Classic Summer Weather And Classic Summer Storms, Finally

Dark and beautifully patterned clouds Wednesday in a
thunderstorm that was approaching South Burlington, Vermont.

The last few days have finally brought us classic Vermont summer weather: To my mind, it's perfect.

This weather features quite a bit of sun, with puffy clouds thrown in. Temperatures are now often reaching the 80s, with some noticeable but not extreme humidity.

And there's finally summer storms thrown into the mix. Towering cumulus and thunderstorms are easily my favorite type of cloud.

The form an endless array of distinct shapes. They're often dramatic. You need your camera with you at all times in a Vermont summer, in case the sky gives you a treat.

One bonus is that although Vermont can does get severe and damaging thunderstorms every summer, we're not as prone to super scary storms as the Midwest and South. Often, we get the beauty and the drama without the destruction.

Plus, the tallest thunderstorm towers can often be seen when they're as many as 100 miles away, if there's no mountains to block your view. Which I think is pretty cool.

Early this Thursday afternoon, for instance, I could see the tops of some distant thunderstorms from my perch in St. Albans. The storms were well into Quebec. How far up north? Radar showed they were about 60 miles north of Montreal when I spotted them. Montreal is 65 miles north of me. So these storms, barely visible through the slightest haze, were roaring 125 miles away from me.

More on those storms in a minute.

Yesterday brought the first significant, dramatic thunderstorms of the season to my neck of the woods in northwestern Vermont, and I couldn't have been more pleased.

Gorgeous but threatening skies as a thunderstorm approached
South Burlington Wednesday. 

The storms prompted severe thunderstorm warnings in a wide area along the shores of the northern half of Lake Champlain of New York, most of the Champlain Valley of Vermont and on into central Vermont.

Actual reports of severe weather were scant, which is great. Despite the excitement of having a severe thunderstorm warning, that turned out exactly as meteorologists predicted.

Ingredients were there for isolated, but not widespread severe weather. It was a little warmer than forecast yesterday. Burlington reached 86 degrees Wednesday. That was the hottest temperature so far this year, though it was nothing unusual for late June.

Humidity was moderate. The sun, the heat and the modest humidity helped destabilize the atmosphere, allowing for thunderstorms. A weak boundary approached from the St. Lawrence Valley of New York.

It doesn't take much to form thunderstorms this time of year, and there you go. On the other hand, Wednesday's air wasn't super unstable and there were dry layers up there, so that prevented a lot of severe weather.

Storm clouds over South Burlington Wednesday look like a painting.
Like all photos in this post, I did no editing or augmentation.

However, there was a long north to south band of thunderstorms with this. Most cells in this band were below severe levels, but a few spots in this band looked like they had the potential to reach severe limits.

You couldn't tell which isolated spot in the path of this band would get a brief period of severe weather, so the National Weather Service had to issue a blanket severe thunderstorm warning for most people in the path of the storms.

All this is to remind you that every time you get a severe thunderstorm warning this summer, take it seriously and get inside. You never know where under that warning the winds and/or hail will get particularly dangerous

In the end, there were reports of some damage in Essex, New York. A tree toppled in downtown Burlington. I saw very minor flash flooding and a few twigs down in Charlotte, Shelburne and South Burlington, so nothing major there.

The clouds with this band of storms though! They made me very happy. Especially since there wasn't a lot of damage to report.

MORE STORMS AND SUMMER

This afternoon is once again very warm and vaguely humid. That would maybe mean the chance of additional photogenic storms, but you need a trigger, like that weak boundary yesterday.

Updrafts near the mountains could trigger a few isolated showers and storms in the Green Mountains and Adirondacks late this afternoon, but no biggie.

There is a weak weather front in Quebec which is triggering those thunderstorms up there that I mentioned. As of this writing, at 2 p.m. Thursday, there's even a severe thunderstorm warning in northwestern Maine, due to the same weather front. That boundary might come close enough to the Vermont and New York border to set up the chance of isolated storms this evening.

But the sun will be going down by the time that boundary tries to cross the International Border, so potential energy for storms will also be going away. People way up north in Vermont might hear a rumble of thunder and see pretty clouds again this evening, so that's good.

Friday it's more of the same. Just a chance of late day storms.

This post is getting a little long, so I'll postpone a discussion about Saturday and Sunday until tomorrow morning. Let's just say there's a chance both weekend days could grant us some photogenic skies again, if things work out right. It will be unsettled, and possibly stormy so we'll see!