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.