast of St. Albans. At this point, the National Weather Service in South Burlington is saying the worst of the wind might end up in eastern Rutland and Addison counties, where winds in some spots could gust to 75 mph. 

Elsewhere along the western slopes in Vermont, winds could gust to 60 mph or higher. There are also signs that some gusts could "bounce" further west into western Vermont. That's what happened in 2007 in Rutland, when those downslope winds extended westward into the city's downtown, which caused a LOT of damage.

This also happened last October, when those winds extended westward, especially into places like Colchester, Milton and Georgia, where there was a lot of tree and structural damage.

There's no guarantee these winds will extend into more populated areas, but it's something to watch.

A couple of other things that are expected to make this wind storm even more dangerous than it otherwise would be: The soil is saturated, and thus softer, making it easier for winds to push over trees. (The soil didn't freeze in this snow and cold snap, or if it did, only the top inch or so is frozen, so that doesn't make much of a difference.)

Also, there might also still be ice clinging to the trees in some areas when the wind gets cranking, making it all the more likely they'll topple in gusts.

If you live along the western slopes of the Green Mountains, definitely get your flashlights and your LED candles ready. And charge up your devices. I guarantee power failures on Monday.

I would also repeat that the wind could get strong enough to cause scattered power failures and tree damage away from the western slopes of the Green Mountains, too.

If there's any good news in this awful weather and awful forecast, it's that it looks like the flood threat on Monday is definitely diminished. So much so that the National Weather Service has dropped the flood watch.

It won't rain as hard as originally anticipated on Monday and Monday night. Plus, it won't get as warm as originally forecast. And what warming we do get was originally scheduled to start coming in today, but has now been postponed until Monday.

That means less runoff from melting snow and ice, so rivers won't rise so much. There might be localized minor flooding, but it won't be that huge a deal.

LOOKING AHEAD

If you want full-blown spring here in Vermont, keep waiting. It's going to be awhile. That said, things will get better than they have been this weekend. Temperatures will still stay a little colder than normal all of this upcoming week, but it won't feel like mid-winter. Maybe like March, with highs mostly in the 40s most days.

It'll stay unsettled with scattered rain and mostly mountain snow showers Tuesday and to a somewhat lesser extent Wednesday. It looks like another storm is coming in Thursday or Friday, but it's unclear at this point if we'll get a lot or a little precipitation out of that one.

The good news is it looks like whatever comes Thursday and Friday will be mostly or exclusively in the form of rain and not ice and snow.

Unfortunately, at the moment I'm not finding many hints of any springtime warmth of note in any of the long range forecasts

MISERY ELSEWHERE IN U.S., CANADA

The blizzard in the northern Plains and into the western Great Lakes area is finally beginning to diminish today.

Tornado damage in Meridian, Mississippi on Saturday.
Photo by Paula Merrit/Meridian Star

There have been some incredible snow totals out there, especially for mid-April, and in some areas it's still snowing.

Some examples so far: Tiverton, Wisconsin got 24.` inches of snow. An even 20 inches came down in Okreek and Winner, South Dakota. Canby, Minnesota got 19 inches.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota got 13.7 inches of snow Saturday, it's snowiest April day on record. So far this month in Sioux Falls, they've had 24.9 inches of snow, making this by far the snowiest April on record there.

Minneapolis got 11 inches of snow through midnight Saturday, bringing this month's total to 22.5 inches, to create that city's snowiest April, breaking the old record set in 1983. It was still snowing in Minneapolis this morning.

Between the heavy snow and winds gusting past 50 mph, many Interstate and other highways were shut down in the region Saturday.

Meanwhile, freezing rain was causing car crashes and power outages around Toronto, Ontario, Canada and in western New York.

In Oklahoma, wildfires have killed two people and burned over 366,000 acres. Wildfires there spread as fast as a mile every ten minutes. Several homes were destroyed by wildfires in Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.

Winds have calmed down out there temporarily, but very high fire danger is expected to resume Monday and Tuesday.

Severe storms and tornadoes continued in the South Saturday, with one tornado in particular causing a lot of damage around Meridian, Mississippi. (one of the videos below shows it.) Today, severe weather and possible tornadoes could develop in the Southeast, especially in the Carolinas.

Some videos now.

We'll start with a couple of moments of tornado drama. The first was a giddy guy being way too close to an Arkansas tornado on Friday.




Next, we have some people in a house in Meridian, Mississippi as things get bad in a hurry as a tornado comes over. Pretty terrifying!



Here's a news clip of lovely blizzard weather in Nebraska: