"Historic" Oregon Storm Could Have Vermont Effects, Too

When the national map of the National Weather Service home page is
very colorful, you know it's stormy and there are lots of hazards.
This year, just in time for the Thanksgiving travel week.

Our stormy Thanksgiving week continues apace in the United States as two large storms continue to have a big impact on travel and in some cases, just the day to day life for people.

Fellow Vermonters might be asking me what the hell I'm talking about, since the weather Monday was so mellow, and nothing special is going to happen today in the weather department.

 (Burlington, Vermont made it to 50 degrees Monday, which is no big deal for this time of year, but still the hottest day since way back on November 4.)

But, as noted yesterday, two big storms are affecting other parts of the United States, so us Vermonters are kind of getting spared this time.

 The first storm coming across the United States is a strong one, the second one even worse.

There's a remarkably broad strip of the central United States stretching from Colorado and Wyoming all the way to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that's under a winter storm warning for the first storm. A blizzard warning is up for parts of Colorado.

 I guess my in-laws over in Yankton, South Dakota are going to have a white Thanksgiving, since they are under that winter storm warning. Expect four to nine inches of snow there, with winds of up to 40 mph. Ugh.

Another big area just to the south of this storm is under high wind warnings and wind advisories.  Also, a few severe thunderstorms and a tornado or two could pop up today in the mid-Mississippi Valley today.

For us in Vermont, this first storm won't be too bad. We'll get a decent slug of rain Wednesday afternoon and night. Falling temperatures on Thanksgiving will change the rain to snow showers, but accumulations won't be all that much -- maybe a couple inches in the mountains.

It will be quite windy Wednesday night and Thanksgiving with this storm, so there might be isolated power outages. But it won't be anything close to what we had to deal with in that epic Halloween storm a few weeks back.

Then it's that "historic" storm in Oregon.  A powerhouse of a tempest is coming ashore in Oregon today, with hurricane force gusts along the coast and heavy inland snows. In many areas of Oregon and northwestern California, this has the makings of being among the worst storms in decades. Power will be out for some people in that region through Thanksgiving.

This storm will remain very powerful as it crosses the Lower 48 between now and Sunday. Expect severe weather in the South, and blizzardy weather in the northern Plains and lots of wind in between.

For us, this storm has an uncertain future. Some computer models have the storm producing another snowstorm for Vermont on Sunday. Other models take it too far south to give us much of anything, and a few models take it far enough north to give us mixed precipitation.

Stay tuned, is what I always say.

Wicked Fast Jet Stream Meant Speedy Cross Country Flights

A schematic of the force of Tuesday's jet stream winds in the
United States from CBS News. The whitish shading over
the Northeast depicts record strong jet stream winds
of more than 200 mph.

Like everybody else, I don't like flight delays.

But I understand that weather, mechanical issues, staffing, coordination between airports and all kinds of other factors frequently conspire from letting you make your connecting flight on time.

Every once in awhile, you get lucky and your plane lands a little ahead of schedule. That happened a lot this week as what could be a record fast jet stream rocketed roughly west to east across the nation this week.

Eastbound flights got caught up in this jet stream and often made it to their destination in record time.

For instance, a Virgin Atlantic flight from Los Angeles to London landed at Heathrow 48 minutes early because of the boost given by the jet stream over the United States.

That plane was clocked at going 801 mph over Pennsylvania. Usually, cruising speed is around 560 mph. That 801 mph is faster than the speed of sound and airliners are generally not designed to go that fast. But nothing bad happened because the aircraft was being propelled by 200 mph jet stream winds and not by revved up plane engines.

That meant the air speed of the plane was 800 mph, but the ground speed - what the plane's engines could produce - was well below that.

In any event, most flights heading west to east across the nation in the past couple of day landed earlier than normal. Of course, planes heading in the opposite direction were a little late, because they either had to fight the jet stream head winds or detour around the jet stream.

Jet streams thrive on the contrast between the warm tropics and the cold Arctic. Because there's a bigger temperature contrast between the North Pole and the Equator in the winter, the jet stream is fastest in the winter.

The jet stream got an added boost this week because of a conspiracy of three different branches of the jet stream. A very fast stream coming across the Pacific zoomed into Mexico and the southwestern United States.

Meanwhile, the polar jet stream split, with one arm heading southeastward through the western states, then turning northeastward toward New England. The other branch of the polar jet stream made a beeline from Alaska to the Great Lakes.

All three of these jet stream branches merged over the northeastern United States. They combined their collective power and voila! A record fast jet stream was born over places like Pennsylvania.

The jet stream is 35,000 feet or so overhead. The incredibly fast winds of a jet stream don't usually translate to the surface and that's what happened this time.

Tuesday afternoon, the jet stream was screaming above our heads in Vermont at roughly 200 mph. Here on the ground, it was a delightfully sunny, calm winter day with wind speeds of less than 10 mph.

Jet streams do help steer weather systems. The southern jet stream is carrying moisture from the tropical Pacific, which helps explain why it has been snowing so hard in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, and raining so hard in the Ohio and Tennessee River valleys this week.

The northern stream that approaches from the west is helping shunt the deeper moisture to our south, which explains why the precipitation with these storms has generally not been that heavy here in Vermont.

The jet stream has slowed down a bit overhead since yesterday but it is still wicked fast. The overall speed and orientation of it is expected to remain roughly the same as it has been the past couple of days, so the current general weather pattern will last that long, too.

Surprise White Christmas In And Around Vermont; Christmas Travel To Be Good. But....

At work at Gardener's Supply this Christmas Eve morning, looking
out the window past the amaryllis to the unexpected snow
globe outside

UPDATE 1:30 P.M. DECEMBER 24

Well, we have a botched weather forecast to report this afternoon, but at least it was off in a way that many people like.

I mentioned this morning there would be very little snowfall in Vermont this morning. And if it did snow, it would be mostly in the southern part of the state.

Then a Christmas miracle of sorts happened. The weak, wimpy storm that was supposed to cause the paltry few snowflakes in southern Vermont had more oomph than we thought.

Some energy in the atmosphere combined with a ribbon of moisture floating around northern New York and heading into Vermont contributed to the unexpected snow.

This isn't a blockbuster storm by any means, but now pretty nearly all parts of Vermont have a dusting to two inches of new snow on the ground. There might even be a couple spot three inch totals. Enough to get us a white, or at least whitish Christmas.

Which was, again, unexpected, but oh well.

The only drawback is that the roads are a bit iffy if you're traveling today around the state or running last minute errands. So just be careful on the highways and streets.

This little area of disturbed weather is zipping right along, so the snow should shut off pretty quickly this evening. It still looks like it's going to be a rather sunny, but seasonably chilly day on Christmas. It will certainly be cold enough for the snow to stick around.

This post's previous discussion is below, and includes the underestimation of how much snow Vermont would get today:

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:


 A large storm in the middle of the nation will cause widespread zones
of snow, ice, rain and wind by Thursday

A lot of people are traveling to and fro today and for the next few days for the Christmas holiday.

Locally in New England, it's pretty much smooth sailing until Thursday night, when a storm will begin to make things messy. 
A large storm will make things tricky at various times from coast to coast starting today.

The Christmas Eve action will begin today with a large area of rain and snow across the west and Rockies through Christmas Day. There will certainly be a white Christmas for most areas that are high enough in elevation to escape the rain.

This storm will really begin to blossom Wednesday, the day after Christmas, across the Plains.

Snow will spread across the north, an ugly wintry mix will hit some of the central Plains (think Iowa and Nebraska). Rain and thunderstorms will hit further south. Some severe storms are possible in Texas by Wednesday.

The storm will get strong, so winds will become an issue, too. As the storm lumbers northeastward toward the Great Lakes Thursday, snow, ice and wind will continue in the northern Plains, with a large area of rain across the Midwest.

All this will spread into the Northeast Friday. Northern New England faces some ice on Thursday night and early Friday before everything goes over to rain.

There won't be as much rain as in last Friday's storm, so any flooding that does happen will be less severe and much less widespread than it was over the weekend.

This upcoming cross-country storm is sure to create flight delays, so check with your airlines before you head to the airport if your departure or destination happens to be in the storm zone when you're flying.

Here in New England, some light snow will fall in central and southern parts of the region today, but it won't amount to much. Maybe an inch or two, with less than that the further north you go.

Christmas Day will feature a lot of sun with seasonably cold temperatures across New England. That gives us highs in the 20s north, near 30 central and in the 30s south. Wednesday and Thursday also look good before the ickiness arrives Thursday night across New England.

No Severe Vermont Storms. Cool Videos From Elsewhere, Though

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:

Monday Morning Update: The Blizzard Of 2015 Is Still On, Big Time

I don't know if things will get THIS bad, but the
Northeast is still on track for a huge blizzard tonight
through Tuesday.  

A quick check of forecasts and computer models and such has revealed little change in the overall forecast for the Blizzard of 2015 in the northeastern United States.  

As the storm draws closer, and during the storm, us weather geeks will get excited or focus on all kinds of particular computer model outputs with this storm

Forecasters will keep fussing with picky details of the storm, based on new information that will keep churning out.

They'll raise or lower expected snow totals slightly in given areas, raise or lower wind speeds, that kind of thing.

For the general public, don't get too hung up on subtle tweaks in the forecast. Whether you get 15 or 20 or 30 or 40 inches of badly windblown snow, the impacts are going to be HUGE.

In that respect, who really cares if you get 23 or 24 inches of snow?  I'll get into some of the picky details a bit later in this post.

Already, the effects of this storm are being felt, and it hasn't really even started snowing yet. Airlines are cancellling flights left and right, and by early Monday morning, more than 2,000 were gone by the wayside for today and tomorrow.

If you're planning on driving anywhere in the Northeast today, don't bother. You'll probably make it to where you're going today, as things won't be too bad, but then you'll be stuck there as the blizzard blasts in tonight and tomorrow.  And who knows how long it will take to clear the roads when the snow tapers off Wednesday?

There's still time to get ready this morning and early afternoon. Especially if you live in the blizzard warning zone, lay in some supplies in case you're stuck at home for a few days.

Though I wouldn't panic like this guy:



Instead of panicking over BREAD AND MILK!!!  get some nonperishable food (in case the power goes out and the refrigerator doesn't work) your medications- enough to last several days, some bottled water to drink and for hygiene, and some flashlights, batteries and that type of thing.  Oh, and make sure smoke and carbon monoxide detectors work and get some extra batteries for those, too.

You might want to keep your smart phones and such fully charged, too, in case the power does go out.

Once the storm starts, stay inside. Near the beginning of the storm during the day today and perhaps early this evening,  it won't be snowing that hard in most places so you might think, "This isn't so bad."

Then the real heavy stuff comes and you're stuck in your stalled, freezing car out on the Interstate until gawd knows when.  Not a nice place to die of exposure or carbon monoxide poisoning, let me tell you.

If you want to take pictures and video during the blizzard, go right ahead. But do it right near your house so you can get inside right away and not get stuck out there.

Check in on your elderly neighbors, too, to make sure they're doing OK during the blizzard.

As I noted, the overall forecast hasn't changed. Nobody has substantially changed the areas under blizzard or winter storm warnings. The expected areas of heaviest weather haven't shifted much at all.

If you want glimmers of good news (or bad, if you like extremes) there's a chance, just a chance, that New York City won't get as much snow as some of the higher end forecasts. But 18 to 24 inches at this point still looks like a good bet, and with winds expected to gust as high as 55 mph in the Big Apple, this is still going to be, as the National Weather Service puts it, a crippling and life threatening storm.

Up in New England, I see almost no changes in forecasts from Sunday evening. The National Weather Service headquarters in Taunton, Mass. is fussing with details of whether one or two particularly heavy snow bands set up northwest of the storm center and where those bands will be located.

Nobody is quite sure on that topic, but within those semi-stationary bands during the height of the storm is where we'll see the highest storm totals with this. Possible three feet or more.

I'm still the most worried about coastal flooding and storm surges with this storm, as that's what will cause the most destruction. It's hard to say whether the peak of the storm surges will come with Tuesday morning's high tide or during low tide a few hours later.

But in any event, definitely continue to expect coastal flooding and very nasty beach erosion. The flooding will be moderate in some areas, severe in a few others. I continue to worry that some houses in coastal Long Island, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine and especially Massachusetts could b badly damaged or destroyed.

Most of the snow in the blizzard region will be powdery, which means the strong winds will blow the snow off trees and power lines. That's a good thing, as that would minimize the risk of power failures. But with such strong winds, power failures are still a big threat.

In some coastal areas, like eastern Long Island, Cape Cod and the Islands, the snow could end up being wet and heavy and sticky. And those same areas are the ones that are likely to get the strongest winds, up to or even exceeding 70 mph in spots during the height of the storm.

With such strong winds and wet snow, the threat of long lasting power failures is greatest in the spots I just mentioned.

The storm, as forecast last night, will extend well into central and northern New England, where winter storm warnings are up for about a foot of snow,

The big snows look like they'll miss far northwestern New England, where it looks like at most, just a few inches of snow from Burlington, Vermont on north and west.

Don't expect the snow to melt anytime soon once the blizzard is over. Colder than normal weather is likely for probably the next couple of weeks, with maybe one or two days thrown in that aren't too, too cold.

It might even snow in the blizzard zone again on Friday, but that storm, if it forms, won't be anything close to what's coming tonight and tomorrow.