Severe Weather On Friday Turned Out As Expected, But Avoided Northernn New York ,Vermont. Her's Why

Alicia M. Bentley captured this funnel and rotation
not far from Albany, New York Friday. 

As expected, Friday was a day filled with tornado watches and warnings, severe thunderstorms, hail, wind damage, power failures and other troubles across the Northeast.

The exception was northern New York, the northern half of Vermont and far northern New Hampshire, which pretty much avoided the storms.

That break up north wasn't really as expected.

Whether severe storms would form in any given area Friday depended upon whether humid air could zoom north in time to capture a strong weather disturbance coming in from the west.

As things started to come together for storms Friday afternoon, a warm front of sorts formed in northern New York and central Vermont. This  kinda wannabe weather front separated the dry air that lingered to the north, with the humid air to the south.

That meant northern areas, which had been under risk for storms, pretty much avoided them.

The position of this sorta weather front meant basically all the rough weather was south of a line from  Glens Falls, New York, near, or a little north of Rutland, Vermont, and on through most of central and southern New Hampshire.

The humid air eventually surged all the way to and past the Canadian border Friday evening, but by then the most energetic atmospherics for storms had gone by to the east.

It was a fairly robust severe weather outbreak in places that got into the humid air. There was a tornado warning for a time in southwestern Vermont near Arlington, Shaftsbury and Mamchester as  supercell storm moved through in the late afternoon.

I don't believe a tornado touched down, but there were numerous reports of wind damage from that part of Vermont, northeastward toward Springfield and on into central New Hampshire as the supercell marched forward.

Green Mountain Power reported 3,000 customers lost electricity in the storms, mostly in southern Vermont, but by this morning, the juice as flowing again to just about everybody. 

I didn't see any official reports of tornadoes touching anywhere in the Northeast, but there were rotating wall clouds in spots, which are often precursors to tornadoes.

The weather is much calmer today. There might be a few scattered showers in the Adirondacks and northern New England, but they will be light and certainly not scary.  Today will be cool for this time of year, with some upper 60s far north, 70s in most of New England with a few spot 80 degree readings in southern New England.

Partly to mostly sunny weather is due in New England Sunday.

Tiff Between Storm Chaser and National Weather Service Raises Social Media Worries

Storm spotters and chasersare invaluable to help the National Weather
Service warn people of dangerous weather, but how
do they weed out non-credible sources, and how
do they encourage reputable spotters? 

Saturday, a weak tornado briefly touched down in the eastern Texas panhandle.

Compared to some tornadoes, this one wasn't much of a storm, as it didn't cause much damage in the rural area it hit.

However, there was a much bigger storm concerning this twister in the form of a social media tempest between a reputable storm chaser who saw the tornado and the Amarillo National Weather Service office, which didn't believe the report.

The dispute touched off a Twitter  storm among the storm chasing and meteorological community, though everybody, including the storm chaser and the Amarillo NWS office,  kissed and made up during the day Sunday.

But the dispute highlights the double edged sword that is storm reporting via social media.

Reputable storm chasers can be invaluable. They provide "ground truth," - observing what is actually going on in terms of severe storms and tornadoes, whether or not meteorologists are also picking up the action on radar.

However, the National Weather Service is also plagued by trolls - people who falsely report severe weather and tornadoes, trying to invoke panic or at least weather warnings, in spots where no threatening weather is actually occurring.

I guess that's fun, but what do I know about the mind of a troll?

The National Weather Service is loathe to pass along storm reports that might be false, because nobody wants to cause false panic, and nobody wants the National Weather Service crying wolf. That would mean people would dangerously ignore legitimate tornado or other weather warnings in the future.

On Saturday, storm chaser Dick McGowan spotted that relatively brief tornado in the eastern Texas panhandle.  Back at the National Weather Service office in Amarillo, the storm that wss producing the twister McGowan saw didn't look all that impressive on radar.

Certainly nothing that would produce a tornado, or so the Amarillo National Weather Service office meteorologists though. The NWS office dismissed McGowan's report.  The NWS responded to McGowan: "There are no storms where you are. This is NOT a valid report."

Meteorologists there apparently assumed it was an Internet troll at work, trying to stir up needless panic.

So no tornado warning.

It turns out McGowan was right. There was a tornado and he had a photograph to prove it.

