The South Moves North Once Again

An outflow boundary from a thunderstorm passing by to the north
helped create thes turbulent looking clouds over St. Albans,
Vermont yesterday.  The boundary produced wind gusts close
to 30 mph at my house, but they oddly weren't cool winds like
you'd expect from normal thunderstorm outflow. 

The Northeast had a terribly Florida type of day Monday, with temperatures in the 90s, humidity levels through the roof, and a few strong storms to boot.

Maine was downright weird. You know Maine in the summer, right?  Cool breezes, comfortable humidity, great sleeping nights, manageable summer rain showers? frigid ocean waters?

Not yesterday.  The waters in the Gulf of Maine are practically bathwater, setting records for high ocean temperatures.  That means marine life is heading north to enjoy those warm waters. That includes sharks.

Tragically, a woman was killed in a shark attack near Bailey Island Maine on Monday.

Those warm waters along the coast of New England are also bad if a stray hurricane comes along later this summer and autumn.  Northboumd hurricanes along the coast weaken because they don't do well in cold water. The warmer the water, the slower a hurricane will weaken, making one that comes along stronger than they otherwise would be if the water was chillier.

Meanwhile, in Portland, Maine, the low temperature Monday was 78 degrees. That is the warmest "low" temperature on record for any date in Portland.

Additionally, a possible tornado hit parts of Somerset and Penobscot Counties in Maine.  Radar images showed some pretty tight rotation in a severe thunderstorm, plus there was tree and wire damage in the area.

The National Weather Service will investigate to see if that was really a tornado.

For those who are easily worried and confused, the possible tornado hit the town of St. Albans, Maine, NOT St. Albans, Vermont, where I live.

The heat was on elsewhere in the Northeast.  It was 97 degrees in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the hottest it's been there in four years.  Hartford, Connecticut got up to 98 degrees.

Ahead of a weak cold front, heat advisories are up along the East Coast today from southwestern Maine to South Carolina.

Here in Vermont, it got up to 93 degrees in Burlington, the 17th day this year it has been in the 90s.  We're still in the running for the most consective days staying continuously above 60 degrees. The wild cards are how warm it stays at night in the second half of the week and into Saturday.

Current forecasts have Burlington's lows just above 60 degrees each night, so we could do it.

Showers and thunderstorms were concentrated across northern Vermont yesterday and last evening, and southern Vermont stayed dry.  However, a decent batch of rain was moving through central and southern Vermont this morning.

Today will be another relatively hot one, with highs in the 80s to around 90 in a few spots. At least the humidity will briefly go down this afternoon.

The humidity will spike up again tomorrow ahead of the next system, but that won't last long.  There could be a few more showers and storms tomorrow, too.

Which is fine. Last evening, a brief heavy downpour passed through St. Albans, Vermont. The rain was almost as warm as bath water. There was no lightning, so it felt safe to stand out in the rain and let it drench me. It felt awesome.

I joke that the rain did wonders for my naturally curly hair.  The joys of summer, I guess.

All-Time Vermont Heat Record Could Fall Today

We can say it: Sure is hot out there!

Record heat and dry weather in St. Albans, Vermont on Tuesday.
May  is awfully early to need to start watering well-established
perennial beds, but that was the case in this very dry month.
Record heat is making the dryness worse. 

Several record highs fell in and around Vermont on Tuesday, and today could be even hotter.

First, here are some of Tuesday's records:

Burlington reached 92 degrees, tying a record set exactly a decade ago.  Montpelier also tied its decade old record of 87 degrees.

Elsewhere, Buffalo, New York reached 93 degrees, breaking the record of 88 set in 1944. Yesterday's 93 degrees was the hottest it's been in Buffalo on any date since July 4, 2018. Rochester, New York also set a record for the date of 93 degrees.

The quote, unquote low temperature in Burlington this morning was 72 degrees. If it stays above that level through midnight tonight, it will be the warmest "low" temperature for the month of May on record. The warmest low on record for May in Burlington is 70 degrees, on three dates in the past.  

Not only are temperatures here in Vermont starting out warmer in the morning than they did yesterday,  the atmosphere as a whole is a tiny bit warmer than it was on Tuesday.

This sets the stage for a possible real record setter.  The National Weather Service in Burlington early this morning was forecasting a high of 94 degrees in Burlington, today.  That would break the all time record for May of 93 degrees, set in 1977 and 2017.

Montpelier's all time May record of 90 degrees is also definitely threatened.

May heat waves have gotten more frequent in recent years.  Temperatures reached into the 90s in May of 2010,  2013, 2016, and 2017.

In 2017, it was 93 degrees in Burlington, tying that all time May high temperature that might be broken today.

The heat is exacerbating the dryness out there.  It's been 12 days since we've had any measurable rain. I found myself yesterday watering a well established perennial bed in May, the first time I've had to do that so early in the season.

Isolated thunderstorms could develop, especially over mountainous terrain today, but the vast majority of us won't see any rain.

The next good chance of rain is Friday and Friday night, when some cold fronts will come through.  There could be locallly  heavy rain with that, but the spots that get the heavy rain will probably be relativey few and far between. But all of us do have a shot of geting a least a little rain heading into the weekend.

By Sunday and Monday, temperatures will actually be fairly far below normal for early June.

Tornado Watch Much Of New England, Including Southern Vermont

UPDATE 4 p.m. 

As you might have already  heard, the National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch for the southern four counties of Vermont, all but northern New Hampshire much of central New York and most of Massachusetts.

That means tornadoes are possible. If you are under this watch, continue doing what you're doing, but just have a reliable source of weather information next to you so you can hear any warnings come through.

If, on the off chance you get a tornado warning, march right down to the basement with your weather radio or weather source and stay put until you get the all clear. If no basement, an interior windowless room will do.

This isn't meant to be alarming. Just a precaution. Most people in the tornado watch area will not get a tornado warning. (A warning means a twister has been spotted or a potential one is on the radar screens).

So far at least, the forecast is playing out as expected. The northern third of Vermont has had some rain, and it's remaining pretty much overcast. And it looks like another batch of steadier rain is moving in, That is helping stabilize the atmosphere and limiting thunderstorms. There might be a strong thunderstorm or two up north coming up, but it won't be as extensive as further south.

Further south, there's a little sun, better dynamics and more shear, which is winds changing in direction and/or speed with height.  That will allow some thunderstorms to spin, especially if any supercells form ahead of the main band of strong storms.

The tornado watch lasts until 10 p.m. tonight, but it might expire in Vermont a little sooner than that as activity shifts to the east late this evening.

By the way, and this is important, if you get a severe thunderstorm warning but not a tornado warning, still take that very seriously. The worst of these thunderstorms will be capable of causing as much straight line wind damage as a tornado would.  And the straight line winds with these storms will be more widespread than any tornadoes, if any twisters form at all.

There will almost definitely be some severe thunderstorms scattered around southern Vermont in the next several hours. Tornado chances are iffier, but as you can tell, still possible.

UPDATE: 11:30 a.m.

The threat of severe storms has been pushed north to encompass most of Vermont.
Rotating supercells are possible in the yellow and orange zones.  There's still
a small risk of brief tornadoes in this area, but the main danger will
be strong damaging wind gusts and microbursts 

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has adjusted the severe storm risk in New England further north, and now puts all of Vermont in a zone with at least some risk of severe storms this afternoon and evening.

A warm front with the approaching storm that will cause the rough weather is moving further north than expected, and that is helping push the instability needed for the storms further north.

As earlier forecasts indicated, the greatest risk for severe storms is in southern Vermont.

However, that somewhat higher risk zone has been pushed north to a Middlebury to Bradford line.

South of this line, a few supercell thunderstorms could develop.  They might rotate, which raises the risk, albeit small, of a tornado or two.  Even if no tornadoes form, these scattered supercells, and also a subsequent likely line of storms could cause damaging wind gusts, microbursts and large hail.

A few computer models focus the most dangerous storms in Rutland and Windsor counties, but that certainly remains to be seen. Anyone in Vermont should pay attention to further forecasts and warnings.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

There's some real weather whiplash going on this week, as we've gone from snow last Friday and Saturday to a severe thunderstorm risk -  at least for some of us - today.

At least it's warmer, right?

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has that risk of severe storms today in a good chunk of the Northeast, especially in the southern two thirds of New York, much of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and much of southern and central New England, including the southern half of Vermont.

Any of these areas could get damaging winds, hail, and perhaps a spin up tornado. Of most concern is  a narrow area encompassing central New York, western Massachusetts, the two southernmost counties of Vermont and the southwestern corner of New Hampshire.

At least that's the way things were looking early this morning in advance of this thing.

A storm with a center that was pretty close to Detroit early this morning will move probably right across far northern Vermont and New Hampshire this afternoon and evening.

That will put especially areas from about Montpelier south into the warm, humid air ahead of the storm. Skies seem like the might partially clear for a time during the early and mid afternoon, perhaps from about Rutland and White River south.

Especially in those areas, some muggy, summerish air will come in ahead of the storm's approaching cold front.

Forecasters are expecting short lines or clusters of thunderstorms to form ahead of this cold front and move east through New York and into central and southern New England this afternoon and evening.

The main threat from today's storms will be strong, damaging straight line winds from some of these storms. Large, damaging hail is also possible, especially in the zone of most concern I mentioned.

It's even possible a few rotating supercell thunderstorms could sprout ahead of the cold front today.  That means there's a small, but certainly non-zero chance of a brief tornado or two in far southern Vermont, western Massachusetts, and especially in central New York and the Hudson Valley from Albany to just north of New York City.

Areas highlighted have a slight, but not zero chance of a brief
tornado or two today, says NOAA's Storm Prediction Center

There's a 5% chance of a tornado within 25 miles of any point within this particular zone of concern. So you see the threat isn't super high, but it's something to watch.

In any event, any strong to severe thunderstorm can be dangerous. Remember, straight line winds can be a destructive as tornadoes.

If you are in areas today and this evening that are under a threat for severe storms, have a weather radio handy, or some reliable source to receive severe weather warnings.

As we always advise, stay indoors and away from windows during a severe thunderstorm or tornado warning. In fact, in the unlikely but possible chance that you fall under a tornado warning, it would probably be best for you to hide in the basement until the danger has passed.

Up in northern Vermont, where I am, things will be calmer than points south. But in the north, there could be some briefly heavy rains in spots, and a few rumbles of thunder from some potential embedded non-severe thunderstorms.

I'm also sure as more data comes in this morning, forecasts for the severe weather risk will be adjusted. So whatever you see here this morning is not absolutely set in stone.

Things will clear out today to give us a pretty nice weekend.  It will be huge contrast to last weekend, when there was snow and strong, gusty cold winds.

Instead, this weekend will feature light winds, a fair amount of sun, though with some clouds, and seasonably mild temperatures.

The only drawback to this weekend's weather will be the lack of wind. Normally, that's fine, but with the warmer weather, black fly season is here with a vengeance, and they are really bad this year.  With no wind to blow them away from us, expect to get attacked visciously by these little buggers if you go outside Saturday and Sunday.

As Expected May Snow And Cold Hits Hard

Snow settles on this weather-weary looking daffodil in my
St. Albans, Vermont yard this morning.

Much of the eastern United States has done a time warp and gone back to March, at least in the weather department.

As expected, there's widespread cold and snow around, and it ain't done yet.  There are some pretty impressive facts and figures with this blast of Arctic air.

New York's Central Park reported a trace of snow, tying with 1977 as the latest snowfall on record there.

Up here in Vermont, some early reports are pretty wild for May 9.  At an elevation of just under 1,500 feet in Cabot, 6.3 inches of powder fell. There was a report of six inches in West Pawlet and 4.8 inches in East Barre.

Heavy snow was reported in Bennington at 7 a.m. There were numerous reports of four or more inches of snow in different parts of Vermont.

At my place in relatively low elevation St. Albans, Vermont, I "missed out" on the snow with an accumulation of only 0.2 inches.  I'm not complaining that I didn't get buried, that's for sure.

The cold in the East is widespread and record breaking.  That's because there's pretty much been nothing like this type and intensity of a blast of cold air straight from the Arctic this time of year.

Dozens of cities reported record lows for today's date. It appears that more than two dozen cities in the Midwest and East at least tied their records for their all time lowest readings in the month of May.  Theres surely a lot of crop damage out there.

In one other snow report I didn't mention earlier, there was 3.7 inches of new snow at a high elevation spot in Readsboro,  The reason I waited to mention this now is because the temperature there was only 24 degrees. The snow there was light and powdery, like January. Not the wet snow you'd expect so late in the season.

This rapid drop in temperature with elevation, as we saw in Readsboro this morning, is key to the rest of the day here in Vermont.

The storm system that brought the snow overnight and this morning is moving away, even as it turns into an incredibly strong nor'easter for this time of year in the Canadian Maritimes and northern Maine.

Another snowy daffodil in my St. Albans, Vermont garden this morning. 

However, the core of the coldest air from the Arctic will be overhead today in northern New England. You'll continue to see these incredibly cold temperatures at high elevations, and it will be ridiculously cold as you go up and up above the mountain tops.

The sun angle this time of year is about the same as it is at the beginning of August. That means a strong sun will try to heat the ground.

Spotty sun is developing as of mid-morning. This sunshine is causing rising air currents. The air currents rise much more quickly and efficiently when it's cold up above.

That creates billowing clouds and showers. Or in today's case, snow showers. The sky might actually be rather picturesque amid these blustery snow showers. I guess that's a bright side, no?

As I mentioned yesterday, today's weird situation will create those numerous snow showers, especially this afternoon.

The winds will be strong and gusty today to begin with, and they will be more so under these snow showers. When or if you get hit by one, you'll get a brief period of heavy snow, stronger wind gusts and a quick temperature drop from today's already low readings.

It's going to be a strange day indeed.  

And one more, just to rub it in. 

The forecast going forward for the next few days hasn't changed much. It'll warm up, sort of Sunday, but stay incredibly cold for this time of year with highs in the 40s to around 50 in the Banana Belts of Vermont.

Monday will be "warmer" still with highs in the 48-55 range. Then we have a setback on Tuesday when it will get colder again with highs staying down in the 40s. After that, the warmup will resume, with near normal temperatures in the  low 60 by Friday.

Before then, we will have almost nightly problems with frosts and freezes at least into Wednesday morning.

The next shot any any real precipitation in Vermont will probably come along next Friday. Mercifully, all that Friday weather will be in the form of rain, NOT snow.

CLIMATE CHANGE:

By the way, this record cold spell says nothing about climate change. Or if it does saying anything about the subject, it's counterintuitive.

While we New Englanders shivered in April, most of the rest of the world was warm. April, globally will likely come in as one of the top three warmest on record.

Also, while this cold wave is freezing gardens throughout the eastern half of the United States, many other places are warm.  The western U.S. is experiencing record high temperatures. Unprecedented warmth has enveloped Siberia, where wildfires are breaking out many weeks before they normally do.

Overall, cold waves are becoming less frequent than they used to. So when you get one like this, it really captures your attention.

You can't judge one odd weather spell in one little corner of the world to pick on climate change.

Having said that,  the bitter Arctic May air is unsettlingly consistent with what a lot of climate scientists have been warning us about.  The world is indeed warming, but it might be making the jet stream, which controls the path of weather systems, much more wavy.

With bigger northward bulges and bigger southward plunges than normal, climate change can make things weirder. Even as it warms up overall, every once in awhile, this newly wavy jet stream can create some sharp, intense cold waves. That is, if you're caught in one of those oddly deep dip in the jet stream, as we currently are.

I can't say one way or another if this particular cold wave has anything to do with the above. But it is similar to what a lot of the climate scientists are tellling us. Just sayin'.

The Severe Weather Train Rolls On In The United States.

A tornado touched down near Sanford, Florida Monday. 

Right on schedule, around 11 a.m. this Tuesday morning, the wind abruptly began to howl outside my windows in St. Albans, Vermont.  Winds appeared to be gusting to over 40 mph, and I've already seen a few twigs and small branches come down, as of 11:30 a.m.

The strongest winds here won't last much longer, and the pale in comparison to some of the violent weather parts of the nation have seen this spring, as I've noted a few times before.

Vermont is getting hit by a dynamic, fast moving storm system coming in from the west. The worst of the trouble with this storm, though, will go by to the south for the rest of the day.

A pretty good squall line was in the beginning stages of forming in central New York and Pennsylvania late this morning, and it will sweep east, scattering a few pockests of damaging wind with thunderstorms from southern New England down to the Washington DC area.

This outbreak of bad weather won't be nearly as bad as what's been going on in the south, but you will hear news today of fallen trees, power outages and a few trees through house roofs and crushing cars today from Connecticut and Massachusetts to Virginia.

It's a continuation on a really active weather pattern this spring that has featured a fast flow of air across the United States jam packed with a variety of storms.  As we well know, these storms have left a series of snowstorms, floods and especially tornadoes behind.

The one affecting the Northeast today is unlikely to produce any tornadoes. But it is ushering in a blast of unseasonable cold air from Canada that will probably do damage in its own right. Freeze warnings are up for much of the Middle Atlantic States and areas in and around Ohio tomorrow night.

A lot of orchards are already blooming in that area - prematurely due to warmer than normal winter and early spring weather - so this could cause a lot of damage.

Up here in Vermont, things aren't that far along, so there won't be widespread crop damage, but as I noted yesterday, you might lose some of your daffodil and forsythia blooms.

THEN, MORE SEVERE

The next severe weather threat is already getting going near Colorado. Today, the first round of this system will likely create a few spots with gigantic hailstones in and near Oklahoma today.  A few towns might get some baseball sized hail, which really stings.

The storm will push east, and cause a risk of some severe storms and a couple tornadoes in eastern Texas and the southern Mississippi Valley on Wednesday.

Unfortunately, like the trend line we've seen so many times this year, the threat of severe storms and tornadoes on Thursday now appears to be greater than originally expected in parts of the Southeast.

The parent storm system looks like it will move a little more slowly than originally forecast, allowing more very humid air to infiltrate the Southeast than earlier thought. It also will allow the parent storm to strengthen more before moving off the East Coast.  Together, that helps increase the tornado threat, especially in Alabama, Georgia, and northern Florida, as it looks now.

There's even a chance, once again - sigh - of some long tracked, strong tornadoes down there.

They don't catch a break, do they? Just yesterday, some dramatic looking tornadoes crossed Florida freeways, damaging buildings and trees on their way through, but thankfully causing no serious injuries and deaths.

Unfortunately, the strong Mississippi tornado I mentioned yesterday did kill one person. It was another EF-4, the second strongest catagory you can get, within a 30 mile radius with a week.  It's rare for the United States to get much more thank ten EF-4's per year, so having that many within a small area in just a week is something else.

Severe storm researcher Tony Lyza (@tlyazawx on Twitter) posted on that social media platform that shows at least 14 EF-2 or stronger have hit a narrow, roughly 150-mile wide corridor of Mississippi beween Interstates 10 and 20 since mid-December. That's an incredible density of relatively strong tornadoes for such a small area.  So yes, this is odd!

It still looks like severe weather might temporarily settle down for a time until early May, but that's not guaranteed. Just remember that May is typically the most active and dangerous month for tornadoes in the United States.

Video: Tornado crosses Interstate 75 near Marion Florida Monday:


Turn up the sound on this one. A tornadic supercell was passing near the viewers. That rumbling was either a tornado going by or constant thunder from the incredible amount of lightning you see in the video, or both.  I bet the people shooting the video are glad the storm didn't hit them full on:

Entertaining Weather Videos On A Slow Weather Day

Clear skies in the Northeast Friday allowed a great view of where snow
was on the ground, where it wasn't, what was frozen, what not.
Click on the image to make it bigger and easier to see details.

Things have temporarily gotten slow in the weather department, but don't worry, things will be pretty active around here by the middle and end of the week.

While we have some quiet weather moments, some goofy weather videos to share. And a photo.

The photo on the right is a satellite shot taken amid unusually clear skies in the eastern United States on Friday.  Click on it to make it bigger and easier to see the details of the current state of the winter.

The snow cover in New England ends just over the Massachusetts border from Vermont and New Hampshire. The Great Lakes are remarkably ice-free for late February. Even the Finger Lakes in New York aren't frozen.

You can also see that a large section of Lake Champlain is also free of ice. It almost certainly will not completely freeze over this year.  We have a few warm days coming. Even if it turns cold in March, the increasing sun angle would help erode new ice that forms at night.

Down in eastern North Carolina and southeastern Virginia, you can also see an area of snow on the ground from a small storm the day before.  By the end of the day yesterday, that snow in the Southeast was mostly gone.

The clouds off the New England and Mid-Atlantic coasts are caused by cold air blowing over the relatively warm waters of the Atlantic.  There were even a few ocean-effect snow flurries from these clouds Friday morning on Cape Cod.

Now some videos:

This one has been billed as a "carbon neutral way to prevent ice dams:"



Next up, stupidity of the day.  We see this all the time. People drive right into floodwaters, not knowing how deep it is, not caring how dangerous it is.  A lot of it is stupidity.

There's still a lot of flooding going in in England due to two immense storms over the past couple weeks.  Here, we see rescuers in elaborate safety gear with boats heading out to retrieve residents from obviously deep floodwater in one neighborhood.

You and I wouldn't drive down that flooded street, right? The turbulent water and the rescue crews would seem like dead giveaways not to proceed.  Not everybody thinks like that. Watch the rescuers shake their heads in disbelief:



In Michigan, volcanoes have been erupting last week.  Don't worry, no lava in Detroit, no pyroclastic flows in Ann Arbor. Instead, ice has piled up on the windy shores of Lake Michigan.  More waves pounding in get under the ice and water pressure creates these "ice volcanoes."  They're pretty cool:



Also, in Michigan, another icy phenomenon.  A curving current in a small river created a rotating ice disk, much like that larger, more famous one that formed in Maine last year.  Here's the mesmerizing Michigan ice disk:

I Might Get To Experience One Nasty Winter Storm Twice. Oh Joy!

By Monday, the big storm will be affecting everywhere from
the Dakotas to New England and down along the East Coast.

That large storm slated to cross the nation this weekend still looks like it's going to be a humdinger, and a huge area of the nation will be affected.

Already, a broad stripe of the United States from Arizona to Minnesota is under a variety of winter storm warnings, watches and advisories.

Blizzard conditions could well envelop the western half of the Dakotas down into western Nebraska by Saturday or Sunday.

At this point the heaviest snow looks like it will come down from in central and northeastern South Dakota, southeastern North Dakota and western Minnesota, where a good 18 inches might accumulate.

A stripe just to the east of the potential blizzard zone will probably get a lot of mixed precipitation, then snow and wind.  I'll be in Yankton, South Dakota still at that point, so that will be fun. The forecast is especially uncertain where I am, since we will be right on the edge of the snow/mixed precipitation line.

This will be a long lasting storm in the central and northern Plains starting late tonight and coming in waves through Sunday night. Precipitation rates will ebb and increase repeatedly, with the worst of the weather expected Saturday night and Sunday.

I'm allegedly traveling back to Vermont Monday, but there will still be near ground blizzard conditions in the Dakotas then, lots of wind in the Midwest, and a potential messy storm in Vermont. That'll be fun!

It's unclear just how messy things will be with this storm in Vermont.  It could be light precipitation, it could be a mix, or it could  mainly snow in some spots.

There is expected to be a sharp contrast between very chilly air in the north and balmy air to the south, with Vermont being in the transition zone.  That means it's anybody's guess what will fall from the sky.  We probably won't know exactly what to expect even up to the time the storm arrives.

One run of the European computer model gave us sort of a worst case scenario with up to a foot of snow in parts of central Vermont and enough ice to cause tree and power line damage in southern Vermont.

Take that forecast with a GIGANTIC grain of salt, as these forecasts tend to be all over the place and wrong days ahead of the event. This is just to give you an idea that this has a chance to be pretty bad, but there's no sense in panicking now. It very likely won't be as bad as this Euro run.

Those Snow Squalls Wednesday Were Big, Photogenic

ABC7 in New York captured this dramatic image of a snow squall
blowing into Manhattan Wednesday. 

As expected, Wednesday was a busy day for snow squalls in the Northeast, including here in Vermont.

Snow squalls can be dangerous, for sure, but they are pretty cool in that they are in and out so quick, and in such a dramatic fashion.  For proof, look at the the time lapse videos of a squall in New York City yesterday.  

National Weather Service offices in the Northeast issued at least 46 different snow squall warnings, notes meteorologist Jonathan Erdman (@wxjerdman) on Twitter. The NWS office in South Burlington issued six of those snow squall warnings in northern New York and Vermont.

I got a NWS Burlington warning for one of those snow squalls as I was driving north in Interstate 89 in Georgia Wednesday afternoon, and I could see it coming at me in the form of a very black cloud. I decided, wisely, to pull off the Interstate just as it was sweeping in. I took the Georgia exit and waited it out in a convenience store parking lot with my two dogs with me in the truck.

Visibility went to zero, but the squall passed in less than 10 minutes and we were on our way back home again. In this round of snow squalls, I'm not aware of any serious pileups or traffic backups because of the weather on Vermont highways.

Rare for December convective clouds spitting out snow squalls
Wednesday as seen from St. Albans, Vermont. 

The squalls took a tragic turn on Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania, though, as a 20-vehicle pileup in a whiteout killed two people in White Deer Township, the Associated Press reported. 

Elsewhere, the upper lanes of the George Washington Bridge in the New York metro area shut down for 45 minutes at rush hour due to the snow squalls and the need to remove ice from the bridge left behind by those squalls.  

As most of you have surely noticed, the coldest air of the young winter season swept in behind the squalls and Arctic cold front. Here in Vermont, Burlington  had its first subzero reading of the seasoin this morning as it got down to minus 1.  Saranac Lake, New York was down to 13 below.

Pretty much everybody in Vermont was below zero this morning with wind chills in the minus teens in most spots. Wind Chill Advisories were in effect this morning.

It will only slowly warm up through Friday before a somewhat more dramatic warmup hits by the weekend. Highs then will be in the 30s to near 40.

For those doing their Christmas errands, there are no storms (or snow squalls) on the horizon at least into early next week.

Here's a couple time lapses videos of a big snow squall hitting New York City:



This one has a few time lapses, not just one:



I  can't get enough of these. Here's the area around the George Washington Bridge disappearing in a snow squall, the emerging from it whiter than before:

Analysis: Vermont Storm Fit Climate Change Trend: Was Big, I Even Have to Pick Up The Pieces

This tree fell on my husband Jeep in my St. Albans, Vermont yard,
likely totaling the vehicle

I spent last night as a storm refugee for the first time I can remember.  Then again, the storm Thursday night and Friday was among the worst I can remember, at least for Vermont as a whole.

