Giant New Storm To Bury Plains In Snow, Worsen Flooding, Spin Off Severe Weather

An intense storm is forecast to move across the middle of
the nation toward Wednesday and Thursday.

A most unwelcome storm is forming, one that will unleash a blizzard in the northern and central Plains, worsen flooding, possibly spin up some tornadoes and just generally make a nearly coast-to-coast pain of itself this week.

Like all of these storms, this one will affect us here in Vermont. But as usual, it thankfully won't cause
as dire a situation as it will in the middle of the country. I'll get into more New England details further down in this post.

The storm, or at least its ingredients, have already dumped heavy rain on Oregon and is spreading snow through parts of the Rockies.

By Wednesday and Thursday, this storm will really crank up to become something similar to that infamous "bomb cyclone" last month that touched off all that flooding in Nebraska and surrounding areas, and brought an intense blizzard to Colorado.

This storm probably won't be quite as strong as the one last month, and in many ways it's a classic April storm. Often, a strong storm will unleash a late season blizzard in the northern Plains and cause severe weather further south. So this system is part of the usual early April playbook.

The problem is, the storm will be a stronger than the usual April storm.  Not the strongest on record, but pretty close to it and impressive nonetheless. Worse, it will also dump rain and heavy snow on precisely the areas in the middle of the nation hit hardest by flooding. Some parts of South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota can expect up to two inches of rain or melted snow with this one.

A blizzard looks like it will unfold  from Wyoming through much of the Dakotas, northern Nebraska and on into Minnesota and Wisconsin  Winter storm watches are already up for much of this region Wednesday and Thursday. Some areas might get more than a foot of snow, propelled by wind gust going over 50 mph. Farm country is going to suffer again.

That snow will have to melt eventually. Which means the flooding will worsen and last longer than it otherwise would have.

South of the storm, there's worries of severe weather and possible tornadoes from Kansas to an area around Illinois and Indiana. It's too soon to say how widespread this outbreak might be. So far, at least, it looks like not all the ingredients are coming together perfectly to create a mega-tornado outbreak, which is great. Still, this has to be watched.

Moreover, the storm's cold front will get hung up near the Gulf Coast, and a new storm will form in the Southeast toward the weekend. That one also has the potential to create its own severe weather and tornado outbreak.

NEW ENGLAND IMPACTS

The last vestige of what was a four foot tall snowbank melts
in the rain this morning outside my house in St. Albans, Vermont

For the past two weeks or so in Vermont, it's been relatively dry with no spikes of very warm spring weather. That has meant the seasonal snow melt has been pretty orderly and uneventful, which of course is a good thing. 

It looks like as of today, we've started a much more active pattern, which means we'll have frequent bouts of rain or even wintry precipitation for the next three weeks. Two of those systems will get us even before the big storm from the Plains arrives Friday or Saturday.

So far, none of these storms seem big enough to touch off any really serious flooding, but of course Lake Champlain will continue to go up as the mountain snow melts and the rain keeps falling. I am almost sure it will reach its 100 foot flood stage later this month. How much it goes above that level remains to be seen, but luckily I very seriously doubt it will come close to the record, destructive levels of 2011.

An initial storm is producing rain this morning, which will taper off to low clouds, drizzle and scattered showers this afternoon. Rainfall totals look from this look like they will be around a half inch, give or take. It's not very warm out, so snowmelt from the mountains isn't that extreme. Bottom line: No flooding today.

Another modest storm will come through tomorrow afternoon and evening with a quarter inch of rain or so. It'll go over to snow tomorrow night in many locations in central and northern vermont. A lot of places will wake up Wednesday morning in a similar fashion to this past Saturday morning. That is to say many of us will have a slushy coating of snow on the ground, and mid and high elevations wil clock in with a fresh one to three inches of snow.

When large storms like the one in the middle of the nation reach us, we tend to get relatively minor effects, and in this case, it seems to be shaping up that way. Things could change, but right now, we seem poised to get a squirt of rather mild air Friday ahead of the storm, and a batch of showers will come through Friday night and Saturday.

It's too soon to say how much rain will come from this one.

I mentioned the light snow expected in northern Vermont Tuesday night. Which makes me want to talk about northern Maine and its never-ending winter. It's just incredible up there.

Caribou, Maine has had at least an inch of snow on the ground every day since November 10.  They are coming close to breaking the record of most consecutive days with an inch or more of snow cover, which was in the winter of 2002-03.

The storm that is giving Vermont rain today is dumping snow on northern and central Maine, and winter storm warnings and advisories are up. More snow is due with tomorrow's storm. Friday and Saturday's storm look rainy in Maine, so some snow will melt, but there's an awful lot of it up there to get rid of.

There was still 23 inches of snow on the ground in Caribou as of yesterday. The snowfall for the winter up there so far is 158.5, with another six inches or so on the way over the next couple of days, as noted.

So, if you're complaining about our rather chilly, reluctant spring here in Vermont, thank your lucky stars you're not in Caribou.