Tornado Week Continues In U.S.; Update On Vermont/New England Flood Threat

Lots of  tornado damage in Franklin, Texas Saturday

As expected, Saturday was a bad day in the United States for severe weather and tornadoes, with reports of three deaths, many injuries and much destruction across the South. And there's a lot more to come.

Up here in Vermont, the (less) rough weather will take the form of rain, possibly thunder and almost definitely some flooding. I'll get into that further down in this post.

Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi took the brunt of the storms Saturday. As expected, there were at least a couple very strong, long-tracked tornadoes. Tragically, two children died in one of the storms in Texas when a tree fell on their car.

The town of Franklin, Texas was trashed by an EF-3 tornado, where many homes were damaged or destroyed. The town of Alto, Texas was hit by two tornadoes that struck about 90 minutes apart from each other.

There's a couple videos of the tornadoes and damage in the south at the bottom of this post

Today, the severe weather threat has shifted to the the central Appalachians and the Southeast. 

There is a tornado watch this morning in Alabama and Georgia and there have been reports of some tornado damage this morning in this region, especially in Troy, Alabama.

This afternoon the area that seems to be under the greatest risk of severe weather seems to be around West Virginia, eastern Ohio, much of Pennslvania, and down into western Virginia and western North Carolina.

Most of the danger from today's severe weather will be from damaging straight-line winds in the thunderstorms. However, a few tornadoes could also spin up in this region.

The nation will get a brief break from the severe storms and tornadoes Monday and Tuesday, but another strong storm, this one rather slow moving, will really ramp up the threat Wednesday through Friday. 

It's always hard if not impossible to pinpoint the seriousness and exact location of severe weather events days in advance. At the moment, Wednesday looks like a potentially dangerous day in the Mississippi Valley from about Iowa south. Thursday seems risky in the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, and then the Southeast gets targeted again Friday.

So far this year, it has not been a super busy tornado season in the United States, but it has been worse than the past four years or so, which had fewer than average tornadoes and tornado deaths.

It seems the nation's relative tornado drought is over.

VERMONT FLOODING?

Burlington, Vermont on Saturday reached a high temperature of 72 degrees, the first reading in the 70s since October 11, 2018

The warm weather got the mountain snow melting pretty fast, and river levels have gone up. This morning, there was already a flood warning for the Barton River, around Coventry up in the Northeast Kingdom.

This, and it hasn't even started raining yet.

Skies in northern Vermont were crystal clear earlier this Sunday morning, but that is changing fast. Forecasts have been very consistent about the amount of rain expected.  It'll be around an inch, with the "drier" spots getting perhaps three quarters of an inch and the wetter areas receiving around 1.25 inches or so.

Of course, the snow will keep melting off the mountains into already relatively high running rivers, so the forecast is the same as I mentioned yesterday: There probably will be a lot of locations in Vermont with flooding. Flood watches are obviously still in effect. 

The rainfall will wax and wane from late this afternoon through Monday, but many of us will have a couple periods of heavier rain. A thunderstorm or two might even mix in over night. The short, sharp bursts of heavier precipitation would help get small streams and creeks flooding pretty quickly overnight and Monday.

The state's larger rivers will rise overnight and Monday. For the most part, they'll crest Monday afternoon and the first part of Monday night.

Most of the flooding will be minor, but still needs to be taken seriously. People have this habit of driving into flood waters, thinking they can make it through. I hammer this home every time there's a flood threat. Don't be stupid and go around barriers put up to block roads that are flooded.

Just deal with the time and inconvenience of doing a detour. It's totally worth it.

After a brief cool and breezy interlude Tuesday, it will warm up again, then turn rainy again by the end of the week. If that end of the week rain proves to be heavy (it might) that would renew the flood threat.

Some video:

This is a video of the storm that caused the devastating tornado in Franklin, Texas. The tornado is probably in the middle of the view in this video. I'm showing it to prove that it's often impossible to see a tornado coming, especially if it's wrapped in rain:



A couple describe the tornado that destroyed their home. As they talk, a couple of puppies are still lost in the rubble. Spoiler: It has a happy ending: