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| National Weather Service map from Monday afternoon shows a bizarre combinayion of a ice storm warnings (in purple) and a severe thunderstorm warning (in orange). Usually these two warnings are in different seasons, not together on the same day/ |
And what a strange storm it was! I don't see anything the record books in which a nasty winter storm of snow, freezing rain, sleet and wind combined simultaneously with severe thunderstorms with damaging hail.
That was the situation in New England yesterday, folks! There's a couple videos at the bottom of this post.
I'll get into more of that in a minute, but first, we're not even quite done with the storm yet.
This thing was a sprawling mess which kept sprouting new centers and new bouts of rough weather from California to Maine.
The last of these storms is near Downeast Maine, and is dumping heavy snow on the northern and western parts of that state.
It's a remnant piece of a previous part of this storm that we Vermonters have to worry about today and tonight. In case you haven't noticed, it's pretty mild out there this New Year's Eve.
In many, but not all Vermont valley locations, yesterday's ice is melting off the trees. That's a good thing, as you don't want to have the branches weighed down by the ice and risk more tree and power line damage.
One reason it's mild out is there is a cold front of sorts attached to that remnant piece of the storm near the eastern Great Lakes.
This sort of cold front has a lot of energy with it. There was even more lightning to report this morning in Ohio. This front will generate some heavy snow showers as it approaches tonight.
The National Weather Service in South Burlington says the timing suggests that the heavier snow showers will come through northern New York between 4 and 8 p.m. today. They'll get into the Champlain Valley between about 7 and 10 p.m. and into the eastern half of Vermont between 9 p.m. and midnight.
This obviously means trouble for people out partying for New Year's Eve. A quick one to three inches of snow, combined with some wind, will sharply reduce the visibility on the roads, and get them slippery fast.
Probably more important is the temperature. When temperatures are near the freezing mark in this snow squally situation, it's a lot worse on the roads than if readings were far below 32 degrees. In very cold weather, a lot of the snow just blows off the roads. It does compact into some ice, but it's not too, too bad when it's super cold.
However, when the temperature is warmish, like today and this evening, water on the road freezes as the temperatures fall during the onset of the snow. The snow will be relatively wet. Wet snow compacts into thick layers of slippery ice beneath car tires. There will still be a little water on top of all this mess, which makes things even more slick.
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| Arrived home from a trip to find the trees in my St. Albans, Vermont\ yard were mercifully not too weighed down by ice from Monday's storm. |
Or stay home. That's what me and my husband Jeff do every New Year's Eve. Tonight is amateur hour. It's more fun to sip Champagne at home.
In any event, this snow tonight is good news for the ski areas. It'll be kinda powdery up there. Groomers can mix this in with the slop from yesterday, leaving the slopes in pretty good shape for welcoming 2020 with some skiing and riding
MONDAY'S WEIRDNESS
Monday wasn't the first time there's been lightning and thunder during a New England ice storm. But these were definitely the strongest storms I and anyone else has seen with an ice storm. For those of you in northern and central Vermont who wonder what I'm talking about, the thundersleet storms passed well south of you.
A New England ice storm is often a recipe for some thunder. Usually, an ice storm features a very strong punch of very warm air from the south coming into New England several thousand feet overhead.
Meanwhile, low level cold air drains in from Quebec. Rain from the overhead warm air freezes on the way down to form sleet, or freezes on contact with the ground to accumulate some dangerous ice. This is exactly the situation New England faced on Monday.
This warm air above can be quite unstable and create elevated thunderstorms that form above the temperature inversion that is keeping the cold air locked in at the surface. For instance, there were thunderstorms in Vermont during the Great Ice Storm of 1998.
On Monday, the storms turned out to be quite strong, and formed into a system we normally and often see during severe thunderstorm outbreaks in the summer.
One thunderstorm formed ahead of the main line of storms and went through western and central Massachusetts and northwestern Connecticut. This storm very much resembled a supercell thunderstorms, the kind that can produce large hail and even tornadoes.
Supercells usually form ahead of the main band of storms that form along a squall line or ahead of a cold front. That's how Monday's initial storm behaved. It probably was technically a supercell, since it was rotating and had a radar presentation that resembled a supercell.
Because the storm was elevated above the cold layer near the surface, it would have never been able to spin down a tornado toward the ground. (The rotation with this storm was insufficient to produce a tornado even if that low level cold air wasn't around.)
However, supercells and that type of storm that formed Monday in central New England can produce large hail and this one certainly did. Rising and falling air currents in the storm grabbed raindrops and sleet pellets and formed large hail stones.
Some of the hail stones were an inch or more in diameter, as big or bigger than quarters and enough to dent vehicles. Certainly, these were the biggest hailstones on record for December in New England.
The main line of thunderstorms came through later, dumping more hail, and triggering more lightning and thunder across much of southern and central New England. Some of storms extended into southern Vermont.
On top of all this, the freezing rain was bringing down trees and power lines in the Adirondacks, southern Vermont and New Hampshire and much of Massachusetts.
Most, but not all of the power is back on in New England and New York as of early this afternoon.
Videos:
Security cameras caught the noisy thundersleet and large hail in Westfield, Massachusettts. And also the reaction from a stunned occupant of the building:
The freezing rain affected Ontario, Canada, too, as this enthusiastic motorist tells and shows us:
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