Saturday Evening Vermont Snow Forecast: A Quick Thumping, Then Lighter

The flat, gray light of pre-snow St. Albsns, Vermont at around
3:30 p.m. today That smooth, gray look to the sky was snow falling
from the clouds, but evaporating before reaching the ground.
The air had to moisten more beore snow started reaching the
ground a the first flurries of this storm at around 4:30 p.m. 

As of 4 p.m Saturday, snow was spreading southwest to northeast across Vermont, as expected.

For hard core weather geeks like myself, this has been kind of an interesting afternoon. The snow spreading in from the southwest has been encountering very dry air over us.

It has actually been snowing high overhead in Vermont since late this morning or early afternoon, depending upon where you've been in the Green Mountain State.

That's why the outdoor light today has been flat and gray and rather dark.  

The snow moving in earlier today fell into dry air and evaporated.

But that snow has moistened a layer of the atmosphere high overhead. More snow comes in, and it's able to get through that now-moistened high level air air, then encounters the lower level dry air, and evaporates.

The air gets wetter and wetter going from way up high to down low, until the entire mass of air above us allows snow to reach the ground.

You could see that in northern Vermont, looking at the Adirondacks and Green Mountains during the mid and late afternoon. The mountaintops got blurry, indicating the falling snow was reaching the summits before evaporating at lower elevations,

Gradually, the blurriness headed lower and lower down the slopes until the snowflakes arrive in the valleys.

This is one of those storms in which, when the air finally gets moist enough to support snow without evaporation, we basically go from 0 mph to 100 mph. Light snow develops, then quickly becomes heavy.

So, as we go through the rest of the late afternoon and evening, expect light snow to start, then, after a fairly brief period of not so impressive snowfall, it'll  get pretty heavy pretty fast.  Look for snow fall rates lasting a couple hours or a little more of one inch per hour. That's not record breaking, but pretty impressive.

As this snow keeps going from southwest to northeast over Vermont, there will be that embedded band of heavy snow. It'll make you think we're going to get more snow than forecast, it will be coming down that hard.

But nope, snow totals are still expected to be in the the three to eight inch range, with locally more in far southern Vermont and in the mountains of central and northern Vermont.

This expected band of heavy snow this evening won't last that long in any one place. After a few hours, it will have passed through.

In southern Vermont, forecasters have generally cut back on the amount of snow expected. Most of far southern Vermont was originally expected to get a good six to 10 inches of snow with higher amounts in some spots. Now, it's looking like around four or five inches or snow in valleys like around Bennington and Brattleboro, with eight or nine inches up high in places like Wilmington and Dover.

After midnight, the snow will be lighter, more showery and not that big a deal starting after midnight.  So basically, this isn't a huge storm, but the timing is lousy for people who had Saturday evening dinner or show reservations in Vermont.

All this heavier stuff coming through this evening is actually in advance of the storm. The storm center itself will pass by over northern Vermont or just north of there tomorrow.

That'll bring in a fast flow of air from the west.  That air will have some wetness to it, and will pick up some additional moisture from the Great Lakes.

That means during the day Sunday, it'll keep snowing in the western Adirondacks. The the air will flow up and over the Adirondacks and down into the Champlain Valley and valleys of western Vermont.

Sinking air, like the stuff that will be coming down the slopes of the Adirondacks Sunday, tends to dry out.  So the valleys of western Vermont won't see too much more snow Sunday. Just some occasional snow showers. If we get some extra instability in the atmosphere, snow showers in those valleys might briefly come down relatively hard, but not last long, so it won't be a big deal. Just a dusting. Maybe an inch or two in favored spots.

Then the air has to rise again, going up the western slopes of the Green Mountains. Rising air cools, and wrings moisture from the atmosphere as it does so. Which means forecasters still expect snow to continue much of Sunday on those western slopes and on the summits. That's great for the ski areas, right?

It's been a cold day, with highs mostly in the low teens. It'll warm into the 20s overnight, and get to the 25-32 degree range Sunday morning before starting to fall off again in the afternoon.

Monday and Tuesday, we're still expecting a  run-of-the-mill January chilly spell with highs in the teens and lows near zero.  Don't worry, you'll survive. This is normally, on average, the coldest point of winter. The expected weather early in the week isn't even remotely close to how cold it can really get this time of year. We've often had mornings in the 20s and 30s below in Vermont in mid and late January. Zero degrees is a heat wave compared to that.

Plus, we'll  turn mild again starting Wednesday and especially beyond that. The good news, if you like snow on the ground,  is this doesn't look like it will be some huge January thaw again. Highs will reach the 30s in the valleys, causing some minimal melting but nothing scary. Mountains should hold on to their new snow just fine.

No real storms are expected until next Saturday at the earliest, and frankly, even that looks iffy.

Saturday Evening Vermont Storm Update: No Big Changes To Dangerous Forecast

Add caption

Don't let the record warm temperatures and bits of sunshine you experienced today in Vermont fool you, we are still in for a humdinger of a storm

Dangerous ice is still coming to the north of Vermont, especially the northern Champlain Valley. And far northern New York  is really going to get nailed with awful ice.

Much of the rest of Vermont is still in for some flooding.

By late afternoon, pretty heavy rain had worked itself into northern Vermont and it was gradually working its way to the south and east. That is the beginning of the end of the warmth, and the start of the freezing rain episode in the north.

The freezing rain won't start right away, but it will come tonight.

Let's set us up with what happened this afternoon. There were quite a few record highs this afternoon in New England, including around Vermont. Here are some of the records:

Burlington, Vermont: 59, beating 56 set in 1980
Montpelier, Vermont: 59, beating 52 set in 2014
Plattsburgh, New York: 53, beating 51 in 2017
Boston: 70 degrees; second warmest January day on record
Hartford, Connecticut: 67 degrees, third warmest day on record.

WHAT'S NEXT

I took this photo of the huge "Triplet Trees" in my St. Albans
back yard amid record warmth this morning. I took this possibly
final photo of the trees in case they were end up damaged or
destroyed in tonight's ice storm. I have no way
of knowing how they wil come out Hoping for the best! 

I would say there were more record highs in the North Country today than I expected. That does NOT mean it will be a little warmer than expected overnight.  So the ice is still coming.

If anything, it could possibly mean precipitation will be a tad heavier than expected, as the contrasting air masses involved with this storm are even a little more extreme than some had forecasted.

The cold air is starting to bleed in. Massena, New York, which would be the first place south of the  border with Canada to see the cold front actually saw it come through a little after 2 p.m. this afternoon, and temperatures there have been slowly falling ever since.

The cold front just barely came through around my place in St. Albans, Vermont at 5 p.m. this evening, accompanied by heavy rain. I'm writing this right at 5 p.m., and the gusty south winds we've had all day in St. Albans just turned to the northwest a couple minutes ago. The downward slide in temperature has begun.

The National Weather Service in South Burlington expects the rain to change to freezing rain in New York's St. Lawrence Valley and the northern tip of that state around 8 or 9 p.m. tonight. The northern Champlain Valley should go to freezing rain at around 10 or 11 p.m. tonight, and points south and east of there should go to freezing rain around midnight to 1 a.m. Sunday.

Places south and east of a line from a little north of Rutland to a little north of St. Johnsbury should get little if any freezing rain, if current forecasts come out right.

The low-level cold air coming down from Ontario and Quebec is about as cold as forecasts had been all along, so the freezing rain and ice damage in the north is most certainly on for later tonight and Sunday.

Forecasts for ice accumulation haven't changed much since this morning. Far northern New York still looks to get a disastrous one inch or so of ice accumulation, which would cause massive tree and power line damage.

The northern Champlain Valley is still in line to get a half inch to three quarters of an inch of ice, which will certainly also cause a lot of damage.  By the way, southern Quebec from Montreal south, and sections of Ontario are in line for a very destructive ice storm tonight, too.

There's a couple things going for us that will make a bad situation not as bad as it could be. One, instead of a long, drawn out few days of freezing rain, we'll get downpours overnight.  So much rain will come down that some of the water won't have time to freeze until it reaches the ground, or soaks in. That would cut down a little on how much ice accumulates.

There's also a chance the low level cold air could get a little thicker in altitude than forecast. If that happens, we'd get some sleet, which doesn't really accumulate on trees and power lines. That would be most likely in the far north. Pray for more sleet than expected, believe it or not. That would make things less bad than forecast. Don't count on it, though.

FLOODING

Flooding is obviously still a concern with this storm.  It's been raining pretty hard in northwestern Vermont since mid-afternoon and small streams have already become torrents, aided by snow melt in the record warm air earlier today.

Even in the ice zone, expect some flooding this evening. I notice the small streams around my area in Franklin County, Vermont are already flowing at pretty high and fast rates as of 5 p.m. Saturday.

Small stream and gully flooding will increase this evening and overnight across northern and central Vermont as the heavy rain continues.  That will translate to mainstem river flooding on Sunday. Most rivers in Vermont will at least crest at minor flood levels. Several rivers in northern and central Vermont are still expected to reach moderate flood state.  Flood watches remain in effect, obviously.

Temperatures will also stay quite warm in southern Vermont, maybe not dropping below the 55-60 range overnight.

I'll update tonight, maybe, if warranted, and try to do a comprehensive update Sunday morning. That is, if I have power. We'll see how that goes. If you don't hear from me tomorrow morning, I don't have power, and won't be able to post. I'll figure it out eventually if that happens.

Saturday Tornadoes Not Quite As Bad As Feared

A tornado emerges from the rain in
Slovak, Arkansas Saturday. 

There were at least 11 reports of tornadoes in a zone between Texas and Tennessee on Saturday, but we got through the outbreak of severe weather without any super strong tornadoes. More importantly, there were not reports of deaths, either.

In the zone where most of the worst tornadoes were expected - northern Mississippi and western Tennessee, there was definitely some severe weather and a few tornadoes, but forecasts of large tornadoes didn't come to pass.

That's the kind of slightly off forecast I like. The moisture, atmospheric lift and wind shear just didn't come together perfectly enough to create a really bad tornado outbreak, and we can all be thankful for that.

There was damage and there were injuries with this storm system. In Arkansas, two mobile homes were destroyed and two occupants of one of them suffered minor injuries.

Some homes suffered quite a bit of  damage around Mesquite, Texas, near Dallas, due to a relatively weak tornado. Additional damage was reported in northern Louisiana, northern Mississippi and parts of Tennessee.

Video from Springhill, Louisiana, which you can see below, shows a tornado damaging buildings in an area of strip malls and businesses.

But this was not the disaster a lot of people feared.

Of course, this is the beginning of tornado season, so there's more to worry about. There's a risk of severe weather and tornadoes Tuesday in Texas, and in part of the South Wednesday, but preliminary forecasts don't call for a huge outbreak. After that, it looks like it will be relatively quiet in the severe weather department until at least March 24 or so.

Here's a video of a relatively weak, but still damaging tornado, and its aftermath, Saturday in Springhill, Louisiana:

New England Remains Weird Tornado Alley, And The Secret Queens, New York Twister

Extensive tornado damage in Webster, Massachusetts Saturday.

More tornadoes hit New England Saturday morning, continuing an incredible year of severe weather in the region. Meanwhile, the nation as a whole is having a quiet, relatively calm tornado year.

Here's a statistic that's pretty wild: New England has had 12 tornadoes so far this year. Oklahoma, the  heart of tornado alley, has also had a total of 12 tornadoes this year. There have been years in which Oklahoma has had more than 12 tornadoes in a week.

Small sized Connecticut is really tornado ground zero this year. They've had six twisters. There have been three tornadoes in Massachusetts and three in New Hampshire. So far, Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont have had no tornadoes, but they've had close misses

Here in Vermont, on two occasions, on May 4 and possibly on Friday, tornadoes touched down in western New Hampshire near the Vermont border from storms that were already rotating as they passed over the Green Mountain State.

The yellow and red streaks in this map show where there were
rotating thunderstorms in New England Friday and Saturday.
Most of the time, the rotation does not result in tornadoes,
but occasionally it happens. Notice the streaks of rotation
in far southern Vermont. No tornado reports, there though. 

Another May 4 storm showed significant rotation and seemed ready to drop a twister in far northern Vermont. But the circulation passed near the high hills and mountains around Jay Peak, and the rotation was disrupted. Thankfully, no tornado.

SATURDAY TWISTERS, MAYBE FRIDAY, TOO?

Two tornadoes hit New England Saturday. The first, in Woodstock, Connecticut, was weak, short lived and caused little damage. However, the supercell that caused the Connecticut tornado dropped a stronger one on the towns of Webster and Dudley, Massachusetts. 

A pair of buildings in Webster were so damaged by the EF-1 tornado that they had to be torn down. Other homes and businesses also suffered damage. It was almost an EF-2 tornado, as the National Weather Service office in Boston, Massachusetts said it had 100 to 110 mph winds. EF-2 tornadoes have winds of 111 to 135 mph.

Friday, a funnel cloud was spotted not far from Keene, New Hampshire. A photo that looks like a funnel touching the ground near Troy, New Hampshire circulated on social media. If it was indeed a funnel that landed, it would be New Hampshire's fourth tornado this year, and New England's thirteenth.

The rotating storm that prompted the New Hampshire funnel earlier very briefly had a particularly strong circulation in a remote area west of Putney, Vermont. If a tornado touched ground in that spot, it's likely nobody would know about it since no-oe was around and the spot is likely not easily accessible. Some tree damage was reported in southeastern Vermont Friday,  but that damage looks like it was caused by straight line winds, not a tornado.

MORE SEVERE WEATHER?

More severe storms are possible in far northern New England Monday, and in much of the region Tuesday and possibly Wednesday. Nobody is talking tornadoes at this point, but the way this year is going, who knows?

Monday's possible storms will be created by a weak weather disturbance brushing past the Canadian border. With very hot, humid air in place, isolated strong to locally severe storms could erupt late in the afternoon or evening north of Route 2 in Vermont, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and northwestern Maine.

Possible funnel cloud or brief tornado near Troy, New Hampshire Friday.

A cold front approaching from the west will start to run into the hot, humid air Tuesday. Depending on when the front makes its approach, that could trigger additional strong storms. But if the cold front holds off more until Wednesday, the storms are less likely.

On Wednesday, the cold front will still be drifting through eastern New England, possibly triggering strong storms there.

QUEENS, NY SECRET TORNADO

Another tornado touched down late Thursday night in Queens, New York. I'm calling it secret, though the National Weather Service did its due diligence. They issued a tornado warning for that area before the twister touched down.

Mystifyingly, for such a populated area, no TV station that I know of in the New York metro area cut into regular programming to announce the warning. That lack of action is dangerous, since people would be out and about in such a populated area.

I know people get annoyed with severe weather warnings interrupting television programming, especially when the storms aren't particularly close to the person watching the tube. But there's no technology for television stations to limit their warning broadcasts to a small specific area. And I'd rather people be warned about incoming danger, even if I don't immediately learn who won the latest episode of "America's Got Talent."

The lack of broadcast warnings in New York might be due to the fact there was no time for hyping the oncoming bad weather. There was no tornado watch issued hours beforehand, because forecasters knew any severe weather would be brief and localized.

In the end, the Queens tornado was rather weak, an EF-0 with 70 to 85 mph winds, says the National Weather Service in New York. It caused some siding and roof damage on a few buildings, and knocked down dozens of trees, especially in a local park. No injuries were reported.