Severe Storms, Risk Of Floods Coming To Northeast Sunday, Monday

Flash flooding, Jericho, Vermont, July 2013. A few
towns in Vermont and the rest of the Northeast could
have trouble like this on Monday.

Heads up people in the Northeast, including here in Vermont: Some rough weather looks like it might be on the way Sunday and especially Monday.

Some towns might be hit with damaging thunderstorms and local flash flooding during this period.

Let's unpack the details:

Sunday, the severe threat extends from northeastern Texas, through the northern Gulf Coast states and especially on up the western side of the Appalachians into northern and western three quarters of New York.

Western and central New York seem to be in the bullseye Monday for strong straight line winds in some storms.

More dangerous might be the very heavy downpours with these storms. Moisture levels through a thick layer of the atmosphere will be high. Storms will move slowly, or "train," meaning one storm after another might move over the same areas

The New York storms will move into Vermont and the rest of western New England Sunday night while weakening. There might be some gusty winds, and especially  heavy downpours, which could prime the pump for some possible flash floods Monday.

Before that happens, a few rogue thunderstorms might pop up in Vermont, New Hampshire and western Massachusetts, but there won't be many of them. It's just that it will be very warm and very humid, so that could be enough to trigger a storm or two.

MONDAY DANGER?

Monday looks like it will be a very busy day across the Northeast,with fairly widespread severe storms, at least by the standards of the Northeast.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center already has an enhanced zone of predicted severe storms from about Washington DC to southern Vermont.  That they would say there's an enhanced risk this far in advance indicates there's quite a bit of confidence that there will be severe storms.

They'll fuss with this forecast between now and Monday. A lot of factors will go into who is most at risk of strong storms Monday.

Like these: Where will the cold front be? How fast will it move? Will sunshine break out in the unstable air ahead of the front, increasing the instability further and increasing the strength of the storms? Where will the fastest upper level winds be, and where will they most likely veer with height, raising the risk of supercell storms?



Damage from flash flooding in Jericho,
Vermont in July, 2013. There's a chance
we could have trouble like this on Monday.

So yeah, lots of questions.
Just be prepared on Monday for the threat of severe storms, maybe even a few supercells, with the potential for very strong winds, maybe even a quick and brief tornado spin up or two almost anywhere in New England, eastern New York and down into the Mid-Atlantic states.
Again, the usual caveat: It's impossible to tell this far in advance which towns will get severe storms and which ones will have nothing much.   
During all this, but especially Monday and Monday night, flash flooding will become a rising concern in Vermont and elsewhere in the Northeast.

 As already noted, the air will have lots of water in it, and this moisture extends way up in the atmosphere. At this point, Monday afternoon and night could feature areas of very torrential downpours with some areas getting repeated dousings during this period.

In mountainous and hilly eastern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and southwestern New England, some areas face the risk of damaging flash floods

This is one of those situations where a few towns are hit hard by severe weather or floods, and a lot of other towns get away with just some bad weather.

The forecast will inevitably change somewhat as the Monday event gets closer, with adjustments in the forecast timing and strength of the potential bad weather.

However, this is just a heads up that we're in for some very active - and maybe locally dangerous -  weather over the next few days.