Another Weather Off The Rails Weekend (Not In Vermont, Though)

From 9 News:  A severe thunderstorm associated with a derecho
knocked this billboard down on a Denver building Saturday. 

As we forecasted yesterday morning, weather is definitely going off the rails in different parts of the nation this weekend, and that trend will continue for the next few days.

We here in Vermont will pretty much be an island of tranquility in the weather department, but that won't be the case elsewhere.

The most remarkable weather event Saturday was a long lasting derecho that got going near the Arizona/Utah border and raced north and northeastward during the day through the central and eastern Rocky Mountains and on into the western Dakotas.

Derechos are relatively rare events and almost unheard of in the Intermountain West. Yes, I know we just had a derecho in Pennsylvania and New Jersey last week, but they still don't happen all that often.

On average derechos happen once every year or every other year in much of the Midwest and South. On the East Coast, you average one every four years or so.  In the Intermountain West, there have maybe been a handful over the past several decades.

The one that swept through yesterday was a doozy, too, judging by wind reports. Just a sampling:

110 mph near Copper Mountain, Colorado
94 mph Butte County, South Dakota
92 mph near Cactus Plateau, South Dakota
85 mph, Four Corners, Wyoming

There were numerous reports of gusts above 75 mph, including in metro areas like Denver.

Meanwhile, Florida got in on the action, thanks to Tropical Storm Cristobal.  Most of the heavy weather with this system was east of its center.  This mass of storms spun off at several tornadoes in Florida, including one that passed through Orlando.

The Orlando Sentinel reported that at least 50 residents of apartment blocks and houses were displaced near the city's downtown because of tornado damage.

MORE ROUGH WEATHER COMING

Tropical Storm Cristobal will splash ashore around Louisiana later today. Storm surges and flooding is already happening in Louisiana and Mississippi, and that will continue the rest of the day.

However, the bigger drama from Cristobal will come over the next few days, as its remnants head north through the Arkansas, Missouri and into Wisconsin by Wednesday.

It won't really be a tropical storm by the time it hits the Great Lakes, but it will manage to intensify. It'll form into a mean storm for this time of year over or near Lake Superior.  Expect reports of wind damage, battering waves and erosion on the lakes and maybe some flash flooding.

VERMONT CALM

All this weather action will pretty much miss Vermont. The fact that Cristobol will be going by to our west will give us a squirt of warm to hot, and windy weather midweek, but nothing extreme.  Not a lot of rain is in the forecast either.  A cold front associated with the remnants of Cristobol might bring a few showers and thunderstorms late Wednesday night and Thursday.

Cristobal Not The Only Threat: Wind, Tornadoes, Fire Even Snow Out West

WPTZ-TV's web cam captured this lightning strike at around 2:30
this morning over Plattsburgh, N.Y. Thunderstorms roamed through
northern New York and northern Vermont early this morning, bringing
much needed rain.  Hat tip to WPTZ meteorologist Ben
Frechette for posting this one. 

The weather headlines this weekend are dominated by   which is forecast to make landfall late Sunday night in or near Louisiana.

Storm surges three feet deep or more are expected in much of coastal Louisiana, and heavy rains will add to flooding woes.  The wind won't really be the problem. The water will be the issue.

As bad as that all sounds, it's the Rocky Mountain states and the western Plains that have even more action this weekend.

They'll have it all. Depending on where you are, wildfires are possible, so are strong winds not associated with thunderstorms, blowing dust, thunderstorms, possible tornadoes and even a snowstorm in a spot or two.

A strong cold front associated with a powerful upper level low pressure system in the Pacific Northwest are causing all this havoc.

Ahead of this storminess, strong south winds over the New Mexico and the High Plains of Colorado will gust to 65 mph.  This could cause some tree and power line damage. It could tip over high profile vehicles on highways.

Worse, it could make any wild or range fires in New Mexico and Colorado spread really quickly and become dangerous.

Further north and east, when you get up into South Dakota, the threat today will be tornadoes and dangerous supercell thunderstorms that will throw down huge hailstones and wicked straight line winds in some spots.

The highest chances of tornadoes and strong thunderstorm winds is over central South Dakota today.  The higher chances of damaging hail are more toward the Black Hills, where a hail storm the other day caused a lot of damage in and around Rapid City, South Dakota. 

The threat for severe storms and tornadoes continues tomorrow for northern South Dakota and the eastern half of North Dakota.

Heading back to Colorado and Utah, the problem up in the mountains today is not too little rain, like in the Plains east of Denver, but too much.  The strong cold front out there will set off some thunderstorms with heavy rain.

That'll trigger flash flooding, especially in a lot of those narrow slot canyons in Utah.

Up in Idaho, they're actually bracing for a snowstorm.  The National Weather Service in Pocatello said accumulating snows could reach all the way down to valley floors in towns like Stanley.  Some areas can expect several inches of snow.

All this is an extremely busy weather pattern for early June.  Severe storms and tornadoes are relatively common, as are flash floods this time of year. But this variety of weather, from winter weather, to tropical storms, to high winds, fires and those tornadoes, is pretty wild for what is generally a relatively mellow time of year in the weather department.

Up here in Vermont, we're missing out on the extremes, which is OK.  Thunderstorms blustered through northern parts of the state early this morning. My unofficial rain gauge in St. Albans captured  0.55 inches of much-needed rain from the early morning storms. Burlington only got 0.04 inches as the storms mostly missed them.

Scattered showers and storms will continue today and this evening, off an on, as a series of weather fronts and boundaries move through.  Any thunderstorms that get going today should not be severe, but a few might be gusty. Eastern and southern New England have a slightly better chance of a few strong to severe storms today.

After a cool Sunday and Monday, it will warm up to summertime levels again by mid-week.  I'm not sure it will hit 90 again. It did manage to get that warm in Burlington Friday.  We've already had three days this year that have gotten to 90, which is at least half our normal alotment for the entire summer.

On average, most 90 degree days in Burlington hit in July and August.

May Roller Coaster Continues Into June

As we well know, May's weather in Vermont was a dizzying rollercoaster of cold, heat, snow and drought.

Summery sky over St.Albans, Vermont Thursday evening.  We're still
getting ups and downs in the weather, but we still need rain. 

It seems the up and down pattern is continuing into June.  The month opened with snow on Vermont's highest peaks, followed by frost in many valleys. Wednesday afternoon was chilly, followed by a very warm and relatively humid Thursday. 

This will go on: Very warm today, cool again over the weekend and warm again next week. The only consistency will be the continued, troubling relative lack of rain. 

We're getting more into summer now, so the peaks and valleys of variable weather are definitely getting less dramatic. 

The weekend cool wave will be similar to last Sunday's but much milder. It won't involve any snow or frost. You might need a sweater, but not a parka. The warmth today and next week at this point doesn't look so extreme either. Maybe 80s. 

The problem, as noted, is the lack of rain. The U.S. Drought Monitor is now declaring northern New York and northwestern Vermont as "abnormally dry," just a step below drought. 

No soaking rains are anticipated.  There might be some isolated thundershowers this afternoon, but the overwhelming majority of us won't get any rain.  Most of us DO have a good shot at getting some showers late tonight and Saturday, but most of us will only receive a quarter inch of rain or less. 

Soon to be born again Tropical Storm Cristobal is headed toward the Gulf Coast and sometimes the remnants of such systems give us a good shot of rain.  It doesn't look like that will happen with Cristobal. It'll make a beeline for the Great Lakes and avoid us next week. leaving us under dry high pressure. 

Long range forecasts into the second and third week of the month also don't hold out much hope for some nice soakers. Just a continued up and down trend in temperatures.

I guess we'll just have to keep watering the gardens and hope the soil moisture holds out for awhile for farmers. 

Cristobal Bubbles, PA/NJ Slammed, Norway Slides

Badly damaged house in New Jersey following yesterday's derecho.
Photo by Jessica Beym, NJ Advance

While tropical weather geeks keep their eye on Tropical Storm - now Tropical Depression - Cristobal, there's been plenty of weather ation in the United States and elsewhere.

Dramatic videos are the botoom of this post. One of the shows an incredible landslide in Norway I'll get to in a minute,  

DERECHO AND SUPERCELLS

In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, a derecho swept southeastward from near Lake Erie across the Keystone State and finally off the Jersey shore during the late morning and early afternoon Wednesday.  This was followed in the late afternoon and evening by supercell thunderstorms that prompted a tornado warning in Philadelphia.

Winds gusted to 65 mph or so both during the early afternoon derecho and the evening tornado warned storm.  I don't think Philadelphia had ever previously had two 60+ mph storms on the same day.

A derecho, by the way, is a long lasting, fast moving line of severe thunderstorms that almost always cause severe wind damage. That was the case yesterday. The official definition of a derecho is a line of storms that survives over a distance of at least 240 miles and produces peak winds of at least 58 mph over most of its path.

This derecho produced winds of up to 89 mph in New Jersey, with gusts in the 65 to 80 mph range thorugh a long swath of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The derecho killed at least three people, including one at a golf clubhouse that was hit by an immense falling tree.  Many homes were damaged, most by falling trees. A large apartment complex lost its roof.

A derecho usually stablizes the air immediately behind it, so it was remarkable that the atmosphere recovered enough to produce those supercells over Pennsylvania and New Jersey in the evening.  Those storms just added to the damage and the power outages.

Tornado-warned storm over Philadelphia last evening. Photo bu
Ashley Corin 

And - just what they need - more severe thunderstorms are possible today in parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland.

CRISTOBOL

Cristobol has been downgraded for now to a tropical depression as it meanders inland over souther Mexico.  It's still expected to take a northward turn, emerge over warm Gulf of Mexico waters, and strengthen somewhat as it moves north toward Louisiana by early Monday.

Intensity forecasts are really, really uncertain, but at least for now, it's not expected to reach hurricane status before landfall.

LANDSLIDE

The following isn't directly related to weather, but wet weather could have contributed to it.  A huge landslide 2,000 feet wide and 500 feet wide swept at least eight houses out to sea along the northern Norway coast.

Miraculously, nobody was injured, as most of the houses were vacation places and people had left after the weekend.  A dog was rescued in the afternmath of the landslide.  Scroll down a ways for the incredible video.

Here are some videos, first with scenes from the Pennsylvania storms:



Another view of the storm's intensity



Let's go overseas to Chcchnya, which had its own battle with severe weather:



Here's the Norway landslide. I was oddly rooting for the big white house to survive, but I knew that was impossible

Tropical Storm Cristobal Lurks. Eventual Gulf Coast Hit?

The projected path of Tropical Storm Cristobal from the
National Hurricane Center. This forecast will surely be
adjusted in the coming days as more data comes in

As was pretty much expected, Tropical Storm Cristobal formed in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico Tuesday.  It is the third tropical storm of the season in the Atlantic basin, the earliest on record for a "C" storm.

As we know, the names of each season's tropical storms and hurricanes go in alphabetical order.  Last year, we didn't have a storm that started with a "C" until August.

By this morning, the National Hurricane Center said Cristobal had strengthened to the point where it had top winds of 60 mph. It was just making landfall early this morning on the southeastern Mexican coast.

Cristobal is moving very slowly, so it will dump huge amounts of rain in the areas it hits later today. No doubt there will be catastrophic flooding as the storm is forecast to dump 20 inches or so of rain on some areas.

As noted yesterday, parts of El Salvadore and Guatamala were hit with torrential rains from Tropical Storm Amanda this past weekend.  Additional rainfall from Cristobal will raise rainfall totals in parts of those two countries to 35 inches since last Saturday.

That will make already horrific flooding even worse.

For persepective, 35 inches of rain is very roughly how much precipitation we get in Vermont during the course of a whole year.

As is often the case, what happens to Cristobal in the coming days is pretty uncertain.  It's expected to  linger near the shore of the Bay of Campeche for the next couple of days.  If the storm center stays very close to the shore, it will weaken slowly.  If it moves inland more, it will weaken faster.

That either/or scenario might have implications for the United States Gulf Coast.  Steering currents are expected to eventually draw Cristobal northward, which would make it aim toward perhaps Louisiana late Sunday night or Monday.

If Cristobal weakens a lot over the next couple of days, that could mean maybe a weaker, less impactful storm on the U.S. Gulf Coast. If Cristobal maintains its shape better between now and Thurday, it will have more ability to strenghten further as it heads north through the Gulf of Mexico over the upcoming weekend.

Under that stronger scenario, Cristobal could actually be a hurricane once it reaches the Gulf Coast. If it is a hurricane at U.S. landfall, it would be the earliest in the year on record a hurricane hit the United States. The current record holder is Hurricane Alma, which struck Florida on June 9, 1966.

People in and around Louisiana ought to keep an eye on Cristobal, as it could really cause some flooding problems if it gets or keeps its act together.

Tropical Trouble And A Cold New England

A big area of ugly weather in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico might
become Tropical Storm Cristobal

They told us this year would be an incredibly active Atlantic tropical storm and hurricane season ad it's already off to a busy start.

True, the first tropical systems of the season have not been super strong, but that's typical.

The official Atlantic hurricane season didn't begin until yesterday, but there have been two tropical storms already, Arthur and Bertha, both of which had relatively minor effects on the U.S. Southeast coast during May.

