You'd Think It Would Finally Rain In Vermont With This Humidity, But Everyone Else Getting It Instead

Showers are few and far between today in Vermont, but the showers
that do form are giving the sky the appearance of something you'd see
over a Caribbean island. Which isn't surprising, since this really
is pure tropical air. 

It's another oppressively warm, incredibly humid day here in Vermont.

Once again, I cut short outdoor work because the sun, combined with the humidity was too much for me.

I originally thought - as did many forecasters - that today would be a cloudier, more showery day than recent ones.

Especially in northern Vermont, where we still really need the rain. And I would have been willing to work outside under clouds with this humidity, without the glaring heat of the sun.

And I would have been willing to work outside in these temperatures and the sun, if the humidity were lower. Rain showers would have further cooled me off out there.

It was not to be. It seems every time northern Vermont seems finally ready to get some decent rains, something interferes.

This time, it's an upper level low stuck to our southwest. In the upper levels of the atmosphere, drier air wrapped around this low, and went south to north in a corridor that took it right across Vermont.

Sure, with this awful humidity near the surface, there's bound to be some local showers and storms. One tiny cell formed in Milton early this afternoon and traveled north right along Interstate 89 all the way to Highgate.

Meanwhile, flash flooding is so bad in Pennsylvania today that a
building housing the New Albany library sadly washed away.
Thankfully, two people in an apartment on the second floor
of the building were rescued before the structure
entirely broke apart. 

When I got home to St. Albans, Vermont early this afternoon,  things outside were wet, so at least I got a little needed rain out of the deal, while lots of other people didn't.

Most showers and storms that form the rest of this afternoon over and near Vermont will get going over the mountains and pretty much stay there. We lack any real wind in the atmosphere, so there's nothing to push them along.

Because showers and storms will be such slow movers, isolated spots in the state could get torrential downpours and gullywashers.

If any particular storm gets especially tall, there's barely enough wind in the upper atmosphere to push them into valleys. Most valley locations won't get rain the rest of the this afternoon and evening, but there's hope a few will.

The tropical air looks really, well, tropical. I swear the sky over the Green Mountain State today looks more like we're on a Caribbean island and not in northern New England.

The next chance of widespread, meaningful rain in northern Vermont will come along Friday and Saturday, but I'm guessing, just as we repeatedly experienced all summer, some complication will come along to prevent that anticipated precipitation.

Meanwhile, so many people under and close to that upper low I talked about are getting, way, way too much rain. Flash flooding has been an enormous problem since Saturday in these areas, especially in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and that state of affairs continues this afternoon.

The flash flooding continues today, especially along the Pennsylvania/New York border near Elmira and Binghamton. It's gotten so bad a building housing a library in New Albany, Pennsylvania literally washed away in the flood.

It continues: Some people are getting way too much rain, and not that far way, other people are not getting enough. Too bad we don't have the power to redistribute it.