McGowan is a reputable storm chaser,  (check out his Twitter feed) and has developed the expertise to parse whether any given storm is dangerous or not. The one he saw Saturday was dangerous, since it did produce a tornado.

Sometimes, a so-so looking storm will briefly organize into something that can produce a tornado, and all the fancy dancy Doppler radars and velocity analysis and doohickies don't pick up on this.

Apparently, the storm McGowan saw did just that.

That's why "ground truth" from actual observers is still important. 

The National Weather Service issued a mea culpa Sunday. The office released a statement (which you can see in full on the image in this post; click on it to make it bigger and easier to read.)

The statement said the National Weather Service in Amarillo values all the storm reports it receives and works hard to confirm the legitimacy to the report.

Amarillo also said this in the Facebook post:

"Unfortunately, many NWS offices have recently been the target of erroneous storm reports and this impacts our ability to discern questionable reports. We would like to extend an invitation to the storm chaser and spotter community to help us find a way that we can filter these reports, and to better handle storm reports that we may receive in the future in a timely manner."

Trained spotters can telephone National Weather Service offices directly, but of course cell service is iffy in rural areas, and in the middle of nasty storms, things get even more iffy in the cell phone department.

I would be very interested to see if there are any blanket proposals coming on how or whether the National Weather Service can accept social media storm reports, and whether they can be very quickly verified as legit or possible hoaxes.

Readers, if you have any ideas, sent them along.

Meanwhile, there were a couple tornadoes Saturday in eastern Texas that everybody immediately agreed actually occured.

One of them was captured on video by a motorist in Willis, Texas.  I love the reaction of the people in the car who happened upon the tornado, then followed it as it moved roughly in the direction they were driving:

Snowstorm Pretty Much Over, But Winter's Not

Skies began to clear across New York State and Vermont this afternoon as the epic big snowstorm moved on off to the Northeast. Some breaks of sun were poking through in New Hampshire and Maine, too.  

Here's a map of what the National Weather Service
in South Burlington, Vermont predicted before the
storm. Red is the deepest snow. Click on
the map to make it bigger and easier to see.  

The National Weather Service in South Burlington did an awesome job forecasting this storm.

They'd said 18-24 inches would accumulate in the Adirondacks, central Vermont and on into northern New Hampshire and that's precisely what happened.

Slightly lesser amounts would fall to the north and south of that band, the National Weather Service had predicted, and they were on the money.

Although final, final totals weren't in by 4 p.m., the most snow I've seen so far in Vermont out of this is 29 inches at Jay Peak and 26 inches at Sharon.

In Burlington, Vermont, 18.6 inches fell as of late morning, which would make this the 5th largest March snowstorm and 12th biggest snowstorm overall. A bit of snow might have fallen after that report, which could move the storm up in the rankings a bit.

The storm is over, but winter is not.

With a fresh, deep snowpack, temperatures, which were already running a good 20 degrees below normal Thursday afternoon, will crash tonight. Most of northern New England will be below zero, with a few "warm" spots just above zero.

Winds were diminishing late Thursday afternoon, so the threat of blowing and drifting snow is gradually subsiding.

But we aren't done with that, yet. Friday, winds will grow strong from the south, especially in the Champlain Valley. With Friday's winds coming from the opposite direction as they did during the storm, the snow will be able to rearrange itself again, blowing out onto roads.

Here's a map of snow totals from the storm, based on
reports to the National Weather Service in South
Burlington, Vermont. This actual map
is very similar to the prediction map, above.
Click on this map, too to make it bigger
and easier to read.  

So, you'll be blasting down the road at the speed limit or more, then encounter a big snow drift in the middle of the road. And there you go. Another crash or slide off waiting to happen.

Also, since roads and driveways are essentially canyons flanked by tall snowbanks now, deep drifts could appear on wind exposed roadways on Friday.

It'lll turn warm-ish Friday night and Saturday, with temperatures remaining near 32 degrees Friday night and briefly spiking to the upper 30s Saturday morning.

But then we get another cold front. Temperatures will fall slowly Saturday afternoon, and we're in for another dusting to three inches of snow. (The three inches being in the high elevations.)

Then it's back to midwinter, January style cold Sunday through Tuesday as our never ending winter shows few signs of well, ending.