A Remarkably Early Winter Coming To Vermont. Starting Thursday

My yard in St. Albans, Vermont buried in very early season snows
last November. For the second year in a row, winter will strike early
and hard in Vermont in November. Starting Thursday. 

Today, I'm going to whine about the Vermont weather, even though I fully understand that whining won't change a damn thing about the forecast.

November isn't really known for its beautiful weather in the North Country. Everybody realizes that, certainly including me.

Still, despite brief bouts of snow and cold,  I am almost always count on being able to finish buttoning up the yard for winter until about Thanksgiving or so.  Some years, it's a little earlier than that, but I can deal.

This year, winter is starting ridiculously early.   Like Thursday.

This won't be one of those brief bouts of wintry weather we get between periods of warmish weather this time of year. It's going to stick around.  Possibly until April, worst case scenario. Which means outdoor stuff and storm cleanup that needs to be done won't get done.

I don't think I remember an earlier onset to winter than this.  I thought last November, with big early snows was bad. This year is ridiculous.

It's possible there might still be a break in late November or December, you never know.  I'll get to that in a moment, but let's get into the specifics for the next few days.

A cold front is coming through today and this evening with a few rain showers and snowflakes on the highest mountain peaks. No biggie. Tomorrow will be chilly, with temperatures near 40. Again, not a crisis for this time of year.

Then, a powerhouse of a cold front will come through Thursday. A storrm will form along the front and move northeastward somewhere along the New England coast. This is a perfect setup for a snowstorm.

True, as Vermont snowstorms go, this won't be a blockbuster, but it will be a shock to the system. Thursday afternoon and  night, as it gets colder and colder, snow levels will drop lower and lower down the mountain slopes until it reaches the valleys.

With every storm, it's still not clear how much snow will fall in any given place.  If enough warm air remains in place, it's possible there won't be any accumulation in the warmest spots, like the lower Connecticut River Valley and perhaps the southern Champlain Valley, so says the National Weather Service in South Burlington.

For now, the NWS is going with one to four inches of snow in the valleys, three to six inches in the mid and high elevations and six to nine inches on the mountain peaks.

Expect a snowy, icy, yucky trip to work Friday morning.

Early November snowstorms tend to melt away quickly, but not this time.  It'll stay cold, so there will only be a little thawing during the days in the valleys Friday through Sunday. I suppose if you're a skier, this is terrific news. The Vermont ski industry is certainly going to start their season with a bang.

The "warmest" day for the next week to ten days will be Sunday. Valley highs ahead of the next Arctic front will get into the mid 30s to low 40s. That's still chillier than normal for this time of year.

That next Arctic front coming through Sunday night will be a beast. Much of the eastern half of the nation will see near record cold with this early next week. That includes us here in Vermont. Record lows Monday and Tuesday in Burlington are in the mid-teens, and there's an excellent chance it will get that cold.

It's still unclear how much additional snow we'll get with that Arctic blast that starts Sunday, but I'm sure we'll get at least a little.

Cold, wintry air will linger until the end of next week at least. There are signs of more Arctic outbreaks following after that, but of course, that's very uncertain. Long range forecasts are always iffy.

Welcome To Autumn! What's With This Humid Warmth?

A bit of foliage last Sunday over northwest Vermont.  It's gotten
even more colorful over the past week.

Astronomical autumn officially arrived at 3:50 a.m. this morning, but it sure didn't feel like it here in Vermont.

After a rather summery day, south winds and clouds kept temperatures up overnight to welcome autumn. And I mean way up. 

Much of the Green Mountain State was in the 70s as dawn broke on this first day of autumn. Usually, the high temperature this time of year is in the upper 60s, so as you can see, it was balmy.

And humid. Dew points were in the 60s, which equates to a rather muggy July morning.  Certainly not like the third week in September.  

While this early morning warmth  and humidity is definitely unusual for this time of year, it's not unheard of. It can get more extreme. You might remember an unprecedented three-day heat wave with 90 degree temperatures in late September, 2017 as an example.

Plus, this morning's warmth won't last. A cold front is on our doorstep, and will pass through by this evening. A good part of today will be warm and rather humid, with highs staying in the 70s in the northwestern part of our area and getting into the 80s as you go south and east.  A few places in southern New England could reach 90 degrees today.

Despite this weekend's warmth and this morning's mugginess, fall foliage is coming on faster than it has in recent years. By traditional standards its right on schedule. But the past few autumns have been super warm, so foliage was late. I guess not this year.

The next cool down gets underway in earnest tonight. But don't expect anything super chilly in the near future.

Normal temperatures this time of year are falling fast day by day. Tomorrow will feel a bit chilly, but temperatures will be right around normal. (It'll be in the 60s during the day.) There will be a few showers around, but it won't rain all day.

We could use the rain, though. I mentioned the other day the weather pattern is still favoring rather sunny, dry weather in our neck of the woods. The U.S. Drought Monitor has a good chunk of Vermont under abnormally dry conditions. That's not drought, but we could be heading that way if things stay dry.

I don't mean to be alarmist, though. Our wells aren't going to go dry.  There will be several chances of rain in Vermont over the next week or so, though each episode will probably feature scattered showers with light amounts of rain.

As we get later into the fall, we typically get into larger, more drenching rain storms, especially from about Halloween into November. So that will help, if things go according to plan.

With that eastern North American ridge firmly in place, expect temperatures on most days into early October to be near or above normal. There could easily be a few cold days, but most of the time, it will be mild.

See-Sawing Into Autumn, But With Summery Interruptions

Clouds over St. Albans. Vermont on September 4 showed both
the volatility of a summer sky and the gloom of late autumn
We are certainly in a transition season. 

So far, September in Vermont this year is a lot cooler than the record warmth of the past three summers.

You can see it on the hills and mountains.  While the trees are still mostly green, there are more splashes of color on this September 12 than there were on this date over the last three years.

However, in the days going forward, look for some summery periods in this downward temperature slide into autumn.

We had such an warm interruption yesterday, when Burlington, Vermont got above 80 degrees for the first time since August 30. And we had some oppressive humidity to boot. A definite summer flashback.

Last night's cold front has gotten us back into fall.  It was dank, overcast and cool this morning, though the sun should come out this afternoon, especially in the north. But it'll stay cool, setting us up for tonight, which will probably be the chilliest one since early June.

I would not be at all surprised if the coldest hollows of the Northeast Kingdom, the Green Mountains, the Adirondacks and White Mountains see a touch of frost. Most of us have nothing to worry about in that department, though. The gardens are still safe. For now.

We in Vermont have been, and will be for the next several days in a bit of a battleground between oddly strong and hot high pressure in the western Atlantic Ocean and the southern United States. Record highs have been falling like crazy in the South.

We'll keep seeing attempts for that hot air to make a run towards us, but the heat will keep getting cut off at the pass by cold fronts from Canada. In fact, the forecast looks really tricky for the first part of next week. The heat will build strongly in the Midwest. The center of the heat ridge will be just to our west.

That would open the door for back door cold fronts to come in from eastern Canada. (It's called a back door cold front because it comes in from the north and east, which is somewhat unusual. Most cold fronts come at us from the west.)

These back door cold fronts can make for some weird temperature contrasts, with chilly air to the east and very warm air to the west. Where any one location in Vermont sets up under this scenario is anyone's guess. Could be warm, could be chilly next week. Stay tuned.

There are signs, though, that the summer-like warmth will temporarily engulf us fully later next week.

By the way, this relatively odd set up with the strong high pressure in the Atlantic and southeastern United States is not a good one to have during hurricane season, which is now.

Often, tropical storms and hurricanes manage to recurve northward, well offshore of the East Coast, sparing us any storms and disasters.

This current weather pattern tends to steer tropical storms and hurricanes either toward the East Coast or Gulf of Mexico.

A tropical depression or tropical storm is forecast to form in the next day or two over the Bahamas. It is already raining hard under the system's developing thunderstorms.

The really bad news is even if this wannabe tropical storm doesn't get too strong, it will dump torrential rains on the northern Bahamas, which were devastated by Hurricane Dorian. This area surely doesn't need more trouble!

Nobody is really sure where this wannabe tropical storm will go after the Bahamas. But given that strong high pressure in the Atlantic, this storm could easily end up threatening Florida, the southern Eastern Seaboard or the Gulf Coast states.

At this point, there is pretty much no agreement in the computer models as to where this will go. We'll just have to wait and see.

Big Dorian Changes. And Up Here in Vermont, Autumn Arrives

Intense Hurricane Dorian Saturday morning. Click on the picture and
make it bigger. You can see the storm's distinct 10-15 mile wide
eye and an intense solid eye wall of powerful winds
immediately surrounding it.

Formidable Hurricane Dorian continued to churn toward the northwestern Bahamas this Saturday morning, packing sustained winds of 145 mph, says the National Hurricane Center. It's a strong category 4 storm, almost as bad as it gets.

It might strengthen a little more today, then there will be some fluctuations in strength as it approaches Florida.

Forecasts for a hurricane's path often change due to subtle shifts in the atmosphere and Dorian is no exception. It's possible Florida might catch a break after all.

For the past several days forecasts had Dorian plowing somewhere into the eastern coast of Florida. A ridge of high pressure to Dorian's north would steer it that way.

While Dorian might still come ashore in Florida, computer models and the National Hurricane Center are now latching on to a different scenario.
'
Essentially, Dorian seems like it might pull a Matthew.

Hurricane Matthew in 2016 was another powerful hurricane and it was feared then that it would smack into Florida's east coast. Instead, it moved northward, paralleling the coast, and finally came ashore in South Carolina while weakening.

This spared Florida the full, dangerous effects of Matthew. It's beginning to look like Dorian will do the same. The ridge of high pressure north of Dorian that is steering it looks like it will collapse just before Dorian gets to Florida. It now appears like the storm might move north off the coast of Florida like Matthew did. We shall see.

Of course, slow moving Matthew was still incredibly destructive in the United States, as it unleashed massive, record setting floods in the Carolinas and Georgia.

All this means is the United States is by no means off the hook with Hurricane Dorian. It will probably weaken somewhat as it approaches the southeastern United States coast midweek. And it will be close enough to the coast Sunday through the first half of the week to produce damaging winds, destructive storm surges and very heavy rain.

And flooding. Most of Matthew's United States destruction was due to its slow movement which allowed torrential rains to linger over the Carolinas and Georgia for a long time.

Dorian will also be moving very slowly, so we're probably looking at a repeat of serious Southeast United States flooding and storm surges with this.

Plus, the northwestern Bahamas look like they will feel the full effects of a powerful Category 4 hurricane, so there will be a big disaster there, too.

As always, there will be more adjustments to the projected path of Dorian, so stay tuned.

AUTUMN IN VERMONT?

August in Vermont has been close to normal temperature wise, or even a bit on the warm side, but now that the month is closing, fall weather is inevitable.

Just in time, here it comes.

Tonight will be rather cool in the cold hollows of the Northeast Kingdom and Adirondacks, where it could get into the upper 30s. No biggie for this time of year, but still.

Then on Monday, rain and clouds will hold daytime highs down in the 60s. If I'm not mistaken, that would be Burlington's first high temperature under 70 degrees since June 13.

After a brief warmup midweek with showers, it looks like we'll have a few autumnal days late in the week with highs in the 60s again. If we get any clear, calm nights during that period, I wouldn't be surprised to see a little frost in the coldest hollows of northern Vermont, New Hampshire and New York. It's that time of year!

Yesterday's Cold Front Was Beginning Of End Of Summer

Won't be long until things start looking like this.

I was miserable working outside late Thursday morning in Burlington, Vermont. The air was still with no wind, the humidity was horrendous and sweat was pouring off of me with the intensity of a downpour, I swear.

Suddenly, a breeze pushed in from the west and the humidity vanished almost instantaneously. A cold front had arrived. The dew point, a measure of how humid it is, dropped from an oppressive 66 degrees to a comfortable 54 degrees in just an hour.

I continued to work - much happier now - well into the afternoon. It's amazing how a shot of cooler air can help one's ambitious.

Cold fronts and bouts of lower humidity always come through Vermont during the summer. This one, though, felt like the first hint that summer will end.

Oh sure, there will be more warm to hot days as we finish out August and head into September.  And the humidity will eventually creep back up again. But the average temperature is now falling with shorter days. We'll be getting into what Vermonters call "fair weather."  Kinda even today and tomorrow.

Fair weather is not necessarily the sunny skies the term implies, but in this case the skies will be mostly blue.

Fair weather is that kind of in-between temperature you get in late August and early September when it's not really warm, but not really cool. You wear a t-shirt in the afternoon and snuggle into a hoodie in the evening. This kind of weather comes when local fairs do their annual runs, hence the term.

In this case, the next few days will feature highs in the low to mid 70s under mostly to partly sunny skies. Nights will get into the 40s in many areas. Bring those sweaters and hoodies with you!

You can see other signs of the changing seasons. Some of the weaker sugar maples show hints of color, a preview to the big annual foliage show nature puts on every year.

This has been the second summer in a row in which cold fronts have been lacking in Vermont. It's been consistently toasty.

There are summers in which we feel cheated out of them. You know, the ones where it never seems to get hot, and always rains.

This summer and last featured plenty of true summer weather. I usually feel wistful when "fair weather" hits, confirming that summer is ending. But we had our share this year. I'm ready for autumn.

Vermont Rain Outlook: More Hits And Misses

Storm clouds loom over a Georgia, Vermont hay field last Wednesday.
More showers and storms are on the way, especially tomorrow
and the day after.

After a couple days of sunny, dry weather and absolutely no rain, chances of precipitation are beginning to ramp up as humidity briefly makes a comeback.

Where the rain falls and where it doesn't is completely unknown.  As always in the summer, the showers and storms over the next few days will be hit and miss. Then we get back into cooler, mostly drier air over the weekend. 

Yesterday morning represented our first taste of autumn in the North Country - it's coming!  A few readings under 40 degrees even popped up.

It was 36 in Saranac Lake, New York, 38 in Averill, Vermont and 39 in South Lincoln, Vermont. Burlington's 52 degrees was the chilliest reading since June 17.

None of this was setting records, but it was a reminder. It's coming....

Today, it'll be warm and getting more humid. There might be a scattered shower or storm around, but most places will stay dry.

Tomorrow, we all have a very good chance, but not a guarantee of some much needed rainfall in the Green Mountain State. It will have gotten rather humid by tomorrow, and a disturbance coming through will be more than enough to set off showers and thunderstorms.

Although it's possible there might be an isolated strong to severe storm, most of the weather won't be that rough. Some storms might have heavy downpours. Which means Wednesday will bring additional winners and losers. Some towns will get a nice drenching, others will get just an insignificant bit. It's all the luck of the draw.

Showers will keep roaming around Wednesday night, which means some places might get more rain. Then on Thursday, a strong cold front for this time of year will zip on through. That'll set off more showers and storms.

We'll have to watch this to see if any of the storms can turn strong or severe. It'll depend on the timing of the front, whether upper level support lines up, and whether the air can get pretty unstable. But at least there's a good chance of more rain.

Then we're in for the first extended spell of coolish weather starting Friday and lasting through early next week. Again, we're on the back side of summer, so we'll start to see this.  But there's still a good chance of hot spells into September.

Even so, it looks like Burlington, Vermont, one of the warmer spots in Vermont, will get at least two or three consecutive days with temperatures staying under 80 degrees. That happens a lot in most summers, but hasn't happened this summer since June 20-22.

Every day Friday into Monday poses a risk of a scattered afternoon shower, but these won't last long in any one spot and many places won't get any rain at all. Humidity will be low, too, so this will actually be a nice break from an oppressive summer.

It's Turning Out To Be A Bad Autumn For U.S. Tornadoes

An Amazon distribution center partly collapsed during a
tornado in Baltimore Friday evening.

At least 45 tornadoes struck different parts of the nation since Halloween, and a new outbreak of tornadoes and severe weather looks imminent in the South Monday into Tuesday.

Four people have died in the past week's tornadoes, including two at an Amazon distribution facility in Baltimore, Maryland when a wall collapsed during a Friday evening twister.

Overall, there have been a little over 1,000 tornadoes this year in the United States, which is still at somewhat slower than normal pace.

Most tornadoes occur in the spring and early summer, but there is often a smaller, but real uptick in twisters during October and November. This year is one of those times.

Low pressure systems are usually stronger this time of year than they were back in July through September. These stronger storms can generate the right conditions for tornadoes, despite the relative lack of heat and sunshine that help feed the spring tornado outbreaks.

Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes are a real possibility Monday
in areas shaded in yellow and orange.
 

A new, strong storm system gathering steam today and tomorrow in the middle of the country seems destined to create a broad zone of severe weather and possible tornadoes in the Tennessee and lower Mississippi River valleys.

The severe threat shifts to the Southeast Tuesday. The good news is - like many autumn storms - this one is moving fast, so the threat of tornadoes or severe weather should end by later Tuesday.

Still, people in the South and Southeast should keep an ear out for storm and tornado warnings Monday and Tuesday.  But, during the periods when the weather is safe on Tuesday - and there will be such periods - Southerners should all still venture out and vote Tuesday if they haven't already.

Up here in Vermont, the storm's effects do NOT look dire at all. The storm should dump rain on us Tuesday and produce wind gusts of up to 35 mph. Yeah, not a nice day, but still not nearly so bad where you can't go out and vote. Just bring a rain jacket and you'll be fine.

Early Winter In Western Canada, Northern U.S. Rockies

Too early? A snowy, very difficult commute in Calgary Canada this
morning. Photo via @mookalicious on Twitter.   

In early October here in Vermont, we start to look toward the mountain peaks for the first few dustings of snow.

There's nothing like that this year, and no snow on the summits is in the forecast for the foreseeable future.

Sure, it's chilly and wet today, but it's surely not snowy.  The forecast calls for near to above normal temperatures for at least the next week.

It might even get almost summery for a time next week. There's a chance it could hit 80 degrees i Vermont then. We'll see.

But it's fall. If it's warm in one place, it has to be chilly in another. Sure enough, western Canada and the northern Rockies fit that wintry bill.

Actually, while we roasted in September,  most of Canada was unusually chilly. Only the southeastern part of that country was warm. Yellowknife, in northwestern Alaska, had its coldest September on record and Calgary had its chilliest September since 1985.

Overnight, four to eight inches of snow, with locally higher amounts, really screwed up the morning commute in Calgary. I don't know about you, but I'm not quite ready for a morning like that yet. Let's wait until after Thanksgiving here in Vermont, at least.

The cold air and snow has been starting to bleed across the Canadian border into places like Montana.  In Billings, 1.4 inches of snow came down Sunday. Yes, it was still September. Today, in the high elevations around Glacier National Park, winter storm warnings are up as some areas in the peaks will get more than 18 inches of snow.

If anything, this winter pattern will intensify out west next week. It's possible a wide area of the northern Rockies and the western Dakotas could get quite a bit of snow. 

It's a little early for that, but not unheard of in that part of the country.

Here in the Northeast, a northward bulge in the jet stream will keep us protected from any real snow, at least through the middle of the month. It's possible the highest peaks could get a little rime ice or flurries in that time, but there will be no snowflakes in the valleys, like we can get this time of year.

Don't worry, winter will come and some of us will probably regret it.

Autumn Arrived Last Evening In Vermont. We Mean It This Time

This cool, cloudy September morning, after an odd stretch of very
warm, humid weather broke, signs of fall color around my
St. Albans, Vermont house. 

Yesterday was another frustratingly warm, too humid day in Vermont. An expected cold front was tardy, so relief from the neverending summer was not forthcoming.

Until late afternoon and evening, that is, when that cold front gloriously dropped down from Canada.

I was sweating it out in the garden, trying to get some work done. I was cursing the heat, how it was making me drag.

Then that north breeze finally came up. The tardy cold front was finally here.

Within a half hour I went from melting into the heat to drinking in the suddenly cooler, drier air. Boy did I feel re-energized!

We'd just endured six consecutive days in the 80s and four consecutive days at or above 85 degrees. At Burlington, Vermont, Tuesday was the 82nd day this year that got to 80 degrees or more

The cool air that came in last evening was a relief for sure.

This cold front was the end of summer in Vermont. Period. Oh, sure, we'll have a couple or few more days that will be warm and summery. Possibly even humid. This coming Friday looks like it might be one of those days, for instance.

But normal temperatures are now so low, and sinking fast, that it would take near record or record heat to push us back into never-ending summer. While such a spell is always possible, it's unlikely.

Plus, any hot spell will be quickly dispatched by our increasingly vibrant cold fronts from Canada.

Today, for instance, is cloudy and cool. Though there might be some sun in the afternoon, temperatures will stay in the 60s. It'll be comfortably cool tomorrow as well.

As mentioned, Friday could end up feeling summery again, but that relative warmth and humidity will quickly be swept aside by a Friday night cold front. The weekend will be cool. In fact, Saturday night be turn frosty in some northern and central cool spots.

That would be good timing. Astronomical fall, the autumn equinox arrives at 9:54 p.m. Saturday.

By the way, there are some hints that the switch to a fall pattern might be slighly wetter than the too-dry weather we've had all summer in  northern Vermont.

We're in a drought and need the rain. I don't see any blockbuster signs of torrential, soaking rains, but those increasingly frequent cold fronts at least give us periodic chances of wetting.

Friday night's cold front doesn't look super impressive in terms of rainfall, but we have a shot at some. Additionally, a few of those cold fronts over the next couple weeks look like they have a chance - just a chance - of picking up some extra moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, which would make the rain a little heavier.

For what it's worth, NOAA"s Climate Prediction Center indicates slighly better than even chances of somewhat cooler, somewhat wetter than average weather here in Vermont as September closes and October opens.

We'll see how that goes.

One More Wicked Hot Day In; Gordon Unleashes Floods, Florence Confounds

Heat indexes in the Champlain Valley later this afternoon could
get over 100 degrees. In September1

I'm still in Yankton, South Dakota missing, or more accurately, not missing the latest big hot spell in Vermont.

Once again, it's one of those never ending summers, although the break in the heat that's coming is HUGE. You're going to be shocked.

First, the North Country has to get through today. You know the drill. There's heat advisories in the valleys, as heat indexes will get into the 95 to 100 degree range.

The record high in Burlington today is 90 degrees set in 1973. That should be broken today.

Last week I said I doubted it would get into the 90s again, but, well here we are. I'm thinking this will be the last 90 degree day of 2018, but there's no guarantees of that.

The glorious cold front from Canada will come through Thursday morning. After today and tonight, we're into autumn. Or at least a less horrible version of summer.

The humidity will keep you awake tonight, and some rumbles of thunder might also do the same. When you wake up in the morning, it will be oppressively humid. When you get home from work in the evening, well, welcome to autumn.

And autumnal it will be this weekend. High temperatures will only get into the 60s, with some upper 50s in the cool spots. Everybody except those right along the shores of Lake Champlain will be down in the 40s Saturday night.

The cold hollows will get into the 30s Saturday night, and I have to wonder if the first frost advisory of the fall season will be issued for those regions.  Don't worry, most of us won't lose our remaining gardens to the frost.

Warmer, more summerlike weather will be back next week, but don't worry. It won't be in the 90s.

TROPICAL STORM GORDON

The future potential track of Gordon will hit Arkansas and
surrounding areas with heavy rain. The remains of Gordon
might give us Vermonters a little rain early next week.

Tropical Storm Gordon made landfall as expected on the northern Gulf Coast last night. It didn't quite make it to hurricane status, but it's still a big troublemaker.

One person has died after a tree fell on a mobile home and killed a child. Which is tragic enough. Gordon hasn't done its worse yet.

True, the winds have died down to safe levels. But the storm will continue to dump heavy rain from Alabama to Arkansas over the next few days, and serious flooding is a virtual certainty.

The Midwest is still soggy from days and days of rain, and the flooding from Gordon will likely extend into Missouri and Illinois

The remnants of Gordon will probably be entrained into a weather front coming into New England Monday. That means we here in dry Vermont still have a shot of getting some needed rain. At this point, the Gordon remnants do NOT look like any kind of blockbuster for Vermont, but any rain would help.

HURRICANE FLORENCE

As you can see by this map of different computer model
predictions for Hurricane Florence, nobody knows
where it's going, so don't even think about it just yet. 

Hurricane Florence is still way out over the central Atlantic, but it's confounding forecasters with its strength and unpredictable path.

Florence, defying all forecasts, has become the first major hurricane of the season in the Atlantic, witih top sustained winds as of late this morning of 125 mph.

Projections had indicated it would stay a tropical storm or at most barely a hurricane, then weaken some due to strong upper level winds.

The National Hurricane Center is guessing that Florence is in a pocket of light upper level winds in an area where those winds are generally stronger. For now, the NHC has pretty much given up on forecasting the storm's intensity over the next few days. It's hard to say if those upper level winds will weaken the storm again, or cause it to grow.

The eventual path of Florence is an even bigger wildcard.  When hurricanes get as far north as Florence is now, they almost always recurve to the north and miss the United States.

But not always.

This could be one of those "but not always" scenarios. Strong high pressure to the north could steer the storm toward the United States. Some computer models emphasized that westward turn this morning.

Don't count on it, though. As noted, the computer forecasting models are really struggling with how to figure out Florence. Some projections keep it going west. Some turn it north and away from the East Coast. Some of the computer models are so flummuxed that they're coming up with bizarre scenarios.

One model actually had Florence eventually becoming an enormous storm over Maine or Quebec, tapping into polar air and causing a very gusty, nasty snowstorm over Vermont and other areas of northern New England on September 19.

I don't know what Florence will do, but I guarantee she WON'T do that. Don't bother getting your snow shovels out yet.

Bottom line: For now, people should just keep Florence in the back of their minds, and if it comes close to the East Coast next week, then start paying attention.

Hot Autumn Is Messing With Our Fall Foliage

Still a lot of green amid record high temperatures
in these hills near Richmond,  Vermont on Sunday.
Fall colors should be peaking now, but they are
very late due to a hot autumn.

