See-Sawing Into Autumn, But With Summery Interruptions

Clouds over St. Albans. Vermont on September 4 showed both
the volatility of a summer sky and the gloom of late autumn
We are certainly in a transition season. 

So far, September in Vermont this year is a lot cooler than the record warmth of the past three summers.

You can see it on the hills and mountains.  While the trees are still mostly green, there are more splashes of color on this September 12 than there were on this date over the last three years.

However, in the days going forward, look for some summery periods in this downward temperature slide into autumn.

We had such an warm interruption yesterday, when Burlington, Vermont got above 80 degrees for the first time since August 30. And we had some oppressive humidity to boot. A definite summer flashback.

Last night's cold front has gotten us back into fall.  It was dank, overcast and cool this morning, though the sun should come out this afternoon, especially in the north. But it'll stay cool, setting us up for tonight, which will probably be the chilliest one since early June.

I would not be at all surprised if the coldest hollows of the Northeast Kingdom, the Green Mountains, the Adirondacks and White Mountains see a touch of frost. Most of us have nothing to worry about in that department, though. The gardens are still safe. For now.

We in Vermont have been, and will be for the next several days in a bit of a battleground between oddly strong and hot high pressure in the western Atlantic Ocean and the southern United States. Record highs have been falling like crazy in the South.

We'll keep seeing attempts for that hot air to make a run towards us, but the heat will keep getting cut off at the pass by cold fronts from Canada. In fact, the forecast looks really tricky for the first part of next week. The heat will build strongly in the Midwest. The center of the heat ridge will be just to our west.

That would open the door for back door cold fronts to come in from eastern Canada. (It's called a back door cold front because it comes in from the north and east, which is somewhat unusual. Most cold fronts come at us from the west.)

These back door cold fronts can make for some weird temperature contrasts, with chilly air to the east and very warm air to the west. Where any one location in Vermont sets up under this scenario is anyone's guess. Could be warm, could be chilly next week. Stay tuned.

There are signs, though, that the summer-like warmth will temporarily engulf us fully later next week.

By the way, this relatively odd set up with the strong high pressure in the Atlantic and southeastern United States is not a good one to have during hurricane season, which is now.

Often, tropical storms and hurricanes manage to recurve northward, well offshore of the East Coast, sparing us any storms and disasters.

This current weather pattern tends to steer tropical storms and hurricanes either toward the East Coast or Gulf of Mexico.

A tropical depression or tropical storm is forecast to form in the next day or two over the Bahamas. It is already raining hard under the system's developing thunderstorms.

The really bad news is even if this wannabe tropical storm doesn't get too strong, it will dump torrential rains on the northern Bahamas, which were devastated by Hurricane Dorian. This area surely doesn't need more trouble!

Nobody is really sure where this wannabe tropical storm will go after the Bahamas. But given that strong high pressure in the Atlantic, this storm could easily end up threatening Florida, the southern Eastern Seaboard or the Gulf Coast states.

At this point, there is pretty much no agreement in the computer models as to where this will go. We'll just have to wait and see.