Snow Update, And Humdinger Severe Weather Risk In South

Snow accumulating this morning on this soon to be blooming daffodil
in my St. Albans, Vermont yard makes it look like an
elaborate but disgruntled bird. 

I woke up at dawn in St. Albans, Vermont this morning and was delighted to see it didn't snow overnight at my place.

That was short lived when I checked the radar and a swirl of moisture, in the form of a band of snow, was on my doorstep and heading toward me.  Sure enough, a half hour later, it was snowing.

At least at my place, the snow will only briefly accumulate for a few hours this morning, then melt, probably amounting to an inch or less. But we'll see.  

However, again, sure enough, forecasts were right. It appears several inches of snow fell across many towns in north central Vermont and the Northeast Kingdom. It was still snowing in these spots as of 7 a.m.

As April snowfalls go, this really isn't so unusual for Vermont. But until now, spring was running early, so it's a little disheartening to see the snow. In the valleys, most snow showers will change to, or at least mix with rain this afternoon.  By Saturday, the snow will be forgotten, except in parts of northern Vermont where there will still be some on the grouid.

Us Green Mountain Boys and Girls should thank our lucky stars that today's weather is merely unpleasant. And that the next storm coming along Sunday night and Monday looks merely inconvenient, and not super dangerous.

We can't say the same for Maine, which is buried in snow this morning, as expected. We also can't say the same for the Deep South, where ingredients are really coming together for a bunch of tornadoes on Easter Sunday. Some of those tornadoes could be biggies.

More on that in a moment, but first, Maine.

SNOWY MAINE MESS

Heavy snow and tree damage in Bangor, Maine this morning. Photo via
Twitter by Ben Sprague @bensprague. 

It was still snowing up there early this morning, but a lot of places already had more than a foot of snow.  Wellington, Maine reported 20 inches so far. Carmel, Maine, both towns in the north, by the way, had already picked up 18 inches of new snow.

Some places, especially in and near Baxter State Park, can expect more than two feet of snow by the time this tapers off. This is just an incredible storm, even by Maine standards.

Maine's heavy, wet snow has caused some terrible power failures, according to television station WMTW in Portland. More thank 200,000 homes and businesses in the state had no power this morning.  That's almost a third of Maine without power.

The coronavirus is hampering power restoration.  Utility workers are arriving at power outage sites separately, so they're not too close together, and they need to practice social distancing on site to reduce the risk of virus transmission. So yeah, it's complicated.

New power failures will surely develop as snow and gusty continue this morning. Fortunately, the snow will taper off later today.  The trouble going forward is that Monday storm I talked about will be warm in Maine. So warmth, melting snow and pretty heavy rain expected Monday is a bad combination if you don't want flooding.

SOUTHERN TORNADO ALERT

Ingredients definitely seem to be coming together for a nasty outbreak of tornadoes in the Deep South. If things develop as forecasters think they will (no guarantees, thankfully), this could be one of the worst, or the worst, tornado outbreaks of the year. We've already had a couple terrible ones, too.

The atmosphere in the Deep South Sunday will feature very humid air from the Gulf of Mexico near the surface. Strongs winds will scream a few thousand feet overhead, and those winds will change directions with height. The air will be highly unstable, making it easy for towering thunderstorm clouds to form.  Dry air coming in from the west high overhead would also help trigger storms.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center says there's a real risk of strong, long lasting tornadoes in the Deep South on Easter Sunday, and people ought to be thinking now of where they would take shelter if a tornado is approaching.

Granted, this hopefully won't be as bad as the Super Outbreak of April 25-28, 2011, which hit mostly in the South. That outbreak spawned 362 tornadoes causing 321 deaths.  This weekend won't be nearly that bad, thank goodness, but bad enough.  Possibly very dangerous.

I suppose there could be an Easter miracle in which some storm ingredient gets fouled up and makes things not as bad as predicted. But that could be just wishful thinking. We'll see.

Wide Ranging Storm Putting The Brakes On Much Of The United States

Shreveport, Lousiana woke up to a snow whitened city
this morning, which doesn't happen all that often down there. 

Most of the southern and eastern United States is suffering through a winter storm that on paper would not seem like that big a deal, yet it is.  

That's mostly because the storm is affecting a lot of people who have little experience with winter weather. Plus the storm, though not particularly strong, is affecting a wide area where lots of people live.

Winter storm warnings, watches and winter weather advisories this morning extended from Texas to Maine. Impressive, considering no area other than parts of New England are expecting more than six inches of snow.

A huge area of the South is being affected by this, though, and there is a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. These are areas that don't get a lot of winter weather.

Except this year, of course. This is the third time this winter that snow and mixed precipitation has gummed up the South. Some cities, like Houston, have now had measurable snow twice this winter, the first time snow has happened twice in the same winter since 1987.

A couple inches of snow was all it took to shut down some Interstate highways in Louisiana on Monday.  The governor or Alabama declared a state of emergency - all because of the one to three inches of snow expected there.

I know, I know, one to three inches of snow up here in Vermont is considered a great big yawner, but to Alabama, without snow clearing trucks and such, it's awful.

Actually, this storm in the Deep South will drop less snow on the region than the one that hit down there on December 8. But this one will be worse because it's colder down there than it was in December. Snow back then hit road pavement and melted. This time, the snow is hitting the pavement, then freezing.

Snow with this system extended into the Midwest,
conttibutting to this wreck in Indiana. 

This storm is going to consolidate into a nor'easter off the East Coast. It's still not going to be the Storm Of The Century, not be a long shot, but southern and central New England in particular will get a fairly decent dose of snow out of this.

This decent snowfall will get southern Vermont, too. Which is good for them, because they largely missed out on the snow that northern sections of the state received this past Sunday.

During the day Wednesday, most of Massachusetts, far southern Vermont and New Hampshire and parts of Connecticut can expect four to eight inches of new powder from this storm. Not a huge deal, but enough to disrupt travel a bit. And give the ski areas a bit of a boost.

As you keep going further north here in Vermont the snowfall totals will diminish. Expect maybe four inches or so Wednesday around Rutland, maybe two inches or so near Burlington, and as little as an inch by the time you get up toward St. Albans and Plattsburgh, New York.

I noted yesterday and cold air is ending for us and won't come back anytime soon. In fact, the chilly air pretty much everywhere east of the Rockies is about to ease as the pattern shifts for a while into one that favors warm air in much of the nation. Warm for this time of year, anyway.

People in the South who aren't so enthused about the snow and sleet today can look forward to temperatures in the 60s by the weekend. Up in the northern Plains, which has been under siege with wind chills in the minus 40s for the past few days, are getting a break, too.

Frigid Grand Forks, North Dakota, for instance, which was 17 below with a wind chill of minus 32 this morning, can expect a high of 37 degrees above zero by Friday.

We're going to get another thaw here in Vermont, too. Bad news for winter sports people, but good news for people who want a break, and are sick of spending a zillion dollars per second heating their homes.

This next warm spell doesn't look as intense as last Friday's. I doubt we'll get into the 60s, that's for sure. But this one will last longer. It'll get into the 30 by Friday, and likely 40s in many places around the North Country Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

After that, it will probably turn cooler, but not frigid. In fact, many forecasts indicate we've got not more Arctic air to talk about in Vermont through the end of January.

However, I will not make any promises about February.

Somewhat Wintry, But At Least The Extreme Weather Is Gone, For Now

Just a small section of an enormous ice jam along the
Missisquoi River in Swanton, Vermont Sunday. Only
light snowfalls and moderating temperatures this week
mean the situation at least probably won't get much worse,
but rain early next week could complicate things. 

Here in Vermont and the rest of New England, we can look forward to a week that, at least, won't have super extreme weather.

Oh sure, it will be wintry, and some areas might get a moderate snowstorm, but that's par for the course for January.

The bar is set low. If we can get through a few days without something bizarre happening in the weather, we can take that as a plus.

You probably noticed you woke up to another cold morning. Most of the North Country was below zero this morning, with Saranac Lake clocking in at 24 below as of 5 a.m.

This isn't as cold as the weather we had at the beginning of the month, so take heart in that. Also, this morning is the chilliest weather you'll see in more than a week, at least, so that's good too.

An Alberta clipper type storm is heading in from the west. It's destined to cause a widespread area of snow, with ice and sleet to the south, covering an area from the Great Lakes to Texas to New England.

Few places in this vast area will get enormous accumulations, but in the South it doesn't take much to create real headaches. Winter storm watches and warnings are up for parts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama because of this.

The clipper will weaken as it heads east, transferring its energy to a nor'easter that will develop off the Northeast Coast.

"Nor'easter" strikes fear into the hearts of some, but don't worry, this one isn't going to be the epically big "bomb cyclone" or whatever you want to call the huge type of storm that hit back on January 4.

This one will be more benign. Winter storm watches are up for far southern Vermont and much of Massachusetts because of this one late Tuesday and Wednesday and those watches might be expanded elsewhere in eastern New England.

But this will be a low-end winter storm. Right now, the most affected areas will probably get on the order of four to eight inches of powder. No big deal.

Elsewhere in Vermont, the southern and eastern half of the state could pick up a few inches of snow from this, while the northwest only gets light accumulations.

You'll notice a definite warming trend this week, too. While it's snowing off and on Tuesday and Wednesday, daytime highs will get into the comfortable mid and upper 20s, while nights only get down into the so-so teens.

It'll keep warming up, and it looks like another thaw will be here by next weekend. It won't be 60 degrees again like it was Friday. At least for Saturday and Sunday, there will be little precipitation, too, so that's good for the ice jams that are still plaguing the area.

However, forecasters are watching a storm that could hit Sunday  night and next Monday, which could bring rain. That, in turn, might aggravate any of the ice jam problems that are still lingering across the region.

It's too early to guess how much rain or other precipitation we might get, but it's something to watch out for.

Another note: While the weather won't go off the rails around here, there are some extremes of note elsewhere. One thing that caught my eye happened in Alaska Sunday. They're having a remarkably warm (for them) winter. On Sunday, a weather station in Metlakatia, Alaska, recorded a temperature of 66 degrees (above zero!) marking the hottest January temperature on record anywhere in Alaska.

The town of Sitka, Alaska, reached 62 degrees Sunday, its hottest January temperature on record. These readings were in southern Alaska. While there was no record heat in northern Alaska, the tippy top northern part of the state was still nearly 20 degrees warmer than average and toastier than Vermont was on Sunday.

Little Publicized Intense Summer Heat Melting The Southern United States

Nightime view of Jackson, Mississippi. But
even nights have been sweltering in the Deep South
during this persistently hot summer.  

There hasn't been too much publicity about the unrelenting heat in the Deep South, mostly because it hasn't been spectacularly breaking all time record highs on any given day.

But it's been a long slog of horrible heat and humidity in places like Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama for more than a month now.

Today will likely be the 30th day in a row that Jackson, Mississippi has reached at least 95 degrees. Such a long streak is a new record for them.

It's been 90 degrees or better in Jackson every afternoon since July 6. It's been 95 or more every day since July. Only one night has gotten any cooler than 70 degreds since July 7. Since July 25, nine days have reached 100 degrees or more.

Of course, Jackson, Mississippi isn't the place to go if you like refreshingly cool summer breezes. It's usually humid there, and normal daytime highs there are in the low 90s.

But this summer has been horrible. I bet they're sick of it.

If you go to Shreveport, Louisiana, it's not any better. Yesterday was the 8th consecutive day in Shreveport that made it to 100 degrees or more

Relief, such as it is, looks destined to finally reach these areas later this week. Relief is way too strong a word, though. Daytime highs later in the week across the Deep South will "only" reach the low 90s.

Huge Flooding In Deep South

The weather news today concerns some severe flooding in the Deep South where three to as much as eight inches of rain fell yesterday and overnight.

Water rescues in Alabama, via @bailes32
on Twitter  

Dangerous flooding was occuring this morning near Birmingham, Alabama and other cities in the South with many water rescues.    

A nine year old girl is believed drowned in the flooding in Mississippi

There were some overnight tornadoes as well, adding to the danger in that part of the country.  Several homes in Mississippi were damaged or destroyed by the suspected twisters.

More tornado warnings popped up this afternoon in Georgia amid flood alerts there.

The storm is expected to sweep northward toward the eastern Great Lakes,  but only minor flooding is expected in New England, where rainfall will range from less than an inch across much of Vermont to more than 1.5 inches near the coast.

In northern New England, some ice jams might form along some still-frozen waterways, so watch out for that.  

On Twitter, @RyanMooreMS captured this
tornado damge in Mississippi.  

But the storm will become a quick mover once it really gets going to the north. Because of that, it won't rain for too long a period in the Northeast, meaning there won't be inches and inches of rain like in the South. Plus, there will be few if any thunderstorms in the Northeast to produce downpours.

Warm air riding north ahead of the storm brought temperatures in Burlington, Vermont to 60 degrees Monday afternoon, the first time it's been that warm since November 18,  2013.

Maybe spring is coming after all.

Again, from Twitter, @Jay_Reeve photographed
Alabama flooding