It's fitting that because we've had such a bizarre autumn in the weather department here in Vermont, our famed foliage season is off kilter, too.

In and near the Champlain Valley, there's still a lot of green on the hills at a time when the foliage should be at peak.

No wonder. Those crisp fall days we should have seen in late September were overtaken by a very humid, unprecedented stretch of 90 degree weather.

After a brief cool down to normal temperatures a week ago, it warmed up again over the past five days, culminating in a record high of 80 degrees in Burlington, Vermont Sunday afternoon.

The dew point, a measure of how humid it is, reached 69 degrees late Sunday morning in Burlington. Such readings usually only come during the most oppressive midsummer weather. I've never seen anything like that in October.

All this has left the forests confused. Aside from the late season green, some trees that normally turn brilliant seem blah, and some trees that usually make me go "meh" in the autumn are gorgeous.

I'm going to reserve judgement on how brilliant the colors will end up, but there are a couple of potentially bad signs.

I haven't driven around personally to see, but there are reports that in some places, especially toward northern New Hampshire that have reached peak, the colors were a bit subdued this year.  NECN says the weather extremes this year have put stress on trees, which seems to be leading to fewer of the red and orange blasts of color we are used to this time of year.

However, I have seen photos of the colors in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom and things look as spectacular as ever up there.

Of course, the Northeast Kingdom should be well past peak by now, but this year they're late like everybody else.

I was in the western foothills of the Green Mountains near Richmond, Vermont yesterday and there were certainly wonderful splashes of color within the green. I'm not sure if the rest of the colors will pop later, or if things will be muted. We'll have to wait and see.

Encouragingly, it is going to be seasonably cool during the middle of this week (Highs in the 55-65 range, lows in the 30s to near 40) So I imagine that will make the colors blast out. A spate of coolish weather between the heat waves last week did seem to prompt some color to quickly appear.

We had very warm autumns in 2015 and 2016, too, so the foliage season was a little late those years, but it was spectacular.  So maybe this year will be the same, who knows?

Even if this year's autumn foliage proves to be not quite as spectacular as some years, it's still gorgeous. So get out and enjoy it. Better late than never, right?

Welcome To Our Brief Autumn Preview

This might not be what you want to
see right now, but today will feel
like fall, although much more
dreary than in this photo. 

Normally, in late July, high temperatures get to the low 80s.

It'll be as much as 20 degrees cooler than that. Today will be our reminder that, though there's plenty of summer left, it won't last forever.

Often in mid-winter, we get a January thaw, which gives us a break from the snow and cold. It's a real climatological thing: There does tend to be a slight warmup, on average, in the third week of January. Then we get back to mid winter conditions until a real uptick in temperatures starts in mid to late February.

The July fall preview is not a climatological thing. I so far haven't found concrete evidence that temperatures tend to slump a bit in late July before recovering.

However, I have noticed, anecdotally, that we often do get a cool spell sometime between mid-July and early August that gives a case of mid-summer chills.

This year's is more obvious than many others. It started in Maine yesterday. While temperatures here in Vermont weren't that far off from normal on Sunday, a remote corner of far northern Maine actually got below freezing Sumday morning.

Today, a huge slug of rain is moving across New York and New England. The warm, muggy air has been suppressed south. With no sun and plenty of precipitation, temperatures this afternoon will be more typical of mid to late September than July.

The high temperature for today in Burlington already happened early this morning at 69 degrees. We'll stay in the low 60s all day today. On Tuesday, most places will top out between 60 and 70 degrees.

There's going go be an awful lot of rain today and tonight, too, though flooding won't be widespread.

However, there is already a flash flood warning in a corner of northwestern New York and there may be a few other local trouble spots today, especially in New York where the rain is expected to be heaviest.

On the bright side for us, at least, the really heavy rain is hitting much further south. For instance, there was a lot of flash flooding problems in parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey yesterday, including in the Philadelphia area.

Plus, it'll be back to summer soon. I still don't see any signs of a big heat wave coming in. Still,  temperatures will pop back up to near normal Wednesday, and stay that way at least into next weekened.

Weekend Vermont Wintry Storm A Whopper, With More On The Way

From @ABC7NY on Twitter, fall foliage and snow Sunday
near Killington, Vermont.   

That turned out to be a pretty impressive early season rain and snow storm in Vermont over the weekend, with surprising amounts of snow in some spots.

Reports came in of 9 inches of new snow at relatively high elevations in Bolton, Vermont.

Other Vermont towns hitting the snow jackpot include 8 inches in Holland, 7.5 inches in South Starksboro, and 7 inches in Averill, Hyde Park and East Enosburg.

The sun burst through the clouds in all but the Northeast Kingdom in the afternoon, affording us wonderful views of lingering fall foliage with snow on the mid and high elevations.

The storm put a nice dent in the drought, too, though the dryness hasn't been totally erased. Still, most places in Vermont and surrounding states got 1 to 3 inches of rain, with locally more.

As noted previously, the rain came down to hard at once in parts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Pennsylvania. Some towns in each of those states had 5 inches of rain in just a few hours over the weekend.

Here in Vermont, nobody got enough rain to trigger flooding, but I notice stream flows in rivers look healthier.

Places that got snow had it fall on unfrozen ground, so that is gradually melting into the soil, too. That will continue to ease the drought slightly.

Satellite imagery at midday Sunday
shows snow in the mountains,  and evidence of
fall foliage. Most of northern Vermont away
from Lake Champlain was still in the clouds
when this shot was taken. 

This week, and into next weekend, there are frequently chances of more rain and snow.

It's an interesting weather pattern coming up, with a series of storms moving through with air temperatures marginal for rain or snow. This is more typical of late November than late October.

A weather disturbance Tuesday will deposit relatively light rain and snow on Vermont. Probably a quarter inch of rain or less in the valleys, and maybe 1 to 4 inches of new snow in the mountains.

The National Weather Service in South Burlington, Vermont is watching the interaction with Tuesdays cold weather system and the still rather warm Lake Champlain waters. That could enhance rainfall a bit in parts of the Champlain Valley.  

The instabililty in the air could also trigger briefly heavy bursts of snow in the high elevations.

The next storm comes along Thursday and Thursday night.  Again, temperatures will be marginal, especially over the Green Mountains and eastward. Some places might get several inches of wet snow before a changeover to rain.

Even warmer places like the Champlain Valley might get a little snow out of this before a fairly quick changeover to rain. Stay tuned, because forecasts could change.

Looks like there could be another rain/snow event over the weekend.

Overall, there's a chance we could get another inch of rain and/or melted snow over the next week, which would put a further dent in the drought. Good news.

Fall Weather Arriving And This Time I Mean It

OK, this time it's real. Vermont and New England's never ending summer really is about to end.

Snow on autumn leaves last
October. It won't be cold enough
for snow in Vermont this weekend,
but you'll notice a definite shift to chill

Oh, sure, as advertised, there was a brief foray into seasonable weather last week, in which some of the cold mountain hollows of New York, Vermont and New Hampshire had a bit of frost.'

But the temperature quickly recovered back to mid summer levels, where they've stayed for the past several days. It'll be summery today, too, and kind of like that tomorrow, but then.....

It really is time to find the fleece.  

The timing of this upcoming cool spell is just right. Astronomical autumn starts on the East Coast at 10:21 a.m. tomorrow, and the cold front comes through the next day - Friday.

Unlike last week's cool spell, this one is going to stick around for awhile.

In northern New England, temperatures will hold in the 60s Friday as the cold front moves through. Some towns will stay in the 50s Saturday and Sunday in the cool northwest air flow. The warmer valleys will touch 60 over the weekend.

Also over the weekend, many places are at risk of frost in Vermont and surrounding northern areas.

The warm spots near Lake Champlain will probably avoid the frost, but gardeners in the rest of the region want to pay attention to later forecasts.

The cool weather is going to seem shockingly chilly after such a long stretch of warm weather - basically since May. I don't even know where I left some of my warmer shirts, fleece and flannel. I'd better check the closets pronto.

Still, the temperatures we're going to experience are not at all unusual for this time of year. It always happens. Every year.

It's just that it's been so warm, it'll seem like record cold, when in reality it'll just be average.

Four Ways New England Could Get Out Of Its Wicked Drought

A pond belonging to one of my gardening
clients in Vermont shows the effects of this year's drought. 

UPDATE:

The U.S. Drought Monitor's latest report issued today, September 15, 2016 shows worsening drought in much of New England.

The area of extreme drought in southeastern New England has expanded to cover most of eastern and central Massachusetts, southeastern New Hampshire and the southern tip of Maine.

Extreme drought covers a good chunk of western New York, too.

Here in Vermont, things got worse, too. Moderate drought now covers much of western and central parts of the Green Mountain State.

It might rain some this weekend, but the way it looks now,  it's not going to be that big of a drencher at all.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

In case you haven't noticed, it's terribly dry across New England and other parts of the Northeast.

If you like dust, New England is now strangely the place to be.

Pretty much the whole area is in drought, or at least close to it. Parts of southern and eastern New England are in extreme drought.

Thunderstorms yesterday brought a little brief rain. Another cold front due Wednesday should bring just a bit more. And a new system Sunday might help a little too.

But all these weather systems are focusing their mediocre rains on northern New England, where the drought isn't quite as bad.  Not as much fell, or is expected to fall, on more serious drought zones in southern New England and New York's southern tier.

But hope springs eternal. Autumn is arriving, and with the change of seasons, we get a change in weather patterns. The drought could drag on through the winter, but some seasonal weather arrangements in the fall and early winter could put a dent in the drought or even erase it.

Here's some things we hope will happen:

A HURRICANE. BETTER YET, LOTS OF 'EM

No, I'm not advocating the destruction of New England in a series of hurricanes. We don't need massive storm surges or destructive winds. We have enough problems.

But it would be nice if weaker tropical systems came by, or the remnants of hurricanes from somewhere else crossed New England.

Or at least, we could get a hurricane or two passing northward harmlessly offshore, but in the process making a cold front stall over us with the hurricane throwing  rain-making moisture into it. Hey, a boy can dream, right?

We're at the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, and there will be the possibility of tropical systems at least through October.  We can always hope.

NOR'EASTERS, PLEASE

The more we get into autumn and toward winter, the more likely we might get nor'easters. Nor'easters are those strong, windy, rainy or snowy storms that head toward the northeast along the New England and southeastern Canadian coasts.

To set up a nor'easter, you need a deep dip in the jet stream centered over the eastern Great Lakes, so we'll look for that. '

Preferably, we get several nor'easters, and also preferably, they track right along the coast or even inland a bit to make sure the storms' heavy rains hit the entire region.

There's good thing that could fuel nor'easters. Ocean temperatures just off the Northeast coast are warmer than normal. Warmer water could fuel nor'easters, making them stronger and wetter than they otherwise would be. Wetter is better this year.

TEXAS BLUE NORTHER

How the hell did I get Texas into a discussion about a New England drought?  Well, let me tell ya, pard'ner.

Later in the autumn and into the early winter, we start getting those familar Arctic high pressure systems from Canada that bring us those miserable cold waves. Those highs tend to head southeast from Canada toward New England.

Sometimes, though, the Arctic outbreaks plunge directly southward from central Canada, across the Plains down into Texas. Texans call these things blue northers.

With this set up, the Arctic cold front will sometimes slow down dramatically or stall in a north-south orientation somewhere in the eastern United States. Little storms ripple north along the stalled front. These little storms pick up moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and dump it as pretty heavy rains near and just to the east of these stalled fronts.

Bonus: By the time these north-south Arctic cold fronts actually make it into and through New England the Arctic blast has weakened. So instead of getting freezing-your-bippy off cold, it just gets kind of chilly.

WRECK OF THE EDMUND FITZGERALD STORMS, WITHOUT THE SHIPWRECKS

In November especially, storms sometimes get going in the middle of the country, then head into the Great Lakes. The water in the Great Lakes is still relatively warm that time of year, so the storms feed on that warmish water and get really, really strong.

It's the kind of wild storm that was made famous by Gordon Lightfoot's song "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald," about a ship sinking on Lake Superior during one of these times when "the gales of November come slashin'"

Of course we don't want another ship to sink in the Great Lakes "in the face of a hurricane west wind."

But these Great Lakes storms do swing their active cold fronts eastward into New England. Typically, rainfall with these fronts isn't great, usually on the order of a half inch to sometimes an inch per Edmund Fitzgerald cold front.

If several of these cold fronts come through, though, the precipitation would add up and ease the drought.

I don't know if any of these scenarios will happen. But for the sake of dried up wells and water restrictions, we should hope we get all of the above.

Tornado Watch Possible In N. New York Ahead of Autumnal Cold Front

Areas shaded in yellow are at risk for severe storms
later today and tonight. Areas in dark green have a
marginal chance of severe weather. In Vermont, if there
are any bad storms, it would hit later tonight. 

UPDATE 3:30 P.M. SATURDAY.

As of 3:15 p.m. Saturday, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center was considering issuing a tornado watch in northern New York for later this afternoon and early tonight.

The tornado watch, if it is issued, would cover New York's St. Lawrence Valley and the western and central Adirondacks.

A couple of tornadoes are also possible in southern Ontario.

Strong winds aloft, winds that shift directions at different heights, could touch off a few rotating supercell thunderstorms along and just south of a warm front that's now moving northward through the region.

It's possible that if these supercells develop, they could create a tornado or two.

At this point, it looks like the storms will weaken somewhat as they move into Vermont tonight, but there is still a chance of strong, damaging wind gusts in the Green Mountain State tonight. The risk of tornadoes in Vermont with this is very low.

If there are strong, damaging winds with storms in Vermont tonight, they're most likely in the northwestern half of the state.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

There are actually Vermonters who are done with this never ending summer. Done with the heat and humidity.

They're ignoring the fact that we will eventually have our long, cold winter to contend with, but whatever. 

Fans of cooler weather can rejoice, though: We have one more humid day coming today, one more round of potentially strong thunderstorms feeding off that humidity, and then September weather will arrive a week and a half late.

The details:

A warm front will come through Vermont today from the south. It's the remnants of that weak "cold" front, which wasn't that cold, that came through Friday morning.

Anyway, we'll be back in the soupy air by this afternoon, and we'll have to endure a terribly muggy night tonight just as we did Thursday night.

But a cold front is coming and it's got some ooomph. It won't come through Vermont until early Sunday morning. That's a good thing, despite tonight's humidity, because it it would come through earlier, it would trigger some strong to severe storms this afternoon and tonight, possibly quite a few of them.

That won't be the case. Still, we might get some strong storms later tonight. because as I said, this cold front is fairly strong and has some pretty strong upper level winds with it.

The Storm Prediction Center has a slight risk of severe storms late today and tonight across northern New York and a marginal risk in western Vermont.

The thinking is the storms will get going in Ontario later today and move east. (There might be a couple of tornadoes in Ontario today. They've had a busy time with tornadoes there for the past month or so, go figure)

 Some of the storms that do get going will be able to grab those strong upper level winds up above and drag them down to the surface. That means the possibility of damaging wind gusts, especially across northern New York tonight.

The Storm Prediction Center said there's a chance that some of the storms in New York might start spinning, so there's a very minimal chance of a brief tornado in the St. Lawrence Valley and northern Adirondacks tonight.

This is the same system that set off a few tornadoes in Illinois Friday, but of course any twisters in the Northeast are less likely than they were in the Midwest Friday.

The storms will weaken somewhat as they get into western Vermont a little before dawn then sweep across the rest of the state during the first half of Sunday morning.

Some of the storms might set off some gusty winds that could locally take down some trees and power lines. The storms could produce briefly heavy rain, so you might get a half inch or a little more rain in a few spots.

That's not much drought relief, especially since the rain, where it falls, will come down in a sharp heavy burst and not be the kind of slow soaker we'll need.

You'll totally feel a change in the air Sunday after the cold front goes by. It will be cooler and less humid. September-ish.

Sunday night, areas that haven't seen temperatures below 50 degrees since mid-June will probably get into the 40s.

It'll turn warmer - but not summery - Monday and Tuesday before the next strong cold front gets here.

High temperatures will only make it into the 60s Wednesday and Thursday, and we might well get our first frost of the season in the cold hollows of New York, Vermont and the rest of northern New England.

The frost won't be widespread, but tis the season!

Was A Hot Autumn In The U.S. And Warmth Continues

Autumn was the nation's warmest on record
and the mild weather continues big time now in December. 

If you sweated it out through foliage or football season you're not alone.

The continental United States had its warmest autumn on record, comes the official word from NOAA.

For climatologists, autumn is defined as the period from September 1 through November 30.

You add up all the reporting stations in the U.S. and this autumn comes out with a mean temperature of 56.8 degrees.

That's more than three degrees warmer than normal. Three degrees doesn't sound like much, but if you take in the whole Lower 48 over three months, three degrees is pretty incredible.

Only one individual state - Florida - had its hottest autumn on record. However, 28 states, including Vermont, from where I'm writing this post, had one of their Top 5 warmest autumns on record.

The reason this autumn was warmest on record for the continental United States despite such few individual states setting all time records is the coast to coast nature of the warmth.

Typically, any given season will feature warmer than average weather in one part of the country, and cooler than normal readings in another. That means things come out to something near normal if you take the entire nation under consideration.

It's very, VERY unusual to have every state in the continental United States be warmer than average. The "coolest" state, relative to average, was Washington, which had its 20th warmest autumn out of 121 years of record.

As we know, this warmth has extended into December for many of us. It's really toasty in some areas now. At 6 a.m. near me, in Burlington, Vermont, the temperature was 50 degrees, at a time of day when readings are normally in the low 20s this time of year.

Also, not so much as one flake of snow has fallen in Burlington so far this month. It's the first time in my 53 years on Earth I've ever seen us get so far into December without so much as a flurry

The warmth is widespread. No reporting station in the United States managed to fall below 10 degrees above zero on Tuesday at a time of year where many northern and mountainous places are routinely well below zero.

Way out there in Sioux Falls, South Dakota early this morning, it was 42 degrees when temperatures should normally be in the low teens around dawn on December 10.

In normally snowbound Buffalo, New York, they've gone the latest in the season without seeing snow. Forecasts for Buffalo indicate the temperature might not so much as fall below 40 degrees until Monday night at the earliest. Current forecasts for Buffalo have a predicted high temperature of 67 degrees on Sunday.

Normal high temperatures in western New York this time of year are in the mid 30s.

The kind of record high temperatures expected in Buffalo Sunday are expected to cover a large part of the eastern United States on Sunday. It could get to 70 degrees as far north as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Decembers with strong El Ninos tend to be quite warm in much of the United States, but this is insane.

I'm sure the other shoe will drop, and in fact some computer models suggest it will turn colder and snowier in much of the nation around Christmas.  But even then, there doesn't appear to be signs of any HUGE cold waves blasting down from the North Pole before the end of the year.

We'll see about that.

Everyone Knows It's Windy Season Now

An intense storm over the Great Lakes in late
October, 2010.  

In Burlington, Vermont,  the closest major weather station to my home, aeven of the past ten days in  have had wind gusts of over 30 mph.

Early Sunday, gusts reached 44 mph in Burlington, and to around 50 mph or a little more on and right near Lake Champlain.

A lot more wind is due later this week as a vigorous storm arrives.  The windy season is here for sure!

As we head through fall and into winter, the winds across much of the Northern Hemisphere really crank up. We sure feel that here where I live in Vermont. I bet you notice it, too, readers in the Northeast, Great Lakes, Great Plains and Canada.

True, we sometimes get our strongest, most damaging winds in summer thunderstorms and severe weather, but that never lasts long in any one place.

During the cold season, the wind might not be as strong as during a severe thunderstorm, but boy it lasts a long time.

Storm systems tend to be weak in the summer, even if they occasionally produce rambunctious thunderstorms and flooding downpours. Since the large scale summer systems are pretty puny, they don't produce much wind in large areas.

During the cold season, the jet stream in the northern hemisphere cranks up to something much stronger than it was in July. The temperature contrast between the Arctic and the tropics increases, and the result is stronger low pressure systems, aka storms.

These stronger storms crank out a lot of wind. Commonly, this time of year, we get "The Gales Of November," made famous in the Gordon Lightfoot classic song "The Wreck Of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

This time of year favors a weather pattern in which storms move north from the southern Plains or Gulf of Mexico, and then intensify to monsters over or near the Great Lakes.

These Great Lakes storms tend to intensify in the late fall because the water temperatures there are still comparatively warm, which adds energy to the atmosphere to give the storms more oomph.

One of those most intense Gales of November sank the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior 40 years ago this year. 

Right now, a storm system is forming in that classic November pattern (which often happens in late October and into early December, too.)

Jet stream energy from the north will combine with remnants from Hurricane Patricia along with boatloads of Gulf of Mexico moisture. That will create a hefty Great Lakes storm, not on par with the Edmund Fitzgerald storm, but still pretty hefty.

Later this week, the Gales of November will blow across the Great Lakes, and into the Northeast, including here in Vermont.

Upper elevations in Vermont could see gusts to 60 mph Wednesday night, and the slightly more populated northern Champlain Valley and northwestern New York especially could have gusts over 50 mph Thursday.

High wind warnings are already up in New York near Lakes Ontario and Erie for expected gusts over 60 mph Wednesday.

These gales of November are a sure sign winter is coming, as if you didn't know that already.

 It you haven't gotten a good enough taste of late autumn Vermont winds, here's a brief, slightly shaky video of my yard in St. Albans, Vermont late in the afternoon of November 1, 2013. Winds were gusting to 50 mph at the time:

Saturday Was The Day Of The Waterspout

Waterspouts often form in coastal waters, especially around Florida this time of year.

One of several waterspouts offshore from Chicago Saturday.  

Yesterday, though, was off the charts as far as the geographic range of where these waterspouts showed up.

They were reported in Florida, naturally, especially near Tampa.

But they were also spotted in Lake Michigan just offshore from Chicago; in Lake Erie north of Ohio; just off the coast of Maryland, and around Long Island, New York, among other places.

Waterspouts are basically tornadoes over water, but almost always, they are weaker than tornadoes on land.

Still, you want to avoid them, because they can overturn boats and cause other havoc. Every once in awhile, they come ashore, injuring beach goers and damaging property.

Saturday was an extremely busy day for waterspouts because autumn was finally invading summer.

Someone unwisely goes swimming
as a waterspout swirls nearby on
Long Island, N.Y. Saturday. 

Cold air aloft sinking all the way to the Gulf of Mexico from Canada triggered the waterspouts near Florida.

The contrast between the warm humid air to the east and the chillier, autumnal air coming in from the northwest helped to develop a pretty dynamic cold front and storm system, which in turn helped trigger the waterspouts on the Atlantic Coast from Maryland to New England.

The waterspouts over the Great Lakes came in part because of the large contrast between the warm lake water, heated up by a toasty summer, and the autumnal air spilling south across the lakes.

Waterspouts are less likely today, though there might be some around the coastal waters of New England.

A waterspout near Tampa, Florida Saturday.  

The cold air that came in from Canada is modifying and becoming more stable, so the Great Lakes shouldn't have any spouts today.

I suppose there might be more around Florida, we'll see.

But if you are a waterspout fan, you hit the jackpot on Saturday.

Yep, It Will Probably Snow in Vermont, Rest of Northern New England This Weekned.

It'll probably snow in New England this weekend, but
in most places, I doubt it will be as bad as
in this photo 

It's been a really nice autumn in northern New England. It's been on the warm side. This past weeks's gloomy weather notwithstanding, it's been kind of sunny. Very pleasant.  

Now it's payback time.

It seems like it's getting more and more likely places like northern New York, much of Vermont, northern New Hampshire and much of Maine could get an accumulating snow this weekend.

That's true even in the valleys.

It's still questionable how much snow will fall in New England.

It seems like the European computer forecasting models are the most bullish on snow in the region, especially in eastern Vermont, northern New Hampshire and a good chunk of Maine.

That's because the European models bring a coastal storm northward, just off the coast, which would give a good slug of moisture along, especially in the eastern half of New England.

It's too early to talk about accumulation, but the National Weather Service in Burlington, Vermont says if this were to play out, there wouldn't be much snow from the Champlain Valley westward, but amounts would increase rapidly as you head east from there.

The National Weather Service in Gray, Maine is still understandably hedging its bets on how much snow might fall, considering the huge uncertainty on how strong the coastal storm will get, or even it it forms at all.

But the thinking is going that enough cold air will be around that snow could fall and accumulate all the way east to coastal Maine.

American forecasting models have a weaker system off the coast. But there would be weather disturbances around, plus more than enough cold air to drop an accumulating snow, especially on top of, and along the western slopes of the mountains.

Here's an excerpt from the NWS Burlington forecast discussion this morning: "Too early for accumulations but I would have the rock skies on standby this weekend...if you are looking for the first turns of the season along the spine of the Green Mtns from Jay Pay to Mansfield To Killington."

Look, I'm not inducing snow panic (or joy in some cases) here, mostly because there's no reason to panic. Yeah, it seems early to have snow on the ground before you've had a chance to rake the leaves, but this kind of weather isn't unheard of on or just after Halloween.

It's happened before. And earlier than in this potential snowfall.

For instance: On October 4, 1987, up to 18 inches of snow clobbered Vermont, not to mention the Capital District of New York and parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut. It was peak foliage season, and all that snow stuck to the leaves that were still on the trees.

The result was major forest devastation, lots of power failures, blocked roads and a zillion stranded fall foliage tourists.

On Nov. 1, 1993, Burlington, Vermont had 7.7 inches of snow.

The average date of the first one inch snowfall in Burlington is November 17. It's unclear if even that much will fall this weekend there, but if it does, it's only two and a half weeks early. Not that extreme.

In any event, if it does snow it won't last. It's early. Plus long range weather outlooks give us a pretty decent warmup next week.

It might be time to put the snow tires on right now, but don't expect continuous perfect sledding until spring. You'll still have your chance to rake leaves.