Matt's Weather Rapport is written by Vermont-based journalist and weather reporter Matt Sutkoski. This blog has a nationwide and worldwide focus, with particular interest in Vermont and the Northeast. Look to Matt's Weather Rapport for expert analysis of weather events, news, the latest on climate change science, fun stuff, and wild photos and videos of big weather events. Also check for my frequent quick weather updates on Twitter, @mattalltradesb
Haile remained piled up in Sanford, Maine after Tuesday morning's
intense hail storm.
I'm sure there are plenty of residents around eastern Vermont, New Hampshire and western Maine trying to restore washed out driveways and damp basements in the wake of yesterday's flash flooding.
There is a fair amount of damage here and there, but it could have been worse, considering how hard the rain came down. It seems like it let up just in time to prevent any kind of catastrophe.
Still, water flowed into two operating rooms at a hospital in Woodsville, New Hampshire, forcing the cancelation of two surgeries. Several roads in that area were closed by flooding.
In Vermont, storm reports include an eight by six foot section of road washed out in East Cabot, and another washed out road near St. Johnsbury. St. Johnsbury itselt reported 1.83 inches of rain Tuesday. In Bradford, Vermont, about 3.5 inches of rain fell in less than six hours.
A couple videos of the Maine hail storm at the bottom of this post.
In northwestern Vermont, the anti-rain force field held, as usual. Not a drop of rain fell here in St. Albans, and just a trace was reported in Burlington.
The next shot of rain comes Thursday night as a weather front approaches from the west, then kind of washes out over or just past us. It still has enough oomph to give us at least a shot of some showers and scattered thunder Thursday night and Friday.
Videos:
Here's what the hail storm looked like in Biddeford, Maine:
A drive through the part of Maine that got hit by that hail storm. Notice the ice accumulation and hail fog. This dense fog often forms right after a hail storm as the hail cools the humid post-storm air near the ground.
The morning after: A man stands amid hail drifts in front of a
Calgary home seriously damaged by hail/. Photo by
Jim Wells/Post Media
Yes, I understand Calgary, Canada is a long way away and I've already brought up in a previous post the massive hail storm and flash flood they had there this past Saturday.
I'm still wowed by the photos and videos that came out of that storm, so I'll share a couple here. It's a relatively slow weather news day anyway.
Videos are at the bottom of this post.
Damages from the storm could run to near $1 billion dollars, that's billion with a "b" So it was a huge disaster by any measure.
The Calgary Sun saystens of thousands of homes were damaged in the storm. Pretty much every car not inside a garage in the northeastern part of the city was totaled.
"I would be very shocked if this isn't a top-five insurable cost event in the history of Canada," Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said. It's certainly the worst damage the city of Calgary has seen from a single storm.
I think the flooding was made worse by the hail. The ice, and leaves shredded by the hail, clogged catch basins.
Hail storms can be among the costliest weather disasterspossible. They cover bigger areas than a tornado would. If they hit an urban area, they might not destroy many buildings, but thousands of structures end up with damage, sometimes severe. Thousands of cars are usually wrecked, too.
Some examples of costly U.S. hail storms include a Phoenix, Arizona area hailstorm in 2010 that tcaused $2.8 billion in damage and a St. Louis area hail storm that cost $2.2 billion.
Hail and severe thunderstorms are common in and around Calgary but this was a whole new level.
More videos:
Here's a damage video taken the morning after the storm. Note how much hail is left on the ground surrounding the destroyed cars and heavily damaged houses:
Lots of hail and hail damage last evening in Calgary, Canada. Note the siding damage in the house across the street. Photo by Cadenza Langan, via CBC
Imagine a quiet Saturday evening in your home.
Then imagine a storm destroying your car, breaking your windows and making mincemeat of your house siding all within a half hour.
That's what happened in Calgary, Alberta, Canada Saturday evening, when a storm, severe even by their standards, surely caused millions of dollars in damage. The main show with this event was just an incredible artillary battery of hail.
The area around Calgary, Canada is no stranger to severe thunderstorms and tornadoes.
It's kind of a northern version of Denver, where severe storms develop along the Front Range of the Rockies when winds blow uphill from the east, giving a boost to the storms.
Calgary's topography is similar, so they can have destructive storms, too.
But this was one for the record books. Also the location this time was bad. There are wide open plains in much of Alberta, and these storms often hit sparsely populated areas, so there's no great harm.
Calgary, however, has a population of 1.3 million, so there's plenty of homes, businesses, cars and other property that hail and flooding can target, if the storms roll over the city and not a few miles out into the Plains.
One of the many homes damaged by hail Saturday in Calgary, Canada. Photo by Khalid Mahmood
Which is what happened Saturday. Not all the city was wrecked, but a good chunk of the northeastern part of Calgary was certainly smashed.
The wind driven hail, some golf ball sized or even tennis ball sized, came down in such density and force that it destroyed a huge number of cars, ripped the siding off countless homes and shattered many windows in some neighborhoods.
We don't have an estimate in the amount of damage yet.
Nearly 2 inches of rain mixed with the hail came down in just one hour, adding some damaging flash flooding to the hail wreckage.
Here are some videos from Calgary
This compilation shows a remarkable shot of large hailstones pounding cars in a badly flooded parking lot:
Aftermath video shows severe damage to siding and windows in a residential neighborhood:
More damage and wrecked plants and gardens in Calgary:
Springtime killed. Amid a dusting of snow, the sagging blooms and the dark color leaves on these daffodils in my yard indicate they might have been destroyed by the frigid temperatures. Photo was taken while temperatures were still well below freezing. The damage will probably be more apparent later.
In the grand scheme of things, the losses and potential losses I found outside my house in St. Albans, Vermont this morning were pretty small.
But they were still disheartening.
I kind of expected it, but it was a shame to see the daffodils and other plants and flowers that had been coming up likely ruined by the intense cold from last night.
If any of them survived, they won't tonight as temperatures are likely to be in even colder tonight. I'll know at the end of the week what, if anything, survived. I have a feeling I won't even get to enjoy lilacs this year. Those buds could be damaged, too.
Who knows? Maybe most of the plants will recover. But I'm not optimistic at this point.
Amid everything that has been going on, it was nice to get some peace in my gardens from the early season blooms. Now those are gone, at least for now. So that was taken from me. Everything had been coming up, so I don't know what kind of flowers and blooms I get later in the spring or summer.
Well, there's always next year.
As if to add insult to injury, as I started to write this, snow began to briefly fall pretty heavily. The sickening winter sound of a snow plow scraping by bothered me, too. There's not much snow, but it's blowing around and making the roads slick. It's not the usual April wet snow. It's powdery. Roads are frozen. Like January. Ugh.
At last check it was 18 degrees up in Saranac Lake, New York. The "warmest" parts of Vermont were in the upper 20s early this morning. Snow covered the ground across most of northern Vermont, and I'm sure gardeners statewide found the same depressing sight out their doors that I did this morning.
Tonight, Vermont is in for record or near record cold. The record low tomorrow morning in Burlington is 23 degrees and in Montpelier it's 21 degrees. Those records are in jeopardy. Some areas of the Northeast Kingdom will probably be in the mid-teens tonight. A few places up there might not even get above freezing today.
Again, my "suffering" isn't that at all. Just a little disappointment. But you can't help but think the weather has gotten pretty mean-spirited.
I can't attribute today's weather to climate change. It could be random, and you really can't take one weather event in one little spot on the globe and point at climate change.
However, in a perverse way, it's consistent with it. We've been warned by scientist - as I recall since the late 1980s at least - we were heading toward a future that was generally warmer, but with a higher risk of sharp day to day jolts in temperatures and weather conditions. We were warned of warmer temperatures interrupted by sharp, damaging cold spells. That future is here.
Like what has been happening in lots of places, increasingly in recent years, things get going early in the spring due to oddly warm temperatures. Then an old fashioned quick freeze comes and ruins everything.
For me this year, it was just a bummer. For many agricultural interests in much of the eastern United States, this will be a disaster at a time they really don't need anothe disaster.
Freeze warnings are upfor a broad area of the Middle Atlantic States, with temperatures likely to reach the 20s as far south as Virginia. Orchards and early crops in this region are in big trouble.
SEVERE STORMS
Gigantic hailstones came down overnight near Devol, Oklahoma. Photo via Twitter/KOCO
And, as I've mentioned practically every day this month, severe storms keep rolling on. Here's the latest update.
Those severe storms in the Middle Atlantic States certainly materialized. Though tornadoes were not expected, one might have hit Toms River, on the Jersey shore. There's a lot of damage to trees and some houses, there, so the weather folks will probably investigate that today.
There was a tornado warning at one point for pretty intense rotation on the Bronx/Yonkers border yesterday afternoon, ut I don't know if anything actually touched down.
Yesterday, overnight and this morning, large hail, sometimes baseball sized, pelted parts of Oklahoma.
Tornadoes are in the forecast today for a broad area centered on where Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana meet. The tornado threat will spread into much of the rest of the Southeast tomorrow.
Back up here in Vermont, we're not expecting any severe weather. The frigid weather is enough, thank you. Although it will warm up somewhat starting tomorrow afternoon, it looks like it's going to stay colder than normal into early May.
If any of our garden plants can grow back, they'll have to wait awhile.
Tornado warnings were already flying this morning in northeastern Texas. This is the beginning of several waves of thunderstorms going across the Deep South this morning.
All of these storms will be dangerous, but forecasters are in particular watching central and southern Mississippi early this afternoon. There, according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center,supercells are expected to develop, the move across Alabama later in the afternoon and Georgia toward evening.
These are the storms that are most likely to set off strong, especially dangerous long lasting tornadoes. It's not certain whether these strong tornadoes will actually happen. But there is that risk.
Amid all this, torrential rains and flooding are a very good bet across much of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. There's going to be a lot of damage and heartache in the South this Easter Sunday, unfortunately.
It's now becoming apparent Monday won't be that much better. The rough weather will have ended in the Deep South, but there will be trouble along the entire East Coast from Maine to Florida.
Severe thunderstorms are likely with a risk of tornadoes, will run from Pennsylvania to Florida, with thehighest risk of stronger, longer lasting twisters in Virginia and the Carolinas, along with southeastern Georgia. There's a chance that some of the Carolina tornadoes could be as bad, or nearly as bad as the ones expected in the Deep South today.
Even in pretty big severe weather outbreaks like this, most people in the affected zone will come out of this fine with little or no property damage. But people need to be weather aware in these zones, so if they are unlucky enough to be in the target of a severe storm or tornado, they can take cover.
In New England, there will be few if any severe thunderstorms, but strong, damaging winds will come through. Wind gusts could easily reach 70 mph in the New York City metro area and in the southern half of New England.
Further west, gusts in the 70 mph range are also expected in western New York. These kinds of winds will bring down lots of trees and power lines in heavily populated areas. There's going to be a lot of power outages, and probably more than a few houses and buildings smushed by falling trees.
Southwest winds will be so strong that Lake Erie will tilt, with water piling up on the northeast corner of the lake near Buffalo. Water levels will fall as much as seven feet on the western end of the lake, and rise by at least five feet near Buffalo. Battering waves will make things worse.
VERMONT IMPACTS
Vermont will be a relative island of calm amid all this but that doesn't mean we'll avoid trouble. While the highest winds will probably go by to our west and east, we will still get strong gusty winds.
Ahead of the powerful storm's strong cold front, gusty south winds will strike especially the Champlain Valley. We'll all get a pretty good slug of rain, with still a risk of some flooding up in the Northeast Kingdom.
When the cold front sweeps through in the afternoon, we'll get heavier, but relatively brief downpours, with maybe some scattered thunderstorms embedded.
The worst winds will come in right after the cold front. In Vermont, many places will have winds gusting to near 50 mph. That's enough to topple some trees, especially since the soil is wet and loose this time of year, and with all the rain expected Monday. Branches and power lines could go, too, so be ready for that!
Things will calm down somewhat by Tuesday. It'll still be kind of windy on Tuesday, but not gusty enough to cause more problems.
Here's a video of the hail in Del Rio, Texas. I like the comment from someone in the video, "Insurance adjusters, beware." Indeed!
Bright sunshine amid falling hail near Portand, Oregon last week You can see it better within the video in this post.
You can hear the woman's voice in this brief video at the bottom of this post.
Yes, everything's normal. We're all under quarantine. It's a beautiful blue sky, sunny day. And it's hailing. Pretty hard.
That's the view in the video, so yeah, things are strange.
Actually, in terms of weather, it was strange, but very, very explainable.
Yes, there were blue skies overhead, but the air was unstable over Portland, Oregon on March 31, when the video was taken. That produced a lot of popcorn type showers in the Portland area. The showers had gaps of blue sky between them. It was a very changeable day.
There was cold air just above the Earth's surface, so it was easy for hail to form. In the video, one of these shower clouds with hail must have just passed nearby, flinging handfuls of hail at this hapless homeowner.
The hailstones weren't big at all, as you can see, and caused little if any damage.
Still fun to watch in these topsy-turvy times. Here it is:
Here in Vermont, several areas reported smaller hail in the storms, mostly pea sized or just marginally bigger. But still, that's impressive for a March thunderstorm.
True to form for New England, not every part of the region had thunderstorms. Western and northern Maine was enduring a winter storm of wet snow and sleet.
Screen grab of lots of lightning activity in New England Sunday evening. Image from lightningmaps.org
The thunderstorms erupted because the strong storm system that was over the Great Lakes Sunday created strong instability. That means temperatures dropped quickly as you went up in elevation, so that allowed air currents to rise into towering clouds that produced thunderstorms.
Additionally, the storm was causing a general lift in the atmosphere anyway, so with all that upward motion in the air, thunderstorms were able to blossom. One key ingredient for thunderstorms is strongly rising air, so there you go.
These were known as elevated storms. There was a thin layer of cool air near the Earth's surface. That's why it was only in the 30s and 40s when the storm rolled through.
But there was a warmer layer above. That warm layer was essentially the base of the storms. Then the air cooled dramatically from that warm layer on upward. That was the instability that helped trigger the thunderstorms.
These storms contrasted with the kinds of thunderstorms we usually get in the summertime, which are commony surface-based, not elevated. Surface based means that the sun has warmed the lowest levels of the atmosphere, where we live. From there rising air currents create thunderstorms without any low level layer of chillier air.
That parent storm system that caused the thunderstorms is still pestering New England today. Here in Vermont, I doubt there will be any thunderstorms, but it will be showery and cool, although this morning will be on the dry side. There migtht be some snow or mixed precipitation way up in the mountains.
On top of everything else, a massive dust storm ripped through parts of southeastern Australia this week.
I"m going to need to re-name this blog, "Australia Weather Rapport" since all the extremes and action, not to mention the politics of weather are happening Down Under.
Sure, those super destructive, super scary bush fires are still a threat. Summer isn't over in Australia yet.
But this week, new extreme weather decided to enter the mix. These included massive dust storms, massive hail storms and some serious flash floods.
No doubt some of the storms were extremely welcome. After all, they doused some of those fires. A win! Yet with all the damage Australia has suffered in the past couple of months, the hail, the wind, the floods, the dust, just added that much more devastation.
Who knows what will happen next in Australia? As the several dramatic videos below show, I'm sure Australians just want their awful summer of 2020 to end.
Here's an overview from The Guardian:
The Australlian Capital of Canberra was especially hard hit with hail as supercell thunderstorms rolled through. Sydney got nailed, too. Here's a News 9 report:
Not a nice day at this Canberra outdoor restaurant:
Aftermath of hail in Canberra makes it look like they were hit by a New England style winter storm:
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Australia, check out this kabob/dust storm in part of New South Wales this week: This wall of dust was reportedly was 180 miles long as it rolled over the region. When the dust storm hit the town of Dubbo, winds reached around 66 mph.
National Weather Service map from Monday afternoon shows a bizarre combinayion of a ice storm warnings (in purple) and a severe thunderstorm warning (in orange). Usually these two warnings are in different seasons, not together on the same day/
Hi, I'm back after a one day hiatus in which I was traveling from the blizzardy snows of South Dakota toward the very weird storminess over New England on Monday.
And what a strange storm it was! I don't see anything the record books in which a nasty winter storm of snow, freezing rain, sleet and wind combined simultaneously with severe thunderstorms with damaging hail.
That was the situation in New England yesterday, folks! There's a couple videos at the bottom of this post.
I'll get into more of that in a minute, but first, we're not even quite done with the storm yet.
This thing was a sprawling mess which kept sprouting new centers and new bouts of rough weather from California to Maine.
The last of these storms is near Downeast Maine, and is dumping heavy snow on the northern and western parts of that state.
It's a remnant piece of a previous part of this storm that we Vermonters have to worry about today and tonight. In case you haven't noticed, it's pretty mild out there this New Year's Eve.
In many, but not all Vermont valley locations, yesterday's ice is melting off the trees. That's a good thing, as you don't want to have the branches weighed down by the ice and risk more tree and power line damage.
One reason it's mild out is there is a cold front of sorts attached to that remnant piece of the storm near the eastern Great Lakes.
This sort of cold front has a lot of energy with it. There was even more lightning to report this morning in Ohio. This front will generate some heavy snow showers as it approaches tonight.
The National Weather Service in South Burlington says the timing suggests that the heavier snow showers will come through northern New York between 4 and 8 p.m. today. They'll get into the Champlain Valley between about 7 and 10 p.m. and into the eastern half of Vermont between 9 p.m. and midnight.
This obviously means trouble for people out partying for New Year's Eve. A quick one to three inches of snow, combined with some wind, will sharply reduce the visibility on the roads, and get them slippery fast.
Probably more important is the temperature. When temperatures are near the freezing mark in this snow squally situation, it's a lot worse on the roads than if readings were far below 32 degrees. In very cold weather, a lot of the snow just blows off the roads. It does compact into some ice, but it's not too, too bad when it's super cold.
However, when the temperature is warmish, like today and this evening, water on the road freezes as the temperatures fall during the onset of the snow. The snow will be relatively wet. Wet snow compacts into thick layers of slippery ice beneath car tires. There will still be a little water on top of all this mess, which makes things even more slick.
Arrived home from a trip to find the trees in my St. Albans, Vermont\ yard were mercifully not too weighed down by ice from Monday's storm.
Combine this with drunk drivers on New Year's Eve and you have a real mess on your hand. I get it that I'm being a New Year's Eve Debbie Downer with this news. But it's all in an effort to help you plan ahead.
Or stay home. That's what me and my husband Jeff do every New Year's Eve. Tonight is amateur hour. It's more fun to sip Champagne at home.
In any event, this snow tonight is good news for the ski areas. It'll be kinda powdery up there. Groomers can mix this in with the slop from yesterday, leaving the slopes in pretty good shape for welcoming 2020 with some skiing and riding
MONDAY'S WEIRDNESS
Monday wasn't the first time there's been lightning and thunder during a New England ice storm. But these were definitely the strongest storms I and anyone else has seen with an ice storm. For those of you in northern and central Vermont who wonder what I'm talking about, the thundersleet storms passed well south of you.
A New England ice storm is often a recipe for some thunder. Usually, an ice storm features a very strong punch of very warm air from the south coming into New England several thousand feet overhead.
Meanwhile, low level cold air drains in from Quebec. Rain from the overhead warm air freezes on the way down to form sleet, or freezes on contact with the ground to accumulate some dangerous ice. This is exactly the situation New England faced on Monday.
This warm air above can be quite unstable and create elevated thunderstorms that form above the temperature inversion that is keeping the cold air locked in at the surface. For instance, there were thunderstorms in Vermont during the Great Ice Storm of 1998.
On Monday, the storms turned out to be quite strong, and formed into a system we normally and often see during severe thunderstorm outbreaks in the summer.
One thunderstorm formed ahead of the main line of storms and went through western and central Massachusetts and northwestern Connecticut. This storm very much resembled a supercell thunderstorms, the kind that can produce large hail and even tornadoes.
Supercells usually form ahead of the main band of storms that form along a squall line or ahead of a cold front. That's how Monday's initial storm behaved. It probably was technically a supercell, since it was rotating and had a radar presentation that resembled a supercell.
Because the storm was elevated above the cold layer near the surface, it would have never been able to spin down a tornado toward the ground. (The rotation with this storm was insufficient to produce a tornado even if that low level cold air wasn't around.)
However, supercells and that type of storm that formed Monday in central New England can produce large hail and this one certainly did. Rising and falling air currents in the storm grabbed raindrops and sleet pellets and formed large hail stones.
Some of the hail stones were an inch or more in diameter, as big or bigger than quarters and enough to dent vehicles. Certainly, these were the biggest hailstones on record for December in New England.
The main line of thunderstorms came through later, dumping more hail, and triggering more lightning and thunder across much of southern and central New England. Some of storms extended into southern Vermont.
On top of all this, the freezing rain was bringing down trees and power lines in the Adirondacks, southern Vermont and New Hampshire and much of Massachusetts.
Most, but not all of the power is back on in New England and New York as of early this afternoon.
Videos:
Security cameras caught the noisy thundersleet and large hail in Westfield, Massachusettts. And also the reaction from a stunned occupant of the building:
The freezing rain affected Ontario, Canada, too, as this enthusiastic motorist tells and shows us:
A recent wildfire near Perth Stadium in western Australia. An incoming
heat wave will only make things worse. Photo: AFP via BBC.
Summer has barely started in Australia, and the extremes are just coming fast and furious down under.
We've already mentioned the massive wildfires hitting large parts of the nation/continent. To make matters worse, a long lasting, intense heat wave is now moving into pretty much all of Australia, which is very roughly the size of the United States, excluding Alaska.
And there have been incredible thunderstorms, producing massive hailstones that have pummeled and wrecked countless cars, roofs and windows, and flash flooding that have quickly inundated neighborhoods. Some areas around Brisbane got as much as five inches of rain in a little more than an hour.
Before you say that at least the storms are dropping rain to squelch all those wildfires, think again. The storms, intense as they are, have been quite localized, causing patches of severe damage, but not wetting down most of the landscape. So the fires burn on.
Image from the Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology
shows a big upward trend in that nation's temperatures.
Still, areas around Brisbane got a little drought relief from the storms, so that's a small area of good news in hot, burning Australia. However, areas in southeastern Australia below Brisbane with the most intense fires got little or no rain.
The incoming heat wave will also dry out any place that did manage to get some rain and hail, increasing the risk of wildfires.
If you think I've been harping on Australian heat and fires every winter (their summer), you're right. Like most of the rest of the world. Australia is heating up with climate change, so the summers are generally hotter there. That, in turn, helps make the bush fires, bigger, more intense and longer lasting.
Even if the heat and drought are briefly interrupted by thunderstorms, destructive as they may be, they're generally not enough to overcome the effects of the summer heat
Here's a hailstorm wrecking a roof of one Australian house in the past couple of days:
News report on the Brisbane storm. Mixed emotions, clearly. Happy for the drought-relieving rain, not so much for the flash flooding:
Meanwhile, in New Zealand, heavy rains caused this huge cliff to collapse. Hope nobody was standing beneath it!
It's a toasty last day of summer here in Vermont with highs expected to reach the low 80s today, which is a good 15 degrees above normal.
After you enjoy what might be the last 80 degree weather until next spring, we have some weather videos for you on this relatively quiet weather day.
Tornadoes hit Sioux Falls, South Dakota earlier this month. Here is surveillance video from inside a pretty large pizza restaurant that was hit:
The United States gets epic hail storms pretty often, but we haven't cornered the market. Here's one this past week in Guarpuava, Brazil that looks impressive:
Ready for winter? "Snowliage" in Ivanovo, Russia this week:
Finally, a rather unpleasant storm in Baton Rouge, Lousiana this past week. Video by Landon Dinecola via Storyful
A storm over Georgia, Vt on July 31. More scattered storms are
scheduled for Vermont and surrounding areas today.
We continue this morning to enjoy or endure, depending on your perspective, a weather pattern that is giving us rounds of hit and miss showers and storms this morning.
This, after severe storms caused some damage in parts of southern and eastern Vermont Saturday, and some really lightning-charged storms in far southern Vermont Sunday evening. (Fortunately, those storms had weakened some before reaching Vermont.
They caused a fair amount of damage in Saratoga County, New York, not too far from the Vermont border.
A few showers are scattered around parts of the North Country this morning, and a few more storms might pop up this afternoon. Most of those will probably be over and east of the Green Mountains, as it looks now.
After a break Tuesday, more showers and storms will fire up Wednesday, before things turn clearer and autumn-like by Friday.
It's pointless to predict at this point how extensive the storms might be on Wednesday (I'm not expecting anything huge at this point), we might as well enjoy the video, below.
It's a brave little beagle pup, experiencing his first, gusty thunder and hail storm. Some of the storm's loudest moments are a little frightening for this little guy named Smudge, but his curiosity about the storm carries him through. He even gets to snack on some hailstones after the storm blows over.
So here's Smudge to brighten your potentially stormy day:
The National Weather Service in Cheyenne, Wyoming shared on Twitter this photo by Cody Calhoun of a tornado and lightning strike near Burns, Wyoming on Sunday. Severe weather will head east through the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states through Tuesday.
We here in Vermont had a gorgeous day Sunday, with temperatures in the 70s to low 80s, plenty of sunshine and low humidity.
Let's just say the weather in Vermont was a bit better than in, say, Otis, Colorado, which had at least one tornado and hail the size of grapefruit. Yikes! There were at least 10 reports of tornadoes Sunday, mostly in Colorado.
The severe weather in Colorado, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas Sunday was the beginnings of a larger than usual severe weather and tornado outbreak that will eventually extend eastward through the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states through Tuesday.
You can pretty much always find areas of strong and severe thunderstorms in the summer, but it's usually not as widespread as those spring outbreaks. But this one will pack a big punch, at least by August standards.
There's a strong heat wave going on now in the Gulf States and mid-Mississippi Valley. A weak storm, though one that's stronger than usual for the dog days of August is on the northern edge of this hot spell. The system is heading east from Iowa, and will go through Illinois and Ohio before ending up somewhere around Pennslyvania or Maryland by Tuesday.
For the second year in a row, this area has already been battered by an unusual number of severe storms and tornadoes. For instance, New Jersey has had eight tornadoes so far this year. They normally average two per year.
This upcoming storm will certainly continue the Mid-Atlantic severe weather trend. I'm pretty sure we'll get at least a couple reports of tornadoes out of the Mid-Atlantic states Tuesday, along with wind damage, hail and flash flooding.
This dangerous weather outbreak will miss us here in Vermont, so be glad for that. A weak cold front, one ingredient that will contribute to the severe weather well south of us, will come through here today and tonight.
While the cold front is passing through Vermont, it won't have much oomph. There will be scattered showers and thunderstorms ahead of and with this thing this afternoon and evening. One or two storms might be briefly, locally strong, but don't count on much in the way of fireworks.
The storm causing the havoc in the Mid-Atlantic will throw some rain through the southern half of Vermont Tuesday, but again, nothing dramatic.
The hail flow amid the flash flooding was so intense that it busted through doors and windows to bury home interiors in ice.
Cars and trucks were also swept away. At least 450 homes were damaged. Ten people were treated for hypothermia due to ice exposure.
That fact is incredible, since Guadalajara is in the tropics and it's the middle of summer. You can expect cases of heat stroke this time of year, but hypothermia?
Also, that volume of hail is pretty incredible. None of the hailstones were particularly big, but as you can see there was a hell of a lot of them. That had to be an intense thunderstorm to unleash so much hail is such a warm part of the world. Since a thick layer of the atmosphere is warm in Mexico this time of year, a lot of the hail had to have melted on the way down. And still this much accumulated.
Obviously most of Guadalajara didn't have this much hail. The photos and videos in this post show where flash flooding piled the hail into immense drifts.
Some videos are below. First one is an overview from VOA. The hail inside the house near the start of this clip is something!
Somehow this truck made it through the hail:
Another good compilation video of the hailstorm and its aftermath
A chaotic looking evening sky over Colchester, Vermont on
Saturday as thunderstorms blossomed in the region.
Many of us in Vermont were treated once again Saturday to some fun, stormy skies, thunder and lightning.
There were reports of some damage as a few of the storms became severe. Interestingly at my place in St. Albans, Vermont, I was under a severe thunderstorm warning for the third time in a week, which is impressive. The storms around here, including those last evening, did not turn out to be damaging at all.
That strong upper level low in Quebec we've been talking about was slowly sinking southward Saturday evening. Even though there's not a major storm at the Earth's surface. this upper level pool of cold air is dynamic and creating plenty of instability.
Warm, humid weather usually feeds thunderstorms, but it wasn't super warm or super humid last evening. But the energy of this cool pool from Quebec was able to make lots of thunderstorms blossom Saturday evening. Some of them were strong to severe. But even if not, they were widespread.
And pretty, as you can see by the photos in this post.
Orange post-sunset light pokes through dark storm clouds
Saturday evening in St. Albans, Vermont.
You wouldn't expect anything in the way of thunderstorms today, again, at least on paper. It's overcast and cool this morning. Nothing that would inspire thunderstorms. A dull rain, maybe, but nothing dramatic.
But like I said, this upper level storm is pretty feisty and will be able to kick off at least some thunderstorms. I think very few, if any will make it to severe levels.
Maybe in southern New England, there will probably be a few storms with damaging winds and large hail, mostly because it's a little warmer and a little sunnier there to add energy.
Even so, in the rest of Vermont, there will be frequent showers around. Many of us will hear thunder and see lightning today. A few thunderstorms will be able to generate gusty winds. Again nothing destructive, but the strongest storms could produce gusts as high as 30 to 35 mph.
There is even a good chance some of us will get hail. Nothing big, just pea sized. It's so cold aloft that if you get to just 8,500 feet in elevation, it'll get below freezing. Since there's not much space between subfreezing air and down where we are, there's little time or any hail stones that do form to melt. So some will make it down here.
Despite relatively dry-ish air over us, some of the showers and storms today could produce locally heavy downpours. The heaviest rains if they get going won't last long, so there's no real threat of flooding.
A band of heavy showers, with a few lightning strikes was over the Montreal area and heading south toward the Vermont border as of 8:45 a.m. this Sunday morning. Another zone of pretty good showers was over New York and appeared to be heading toward the southern half of Vermont.
The Quebec band of showers and thunderstorms appeared to be strengthening somewhat or at least holding its own as it moves south this morning, so these forecasts of potentially gusty and hail-ish storms seems pretty realistic.
This cold upper level low will get out of our hair quickly and it will be back go summer warmth by tomorrow.
As the week goes on, it'll keep getting warmer and especially more humid, so by the second half of the week, we'll be back to having chances of mostly afternoon and evening thunderstorms.
Here's a brief video I took of a stormy sunset and lightning strike as seen from St. Albans Saturday evening (Click on the square like thingy on the bottom right of the video to make it bigger and easier to see:
The hail was as big as tennis balls. Such storms hitting a populated area like Munich probably caused tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.
Countless cars had cracked and broken windows, as did houses and buildings. Roofing and siding also took a serious hit.
Several people were injured, but no deaths were reported in the Monday storms.
New storms struck eastern Germany Tuesday, with another round of large damaging hail, this time around Saxony and Brandenburg. Potsdam, Germany reported severe flash flooding and wind damage .
The weather is forecast to remain unsettled around Munich and other areas of Germany for the next few days, with more thunderstorms possible Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, according to The Weather Channel.
Some videos:
Here's a compilation video of some of the hailstorms around Munich on Monday:
Here's one of many motorists in Germany losing a windshield
Webcam image from the Nashville section of Jericho from this
morning depicts that cloudy, cool conditions that have
continued from May into June in Vermont.
I'm out in South Dakota for my yearly trip. It's normally peak storm time out here, but the weather out here is pretty nice and settled.
Lots of haze from Canadian forest fires, but otherwise, it's bright and mostly storm-free, a welcome respite from the incessant rain and flooding in the Great Plains.
Back in Vermont, it's another story. Nothing dire will happen, but if you were expecting fine early summer weather as June opened, you are sadly disappointed. The chilly, gloomy May seems to want to continue into June.
A strong and unusually cold storm system for this time of year is affecting the North Country, and with it comes some unpleasant weather.
There wasn't much sun this morning to destabilize the atmosphere, for one thing. Breaks of sun and slightly warmer temperatures south of Route 4 will make that region the most likely target of severe storms. That would mean gusty winds, small hail, dangerous lightning and nasty downpours here and there today.
Northern Vermont has the same type of thing, but slightly less widespread storms than the south. But even there, strong gusty winds and small hail could accompany some storms. There is some wind shear, which means that wind direction is changing with height, so that could encourage some storms.
To be on the safe side, definitely go inside a sturdy building if a severe thunderstorm warning pops up.
Most if not all of Vermont will get some decent rains out of this. Some rain came last night, and there's a solid band of rain in New York State that will come through today. The storm's cold front will come through in several pieces this afternoon and evening.
The upper level storm associated with this storm will move overhead tomorrow. Which will make the weather interesting enough. It will be awfully cold for June. High temperatures will only get into the 50s, with maybe some upper 40s in the higher elevations.
Those temperatures are typical for April, not June.
The sun is just about as strong as you can get this time of year. It's only a couple weeks before the Summer Solstice, so the sun angle is intense. That means the sun will try to heat the Earth's surface, but it will be March-like cold several thousand feet up.
That's a recipe for billowing clouds and showers, with even a few thunderstorms. Since air temperatures will be below freezing just several thousand feet overhead, it will be easy for small hail to make it to the ground, too. So don't be surprised if it hails amid Monday's chill if you get hit by a particularly intense shower.
I also wouldn't be surprised if some snowflakes land on the high peaks of the Green Mountains, Adirondacks and White Mountains on Monday. It will be that cold. By the way, it's been such a chilly spring that as of this morning, there was still nine inches of snow atop of Mount Mansfield this morning, and the Killington Ski Areais still open. The ski area closes for the season at the end of the day today.
Since Monday will be as cold as it can get for June, it's only uphill from there. Luckily, despite Monday's chill, frost is unlikely Monday night and early Tuesday, except in the cold hollows of the Northeast Kingdom and Adirondacks.
Tuesday will be dry, but cool for this time of year, with highs in the upper 50s and 60s. Still, brrrr. With this long stretch of cold weather, the tomato plants you put in the garden won't be doing so great, but what can you do?
A warm front will come in Tuesday night and Wednesday with more showers. At least by the end of the week, it looks like temperatures won't be summer like, necessarily, but it will get into the 70s, which isn't too far from normal for this time of year.
One complication: a back door cold front might come down from eastern Canada, which would hold temperatures in the cool 60s instead next weekend. We'll have to wait and see.
So far there are no signs of any real summer weather at least through mid-June.
If you look closely at this fresh-fallen snow in Mankato, Minnesota
Thursday, you can see brown from Texas dust blown into the storm system
Photo viaTwitter, Mark Tarello @mark_tarello
In some parts of Minnesota and South Dakota, some of the snow that fell with the blizzard that hit the region over the past couple of days had a tan, brown or orange tint to it.
You couldn't use the phrase "pure as the driven snow" in this case.
The storm system was so strong that dust from New Mexico and Texas was drawn up from the south into the cold northern flank of the storm.
The dust mixed with the falling snow to produce the off-color snow. Voila! The Tex-Mex blizzard.
Hmmm. A mix of snow and dirt. I guess you can say it was snirting in Minnesota on Thursday.
Satellite images of the vast storm system showed winds gusting to 70 mph lifting huge clouds of dust in West Texas and propelling it northward.
This storm reminded me of the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. My late father remembered brown snow in Vermont in the 1930s as dust from the Great Plains came all the way to New England, mixing with the falling snow to give the drifts a brown hue.
The National Weather Service/Twin Cities, Minnesota shared this
satellite image snowing blowind dust Wenesday over Texas that
drifted northward, causing brown snow in Minneota.
My husband Jeff grew up in South Dakota and he says he can remember a time or two when "snirt" fell - leaving a brownish wintry landscape. Still, this event was rare
There were other weird aspects of this storm. There is often thundersnow with this type of Plains storm. The parent system gets so strong that thunderstorms develop in the heavy snow bands.
However, this storm had an incredible amount of lightning, and there were reports of thundersnow with frequent lightning for two days.
The National Weather Service office in Aberdeen, South Dakota urged people to stay indoors there was so much lightning.
Severe thunderstorms are common during strong Plains systems like this one, but the severe weather almost always happen in the warm, moist air to the southeast of the storm's center.
In this case, there weren't that many severe thunderstorms in the warm sector. But very oddly, some severe thunderstorm warnings for large hail and gusts to 60 mph were issued in areas getting snow and sleet. That's very strange. There were some reports of one-inch diamter hail in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
NEXT STORM OMINOUS
Areas in yellow, orange and especially red are at risk of severe thunderstorms
and tornadoes Saturday. Some of the tornadoes might be strong
and long-lasting.
The next big storm system will develop tonight and tomorrow in Texas. This one looks more conventional, for the lack of a better word, than the last one with the "snirt" blizzard in the Plains. But this new storm seems much more dangerous.
As mentioned yesterday, this storm threatens a nasty tornado outbreak in the South over the weekend.
Severe thunderstorms and possible tornadoes will spread into theOhio and Tennessee Valleys and the Southeast Sunday. It's Palm Sunday and churches will be busy. I'm no theologian, but I think God would want churches in these areas to have weather radio tuned in during services. God would also want congregations to have a plan to get to a safe area if a tornado warning is issued.
The storm system will reach New England Sunday night and Monday. Here in Vermont, it still looks like the storm could dump an inch or so of rain on us, and melting snow from the mountains will add to the runoff.
I suspect the National Weather Service will issue flood watches for the region that will go into effect Monday.
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 DePodwinand Nevin deMellianofor 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 sitetells 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.
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 Esuranceis 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.
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 upbecause 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:
