If You Were In Montana This Weekend, Your Hat Probably Blew Off

A common sight around parts of Montana amid high winds Saturday.
Photo from the Great Falls Tribune. 

While we in Vermont were still under calm winds and murky skies, let's just say itwas pointless to wear a hat in much of Montana on Saturday. And in much of the West this weekend for that matter.

Up in Montana, parts of the state often get strong chinook winds, which are warm, dry downslope westerly or southwesterly winds off the Rocky Mountains.

However, the wind definitely got ridiculous in Montana Saturday, with gusts in th 80 to 90 mph range in some towns during the worst of it.

Yeah, definitely hang on to your hat weather.

At Great Falls, Montana, winds gusted to more than 40 mph for 29 hours straight.  The wind gusts there peaked at 82 mph and for several hours gusted to 60 to 70 mph or more.

The warm winds melted what little snow was on the ground.  The hurricane forced gusts caused dust storms and blowing smoke from rapidly spreading rangeland fires.  The dust and smoke blocked visibility on many open highways, leading to a number of crashes, KRTV in Great Falls reports.

The high winds closed Route 87, a major highway in the region.  And of course there the reports of trees and wires down everywhere.  

The downslope winds also created record warmth in some areas of Montana, with highs getting into the 60s.

The wind shifted into the north and died down a LOT Saturday night. But it got colder and started to snow.  A more typical February deal up there.

The high winds shifted into the Southwest on Sunday. Gusts last night were expected to be as high as 90 mph in the high mountain passes east of Los Angeles.  Widespread gusts of 50 to 60 mph were blowing across much of the desert Southwest.

All that wind out west is a hint that the weather pattern is changing to a stormier one. Already, a snowstorm has blossomed in the central Rockies, including in the Salt Lake City area, where they could see up to ten inches of new snow.

This stormier pattern will eventually get to us in Vermont late in the week. It's still too soon to say  how much precipitation we're going to get, or what kind.

Here's a news clip from KRTV in Great Falls regarding Saturday's wind:

Weather Pattern Change: No Snow And Hints Of Summer

Even the National Weather Service office in South Burlington seems a bit excited.

The eight to fourteen day forecast from the National Weather
Service Climate Prediction Center hints at above
normal temperatures to end the month in
the eastern United States. It stays cold in the Rockies.

On their home page this morning, they touted the national eight-to-fourteen day general national weather forecast from the NWS's Climate Prediction Center. 

All long range forecasts are uncertain, but this particular one calls for greater than even chances of warmer than normal temperatures in the East, including in Vermont, for the closing ten days of May. (Their six to ten day forecast has basically the same scenario.)

This would mean a change from the persistently dreary, cool and sometimes snowy weather we've had this month. It would also mean our first consistent taste of summer.

High temperatures this time of year are usually in the upper 60s to around 70. And those normal highs continue to climb as we make our way through the month.

Which means warmer than normal temperatures, if they happen, would definitely feel like summer. I'd expect we'd have some days under this long range forecast to be well into the 70s or even 80s. If the forecast is accurate, that is.

It's been a wet month and that trend will continue in the short term. A series of storms that is expected to bring several days of severe weather to the middle of the nation will also send a series of warm fronts towards us.

Warm fronts do bring warmer air in general (duh!), so that fits the Climate Prediction Center forecasts. The fronts also tend to bring rain. The first batch will come through Friday morning. It won't be a tremendous storm, not even close. But it will continue our wet trend.

It will stay on the cool side at least through Saturday, too. But seasonably cool, not cold and snowy like earlier this week. Those days are over, finally. About time, too. The snow depth at the summit of Mount Mansfield is back up to 58 inches, which is a lot for mid-May.

The next warm front looks like it will come along Sunday. Meteorologists at the National Weather Service in South Burlington know that will bring showers, but they understandably don't yet know where most of the showers will set up. It all depends upon the placement of the front.

Temperatures Sunday will be tricky, too. It'll be cool north of the front and warm and maybe a little sticky (summer!) south of the front. We just don't know where the front will be.

Enough warm and humid air might come along by Monday to set off some summer-like thunderstorms, but it's too soon to speculate on how extensive those storms might be, if they develop.

That long range forecast I opened with in this blog post also calls for even chances of above or below normal rainfall at the end of the month. That's a hint that May could close out not only warm, but maybe a little sunnier and drier than it's been.

Summer To Winter In Just A Week

First snow of the season Saturday at the snow measuring
stake near the summit of Mount Mansfield Vermont
Photo by Scott Braaten via a National Weather
Service post on Twitter 

This year, like many previous years, summer extended well into autumn here in Vermont.  Just last week, it was in the low 80s and humid, pretty typical for July, not October.

As you noticed, it's more seasonable this weekend. But our normal fall weather will descend right into winter this week. By Thursday, highs will only be in the 30s, typical of early December.

That's quite a transition.

When weather patterns change, they do change don't they.?

We are stuck in chilly weather for awhile. As it stands now, it's likely there won't be a return to mild weather until maybe the closing days of the month. Oh sure, there might be a couple comfortable days thrown in, but it is going to like November for a couple weeks.

