Finally Some Gorgeous June Weather, But Interesting Things Still Coming (Maybe)

Clouds with a severe thunderstorm in Colchester, Vermont
last week. More strong storms are possible late in the
weekend and early next week.

It was so nice to get up this morning and go outside into a genuinely gorgeous June dawn here in St. Albans, Vermont.

Everything - the trees and gardens - were dripping wet and fragrant from yesterday's soaking rain. The sky above was gorgeous blue, and the day promises to be sunny and dry and perfect.

Yes, most of you were in dense fog early this morning, but you should be in the clear by the time you read this. Or almost everybody, anyway.

Enjoy today, because more "interesting" weather might be on the way. Don't worry, we're not talking about a cold June gloom again, but the weather pattern for the next few days is looking kinda active.

Thursday should be half way decent, too, though we can't rule out an isolated afternoon shower or thundershower.

On Friday, a nor'easter of all things will be lurking off the New England coast. At this point, it's looking like it just might be far enough off the coast to avoid another super cold soaker, but we're still watching it.

In any event, the nor'easter's upper level support will be over New England, so expect a fair number of showers in Vermont and the rest of New England and northern New York Friday into Saturday morning.

Then -- summer returns. However, it won't necessarily be all clear skies.

A "heat ridge" basically a northward bulge in the jet stream, will set up shop over the eastern third of the nation Sunday through at least Tuesday.

That means a surge of very warm and humid air into our area then. Forecasters are very confident of this. Expect 80s, maybe even a 90 or two Sunday afternoon, Monday and Tuesday.

But here's the tricky part. Sometimes, when a heat ridge sets up like this, strong to severe thunderstorms originate in the Great Lakes region and ride along the northern edge of these heat ridges.

We will be on the northern edge of the heat ridge. There is a possibility of strong to severe storms, especially in northern New England, Sunday through Tuesday.  The center of the ridge could be just a wee bit to our west, so the thunderstorms, if they form, might end up blasting down from the northwest on the front side of the ridge.

In these situations, the storms coming in from the northwest, rather than the southwest, can be particularly strong, at least in my experience.

This idea of strong storms is still a HUGE maybe.  I'd still take the idea of big storms Sunday and onward with a big grain of salt.

Perhaps the storms will go further to the north than we think now. Or, enough hot air will "cap" the atmosphere, discouraging the strong updrafts that are necessary for thunderstorms. Or there won't be a "trigger" a weak disturbance in the upper level air flow to get the storms going. It's all a delicate dance as to whether the storms form or not.

We won't know any more specifics until the day of.  In other words, check the forecasts each morning Sunday through Tuesday to see if we're in for any kind of rough weather.

Just count on continued iffy weather here and there going forward.

But enjoy today. Once the fog lifts, it will be the finest possible June day.