Deadly Fire Catastrophe Grows Worse, And East Coast Storm

Flaming palm trees around a California mansion during this
past week's wildfires. Photo byh David McNew/Getty Images 

Just as I feared the death toll from the California wildfires has increased exponentially, with a confirmed death toll in the northern part of the state up to 23.  

The so-called camp fire raced through the town of Paradise Thursday and moved on into other towns, including parts of the larger city of Chico, population about 90,000.

Up to 90 percent of the town of Paradise was erased, making this, as I noted yesterday, the most destructive wildfire in California history.

CalFire says 6,453 homes and 260 commercial buildings were destroyed in the Camp Fire. Another 15,000 or so are threatened .

This fire is now 20 percent contained, which I suppose is an improvement.  But winds are expected to get wicked strong in northern  California today, and the humidity remains ridiculously low. That could cause the Camp Fire to roar through more communities, or other fast moving fires could start.

It would be very nice if the normal November rains started to move into northern California, but that's not expected for at least the next seven days. 

If anything, conditions are even worse in southern  California. The Woosley fire has destroyed 150 structures which is bad, but not nearly as terrible as northern California. Judging from some of the videos I've seen, I'm astonished by the skill of firefighters who saved many more houses in this fire.

Still, this fire has reportedly killed two people.

Even worse, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center says extremely critical fire conditions are expected today and tomorrow in southern California, This includes winds up to 60 mph and a relative humidity around 5 percent.

All that could easily send existing fires spiraling rapidly out of control and storming through residential neighborhoods. There's also the high potential of new explosive fires developing.

So yeah, this is bad, really bad.

EAST COAST STORM TROUBLE

I almost hate to mention the potential for storminess in the eastern United States, because the danger pales in comparison to California, but it must be mentioned.

Almost all of the nation is colder than normal today. Only parts
 of Florida (in shades of orange) are warmer than average.

Pretty amazingly, all of the Lower 48 is having colder than normal weather today except the immediate West Coast and the southern half of Florida.

Snow is scattered about, too, with winter storm warnings as far south as the Texas panhandle.

For us up here in Vermont, it's a wintry day. The sun is peeking out, but temperatures are staying below freezing. I can the soil freezing in my gardens.

It's about to get even worse.  We remain in a very wet weather pattern, but now it's an even colder one than earlier this month. A storm is expected to get going early Tuesday morning in the Southeast, then rocket northeastward to New England by later in the day Tuesday.

Once again, here in Vermont, we will be right on the edge of snow versus rain. It all depends on the exact track of the storm, which is hard to determine now. A little bit further west than expected, it will be mostly rain. A little east, more snow.

The general consensus is snow will be more widespread in Vermont with this one than the one that went through Friday and Friday night. I think even the Champlain Valley might get into the act, and the Tuesday morning commute has the potential to be, um, interesting.

It might not be all snow. In the valleys, things could go back and forth between a cold rain and wet snow. The mountains look to get another nice installment of snow for those winter sports enthusiasts.

As noted, the storm will race by and be out of our hair by Wednesday. But it will be very cold, so any snow that falls will stick around for awhile. Plus, now we're looking at the potential for another cold nor'easter next Friday. It's not guaranteed yet, but the risk is there.

East Coast Should Start Watching, But Not Panicking Over Unpredictable Florence

Satellite map shows Florence in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean,
two strong disturbances that will become tropical storms in
the eastern Atlantic and the wet remains of Gordon
lurking over Arkansas. 

Hurricane Florence, now, temporarily Tropical Storm Florence, is one of those storms that make meteorologists bald from pulling out their hair so much.  

The storm, still in the central Atlantic Ocean, keeps surprising forecasters with its variable strength and uncertain direction.

Worse, the overall weather pattern over North America and the Atlantic Ocean is very strange, making forecasting all the more difficult.

This mess would just be an esoteric exercise for weather geeks except for one thing: Florence could cause real, scary trouble somewhere along the East Coast. Nobody is sure yet. So no panicking, please.

Also, definitely ignore the clickbait that's out there on social media that says The End Is Nigh.

It's not.

Instead, check out the National Hurricane Center or sane meteorologists you trust to get the best information on Florence. Or any other hurricane or storm for that matter.

Before you start panicking, remember: Florence is still way out over the central Atlantic and people have plenty of time to prepare. As the next few days go by, we'll have a clearer picture of whether Florence will score a devastating blow on the East Coast, or turn harmlessly out to sea, or do something between those two extremes.

WHAT TO DO NOW

It is the middle of hurricane season. Which means Florence is a great excuse for people everywhere along the East Coast to consider what they would do if threatened by a major hurricane.

Where would you go if told to evacuate? What stuff would you take with you if told to evacuate? How would you protect your home and/or business?  Where are your important papers and documents, and can you easily protect those? Are there copies of those documents in another safe space? What about the stuff you have saved on your computer? Is that stored in some sort of backup or the cloud?

What would you do with your pets? Do you have an emergency stash of nonperishable food and water if told to shelter in place? (Remember, stores will be closed and electricity will be out long after a bad hurricane has passed.)

If you need supplies for any future hurricane that comes along next week, this year, or next year or five years from now, this weekend is a great time to head down to Home Depot and the grocery store to get some of these items. Nobody's panicking now, so you'll be able to get in and out of these stores just fine, and what you're looking for will still be in stock.

So what about Florence?

WHAT FLORENCE IS DOING

The European compuer models seem to want to take Florence into
the Southeast or Middle Atlantic States. These potential tracks
are all various versions of the European. Note these are
NOT definitely predictions and more speculation.
Take this map with a big grain of salt. 

Florence, against all odds, rapidly strengthened into a major Category 4 storm a couple days ago, despite strong upper level winds that should have kept it in check.

Then those high level winds finally ripped into Florence over the past 24 hours and it has weakened into a tropical storm with top winds estimated at 65 mph, and I think that's generous. Florence looks pretty disorganized as of this morning.

Forecasters think the strong upper level winds peaked early this morning and will gradually relax as Florence heads generally westward. That means the storm will likely start strengthening again. On top of that, Florence is going to move over warmer water. The hotter the water, the more likely a hurricane will strengthen.

Nobody knows how much Florence will strengthen, and given its history, nobody dares make a precise guess.

The future path of Florence is even more tricky to figure out. A couple days ago, Florence was in a spot in the Atlantic Ocean that keeps hurricanes from the East Coast. Every prior hurricane that had been in that area in known history curved north and away from the East Coast.

But there's that weird weather pattern I talked about. It's pretty much the same one we had all summer, with a strong ridge of high pressure near or off the southeastern Canadian coast.

American computer models want to take Florence more
toward New England. Again, this is just one run
of a computer model with potential tracks and NOT an
official forecast. This map is basically
speculation at this point. 

That ridge will block Florence if tries to turn north. However, there will be occasional weaknesses in that otherwise strong high pressure to the north of Florence.

Those weakenesses just might allow Florence to turn north and miss the United States, or at least turn north soon enough so it stays just offshore, so the impacts wouldn't be quite so bad.

Other computer models smash Florence directly into the East Coast. If this happens, nobody is sure where.

Here's another problem: Ocean water temperatures off the East Coast, all the way past Maine and into the Canadian Maritimes, is near record warm.  Hurricanes heading north past the Mid-Atlantic states tend to start weakening because of the chilly ocean water.

If Florence heads north of say, Virginia, it has the potential to stay stronger longer because of the toasty water.

All this is still speculation, so we're just going to have to wait it out until forecasts become more clear.

REMEMBER GORDON?

You probably remember Tropical Storm Gordon a few days ago coming ashore along the northern Gulf Coast, causing some wind and flood damage.

Gordon's remains still lurk out there. It was sitting around Arkansas this morning spreading heavy rain around.  The ghost of Gordon is going to cause huge trouble today and over the weekend, with a serious potential for flooding in places like Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. These areas have gotten lots of rain in recent weeks. The soil is saturated, and heavy rains could easily cause flooding.

A huge area from Arkansas to Iowa to Ohio is under a flash flood watch today. Atmospheric conditions will only make the chances for heavy rain increase later today and tonight, so this could be bad.

The good news, at least for us Vermonters, is that a storm that contains the remains of Gordon is expected to come through Monday and early Tuesday. We have a shot of receiving the first widespread, steady rain in the Green Mountain State since at least June.

Since much of the state is in drought or abnormally dry conditions, this will help. Us Vermonters might be lucky in getting Gordon's silver lining.

OTHER TROPICAL TROUBLE

Two strong weather disturbances have moved westward off the African Coast and into the Atlantic Ocean. The National Hurricance Center says both disturbances are extremely likely to turn into tropical storms, and soon.

It's way, way too early to think about where those two storms will go. We have our hands full with Florence, so let's deal with that first.

Enjoy The Cool: The Muggies Will Return

This schematic from The Weather Channel shows what's coming
back in the next few days.  A dip in the jet stream centered near the
Great Lakeswill once again steer very humid air up the East Coast,
makingus Vermonters wilt once again. 

This Friday morning felt a little better out there in Vermont. It was still warm, still just a bit humid, but really not bad at all. Much nicer than recent days.

Enjoy today, which will turn out pretty sunny, and a lot less sticky than the rest of this week has been. Tonight will be gloriously cool. Throw open those windows and let that 55-degree or so air in!

This won't last. The same persistent weather pattern that has kept the East wicked humid and in some places very wet is returning.

An unusually deep dip in the jet stream will once again set up in the eastern Great Lakes or western Applachians and the Bermuda High will assert itself off the East Coast. This has happened a lot since mid-July and it is a pretty weird setup.

It all means muggy, tropical air will once again stream north all the way to southeastern Canada. It won't be wicked hot next week, but the air will once again feel very heavy up here in Vermont.

It's cooler and less humid today because a series of weak cold fronts have been coming through since Wednesday night. The last of them came through Vermont early this morning.

The cold front will never get far from us. It will hang up over southern New England then start slowly drifting north over the weekend.

Once again, the best chances of heavy rain will be mostly to our south. One system along this warm front will go by to our south Saturday, raising a flood threat in parts of southern New England, bringing showers to southern Vermont, but leaving northern areas dry.

Since Vermont will be north of the warm front, the coolest day since mid-June is in store for southern Vermont. Under clouds and showers, temperatures there Saturday afternoon might not get out of the 60s. Northern Vermont will get sun, so it will be in the 70s to near 80 there.

From there, the humidity and warmth seep into Vermont gradually, making next week another rough, muggy time frame.

Overall, next week, there will be chances of showers and thunderstorms everywhere in the East, including here in Vermont, but the heaviest rains still seem like they will fall on saturated southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic states.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly who will get flooding next week in the East as the most torrential downpours can set up just about anywhere.

Also, I'm  not sure when this pattern will break down, so don't get your hopes up too fast for a break in the muggies after today.

Meanwhile, a torrid heat wave grinds on out west. Some relief will come to parts of the Pacific Northwest by Monday. But heat warnings, fire alerts and air quality advisories from all that smoke from existing wildfires is making things miserable going into the weekend from California to the western Dakotas. Virtually all of Montana is expecting near record heat.

It's been quite a summer, as they say.

Dangerous "Atmospheric River" To Cause Mid-Atlantic, Northeast Flooding

Three to seven inches of rain, and locally higher amounts, are
likely, especially in the red areas of this map during the next seven days.

An atmospheric river is set to dump tremendous amounts of rain on a broad strip running north and  northwestward off the Atlantic Ocean through areas around North Carolina and Virginia, northward through Pennsylvania and central New York. 

That means these areas need to be really, really on guard for serious flooding over the next few days.

First, we need to define for us all what an atmospheric river is. I'll let NOAA do it:

"Atmospheric rivers are relatively long, narrow regions in the atmosphere - like rivers in the sky - that transport most of the water vapor outside the tropics. These columns of vapor move with the weather, carrying an amount of water vapor roughly equivalent to the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

When the atmospheric rivers make landfall, they often release this water vapor in the form of rain or snow."

The problem is, atmospheric rivers often release extreme amounts of rain, causing extreme floods.

Atmospheric rivers are to blame for extreme floods around Nashville, Tennessee in 2010; and another extreme, deadly flood around South Carolina in October, 2015 that dumped up to two feet of rain in that state.

Not all atmospheric rivers are bad. They're common in California in the winter, and help replenish reservoirs and add to the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Melting snow in the summer then keeps reservoirs and drinking water supplies at reasonable levels.

Like anything in weather, atmospheric rivers vary in intensity. Some aren't too tough to take, dropping a few inches of rain on a drought-stricken area, for example.

But often, they are terrible. And they can unload their tremendous rainfall well inland from wherer they come ashore -- like in the 2010 Tennessee flood I just mentioned.

The atmospheric river slated to hit parts of the East Coast this week is being created by a really wonky weather pattern now in place.

Usually this time of year, the jet stream, which controls the paths of storms and fair weather systems, sputters in a general west to east course near the United States/Canada border. In July, there's rarely much in the way of big southward dips or huge northward bulges in the jet stream.

There's an exception going on now and the weather pattern is really off the rails.  There's a big dip in the jet stream centered over the Great Lakes. This dip is causing unusually chilly weather for this time of year near the Great Lakes, and strangely severe storms in the South. Those storms created hail as big as tennis balls in Georgia and some other southern states.

Meanwhile, the Bermuda high is pushing a big heat ridge northward in the western Atlantic Ocean. Part of the Bermuda High has pushed as far north as Nova Scotia.

This is setting up the atmospheric river flowing northward from the tropics between the big Bermuda High to the east and the dip in the jet stream to the west.

This pattern is kind of stuck until later Thursday and Friday, when things will start moving. So the heavy rains will keep going over the same places from North Carolina  to New York through then. This could extend into southwestern Quebec as well.  Remember, this is tropical moisture, so any showers and thunderstorms can create one to two inch per hour rainfall rates.

This can cause life-threatening flash flooding. There was already destructive flooding and water rescues in Pennsylvania this morning.  That flooding will likely worsen this afternoon in parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania and the southern tier of New York.

We here in Vermont are on the eastern edge of this atmospheric river pattern. That means we are subject to the torrential downpours, but not the constant fire hose of rain. I noticed during a batch of rain that moved northward through Vermont this morning, an inch of rain fell on Rutland in just an hour.

We desperately need the rain here in Vermont, so precipitation this week is a good thing. We still have to watch out, especially Wednesday night and Thursday, when the axis of heaviest rain will probably shift to near or over the Green Mountain State.

Despite the dry conditions, an excessive downpour, or a series of downpours going repeatedly over the same spot, can cause dangerous flash flooding. It's impossible at this point to determine if, or even whether Vermont will see any flash flooding from this system.

The National Weather Service is eyeing the possibility of that happening, so stay tuned.

A Very Wet Week On East Coast Next Week?

This precipitation forecast map shows widespread precipitation
amounts of over three inches (in red) over the next seven days. 

Forecasters are becoming increasingly confident that it will be a very wet week along the East Coast next week.

That raises the possibility of flash flooding in a few areas, due to the type of heavy rain that seems likely.

This won't be a steady, moderate rain that soaks things down but doesn't cause many problems with high water.

Instead, this will largely take the form of spotty, very torrential downpours, the kind that put city streets under water instantaneously - kind of like what Worcester, Massachusetts and other cities endured during thunderstorms Monday.

This is also the kind of rain that will send gigantic gushes of water down hillsides and mountainsides.

The set-up will be a strong Bermuda High sending thick moisture northward up the East Coast. A trough of low pressure will be somewhere near the eastern Great Lakes and upper Ohio Valley. It will be in the form of a fairly sharp dip in the jet stream for this time of year.

This setup favors very humid air over the East with lots of potential for torrential downpours. The dip in the jet stream means disturbances will try to enter this humid air and set off these intense downpours.

It's impossible this far out to determine exactly where the heaviest rain will fall, when it will fall and for how long. Let's just say there's a potential for torrential downpours at any time, anywhere in much of the East Sunday through at least Thursday.

Up here in Vermont, I know we've heard this song before. The weather pattern looks promising for some good rains to ease the worsening dryness out there, and then we don't receive much rain at all.

The good news with this is we will be under threat of weather disturbances that would trigger showers and thunderstorms for a long time, not just part of a day like we've had all summer. So we'll have several chances at receiving some healthy rains.

The storms will be hit and miss, but if the hit and miss variety lingers over us for days as expected, the chances of being hit go up.

Because it will be very, very humid here in Vermont, too, this isn't exactly the type of rain we need. It'll often come in short, sharp downpours, instead of a slow, steady drizzle. Although everything around us is dry, if you get a two inch dump of rain in an hour, a flash flood can still result in urban areas and near small mountain streams and creeks.

We'll have to watch out for that next week. Especially if you go up in the mountains to camp and hike.

Between now and Saturday, it will remain super sunny and dry. We're starting off cool, with a record low of 35 degrees this morning in Saranac Lake, New York. A record low of 44 degrees was tied at Montpelier, Vermont.

As I write this at 8 a.m. Thursday, it is warming up very quickly and most of us will hit the low 80s by this afternoon.

Friday looks hot and dry, with highs well into the 80s, with a couple spot 90s in the warmest valleys. Humidity will remain quite low on Friday, so it won't be too bad.

Humidity will begin to increase Saturday through Sunday, and by Monday, the humidity will be awful. It'll stay awful all week amid the expected showers and storms. Daytime temperatures next week will be in generally in the low 80s, which is close to normal. But again, the humidity will make it feel worse.

I also hope you slept well in the cool air last night. Because next week we'll have a long streak of terribly oppressive, muggy nights to deal with.

It's summer, after all.

Nor'easter, Of Course Develops; But Vermont Impacts Small; South Tornadoes

Here's the Weather Channel's take on how much
snow will come out of this latest nor'easter

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!

This past Saturday, when most of the weather forecasters were saying the nor'easter for this week would mostly be a miss, I said in this here blog thingy that I suspected that was wrong, that it would hit.  

Not to gloat, but I was right. Winter storm warnings extend from North Carolina to New England today, and a lot of people are going to get a lot of snow, once again.

The good news, if you're not a snow lover this time of year and you live in Vermont, is it still looks like you won't get much snow out of this one. In fact, northern Vermont at this point looks like it will get none. I hope. More on that in a minute.

I'll also get to those awful tornadoes in the south in a bit, too. There were some weird aspects to some of those.  Videos of the severe weather also at the bottom of the post.

Anyway, the forecast trends starting Saturday and continuing right into today track the nor'easter closer to the coast. It'll still go offshore, but will be close enough to give much of the eastern United States a pasting.

Particularly at points south, like Maryland, Delaware, western Virginia and parts of West Virginia, it's pretty odd to get a full-fledged winter storm this late in the year, the first day of spring. And it's equally odd to see forecasts of more than a foot of snow on the first day of spring in places like New Jersey and the New York City metro area. 

Most of the snow will come down Wednesday, and be accompanied by strong winds, producing near blizzard conditions in some spots on the first full day of spring. (The spring Equinox was at 12:15 p.m today, EDT)

As always, results may vary. This time of year, any East Coast snowstorm comes with marginal temperatures. A couple degrees warmer, and the snow totals would go down as it would mix with rain. A little colder, and the snow would get a little fluffier, increasing the totals.

There's little chance the snow will get much fluffier. It will be wet and heavy. Combined with the wind, there will once again be widespread power failures, just as there were in the last three nor'easters.

With all the damage over the past month, I think utility rates will rise across much of the East. Somebody is going to have to pay for all that repeated damage to the electric grid.

Once again, battered coastlines are going to be battered anew, with beach-eroding waves and more flooding along shorelines made much more vulnerable by the last three nor'easters. Winds were already increasing dramatically along parts of the Mid-Atlantic coast today and that should spread northward into Wednesday.

VERMONT IMPACTS

At this point, it still looks like it won't be too bad up here in the Green Mountain State. The far southern Green Mountains, which have gotten as much as six feet of new snow this month, are in for a little more.

This time, it looks like that region will be measuring the snow in inches, not feet. I still looks like they'll get six inches or less of snow in far southern Vermont, but that will have to be monitored.

So far, it looks like any light snow won't get any further north than Rutland and White River Junction on Wednesday and Wednesday night, but we'll of course have to continue monitoring the path of the storm. We don't want it to come further north,  do we?

The Arctic air mass over us is slowly moderating, and each day since Saturday has been getting slightly warmer, though staying way chillier than average. At least a tiny bit of snow has melted in sunny corners.

Today, with lighter winds and clouds from the storm not really getting too strongly into Vermont, readings might go briefly above freezing this afternoon. Still cold for this time of year, but we'll take anything.

That nor'easter passing by will increase the north winds, throw a few clouds our way and slow the pace at which the air warms up over us during the second half of the week. So it will stay wintry. If any afternoon temperatures get above freezing between Thursday and Saturday, it will be just barely.

Winter is hanging on.

SOUTHERN TORNADOES

Meteorologists knew since Saturday at least that parts of the Southeast were at risk for severe storms and tornadoes by yesterday, and sure enough, things got bad very fast.

A reporter with the Cullman, Alabama Tribune holds one
of the giant hailstones that fell near his house last night. 

There were at least 12 reports of tornadoes, pretty much all in northern Alabama, not far from the borders of Tennessee and Georgia.

One thing odd about this tornado outbreak, at least in my opinion, is how supercells creating the tornadoes, immense hail and damaging winds followed each other.

Usually, when a town gets hit by a tornado, emergency responders can get to the scene relatively safely, despite continuing lightning, flooding, heavy rain and sometimes hail.

Last night, one tornado hit the town of Jacksonville, Alabama, and first responders had to be warned that a second tornado (later confirmed) was hot on its heels. Even after that, a third circulation came into town, but I don't know yet whether that one touched down into a tornado.

At least one of those tornadoes hit Jacksonville State University, but thankfully the school was on spring break. There weren't that many students in the way to get hurt by the twister.

So far, I'm not aware of any deaths caused by the storms, but there were injuries. 

The supercell storms marched into Georgia later last night, and National Weather Service meteorologists there are investigating whether any of the damage around metro Atlanta and elsewhere in northwest Georgia was caused by tornadoes.

The storms also dumped huge hailstones on parts of Alabama. In Cullman, Alabama, hail as big as softballs caused widespread damage. One large car dealership alone suffered perhaps $4 million or more in damage. In some parts of town, hail was big enough to crash through roofs. 

There's still a threat of severe storms and tornadoes today across northern and central Florida, and near the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina.

Here's a news video of hail damage at a Cullman, Alabama car dealership:



Here's what it was like inside the Cullman, Alabama Walmart during the hail. It was loud, and you can see pieces of the ceiling coming down during the onslaught:



Not confirmed as of this writing, but the damage in this video in Campbellton, Georgia had to have been caused by a tornado last night:

Bad Storm Likely On East Coast By Friday, But What Exactly Will It Do?

It looks like there will be some sort of big storm
near the Northeast coast on Friday, but exactly
where and how bad is still up in the air. 

As of this Monday morning, the computer weather forecasting models have come to a consensus: There will be a big, bad storm somewhere near the northeastern United States coast on Friday.

Earliest indications are the track of the storm might go from the central or southern Plains to the Ohio Valley, then it would redevelop strongly on or off the New Jersey coast.

However, that forecast track could change dramatically as we get new information later this week.

As you can imagine, there's a lot we don't yet know: What will be the exact track of the storm? Will it rain, snow or mix? How heavy will the precipitation be? Who will get the heaviest precipitation? It also seem likely there will be a lot of wind and probably some coastal flooding. Who gets nailed and who gets spared?

So yeah, there's a lot more questions than answers, but that's pretty typical on occasions when we know there's likely to be a big storm, but it'll happen four or five days from now.

Many of the ingredients for this storm were still off or near the British Columbia coast as of Monday morning. It's hard for forecasting computers to get good data for things that are over the ocean. Weak data, weak results. That explains the lack of clarity with this storm.

Still, we can begin to look at some of the things that could easily happen. Given that the storm will probably be big, most of these things will not be good. I'll pick them apart starting with:

HIGH WINDS

As I said, this will be a strong storm. Big storms have high winds, and it's beginning to appear the orientation of the storm will bring strong northeast gales to somewhere along the coast. Things could shift, but the worst of it looks like it will be somewhere between the central and southern New England coast down to the Mid-Atlantic states.

COASTAL FLOODING

Astronomical tides higher than average are scheduled for around Friday, so the timing of this storm is really bad. Storm surges and battering waves have the potential to be really destructive, as there will be a broad flow of winds off the water, which could really gather up those surges and waves.

My guess is if there's destruction from this storm, the coastal flooding will be the worst of it. At this point, I would pinpoint the New Jersey coast as most at risk, but coastal problems could arise anywhere from Maine to North Carolina.

RAIN/SNOW

Usually, when a late February or early March storm tracks just off the coast and a little south and east of New England, the interior Northeast can expect to be buried in snow. (See: the "Pi Day" Blizzard last March 14 that dumped more than three feet of snow on parts of Vermont, New York and Pennsylvania.)

This time, there's not a lot of cold air for the storm to work with. So the question of rain or wet snow is really up in the air. Even though there is not much cold air to work with strong storms like this potential one manufacture their own cold pool of air aloft.

Heavy precipitation helps bring that cooler air downward. The atmosphere over the western and northwestern side of the storm cools, and you get snow, despite the lack of large masses of cold air from Canada.

Somebody will probably get a lot of rain and/or snow from this, but who gets it is a huge question.

VERMONT EFFECTS

Nobody really knows the effects of this likely storm in Vermont, either. As of now at least, it seems like the storm wants to track well to our south, meaning southern Vermont would get the biggest effects of the storm on Friday.

People in northern Vermont shouldn't dismiss this one yet, though. If the track of the storm is more to the north of what people are thinking now, the north will get into the action as well.

If it snows in Vermont with this thing, the snow is pretty likely to be wet and heavy. It'll be windy, too, during the storm. So if wet snow does happen, we'll have to deal with power failures. That's a big if, an we'll have to wait and see.

This storm is part of a blocky weather pattern that's bringing frigid weather to Europe and an unseasonable thaw to the Arctic.  When weather patterns are this far off the rails, forecasting becomes tricker.  That makes the predictions for this storm even murkier than usual.

As I always say, stay tuned for updates.

Huge Nor'easter Trashing The East Coast Now, As Expected

Awesome color-added satellite shot of the nor'easter
plowing into New England this morning. 

The remarkable, uber strong nor'easter is behaving just as forecast today, even though that behavior is really, really bad.  

The immediate coastline from South Carolina north has been pummeled. It was something to see video of the palm trees along Virginia Beach being pummeled by very strong winds, as if in a tropical storm or hurricane. But instead of heavy rain, it was a blizzard.

(To avoid confusion, this storm is NOT a hurricane, and has NOTHING to do with hurricanes. Hurricanes and nor'easters are two COMPLETELY different types of storms. I've heard this storm referred to as a "winter hurricane" and that is totally a wrong description.)

As of 9 a.m. the storm was engulfing New England, with the worst yet to come. Thunder snow was ongoing near southern Connecticut and Long Island at that hour. Blizzard conditions with snowfall rates of up to 3 inches per hour and gusts of 55 mph were reported in this area. Snow emergencies are up from Virginia to Maine.

This truly is a bomb storm. That reference is  partly media hype of course, but it's a thing. It's now confusing to many people, since it's been used this week both correctly and incorrectly in the media, so I'll have an explanation as to what a bomb storm further down in this update

Here in Vermont, it was snowing in the southern half of the state as of 9 a.m. and the snow was steadily working north. If you live in northern Vermont, it's best to get your stuff done out on the roads now, if at all possible. Things definitely go downhill this afternoon.

As I noted yesterday, this won't be a tremendously deep snowfall for Vermont - three to five inches west to as much as a foot to the east, especially in the Northeast Kingdom and the high elevations of far southern Vermont.

But, again, as we said yesterday, it's the wind and especially the intense oncoming cold that it going to get you. The expected 40 mph gusts will certainly blow a lot of snow around.

If  you've got time this morning, get your car's gas tank full, and put stuff like extra blankets and nonperishable snacks in the vehicle, just in case. The roads will stay treacherous into Saturday. First, even though this will be a dry, powdery snow, car and truck tires will compact some of it into black ice.

Blowing and drifting snow will hinder visibility and put snow back onto roads even after the snow stops falling from the sky Friday night and Saturday. Plus, extreme cold can easily cause vehicle break downs. If you get stranded for a few hours or even minutes, the emergency pack in your car can really help. Better safe than sorry. If possible, hunker down at home and read that really good book you got for Christmas.

This snowfall prediction map is about as good as any.
Areas in pink can expect at least six inches of snow.
Greenish areas are up for more than a foot. 

The temperature and wind forecast for the storm and post-storm hasn't changed, either. The frigid conditions are the real story with this storm and Arctic outbreak. Expect dangerous wind chills starting tonight and going through Saturday night. Temperatures will fall below zero late tonight or early Friday and stay there until Sunday afternoon.

Wind chills as low as the 40s below can be expected later Friday through Friday night and well into Saturday. Actually temperatures will be in the 20s and 30s below in Vermont early Sunday morning.

High temperatures Saturday might not get any warmer than minus 10. If the temperature stays at 9 below or colder in Burlington Saturday, that'll be the coldest day since 1981. This is quite the nasty cold spell. It's among the worst I've seen in the past two or three decades.

The worst drama with this storm will come early this afternoon along coastal New England with high tide arrives. Forecasters are still expecting a storm surge that could exceed three feet above normal high tide in parts of southeastern Massachusetts.

Huge waves amid gusts as high as 70 mph and chunks of ice from the previous week's cold will become battering rams against shoreline structures. The storm surge will also probably be slow to recede, and could end up freezing in place.

As I said yesterday, more active weather is coming next week, but I'll get into that more after this storm blows by.

Now, let's get into bombs, shall we?

BOMBING STORMS

One of the top trending hashtags on Twitter since yesterday has been #BombCyclone in reference to the big nor'easter we're getting.

First of all, the cyclone part of that hashtag can be a big confusing to people. After all, cyclones are hurricanes near India. However, meteorologists often refer to any sizable storm as a cyclone. In this case, as I said earlier, this nor'easter has nothing to do with hurricanes. It's not tropical, it's not warm core. It does not depend on warm water to form.

This nor'easter formed because there was a lot of energy in the atmosphere, and there was a major clash between very warm, wet air over the Atlantic Ocean, and Arctic air plunging down from Canada.

But this storm IS a bomb.  But that's not a new term. Meteorologists coined the term a bombing storm around 1980 to a storm that intensifies very fast - explosively.

Storms are areas of low atmospheric pressure. Air pressure in storms is lower than the atmosphere surrounding them. The lowest pressure in a storm is right in the middle of it.

In general, the lower the pressure in a storm, the stronger the storm is. If the pressure in the middle of the storm is getting even lower, the storm is strengthening. If the pressure in the middle of the storm is rising, it's weakening.

Meteorologists use a unit of measure called the millibar to measure the pressure in storms. (Or anywhere in the Earth's atmosphere for that matter.)  If a storm like this nor'easter's central pressure drops by 24 millibars within 24 hours, it's a bomb cyclone.  

This storm more than qualifies. Its central pressure dropped by 48 millibars between yesterday morning and this morning, which is double what was needed to be considered a bomb.  And the storm is still bombing away as it's still strengthing rapidly.

By the way, bomb storms are actually quite common. They happen at least several times of year  along or off the east coasts of the United States and Canada.  Several more occur elsewhere every winter in the North Atlantic and North Pacific. The reason why you're hearing so many bomb references today is because this storm is affecting a lot of people. And this one's even bombier, to coin a word, than many other bomb storms, since it's strengthening so fast.

Many storm "bombs' go off well offshore, and these storms don't really affect anybody. They're too far away. So these distant bombs understandably get no media attention.

So, stay wary of this bomb, New Englanders, it's a nasty one. We'll provide more updates as news comes in.

Nightmare Storm Coming To New England Coast, Vermont Gets Ugly, Too

From Twitter: @whoizmark enjoys the snow falling this
morning in Tallahassee, Florida of all places. 

The media is in a weather frenzy now, and with good reason. Most of the news sites are leading with what they're all calling a bomb storm that is going to sock the East Coast.

I've been talking about this storm for days, and it's becoming a reality. It's still going to stay offshore, but will come close enough to the East Coast from Florida to Maine to really raise some havoc.

They're calling it a bomb storm because it will undergo what us weather geeks call bombogenesis. It's going to intensify and escalate super fast, like a bomb going off. I'll go over the impacts south to north below. Note to my Vermont readers that there is a section below on what forecasters expect out of this for the Green Mountain State.

SOUTHERN NIGHTMARE

Since the storm is heading to the north and northeast, first stop is Florida, where mixed precipitation is falling in the northern part of that state, and winter storm warnings are still flying there. There are lots of videos now flying around the internet of snow falling in Tallahassee, Florida.

Tbe expected path of this storm is well off the coast, which
normally would mean this would be no big deal. But the storm
is so strong and so huge in area that it is and will cause
lots of big probems from Florida to New England and on
into southeastern Canada.

Coastal Georgia is likely to get hit hard. The Weather Channel said the snowiest day in Savannah, Georgia history had 3.6 inches of snow. They're forecasting up to six inches of snow for Savannah, though the National Weather Service says it will be mainly freezing rain there. Either way, horrible.

There might be as much as a quarter to a half inch of ice accumulation in northern Florida and southern Georgia. That much ice is enough to cause real problems here in northern New England. Imagine that part of the country!

And they don't have ice removal trucks and salt down there. They're going to have to wait for a warm up in a few days for the ice to melt.

For the record at 9 a.m. this morning, normally mild Savannah was reporting a temperature of 28 degrees with freezing rain. Sidewalks and streets in Tallahassee were iced over this morning. It even snowed 30 miles offshore of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico last night, which is really something almost unprecedented. Parts of Interstate 10 are closed due to ice. Interstate 10 is the furthest south east to west Interstate in the U.S.

Because the storm is staying offshore, the severe effects of this storm will hug the coast from Georgia on up to the Mid-Atlantic states. In the south, freezing rain will ice things up, and the ice won't go away anytime soon as the cold air surges in behind the storm today and tomorrow.