At least in my opinion, it was the Green Mountain State's most destructive storm since the epic floods of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011.  Between the flooding - record river crests in at least two spots in northern Vermont - and the damaging winds, this one will probably have parts of Vermont declared a disaster areas.

For me and my husband Jeff, things aren't nearly as bad, as it is for some people, mind you.  My house is intact, but it lacks electricity. Falling branches pulled the wires and electrical box from the house and messed with the wiring system in the house, so we had to shut off the brakers. We hope to get things fixed within the next few days.

Plus a large tree fell on Jeff's Jeep, and it's probably totaled.  With all that going on, we moved into a La Quinta Inn motel room for the night.  I'm wrote most of this missive Saturday morning from the "comforts" of this motel room.

Our situation is an inconvenience that is being resolved super quickly. I was surprised and delighted when I checked on my house at 8:30 a.m. today to find Green Mountain Power already there repairing our electrical line. They have so much work to do after this store that I was very impressed with GMP's responsiveness.

There are other Vermonters who are sorting through flood damaged homes and businesses, trying to navigate washed out roads, figuring out what to do now that the culvert under the driveway, and the driveway itself is gone.  It will take awhile for some people to recover from this.  (Had we not replaced a culvert with a larger, sturdier one this summer, Jeff and I would have lost our driveway too in this storm, along with the other trouble we had.)

This was a much more serious storm than anyone expected in Vermont. Its effects are wide ranging, causing damage from near the Gulf Coast to Quebec.  The storm had its birth in the Rocky Mountains, where it caused unseasonable snows and all-time record lows for October. The storm contributed to the strong winds in California that fanned those wildfires.

Technically, the storm was a nationwide disaster.

You usually can't trace a direct line between a storm and climate change. You can't say this storm was "caused" by climate change. You can say this storm was consistent with climate change. The storm was probably influenced by climate change and there's a very good chance climate change made this storm worse than it otherwise might have been. If there wasn't climate change maybe the wind with this storm would not have been strong enough to knock the tree onto Jeff's Jeep. Who knows?

From WVNY: Significand flooding in Richmond, Vermont Friday. 

This tempest was a product of a wonky jet stream, which many scientists see as clue that climate change is messing with weather patterns. In a sense, this is so far the biggest direct impact climate change has had on me so far.

The rainfall was particularly, oddly heavy, especially in northern and central New York, most of Vermont and southern Quebec.  Here in Vemont, the storm dumped 5.26 inches of rain on East Berkshire and 4.85 inches on Enosburg Falls. After the heavy rains of the previous week, it's no wonder the Missisquoi River reached a record high crest at North Troy,'

In the Lamoille River watershed, 4.8 inches of rain fell on Fletcher, raising that river to a record high crest in Jeffersonville. This was no ordinary Vermont flood.

In an ominous way, this type of heavy rainfall makes sense. The atmosphere can hold more water when its warmer, meaning potential precipitation is heavier. Sure, this might have happened anyway. Vermont's worst flood on record, in 1927, happened this time of year, too. But these heavy rain events are getting more frequent. Parts of the Green Mountain State were declared a disaster area due to some serious flooding just this past April.

This storm had quite a one/two punch as the winds caused serious damage, as I said all up and down the East Coast and into Quebec. The damage was certainly noticeable here in Vermont, including at my St. Albans house, as mentioned.

Up to 50,000 people lost power in Vermont. That figure was 900,000 in Quebec, making this the worst power outage in the Canadian province since the famous ice storm of 1998. A man died around Montreal when, while taking a photo of a fallen tree, another tree fell on him, CBC reported.

The wind in Vermont was almost as destructive as the flooding. At some points Friday, at least 50,000 homes and businesses were without power in Vermont. Before dawn this morning that figure had fallen to roughly 28,000, including at yours truly's house.  With numbers that big, it will take a long time before everybody has electricity. I bet some people will be out for a week or more.

Elsewhere, the wind collapsed a large barn up in Maidstone, Vermont. A section of Interstate 91 was briefly closed when a fallen tree blocked both southbound lanes. The storm also cut off internet access in much of Burlington.

The temperature gyrations with this storm were incredibly remarkable, too. Again, I won't say climate changed "caused" this temperature weirdness, but it probably influenced it. Climate change can lead to bigger extremes.

True, out in the Rockies, on the cold side of this storm, they had a nearly unprecedented cold snap for this early in the season. Some cities hit all-time record lows for October. But as Vermont was in the throes of the storm, temperatures rose to a record highs in places like Burlington, where it reached 71 degrees late in the evening of October 31,  despite the fact the sun had long since set and it was raining.

The dew point, a measure of how much moisture is in the air, reached the humid levels of a muggy July night.

Very often, an emergency brings out the best in people and that was the case here.  For instance, in Burlington's Intervale, vegetable farms put out a call on social media to help quickly harvest carrots and other crops before the Winooski River flood arrived to ruin the vegetables. More than a dozen people showed up to save the day.

Even Vermont Gov. Phil Scott got into the act.  A tree blocked a road along his route Friday, so he pulled a chainsaw out of the back of his truck and removed the tree.

As is typical with big storms, we're getting something of a break from the rough weather.  A series of small little storms will gradually sink us into winter conditions over the course of the next week, at least for awhile.

But we are in a "new normal," as the cliche goes, so we'll experience more wild storms, more temperature extremes and more weirdness, both here in Vermont and everywhere else.  As my experience shows, even when it's not that bad, this is tiring and expensive. But here we are.

Some videos:

The Winooski River racing through the city of Winooski:



During the Halloween night storm, a tornado touched down west of Philadelphia. Here's a damage video:



And an ABC News overview of the storm.

Two Very Different Style Windstorms To Affect Vermont, California

Widespread rainfall of near two inches is expected with the
upcoming windy storm Thursday into Friday.

This is essentially an update to yesterday's post, with more details about a pretty stiff storm about to sock us here in Vermont, and a nearly unprecedented wind event (and possibly fire event coming to southern California today.

Let's start locally.  It's already been breezy in parts of Vermont, especially the Champlain Valley, as I drove through a blizzard of falling leaves amid 30 mph wind gusts.

That's just a foretaste of what's to come.  Yep, we are going to get a lot of rain and wind.  There's a risk of both flooding and damaging winds Thursday night and Friday in and around Vermont.

I suppose way out ahead of the main storm there could be a couple light showers this afternoon, but they're nothing to worry about. 

The main show arrives tomorrow. At first, it'll just be showers, but a steady rain will move in during the afternoon as winds increase.

It's tricky to predict how strong winds will get while it's raining.  There will be strong winds aloft, but  rainfall can sometimes prevent those winds from mixing down to the surface.

There will be locally strong winds.  Meteorologists at the National Weather Service in South Burlington think channeling effects in the Champlain Valley could bring gusts to 45 mph there.

Worse, the southeast flow could bring strong downslope winds to the western slopes of the Green Mountains. There's definitely a risk of gusts in the 60 to 70 mph range, with maybe a couple locally higher gusts along the western slopes of the Green Mountains Thursday night.

That will be Round One of the wind. More on Round Two at the moment.

Between the wind and the rain, it's not going to be a great night for trick or treating. Overnight, this noisy storm will likely produce a lot of rain.  Most of the state should get one to two inches, with locally three inches possible.

We've had a lot of rain lately, so the soils are saturated. This amount of rain is probably enough to cause some flooding. It won't be an Irene-style epic flood, but even minor flooding is something to pay attention to.  People always tend to try to drive across flooded roads and that's such a bad idea.  This should be obvious, but whatever.

It seems the rivers most at risk of some flooding are the Mad and Winooski and Other Creek in Vermont and Ausable in New York.  But any water way could flood, and small streams could wash out dirt roads.

Newly fallen leaves can form little dams in streams. When these dams eventually break, you get rushes of water that can take out culverts or wreck gravel roads.

In urban areas, newly fallen leaves can can clog storm drains, too.  Needless to say, a flood watch is up pretty much region wide.

Friday morning, the storm's sharp cold front will whip through, which will shut off the heavy rain. (Lighter showers will continue here and there.)

This cold front opens the door for more strong winds, this time from the west.  Gusts in favored areas could reach 55 mph. Most of us will gust over 40 mph Friday.

Overall, there's already a high wind watch up in northwestern New York and those wind watches, warnings and advisories will almost certainly spread across most of Vermont.

Obviously, the large upcoming storm won't just affect Vermont.  The entire Northeast is due for a big blast of wind, rain and power outages with this storm. 

Not everybody will lose electricity, but there will be outages.  Make sure your devices are fully charged by Thursday evening, just in case.

CALIFORNIA WIND/FIRES

It seems like we've been talking about the California wildfires for weeks now, though it's only been days.

It also seems like every time we say this will be the worst day, an even worse day comes along. That's today in southern California.

Meteorologists are predicting one of the strongest Santa Ana winds on record in southern California. This will be combined with a relative humidity of well under 10 percent.  Santa Ana winds and fire weather occur every autumn in southern California, but not like this.

Every time there's a real fire risk, something called a red flag warning is issued.  This happens a lot in southern California in the autumn, so the National Weather Service in Los Angeles worried that people would just dismiss it as just another background noise weather alert.

To shake people out of their complacency, they're calling this one an Extreme Red Flag Warning. "Conditions are as dangerous for fire growth and behavior as we have seen in recent memory," the NWS warned. 

Unlike most Santa Ana wind events, the weather won't be particularly hot this time. Normally, the air rushing down the hills in Santa Ana winds compresses, which heats it up. The air mass triggering the winds is so cold that this warming won't be very pronounced.

Unfortunately, that doens't matter.  Between the winds gusting to 80 mph on the ridgelines and in some canyons and 60 to 70 mph elsewhere; and the relative humidity running in the single digits, you can imaging how fast a fire would spread.  I don't think any human could keep up with it.

So, millions of people in southern California are on edge, wondering if they will be the ones who have to flee in a flash because of a fire.

The winds are so strong this time that even outside fire zones, the National Weather Service is saying people should stay out of forested areas and away from trees.  They could topple easily in such strong winds.

I guess we here in Vermont should count ourselves lucky that we're only going to get lowland flooding, a few toppled trees and power failures.

Flooding Worries Throughout Northeast. And Snow Again! (Don't Worry, Not in Vermont)

Areas in yellow might get enough rain to cause flooding today
and tonight. Any flooding in Vermont is likely to be
localized and not extreme. Still, don't drive through
flooded roads!

UPDATE 1 PM THURSDAY

The special weather statement from this morning that told us Vermont could end up dealing with a little flooding today has been upgraded to a flash flood watch.

The watch means that rapidly developing floods have the potential to occur this afternoon and evening.

Rainfall is even heavier than anticipated, with a large zone of heavy rain over central and northern Vermont as of 1 p.m.

We have several hours at least of occasionally heavy rain to get to. Some places in the North Country have already gotten nearly an inch of rain, and another one to three inches is on the way.

Where the heaviest downpours set up, flash flooding could easily occur. In the general area of moderate to heavy rain coming through, there are pockets of torrential downpours that could lead to flash flooding just about anywhere, especially north of Route 4.

Local flash flood warnings, meaning flooding is already happening or imminent, have been issued in parts of New York, with these warnings popping up further and further east as the rain continues in that direction.

Not far from the Vermont border, a flash flood warning is up for areas around Lake George and Bolton Landing, New York.

Don't drive into flooded roadways and seek higher ground if you get a flash flood warning or see water rising quickly.

Not everybody will get a flood out of this and it's not another Hurricane Irene, but still, take it very seriously.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

The wet, wet year of 2019 continues on pace today, with a widespread zone stretching from Ohio and West Virginia on up through most of New England under the gun with a flood threat today and tonight.

Here in Vermont, where it's been a little drier lately than surrounding areas, the flooding, if it occurs, won't be as widespread or deep as elsewhere.

The larger rivers like the Winooski and Lamoille will probably rise sharply, but not go over their banks.

Since there will likely be locally heavy rain, there might be some flooding of small streams and creeks and in fields. Of biggest concern to most of us will be the risk of water ponding on roads and local urban sreet flooding.

And there's the risk that, as is so often the case with heavy rain in Vermont, sewage treatment plants will be overwhelmed, sending pollution into the rivers and ultimately Lake Champlain. Too many sewage treatment plants take waste from both buildings and storm sewers. When gushes of water go into street drains in heavy rains, that's where the trouble starts. Pretty icky, huh?

Generally speaking, most of us will get one to two inches of rain and most of that will come down between noon and midnight. The reason that there might be some local flooding is that in some places, there might be a torrential downpour thrown in that would dump a lot of rain in an hour or two.

It will dry out pretty quickly Friday, with just scattered light showers amid (temporarily) cooler conditions.

FLOODING WORSE ELSEWHERE

Many areas outside of Vermont, especially to our south and west, stand a greater chance of flooding than we do. And that flooding in many cases would be much worse than the minor stuff we expect here.

Vermont, especially the north, have been far enough away from a stalled weather front this week to avoid much rain. But that front has been stalled to our south, dumping heavy rain in the Mid-Atlantic States and westward into Ohio and Indiana.

Flooding is already taking place this morning in parts of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Many of these areas are at risk for more heavy rain today. Not good.

Already this morning, there has been flooding in and around Philadelphia and adjacent New Jersey, with people stranded on at least one highway because of flooding. I-295 in Bellmawr, New Jersey was blocked by flooding, backing up traffic for miles.

During the course of the week, the relentless rains will continue in places like Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas, where it has been basically pouring since March. The rain won't be as extreme as it was earlier this spring, but it will be enough to worsen or cause new flooding in some spots in that region.

SNOW AGAIN!?!?!

OK, the Summer Solstice is tomorrow, but somebody didn't get the memo in the northern Rockies.

Winter weather advisories, of all things, are up some high elevations above 5,000 feet in Idaho and Montana. Roads through mountain passes might get two to six inches of snow tonight, with six to 13 inches higher up in the mountains. Yikes!

High Winds Rake Great Lakes, Northeast, Will Still Hit Us In Vermont

High winds pushed his immense pile of ice onshore
from Lake Erie Sunday. Photo via Twitter from
Erie County ESU 

As of 6 a.m. this morning, the wind that we anticipated in Vermont really wasn't  bad at all. They were gusting into the 25 to 30 mph, which is something we see all the time.

However, the strong, gusty winds are still coming. They've just been delayed a bit

Behind the cold front that came through last night, a very subtle, barely noticeable and transient little bubble of higher pressure temporarily kept the winds at bay.  That's little weather feature is passing by to our east.

With that gone and daylight bringing better atmospheric mixing, it will get windier during the day.

By atmospheric mixing, what I mean is stronger winds aloft will be better able to sneak down to the Earth's surface at times during the day, leading to stronger wind gusts down where we live.

In fact, as we got past dawn in St. Albans, Vermont, the wind began to pick up noticeably. Winds have started to increase elsewhere in the Green Mountain State as well.

The wind in Vermont today won't be as bad as they were in places like western New York and southern Ontario, where gusts exceeded 70 mph and caused a lot of damage. (More on that in a moment, including some wild, wild video.)

Still, most of the Green Mountain State will see gusts to around 50 mph today. In some open areas, and in some spots along the eastern slopes of the Green Mountains, winds could reach 60 mph.

Ice shove from Lake Erie threatening shoreline homes in
Hamburg, New York Sunday. 

Since these strong winds will persist all day and overnight, that gives ample opportunity for tree limbs and power lines to snap. This probably won't rival the big wind storm of October, 2017, but I'm sure there will be issues with the electricity being out in many parts of the state from time to time.

Even though Vermont's winds won't be as bad as some other places in the Northeast and the Great Lakes, I'd keep the phone charged and the flashlights handy, because you could still lose power today.

The strongest winds will skirt most of Vermont, heading across central New York, and screaming through southern New England and parts of New Hampshire and Maine. There, gusts will go as high as 65 mph.

There's a couple other factors to consider with this windstorm. A little snow fell overnight. I received about a half inch here in St. Albans. Higher elevations got two to four inches. The snow showers wil persist today, especially in mid and high elevations. The snow will be powdery and blow around a lot.

Even though we're not talking about much snow, the strong winds will blow it around, creating areas of white outs in exposed areas along roads and highways.

The other factor is wind chill. It wasn't that cold early this morning, with temperatures in the 20s. But readings will fall all day and into tonight. The strong winds tonight will create some pretty nasty wind chill as actual temperatures sink to near zero.

That state of affairs will continue Tuesday. The wind won't be as bad - only gusting to 30 or 35 mph. But temperatures will struggle to reach the low teens at best during the afternoon, so wind chills will stay in the teens to near 20 below zero. Brrrr!

We'll finally calm down Wednesday but stay very cold - definitely more like mid-January than the cusp of March. Things will temporarily turn somewhat milder by the weekend, but by then, another storm will come in.

At this point, it's looking like another round of mixed precipitation and wind. But computer models wildly disagree on the strength and path of the potential storm. Could be weak, could be relatively strong.  This forecast will get a fine tuning later in the week.

WILD WINDS ELSEWHERE IN THE NATION

Web cam image from near Kassan, Minnesota on Sunday shows
what strong winds and snow can do to a highway.

Vermont has been relatively calm with this storm so far, but that's not true elsewhere.

Power outages are a good measure: Only 500 or so outages were reported in Vermont at 8:30 this morning, before the wind really started gaining strength.

By contrast, more than 600,000 homes and businesses in the Great Lakes and Northeast were without electricity this morning.

Probably the most spectacular effects of this storm has been the ice shove along Lake Erie. Southwest winds gusted to near 75 mph over that lake, which before the storm was mostly covered with fragmented ice.

The wind shoved that ice toward the shore in western New York and southern Ontario. A boom had been across the mouth of the Niagara River, which was meant to keep the ice from blasting upstream. But the boom was no match for these crushing winds, and the ice chunks came rushing in.

The result was these sudden piles of ice that in some places were at least the height of a two story building, if not higher. There's an incredible video of this whole thing starting at the bottom of this post. It's quite a scene!

Similar ice shoves, as they're called, prompted evacuations on lakeshore communities like Hamburg, near Buffalo.

All that ice jamming the Niagara River also blocked the flow of water, causing a weird flash flood - one that was created without heavy rain, but an ice shove.

Further north, there wasn't as much ice on Lake Ontario, so ice shoves weren't as big a problem. But the open water created lake effect snows. That combined with gusts well over 60 mph, is creating a blizzard on the New York shores of Lake Ontario.

High winds gusting to near 80 mph in spots caused lots of tree damage and some structural damage in southern Ontario. A blizzard struck areas west and north of Toronto.

In the Midwestern United States, blizzards struck Iowa, Minnesota and surrounding areas as winds gusted past 50 mph. Many highways were closed due to zero visibility, and a number of motorists had to be rescued.

Here's the video of the ice shove along the Niagara River:



Another video showing the force, speed and danger of this ice shove along the Niagara:



News video showing wind damage around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:

Vermont's Winter Storm Warning Continues, But As Usual, Some Forecast Adjustments

An updated storm forecast map from the National Weather Service in
South Burlington, Vermont. Generally speaking, central and
northern Vermont could still see eight to 12 inches of snow.
There will likely be less along the western slopes of the Greens.
If forecasts later today indicate more warming aloft, snowfall
totals might be cut back because more sleet would mix in. We'll see.

Vermont and most of the rest of the Northeast is still definitely on track for a messy winter storm Tuesday into Wednesday.

I'll focus on Vermont in this update, with some info on other areas of the Northeast further down.

As expected while we head toward this storm, there are some changes to the forecast. This involves mixed precipitation, and some interesting things along the west slopes of the Green Mountains.

As mentioned yesterday, this winter event consists of one storm heading through the Midwest and into the Great Lakes and then starting to fade. Another storm will form along the New Jersey coast and head into New England.

There will be plenty of moisture, so in most of the region, whatever comes from the sky will come down pretty hard. There will still be quite a bit of snow involved, but unfortunately, it's beginning to look like sleet and even some freezing rain might become more of a factor than first thought.

In their forecast discussion, the National Weather Service in South Burlington notes the upper level part of the storm going by to our west looks like it would hold together fairly well, and for a somewhat longer period of time than earlier forecasts.

That would allow more warm air to sneak in over Vermont aloft. It now looks like sleet will work its way north into at least central Vermont. If forecast trends continue,  at least a little sleeet would make it all the way to the Canadian border.

The mixed precipitation will be more of a factor the further south you go into Vermont. Everybody in the Green Mountain State will get a good thump of snow at the onset of the storm. Then chances of sleet or even freezing rain start to ramp up overnight Tuesday and into Wednesday morning.

I give it at least a 50/50 chance of some sleet, if not more, from Route 2 south. Sleet and possibly freezing rain is a given from Route 4 south. NOAA's Weather Prediction Center has a very slight chance of freezing rain all the way to the Canadian border in Vermont, and a greater than 50 percent chance of freezing rain along the Massachusetts border.

Wind flow with this storm is going to be strong from the southeast.  The wind will go up the east slopes of the Green and White mountains and then downhill on the west slopes. That means south and east facing slopes of the Green Mountains will have the heaviest precipitation. Eastern slopes of the southern Greens could easily see a good 10 to 12 inches of snow and sleet with this storm.

Downhill flowing air tends to dry out, so precipitation will be lighter along the west slopes of the Green Mountains, and in parts of the Northeast Kingdom in the "shadow" of New Hampshire's Whtie Mountains.

While official forecasts still call for eight to 12 inches of snow and maybe sleet accumulation in most of central and northern Vermont, accumulations could easily be cut back to five or six inches in a narrow band along the western slopes of the Green Mountains.

This would include Rutland, Middlebury, the eastern suburbs of Burlington, and rural towns in eastern Franklin County. Parts of the Northeast Kingdom, including St. Johnsbury and Lyndonville, would also have the snow totals cut back.

Along those western slopes, the winds could get quite strong as the head downhill. A wind advisory for gusts of 50 mph is up for this area Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning. The strongest winds would come through between 8 p.m. Tuesday and 3 a.m. Wednesday.

I wouldn't be surprised if some spots go well over 50 mph, with isolated gusts of 60 mph or more. So that spells trouble with a few trees and power lines.

That eight to 12 inch forecast in the northern half of Vermont might be cut back a bit if later forecasts indicate more sleet than current expectations. Expect a lousy commute Tuesday evening. Wednesday morning probably won't be a picnic, either.

The snow will taper off and become much lighter Wednesday. Some of the warmest valleys could see a few rain drops mix in, as temperatures go into the low and mid 30s. Snow showers will linger into Wednesday night with light accumulations.

Further south, this storm looks like it could spell really icy trouble, especially in southern Michigan, much of Pennsylvania, southeastern New York and into parts of southern New England. Travel will obviously be seriously hampered in these areas.

The worst hit areas are also going to have problems with trees, branches and power lines coming down Tuesday and Tuesday night.  Don't go to Pennsylvania and surrounding areas Tuesday and Tuesday night.

Another pretty substantial storm looks like it will hit us with more mixed precipitation and maybe plain rain Friday and Saturday, but we'll wait on more details before we get into that too much.

Record Warmth Today In Vermont, But It's Still Winter Here and Elsewhere

My St. Albans, Vermont yard looked like a winter wonderland
through Sunday. Today, after a thaw, it's looking like March, with
bare patches and branches littering the lawn.

Just before a cold front starting blustering through early this afternoon, the temperature in Burlington, Vermont reached 53 degrees, setting a new record for the date. The old record was 51 degrees in 1991.

A number of other weather stations in the Northeast and Ohio Valley set record high temperatures yesterday and today, so a lot of us got a break from winter.

Funny, our esteemed president used the so-called "polar vortex" last week to dismiss the idea of global warming. Why isn't he sounding the alarm about global warming today? After all, it was in the low 60s yesterday in Bennington, Vermont, which is supposedly part of the Great White North.

Maybe this yo-yo temperature pattern is proof that weather is not climate, but I'd had to complicate the president's day on the eve of his State Of The Union speech.

Anyway, it's still winter, despite the brief shot of springlike weather. Videos keep coming in to prove it. (A couple good ones are at the bottom of this post.)

For us in Vermont, the "heat wave" is over. It'll keep getting colder for the rest of the afternoon. It'll be below freezing for most of us by evening.

And, Oh joy! We've got more mixed precipitation on the horizon!

It looks like we're going to get a little more snow, sleet and freezing rain Wednesday afternoon into Thursday morning. It won't amount to much, but it's enough to be annoying on the roads.

The main storm with this upcoming messy spell of weather looks like it'll come in Thursday night and Friday morning. At this point, it seems this next storm will go by to our west, like the last one did, so it'll be primarily a rain event.  I don't think the rain will be super heavy, so flooding seems unlikely. Or if it does occur, it won't be extensive.

This being still winter, it'll get cold again this weekend, but nothing outlandish. Just normal wintertime chill.

Any unpleasant wintertime weather we get here in Vermont over the next few days pales in comparison to what other people are getting.

For instance, Chicago can't seem to catch a weather break lately.  After having warmed up from their record cold last week, now they're facing an ice storm warning for tonight. There might be enough freezing rain there tonight to down trees branches and power lines. What a mess!

If you like snow, head to the Sierra Nevada mountains. Gawd, it has snowed there!  June Mountain got a little under 11 feet of snow since Saturday, with six feet of that coming in just 24 hours. I can't even imagine shoveling that.

A bit of snow on the ground outside this Mammoth Mountain,
California ski lodge.

June Mountain is a ski resort, as are Mammoth Mountain and Kirkwood Mountain Resort. They actually had to close because there's too much snow.

The snow at Kirkwood Mountain is up to the bottoms of the ski lifts. Once the resorts dig out, I'm sure the skiing will be mighty fine there.

All this snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains is great news for California. During their epic drought a few years ago, there was hardly any snow in those mountains, which led to some near-water crises.

This spring and summer, all that snow will melt, and keep water reservoirs nice and full.

The weather pattern appears as if it's going to stay very active coast to coast at least for the next two weeks, with plenty of storms, and occasional Arctic cold shots here and there.

We'll just keep enjoying our big winter weather ride.

Now for some videos:

During last week's Arctic cold snap, there were numerous intense snow squalls across the Northeast. I love this compiliation of New York City snow squall time lapses. I especially like the street view one:



Here's a 24 hour time lapes of snow piling up in the Tahoe area. Note the cars in the background that keep getting stuck, but then are pushed out by other people: