Weather Surprises Keep Popping Up Nearby And Beyond

Storm chaser Simon Brewer, who usually spends his time in the
Great Plains chasing tornadoes, had to travel to Glens Falls, New York
to capture this impressive wall cloud, that did produce a tornado. 

Although I don't have super shocking weather news to bring up today, there are still plenty of reports to confirm the weather is always surprising, in small and big ways.

First of all, I'm a little surprised I have to make this correction: 

Unlike what I said in yesterday's post, "no tornado is known to have touched down in that area," a tornado DID in fact touch down in that thunderstorm with the impressive wall cloud around Glens Falls.

The National Weather Service office in Albany New York confirms that Glens Falls storm, and presumably its wall cloud, DID produce a tornado.

The tornado was an EF-1 with winds of between 75 and 110 mph. It damaged at least one home and sheared off and uprooted many trees not far from Interstate 87 in Glens Falls. It actually crossed that busy highway, but luckily, it was a bit weaker by the time it hit that Interstate.

I'm impressed by how wide and long-tracked the tornado was for this far into the interior Northeast. Usually tornadoes are narrow and very brief.  This one was at one point as much as a quarter mile wide and the tornado traveled a total of 8.6 miles before lifting.

This was the second time within two weeks that a tornado touched down close to the southwestern Vermont border. In both cases, the tornado's parent thunderstorm moved into Vermont, caused straight line wind damage.  This time, Poultney was pretty hard hit by those winds.

WASHINGTON/OREGON STORMS

Speaking of surprising severe thunderstorms, it was eastern Washington State and Oregon's turn to endure supercells and damaging storms. It's fairly rare for conditions to come together in this part of the country for a lot of severe weather, but they sure did on Saturday.

Winds with these storms gusted as high as 97 mph in Washington, 85 mph in Oregon and 83 mph in Idaho.  I'm unsure if any tornadoes touched down with these storms. I'm sure local National Weather Service offices will be checking on that. There were certainly plenty of reports of damage in this area.

QUEBEC/CANADIAN YO-YO WEATHER

We here in Vermont have certainly cooled down from that record heat we and Quebec had last week.

That heat spread into much of eastern Canada as the week closed. Record highs included 93 degrees in Bathurst, New Brunswick,  31.8 in Gaspe, Quebec, 84 in Gander, Newfoundland and 82 in St. John's Newfoundland.

Up in Quebec, where temperatures were in the 80s and well into the 90s,  things had gotten ridiculously cool by this morning. Snow was reported in the Laurentian highlands this morning.

Don't worry, that snow won't work itself nearly this far south. We're done with snow until autumn.  But it will be remarkably cool for the season, with high temperatures in most of northern Vermont not making it past 60 degrees today. That's more typical for late April.  Monday will be quite cool as well before a warming trend kicks in to bring us up into the seasonable 70s by the end of the week.

The secondary cold front that brought in today's cool weather also managed to surprise me last night. It was expected to only produce sprinkles.  But there was widespread rains last evening across northern Vermont.  It wasn't super heavy, but my rain gauge in St. Albans, Vermont collected 0.12 inches of rain, and I was expecting nothing more than a trace.

Weird Storms, Just Not Here

Turns out this probably WAS a tornado in Wilton, New York which
is in Saratoga County, not too far from the Vermont border. 

That strong weather system that affected New York and New England did create at least one tornado, and meanwhile, new storms are brewing that could cause trouble in parts of the eastern United States. Just not in Vermont.

Let's get into Friday's storm damage, then we'll get into the new storms that are pretty interesting.

In yesterday's post, I showed a photo that might have been a tornado in Wilton, New York. I wondered if it might have actually been a microburst or a hail shaft.

Nope. Looks as if that Saratoga County storm DID produce a tornado.

The National Weather  Service office in Albany, New York said the EF-1 tornado had top wind speeds of between 85 and 90 mph, traveled 1.8 miles and was about 50 yards wide. It damaged the roof of a warehouse, and toppled many trees, some onto houses.

The National Weather Service in Albany also reported something called a macroburst caused damage in an international sounding section of Herkimer County, New York, particularly affecting the towns of Russia, Norway and Ohio.

A macroburst is a burst of wind from a strong downdraft reaching the surface. As the name implies, it's bigger than a microburst, which cover much smaller of an area, but still causes a lot of damage.

The New York microburst had winds of 80 to 100 mph and covered an area 10 miles wide and 25 miles long.

Now that those storms are long gone, we have others to deal with. And they're a little strange.

First, there's Tropical Storm Arthur off the northeast coast of Florida. I'm calling this one weird because it formed pretty early in the year.  You usually don't start seeing the first purely tropical storms unti July.

Arthur is going to remain weak as it heads north. It'll brush the North Carolina coast with gusty winds and heavy showers on Monday, Top winds with Arthur are expected to stay at 60 mph or less, and most if not all of those winds will remain offshore.

Early season tropical storms aren't as weird as they used to be, though.  There has been one before July 1 every year since 2014.  In 2014, the first tropical storm didn't form until July 1. Coincidentally, its name was Arthur.

The second weird storm is something that will meander around the Midwest and East through the week.  It's a cut off low, meaning it has removed itself from the flow of the jet stream. There's nothing to push it along.

So it will sit and spin, spreading heavy, slow moving rains around the Great Lakes today and tomorrow. That's bad news, because the Great Lakes are already at near record high levels, so they don't need more runoff.

The heavy rains will shift to the Mid-Atlantic later in the week, especially around Virginia and North Carolina, raising the risking of flooding there.

This isn't cast in stone, because cut off lows are notoriously hard to forecast. The heavy rains might set up in different locations than currently forecast.

However, depending upon your outlook, this cut off is either great news or somewhat bad news for us here in Vermont.

It's good news in that it will allow that high pressure system in Quebec to sink south over us during the week, creating a long stretch of at least partly sunny and mild weather.

It's bad news in a way for northern Vermont. We finally got some good rains Friday, and could use a little more. It looks like it's going to be a dry week, though southern Vermont could get some rain early in the week.

Worst Storms Were In Central New York/New England; Unknown If Tornadoes

Radar image of a dangerous storm heading into southwestern Vermont
last evening. Where the blue line and arrow is drawn in, the apex
of the backward "C' shape likely had damaging straight line
winds.  The red box was a tornado warning as radar
detected some spinning in the northern part of this storm. 

The severe weather in the Northeast materialized pretty much as expected yesterday, cutting a swath through western and central New York and finally through central New England.

A tornado watch was in effect for this event, and some of the storms were definitely rotating. However, it's unknown whether any tornadoes touched down.

 I'm sure National Weather Service offices in Albany, New York and in Massachusetts and New Hampshire will look into this.

The most interesting and dangerous cluster of storms got going north of Utica, New York. It promptly triggered a tornado warning.  A house in the path of this tornado warning lost its roof in the storm, but it's unclear if it was a twister or straight line winds.

The storm continued to cause damage, and occasional tornado warnings as it moved eastward into Saratoga, Washington and Warren counties of New York, just west of the Vermont border.  There were a lot of trees down, some damaged houses and roads blocked by debris. At least 36,000 people lost power in that area, according to the Glens Falls Post Star. 

The Post Star posted a photo of what they said was a tornado in Wilton, New York, but I'm not convinced by the photo. It could also be a downburst or a hail shaft, in my opinion.

The Glens Falls Post Star displayed this photo taken by Adam Colver
of what they said is a possible tornado in Wilton, New York. (Behind
the red brick part of the building). This feature in the storm could
also be a shaft of falling hail or a microburst. 

The line of storms then moved through Bennington and Windham counties, triggering tornado warnings around Sunderland, in southwestern Vermont, and the Brattleboro/Dummerston area in the southeast.

Again, it's unclear whether there were any actual tornadoes. The rotation on radar images in this storm did not look particularly intense. But this area is pretty distant from radar sites, so the quality of the storm images wasn't great.

There were reports of trees and wires down along the path of this storm and particularly where the tornado warnings went off. But this damage could easily have been caused by straight line winds and not anything tornadic.  If it was a tornado (which I kind of doubt) it would have been a fairly weak one.

The cluster of storms moved on into southwestern New Hampshire. I think slightly flatter ground there helped the storm intensify, and damage to trees and even buildings was greater than in Vermont.

On the southern end of this cluster of storms, high winds tore the roof off an apartment building in Holyoke, Massachusetts, displacing about 140 people. Again, it could have been straight line winds. I imagine weather experts will examine the damage in Holyoke to determine what caused it.

Further north in Vermont, there were strong to severe storms from about Middlebury to Montpelier to Bradford and points south, exactly as forecasters expected. There were reports of some trees and wires down with these storms. The storms in central Vermont were not tornadic. No tornado warnings were issued for this area, and there is no evidence of any kind of spin up that I could see.

Further north, in the quote, unquote more stable air, the parent storm system created a pretty good punch.  The line of heavy downpours, with some embedded thunder, managed to produce a wind gust to 47 mph in South Burlington. That's not severe, but still was kind of impressive.

The same storm system did more good than harm around my area in St. Albans, Vermont.  I got 0.88 inches of rain, with most of it coming within an hour during gusty showers.  We needed the rain, so I'm grateful that came through.

There's no severe storms in the forecasts now, but the predictions are pretty uncertain as to what will happen with our weather over the next few days.

A storm system will set up and sort of sit and spin over the central Appalachians over the next few days.  An early season subtropical storm seems to be forming off the coast of Florida and will get absorbed by that sitting and spinning storm

Meanwhile, fair weather high pressure will want to sink into northern New England from Quebec.  This will want to clear the skies over us.  So which wins? The rain to the south or the fair weather tothe north? Hard to tell, but as it looks now, we might get a period of rain Monday, then things will start clear out for the rest of next week. No promises, though.

Also, don't worry about any new outbreaks of late season chill if the Canadian high pressure system wins. Yes, it is from Canada, but it's not a cold batch of air.  Also, this fair weather system is, or will be, sitting over southern Quebec.

That's far enough south so that the warm May sun will keep raising the temperatures within this zone of fair weather, The upshot for us is we'll get near normal,  to perhaps slightly above normal temperatures by the end of the upcoming week.

Tornadoes Sweep Parts Of Midwest As Expected, Illinois Not As Hard Hit

Massive tornado yesterday in Jonesboro, Arkansas

As expected, tornadoes swept through parts of the Midwest Saturday, but luckily there have no reports of deaths so far, and only relatively minor injuries. There is a lot of damage, though.

Illinois had been expected to be the epicenter of the tornado outbreak and they did have tornadoes in that state.

But tornadoes were more heavily concentrated to the west in Iowa, and the most destructive of the tornadoes hit to the south, in Jonesboro, Arkansas and the neighboring town of Brookland.  

Dramatic videos of the tornado is at the bottom of this post.

In Jonesboro, a rapidly developing tornado quickly became strong and destroyed a shopping center and numerous homes, Local television station KAIT in Jonesboro reported only six injuries from the twister, which is amazing considering the destruction it caused.

The mayor of Jonesboro put everybody in town under curfew last night, ordering them to stay in their homes so that emergency workers could look for more people that needed help.  They also needed to clear streets of a huge amount of debris and fallen power lines.

Lots of people have seen this photo of a Jonesboro doctor behind
glass so he can protect his one year old from coronavirus. On
Saturday, the family's home was destroyed by a tornado.

Maybe the saddest result of the tornado involves a Dr. Jared Burks and his family. He's been on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak.

A photo taken by his wife Alyssa went viral recently. It showed the doctor watching, behind glass,  his one-year old son.  They must stay separate in case the doctor contracts the virus.  

The Jonesboro tornado destroyed the Burks family home Saturday while the doctor was in it. He wasn't hurt and his family was elsewhere, but the whole thing is just too cruel.  A GoFundMe page is set up for the Burks family. As of early this morning, people donated more than $25,000 to the family.

A total of at least 17 tornadoes have been so far confirmed across the Midwest Saturday.  Several homes and other buildings suffered extensive damage in Iowa and western Illinois.

Today, some severe thunderstorms are possible today in western New York and Pennsylvania, and in the Southeast Monday and Tuesday.

Up here in Vermont, we'll just get a couple rainy days today and Monday.  If any flooding occurs here, it will be very spotty and minor.

Some videos:

Videographer Mike Lane took this dramatic video of the tornado.

 

Zachary Hall too this video of the tornado destroying the Mall at Turtle Creek in Jonesboro:



Here's what scary live coverage of the tornado looked like on KAIT-TV in Jonesboro. The amount of debris in the air at 1:40 to 1:50 into the video is incredible:

 

Tennessee Proud After Tornadoes

Volunteers move debris this weekend to help victims of the
devastating tornadoes in Tennessee that struck Tuesday.

Can I just say I'm totally impressed with the people of Tennessee?

As you well know, tornadoes slammed central Tennessee last week, causing at least 24 deaths and spreading destruction through huge swaths of the state.  

In every disaster, people step up to help those who were hit.  I remember the wonderful outpouring of support here in Vermont when extreme flooding from Tropical Storm Irene wrecked many communities here in the Green Mountain State back in 2011. Vermont Strong, right?

The reaction was just as glorious in Tennessee after the tornadoes.  Tennessee's nickname is "The Volunteer State" and it has certainly lived up to its reputation in the past few days.

On Saturday, so many thousands of people turned out to help with recovery in and near Nashville that some were turned away and told to come back in a few days. They'll be needed, as this mess will take a long time to clean up.

Also, the urge to volunteer is so great that cars belonging to the Good Samaritans started blocking the way for trucks deployed to clear debris.  So Nashville set up a nice shuttle bus system for the volunteers. 

The huge tornado chewed its way from near Nashville and  blasted its way toward the town of Cookeville, Tennessee.  The twister swept houses away just west of downtown Cookeville, killed several people and just laid waste to the landscape.

The tornado had traveled about 60 miles eastward toward Cookeville. Just before it hit the community's downtown, it abruptly, miraculously dissipated. The scientists out there say another, weaker tornado forming nearby robbed the monster tornado of its energy source, causing it to collapse.

That's probably true, but it still feels like an almost supernatural miracle.

Small piece of debris pulled up into the air rained down on undamaged neighborhoods sometimes miles from the tornado path. Some of that "debris" was precious - family photos and momentoes torn from homes and scattered to the winds.

Anyway, a coffee shop in downtown Cookeville, spared from the tornado, stepped up to help in a wonderful way.  People who find photos on their property can bring them to the Soul Craft coffee shop in Cookeville. They're put in the box, and people can come in and look through the salvaged photos to see if any of them are theirs.

 Here's a news story on that coffee shop:

Spring Sprouts, Tornado Joggers and Googly Eyes. A Few Notes

Look very closely  and you can see daffodil shoots trying to
emerge from the soil next to the retreating ice on Thursday
in my St. Albans, Vermont gardens. 

It's been a relatively warm week for early March in Vermont. The snow is retreating the sap is running and it feels like spring might get here. Eventually.

True, it's going to be on the cold side tonight and Saturday and we surely have more cold spells and snowfalls to come. But we've made a little progress.

It's hard to see in the accompanying pboto, but I spotted such progress in my yard amid the Thursday afternoon sunshine.

Next to the retreating ice in one of my garden beds, the first hint of daffodil shoots appeared.  It's not much, but a guy looking forward to spring will take anything he can get.

I don't anticipate anything blooming until April.  Still, it was nice to see something green, however tiny, instead of the shades of white, gray, black and brown we've been limited to since November.

Daffodil shoots are tough, so I'm not too worried about what will happen in cold weather. Today, a  huge nor'easter that's developing well off the New England coast today but it will miss us. The storm will throw a brief shot of gusty winds and chilly air at us, but nothing odd for early March.  It'll warm up again Sunday afternoon.

Given that the weather is relatively quiet, here's a couple other odd, unrelated things I've noticed recently, including an odd jogger and a googly-eyed TV reporter in a snowstorm:

THE TORNADO JOGGER

As soon as those awful tornados in Tennessee passed early Tuesday, first responders, as always, swooped in and did their best to help.

This brief video is a little strange. It shows firefighters arriving in a tornado-battered Nashville neighborhood. The power was out, and you could see little in the darkness.  But in firetruck headlights and firefighters' head lamps, you could see downed power lines, glimpses of debris and hints of chaos.

As the firefighters started heading into the neighborhood, presumably to pull people from the wreckage, a female jogger zips on by.

No, she's not running from the wreckage. Nothing, not even a tornado, complete darkness, debris and possibly live downed wires is going to interrupt her odd 1:30 a.m. running routine.  I love the look on the face of the firefighter at the end of this brief video:



SNOWSTORM REPORTER'S MANY FACES

In late February, a snowfall hit Asheville, North Carolina,  Justin Hinton, a reporter for television station WLOS was out in the snow, giving a live update for viewers via Facebook Live.

He said he somehow activated some sort of Facebook filter and this is what viewers saw as Hinton gave his report.

Breaking: Downtown Nashville Slammed By Overnight Tornado

Widespread damage in Nashville from this
UPDmorning's tornado. 

UPDATE: 

As of 10:30 a.m., Tennessee Emergency Management says the death toll from the tornado or tornadoes is up to 19 people in four counties.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

A tornado went right through the heart of Nashville, Tennessee early this morning, causing widespread destruction and at least nine deaths in and near that city.

It was probably the worst possible scenario for a tornado. A large, strong tornado going through a major metropolitan area in the after-midnight darkness.  People were sound asleep at that hour, and not in a position to hear tornado warnings and take cover.

Dramatic videos are at the bottom of this post

Early reports suggest that the Nashville Fire Department responded to calls regarding at least 40 collapsed buildings, says the Weather Channel.

The tornado apparently touched down a little west of Nashville a little after 12:30 a.m. and continued eastward for about 50 miles to a spot well east of Nashville. That's a long track for a tornado, and dangerous, considering much of its path covered heavily populated areas.

An airport west of town was heavily damaged.  It looks like the tornado went by just barely to the north of the highrises in downtown Nashville. Eastern parts of the city were heavily damaged.

Election workers were checking reports that Super Tuesday polling stations were damaged, too.  In any event, the tornado and its aftermath will surely disrupt voting today in parts of Tennessee.  Polls across Nashville are opening an hour later than scheduled today because of the twister.

Last evening and overnight, there have so far been eight confirmed tornadoes in Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee. Tornado warnings blared through the night in parts of these three states.

The extent of this tornado outbreak caught at least me by surprise.  That's not to suggest there weren't adequate warnings, because there certainly were.  It's just that forecasters often see tornado outbreaks days in advance. This one snuck up to an extent.

By late Sunday, forecasters were predicting the risk of severe storms and perhaps a tornado or two in this region.  By Monday afternoon, it was clear that things were beginning to escalate in the atmosphere, so a tornado watch was wisely issued for the area that eventually was hit.

By evening, rotating supercell thunderstorms were firing up, and the damage started.

Another image of tornado damage in Nashville, via Twitter.

It's not necessarily over. Severe thunderstorms and possibly a few more tornadoes are expected today in a long strip from central Texas, across the Gulf Coast states and on into North Carolina.

Some strong storms, and possibly a tornado or two, are even possible roughly 100 miles in any direction from Washington DC.  This could further disrupt voting in states that are in thick of Super Tuesday today.  

Severe weather and flooding is likely across much of the Deep South on Wednesday and Thursday, too

Back in Nashville, this isn't the city's first go around with a tornado going right through the middle of the city. In April, 1998, an EF3 tornado, with winds of between 156 and 200 mph, swept through the middle of Nashville in a path somewhat similar to this morning's.

In the 1998 storm, 300 buildings in downtown Nashville, including the State Capitol, were damaged. Sadly, the 1998 tornado hit East Nashville particularly hard, just as this morning's twister did.

The Nashville tornadoes reinforce the fact that tornadoes can and do go through the middle of cities.  There's a prevalent myth that tornadoes can't do that, but of course that's not true.

Destructive tornadoes have hit other urban areas, both historically and in recent years.  Damaging twisters went through  downtown Atlanta, Georgia in 2008,  Raleigh, North Carolina in 2011, Oklahoma City in 1999 and even Brooklyn, New York, twice, in 2007 and 2010.  (The video of the 2010 tornado in Park Slope, Brooklyn, is pretty wild).

Just last year, tornadoes swept through heavily developed areas right in Jefferson City, Missouri and Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  It can happen here in New England, too: Witness the big tornado in Springfield, Massachusetts in 2011 and the even bigger one in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1953.

Videos:

The immediate aftermath of the tornado in East Nashville.  I always find the sound of alarms going off in busted buildings after a disaster haunting. Watch and listen:



Meteorologist Henry Rothenberg at NewsChannel 5 in Nashville gave the play by play as the tornado swept past the television station early Tuesday:



It's frightening to watch a tornado go through a big city, even when you can't see it well in the darkness. Sam Shamburger of television station WRKN tracked the tornado as it passed through. You can see it with the power flashes it was causing:



First light this morning reveals some of the destruction:

Florida Storm Floods Big Time, Brings Odd Tornado Scare

Flooding at the Fort Lauderdale airport last night. 

As I mentioned yesterday, most of the nation is having quiet Christmas week weather, but not sunny Florida, which at the moment isn't so sunny.

Parts of the state got hit by some big time flash flooding overnight. It was so bad it temporarily blocked access to the Fort Lauderdale airport.

The flooding was mostly concentrated between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, with rainfall amounts outside thar area being not as bad. Where it rained hardest, though, the rain was incredible.

Hallandale, Florida reported 12.8 inches of rain. Fort Lauderdale itself had about eight inches of rain.

The downpours hit in a very short amount of time, which made the flash flooding worse. The Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport had 4.45 inches of rain in just an hour. For comparison's sake this area normally gets about two inches of rain during the entire month of December. It's normally the dry season in South Florida about now.

Access roads to the airport were closed, and a lot of flights were delayed.  The airport has since reopened, but the water flood had been replaced by a flood of traffic from cars originally blocked from being allowed in. A number of homes and businesses were flooded in the region.

Meanwhile, in the Florida Keys, residents and tourists hunkered down as rare tornado warnings were issued. Supercell thunderstorms came ashore in that area, carrying the risk of strong waterspouts that would turn into a risk of strong tornadoes down there.

Waterspouts are common around the Keys, but almost always, they stay offshore and weak. This was a totally different scenario with the nearly Midwest-style supercells creating a risk of stronger twisters.

So far, though, there have been no official reports of any tornado touchdowns.

The storm is moving northeast into coastal Georgia and South Carolina.  Flooding is especially likely to hit coastal South Carolina today.

Early this morning, rain and high tides had already blocked sections of 26 streets and roads in Charleston, South Carolina.

The storm will then go safely out to sea and not affect the rest of the Eastern Seaboard.

Here's a news report from the Fort Lauderdale airport:

Watch This Tornado Trash An Olive Oil Factory

Hard to see in this video, but debris flies as a tornado strikes an
olive oil factory in Greece.

This is a really cool and dramatic surveillance video of a tornado striking an olive oil factory in Greece recently.

As you can expect in a tornado, the powerful, destructive winds shifted dramatically and suddenly as the tornado's whirl passed over. Debris can be seen racing on one direction, then doing an abrupt 180.

The tornado reportedly caused extensive damage.

A few dozen people were in the factory at the time of the tornado, but they safely took shelter in protected corners of the building.

Video credit goes to Kalamata Papadimitriou.  Watch:

Dallas Tornado: Destructive Storm Odd For October, Not Unheard Of

One of last night's Dallas-area tornadoes
lit up by lightning. Photo by Billy Frank Watkins Jr.

A tornado struck the Dallas, Texas area last night, and apparently it was a very serious one.

Details were still somewhat sketchy early this morning, but news reports and social media videos showed a debris-strewn Interstate 35 with battered cars, a demolished Home Depot and dramatic video of what looked like a big tornado lit up by lightning and power flashes.

The tornado or tornadoes hit shortly after 9 p.m. last night in the northern sections of Dallas, near Love Field.

It was terrible timing for a tornado.  It was dark, so a lot of people would not be able to see it coming. (People seem to always want a visual cue of a tornado. They look for it at night, but then it's on top of them before they can see it and take shelter).

Plus, it was early enough that people were still out and about, perhaps driving home from dinner, a movie or a visit with friends.

As of this writing, there were several reports of injuries but so far no deaths.  Which is surprising. Traffic was heavy on freeways hit by the tornado.  The tornado's path took it through heavily developed neighborhoods consisting of large commercial buildings, apartments and densely packed single family houses.

Spring and early summer are the peak times annually for tornadoes, especially in Texas, but twisters can of course happen any time of year.

Sometimes, as is the case here, a potent storm can overwhelm the relative lack of heat and instability this time of year  to produce dangerous weather. In North Texas for instance, there is a big peak in tornados in the spring, followed by a lull during mid to late summer.

As autumn arrives, storm systems get stronger, leading to a secondary peak in severe weather in parts of the country, including Texas. There aren't nearly as many tornadoes this time of year as in the spring but there is a slight upticik.

This particular system contributed to severe thunderstorms in Idaho Saturday. It moved on to cause widespread strong storms Sunday, not only near Dallas, but also through large sections of Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri.

Tornado watches and warnings continued this morning in western Tennessee. Terminals were evacuated at Memphis International Airport this morning amid tornado warnings and strong winds. People who were in the terminal reported damage, but the airport said the damage was relatively minor.

But the mess wasn't. Everyone had to go back through security to get to their flights. Long delays and cancellations were going on at the Memphis airport this morning.

A good chunk of the South is at risk for severe storms and possible tornadoes as we go through the day today.

This is also at least the third time this year that a heavily populated area has been hit by an especially dangerous nighttime tornado. Tornadoes caused a lot of destruction in the dark earlier this year in Jefferson City, Missouri and Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Here's a video of the large gornado near Love Field:



 A motorist stunned by the tornado afternmath on this Dallas-area freeway last night:

Extreme Weather Weekend: Cat 5 Lorenzo, Huge Western Snows, Storms, California Twister?

Giant Hurricane Lorenzo in the central Atlantic
Ocean this morning. 

Time to update one of those weekend when the weather across the nation and parts of the world have once again kind of gone off the rails.

There's a couple videos at the bottom of this post.

So let's get going:

WILD HURRICANE LORENZO

Yesterday, I joked a little about Hurricane Lorenzo, in relation to ex-tropical storm Karen. But Hurricane Lorenzo really wowed the weather world last night.

Lorenzo is way out over the central Atlantic, and is no threat to land with the very notable exception of the Azores, which are really under the gun from this storm.

At the end of the week, Lorenzo was a high-end category 4 hurricane, and it was arguably the furthest east in the Atlantic Ocean for such a strong storm. Water temperatures are usually cooler in the eastern half of the Atlantic Ocean than in the western  half, at least in the northern hemisphere.

That means those eastern hurricanes tend not to get as strong as those more to the west, since hurricanes crave the warmest water possible to thrive.

Last night, Lorenzo pulled a fast one on everybody. It was expected to slowly weaken as it moved northward over the open water. And it was weakening Friday night and the first half of Saturday.

Lare Saturday night, though, Lorenzo blew up into a category 5 monster with 160 mph sustained winds. Luckily it wasn't near land. This is easily the strongest hurricane on record in the eastern half of the Atlantic. Also the furthest north we've seen a category 5 hurricane.

Meteorologist Phil Klotzbach (@philklotzbach) posted this map. The dot in blue
is where Category 5 Hurricane Lorenzo was. The red dots
are where all other Category 5 hurricanes developed. You
can see ho far east Lorenzo is

As Dennis Mersereau notes in Forbes, and citing meteorologist Eric Blake, the previous record for the furthest east Category 5 was Hurricane Hugo in 1989, which was a good 600 miles west of Lorenzo's position. (Mersereau is @wxdam on Twitter.)

A number of weather experts I've seen on line say this could easily be another sign of climate change. The water in the eastern Atlantic is now warmer than it used to be decades ago, so this region can support more intense storms.

There certainly has been an uptick in unusually strong Atlantic hurricanes in recent years. As Mersereau writes:

"Lorenzo is the second category five hurricane we've seen in the Atlantic Ocean so far this year, and the sixth such storm to form in the Atlantic in the last four years."

As Lorenzo moves north into cooler waters, it will finally weaken and transform into a regular mid-latitude storm. It could bring strong winds and heavy rain to the British Isles toward the end of the week, we'll have to wait and see.

ROCKIES SNOW

A lovely September day in Choteau, Montana Saturday

It usually snows in the northern Rocky Mountains in September, but not like this!

Some areas, especially in the mountains, can expect a good three feet of snow by the time things taper off Monday night or Tuesday.

Since leaves are still on the trees in many areas, the heavy wet snow is causing a lot of damage to forests, street trees and powerlines. Livestock is suffering and crops are being ruined.

According to meteorologist Jonathan Erdman (@wxjerdman on Twitter), Great Falls, Montana has 9.7 inches of snow Saturday. That's the snowiest September day on record there. It also would have been the snowiest October day in Great Falls. Erman said you'd have to go to November 8, 2012 to find a snowier day in Great Falls.

Over in Spokane, Washington, they had their first September snowfall since 1926. And it was quite a bit considering the season - 1.9 inches.

Cut Bank, Montana has been snowy, with temperatures in the upper 20s and wind chills in the lower teens since Saturday morning.  That would be rather unpleasant by January standards here in Vermont.

CALIFORNIA SUPERCELL

A relatively rare supercell thunderstorm developed about midway between San Francisco and Sacramento, California Saturday evening. It produced a possible tornado near Davis, and dumped several inches of hail on one area, including a stretch of major highway.

There was also a smattering of severe storms in the mid-Atlantic states, and in and around Missouri yesterday. One especially strong storm hit a Christian music festival in Pennsylvania Saturday, blowing tents around and injuring six people.

RECORD HEAT

Intense heat continued in the Southeast Saturday, with many more records being set.  This state of affairs will continue into the middle of the week.  I expect several cities in the East and Ohio and Tennessee Valleys to set all-time records for the month of October.

Several cities in the Southeast and Deep South are having their hottest September on record.

VERMONT IMPACTS

The Green Mountain State will mostly miss the wild weather over the next couple of days. But things will still be interesting. And very changeable.

Yesterday actually felt humid in Vermont ahead of a cold front. Now that front has gone by, and it's cool and sunny. It's going to be a gorgous Sunday for leaf peepers (though most places aren't at peak yet.)  Look out tonight, as there will be scattered frost around, especially away from Lake Champlain.

After another nice day Monday, a warm front will come in with some rains for Tuesday. If skies clear enough briefly before a cold front approaches, highs in some parts of Vermont could top 80 degrees

It appears this cold front will give us a good slug of rain especially Wednesday.

Then it will cool down dramatically. It won't be anything too out of the ordinary for October, but it will come as a shock because it's been rather mild lately. By the end of the week and next weekend, highs will only be in the upper 40s to mid 50s.  A hard freeze is beginning to look like a fairly good bet next weekend. It could even snow on the mountain peaks.

Yeah, I just said the "s" word.

Some videos:

Possible tornado in Davis, California Saturday:



Incredible amounts of hail on a highway near Davis, California Saturday after a tornado-warned
supercell thunderstorm went by:



And a bit of time spent outdoors in Montana Saturday:

This 'n That: Extra Vermont Rain; Arizona Tornado? And Karen Wildcard

Possible tornado just north of Phoenix, Arizona yesterday. Photo via KTAR

I guess I just had to ask for it.

In yesterday's post, I mentioned we could use some rain here in Vermont. I was pessimistic that we'd get all that much.

Then lo and behold, the skies delivered some decent rains. 

Yesterday's cold front overproduced in much of central and northern Vermont, dumping a half inch or more of rain on many towns. Burlington clocked in with 0.90 inches.

My unofficial rain gauge in St. Albans, Vermont, collected a decent 0.70 of an inch. A little more rain was falling at the time I measured.   Some areas in the upper Connecticut River Valley received more than two inches of rain.

There was no flooding of note in the heavy downpours, and the rain was helpful.

I am a bit interested in a low topped strong to severe thunderstorm that moved through Saratoga County, New York, across southern Vermont and into New Hampshire last evening. It occasionally showed signs of rotation, but radar samplings weren't all that good because of mountains that got in the way of the beams.

There were reports of trees down in Saratoga County, New York, so that whole thing was vaguely interesting.

Speaking of tornadoes in odd locations, a possible tornado struck near Willcox, Arizona yesterday, injuring three people. Video showed a definite funnel which looks like it touched down. The likely Arizona twister was part of a severe weather outbreak in that state yesterday that also brought quite a bit of flash flooding.

All this was caused by moisture from what was Tropical Storm Lorena, which formed and later dissipated near Baja California last week.

Those tropics are active.  In the Atlantic Ocean, we've got three storms. One of them is a wild card that I will get to in a second. But I want to go in alphabetical order. 

Tropical Storm Karen trying to get its act together
this morning south of Puerto Rico

Tropical Storm Jerry is spinning and struggling out there, well northeast of the Bahamas. It's got 60 mph winds but those are forecast to diminish.

 Jerry will continue sputtering away to the northeast out over the open ocean and seems to pose no threat.

Now the wildcard: Tropical Storm Karen. There have been a lot of questions over how well it would survive, and if so, what would happen.

If it dissipated as it headed north toward Puerto Rico, then there would be no worries as it headed north toward Puerto Rico.

But of course Karen started to get its act together again last night. So Puerto Rico is under the gun for tropical storm conditions soon. Oh, and Puerto Rico had an earthquake last night. Luckily, not a lot of damage with that one.

Karen is pretty weak, with sustained winds of just 40 mph earlier this morning, but it is currently expected to strengthen.

Once Karen gets north of Puerto Rico, things could get even more interesting. The National Hurricane Center's thinking is that if Karen stays on the weak side, it would stagger off to the northeast and dissipate like her brother Jerry is doing.

However, there's another big ridge of high pressure building again in the western Atlantic Ocean. This type of setup forced Hurricane Dorian to stall with devastating results in the Bahamas, then head toward the United States, sideswiping the Southeast.

If Karen remains relatively strong, history could sort of repeat itself. Although if it stalls, it looks like it would be over the open ocean. Still, Karen could eventually pose a threat to the United States. We'll have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Lorenzo has formed in the far eastern Atlantic Ocean. The bad news is it's expected to become a wicked strong hurricane. The very good news is at least at this point, it looks like it will recurve to the north and not bother the Caribbean or the United States.

Wild Weather Videos To Close Out Your Summer

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

Nightmare Scenario: Destructive Tornado Strikes Sioux Falls At Night

This home in Sioux Falls, South Dakota was destroyed by last
night's tornado. Photo by KELO-TV

This is one of the biggest nightmare scenarios for meteorologists:

A large tornado, hidden by curtains of rain moves through a large city late at night when most people are in bed or otherwise not paying attention to possible warnings.

This scenario became reality in Sioux Falls, South Dakota last night when at least one tornado. accompanied by 100 mph straight winds and flash flooding, swept through South Dakota's largest city at around 11:30 local time last night.

Here's one scenario that gives meteorologists nightmares. Even Todd Heitkamp, lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Sious Falls described last night's situation in those terms.

Despite the fact there is extensive damage - at least 37 buildings either collapsed or have a compromised structural integrity - there are so far no reports of deaths from the tornado or tornadoes in Sioux Falls.  There are some reports of injuries.

An Advance Auto Parts store in Sioux Falls, South Dakota collapsed
during last night's tornado.

The greatest damage from the tornado seems to be along and east of Interstate 29 a little south of downtown Sioux Falls. Early images coming from the area show a collapsed Advance Auto Parts Store.

The Sioux Falls Argus Leader reported at least part of the roof blew the Avera Behavioral Health Hospital's roof. The city's mayor asked people to stay home early this morning rather than risk injury by driving through debris-strewn streets.  

The National Weather Service in Sioux Falls had asked South Dakota residents to be on the lookout for severe weather all day.  Tornado warnings were going up all evening. The one for Sioux Falls was issued at 11:27 p.m. and tornado reports started coming in at 11:38 p.m., the Argus Leader reported.

So it appears warnings worked, despite the late hour. NWS meteorologists in Sioux Falls will investigate the damage today, to see how many tornadoes actually touched down. Early reports suggest 100 mph straight line winds and not a tornado caused most of the damage.

On top of the tornadoes, torrential rains of three to six inches fell on already waterlogged areas of eastern South Dakota from Yankton and Vermillion, all the way up through Sioux Falls and Brookings.

I'm familiar with Sioux Falls because I often fly into their airport to visit relatives in Yankton, to the south of Sioux Falls.  I'm very happy to see reports from Yankton that the storms weren't that bad there, with just some minor flooding and thunderstorm wind gusts of around 40 mph.

Some video:

A destroyed home in Sioux Falls



A drive around Sioux Falls shows lots of damage. Especially to trees. Most Sioux Falls neighborhoods have lots of trees.

Vermont "Tornado Drought" Ended Last Wednesday

Tornado damage cleanup continues in Windham, Vermont, as
seen in this photo from WCAX-TV

Vermont is hardly tornado alley.

We average just one tornado per year, and most of those tornadoes over the years have been quite weak.

In recent years, though, Vermont has had a sort of tornado drought.

There hadn't been one since 2012 in the Green Mountain State, even as the rest of New England and the Northeast have had something of an uptick in tornado activity over the past few years. 

Turns out, the Vermont tornado drought, or whatever you want to call it, ended Wednesday. 

The National Weather Service office in Albany, New York confirmed a tornado struck the town of Windham, in southern Vermont last Wednesday. 

By the standards of, say, Oklahoma, this one was weak. But it was relatively strong by Vermont standards. Tornadoes are ranked in a zero to 5 scale, with 5 being the strongest.  This one was an EF-1, almost an EF-2, with winds of betweeen 105 and 110 mph.

The twister damaged the roofs and siding of several homes and sheared off or toppled dozens of trees. Outdoor furniture and other debris was tossed hundreds of yards

The tornado was about 350 yards wide and had a path that was 0.75 miles long. Again, not huge, but fairly impressive for Vermont. Nobody was injured by this tornado, so that's good.

WCAX-TV reports that at one house, the tornado blew out windows, damaged the roof and tossed down a bunch of trees while a terrified family huddled in the home. 

Windham is in a pretty mountainous area, just east of some of southern Vermont's largest ski areas. It's proof that mountains and hills don't necessarily protect you from tornadoes. 

The tornado seems to have been associated with a supercell that got going well northwest of Albany, New York.  The storm also produced confirmed EF-1 tornado touchdowns in Johnstown and Saratoga Springs, New York, NWS New York says.

Rare Tornado In Northeast Maine On Monday

A confirmed tornado in a remote part of Washington County, in
northeastern Maine on Monday. Photo by David Cofin.

Here in Vermont this past Monday, it was a gorgeous day, aside from some mild evening showers and thundershowers over far northern areas.

You didn't have to go to far to the northeast to get into some wild weather, though. A cold front was drifting down into northern New England from Quebec Monday afternoon and evening. Near Vermont, the dynamics weren't there to create anything in the way of strong storms.

But up in Maine, the cold front had some power to it.  Strong to severe thunderstorms swept across northern Maine, culminating in a tornado touchdown in remote Kossuth Township in the northeastern part of the state.

The EF-1 tornado was in an area not far from the New Brunswick border and southeast of Millinocket.  It was a small tornado, only 200 yards wide with a path length of a quarter mile. Estimated winds were 90 mph and about 120 softwood trees were snapped or uprooted.  Nobody was injured and no homes were damaged.

As you can see in the photo, a passerby named David Coffin got a great photo of the tornado.

Tornadoes do happen from time to time in Maine, as they do pretty much everywhere in the nation. This was the first confirmed tornado in Maine this year, the National Weather Service in Caribou says.

Maine averages two tornadoes per year.  Here in Vermont, we average one per year.  Maybe I'm jinxing things, but I'm not aware of any twisters in the Green Mountain State since at least 2014.

This 'N That And Storm Videos Too

After a nice day, storm clouds gather late in the afternoon Friday
over Georgia, Vermont. They produced wind gusts to about'
 40 mph and brief downpours. 

Last evening in Vermont proved that even once you get rid of the humidity, storminess can still reign.

It was certainly gorgeous in the Green Mountain State Friday, with that lower humidity and sunshine. But, a serious of little cold fronts continued to slide through, and one was timed perfectly in the late afternoon and early evening to produce some gusty showers and thunderstorms.

Winds aloft were pretty strong for this time of year, so the storms were able to pull some of that wind to the surface. There was nothing severe, but gusts of 40 mph and brief heavy downpours, like what I saw in Georgia and other Vermonters saw, are nothing to sneeze at.

Today will be showery, too, even with the sun mixing in. In the mid and upper atmosphere, some of the coldest air in North America is over or near us. With the air temperature rapidly dropping with height, updrafts are easy to create. These form billowing clouds and showers. There won't be anything extreme. And Sunday is looking nice: Sunny and warmish (70s) with low humidity.

Elsewhere, obviously, the weather is worse.

In places like Washington State and parts of the northern Rockies, they are simultaneously under wildfire alerts and flash flood watches. That sounds a little strange but can happen from time to time.

Thunderstorms are expected to move through that area later today and tonight, and some of them will be strong. Like most outbreaks of thunderstorms, this one will be rather hit and miss. Near the edges of the thunderstorms, lightning will hit dry vegetation and set fires, while erratic winds from the storms spread the blazes.

In the core of the thunderstorms, gushing downpours will develop, causing quickly rising water and debris flows, especially in areas denuded by previous forest fires. Today's not a great day to be hiking in the northern Rockies or Pacific Northwest, that's for sure!

In Europe, it's awfully stormy. The United Kingdom's Met Office is alerting people to the flash flooding and high winds expected today. Yesterday, a tornado him Amsterdam, the Netherlands and an even bigger twister hit Luxembourg, of all places. The Luxembourg tornado injured at least seven people and damaged at least 100 houses.

Here's a video, most of it in slo-mo, of the tornado in Luxembourg:



Meanwhile, near London, the Luton Airport, a smaller cousin to the more famous Heathrow, had its own trouble as torrential downpours broke through the roof. Watch:



In eastern China, a typhoon made landfall on Friday. In this Chinese government video, a landslide caused by the typhoon's heavy rains abruptly blocks an expressway tunnel:



Finally, a tornado/waterspout breezes through a waterfront area of Amsterdam the Netherlands:

Extremes: Cape Cod Tornado, Southern Chill, Europe, California Heat

Tornado damage in Yarmouth, Massachusetts Tuesday.
Photo by Steve Heaslip/Cape Cod Times

It almost seems like the only place on Planet Earth not experiencing extreme weather this week is right here in Vermont.

Temperatures are pretty close to normal, and no big storms are in the offing that I can see. Elsewhere, it's wild.  

That's all due to a jet stream in the Northern Hemisphere that's weird for July. It's what we call amplified, meaning northward bulges and southward plunges ain the jet stream are more pronounced than they normally are this time of year.

Which means we get extremes in weather. Some examples:

CAPE COD TORNADO

A rare tornado struck Cape Cod Tuesday as a supercell thunderstorm rampaged through. Again, that dip. A relatively sharp dip in the jet stream to the west of New England was one of many ingredients to cause this.

It looks like it was a high end EF-1 tornado, with winds estimated at 110 mph. I'm not sure, but I think the last tornado before this on Cape Cod was in 1977, so it's pretty rare.

The tornado and supercell had something called a tornado debris signature on radar, meaning radar was detecting debris blown aloft by the tornado. That enabled meteorologists to confirm the tornado via radar.

Strong rotation in the storm was detected off of Block Island, Rhode Island, well before it reached Cape Cod. That enabled the National Weather Service to issue timely warnings.  Supercells usually have strong straight line winds, too, and this one was no exception. Winds in some places were clocked as high as 90 mph.

The roof of an inn was blown off in the tornado and there was massive tree damage. Dramatic videos of the tornado and supercell are at the bottom of this post.

SOUTHERN CHILL

July is normally a time of relentless heat and humidity across the South. But that dip in the jet stream to the west of New England I told you about is bring oddly low humidity to places south of the Mason-Dixon line.

When the air is relatively dry, nighttime temperatures usually get cooler than when the air is really humid. This rare burst of dry southern air is bringing some record low temperatures, which I'm sure nobody in the South is complaining about.

Cities in Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and elsewhere reported record lows this morning. Houston, Texas might get three consecutive mornings with lows in the 60s, which to us Vermonters doesn't seem chilly, but is frigid for a Houston July. They haven't had three consecutive 60s in July for at least 25 years.

EUROPE HEAT

Western Europe is in the throes of the second record breaking heat wave of the summer.

The worst of it in many areas is expected to peak Thursday, when the United Kingdom could break its all-time record high of 101 degrees. Paris, France, which endured some of the strongest effects of the June heat wave, when it set its all time national high temperature record, might do it again.

Paris is in line to break its all-time record high temperature as readings could get to 105 or 106 degrees there.

Record heat and the risk of wildfires exists not only in France but in Spain and Portugal.  Record heat looks like it will also extend northward through Scandanavia.

Meanwhile, there's a dip in the jet stream to the east of these countries, so it will be unusually cool in parts of Russia and surrounding regions.

Still, the magnitude of the heat is greater than the extent of the cold, another possible sign of climate change.

CALIFORNIA HEAT

The west coast of the United States is heating up, too. Cities like Bakersfield, Modesto and Fresno could challenge all time heat records, with readings possibly exceeding 115 degrees in some areas.

Back to the Cape Cod tornado with videos:

Here's the roof of the motel blowing off in the tornadic winds:



A view out a window of the intense winds in or near the tornado:



Notice the wind change directions in this time lapse out of Dennis Port, Massachusetts.  I'm guessing this was in the outer circulation of the tornado, and I think it was in the background in this video. Hard to tell, since there was so much rain:



Finally, a very nice analysis of what meteorologists were seeing on radar, from television station WCVB:

Terrifying Chinese Tornado Kills Six: More Scary Videos

Aftermath of this week's deadly tornado in China.

A few days ago, I reported on odd tornadoes in Taiwan and Oregon.

A couple days - on Wednesday after those other twisters, an even bigger tornado struck northeastern China, killing six people, injuring 190 and causing widespread damage.

Like the Taiwanese tornado, there were foolhardy people in the Chinese tornado that kept filming even when the tornado was right on top of them. That is, of course, very dangerous.

Northeastern  China is flat, like the Great Plains of the United States and at about the same latitude. That means tornadoes can and do form there, but they are rarely as bad as this one was. Occasionally, though, northeastern China does get a major tornado, and that was the case here.

As usual, there are some incredible videos of this storm. Here are a few:

This first one is perhaps the most terrifying. It's a view, apparently from inside an apartment of the tornado approaching then striking. If you have the sound up, you can hear toward the end how loud these things are when they're chewing up buildings:



Here's a compilation video of the tornado and its aftermath: