Nor'easter, Of Course Develops; But Vermont Impacts Small; South Tornadoes

Here's the Weather Channel's take on how much
snow will come out of this latest nor'easter

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!

This past Saturday, when most of the weather forecasters were saying the nor'easter for this week would mostly be a miss, I said in this here blog thingy that I suspected that was wrong, that it would hit.  

Not to gloat, but I was right. Winter storm warnings extend from North Carolina to New England today, and a lot of people are going to get a lot of snow, once again.

The good news, if you're not a snow lover this time of year and you live in Vermont, is it still looks like you won't get much snow out of this one. In fact, northern Vermont at this point looks like it will get none. I hope. More on that in a minute.

I'll also get to those awful tornadoes in the south in a bit, too. There were some weird aspects to some of those.  Videos of the severe weather also at the bottom of the post.

Anyway, the forecast trends starting Saturday and continuing right into today track the nor'easter closer to the coast. It'll still go offshore, but will be close enough to give much of the eastern United States a pasting.

Particularly at points south, like Maryland, Delaware, western Virginia and parts of West Virginia, it's pretty odd to get a full-fledged winter storm this late in the year, the first day of spring. And it's equally odd to see forecasts of more than a foot of snow on the first day of spring in places like New Jersey and the New York City metro area. 

Most of the snow will come down Wednesday, and be accompanied by strong winds, producing near blizzard conditions in some spots on the first full day of spring. (The spring Equinox was at 12:15 p.m today, EDT)

As always, results may vary. This time of year, any East Coast snowstorm comes with marginal temperatures. A couple degrees warmer, and the snow totals would go down as it would mix with rain. A little colder, and the snow would get a little fluffier, increasing the totals.

There's little chance the snow will get much fluffier. It will be wet and heavy. Combined with the wind, there will once again be widespread power failures, just as there were in the last three nor'easters.

With all the damage over the past month, I think utility rates will rise across much of the East. Somebody is going to have to pay for all that repeated damage to the electric grid.

Once again, battered coastlines are going to be battered anew, with beach-eroding waves and more flooding along shorelines made much more vulnerable by the last three nor'easters. Winds were already increasing dramatically along parts of the Mid-Atlantic coast today and that should spread northward into Wednesday.

VERMONT IMPACTS

At this point, it still looks like it won't be too bad up here in the Green Mountain State. The far southern Green Mountains, which have gotten as much as six feet of new snow this month, are in for a little more.

This time, it looks like that region will be measuring the snow in inches, not feet. I still looks like they'll get six inches or less of snow in far southern Vermont, but that will have to be monitored.

So far, it looks like any light snow won't get any further north than Rutland and White River Junction on Wednesday and Wednesday night, but we'll of course have to continue monitoring the path of the storm. We don't want it to come further north,  do we?

The Arctic air mass over us is slowly moderating, and each day since Saturday has been getting slightly warmer, though staying way chillier than average. At least a tiny bit of snow has melted in sunny corners.

Today, with lighter winds and clouds from the storm not really getting too strongly into Vermont, readings might go briefly above freezing this afternoon. Still cold for this time of year, but we'll take anything.

That nor'easter passing by will increase the north winds, throw a few clouds our way and slow the pace at which the air warms up over us during the second half of the week. So it will stay wintry. If any afternoon temperatures get above freezing between Thursday and Saturday, it will be just barely.

Winter is hanging on.

SOUTHERN TORNADOES

Meteorologists knew since Saturday at least that parts of the Southeast were at risk for severe storms and tornadoes by yesterday, and sure enough, things got bad very fast.

A reporter with the Cullman, Alabama Tribune holds one
of the giant hailstones that fell near his house last night. 

There were at least 12 reports of tornadoes, pretty much all in northern Alabama, not far from the borders of Tennessee and Georgia.

One thing odd about this tornado outbreak, at least in my opinion, is how supercells creating the tornadoes, immense hail and damaging winds followed each other.

Usually, when a town gets hit by a tornado, emergency responders can get to the scene relatively safely, despite continuing lightning, flooding, heavy rain and sometimes hail.

Last night, one tornado hit the town of Jacksonville, Alabama, and first responders had to be warned that a second tornado (later confirmed) was hot on its heels. Even after that, a third circulation came into town, but I don't know yet whether that one touched down into a tornado.

At least one of those tornadoes hit Jacksonville State University, but thankfully the school was on spring break. There weren't that many students in the way to get hurt by the twister.

So far, I'm not aware of any deaths caused by the storms, but there were injuries. 

The supercell storms marched into Georgia later last night, and National Weather Service meteorologists there are investigating whether any of the damage around metro Atlanta and elsewhere in northwest Georgia was caused by tornadoes.

The storms also dumped huge hailstones on parts of Alabama. In Cullman, Alabama, hail as big as softballs caused widespread damage. One large car dealership alone suffered perhaps $4 million or more in damage. In some parts of town, hail was big enough to crash through roofs. 

There's still a threat of severe storms and tornadoes today across northern and central Florida, and near the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina.

Here's a news video of hail damage at a Cullman, Alabama car dealership:



Here's what it was like inside the Cullman, Alabama Walmart during the hail. It was loud, and you can see pieces of the ceiling coming down during the onslaught:



Not confirmed as of this writing, but the damage in this video in Campbellton, Georgia had to have been caused by a tornado last night: