Thunder Snow In the Forecast For Kentucky Derby, But It's Not Weather

Jim Cantore rejoices during thundersnow during a winter storm
There's a horse in today's Kentucky Derby named Thunder Snow,
so I'm sure Cantore's excited.

I don't know if the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore is a betting man, but if he is, I'm sure his money is on the horse Thunder Snow in today's Kentucky Derby.

Yep, Thunder Snow is in the forecast at the Derby, but there's not a terribly cold, unusual storm in Kentucky. (Though it is unusually cool in Louisville today.)

But there is a horse named Thunder Snow, which has a shot, given it did win the UAE Derby recently.

Cantore is famous for his love of thundersnow, the relatively rare meteorological moment when there is lightning and thunder while it is snowing.

Thundersnow is cool, and I hope the horse Thunder Snow shakes up the Kentucky Derby. I'm not betting on anything, but we all have to love our weather-related race horses, right?

Surprise Wind Storm Blasts Parts Of Vermont; Widespread Damage Reported

Tree against a house in Rutland during Friday's high winds
Photo by Jennifer Holdren via WCAX-TV

A howling windstorm unexpectedly slammed parts of Vermont, especially around Rutland County late Friday afternoon and evening, prompting widespread power failures and quite a bit of damage.

More than 15,000 people lost electricity in Rutland County alone. Many, many trees fell. Lawn furniture blew away roofing shingles peeled off roofs and power flashes lit up the sky as lines and transformers failed.

As of 5:30 a.m. this morning, at least 10,000 customers were still without electricity in Vermont.

At least two houses were damaged by falling trees in Clarendon. 

Winds gusted as high as 74 mph in Wells, Vermont. South Pomfret had a gust to 61 mph and Mendon reached 56 mph. Based on damage reports, I bet other areas without anemometers made it past 60 mph.

Other areas of the state reported high winds as well: Many trees were down near Exit 3 on Interstate 89 a little northwest of White River Junction.

The wind extended north along the western side of the Green Mountains all the way north to Chittenden County, where roads were blocked by fallen trees in Jericho and Underhill.

The storm was a surprise: No wind alerts had been issued ahead of the storm, though the National Weather Service in South Burlington issued wind advisories, then high wind warnings and special weather statements as the gusts escalated.

The weather pattern that caused the damaging winds Friday does happen occasionally in Vermont. In fact some of these storms are worse than Friday's  like an even more destructive storm in Rutland on April, 2007.

Strong low pressure for this time of year was heading north toward the eastern Great Lakes. Air flow was from the east and southeast. The wind climbed over the mountains, then descended down the west slopes of the Green Mountains.

The winds gain momentum as they come over the mountains and descend down the west sides of the mountain slopes. That's how ou get your strong winds.

Often - and I think this is what weather forecasters expected - is a layer of stable air near the surface deflects the high winds to a couple thousand feet above the surface, so most people don't get the winds.

This time, the wind managed to have enough momentum to roar down the west slopes of the Green Mountains and slam into populated valleys near the base of these western slopes. So you got your high winds.

Adding to the trouble was the season. This type of storm is most common in the winter or early spring, when there are no leaves on the trees.

Trees are beginning to leaf out now. Each leaf acts like a little sail, pulling on tree branches as the wind hits them. This adds to the wind stress on the trees, making them more likely to break.

On top of that, it's been wet lately, so the ground is soft and mushy. That makes it easier for trees to get uprooted during strong winds.

This kind of storm is almost always pretty localized. A few miles away from the western slopes of the Green Mountains, everybody was probably saying, "What storm?" As Rutland and Underhill gusted away last evening, winds were dead calm at my house in St. Albans,  Vermont. The highest wind gust all day Friday in Burlington was just 19 mph.

For different reasons involving the same storm, there could be a little more wind trouble in Vermont this afternoon.

The storm is to our west now and the Champlain Valley will channel and focus southerly winds heading up the valley. Winds could gust to 35 to 40 mph or so, and that could mean some broken tree branches and maybe a few more power failures.

It won't be nearly as chaotic as Friday, but there still might be a little wind trouble ahead this afternoon.

Hey Fellow Vermonters, "Omega Block" Welcomes Us To East Seattle!

The Weather Channel supplied us with this schematic
of an "Omega block" weather pattern, in which cool,
showery weather remains stuck over us for at least two weeks.

It's raining again this morning and we hope you like showery weather, as it's going to hang in there for awhile.

In the spring, the normal general west to east motion of the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere gets blocked up, and things stall out.

Oh, joy! This time a storm in the upper levels of the atmosphere is probably going to hang around here for days and days.

Which means days and days of on and off showers.

This weather pattern is called an Omega block, because the jet stream pattern resembles the Greek letter Omega. It's a zigzag sort of thing that doesn't break down easily at all once it sets up.

It features a big dip in the jet stream over the western part of the country, a big jog in the jet stream in the middle of North America, and another big southward dip over us.

What it means for us is a long, long spell of cool, showery weather.

Today will be the wettest day of the whole bunch, as the main low pressure system moves in Nothing super heavy, but today will be a total washout.

By the way, unlike huge swaths of the middle of the country, the rain we get here won't cause any flooding. River levels might come up some, but it won't be scary.

The good news is despite the Seattle-like showery regime coming up over the next week, it won't constantly rain. There will always be a threat of showers through Thursday, but it won't rain all the time. And you might get a few peaks of sun here and there.

Except for Saturday, it's going to be chilly during this whole thing, too. It'll barely be around 50 today.

As the surface low pressure system trudges by to the west Saturday, we'll get a brief blurt of warm-ish air. Which means it'll get into the 60s to near 70.

As the storm stalls over southeastern Canada and the Northeast United States, chilly air will come back in. That's especially true Sunday and and Monday, when some of the showers could well turn to snow over the peaks of the Adirondacks and Green Mountains.

It'll sort of warm up a little later in the week and the showers will probably generally become less numerous, but will still be present.

More bad news: The Omega block will live on after next week.

As the stalled upper level low finally, slowly inches away out into the Atlantic Ocean toward next weekend, another one looks like it will come in, and take its place by stalling over us for several days.

Which means another extended period of showers next weekend and the following week.

That's why I'm saying we're suddenly in what I call Seattle On Champlain.

WIld Video Of Avalanche JUST Missing Russian Ski Resort

The video in this post is cool. 


Looks scary, but spoiler alert! This avalanche ended up
missing these buildings at a Russia ski resort.

It was just posted this past weekend and shows a massive avalanche barely missing the Cheget Ski and Snowboard resort in Terskol, Russia.

There were no reports of injuries, but we're glad the avalanche appears to have been deflected away from the resort by terrain.

I know a lot of you don't want to see snow related posts now that we're way into spring, but this one is pretty cool.

Video credit goes to Oleg Koshkarev.

Watch:

Frost Advisory In Vermont's Champlain Valley

There's a frost advisory tonight in Vermont's Champlain Valley
Most perennials will be fine, but if you put sensitive plants
outdoors too early, you might have problems. 

This is kind of a late post, but if you do read this, there's a frost advisory up for Vermont's Champlain Valley tonight.

This is not a weird situation for early May in Vermont, but it's worth noting.

You probably noticed today was cloudy and chilly, but it cleared up in the evening. That sets the stage for a frost. A clear sky when the temperature starts out cold means it's really easy for temperatures to fall into frost territory.

For most of us, including gardeners, we shouldn't really worry about this too much.

If your early perennials are blooming - things like daffodils, hyancith, forsythia - don't worry about them. They'll be fine. These plants are equipped to handle weather like this at this time of year.

Also, don't worry about the trees that are starting to leaf out. The tender new leaves can survive a couple hours below freezing. They'll be fine, too.

Vermont's apple crop is probably OK, too. The apple trees haven't totally bloomed yet in the Champlain Valley. And even where they have, the chill won't be long lasting or severe enough to cause much damage.

If you left sensitive plants outside to harden up for the spring. I'm talking about things like tomatoes and that kind of thing, definitely deal with this.  If you're reading this Wednesday evening, bring them in NOW. Right this minute.  If not, they'll probably die.

If you were foolish enough to plant sensitive plants in your garden like tomatoes in a way you can't bring them inside, you're screwed. Most people didn't do this. Don't put stuff like this in your garden until Memorial Day.

If you jumped the gun, encouraged by a couple warm days in April, those sensitive plants will probably die You can try covering them up, but they might or might not survive.

You'll notice the frost advisory is only in effect for the Champlain Valley. The National Weather Service only issue frost advisories in areas where the growing season has begun.

Right now is about the time where we typically get the last frost of the season in the Champlain Valley. Hence the advisory for tonight.

Away from the Champlain Valley, the typical first frost of the season comes later. The growing season  hasn't started yet. So, they haven't started issuing frost advisories or warnings yet. But the rules of thumb I outlined above still apply.

One more note: We are about to enter a long spell of cool, damp, cloudy weather. Outdoor plants won't grow or thrive much under these conditions. So if your outdoor plants don't seem to be doing well, relax.

Any frost we get tonight probably won't hurt them. The plants won't do much while it's cloudy and cool, but they'll survive. When the weather eventually turns sunny and warmer, they'll  be fine.  Just be patient, and they'll spring back to life once we get some warm spring weather

Videos Of The Extreme Storms Last Weekend

Tornado damage in Canton, Texas last weekend.

As you might have noticed from reading this here blog thingy, the weather has been pretty extreme across much of the United States over the past week to ten days.

There's been destructive tornadoes, even more destructive flooding, even a blizzard out on the High Plains.

As always when you get big time weather, there's lots of videos floating around of all the wild weather we've gotten.

I'll share a couple of them.

In the first one, I'll give you a bit of a trigger warning first. It's a terrifying video.

The video was taken by a couple whose Texas farmstand is being ravaged by a tornado. At first we see the barn disintegrating, but the screen goes dark as the house they're in blows apart. You can hear the calling to each other.

Miraculously, they survived, although the house was apparently reduced to a concrete slab. Here's one thing that got me worked up and almost as upset as I was for the couple.. Before the screen goes dark, you see some pet ducks cowering in the corner.

I'm sure they died, and that bothered me a lot though there was nothng the couple could do to save them. They're lucky they saved themselves and each other:



Here's some tornado footage and drama from the tornado aftermath from my favorite tornado chaser,  Pecos Hank. Toward the end we hear him as he is rushing an injured woman he found to the hospital in  his car



In Missouri, up to 10 inches of rain falling on saturated soil caused record flooding last weekend. Now, it's raining hard in Missouri again, and renewed, dangerous flooding is happening today. Flood and flash flood warnings are in effect.

Here's an aerial view taken a couple days ago.



In Kansas, it was extreme snow, where a blizzard ravaged the western part of the state. The worst part of this blizzard is that the wheat crop out there was going great, but the blizzard destroyed most of it.

Here's some video of the blizzard. As you can see the trees had already leafed out.

A Big Change To Wet And Chilly May In Vermont, Northeast

Frankly, I didn't appreciate the rain, mixed with a bit of sleet, as I did some volunteer spring cleaning of a rural, historic cemetery in West Rutland, Vermont Sunday, but it looks like we'll all have to get used to it. 

It was a very wet, windy commute this morning in St.
Albans, Vermont. There are frequent chances of rain coming
up for the next couple of weeks in Vermont.

That's because we're entering a long, long period that will mostly feature cool, cloudy and often wet weather quite possibly lasting into mid-May.

Not every day during this period will be gloomy and chilly, but most will be.

Let's break it down into details:
Today will be one last warm day, at least for most of us.

A warm front pushed through overnight, and it was near the Canadian border early this Monday morning, Rain was falling in northern Vermont, along with northern New York, plus New Hampshire and much of Maine.

The rain will taper off for awhile, except in Quebec and northern Maine for awhile today. Temperatures will probably make it to 70 degrees west of the Green Mountains, but it will get progressively cooler as you head east toward the Maine coast.

That huge storm we've been talking about the past few days is still swirling in the middle of the nation, even managing to squeeze out a few inches of snow in places like South Dakota and Minnesota.

The storm caused a really big, bad, disruptive blizzard in western Kansas Sunday, tornadoes in Texas and very severe flooding in Missouri that killed at least 14 people.

Anyway, this storm's expansive cold front is pressing east, and is destined to put a wide area of the Northeastern United States under threat of severe weather later today and this evening.

At this point, it looks like the best chances of severe storms would extend from western and central New York, through Pennsylvania and down into Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.

In this entire area, strong, damaging winds, large hail and even a few tornadoes are a good bet today.

Here in northern New York and Vermont, a line of possibly severe storms will get going in central New York and head east. These storms will probably be on a weakening trend as they get into Vermont's Champlain Valley this evening.

There will still be a chance of damaging wind gusts in a few places west of the Green Mountains from these storms this evening. They'll keep weakening as they head off toward New Hampshire, so eastern areas are far less likely to get nailed by these.

Everybody will get a round of rain from these, though tonight.

Tuesday, and to somewhat a lesser extent Wednesday, that swirl of a storm now in the middle of the country will help create low pressure in the upper levels of the atmosphere here in the Northeast, so occasional showers and cooler weather will be a good bet.

There's probably a break in the weather Thursday with some sun and near normal temperatures, but a very wet storm is set to arrive from the south late in the week. That'll create quite a lot of rain Friday and Saturday.

That storm will complete a pattern change in which a deep trough of low pressure in the atmosphere sets up over the Northeast.

For us in Vermont and surrounding areas, that means a prolonged era of cool, showery weather. This type of pattern usually gives us lots of days with chilly rains, mixed with just a small number of days that have partial sunshine and temperatures just a little cooler than normal.

We had a taste of summer weather in April, but it looks like we'll have to wait until at least the middle of May or later to bring back out the shorts and t-shirts and sunglasses.