Not Just Vermont: U.S. Dry Areas Drying Out More

Yes, it's dry and getting drier up here in Vermont, but a "flash drought"
is enveloping pars of the United States Southwest

When dry conditions develop in the summer in any given location, they tend to persist as rain storms just seem to go around parched areas.

That's what seems to be happening now in some areas of the nation.

It's dry in Vermont now, but it's nothing like what's going on in parts of Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, southern Utah and Arizona.  

As the Weather Channel reports, that area is experiencing a flash drought, a spell of dangerously dry weather that develops quickly, over days and weeks, as opposed to months and years like most droughts.

The culprit there is - of course - a lack of rain.  However, the weather pattern has brought a few weeks of very hot and windy weather in that region.  Such weather dries the ground out quickly, which is why the drought has developed so rapidly.

This week's weather forecast for the area around west Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado is bad: Lots of dry, hot air and lots of wind.  The wind is striking because winds tend to be lighter once we exit spring and go into summer.

Not surprisingly, given the conditions, there's a big risk of fire this weekend, and beyond, especially in parts of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and some of the high Plains of western Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Already, a wildfire near Tucson, Arizona has forced evacuations of some neighborhoods in the foothills of nearby mountains.

Here in Vermont, things aren't nearly so dire, but as noted yesterday, we're continuing to watch the increasingly dry conditions here.

That rain Thursday temporarily helped in some areas, but the forecast for the North Country is bad if you want moisture for your gardens and farm fields. (Though I admit the forecast for several days in a  row of dry weather is great for farmers who are haying).

There are some inconsequential sprinkles around today.  And it might have snowed a bit atop Mount Mansfield.   I know that at one point this morning, it was 34 degrees up there and some sort of light precipitation was falling.  Weather radar also indicated snowflakes landing on the High Peak summits of the Adirondacks this morning.

In any event, after today, there is currently no precipitation in Vermont's forecast at least into Friday.  High pressure will park itself over northern New England and southern Quebec.  A dramatic warming trend between now and midweek will help evaporation increase - further drying out our surroundings.

We're now into the longest days of the year, which gives the sun all the more time to dry things out as well.

Beyond Friday, we see hints of precipitation moving in, but it's way too early to tell if that will actually materialize.

Time to maybe start doing rain dances?

Tropical Storm Cindy Drowns Gulf Coast; Southwest Bakes Enough To Cancel Flights

Tropical Storm Cindy and the Southwest heat wave are the big news stories of the day, so we'll get right into those: 

Ragged but very, very wet Tropical Storm Cindy in the
Gulf of Mexico this morning.

CINDY:

Tropical Storm Cindy, as anticipated, formed yesterday in the Gulf of Mexico, and it is already drowning parts of the South in way, way too much rain.

The storm doesn't even look like a classic tropical storm, and although highest sustained winds with this thing were 60 mph early this morning, the wind isn't the big issue with Cindy.

It fact, those winds will probably diminish some by the time it makes landfall tomorrow morning.

However, Cindy is bringing immense boatloads of moisture onshore. The storm could dump up to a foot of rain in a zone between Louisiana and the Florida panhandle. This would cause horrible flooding, as you can imagine.

Especially since that area has had a super wet June already.

Later this week, the remnants of Cindy will move over the area around Tennessee and then toward North Carolina and Virginia, continuing the threat of very bad flooding in those regions.

For my local readers wondering if Cindy will have any local impacts on Vermont, the answer is, not really.

A cold front coming in Friday looks like it will want to scoop up some moisture from Cindy, which means some of the thunderstorms with the cold front could produce heavy rain. But the storms will likely move along too fast to produce any widespread flash flooding.

HEAT WAVE

That long anticipated heat wave in the Southwest hit its stride on Tuesday. Las Vegas, Nevada tied the record for its all time hottest temperature, at 117 degrees.

Also, as the Weather Channel reports, Needles, California ties its all time high temperature record with an, um, balmy 125 degrees.

Fun fact: The Peanuts character Snoopy had a brother named Spike who lived in Needles. If Spike were real, I'd hope someone would have taken him to an air conditioned place.

It could have been worse for Spike: Death Valley reached 127 degrees Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Tucson just missed its all time high temperature by one degree, as it reached 116 degrees there. Phoenix set a record high for the date with a toasty 119 degrees.

Several flights out of Phoenix were canceled because some planes can't take off in such conditions. Hot air is thinner, so they need more speed to take off, thus more runway space, which isn't always available.

As for us here in Vermont, no, the heat out west isn't going to trek across the nation and affect us. Expect near normal temperatures for this time of year during the next few days.

More Weather Trouble Spots Coming: New England Storms, Southwest Floods, Great Plains Freeze?

Some severe storms are likely in southern New
England Saturday. We hope they won't be as
bad as the tornado in Revere, Mass in July.
(Aftermath of that storm pictured here)  

The nation's ever-active weather keeps giving us more and more to talk about, with tricky, challenging forecasts and some pretty big extremes.

Here's the highlights:

New England Storms:

Scattered severe storms will hit parts of Indiana, Ohio and Michigan today ahead of a cold front. But I think the real show with these storms could hit on Saturday in the Northeast.

It's unusually hot in New England today, with temperatures flirting with 90 degrees, with high humidity. An autumnal cold front is slowly coming in, and the mix will help create some severe storms on Saturday.

The Storm Prediction Center has got a slight risk of severe storms over all but far northwestern New England on Saturday.

However, I think a bullseye for bad storms will extend from the New York metro area, through Connecticut, most of Massachusetts, maybe the southeast corner of Vermont, and on into New Hampshire and Maine.

In those places, strong wind gusts will be fairly common during the storms. There will be some large hail, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear a report or two of fairly brief tornadoes in the region I outlined.

It's odd, but the Northeast seems to be having more tornadoes this year than Oklahoma, in the heart of tornado alley. There have been at least six confirmed tornadoes in New England so far this year. (None so far in Vermont, though) Oklahoma has had only 14, near the lowest on record for them.

On Saturday, the rough weather will go off the coast during the evening, and Sunday will end up sunny and cooler

Southwest

In the Desert Southwest, which has actually been undesert-like this summer with frequent monsoon storms and flash floods, they're under the gun again.

Flash flooding invades Interstate 17 in Arizona
last month. More flash flooding in the Desert
Southwest is likely this weekend.  

Hurricane Norbert could cause some big problems in parts of Arizona and New Mexico, and maybe into southern Nevada this weekend.

No, the deserts aren't going to have a hurricane. Norbert was off Baja California Friday morning and will weaken and fall apart as it moves north into cooler water.

The storm will never make landfall. But moisture from the storms could move into the Southwest, dumping many inches of rain on some towns.

Look for a lot of flash flooding in that neck of the woods. It would be nice if some of Norbert's moisture would make it into California, but that's iffy, especially in the populated areas closer to the coast.  But any rain will help there.

Great Plains Cold

Long range computer models are predicting a nasty outbreak of cold weather in the Great Plains and parts of the Great Lakes next week? Sound familiar. That region has had more than its share of epic cold snaps since last winter. It even got chilly at times in July, thanks to a huge dip in the jet stream that keeps reasserting itself in that neck of the woods.

This time, it could get cold enough in a broad area from the Dakotas to Michigan so that frost could be a problem. Stay tuned.

Western heat:

With the dip in the jet stream in the Midwest, that big ridge of hot, dry air will reassert itself over the West Coast. That means more near record heat, and continued intensification of the drought out that way.

The ridge, or "ridiculously resilient ridge" as it's been dubbed, has pretty much been there in various degrees of strength for a couple years now.  Experts are investigating whether this remarkably stuck weather pattern, the western ridge, the Midwest dip, is linked to climate change.