A Break Today, Then More Storms. Floods, Too?

A storm over Lake Champlain Tuesday afternoon, as
seen from Overlook Park in South Burlington, Vermont

Just a quick update before I go outside and enjoy and (mostly) rain-free day.

As expected a lot more showers and storms swept across Vermont and most of the rest of the Northeast on Tuesday.  

Some storms did end up dropping quite a bit of hail, again as expected.

The worst problem, going forward, is that the storms on Tuesday added yet more moisture to the ground. And a lot more rain is looming. We could be looking at another flood potential over the weekend.

What looks to be a very wet warm front - probably similar to the one that brought us a soaking last Friday, looks to hit us on Thursday, especially in the afternoon and evening.

There won't be a lot of thunderstorms with it, but it looks like another soaker - possibly an inch of rain that will really turn the ground to a swampy soup.

Thursday's rains don't look like they'll be enough to cause any significant flooding, but they could prime the pump for the weekend.

We'll get back into the warm, very humid air Friday and Saturday, and that sets the stage for yet another flash flood threat in Vermont and the rest of the North Country.

At this point, it sort of looks like the storms Friday will be scattered - probably not enough to trigger flash flooding, though a local torrential downpour has the potential to cause trouble then.

The trouble - if any - looks like it would come on Saturday, especially the afternoon and night. By then, it will be ridiculously humid again, with dewpoints near the awful 70 degrees.

A slow moving cold front will be approaching from the west Saturday. It looks like we could get into "training" thunderstorms again, as the air flow will be parallel to the front. That means repeated thunderstorms could keep going over the same spot again and again.

That would trigger the flash floods. Especially since the ground is so sopping wet.

This scenario for Saturday is not set in stone. A lot can happen to the weather patterns between now and then. Maybe the heaviest rain will orient itself somewhere else, like to our west, north or south.

Or, atmospheric conditions might not be ripe enough to trigger lots of torrential thunderstorms. Maybe we'll get away with just scattered stuff.

The only reason for this post, then, is to give you a heads up that there could be flash flood trouble on Saturday. Watch for future posts and updates,  and whether any flash flood watches or alerts are issued.

Also pay attention as the weekend approaches to the National Weather Service and/or trusted weather forecasting sources.