Matt's Weather Rapport is written by Vermont-based journalist and weather reporter Matt Sutkoski. This blog has a nationwide and worldwide focus, with particular interest in Vermont and the Northeast. Look to Matt's Weather Rapport for expert analysis of weather events, news, the latest on climate change science, fun stuff, and wild photos and videos of big weather events. Also check for my frequent quick weather updates on Twitter, @mattalltradesb
I've seen all kinds of weather on Christmas Eve and Christmas. Snow, cold, wind, clouds, rain, sleet, freezing rain, you name it.
Sometimes there's been a little patchy fog, like when it's raining. But this time of year, there's usually not much in the way of dense fog. It's most common on still summer and autumn mornings, especially during periods of wet weather.
It's usually too windy and too brisk for much fog to form around Christmas. Which made the song "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" confuse me when I was a kid. (It can certainly be foggy often in other parts of the world this time of year, but I didn't think about that).
Anyway, I felt an element of surprise Christmas Eve and this morning while on my visit with relatives in Yankton, South Dakota over the dense fog that has enveloped the area this morning.
The fog was widespread over the northern Plains, parts of the Great Lakes and elsewhere this morning. Some of it is freezing fog, which is making trees beautiful and frosty, but slickening roads. Here in Yankton, it was a tad above freezing, so there's no ice out there. But it was still tricky on the roads, as visibility was lousy.
Still, based on evidence found under Christmas trees throughout Yankton, it looks like Santa did manage to break through the fog with the help of Rudolph and successfully deliver all the presents.
Reports are the fog did not hinder Santa anywhere. Which is to be expected.
As I said, it is an unusual weather pattern for Christmas. One that will break up as more wind and storminess starts to glide across the country, returning us to a more normal weather pattern, relativelly speaking.
It's a toasty last day of summer here in Vermont with highs expected to reach the low 80s today, which is a good 15 degrees above normal.
After you enjoy what might be the last 80 degree weather until next spring, we have some weather videos for you on this relatively quiet weather day.
Tornadoes hit Sioux Falls, South Dakota earlier this month. Here is surveillance video from inside a pretty large pizza restaurant that was hit:
The United States gets epic hail storms pretty often, but we haven't cornered the market. Here's one this past week in Guarpuava, Brazil that looks impressive:
Ready for winter? "Snowliage" in Ivanovo, Russia this week:
Finally, a rather unpleasant storm in Baton Rouge, Lousiana this past week. Video by Landon Dinecola via Storyful
Gorgeous sunset over northwestern Vermont last Sunday. This is a photo
I took from a hot air balloon.
We here in Vermont and the rest of the New England have been blessed by what has so far been a gorgeous September.
With few exceptions, we've had lots of sunny, pleasant days. Temperatures have generally been a tad cooler than normal, but not by much. Aside from a couple windy days that brought down a few branches, nothing bad has happened.
This pattern is going to continue, except with some re-arrangements that will make warmer than normal temperatures more likely into early October. There will be episodes of rain and or wind thrown in for the next couple of weeks, but the sunshine seems like it might dominate.
This weather situation has been great for us. For much of the rest of the nation, not so much. On two occasions already this month, the pattern has steered two tropical systems into the United States, with destructive results.
The pattern has also emphasized storminess in the central and northern Plains. Record flooding hitting parts of South Dakota and Iowa earlier this month, andtornadoes swept through Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Flash flooding and a possible tornado hit eastern North Dakota overnight. Meanwhile, the remnants of now-Hurricane Lorena, which is near Baja California, could unleash flash floods and severe thunderstorms in Arizona early next week.
A big, fat ridge of high pressure mostly centered in the east-central United States has been responsible for this pattern. Under this ridge, in the South and Tennessee Valleys, heat has broken hundreds of records and many cities look like they will have their hottest September on record.
(The fact that the high pressure ridge in the jet stream has been generally centered just west and south of New England has allowed cooler pushes of air to sneak down the front side of the ridge through Quebec and Ontario and on into New England).
With the ridge in the east, there's a corresponding dip in the jet stream over the western United States. That has produced some rare thunderstorms in places like Seattle this month.
There are signs that the jet stream dip in the West could sharpen in the coming days, opening up the possibillity of unusually strong rain storms for this early in the season, and an odd amount of early season snow in parts of the Rockies.
So yeah, us Vermonters can really rejoice in the great weather we've had, considering we've been almost surrounded by all kinds of yucky and even dangerous conditions.
Enjoy it while you can, because I have an adage that has always worked: No great weather in Vermont goes unpunished. We will get our comeuppance soon enough. What form that will take is anybody's guess.
Potential Tropical Cyclone #9 building steam this morning near the Bahamas
and likely to become Tropical Storm Humberto within a couple days.
This is so, so NOT what the northern Bahamas needs.
Things are still in full crisis mode in the devastated northern islands of the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian a couple weeks back.
Now, the same area is under a tropical storm warning.
Normally, the Bahamas can manage a "mere" tropical storm, but torrential rains and winds in excess of 39 mph are going to make a terrible situation worse.
The culprit is something now called"Potential Tropical Cyclone #9." This is the National Hurricane Center's way of alerting the public to a near-term threat from a developing system that hasn't quite made it to tropical storm intensity. Yet.
Forecasts for Potential Tropical Cyclone #9 are still all over the place, but it appears, just like Dorian, it will slowly, grindingly head through the Bahamas and probably near the Florida east coast. The only good news is it won't be a Category 5 hurricane. Chances are, it will stay below hurricane strength.
Given the uncertain forecast for the path of this wannabe tropical storm, I'm sure there will be updates and changes to its expected impacts.
SOUTH DAKOTA FLOODS
South Dakota cannot seem to catch a break this year. Or last year even.
Last year was among the wettest on record in parts of South Dakota. This year is even wetter. All this was made worse by widespread downpours this week. A large part of southeastern South Dakota received four to as much as ten inches of rain in 48 hours earlier this week.
Widespread flooding is occurring in South Dakota. Parts of the Big Sioux River reached record high levels. The previous highest flood along the river near Dell Rapids was set just a few months ago in March, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports.
Parts of Interstate 90 in eastern South Dakota also shut down because of flooding. Much of the town of Madison was under water Thursday after six to 10 inches of rain fell in the area.
Sioux Falls has had 34 inches of rain so far this year. Normally, only 20 inches or so should have fallen by now. It's been so wet that parts of the James River between Huron and Yankton have been continuously above flood stage since March.
Video of Madison, South Dakota is at the bottom of this post. VERMONT WIND
Once we get into autumn, cold fronts and storms can cause relatively strong winds in Vermont, especially when south winds funnel up the Champlain Valley.
This type of thing looks like it will happen late Friday night and Saturday, when gusts in the Champlain Valley could reach 45 mph.
Leaves are still on the trees, obviously. In strong winds, the leaves act like little sails, catching the wind and bending branches more than if the foliage was already on the ground. This makes it more likely we'll see a few scattered trees and branches down and a few spot power failures.
This won't be a major event - no big destruction with this. But don't be surprised if your yard is littered with twigs and branches by Saturday evening.
VIDEO:
Here's a drone video of serious flooding in Madison, South Dakota:
This home in Sioux Falls, South Dakota was destroyed by last night's tornado. Photo by KELO-TV
This is one of the biggest nightmare scenarios for meteorologists:
A large tornado, hidden by curtains of rain moves through a large city late at night when most people are in bed or otherwise not paying attention to possible warnings.
This scenario became reality in Sioux Falls, South Dakota last nightwhen at least one tornado. accompanied by 100 mph straight winds and flash flooding, swept through South Dakota's largest city at around 11:30 local time last night.
Here's one scenario that gives meteorologists nightmares. Even Todd Heitkamp, lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Sious Falls described last night's situation in those terms.
Despite the fact there is extensive damage - at least 37 buildings either collapsed or have a compromised structural integrity - there are so far no reports of deaths from the tornado or tornadoes in Sioux Falls. There are some reports of injuries.
An Advance Auto Parts store in Sioux Falls, South Dakota collapsed during last night's tornado.
The greatest damage from the tornado seems to be along and east of Interstate 29 a little south of downtown Sioux Falls. Early images coming from the area show a collapsed Advance Auto Parts Store.
The Sioux Falls Argus Leader reportedat least part of the roof blew the Avera Behavioral Health Hospital's roof. The city's mayor asked people to stay home early this morning rather than risk injury by driving through debris-strewn streets.
The National Weather Service in Sioux Falls had asked South Dakota residents to be on the lookout for severe weather all day. Tornado warnings were going up all evening. The one for Sioux Falls was issued at 11:27 p.m. and tornado reports started coming in at 11:38 p.m.,the Argus Leader reported.
So it appears warnings worked, despite the late hour. NWS meteorologists in Sioux Falls will investigate the damage today, to see how many tornadoes actually touched down. Early reports suggest 100 mph straight line winds and not a tornado caused most of the damage.
On top of the tornadoes, torrential rains of three to six inches fell on already waterlogged areas of eastern South Dakota from Yankton and Vermillion, all the way up through Sioux Falls and Brookings.
I'm familiar with Sioux Falls because I often fly into their airport to visit relatives in Yankton, to the south of Sioux Falls. I'm very happy to see reports from Yankton that the storms weren't that bad there, with just some minor flooding and thunderstorm wind gusts of around 40 mph.
Some video:
A destroyed home in Sioux Falls
A drive around Sioux Falls shows lots of damage. Especially to trees. Most Sioux Falls neighborhoods have lots of trees.
A thunderstorm over Lake Champlain on August 6. More showers and
storms are likely today, and they will be scattered around most days
between now and Thursday in Vermont and surrounding areas.
UPDATE 2:30 PM SATURDAY
Thunderstorms were firing up around the Northeast and some of them are proving to be nasty.
As of 2:30 p.m., nothing major had hit Vermont yet, but I'm still pretty confident there will be a few scattered severe storms.
Some areas outside of Vermont are getting nailed. There was a tornado warning east of Syracuse, NY as of 2:30 p.m.
Flash flood warnings popped up northeast of Albany, New York and in southeastern Connecticut due to torrential rains.
Most of northwestern New Hampshire is under a flash flood watch due to expected heavy rains this evening.
So yeah, most of us in Vermont won't have it too bad, but a few of us will likely get some damaging winds, dangerous lightning and perhaps a local flash flood. Heed warnings and keep an eye to the skies!
PREVIOUS DISCUSSION
Since late Thursday night, occasional rounds of hit and miss thunderstorms have been roaming through Vermont and northern New York.
If you like this type of thing, you're in luck. This state of affairs looks to continue at least into Wednesday.
There might be times during this period where some afternoon and evening storms in Vermont and the rest of the North Country could become strong to severe, but it's hard to pinpoint if or exactly when and where that would happen much in advance.
The closer you are to the event, the better handle you have on things. So the forecast for today can be spelled out pretty well. We have to hope that everybody gets some good rains eventually out of this. Some parts of Vermont are wet enough, but others could stand some decent downpours.
The showers and storms have been caused by a series of disturbances zipping along in a general west to east flow over us. The last disturbance was heading out of eastern Vermont early this morning after scattering a few showers and storms here and there overnight
The next disturbance, riding hard on the heels of the first one, should get here this afternoon and evening. The area of rain and showers with this disturbance was getting into western New York as of 9 a.m. and heading steadily east. It looks as if the showers and storms will be pretty numerous between, say 1 and 8 p.m., but as always in this type of situation, not everybody is going to get it.
There's a lot of clouds left over this morning from last night's activity. If the skies clear decently, that will help the sun heat things up and increase the instability. This, in turn could lead to some storms turning strong, even maybe severe in one or two spots.
Most of us won't get a severe storm, but a couple towns might. So you'll want to be in a spot today where you can quickly get to a good shelter if you see a storm coming, or hear a severe thunderstorm warning or special weather statement.
If we get very little sun, there will be a lesser chance of strong storms but still a risk of heavy downpours, lightning, that sort of thing.
As an aside, my friends and relatives over in South Dakota really ought to watch the skies today and tonight. Out there, a greater chance of big time Plains storms exists. The biggest threats out there are very damaging winds and huge hailstones. A couple tornadoes will probably also touch down.
Back here in Vermont, Sunday, at least the way it looks now, is shaping up to be the better of the two weekend days. We'll be between weather disturbances, so there won't be much of a trigger for any additional rounds of showers and storms.
However, I'm sure by now you've noticed the humidity creeping up. That trend will continue through tomorrow and on into the beginning of the work week. With the humidity around along with subtle ripples in the atmosphere and updrafts near mountains, there will probably be a few widely scattered showers and storms Sunday afternoon, but most of us won't get anything.
It'll stay generally very warm and humid until at least Wednesday, with daily chances of more storms. As I said before, it's too soon to say whether any of them will be strong or severe. There's hope that a cold front will come through later Wednesday or Thursday to drop both the temperature and the humidity.
It's getting toward the end of summer, so we will only have a few more of these humid spells before autumn arrives.
Almost all of those orange, red and burgundy shades on today's National Weather Service map represent heat warnings, advisories and watches.
Excessive heat warnings and watches have expanded over a huge section of the United States today, covering an area from the central Plains to the Ohio Valley and on to parts of the East Coast.
More heat warnings and advisories will go up in the coming days in the eastern half of the country as the hot spell takes hold. I'll update Vermont impacts a bit further down.
This is a particularly humid one. The air is tropical. Many areas subjected to this heat wave have had lots and lots of rain in recent months. So that will add moisture to the air.
The high humidity, then, will be the danger part of this heat wave. There will probably be only a few afternoon record high temperatures during this, as there have been more intense heat waves.
But the incredible humidity will not allow temperatures to fall much at night. Forecasters expect a lot of new records for warmest overnight lows. This is a dangerous type of heat wave. Drier heat waves create hotter afternoon temperatures, but readings quickly cool at night.
Humid ones like this spell keep nighttime temperatures up. That gives people without air conditioning no break. It wears people down, especially those with underlying health problems.
By the way, heat waves are not the kind of disasters you see on television. They are not telegenic. But heat is usually the Number One killer of all types of bad weather in the United States. Heat in most years is deadlier than floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards and lightning.
As expected, the heat contributes to pockets of severe thunderstorms if there are any disturbances or weather boundaries around to act as triggers.
On particularly nasty batch of thunderstorms went across South Dakota and on into Iowa early this morning.
I'm sure my relatives in Yankton, South Dakota were around 6 a.m. local time today by a storm that had warnings of winds that could gust to 80 mph. A tornado warning was in effect for a time just northeast of Yankton.
A wind gust of 89 mph was reported in Parkston, South Dakota, west of Sioux Falls, early this morning.
There will continue to be pockets of locally severe storms around the edges of this heat wave. Today, the risk zones are in the northern and central Plains, western Great Lakes, southern New England, the NYC metro area and parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
There will be pockets of severe weather here and there on the northern fringes of the heat wave through Saturday.
The humid air also raises the risk of flash floods. You can get an incredible amount of rain in a short period of time. I don't think there will be widespread areas of flooding, like we just had with Tropical Storm Barry, but some individual towns will get nailed.
VERMONT IMPACTS
The humidity is here, and so is the rain, as the last of Barry's remnants sweep by. As of 9 a.m. this morning the first batch of rain was already beginning to taper off in western areas of Vermont, but more is on the way.
It won't rain all day, but there will be a constant threat of showers and some afternoon thunderstorms. With this juicy air, some of the storms will produce torrential downpours.
Rainfall totals will be uneven as a result. Some areas might only get less than a half an inch of rain today or even less, while others who get bullseyed by downpours clock in with up to two inches.
This might be enough to cause a few local water problems. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington says there won't be any widespread flooding, but a few small streams and creeks could get a little wild. If a downpour hits a more urban area, we run the risk of some street flooding. (You know the drill: If the road is flooded, don't drive through it!)
A very weak cold front will actually give us some slight relief from the humidity late tonight and much of Thursday, which will be a rather quiet day.
Then Friday comes. So does the heat. I won't be at all surprised if we go under a heat advisory on Friday. The heat index by then could go up to 95 degrees or a little higher.
Such extreme heat and humidity mean thunderstorms can develop explosively. But there won't be much in the way of triggers to set them off on Friday. A cap of warm air will largely prevent clouds from billowing upward, so that will make it hard for storms to form
It's possible that clouds could break through the cap in a few spots in the late afternoon and evening, so a few strong storms could fire up toward the end of the day. Most spots won't get a storm, but the few places that do could get strong gusty winds and heavy downpours.
Saturday looks downright ugly. First of all, we will have (hopefully!) survived a very hot, humid Friday night. Then the temperature will once again get up to 90 or so Saturday afternoon, with heat indexes well into the 90s.
A cold front will be approaching from the northwest on Saturday meaning we have a good shot of some strong or severe thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening We'll have to keep an eye on that, because it could get nasty.
The good news is that cold front is the start of a weather pattern change that will gradually drop temperatures to comfortable levels during the first half of next week.
A sad aerial view of farmland in Illinois, near the Indiana border. Image via Twitter by Chad Colby @TheChadColby
I've begun my annual late spring/early summer sabbatical in Yankton, South Dakota and I was very dismayed by the landscape as our plane began its descent Friday afternoon into the airport in Sioux Falls.
It was May 31, and most of the expansive fields beneath us hadn't been planted yet. Too wet. The Big Sioux River had also spread out into rich farmland, forming a long lake near Sioux Falls. The Big Sioux River is now way, way too big.
This was all a testament to how incredibly wet it has been in the middle of the nation. Shockingly, this swampy scene in southeastern South Dakota is nothing compared to incredible rains in floods just to the south, in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and other states.
Yes, it's been quite wet in my home state of Vermont (more on that further down in this post) but the never-ending rains are just overwhelming for millions of people in the Plains and Midwest.
MIDWEST SWAMPED
The Weather Channel saysthat parts of southern Kansas picked up about 60 percent of their normal annual rainfall in May alone.
Kansas City had more than a foot of rain, good enough to make this May the wettest on record and the third wettest of any month. Bartlesville, Oklahoma had more than 15 inches of rain during the month. Some pockets of northeastern Oklahoma reported more than 20 inches of rain during May.
As you've seen on the news, record, devastating flooding continues, especially along the Arkansas River in Oklahoma and Arkansas. NPR reports that Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said the Arkansas River flood is costing the state $23 million a day. The flooding will go on for at least a week - if it doesn't rain. Unfortunately, the area around the river can expect another one to five inches of rain over the next week, with locally higher amounts.
Levees built 60 years ago along the Arkansas River were not designed to withstand a flood this high, and lasting this long. The longer the flooding lasts, the more water can seep into the levees, which can cause failures. The Arkansas River has been high since March.
Even worse for the overall national economy, much of the Mississippi River has been flooding since March. It's the longest flood on the mighty river since 1927. When this river floods, barges can't move along the river. Farmers who actually have fields dry enough to plant can't because critical seeds, fertilizers and other supplies that normally come up on barges along the Mississippi can't, reports Fox News.
The Mississippi has been blocked by flooding so that locks and dams don't work between St. Paul, Minnesota and St. Louis, Missouri. "We have never had the river closed for this long in a single year, Tom Heinfold, chief of operations for the U.S Army Corps of Engineers told Fox News.
WET VERMONT
Storm clouds gather over Lake Champlain near St. Albans on May 10. It was a wet day in a very wet month.
The situation has not been nearly as desperate in Vermont. There's really no flooding of note during May.
Lake Champlain had been in minor flood stage all month, just yesterday finally falling below flood stage for the first time since April 20. It was the second longest flood recorded on Lake Champlain. Only the epic flood of 2011 lasted longer.
The Lake Champlain flood sustained itself through May because of the incessant rains in Vermont and New York. Burlington had 5.15 inches of rain during May, which is 1.7 inches above normal. That's not any kind of record, but the rain was consistent. Measurable rain fell on 19 days during the month.
It was also cool and cloudy, which helped prevent evaportation. The mean temperature in Burlington ws 54.9 degrees, which was 1.4 degrees cooler than normal.
It was even wetter and colder in eastern Vermont. Montpelier had 5.75 inches of rain which is 2.38 inches above normal. Temperatures in the Capital City ran three degrees colder than normal for May.
St. Johnsbury takes the prize for a miserable May. They had 7.04 inches of rain in May, which is 3.68 inches above normal and has to make this May among the top 10 wettest on record there. St. Johnsbury also had a bone chilling May, with the temperature running four degrees colder than normal.
CLIMATE CHANGE FOOTPRINTS
The nation's wet weather is consistent with climate change. Yes, a hotter world can make droughts worse, because if there are no handy storms around to drop rain, the higher temperatures encourage evaporation, drying things out faster.
(As an example, northwestern Vermont had a very humid summer last year, but had few storm systems to interact with the humidity. The summer was also record hot, so the combination of heat and missed opportunities for storms made us temporarily fall into a drought.)
But hotter air can hold more moisture. If there are storms that create lift in the atmosphere, you're going to get precipitation. If there's more "precipitable water" as they call it in the air because of a warming climate, it will rain harder.
As NPR reports:"According to the most recent National Climate Assessment, 'The frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events across the United States have increased,' especially in the northern and central parts of the country. That means, although this flood is breaking records across the central U.S., it may not be the last time officials, in infrastructure, will be forced to deal with a disaster of this magnitude. On the Arkansas River, levees were built more than 60 years ago in most cases, and were not necessarily designed to withstand the kind of constant onslaught of high water that comes with a multiweek flood."
This flood is all part of a recent trend, we can say that. Last year was the wettest on record for the nation as a whole. This year, at least so far, is giving that 2018 wet record a run for its money.
Darlington, Wisconsin is just one of many communities in the middle of the nation being hit hard by serious flooding now.
This past week's big storm is gone and the nation has mercifully entered a period of quiet weather.
The large storm's last gasp was a round oflocally severe thunderstorms last eveningfrom southern New England through the Middle Atlantic states along the system's dying cold front.
There were reports of hail the size of half dollars in Newtown, Connecticut and numerous reports of storm-toppled trees in Pennsylvania.
In the Plains, the weather has turned sunny with light winds in areas affeced by the blizzard and flooding. But rivers in the region, including parts of the Missouri, have or are experiencing record crests.
Potential danger lies ahead of course. In the short term across our region, flood watches remain in effect today in much of Vermont and northern New York. It's much cooler today, but runoff continues from Friday's snow melt. That's making rivers rise enough to loosen ice, and the risk of ice jam flooding continues through the day today.
Flood damage in Nebraska as seen in this photo by Nebraska State Police
Elsewhere, in the somewhat longer term, the northern reaches of Minnesota and Wisconsin still have tons of snow, so that could create some more serious flooding later in the spring.
Up in Montana, Idaho and some other parts of the Rocky Mountains, tremendous amounts of snow fell during a frigid February and early March. That has National Weather Service offices there putting out alerts to the public for the flood potential later on.
All that snow and ice seems destined to create flooding in Montana, especially if there's a fast warm-up. This would also cause another unwelcome surge of water down the Missouri River, which means there could be another destructive crest in eastern South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa later this spring.
Some snow melted in far northern New England, but there's a lot left, especially in northern Maine so that will have to be monitored.
But right now, people are focused on the immediate aftermath of this past week's monster storm, including continued flooding in Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin, among other places.
There are, of course, lots of videos, and we have some samples below.
This view taken the day after the blizzard looks post-apocalyptic with all the abandoned cars, the low sun and the drifting snow on a flat landscape:
Here's a montage of scenes from the Colorado blizzard:
Drone video of flooding in Nebraska:
Another aerial shot showing how widespread the Nebraska flooding is. This is the city of North Bend:
Winds gusting to 80 mph or more in Colorado during Wednesday's
blizzard caused plenty of damage. Photo by Victor Loya via KDVR
Weather geeks like me everywhere are scraping their jaws off the floor this morning watching that epic storm in the middle of the nation.
The wind, the flooding, the blizzard and the low barometric pressure truly make this a historic storm. The howler is beginning to weaken now, but is still powerful enough to raise more havoc today.
There will be some effects of this in Vermont that we'll want to watch, but it won't be anything like the zone that was really hit. So we'll get into that first. (Some pretty wild videos are at the bottom of this post.)
INCREDIBLE WINDS
The winds are what impressed me the most out of this storm, though there was a lot to leave us impressed. Storms on the High Plains in Colorado, Nebraska, Texas and elsewhere often feature some big wind gusts, but this was beyond the pale.
Here are some wind gust reports:
96 mph in Colorado Springs and Peterson AFB.
92 mph near Glen Haven, Colorado
89 mph in Hemingford, Nebraska and Cheraw, Colorado
88 mph La Junta, Colorado
80 mph Limon, Colorado, where the wind gusted to at least 67 mph for nine consecutive hours
80 mph Amarillo, Texas
As you can imagine, there was a lot of wind damage. Plenty of roofs were damaged, Many tractor trailer trucks were blown off highwaysand countless trees blew down. A 26-car train derailed near Logan, New Mexico, largely because the wind shoved it off the tracks. The air traffic control tower at the Amarillo, Texas airport was evacuated because 80 mph gusts were blowing the siding off the building.
BLIZZARD
The blizzard associated with this giant storm, especially in Colorado, collected a lot of the news headlines. The storm basically shut down Colorado.
In Denver, 1,350 flights were canceled. Much of Interstates 80, 25, 76 and 70 shut down. (In Nebraska and South Dakota, flooding closed parts of Interstates 29 and 90. More on that in a bit.)
The National Guard had to rescue more than 1,000 people stranded on roads in Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska, the Weather Channel reported. A Colorado State Patrol corporal was hit and killed by a vehicle whil trying to help a stranded motorist in Weld County, Colorado. More than a dozen vehicles were in a pileup elsewhere in Colorado.
Blizzard warnings remained in effect this morning from the northeastern corner of Colorado all the way up through the eastern half of North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota.
FLOODING
Flooding Wednesday in Yankton, South Dakota. Photo by
Kelly Hertz, Yankton Press & Dakotan
Heavy rain and snow melt really caused some problems, especially in eastern Nebraska, eastern South Dakota and western Iowa.
Yankton, South Dakota reported nearly three inches of rain, which fell on melting snow and frozen ground. Serious flooding erupted there.
Rivers throughout northeastern Nebraska, southeastern South Dakota and northwestern Iowa are at major flood stage or soon will be.
In many of the flooded areas in this region, rain was changing to snow this morning and winds were picking up, adding to the misery.
MORE BAD WEATHER
On the bright side, no tornadoes were reported with this mega-storm on Wednesday. There were at least a half dozen of them in New Mexico and Texas on Tuesday.
The bigger risk is strong straight line winds, but winds are changing big time in direction and speed with height from Ohio and Indiana south through Kentucky and Tennessee. That's a recipe for at least some tornadoes. That will have to be watched today. A tornado watch was already up in parts of Tennessee and Mississippi this morning.
HERE IN VERMONT
Once again in our constant winter, a small weather disturbance over produced with snow last evening. That's the second time this has happened in the past three days. Burlington received 3.4 inches of snow, as opposed to forecasts of an inch.
All this just increases slightly the amount of snow on the ground that will need to melt. The big storm in the middle of the country is finally pumping warm air up into our neck of the woods today. Eventually, high temperatures will get to near 50 degrees this afternoon.
This warm air is fairly humid. Snow melts faster when the air is wet than when the air is dry. Moreover, it will stay above freezing overnight and readings will soar well into the 50s on Friday.
Some showers will pass through Vermont Friday morning as well.
This isn't a recipe for widespread flooding, but ice jams are a real hazard over the next few days. River ice is thick. Runoff from the melting snow will make rivers rise, dislodging some of the ice. The ice will start moving downstream and in some cases, jam up.
This means a few areas in and near Vermont could easily have some sudden ice jam floods Friday and Saturday. That's why aflood watch is up for the region.
Beyond this storm, most of the nation, including the hard-hit middle of the nation, and here in Vermont, will get a break from the wild weather. Colorado, and the flood zone in the upper Mississippi Valley will have about a week of mostly dry weather.
We'll need that time to take a deep breath, right?
Some videos:
Here's a clip of the blizzard in Colorado Springs. What strikes me about the video is how loud this blizzard is, given the strong wind gusts:
Next up: One of several tractor trailers being blown off a highway due to the very strong winds:
I go out to Yankton, South Dakota at least once a year to visit relatives. So I recognize most of the landmarks in this video of some substantial flooding in Yankton:
The giant storm in the Plains already looked really wound up shortly after dawn this morning.
That big storm we've been talking about continues to raise havoc over the middle of the nation.
The storm spun off a couple ofrelatively rare tornadoes in southeastern New Mexico, causing six injuries and a lot of damage in the town of Dexter. Another dramatic-looking tornado passed near the town of Loving.
Today, the focus is on the Plains, from near the Front Range of the Rockies out to near the Mississippi River.
It'll be a blizzard to the west, transitioning to a flood further east. And a TON of wind.
Yesterday was actually a lovely day in eastern Colorado. Temperatures reached the 60s with at least a little sun.
Today, rain will change to snow in Colorado and a blizzard will set in across the northeastern part of the state, including the cities of Denver and Colorado Springs. Further out into the Colorado Plains, where winds during tonight's blizzard could gust to a whopping 75 mph.
A rare, large tornado neaer Hagerman, in southeastern New Mexico on Tuesday.
Obviously, travel is not recommended later today and tonight in Colorado, and in other areas that will get an intense blizzard out of this.
This blizzard zone also includes the eastern half of Wyoming, western Nebraska, western and central South Dakota, central and eastern North Dakota and the northwestern tip of Minnesota.
In parts of western South Dakota, up to two feet of snow might fall with winds gusting to 60 mph. That's pretty damn extreme.
There won't be as much snow further east, but the wind will certainly howl as the storm reaches its deepest barometric pressure, which might set records in Kansas tonight. Winds gusting to at least 75 mph could hit portions of northern Texas, western Oklahoma and the western half of Kansas tonight.
Along and near the big storm's path, there's an ugly variety of weather planned. As an example, let's look at Yankton, South Dakota, where many of my relatives live.
High winds overnight collapsed this communications tower near Abilene, Texas. Photo by Joe Fry via Twitter.
This morning, Yankton and environs is under aflood warning, due to snow melt and an expected inch of rain.
Snow and rain mixed now will change to rain. The melting snow and wet air is also creating dense fog. The rain this afternoon and tonight will probably also be punctuated by thunderstorms.
Winds could gust to more than 55 mph. Yankton's not alone. A lot of places in the northern Plains along and path of the storm face these conditions.
Here in Vermont, we're still expecting nothing too dramatic from this storm. A minor weather disturbance this evening seems destined to throw another handful of unwelcome snowflakes on especially northern sections.
But this snow won't be as surprisingly big as what happened Monday night, when north central and northeastern Vermont got a surprise 3 to 10 inch snowstorm. This snow also brought the depth of the snow atop Mount Mansfield to 116 inches. This, or whatever paltry amount falls tonight, will almost certainly be the peak depth for the season up there.
Funnel cloud over Mesa, Arizona as the giant storm began to organize in the desert Southwest Tuesday. Photo by Jon Morley via Twitter.
The warmth then temporarily comes in Thursday and Friday to melt some of the snow. Rainfall with this larger system Friday will be relatively light, so that won't contribute much to run off from the snow melt.
Still, there's a lot of ice jams or potential ice jams around in the rivers, so that could cause problems Friday and Saturday.
The warmth here in Vermont will be short-lived, as we'll get into a chilly pattern again for the beginning of next week. No full on spring yet!
The good news for the nation as a whole is that after this one, the weather pattern across the nation will change somewhat. There will be less of a propensity for large storms to crash onto the California shores, then cause snowstorms, floods, severe weather and whatnot across most of the rest of the nation.
There will be minor systems in the week after this one, but nothing really major. So most people definitely get a break.
Brief video of a large, relatively rare tornado in New Mexico Tuesday:
Not much left of this South Dakota ranch after a tornado earlier this month
A 10,000 pound tractor disappeared in the tornado and the
wreckage was later found in neighboring Montana.
It's a relatively quiet day in the weather department, so it's a good day to show a few fun and/or interesting tidbits I've accumulated over the past couple of weeks.
TORNADO STEALS TRACTOR
Near the beginning of the month a powerful tornado crossed the border between Montana and South Dakota. It's a remote part of the country, and there wasn't that much out there for the tornado to hit.
Except for Doug Davis' farm, which is in South Dakota but just 100 feet or so from the Montana border, was pretty much trashed by the tornado. For days afterward, he could not find a 10,000 pound tractor that was on his property. The tornado sucked it up and took it....somewhere.
That had to be a pretty damn strong tornado to do that.
Eventually, the wreckage of the tractor was found back across the border in Montana, having been drawn back there by the tornado's powerful circulation.
At last report, Davis was still missing an ATV, a boat and a camper, which all disappeared in the twister. Unfortunately, his home was also destroyed.
ICEBERG TSUNAMI THREAT?
Here's an unusual weather hazard. An iceberg has come very close to shore near a tiny village in Greenland. Parts of the village have been evacuated, because if a big chunk of the iceberg splits off, it could crash into the water and send a tsunami slamming into the village, says Reuters.
This iceberg is menacing a Greenland village
Photo by Ritzau Scanpix/Karl Petersen via Reuters
DUST STORMS AND FLASH FLOODS
In the desert Southwest, it's monsoon season. Moisture coming in from the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean often create some dramatic weather in places like Arizona, Utah and the deserts of California.
This year is no exception. A massive haboob earlier this week roared across an area of Arizona near Gila Bend.
A lot of storm chasers captured it on film, including Reed Timmer, who always manages to be on the scene of the most extreme weather in the nation.
Haboobs form when strong downdrafts from monsoon thunderstorms form big gust fronts, which stir up walls of dust that blow across the desert. The one that Timmer and others captured was bigger than most.
Here's one of Timmers' videos of the haboob, some of it in time lapse motion that's really cool:
The monsoon storms very often cause flash floods in what are usually dry washes. Here's a recent one in Utah captured by David Rankin:
WET HOTEL STAY
A couple weeks back, there was some serious flash flooding in and around Des Moines, Iowa. The following video shows how (badly) a hotel fared during the flooding:
A non-severe storm over Milton, Vermont last evening
I'm not aware of any of Tuesday's thunderstorms becoming severe in Vermont yesterday, so that was kind of a fortunate bust.
There were locally heavy downpours and some wind gusts, but nothing extreme.
That's not to say there wasn't action elsewhere, though. I've got a couple of videos to show you:
This week, Stormlapse recorded a gorgeous, menacing supercell thunderstorm over the Badlands of South Dakota.
Quite an impressive storm, watch:
I'm not sure when the next video was taken, but it's an illustration of what happens when a thunderstorm rolls into Atlanta's Hartsfield airport, the world's busiest.
You see the planes trying to fly around the storms, go in circles, and just kinda hope this thing passes quick. I'm sure there were quite a few flight delays on this day:
A five story building begins to topple into a river in China during severe floods recently. Video is below.
It's a somewhat cloudy Sunday, and us Vermonters are destined to endure a very rainy, quite chilly Monday.
As Trump would tweet: Sad!
To prove it could always be worse, what follows are some videos that show some pretty dramatic storms elsewhere in the world. T
hey will make you happy that your biggest weather problem is a dreary, wet and cold midsummer start to the workweek.
The bad weather has hit all corners of the world, as you'll see.
For starters, we've had a week of repeated severe storms stretching from South Dakota, through the Great Lakes and on into the Mid-Atlantic states. (There was even a rogue, isolated severe thunderstorm Saturday in southern Addison and Rutland counties in Vermont, but I don't think there was widespread damage.)
Not true elsewhere, though, as this video of a terrible hailstorm Tuesday in South Dakota. The hail, with wind, even managed to split a tree in this view of a back yard during the storm:
Some areas received up to 10 inches of rain. One of the hard hit cities was Churchchrist, which has had a rough time in recent years. That city had a destructive, deadly earthquake in 2011.
Here's a video from New Zealand:
Farmers have to work in all kinds of weather, and Clinton Monchuk this past week was spraying fungicide on his malt barley fields near Lanigan, Saskachewan, Canada, and was accompanied on his chores by a tornado:
Here's a view that includes massive amounts of flood water flowing into the sea:
Finally, this includes some of the most dramatic footage: Watch a truck and a building fall into rivers amid severe flooding in China in the past few days:
I don't think it will get this bad in North Dakota this weekend, but they're still due for a wicked, wicked blizzard
As expected, the Dakotas are going to be ground zero for an intense winter storm this Christmas weekend but the sprawling system is having coast-to-coast effects.
The blizzard warning covers all but southeastern North Dakota and the western third of South Dakota.
There, six to 12 inches of new snow, propelled by winds gusting to or even above 55 mph, will create a dangerous whiteout, making travel impossible on Christmas Day.
Overall, the storm has slowed down a bit, so the worst effects of the blizzards and ice and such will be during the day Christmas, Christmas night an on into Monday
The southern and eastern edges of the blizzard zone will probably get a period of sleet and freezing rain mixing in, which will only make the situation worse.
I think South Dakota wins the jackpot for the most variety of bad or dangerous weather out of this strong storm. We already mentioned the blizzard warning in the western part of that state.
Central South Dakota and eastern areas of the state north of Sioux Falls are in forfreezing rain and gusty winds. In most spots, the freezing rain won't accumulate enough to bring down trees and power lines, though wind gusts of up to 50 mph won't help. Plus the roads will be very icy
The southeastern corner of South Dakota, where many of my relatives are gathered (in Yankton) for Christmas, will get a little freezing drizzle, then rain and possible thunderstorms, which is odd for Christmas. One or two of the thunderstorms might be strong.
Minnesota is screwed with this storm, too. Far northern Minnesota is in for a snowstorm, with a fair amount of sleet and freezing rain mixed in.
Central Minnesota, northwest of Minneapolis, is under anice storm warnng. There, a fairly heavy accumulation of ice, combines with winds gusting to 40 mph will probably bring down quite a few power lines, trees and branches.
Elsewhere in the nation, the effects of this storm won't be quite as intense, but they will be felt. Almost all of the Rocky Mountains are under winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories.
It'll also get quite windy in parts of the Rockies and western High Plains all the way down into Texas.
In the Northeast, the storm will produce a brief bout of rain early in the week, with an icy mix in northern New York and northern New England, To make matters worse up here in the North Country, winds could gust to 50 mph or so Monday and Tuesday, with the inevitable scattered power outages coming out of that as well.
After that, the details on the nation's weather are sketchy, as computer models are all over the place, except for this one area of agreement: It looks like it will be a very active weather pattern at least into the first week of January, and probably beyond.
A beautiful sky over Georgia, Vermont Thursday
morning showed instability in the air,
and accurately portended a few showers
and thunderstorms.
I think yesterday ushered in the season of interesting clouds in Vermont.
As a weather geek, clouds are often interesting and beautiful to me, but in the warm months, they're much better.
In warm weather, you're much more likely to get those billowing clouds and towering cumulus, which sometimes blossom into full fledged thunderstorms.
The ever changing towers these clouds make, the dramatic shadows, the ominious patterns of approaching storms, the gleaming whiteness of more distant thunderstorms and the dramatic anvil tops of those thunderstorms in the late afternoon sun are always stunning.
Yesterday, a cold pocket of air high in the atmosphere moved overhead. The warm May sun heated the ground. The contrast between the warm surface and cold upper air created some of those billowing clouds I love so much.
This introduced the seasons of great clouds.
At first, in the late morning, there were just some seemingly benign scattered clouds, but the chaotic nature of them, as you can see in the first photo in this post, hinted at more beauty ahead.
As the day went on, the towering cumulus reached higher and higher, until they got thick enough to produce rain.
Toward evening here in St. Albans, Vermont, one or two of those big clouds developed into a garden variety thunderstorm, with a couple nice rumbles of thunder, a quick shower, and even a couple tiny hailstones. Harmless hailstones, smaller than peas, so the garden is safe.
There's a chance of similar weather in Vermont Sunday, depending upon the timing of a weak cold front. The weather pattern might favor a chance of more scattered showers and thunderstorms late next week.
This all gets my cloud watching juices flowing.
Of course, Vermont's summertime cloud drama pales in comparison to the Great Plains. Spring and early summer there are peak storm season there.
I enjoyed this small thunderstorm over
my St. Albans, Vermont home Thursday evening.
I obviously don't want to see death and destruction from those Plains storms and tornadoes, but the ones that don't cause much harm are fun to watch.
In early June, I'll make my annual pilgrimage to South Dakota so that I can visit my in laws in Yankton.
That's the height of the storm season there. Every year, in early June, I'm there, and get to see some awesome clouds and storms that rise high above the South Dakota plains, all the while spitting lightning, downpours and hail
And they're huge. Two years ago, Norfolk, Nebraska, about 70 miles south of Yankton, was pummeled by softball sized hail and hurricane force wind gusts.
The storm was so big that the top of that distant thunderstorm loomed overhead, and dropped a couple small hailstones as I planted flowers in my mother-in-law's window box.
Gardening, storms and hail. I was in heaven.
Last year in South Dakota, I even saw a wall cloud, which is often a precursor to a tornado
My goal this year is to see a tornado out there. A small one, a twister that harmlessly crosses a field without hitting anybody's house. I don't want to see anyone harmed, or anybody's property damaged.
Don't worry, I won't storm chase. I don't have the experience for that. Inexperienced storm chasers are the worst, putting themselves and others in danger.
But come on, just one funnel cloud in South Dakota, please?
Even if I see no South Dakota funnels, I'll come home to Vermont, and enjoy a summer of beautiful, ever changing skies.
It's one of the biggest joys of summer. Get out there, lay down on a blanket and watch the greatest show on Earth, right overhead.
Rotating, towering clouds loom over Yankton, South Dakota Saturday.
Monday, a broad stretch of the eastern United States from southwestern Vermont to Virginia was under a tornado watch as a vigorous storm system pressed east from the Midwest.
The same system spun off a couple tornadoes and several severe thunderstorms in and around Indiana.
The day before, this system caused severe weather in the northern and central Plains, where I have been spending the past few days visiting relatives.
The city I'm visiting, Yankton, South Dakota, was smack dab in the middle of a tornado watch Saturday afternoon and evening.
The worst storms bypassed Yankton to the south and north.
Wall clouds and funnel clouds were spotted northeast of Yankton, near Irene and Vermillion, South Dakota. More wall clouds and funnels formed in Nebraska.
Nothing extreme came through Yankon, as I noted. But I loved watching the clouds during the thunderstorm episode.
At dusk, a few rays of sun worked their way through the storm clouds in Yankton, SD Saturday.
Lots of towering clouds, ragged clouds, and lightning that crackled back and forth across the sky.
The thunder here is weird during these episodes. It was a continuous rolling back and forth across the sky, with no break.
There was not much weather drama, but it was sure fun watching the clouds.
The front entrance of the National Weather Service office
in Rapid City, South Dakota during an extreme
blizzard in October, 2013. An analysis shows the city
has the most extreme weather of any in the U.S. n
Where I live here in Vermont, there's the old saying, "If you don't like the weather in Vermont, wait a minute and it will change."
I believe they use that phrase in many other parts of the country, too.
But where that cliche fits best is in Rapid City, South Dakota, it turns out.
At fivethirtyeight.com, they've done an analysis ranking the relative unpredictability of the weather.
The word they should have used is volatility of the weather, but we'll get to that in a bit.
The analysis by fivethirtyeightcompares weather patterns in every part of the country against long term averages. The more the weather typically deviates from the "normal" the more "unpredictable" the weather is, in the eyes of Nate Silver and Reuben Fischer-Baum, who wrote the article.
The pair looked at 120 American cities, each representative of the 120 National Weather Service forecast offices in the United States.
Silver and Fischer-Baum looked at temperature, precipitation, snowfall, wind, severe weather and other phenomenon to determine their scale of unpredictable, or predictable weather.
Rapid City turned out to have the most unpredictable, or volatile weather. Honolulu, Hawaii had the most predictable weather.
The cities with the most volatile weather were mostly in the upper Great Plains. Cities with the most settled weather tended to be near coastlines.
That makes sense. Oceans tend to have a modifying influence on local climates, tamping down on extreme high and low temperatures and often discouraging severe thunderstorms. Yes, coastlines tend to have storms, but they're not as frequent as day to day variations in temperatures and conditions as inland.
The Pacific Coast has more predictable weather than the East Coast. Weather systems tend to come from the west, so the Pacific Coast gets a lot of influence from the ocean.
Weather systems from inland, the west, tend to affect the East Coast often, so the weather there is more volatile than the other side of the country.
The cities with the most volatile weather tend not to be very big. The fivethirtyeight analysis says the top 23 most volatile weather cities are not within the metropolitan areas of the nation's 50 biggest cities.
Of the top 50 biggest metro areas of the United States, Kansas City is the most "unpredictable," according to the fivethirtyeight analysis.
I'm a little disappointed my region is not the most volatile. (Weather geeks like me like extremes, I guess.)
Burlington, Vermont, the city closest to my home, ranks as the 38th most unpredictable weather city out of the 120 listed.
I've been batting around the words "unpredictable" and "volatile" in this post to describe what's going on with this analysis.
I agree with the Capital Weather Gangthat maybe Silver and Fischer-Baum are mistaken in calling cities with more extreme weather "unpredictable."
To rank the predictability, they should have analyzed National Weather Service forecasts, or those from other forecasting firms, to compare how many of the forecasts turned out to be correct in each city.
So the term we should use in the fivethirtyeight analysis is a ranking of how variable a city's weather is, not its unpredictability.
Here's how the Capital Weather Gang put it:
"...volatility isn't always the best indicator of unpredictability. Big fronts which cause big swings in the weather are actually pretty easy to forecast, whereas more subtle variations can be much more difficult to detect."
For instance, a cold front a couple weeks ago caused temperatures to drop by some 60 degrees overnight in the Great Plains. That's highly variable weather, but the temperature change was very accurately forecast ahead of time.
A couple days later a storm on the East Coast produced rain and snow. Some cities had much more snow than forecast, others had less. Only a subtle change in temperature by one or two degrees from say, 32 to 34, made all the difference.
Not a big change in temperature, but the subtle change made it super hard to forecast the effect of teh storm in any given area.
The analysis looked at how far above and below normal temperatures for the month of November were everywhere.
A spot near Cable, Wisconsin had temperatures the most below normal for November, about six degrees lower than average.
Meanwhile, a spot just off the northern Alaska coast in the Beaufort Sea had the biggest warm departure from normal in November, more than nine degrees.
Once again, I missed out in the extremes. Temperatures in Burlington, Vermont in November, 2014 turned out to be exactly normal.
Oh well, better than freezing or roasting, I guess.
