Enjoy The Cool: The Muggies Will Return

This schematic from The Weather Channel shows what's coming
back in the next few days.  A dip in the jet stream centered near the
Great Lakeswill once again steer very humid air up the East Coast,
makingus Vermonters wilt once again. 

This Friday morning felt a little better out there in Vermont. It was still warm, still just a bit humid, but really not bad at all. Much nicer than recent days.

Enjoy today, which will turn out pretty sunny, and a lot less sticky than the rest of this week has been. Tonight will be gloriously cool. Throw open those windows and let that 55-degree or so air in!

This won't last. The same persistent weather pattern that has kept the East wicked humid and in some places very wet is returning.

An unusually deep dip in the jet stream will once again set up in the eastern Great Lakes or western Applachians and the Bermuda High will assert itself off the East Coast. This has happened a lot since mid-July and it is a pretty weird setup.

It all means muggy, tropical air will once again stream north all the way to southeastern Canada. It won't be wicked hot next week, but the air will once again feel very heavy up here in Vermont.

It's cooler and less humid today because a series of weak cold fronts have been coming through since Wednesday night. The last of them came through Vermont early this morning.

The cold front will never get far from us. It will hang up over southern New England then start slowly drifting north over the weekend.

Once again, the best chances of heavy rain will be mostly to our south. One system along this warm front will go by to our south Saturday, raising a flood threat in parts of southern New England, bringing showers to southern Vermont, but leaving northern areas dry.

Since Vermont will be north of the warm front, the coolest day since mid-June is in store for southern Vermont. Under clouds and showers, temperatures there Saturday afternoon might not get out of the 60s. Northern Vermont will get sun, so it will be in the 70s to near 80 there.

From there, the humidity and warmth seep into Vermont gradually, making next week another rough, muggy time frame.

Overall, next week, there will be chances of showers and thunderstorms everywhere in the East, including here in Vermont, but the heaviest rains still seem like they will fall on saturated southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic states.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly who will get flooding next week in the East as the most torrential downpours can set up just about anywhere.

Also, I'm  not sure when this pattern will break down, so don't get your hopes up too fast for a break in the muggies after today.

Meanwhile, a torrid heat wave grinds on out west. Some relief will come to parts of the Pacific Northwest by Monday. But heat warnings, fire alerts and air quality advisories from all that smoke from existing wildfires is making things miserable going into the weekend from California to the western Dakotas. Virtually all of Montana is expecting near record heat.

It's been quite a summer, as they say.

We Dodged A Flash Flood Bullet, But It's Going To Stay Wet

Arrived at work early this morning, amid rain, a wet parking lot
and dark overcast skies, Burlington, Vermont

We hare in Vermont and the rest of the North Country barely dodged a nasty flash flood bullet on Friday.

That soaking rain - one to two inches of it - primed the pump for some real nastiness Friday afternoon and evening as we expected some more torrential thunderstorms.

Those afternoon and evening downpours indeed developed across New York, Vermont and New Hampshire.

But, thankfully, they were just a bit too scattered, a bit too fast moving and not quite consistent enough to send blasts of water roaring out of the hills.

The result is some minor driveway and back road washouts, high water in the creeks and soggy, half drowned gardens, but no real disaster.

Other areas that have been getting a lot of rain weren't so lucky. Flash floods were reported Friday and earlier this week from Ontario to Louisiana.

Also, early this morning, severe thunderstorms and at least one likely tornado caused a lot of damage in New Jersey

If you're getting sick of the rain, I've got bad news for you. There's a chance of showers daily for the forseeable future, pretty much through next Friday.

No single day in this damp stretch will be a washout, and I see no signs coming up of enough rain to renew the flood threat. At least that's how it looks now.

However, it appears weather disturbances will come through just about every day, creating the risk of showers.

Sunday afternoon in particulary has a high chance of showers as a another cold front ripples on through.

Despite the rain threat, it will turn less humid this afternoon and on into early next week as a dip in the jet stream sits over us.

It will probably turn somewhat warmer and more humid near the end of the week, but the threat of showers and thunderstorms will continue as a front stalls to our north and other weak weather systems keep zipping in from the west.

Summer is still young, and things could change, but if this summer turns out to be a wet one, that's following a trend in New England.

Last summer was very dry, of course, but that was an exception. Almost every summer since 2001 has been definitely on the wet side here in Vermont.

Flash flooding, always a risk in hilly New England, have gotten more common. The summers of 2011 and 2013 were especially destructive in that regard.

The ground now is very wet. If a particularly heavy burst of rain comes through in the next couple weeks at least, we're in for another flash flood threat.

Stay tuned.