The South Moves North Once Again

An outflow boundary from a thunderstorm passing by to the north
helped create thes turbulent looking clouds over St. Albans,
Vermont yesterday.  The boundary produced wind gusts close
to 30 mph at my house, but they oddly weren't cool winds like
you'd expect from normal thunderstorm outflow. 

The Northeast had a terribly Florida type of day Monday, with temperatures in the 90s, humidity levels through the roof, and a few strong storms to boot.

Maine was downright weird. You know Maine in the summer, right?  Cool breezes, comfortable humidity, great sleeping nights, manageable summer rain showers? frigid ocean waters?

Not yesterday.  The waters in the Gulf of Maine are practically bathwater, setting records for high ocean temperatures.  That means marine life is heading north to enjoy those warm waters. That includes sharks.

Tragically, a woman was killed in a shark attack near Bailey Island Maine on Monday.

Those warm waters along the coast of New England are also bad if a stray hurricane comes along later this summer and autumn.  Northboumd hurricanes along the coast weaken because they don't do well in cold water. The warmer the water, the slower a hurricane will weaken, making one that comes along stronger than they otherwise would be if the water was chillier.

Meanwhile, in Portland, Maine, the low temperature Monday was 78 degrees. That is the warmest "low" temperature on record for any date in Portland.

Additionally, a possible tornado hit parts of Somerset and Penobscot Counties in Maine.  Radar images showed some pretty tight rotation in a severe thunderstorm, plus there was tree and wire damage in the area.

The National Weather Service will investigate to see if that was really a tornado.

For those who are easily worried and confused, the possible tornado hit the town of St. Albans, Maine, NOT St. Albans, Vermont, where I live.

The heat was on elsewhere in the Northeast.  It was 97 degrees in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the hottest it's been there in four years.  Hartford, Connecticut got up to 98 degrees.

Ahead of a weak cold front, heat advisories are up along the East Coast today from southwestern Maine to South Carolina.

Here in Vermont, it got up to 93 degrees in Burlington, the 17th day this year it has been in the 90s.  We're still in the running for the most consective days staying continuously above 60 degrees. The wild cards are how warm it stays at night in the second half of the week and into Saturday.

Current forecasts have Burlington's lows just above 60 degrees each night, so we could do it.

Showers and thunderstorms were concentrated across northern Vermont yesterday and last evening, and southern Vermont stayed dry.  However, a decent batch of rain was moving through central and southern Vermont this morning.

Today will be another relatively hot one, with highs in the 80s to around 90 in a few spots. At least the humidity will briefly go down this afternoon.

The humidity will spike up again tomorrow ahead of the next system, but that won't last long.  There could be a few more showers and storms tomorrow, too.

Which is fine. Last evening, a brief heavy downpour passed through St. Albans, Vermont. The rain was almost as warm as bath water. There was no lightning, so it felt safe to stand out in the rain and let it drench me. It felt awesome.

I joke that the rain did wonders for my naturally curly hair.  The joys of summer, I guess.

The Stresses Of A Hot, Humid, And Very Iffy Summer Roll On

Part of my St. Albans, Vermont gardens this morning. At the time
they were getting a brief drink of water from a passing
shower, which pleased both me and the flowers. 

Yesterday and today are continuing the humid cat and mouse game with storms drenching just a few people with needed rain while others miss out.

I've been saying the same all summer, I do realize. Call it Rinse (Not) and Repeat.

I managed to collect just over a third of an inch of rain at my St. Albans, Vermont hacienda Saturday, mostly from one rain band associated with former Tropical Storm Fay, plus one brief relatively heavy shower that happened to luckily bullseye my place early Saturday afternoon.

So it helped, but I wanted more. As I write this Sunday morning, I am getting a brief moderate additional rain shower, so that brightens my mood a bit.

Even so, Saturday evening, I watched longingly as a parade of thunderstorms moved northward through the eastern Adirondacks.  The clouds looked thick and rich with rain, rumbles of thunder grumbled in the distance.  But no more rain for me, despite the air you can wear feel from the humidity.

At least I was out enjoying my gardens, right?

It was like this through much of New England and northern New York.  Some pockets got really nailed.

Flash flood warnings were up early today in parts of the central Adirondacks due to a small zone of heavy overnight rain there.  A tornado touched down Saturday afternoon in western Maine, near Sebago Lake. Flood advisories were up for a time near Saratoga, New York Saturday.

Today, the humidity rolls on. The risk of showers, though, is diminishing for the rest of today, but some will still roam around, given the humidity.

More hit and miss kind of stuff will be around on Monday, too.

There is the prospect of a brief break in the humidity later Monday into Wednesday before it gets sticky again.  Tuesday night, Burlington's temperature might actually drop below 60 degrees for the first time since June 25.

I don't know what the record is for the longest stretch we've stayed above 60, but we're already at 16 consecutive days through Saturday. That's an unusually lengthy stretch for such warm nights.

Signs point to a return to sticky warm to hot weather by the end of the week. It's unclear if it's just going to be muggy and warm (highs in the 80s) or downright hot (90s) by next weekend. We'll just have to wait and see.

Most of the nation except for the Pacific Northwest is very hot and in most cases humid,. It's been like that for weeks, and this state of affairs looks like it will continue most of the rest of the month.

As we all know, it's an incredibly stressful summer for most of us, given the unrelenting coronavirus pandemic, economic crisis, racial tensions and failures of leadership.

Hot, humid weather tends to make people more stressed, anxous and angry, so this isn't helping.  The nationwide heat wave is causing droughts to worsen worringly  in some parts of the South and Southwest.

In other parts of the country, the heat and humidity is the spark for destructive storms, bringing pockets of flash flooding, hail, a few tornadoes and the constant drumbeat of storm watches, warnings and advisories. Which doesn't help the moods of most people.

Last evening, after a day at work, I was tense, hot, frustrated and angry, even though I should consider myself lucky I have a job.   My gardens did cool off my temper, if not my body, even as I longed for the rain and thunder I was seeing across Lake Champlain from my house.

The gardens do help, and I'm thankful I have them.

I hope you all have a refuge like I do.  Or are able to create one.  It doesn't have to be a garden, just someplace where you can find peace and forget about everything.

Please find your own refuge from the heat, the storms, and the stress 2020 will forever be known for. You deserve it.

Vermont Gets One-Day Reprieve From Heat, Humidity, Storms

High humidity helped lead to this brief but very torrential
downpour in St. Albans on Wednesday. 

It was actually nice out when I wrote this blog post thingy at 7:30 this Thursday morning.

The sun was out, the temperature was reasonable and so was the humidity. The dewpoint, the best measure of how humid it is, was under 60 degrees in northern Vermont, which is terrific for July.

Temperatures will get into the low to mid 80s this afternoon, and the humidity might creep up a bit, but it'll be a nice day.

It's a nice break from the downpours and the oppressive, soupy air of yesterday, and the brief but intense bout of potentially stormy heat and humidity we're about to get.

Dewpoints were over 70 degrees yesterday and any little shower cloud that formed took advantage of the wet air and dumped lots of rain in short periods of time. I've heard Westford, Vermont got an inch of rain in 30 minutes.

Luckily, the storms were small in size and moved right along, so we didn't get any real flash flooding, like the spot flash floods that occured in southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic states.

Overnight and especially Friday, the heat and humidity is still expected to blast in. I'm betting the National Weather Service in South Burlington will issue some sort of heat advisory for Friday and Saturday as heat indexes go into the upper 90s.

Actual temperatures during the day Friday and Saturday will probably top 90 degrees, with lows in many areas of Vermont not getting below 70 degrees at night. Yuck.

The thunderstorm outlook for this hot spell that we've been talking about is more uncertain. I suppose as the hot, humid air comes in early Friday, there might be some pre-dawn storms, especially near the Canadian border.

The heat and humidity will provide the ingredients for some strong storms Friday afternoon and evening, but the triggers to set them off are lacking. So there might not be much in the way of fireworks.

You want temperatures to cool with elevation as another ingredient for storms. But there is likely to be a warmer layer of the atmosphere above us on Friday. That's known as a cap, and these caps inhibit storms. Sometimes an updraft can break through the cap, leading to an isolated strong storm or two.

That'll probably happen Friday afternoon and evening, but it will be hit and miss, mostly a miss. The majority of us won't get a storm.

Saturday is iffy when it comes to storms. It surely will be hot and humid, with highs getting past 90 again and heat indexes approaching 100.

Again, the ingredients are there for strong storms. But will they materialize?  It's tricky.  It all depends on the position of a cold front to our north in Canada. If it gets close to the International Border, that would cool off the air aloft and help trigger strong updrafts with potentially severe storms.

If, as other computer models suggest, the front stays way north - north of Montreal - that cap I talked about would stay intact and we won't get much in the way of storms.

Finally, that cold front will come through Sunday. As it stands now, central and southern Vermont would get the most storms on Sunday.  Current forecasts have the front coming through in the late morning across northern Vermont, which would be too early in the day to take advantage of heat and humidity to trigger big storms

The front would hit southern Vermont later, leading to a chance of strong storms. This forecast is very much subject to change.

The good news is this cold front still looks like it will represent a weather pattern change. It looks like temperatures next week in Vermont will be near to a bit below normal. Humidity levels will crash downward, too.

Long-range forecasts suggest this relatively cool pattern could last through the end of the month. So we just have three or so days of awfullness to get through. Not as bad as last summer, right?

For an idea how soupy the air was over the Northeast yesterday, watch this time lapse of a storm moving into New York City. The rain is so heavy eventually in the video that even nearby high rises seem to disappear:

The Height Of Summer This Year Is As Ugly As It Usually Is

This schematic from the Weather Channel shows how a ridge of
high pressure in the upper atmosphere will keep most of the
nation very hot over the next few days. Along the edge of
this heat ridge, where the jet stream is, there's a risk of
severe storms as disturbances riding the jet stream
feed on the hot, humid air. 

Mid-July is generally regarding as the height of summer in most of the nation.

It's the time of year where we generally have the hottest temperatures, the highest humidity, the sultriest weather and the wettest thunderstorms.

That trend is true big time in most of the United States, including here in Vermont.

For starters, there's an excessive heat watch in effect Wednesday through Saturday in a huge area of the middle of the country.  During this period, temperatures in the 90s, with humidity that will bring dew points into the 70s will bring heat indexes as high as 110 degrees.

Excessive heat and humidity are also anticipated late this week through most of the nation east of the Rockies, including here in Vermont. It will be ugly out there. More on Vermont in a bit.

Actual temperatures could top 100 degrees in a few spots in a huge area from the Plains to the East Coast, possibly as far north as southern New England later in the week.

Even Florida is getting into the act. Yes, I know, Florida is always brutally hot and humid in the summer, but this is even worse than usual.

On Sunday, the low temperature in Miami was a sultry 84 degrees, which tied the record for the hottest overnight low on record there. For perspective, 84 degrees is three degrees hotter than the normal high temperature this time of year locally in Burlington, Vermont.

Although this won't be the worst heat wave ever, it's certainly up there, and something to be reckoned with. I'm sure there will be a few deaths.

Especially since unusually high humidity will keep temperatures up at night most everywhere east of the the Plains States. That gives people little relief, so that the days on end of heat and humidity can wear people down. Especially if they have underlying health issues. People should be careful.

Wet dogs rescued from an Arkansas Humane Society shelter that
was hit by a dangerous flash flood early Tuesday.
Photo via The Weather Channel

When it's hot and humid, there's plenty of water in the atmosphere to unleash some torrential downpours. The remains of Tropical Storm Barry are certainly accomplishing that in Arkansas today.

At least ten inches of rain fell this morning in parts of Arkansas and it was still pouring as of early this afternoon. Some of the most distressing images out of that part of the country was a Humane Society shelter in which water blasted in.  

At least one dog was killed and other dogs and cats were swimming for their lives, some with their heads barely above water inside this shelter. Calls went out for people to grab these terrified animals, and if they had a fenced in yard on high ground, to take as many as they could temporarily. I hope people heeded the call.

Thankfully, community members rushed to the Humane Society building and took the animals to their homes on dry ground to stay temporarily.

There will be areas of flash flood risk tomorrow and the day after in the northeastern Plains, Great Lakes and parts of the East.

Very hot weather can also trigger severe thunderstorms, especially along the northern periphery of heat ridges. So, severe thunderstorms might happen today through Wednesday in the Northern Plains and Great Lakes. Those severe storms could easily extend into northern New England by the end o the week.

VERMONT IMPACTS

As advertised, the Green Mountain State will share in this hot, humid, wet, stormy, downpour-ish pattern for the rest of today going on at least through Saturday.

A warm front has been moving through Vermont today, and I'm sure you noticed the humidity increasing.

As I write this at 3 p.m., it's not too bad yet, but will definitely get worse.

At first, it will be just very humid, but not very hot. The remnants of Barry will affect us on Wednesday, with pretty frequent showers and a few thunderstorms. Though the deepest moisture will go by to our south, some of the showers Wednesday will have heavy downpours. That means we'll have to be on the lookout for scattered bouts of street flooding, small stream rushes, driveway washouts and that sort of thing.

No widespread flooding is expected. The clouds from all these showers will hold daytime temperatures down to around 80 degrees Wednesday, but you will notice the humidity.

An incredibly weak cold front will hold the worst of the heat and humidity at bay Thursday, but it will still feel sticky.

Then we in Vermont get blasted by lots of heat and humidity Friday and Saturday. Unless it's cloudier than expected, high temperature in the broader valleys at least will reach the low 90s. Dewpoints will be in the low 70s so it will feel insufferable.

At least we might have some excitement. Forecasters still think that a few weak boundaries will act as triggers to prompt some thunderstorms Friday and Saturday. The heat and humidity will encourage some of these storms to quickly turn strong to severe.

Details are lacking this far out but it's something to watch out for.

Early signs point toward a significant cooling trend early next week.

Weird Backlash To Barry; Vermont To Have Miserable Week

Romance in the Louisiana flood this weekend.

Social media isn't really reality. We all know that.

Still, I'm irked by the types on Twitter and such that seem angry that Tropical Storm Barry wasn't "as bad" as a lot of forecasts.

First of all, Barry was and is pretty bad.  As of this morning, it was producing a relatively narrow, but intense rain band central Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi. This band had already produced up to 14 inches of rain and counting. Another three to eight inches of rain is expected within this band during this afternoon.

So destructive flash flooding is happening on top of the havoc Barry created this weekend.

Still, so far at least, flooding from Barry hasn't been quite as catastrophic as many people, including me, had feared. That should be a good thing. Sure, this event, like all big storms and such, are a teachable moment to help meteorologists and scientists make better predictions in the future.

There's always room for improvement. And people should ask questions if a forecast is botched. I'm not saying Barry forecasts were botched, mind you. But as usual, some areas had conditions that were different than forecast. Forecasting could have been better. Somehow.

That's one thing. Is quite another to act disappointed when a storm falls short of predictions and destruction isn't as extreme as feared. Grow up!

Barry isn't even done yet. Besides the flash flooding ongoing now, there's some risk in the Ohio Valley tomorrow. Plus, remnants of tropical storms can cause serious flooding long after they come ashore.

In 1995 for example, a lame Tropical Storm Dean came ashore in Texas on July 31. By early August, Dean's remains interacted with a stalled front in New England to cause a destructive flash flood over the northern half of Vermont.

I'm not saying history will repeat itself with Barry, but it ain't over 'til it's over. Speaking of which:

VERMONT FACES MISERABLE SUMMER WEEK

Great, low humidity conditions at a garden party at my St. Albans,
Vermont house Sunday. Big time humidity will come back
later this week, though.

Enjoy today, my Vermont friends,because the weather is going to turn just awful for the rest of the week. Unless you like stifling humidity, rain and the possibility of local flooding and severe weather.

Sunday gave us a welcome break from warmth and humidity. Thank goodness, because we had a big outdoor party at my place in St. Albans, Vermont and everybody was comfortable and happy.

It was in the cool 50s for most of us early this morning, and temperatures will get iinto the low 80s with low humidity this afternoon.

Then the humidity starts to skyrocket tomorrow. By Wednesday and Thursday, the remains of Barry will push in wicked high humidity. Plus, daytime highs will be in the mid-80s with lows near 70. Which is terrible sleeping weather.

There will also be fairly widespread showers and thunderstorms Wednesday and Thursday. Because of all the moisture around, the rain could be locally heavy.  Though at this point I don't expect any widespread flash flooding, local problems could easily happen.

The soil in Vermont currently isn't particularly wet, but if there's a tremendous amount of rain in a short period of time, you can still get in trouble.

It's looking as if the heat will get even worse Friday and Saturday. It'll stay just as humid, but temperatures could go into the 90s, especially if it's not very cloudy.

There will be some weak fronts and stalled boundaries hanging around Friday and Saturday. When it's that hot and humid the atmosphere is spring-loaded to set off some severe thunderstorms. All you need is a trigger. It's possible those little fronts and boundaries could set things off.

Yeah, not a good week, but it's summer, so what the heck.

Quick Taste Of Summer: Humidity, Storms Briefly Come To Vermont

There is a marginal risk of severe thunderstorms in the Northeast
Monday, including Vermont (dark green shading). That big
red blob in the Plains represents a decent chance of
tornadoes on Monday, some of which might be quite strong. 

Our first real taste of summer is coming, briefly to the North Country later today through Monday in the form of noticable humidity and the threat of thunderstorms.

A warm front was approaching Vermont early this morning. With it are showers and a few embedded thunderstorms. Most of the rain today will come this morning and early afternoon and mostly in northern parts of the state.  

It's going to be tricky figuring out high temperatures today. It depends upon how far north the warm front gets. At least in southern sections, though, you'll notice warmth and a touch of summer humidity.

With that, there is a risk of scattered thunderstorms this evening, again especially in southern Vermont. A couple storms in this region have a chance of being a bit on the strong side, with gusty winds, lightning and downpours.  Scattered heavy downpours are likely across central Vermont today as well.

If that's not a sign of summer, nothing is.

Tonight will be the first warm, humid night of the year. It might not be a great idea to leave the windows open, though, because there will be a continued risk of showers and maybe a thunderstorm or two,

Monday could be an interesting day. Before a cold front arrives in the evening or overnight, warm, humid air will be in place. If you're working outside, you'll feel the humidity. Especially because we're not used to it yet. Drink plenty of fluids.

A series of disturbances in the atmosphere, plus that approaching cold front, will interact with that humidity to touch off more showers and storms. This will bring our first real chance of severe thunderstorms to Vermont this season.

I said chance because this isn't cast in stone. If skies clear during the day more than expected, that would add some instability to the air, increasing the chance of strong to severe storms. Even without the clearing, there could still be a strong storm or two. For now, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has us in a marginal risk zone for severe storms on Monday.

If there are severe storms, they won't be all that widespread. A few towns could get some damaging wind gusts, but most of us won't. Just be weather aware. Go inside if you hear thunder. If a severe thunderstorm warning goes up in your area, do the usual thing and get into a sturdy building.  Consider postponing a drive until the storm passes.

Even if a thunderstorm that hits your area isn't severe, there still could be very heavy downpours, local street flooding and plenty of cloud-to-ground lightning. Again, just be aware of what's coming down the pike in terms of storms.

The National Weather Service in South Burlington says the best chance of strong storms on Monday will come between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Monday. Things will settle down quickly by sunset.

At least our severe weather threat in the Green Mountain State isn't extreme. A separate, strong storm is setting up a good chance of a big tornado outbreak in and around Oklahoma on Monday. Some tornadoes might end up being particularly strong, so that bears watching.

Monday is also the anniverary of the deadly EF-5 Moore, Oklahoma tornado of 2013, which killed 24 people, injured hundreds and caused about $2 billion in damage.

This same area is under the gun for possible strong tornadoes Monday.

Another New England Round Of Heat, Humidity

I heard a few people in past week say they're relieved summer heat and humidity in Vermont and surrounding areas is finally over.

Um, no.

We've got at least one more round of oppressive weather to go. You'll notice it will generally get hotter and more humid during the course of the weekend.

Today won't be all that bad. Most places will get into the 80s, but the humidity will be moderate. It won't make you wilt.

Tomorrow might actually be a couple degrees cooler, but it will be more humid so it will feel worse. A weather disturbance will zip by to our north in the afternoon and evening, so that will probably trigger sone scattered showers and thunderstorms, especially north of Route 2.

Then the real heat hits. Expect hot weather and high humidity Monday through Wednesday. At this point, Tuesday looks to be the worst day. Many valley locations could reach 90 degrees, and the humidity will be high.

Wednesday looks hot and humid, too. This spell of hot weather might put Burlington, Vermont over the edge enough to make this August the hottest on record. That's iffy, but it's worth watching.

By Wednesday afternoon,  a cold front will be approaching. More scattered showers and thunderstorms look like a good bet.

Cold fronts in late August often have a little more oomph than ones earlier in the summer, and it could be the case with this one.

If all works according to plan, the humidity will be swept away by Thursday and temperatures will cool down into the upper 60s to mid 70s by day. There's a good chance quite a few places away from Lake Champlain could get into the 40s Thursday night.

Heading into September, we might not be done with summer yet. There are signs it could turn hot and humid again during the first week of the month.

HURRICANE LANE UPDATE
Just a quicky here: Strong upper level winds tore Hurricane Lane apart very quickly in the past 24 hours. It's down to a tropical storm, if that, frankly. The remains of Lane are still dumping torrential rains on Hawaii and severe flooding is ongoing in some places, especially the Big Island and Maui.

A few weather stations reported have reported more than 40 inches of rain so far from the storm, which really is incredible

Enjoy The Cool: The Muggies Will Return

This schematic from The Weather Channel shows what's coming
back in the next few days.  A dip in the jet stream centered near the
Great Lakeswill once again steer very humid air up the East Coast,
makingus Vermonters wilt once again. 

This Friday morning felt a little better out there in Vermont. It was still warm, still just a bit humid, but really not bad at all. Much nicer than recent days.

Enjoy today, which will turn out pretty sunny, and a lot less sticky than the rest of this week has been. Tonight will be gloriously cool. Throw open those windows and let that 55-degree or so air in!

This won't last. The same persistent weather pattern that has kept the East wicked humid and in some places very wet is returning.

An unusually deep dip in the jet stream will once again set up in the eastern Great Lakes or western Applachians and the Bermuda High will assert itself off the East Coast. This has happened a lot since mid-July and it is a pretty weird setup.

It all means muggy, tropical air will once again stream north all the way to southeastern Canada. It won't be wicked hot next week, but the air will once again feel very heavy up here in Vermont.

It's cooler and less humid today because a series of weak cold fronts have been coming through since Wednesday night. The last of them came through Vermont early this morning.

The cold front will never get far from us. It will hang up over southern New England then start slowly drifting north over the weekend.

Once again, the best chances of heavy rain will be mostly to our south. One system along this warm front will go by to our south Saturday, raising a flood threat in parts of southern New England, bringing showers to southern Vermont, but leaving northern areas dry.

Since Vermont will be north of the warm front, the coolest day since mid-June is in store for southern Vermont. Under clouds and showers, temperatures there Saturday afternoon might not get out of the 60s. Northern Vermont will get sun, so it will be in the 70s to near 80 there.

From there, the humidity and warmth seep into Vermont gradually, making next week another rough, muggy time frame.

Overall, next week, there will be chances of showers and thunderstorms everywhere in the East, including here in Vermont, but the heaviest rains still seem like they will fall on saturated southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic states.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly who will get flooding next week in the East as the most torrential downpours can set up just about anywhere.

Also, I'm  not sure when this pattern will break down, so don't get your hopes up too fast for a break in the muggies after today.

Meanwhile, a torrid heat wave grinds on out west. Some relief will come to parts of the Pacific Northwest by Monday. But heat warnings, fire alerts and air quality advisories from all that smoke from existing wildfires is making things miserable going into the weekend from California to the western Dakotas. Virtually all of Montana is expecting near record heat.

It's been quite a summer, as they say.

One-Day Humidity Break Over; Another Steambath Week

Amid all the humidity and warmth we've had lately, the sky over
northern Vermont often seems to have a tropical look to it. 

I hope my fellow Vermonters and others in the area enjoyed their one-day break from the humidity that has smothered us for the better part of a month now.

It certainly was refreshing this morning. Burlington, Vermont had dipped below 60 degrees for the first time since July 20. The humidity dropped yesterday and it's still low.  

This week, though, it's back to the steambath. Today won't be all that humid, but it will warm up into the 80s, with even a few spots in the upper 80s today.

Then that Bermuda High will re-assert itself, a dip in the jet stream will form to our west again, and it's rinse and repeat. This week will be much like last week.

Count on plenty of humidity, with stuffy nights and oppressive days. Overnight lows will get down to only into the 60s to around 70 most of the week, with highs in the low to mid 80s. Low to mid 80s isn't really bad, until you factor in the high humidity levels.

We still really, really need the rain, despite some relief from the dry conditions last week. The forecast picture is mixed on that front. The humidity, and the trough of low pressure to our west, will create a decent chance of afternoon and evening thunderstorms each day, especially Wednesday through Friday or Saturday.

It won't be an area-wide soaking, though. These showers and storms will be hit and miss, as usual. Some places will get decent downpours, others will get just sprinkles, if that. As of last Thursday, the U.S. Drought Monitor had all of Vermont in either moderate drought or abnormally dry conditions, so we should hope the downpours are more widespread than the sprinkles.

You usually don't get widespread, soaking rains in the summer anyway. Often, we have to wait until September or October for that sort of thing,  unless some sort of tropical storm or hurricane remnants head our way. That's not in the cards for the foreseeable future.

If you have your air conditioner, keep 'em cranking this week. If not, August starts this week. Summer will begin to wane, and soon enough you will be complaining about how chilly it is out there.

After A Chilly Thursday, A Shot Of Steamy Summer Heat Coming. Storms Too?

Well, Thursday was kind of a bleak one in northern Vermont wasn't it? Overcast, patches of drizzle, temperatures in the low 60s.   

The cool weather over the past couple of days has let my peonies hang
on in my St. Albans, Vermont gardens, but a spell of hot, humid
weather will likely make them go past their prime this weekend. 

It was even worse in northern Maine. Up in Caribou, the high temperature Thursday got all the way up to 50 degrees. Yeah, chilly. It set a record for the date for the lowest high temperature on record. 

The cool, clammy air hung on into this morning, with patches of light rain here and there.

At least if you don't like hot weather, you were happy, right?

If so, you won't be. We haven't had too much in the way of oppressive humidity so far this late spring and summer, but a spell of sticky, rather hot air is coming in for Sunday and Monday.

Temperatures could get up to 90 degrees in a few Vermont spots Sunday afternoon, with most places well up into the 80s. The humidity, which is low today and won't be so bad Saturday, will get increasingly awful Sunday afternoon.

Sunday night will be a terribly oppressive night for quote, unquote sleeping, and Monday will be a miserably sticky day, too. This won't last long, but as temperatures and humidity will settle back down. 

To give you an idea of how humid it will be, precipitable water levels in the air over Vermont - one measure of moisture - will be at near record high levels late Sunday through Monday.

That sets the stage for some potentially torrential rain with some thunderstorms through that period. The first batch of storms could cross the border from Canada as soon as late Sunday afternoon or evening, but most of the activity will probably hold off until Sunday night and Monday. 

Terrific. In addition to all that humidity Sunday night, the potential is for it be quite loud out there. Don't plan on much sleep then. 

On one hand, we could use the rain. The cold front that came through Wednesday night didn't really produce a lot of heavy thunderstorms. The rain that came yesterday through this morning was quite light, so it's still pretty dry out there. 

On the other hand, it's possible the storms Sunday night and Monday might be a too much of a good thing. It's too soon to tell for sure, but despite the dry soils and the very low river levels currently across Vermont, there's still a chance of local flash flooding. Not a huge chance at this point, but it's worth keeping an eye on.

Here's why: With such high precipitable water levels in the atmosphere, thunderstorm rains could really be extremely heavy. And there are some signs there could be "training" thunderstorms, which means a line of storms each going over the same spot, like boxcars traveling down a set of train tracks 

Training storms are a great way to produce a flash flood. 

Again, no reason to panic now.  At this point anyway, if any flash flooding occurs, and that's a HUGE if, it would be pretty localized.

Most of us will just end up with wetter gardens, which right now is a good thing. 

Heat And Downpours To Make For A Rough Few Days In New England

Much of the nation (areas in purple and red,) are going to
get a LOT of rain over the next week.  

Get ready for a little weather whiplash in New England, if you can stand the heat and humidity that will precede it.

After a string of nice summer days, it's going to get rough out there.

As I write this early Wednesday morning, showers and thunderstorms were marching across much of New York and into central and southern New England.

That's a good thing. The region has been in a drought, and we can use the rain.

I think most - but not all - of the rain will miss northern reaches of New York, Vermont and New Hampshire.

Which is too bad. Lawns are brown up here, and while walking around Burlington, Vermont last evening, a warm, dry breeze was knocking drought-browned leaves off some of the trees.

Don't worry, rain is coming to the North, too, but first the heat. Lots of it.

It will indeed be very warm and humid today between the showers and storms, especially south as noted.  But Thursday will be ridiculous.

Temperatures across almost all of New England will be in the 90s, with some mid to upper 90s possible in the south and broad valleys in much of the north. Couple that with very high humidity, and you get my nomination for the most oppressively hot day since at least 2013.

There's already a heat advisory for Thursday around Boston and they might issue one for Vermont's Champlain Valley.

Up here in Burlington, we won't set a record high temperature for the date. Thursday is the anniversary of the hottest temperature on record in the Queen City: 101 degrees in 1944.

The heat index might get close to that 101, but the actual temperature won't.

Then comes the rain. As I said, we need it, and most of New England is going to get one to four inches of it, maybe locally higher in spots.

The problem is how it's going to rain. You want a slow, long steady rain to ease a drought. Not snort, sharp downpours. But that's pretty much what we're going to get.

A slow moving weather front will slowly sink northwest to southeast across New England Friday through Sunday or Monday .

Little mini-disturbances will keep riding southwest to northeast along the front. And the air over us is going to be extremely humid.

That's a recipe for torrential downpours. So, ironically, amid a drought, there might well be some local flash floods in the Northeast, including much of New England over the next few days.

There's disagreement between weather models about where the front will be.  Some computer models have  it moving toward and into Vermont Friday, which would set up the heaviest downpours then and Friday night.

That camp of computers  then slowly takes the front into southern New England Saturday and Sunday, which would mean torrential downpours south with lighter and more scattered stuff up north.

The other faction of computer models  thinks the front will move more slowly, and it will still be up in northern New England Saturday. That would place the heaviest rains in northern New York and much of Vermont,New Hampshire and Maine.

My gut tells me the southern New England heavy rain scenario Saturday and Sunday is right this time,  but that's not very scientific, is it? We'll just have to wait and see.

By the way, some of the thunderstorms could be strong, with gusty winds being added to the mix.

If you hate high humidity, you better hope the front pushes into southern New England fairly quickly.   Because if that happens, we'll get some - but not complete - relief from the terrible humidity we'll get over the next few days.

By the way, New England isn't going to be the only wet spot in the nation over the next few days. A broad stripe from the Gulf Coast all the way northeast through the lower Mississippi Valley and Tennesse and Ohio Valleys are up for a lot of rain over the next week.

So is parts of the Desert Southwest. There, the monsoon season has already produced several flash floods, and more are likely there over the next few days.

Remarkable Vermont October Record Heat

Record October heat has kept flowers
blooming in my gardens, St. Albans,
Vermont in the normally chilly northwest
corner of the state.  

It's been quite a stretch of weirdly warm weather here in Vermont lately, especially in the Champlain Valley.

What got most of the headlines were the daily record high temperatures of 79 and 80 degrees on Tuesday and Wednesday, but that wasn't the weirdest part of this heat wave.

Temperatures that warm do happen in October from time to time in Vermont. In fact the hottest October day high on record for any date in Burlington during the month was 85 degrees.

Usually, though, these October warm spells hit when the sky is clear and humidity is low. When that happens, temperatures usually cool into the 40s or low 50s at night, even if it was around 80 during the day.

This time, there were clouds and rather high humidity around. So the temperature was continuously above 60 degrees Tuesday through Thursday. In fact, as of 6 a.m. Friday, the temperature in Burlington  STILL hadn't fallen below 60 yet. But that will either happen briefly this Friday morning, or tonight.

Even so, I don't recall ever seeing overnight low temperatures stay that high for so long. The low temperatures this week were warmer than the normal afternoon highs for mid-October, which are in the upper 50s.

With a high temperature of 80 and a low of 68 on Wednesday, the average temperatue was 74 degrees. That tied the record for the warmest mean temperature for any day in October in Burlington, in records going back to the 1880s.

The low of 68 degrees is eight degrees warmer than the normal low in July.  Even in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, in the chilly Northeast Kingdom, the temperature never made it below 60 degres on Wednesday.

Rain held temperatures down slightly on Thursday, but not much. And the humidity was higher than I can recall seeing in October.  The dewpoint is a measure of how humid the air is. If the dewpoint is 60 degrees, it's sort of humid, and that's typical for mid-summer.

Thursday afternoon, the dewpoint reached as high as 67 degrees up here in Burlington. That's very sticky even by July standards.

Not surprisingly, all this means the month of October as a whole is running very much on the warm side --seven degrees above normal at last check.

But things have a way of balancing out.  It'll be a little cooler today and Saturday, and a strong cold front crashing through on Saturday will make temperatures plunge.

High temperatures in Vermont will only reach the 40s on Sunday, and it'll probably snow a little on the mountain tops.  Afternoon high temperatures will barely make it to 50 during most of next week.

That's a bit cooler than normal for mid to late October, but it's nothing extraordinary at all. But after our foliage season summer, it will seem frigid.

Heat, Humidity, Storms In Northeast: Fall Not Here Yet

A thunderstorm erupts a couple
summers ago in this toward the west
across Lake Champlain from Burlington,
Vermont. Similar scenes are likely today.  

Psychologically, many of us decide it's autumm once Labor Day is passed.

For climatologists, and many other weather geeks like me, September 1 marks the start of meteorological autumn.

In the United States Ohio Valley and Northeast, Mother Nature has not yet received the "Autumn Has Arrived" memo.

Yesterday, September 1 in this region was rather hot and humid. Today, it's more of the same with the strong risk of storms. A few of the storms in the entire Northeastern quarter of the nation could end up being severe.

Here's a great example of summer extending into September this year, which it does most years, to be honest.

Yesterday, the high temperature in Burlington, Vermont was 88 degrees. It was hotter than any day in August, and the hottest day since July 22.

Similar readings are possible today.

With a weak cold front coming in, though, summer like showers and thunderstorms are a good bet. A few of them could be severe anywhere from the Great Lakes, down to Kentucky and the on up the East Coast all the way through New England.

As is always the case when severe storms are possible, only a small minority of towns and cities in the area will get whalloped by severe weather, with damaging winds and giant hail. Most of us will just get garden variety stuff.

Still, it's always a good idea to keep an eye to the sky and get inside when thunder starts and the sky begins to darken.

According to the Storm Prediction Center, the greatest chances of severe storms today runs from eastern Kentucky, on up the Appalachians to central New York.  But as I said, even areas outside this band do have a shot of some severe weather.

The rest of the week in the Northeast will remain warm, just not as warm as today.

It looks as if Mother Nature will finally receive the Autumn Memo toward the end of the week and the weekend, when many areas from the Great Lakes to New England will begin, once again, to feel a bit of autumn in the air.

Fittingly, A Maybe Last Surge of Summer Warmth For Labor Day Weekend

Some of the leaves on this sugar maple tree in
my St. Albans, Vermont yard are already starting
to turn. Fall is coming.  

It hasn't exactly been the hottest summer ever in the eastern two thirds of the United States, though the West Coast has certainly been torrid enough.

It hasn't exactly been The Year Without A Summer, either, as in most places, temperatures have averaged near to only a little below normal.

We've had (almost) our share of summer, which is a good thing.

In the aforementioned eastern half of the nation, summer will make one of its final stands during the Labor Day weekend, which is fitting, since it's unofficially the close of summer for many people.

The warmth and in many cases the humidity will last into next week.

There have been unsettling signs of fall lately. Unsettling, at least, for people who like nice long summers and have an aversion to cold weather.

It snowed on Pikes Peak yesterday. which isn't THAT unusual. But still.

Where I live in Vermont, yesterday wasn't exactly cold, but mostly cloudy skies, a stiff north wind and temperatures that sank into the 60s during the afternoon certainly felt like autumn.

It didn't help that some of the more sickly sugar maple trees in my yard have started to turn color.

Up here in Vermont, we call those kind of conditions "Fair weather." Not because it's fair and sunny. It's because county and state fairs have their peak season in late August.  Often, those who go to these fairs enjoy weather that's not quite as warm as it is in the height of summer, but not quite as chilly as autumn, either.

So we call conditions on days like yesterday fair weather. Yep, add "fair season" to the other miscellaneous seasons we have up here, like foliage season and mud season.

But, as I said, autumn isn't winning yet. Where it's not that warm in the eastern half of the nation, it will become so. We won't be breaking any records, but it will definitely be great for you warm weather fans.

Unfortunately for some of us who wilt in the humidity, it will be muggy all the way into the Great Lakes and northern New England.

And many of these areas won't have wall to wall sunshine, either. Thunderstorms and showers are a good bet over the weekend, especially along the Gulf Coast and in the Great Lakes Saturday, and in a band from the southern and central Mississippi Valley to New England Sunday.

In most of those places, it won't rain constantly over the weekend, but the threat for showers and storms, some with heavy rain, will be there much of the time.

And as I said, it will definitely be humid. That'll curl your hair.

Eventually, autumn will win out. So savor these last few summer days.