Storm Threat Vermont, Rest Of Northeast Today

Stormy weather over Lake Champlain
last month. Similar scenes are
possible today, and I'd postpone the
boating excursion because of the
threat of strong storms and
lightning today. 

Just a head's up that it could turn noisy and bumpy in the weather department here in Vermont and much of the rest of the Northeast today.

Relatively humid weather is in place and a disturbance in the eastern Great Lakes will set up a lot of showers and thunderstorms this afternoon and evening.

A few of them were already roaming around as of early this morning. I noticed a severe thunderstorm warning at around 6 a.m on the eastern shores of Lake Ontario, for instance.

This is going to be another one of those hit and miss deals, typical of summer. Almost all of us will get rain today. Most of us will hear thunder. Some locations will get a decent big noisy thunderstorm.

And a few - definitely not many - unlucky folks in Vermont and surrounding regions will be on the receiving end of severe weather, which includes the possibility of damaging winds, fairly big hail and local flash flooding.

Actually, I think the biggest threat from today's storms is flash flooding. Again, only a few places, if any, will have high water problems. But the ground is still fairly wet. The storms will be kind of slow moving and some will contain heavy downpours.

A few storms might dump up to two inches of rain in an hour or two, which is at the threshhold at which flash flooding can start.

So, it's the usual summer drill. Keep an eye to the sky, listen for any local weather warnings from a trusted meteorlogical source, and by all means, don't drive onto flooded roads. Just turn around and take a detour for gawd's sake.

Things will taper off tonight. Tuesday, there will only be a few isolated afternoon showers and storms around so it won't be that big a deal.