Along the Mid-Atlantic Coast and along Interstate 95, it'll be a mess of powdery, badly wind driven snow. Travel and commutes will be a nightmare. Closest to the coast, around the Norfolk and Virginia Beach, a blizzard warning is up for winds of 50 mph and whiteout conditions tomorrow. They're warning folks in that area that travel will be impossible, and to be prepared for power failures amid cold and falling temperatures.

Further north into New Jersey and the New York City metro area, forecasters are pulling out their hair trying to determine how much snow will fall on this heavily populated area. If the storm makes a slight jog to the west, they get a lot more than forecast. A slight jog to the east puts them pretty much out of the snow zone.

All this time, the storm will be bombing out and roaring toward New England.

NEW ENGLAND DISASTER?

Normally, when a nor'easter stays as far off the coast as this one will, the effects are only moderate along the New England coast. Generally, this path for a storm would cause some minor coastal flooding, a few power outages from wind and maybe a half foot of snow.

But this storm is so vast and so strong, the New England coast is in for a real pummeling. Here's something to give you an idea how huge the storm's circulation is: The eastern extent of its circulation will be in the central Atlantic, halfway to Europe. The very western edge of its circulation will be somewhere around Iowa. Yeah, that bad.

This forecast map depicts the worst case scenario
for this storm, bringing it very close to the New
England coast. However, this is the NAM computer
model, which is rather unreliable. Most forecasts
take the storm further off the coast than this. 

Plus, the expected track of the storm keeps getting nudged a bit westward closer to New England. Which would increase the impacts of this storm on the region. All this means that in this case, coastal New England is in big trouble.

 There is a blizzard warning for eastern Massachusetts, the immediate coastline of New Hampshire and southwestern Maine, and in Downeast Maine.

The storm is, again, far enough off the coast so the actual snowfall totals won't break any records. Areas near and to the south and east of Boston could easily get a foot or more, but they've seen that before.

But the real story is going to be the wind and the coastal flooding. In some areas on an near Cape Cod the snow will become wet and heavy, and maybe even change to rain for a time. Combine this with winds of up to 70 mph, and you have a recipe for widespread power outages.

Then consider the frigid air that will surge in behind the storm. Imagine having no power with daytime highs of near 10 and lows of near five below, as is expected Friday and Saturday in southeastern Massachusetts.

The real damage from this storm looks like it will be coastal flooding. East and north facing coasts, especially south of Boston, are most vulnerable to this thing. First of all, we're starting with astronomical tides that are above normal on Thursday, with or without a storm.

Then factor in a storm surge of two to three feet. Then consider the waves generated by a long fetch of gales over the Atlantic. You'll have some terrible, battering waves. Also, a lot of ice has formed along the coast with this recent cold wave. Chunks of ice will become additional battering rams during the storm.

The Boston area National Weather Service is expecting structural damage, especially in and near Plymouth, out on the Cape near Dennis, and maybe around Scituate.

At least this is a fairly quick mover, so it won't linger and cause additional damage like the Perfect Storm of 1991 and the Great Blizzard of 1978. Still, this one is very dangerous for the coast.

One other note of caution: One forecast model, called the NAM, brings the storm much closer to New England on Thursday than the other models. If the NAM bears out, the conditions will be much worse than even I've described above. However, the NAM has been a pretty unreliable model, so most forecasters are dismissing that. At least for now.

VERMONT IMPACTS

Here in Vermont, this storm won't be a disaster, but it will be awful and potentially dangerous. Snow will break out amid increasing north winds on Thursday. Since the storm is moving more westward than forecasters thought a few days ago, we'll get a bit more snow than earlier forecasts indicated.

Winter storm watches have been extended westward to the New Hampshire, Vermont border, while the entire state of Vermont is under a winter weather advisory. Vermont will probably get somewhere in the neighborhood of three to eight inches of snow with this, as forecasts now stand.

There's a decent chance there might be a sharp gradient in snow totals in Vermont from east to west, with eight inches or even more near the Connecticut River Valley and perhaps as little as one or two inches near Lake Champlain. That's an uncertain forecast, because precisely where the heaviest snow will fall is anyone's guess at this point.

Wherever the heaviest snow falls, we're not getting all that much by Vermont standards, but the winds will really pick up Thursday afternoon and night, and on Friday. The snow is going to be very light and fluffy, so it will blow around A LOT. There will be whiteouts on the highways at times, and the snow will very quickly drift, which means it'll be hard to keep it off the roads for more than say, five minutes.

As advertised, the temperatures will really take a plunge as well, going below zero sometimes early Friday and staying there until Sunday afternoon.

Wind chills will be ridiculous and downright dangerous, as winds could easily gust to 40 mph or more, especially Thursday night and part of Friday. There could be scattered power failures due to the wind, which is dangerous in such cold conditions. But the good news is I don't think we'll have long lasting or widespread power failures here in Vermont.

It will get insanely cold at night, with widespread teens to near 20 below zero, plus gusty winds Friday night and early Saturday. Late Saturday night and around dawn on Sunday, the winds will be lighter, but temperatures will be in the 20s below zero regionwide, with numerous 30s below popping up in many northern valleys.

This isn't going to be a picnic for our friends in Canada, either. Enviroment Canada is warning people in Nova Scotia and surrounding provinces of damaging storm surges, near hurricane force winds and very heavy snow.

LOOKING AHEAD

After this storm goes by, we'll get the cold, but the Arctic chill will begin to come to an abrupt end starting Sunday afternoon. By Tuesday, temperatures in some areas of New England, including Vermont, could get above freezing. That, of course raises the spectre of possible mixed precipitation and rain, which would create its own new mess. Stay tuned on that one.

Very Odd Southern Snow To Become Normal Eastern New England Snow

Students at Texas A&M in College Station, northwest
of Houston, were able to make this large snowman
amid a very rare snowstorm last night in that
part of the country

Overnight and this morning it snowed in southern Texas and northeastern Texas, and this there are winter storm warnings from southern Mississippi to northern Georgia.

This wildly early snowfall so far south comes when northern areas are still waiting for snow. There was more snow on the ground in southern Texas cities like San Antonio and Corpus Christi than there is at my house not far from the Canadian border in Vermont.

The season's first snow accumulations hit Laredo, Texas and the Houston metro area earlier in the month than cities like Boston and Des Moines.

In fact, Corpus Christi has more snow than Denver, Boston, Caribou, Minneapolis, Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit combined!

Thunder snow was reported in Corpus Christi, Texas, perhaps for the first time on record. Baton Rouge also got thunder snow this morning. And last evening, it was colder in Corpus Christi (35 degrees) than it was in Fairbanks, Alaska (36 degrees). Fairbanks normally hovers well below zero this time of year.

Jackson, Mississippi has had 2.5 inches of snow so far, the most since 2010. It snowed in Brownsville, on the southern tip of Texas, for the first time since 2004. It also snowed across the border in Mexico. So far, Lake Charles, Louisiana has had 2.1 inches of snow, the most in a single storm since 1973.