There's now another tropical system bubbling in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico. It's a tropical depression, which means it has a real circulation like a tropical storm, though it's too weak to be considered one.

If this thing does become a tropical storm, they'll name it Cristobal.  If wannabe Cristobal does become a tropical storm by June 5, it will be the earliest on record to have three tropical storms in the Atlantic.

The National Hurricane Center says the forecast for wannabe Cristobal is uncertain, as it's trapped in a broader circulation in the Bay of Campeche.  It might even dissipate in favor of a new storm, or wannabe Cristobal could just smack into land and dissipate down ther.e

Or, it could be drawn north toward the United States Gulf Coast. If that happens, it's possible the storm could feed off very warm Gulf of Mexico waters and approach hurricane strength, or even possible become a hurricane. Which would be odd for early June. That type of thing normally waits until later in the summer.

Few, if any forecasters expect this thing to get super strong, but that doesn't really matter. Tropical storms, especially slow movers like wannabe Cristobal, can dump torrential rains and cause some pretty extreme flooding.

On the other side of Central America, on the Pacific side, a relative weak tropical storm named Amanda just caused immense flooding and landslides in El Salvador and Guatemala that killed at least 17 people.

The remnants of Amanda are one ingredient that is helping form wannabe Cristobal, by the way.

NEW ENGLAND CHILL

I guess opposites attract in northern New England.

After last week's record heat, record chill descended on Maine, especially in the north. Houlton, Maine this morning got down to 26 degrees, which is that town's all-time record low for the month of June. It was 91 degrees in Houlton on May 27.

Caribou, Maine got to 31 degrees, which was good enough to break a record for the date, but not the entire month.

Clouds sort of kept temperatures up overnight in Vermont last night. However, some gardens in the Green Mountain State were wrecked by frosts yesterday. For instance, it was 29 degrees in Gallup Mills, way up in the Northeast Kingdom, 30 degrees in Island Pond and 31 degrees in South Lincoln.

It'll keep gradually warming up through the rest of the week.






El Salvador and Guatemalaen

Roller Coaster May Was Near "Average" But Not Really

A St. Albans, Vermont daffodil shivers in the snow on May 9. By
the end of the month  the same gardens were wilting in record heat

If you like changeable weather, May was surely your month here in Vermont.

The weather gave us a little bit of everything: Snow, record heat, subfreezing cold and severe weather.  No locusts that I'm are of, though.

This was the only May on record in Burlington with both measurable snow and 90 degree heat. As reported last week, that 95 degree reading on the 27th was the hottest temperature on record for the month of May, besting the old record by two degrees.

If you take all the extremes we had this month, you end up with a May with near normal temperatures.  Never mind that there were few actual days that were near normal.  Combine near record cold with record heat and you get something lukewarm, I guess.

In Burlington, the mean temperature for May, 2020 was 57.9 degrees, or 1.6 degrees above normal. Most other weather stations in northern Vermont, including Montpelier, St Johnsbury and Morrisville,  had a month that averaged out a little on the cool side.

If you ignore the Mother's Day weekend snows, the record heat near the end of the month and two severe weather outbreaks - which is a lot to ignore - the month overall was quite pleasant, with plenty of sunny days.

It was a dry May in Vermont, meaning garden irrigation got off
to an early start 

The inevitable result of all those sunny days, of course, is a dearth of precipitation. All of Vermont was solidly on the dry side in May.

That ranged from just a bit below normal in St. Johnsbury to more than a half inch below normal in precipitation elsewhere.

Both Burlington and Montpelier were on the dry side by nearly an inch, and Springfield's May precipitation was nearly an inch and a half below normal.

When it did rain in May, it was sometimes accompanied by dangerous weather. One round of severe weather prompted a tornado warning in southwestern Vermont on May 15. Though no tornadoes touched down in Vermont, there were aeveral reports of wind damage in the southern half of the state.

Another round of severe weather caused scattered damage throughout Vermont, but especially in the southwestern part of the state again.  I also saw some minor erosion damage around from torrential downpours. You can get that during dry months, even.

True to form, May closed with another wild shift in the weather with another cold shot. Snow was reported yesterday atop Mount Mansfield. Especially during light rain showers, mid-afternoon temperatures dipped into the 40s across northern Vermont at a time of day and year when it should have been around 70 degrees.

As June opened this morning, scattered frost iced up a few parts of Vermont and surrounding areas. It was 27 degrees in Saranac Lake, New York this morning and 32 degrees in Bennington. It was 39 degrees in Burlington, making it I believe the first time in several years that Burlington got under 40 degrees in June.