There will even be a little snow. The air flow will be from the northwest, so there won't be a lot of moisture around to play with. But repeated cold fronts will throw light rain and snow showers at us every couple of days for the next ten days or so. Wednesday's cold front is strong, so that will be our first chance to see snowflakes on Vermont's valley floors.

By the way, it's even colder and snowier elseewhere. It was snowing across quite a bit of South Dakota, Minnesota and northwestern Iowa this morning. Snow is in the forecast at points remarkably far south over the next couple of days. Parts of Kansas, western Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle are in for snow over the next 24 hours.

Record cold temperatures are expected by Monday in a stripe from Wyoming and South Dakota south to northern Texas.

This cold second half of October doesn't mean anything for what this winter will be like. It's really impossible to say whether this winter will be cold or warm, snowy or not.

If you like a foretaste of winter, this will be your week. If not, I bet we'll have some sort of Indian Summer before winter really sets in.

Hot Again, Then Wetter Times Ahead For Vermont, Northeast?

Lots of blue sky on the Burlington, Vermont waterfront on Sunday.
The second half of July might, maybe turn wetter.

Another scorcher is coming today. If it hits 90 degrees or more in Burlington, Vermont which is very likely, half of the days so far in July would have reached 90 degrees, so yeah, it's been a hot month so far.

And as previously noted, dry. But an upcoming subtle shift in the weather pattern might - maybe - lead to a wetter second half of the month. That's not cast in stone, but there's a few promising signs that could happen.

First off, Tuesday's cold front looks to be a wet one. Like any summertime cold front, there will be winners and losers, with some places getting absolutely drenched and others barely dampened.

But at least this one has lots of moisture to work with, and the atmosphere is primed to dump some good downpours.  Most of us will probably get some decent rainfall out of this.

It will turn dry again for most of the rest of the week after tomorrow, but meanwhile, that change in the weather pattern will keep developing.

Strong high pressure - the Bermuda High, basically - will build northward and stay strong over the western Atlantic Ocean. Meanwhile, a slight dip in the jet stream seems like it wants to develop somewhere over or near the Great Lakes for much of the second half of the month.

This dip would encourage storms, weather disturbances and cold fronts to come through the Great Lakes region and start heading east toward us. But then, these cold fronts and such would run into that strong Bermuda High off the coast.

Until now this summer, either a heat dome over us would prevent cold fronts from coming in, or the fronts would zip through so quickly they generally wouldn't have time to pour much rain on us.

But with the possibility of the cold fronts bumping up against that offshore, strong high pressure, these disturbances might tend to slow down or stall over or near the Northeast. Also, southerly flow on the western flank of this high would bring moisture northward into New England to feed water to these sluggish cold fronts.

The first of these possible wet spells looks like it might come in next Sunday or Monday.

There's no guarantee the weather will play out exactly like I'm telling you, but it does look like rainy spells are somewhat more likely during the second half of July. That would ruin some days at the beach, but hey, we really, really need the rain.

Although it will probably often be humid, the clouds and showers might also serve to keep temperatures out of the 90s Again, that's uncertain, but that's what the tea leaves are reading now.

Looks Like It's Going To Be A Cold December In Vermont, Eastern U.S.

NOAA's 8 to 14 day outlook says it all. Quite
cold in the East for mid-December,
warm out west. 

No guarantees, but it looks like December in much of the eastern half of the country is going to come in on the cold side.

The weather pattern in November was stuck in that zonal flow, a rapid west-to-east progression of small storms and patches of fair weather, which kept most of the nation either warm, or at least fairly close to normal, with few big storms.

(For the record, Vermont in November was a little on the chilly side of normal, and it was drier than average,)

That flat west-to-east jet stream will begin to buckle this weekend and settle into a pattern with a big northward bulge in western North America, and a big deep dip in the eastern half of the continent.

That means cold weather from the Plains east, and possible snow and storminess from the Great Lakes to the East Coast. (That storminess is much less certain than the forecast for cold, but there is some potential, anyway)

Just like the persistence of the November pattern, it looks like December's pattern will stay put, at least for a couple weeks - if not more - once it sets up during the upcoming week.

That means repeatedly pushes of Arctic air into the eastern half of the nation will be the rule for much of the month. So far, there's no evidence that this will be any kind of record, unprecedented cold. Just generally colder than normal for December. You do have to expect winter weather during the Christmas season anyway right?

In the western third of the nation, it will stay warm under the northward bulge in the jet stream. Alaska looks to stay warm, too, at least by their winter standards.

Here in Vermont, after a cloudy, calm weekend, the weather will temporarily turn windy, wet and warm mid-week as a strong storm intensies  while moving north through the Great Lakes into southern Canada. This storm is part of the process that will usher in this new weather pattern.

The storm's cold front will sweep through Wednesday or Wednesday night, bringing us into winter. It just looks seasonably cold - near normal - at the end of the upcoming week, but the cold will deepen the following week. Again, nothing that will break records, but you'll know it's winter.

It's too soon to know how much snow will accompany this colder weather. I know for sure it will snow, as early as next Saturday, but nobody knows how much. Stay tuned on that one