The culprit was a storm that took a far southern route through near the Rio Grande and into the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. That path allowed the storm to draw cold air far south into Texas and the Gulf Coast states, prompting the early season snow.

The storm will zip northeastward, off, but parallel to the East Coast later today and Saturday.  It will lay down a stripe of snow from the Southeast, through the southern Appalachians, and basically all the way up Interstate 95 to Maine. Boston, still waiting for its first snow of the season, will probably, finally get a few inches.

Most places along the path of the storm will get two to six inches of snow, with locally higher amounts in the central Appalachians and the eastern half of New England, where upwards of eight inches might fall in some spots. At least once you get to the Northeast, it's normal to have snow in December. The Texas snow thing is definitely weird, though.

Here in Vermont, the snow will clip the state, but it won't be a huge deal. Maybe a couple inches in the Connecticut River valley and less elsewhere. However, this will have to be watched. So far, this storm is overperforming, causing more snow and havoc than expected. It's possible we could get a little more than what's forecast now.

Even if we don't get much of anything from this one, fear not, winter lovers: It's been snowing off and on in the mountains since Wednesday night, and Vermont will get frequent bouts of light snow and snow showers through next week as a series of weak storms and fronts repeatedly hit us amid chilly, subfreezing temperatures.

What snow we get here in New England will stay on the ground for days or longer. Not so in Texas. San Antonio is expecting highs in the 50s today, and in the 60s to around 70 through the weekend.

Road Nightmares, But Bits Of Fun Too In South, East Storm. (Videos)

A pretty image of Saturdays snowstorm in Central Park,
New York. Photo by Stephanie Keith/Reuters

As always with big winter storms that hit populated areas, like the Southeast and Eastern Seaboard this weekend, there's always some wonderful, or scary, or eye-rolling videos of the goings-on during and after the storm.

The storm dumped a huge swath of ice and snow from Mississippi to New England, causing all kinds of problems and delights.

So we have videos!

First, here's a video compilation of the havoc after the icy storm in Birmingham, Alabama:



It wasn't much better in Raleigh, North Carolina. The people at the beginning of this video should have just given up:



The storm moved up into New England during the Saturday, contributing to this big pileup on Interstate 91 near New Britain, Connecticut:



Now, some fun! The Georgia Tech swim team had their meet canceled because of the snow, and they were stranded by the storm in a Virginia hotel.

So they had their own unique swim relay in the snow.

Watch!



For those of you who really want to know what a LOT of snow looks like, not just that few inches in the South, check out the lake effect snows in this video near Watertown, New York earlier this week:

Quick Saturday Afternoon East Coast Storm Update

Blizzardy in Ocean City, Maryland this morning.
Photo by David Brinton via Twitter

As I mentioned this morning, the big East Coast storm is overproducing, being much bigger and disruptive than originally envisioned. 

Since I wrote that post this morning, snow and snow forecasts have bumped westward even a bit more.

Very heavy snow was falling at 1:30 p.m. from near Washington DC, through southern and central New Jersey, and it's now getting into New England.

Pretty much the entire I-95 corridor from Georgia north is messy, with snow still falling from Virginia north. \

We're now looking at up to a foot of new snow along the southern and central Jersey Shore.

There were ground stops at flights in Philadelphia and the major New York metro airports this morning. There had been at least three consecutive hours of moderately heavy snow in Central Park as of 1 p.m. and that looked like it would continue for a few hours.

Winter storm warnings were once again bumped slightly westward in New England, with the Hartford, Connecticut area now under the gun for heavy snow today and tonight. Downeast Maine has been added to the winter storm warning for up to 9 inches of snow.

The storm is moving right along to toward the northeast, so the snow won't keep going westward through Vermont. Sorry, ski bums!

Cape Cod and the islands are already getting heavy snow and they are still expected to get quite a blizzard tonight.

I said this morning the Brattleboro area in the southeast would get maybe one to three inches, but I think it will be more like two to four inches. There might be a dusting as far north the mountains just east of Rutland.

But nothing further north in the Green Mountain State.

Later today or tomorrow, I'll turn my attention once again to the big West Coast "atmospheric river" storm which is already starting to cause a wide variety of problems.

Big Nor'easter This Weekend: Facts Vs. Hype

Quite a few areas in the eastern United States
 might look something like this by the upcoming weekend
because a nor'easter is now expected for the region. 

By now, a lot of you have heard rumors about a big nor'easter that will be The End Of The World Snowpocalypse, if you believe the hype and the people trying to get more and more social media clicks for fun and profit.

The truth is, that yes, it looks like parts of the East Coast are in for a big nasty snowstorm, and it could get fairly wild in spots. But DON"T count on everyone from Florida to Maine to be covered in 80 feet of snow or something.

Let's just get into what we can tell you with any scientific and realistic basis:

WHAT WE KNOW:

It looks almost certain there will be a strong and strengthening nor'easter along or just off the East Coast starting Friday and into the weekend.

It's quite likely somebody is going to get a lot of snow.  At this point, it looks like the Mid-Atlantic states are in for the heaviest accumulations, but that could change.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say West Virginia, Virginia, parts of Maryland, southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey might get the most snow out of this.

Those areas could easily get a foot of snow, and two feet of snow in some areas in that region are not out of the question. Again, that could change as the track of the storm becomes more certain.

At this point, it looks like the worst of the storm and most of the snow would miss northwestern Pennsylvania, northern New York, most of Vermont, northern New Hampshire and northwestern Maine. Again this could change. A few computer forecasting models do bring somewhat heavier snow further northwest into these regions. Others don't We'll have to wait and see how this plays out

In any event, don't cry too hard, northern New York and Vermont skiers. Today, the mountains in those states will get their third light to moderate snowfall since Saturday. The snow is coming in small doses, but it adds up.    

Here's a National Weather Service map
showing the expected strong nor'easter along
the Eastern Seaboard on Saturday. 

If you live along the coast from North Carolina to Maine, listen to forecasts and coastal flood advisories.

Since the waters along and off the coast are abnormally warm, this storm could conceivably get stronger than even some forecasts indicate. That would mean the possibility of strong winds, high tides and battering waves

WHAT TO DO ABOUT THIS:

1. Watch: Continue to monitor forecasts if you live on the East Coast or in the Appalachians. I'd follow the National Weather Service or a local meteorologist or weather forecaster in your area that you trust. and know has a good reputation. Don't trust the social media hype machine.

2. Be Ready: Just in case, get ready but don't panic. This isn't the end of the world. It couldn't hurt to swing by the grocery store if you're low on food in the house. It might be tricky to drive to the store at the height of the storm in the worst hit areas.  If you're that type, it also wouldn't be the worst idea to stock up on wine or beer or hot chocolate or anything that makes you warm and happy in the winter.

3. Fuel: t also can't hurt to swing by the gas station to fill up your tank and make sure there's enough fuel to heat the house. The fuel delivery people aren't thrilled about going out in big snowstorms to make emergency deliveries.

4. Change Happens: Know the forecast is certain to change between now and when the storm arrives. That doesn't mean  meteorolgists are clueless. It means that nor'easters are notoriously tricky to forecast. Some small parts of every nor'easter forecast are wrong. Sometimes big parts of the forecast are wrong.

That means there's a chance that some areas now targeted for very heavy snow might not get it, and some areas outside the expected heavy snow zone might get more than we now think. Also, some areas along the coast could get rain or a mix involved, too.

5. Tis The Season: It's winter. Deal with it. Big snowstorms are part of the bargain during most winters, even in "warm" places like Virginia and Washington DC. Just be smart about it, don't take unnecessary chances on the roads, have some teenager shovel your driveway if you're heart is iffy and you're out of shape.

6. Attitude Is Everything: Enjoy it. If you get a big snowstorm and you don't like snow, there's nothing you can do about it. Except change your attitude. Download some very funny movies to watch during the snowstorm.

Have a snowball fight with the kids. Impress the neighbors with an immense snow sculpture. Let your dogs out into the snow, wait until they do something stupid in the drifts.  Take a video of their antics and put it on YouTube.

If you wanted a lot of snow and don't get it out of this storm, chill. There will always be new snowstorms later this winter, or next winter. Wait and you shall receive.

Joaquin Likely Heading Out To Sea; U.S. Is Screwed Anyway

Powerful Hurricane Joaquin has been battering the Bahamas
for more than a day now. Here it is this morning still
smashing the islands. 

Powerful Hurricane Joaquin battered the Bahamas for a good 24 hours or more since yesterday with 130 mph winds, so it's a huge disaster there.

Reports from the islands are still sketchy, since the storm is still raging, but there are no immediate reports of deaths, which is good. 

But the destruction has to be immense, and imagine being in winds of 100 mph or more for a day or so, not just a couple hours. 

So scary and I hope everyone in the Bahamas comes through this OK.

Meanwhile, up in the United States, people are breathing something of a sigh of relief since most computer models now keep Joaquin well offshore.

There's still a slight chance Joaquin could clip Cape Cod or Nova Scotia but the threat of a huge direct hit is over.

You'd think this is terrific news, and it is, since the East Coast will escape the possibility of getting slammed by a full-throttle major hurricane.

But overall, the news isn't good.

Meteorologists are still expecting an epic flood in the Carolinas and parts of the Mid-Atlantic states from a separate storm that will in part be fueled by moisture siphoned off of Hurricane Joaquin.

This isn't going to be your standard issue flood. It'll probably be a lot worse. One computer model predicts a whopping 18 inches of rain to come down on part of South Carolina.

I'm not sure there will be that much, but it's certainly plausible. I think we'll easily see over a foot of rain in some areas. Local forecasters said several Carolina cities will break records for their wettest Octobers, and do that in just that first five days of the month.

A strong pressure gradient between a very strong high pressure system over Quebec and the Carolina storms and Joaquin will make things worse. A strong pressure gradient just means there's a big difference in air pressure over a given area, in this case, the East Coast.

When there's a strong pressure gradient, there's a lot of wind. And since the wind is from the east, and extending over a wide expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, it's pushing a lot of water toward the coast.

That means there's going to be a lot of coastal flooding. Since this weather pattern will hold in place through the weekend, that means repeated bouts of flooding high tides and beach erosion. To make it worse, many coastal areas in the Mid-Atlantic states are under high wind warnings and watches.

Places were rivers meet the oceans are really in trouble. The east winds will try to push water upstream and inland, while great gushes of water from the heavy rains try to come downstream. Where the two meet on these rivers will cause incredible floods.

With all this going on, states of emergency are already in effect in several states, including the Carolinas and New Jersey.

Joaquin will miss the U.S. mainland, but this could still be a billion dollar disaster in terms of flooding and wind and high tides along the East Coast.

Here's a brief video of how Joaquin looked on Crooked Island, Bahamas:

Real Dicks At Accuweather Gave The Shaft To The East Coast This Week

The East Coast sure got dicked over by wet weather
on Tuesday, at least as shown by Accuweather.  

Hat tip to fellow weather geek Scoop Cronin for pointing, and I do mean pointing, out this weather forecast map for this past Tuesday for the East Coast.

As you can see, Accuweather accurately forecasted that Mother Nature gave the eastern United States the shaft with the weather on Tuesday. (Maybe she was wearing a strap-on?)

I particularly like the "heavy rain" near the tip of the, um, weather zone in New England. As a denizen of New England, I'm now REALLY glad it rained pretty hard that day and nothing else came out of the sky, if you catch my drift.

I can understand why the map makers at Accuweather drew Tuesday's forecast map the way they did. I'm always aroused by big storms and loud thunderstorms. Maybe just not aroused the way the people at Accuweather were that day.

The news crew at WGN in Chicago really turned into 6th graders with the weather map, as you can see in the video below:

First East Coast Severe Weather Of Season Departs. Snow In New England?

Lightning over Washington DC Monday. Photo
from Elayne Burke via Twitter.  

The first real out break of severe thunderstorms of the season hit the East Coast Monday, with tornado watches over a wide area from Georgia to Pennsylvania.

So far, there have been no reports of actual tornadoes, but a few rotating supercell storms came close to producing tornadoes, particularly in one storm near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

There were plenty of reports of large hail and some of damaging winds.

The thunderstorms were pretty much departing the East Coast early this morning, but the parent storm system responsible for the hazardous weather is going to hang around for awhile.

A long while, apparently.

It'll pretty much stall over southeastern Quebec, all the while feeding moist, increasingly cool air into New England through at least Sunday.

Nasty looking thunderstorm near Rochester, N.Y.
Monday. Photo from James Montronus, via Twitter.  

That means on and off showers through then, though there will be brief periods of drier air, with glimpses of sun, especially this afternoon.

The air will keep getting cooler over New England through the week as the storm feeds chilly air down from Canada. This means snow.

Before you get scared and think we'll get what Boston got in February, relax. Mountains of northern New York and New England will probably get a few to several inches of snow out of this.

At night, valleys in the North Country could get slushy coatings of snow Thursday and Friday nights,  maybe an inch or two here and there, but that will melt each afternoon as readings get above freezing.

It is late April after all.

The good news about this stuck low pressure in eastern Canada is it will suppress any new storm systems to the south.

Jennifer Blanchard took this photo of snow falling
in Glover, Vermont yesterday morning. More snow
is due in the mountains later this week. 

That means the chances of more severe thunderstorm and tornado outbreaks in the nation are pretty limited for the next week or more.  

It looks like Texas and the Gulf Coast could get some bad storms over the next couple of days, but that's about it.

At least for now.

Elsewhere in the world, there was rough, severe weather, too. A tornado caused damage in a Brazil city.

Severe flooding and damaging winds hit parts of Australia, especially near Sydney, killing at least three people.

Here's a house floating away in Dungog, Australia yesterday: