Busier Weather Pattern Coming, Typical For March

Weather map showing the "Storm Of The Century on March 13, 1993.
We don't expect anything close to this extreme anytime soon in the
United States, but a stormier pattern is on its way, typical of March. 

Mid-March is typically a very busy time on the national weather maps.  There are frequently very big storms to contend with right around this time of year.

The past couple of days and today are the anniversaries of the Great Blizzard of 1888, which dumped up to 50 inches of snow on the Northeast with drifts to 40 feet. (!!!)

It's also the anniversary of the "Storm Of The Century" Superstorm  of 1993, which struck from the Gulf Coast to southeastern Canada (including Vermont).  It was the costliest non-tropical storm in U.S. history.

More recently, a bomb cyclone triggered record flooding in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota in mid-March last year. The Pi Day blizzard struck Vermont and surrounding areas in 2017 with more than two feet of snow in some areas.  

We don't expect anything like those storms in the coming days, but the weather pattern, already a bit active, looks like it will crank up a bit more.

An initial storm in the middle of the nation is no great shakes.  I'm out in Yankton, South Dakota at the moment and I awoke to an inch or two of snow on the ground here.  Down in Nebraska, there's up to six inches of snow. This small thing will gently slap Vermont with some rain showers on Tuesday.

The atmosphere is reloading, though.  California is in for a wet weekend, with lots of snow in the Sierra Nevada. That's actually a good thing. February was remarkably dry, so that rain is welcome. The several feet of snow expected in the highest elevations there will bring the snow pack there a little closer to normal.

That's important because California needs the melting snow from the mountains later this spring and summer to replenish reservoirs.

Eventually, a lot of this energy from California will emerge into the Plains states by the middle or end of the upcoming week.  It's way too soon to say exactly how this will evolve, but there's definitely a good chance of a northern or central Plains blizzard, and severe weather in the South.

I doubt this storm will reach the extremes I cited above, but it will probably cause trouble nonetheless.

We'll watch how this shakes out in the coming days.  I also have no idea at this point how or even if this storm will affect us in Vermont.

After that, more impulses will come in from the Pacific Ocean and cross the nation through the rest of the month.  They might not be gigantic storms, but it will keep the weather interesting through the rest of the month.

That's just another example of how busy March can be for weather forecasters.

Wintry Rest Of The Weekend For Vermont, Much Of Rest Of Nation

This is just one model of the potential storm on Sunday and Monday.
This run of the European model dumps a foot and a half of snow
on the Albany, New York Capital District and interior southern
New England. CAUTION: This is just one run and one model. I pretty much
guarantee the storm won't play out like this, but it gives an idea of
where the early thinking of where the storm might focus. Note
that it could go further north or south than this, or be stronger
or weaker than this.  Time will tell.

The well-heralded second, stronger storm of the Thanksgiving week is gathering strength this morning over the western half of the nation as part of a coast-to-coast ride that is providin and will continue to provide lots of ugly weather for most of the nation.

 It's a wide ranging, large storm, so almost everybody gets in on the action. 

After coming ashore in Oregon the other day as a powerful, deep windstorm, this one settled into the Southwest on Thanksgiving, dropping lots of rain, firing up strong thunderstorms and flash floods in southern California and Arizona.

There was even a tornado warning early this morning for parts of the Phoenix metro area.

This storm is also dumping boatloads of snow in higher elevations. Some snow even came down in not-so-high elevations.

Interstate 5 - The so called Grapevine in the mountains east of Los Angeles, shut down yesterday due to heavy snow and many stuck cars.

The storm is gathering itself, and will cause major trouble today and tomorrow through a huge area of the western and central United States.

Winter storm and blizzard warnings extend from Arizona, through the central Rockies and into a big, big portion of the northern Plains.

To its south, severe weather and possible tornadoes could break out in and around Louisiana Saturday.

This type of storm track usually has the action going by to our west and we Vermonters get a squirt of warm air ahead of the storm before the inevitable cold front with the storm comes through.

Not this time. The storm will take an unusual path. Instead of continuing on toward the Great Lakes, it seems the storm will take an abrupt right turn once it gets to about Nebraska. Then it will head east or even a little south of east  toward the Mid-Atlantic coast, where a new storm will develop, and turn into a pretty typical nor'easter.

There will be a nasty stripe of snow and ice north of the storm's path. It's not a fast mover, either, so there could be time to drop a lot of precipitation where it concentrates itself. 

It's unclear how far north the snow will get given the storm's kind of strange path Southern and central New England have the potential at least to get quite a dump.

Here in Vermont, the south could get a lot and the north would largely miss out.  Computer trends with this storm have trended a bit south, so if that prediction sticks, northern Vermont would only get a little snow Sunday night and Monday.

But, that's no guarantee.  If the storm jogs just a little north, the whole state could get a good dump of snow out of this. No promises yet either way.

OTHER ISSUES

Before we get to that, note that there's areas of freezing drizzle in Vermont this morning. If you've headed out to the silly Black Friday store buster deals, don't hurry too much. Roads are slick in spots.

Plus, whether or not we get snow in Vermont later Sunday into Monday, it's going to be wintry cold again. After a brief break in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, we're stuck back in the early start to winter.   It's going to be a long one, folks.

Cape Town, South Africa Rejoices In Flash Floods; U.S., Not So Much

Reservoirs near Cape Town, South Africa are beginning to refill with
recent heavy rains, meaning a water crisis is at least temporarily averted.

For the third time this month, a major cold front smasing  into the area around Cape Town, South Africa, promising heavy rain and gusty winds.

Sounds miserable, especially after a rather wet and gloomy May, but a lot of people in and around Cape Town are delighted with the stormy weather.

CAPE TOWN RELIEF

When last we left Cape Town in this here blog thingy, the major city in South Africa was about to run out of water.

Sometime this spring, (which is autumn in the southern hemisphere, where Cape Town is) the city of about 3.7 million would run out of water due to a long, punishing drought. The plan was to haul in water from elsewhere, and give everyone a measly 25 liters per person every day at distribution sites, which is logistically very tricky. And 25 liters isn't really much water for a person's needs.

Thank goodness the rains came. Cape Town is by no means out of the woods, but reservoirs have partly refilled with the recent rains. And more precipitation is forecast this week. Again, it won't solve all the problems there, but it's a good start. Disaster has been averted for now.

Some of the storms have been heavy enough to produce some flash flooding in and are Cape Town this month. But given the apocalyptic warnings of no water this year, it seems people there are accepting the local bouts of high water on city streets.

UNITED STATES FLASH FLOODS

As usual back here in the United States, summer storms have created some pretty nasty flash floods in the past couple of days. Ground zero so far seems to be northern Minnesota, parts of Wisconsin and pieces of northwestern Michigan.

Two to 12 inches of rain fell in much of northern Wisconsin since yesterday, and flash flooding was widespread. Major highways in the region are washed out, says Minnesota Public Radio, and flash flood emergencies were in effect this morning.

Highway 23 in Minnesota was washed away by flash flooding last night. 

Thing are still ominous out there today. As of early afternoon, the flash flood region in Minnesota and Wisconsin was under a tornado watch. The storms that could cause those tornadoes will also likely unleash more heavy rain, so more flooding is still a big risk.

VERMONT STORMS?

Monday could be an interesting day in parts of Vermont with the risk of strong storms, and despite the recent very dry conditions, the slight possibility of flash floods exists around here, too.

You might have noticed this Sunday afternoon it's gotten pretty damn hot, with temperatures well into the 80s in many spots in Vermont by 1 p.m. The humidity isn't too bad -- yet.

But the humidity will dramatically increase later today and tonight, and as I mentioned yesterday, water in the atmosphere will be at near record highs across Vermont Monday.

Meanwhile, a cold front is sagging south from Canada. Before it arrives, Monday will become a miserable day, with afternoon temperatures approaching 90. That'll be combined with unbearable humidity levels.

The humidity and the approaching cold front will trigger plenty of afternoon and evening thunderstorms. A few could be severe. The biggest threat is from local microbursts. Individual microbursts rarely affect an area more than a couple miles in circumference, but they are very dangerous. 

They come when strong updrafts in a thunderstorm keep lots and lots of rain and hail suspended in the atmosphere. Then the thunderstorm loses the updraft and all that rain and hail comes crashing down to Earth in a giant gust of wind, blinding rain and hail. Microbursts can cause lots of damage, because the winds are so strong and the incredible amount of rain that can accompany them sometimes create flash floods.

The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma currently has all of Vermont in a slight risk zone for severe storms on Monday.

Forecasters also have us in a slight risk zone for flash flooding. As noted, it has been dry, so it would take lots of rain to cause a flash flood. There's no chance that there will be widespread flooding in Vermont with the expected downpours on Monday. There is a big however, however.

If a few torrential storms go over the same area, a couple local towns could get some dangerous flash floods along small streams, creeks, ditches and what not.

As a result, NOAA has northern New England and northern New York, including all of Vermont in a slight risk zone for flash flooding on Monday. 

We'll have updates to this on Monday morning.

My Five-Year-Old Type Brain Saw A Funny On A Weather Map

I admit it. I can be really, really immature. 

I get it that weather warnings and watches from the National Weather
Service are serious, but all I could think of when I saw this map
Tuesday evening was a dinosaur pooping on central Texxas.
Yes, I'm a bad, bad person. 

Which is why I laughed out loud last evening when I got to the home page of the National Weather Service. 

The home page features a color-coded map of the entire United States, and shows all the weather warnings, watches, alerts and statements in every county in the nation. 

The map is color coded, so you can easily pick out the flood watches, winter weather alerts, severe thunderstorm statements, etc. 

Last evening, a large area from northeast Texas to central Illinois was under a flood watch, depicted in dark green. Meanwhile, west-central Texas was under a severe thunderstorm watch, depicted in purple, with a couple of severe weather warnings and statements showing up in the middle of that purple in the colors orange and beige.

Serious stuff, yes. But all I could think of when I saw that map was a dinosaur pooping on west-central Texas. 

You can see it in the photo in this post. And yes, I'm a bad, bad, childlike person who should feel ashamed. 

But oh, well.