Hanna, Now A Hurricane, Steals The Show. Also: Vermont Heat AGAIN!

Radar of Hurricane Hanna east of Corpus Christi, Texas this
morning. Powerful winds and storms now completelu
encircle Hanna's eye, which means further
strenthening is likely until the storm
makes landfall this afternoon. 

A few days ago, it looked like we would spend the rest of the week talking about a would-be hurricane named Gonzalo, while ignoring a nothingburger in the Gulf of Mexico.

As more proof that the tropics can be unpredictable, the "nothingburger" is now Hurricane Hanna, and it's about to strike southern Texas. And cause lots of problems.

Satellite views of Hanna overnight showed it organizing quite well, forming an eye with curved bands of intense thunderstorms surrounding that center.

The National Hurricane Center confirmed that as of around 7 a.m. this morning, top sustained winds in Hanna had reached 75 mph, enough to be the first Atlantic hurricane of the season.

It looks like Hanna will keep strengthening until it hits the southern Texas coast this afternoon.  The only thing keeping Hanna from become an even bigger monster is it doesn't have much time to get more powerful before it makes landfall.

However, powerful thunderstorms managed to completely surround the eye of Hanna as its central air pressure lowered. That's certainly a great recipe for further strengthening. Some observers  this morning were wondering if top winds could reach 90-100 mph.

Don't think for a minute so called "weaker" Category 1 hurricanes don't cause a lot of problems. This one will create a lot of difficulties, as most Cat 1's do.  It will cause wind damage. Even worse, storm surges of three to five feet above normal sea levels are expected around and south of Corpus Christi.  It's a low coast line, so that will cause lots of flooding.

Worse still, Hanna will dump between six and 12 inches of rain on far southern Texas, which will cause a lot of flash flooding.

There's more bad news with this:  A hurricane that is growing stronger as it nears the coast is especially bad because it catches people off-guard.  Some people in southern Texas might have been saying yesterday, "Oh, a tropical storm. I guess we won't have a beach day on Saturday."

Now, they have little time to get out of the way of wind, storm surgest and inland flooding.  I was, however, heartened to see news video of LOTS of cars driving away from the southern Texas coastline Friday evening.

Additionally, as we've all heard on the news, Texas is enduring a terrible spike in illnesses, deaths and hospitalizations due to the Covid-19 pandemic.  So on top of the extreme health crisis, southern Texas has to deal with a hurricane.

How do you socially distance in evacutation centers?  What if people are hurt or need to be rescued during Hurricane Hanna when medical and emergency teams are already stretched so thin?

They told us way back in the spring this would be a difficult hurricane season.  This is the opening salvo, and it's certainly not a good one.

Going back to the other tropical storm, Gonzalo, it's falling apart.  It will bring tropical storm conditions to some of the Windward Islands, and it's still expected to dissipate in the Caribbean Sea.  You never know what will happen to Gonzalo's remnants in a few days, so its currently disorganized mass of clouds could come back from the dead in a week or so.

VERMONT HEAT OVERPERFORMS AGAIN

Speaking of things that keep rising from the dead, another hot spell is coming to Vermont, especially Sunday and Monday.

There had been hope earlier in the week, that temperatures would stay pretty close to normal, continuing a trend that started Tuesday and continued through Friday. All four of those days were only slightly warmer than average, instead of torrid.

It's back to hot again for a few days. Today won't be too bad, because humidity levels are pretty comfortable. Still, afternoon highs will get into the 80s pretty much statewide.  The broader, wider valleys will probably get into the upper 80s

The humidity will increase by Sunday, along with the temperatures. Burlington could easily see its 16th 90 degree reading of the year tomorrow, and we might make it to #17 on Monday.

It doesn't look like there will be any cooling thunderstorms Sunday. However, on a very muggy Sunday night, and early Monday, some weather disturbances riding over the northern edge of the Northeast U.S. heat ridge could bring showers and thunderstorms to Vermont. If they happen, it's most likely north of Route 2.

Scattered hit and miss  showers and storms could punctuate the heat and humidity Monday.  A cold front slowly sagging south through northern New England will gradually bring relief to us later Tuesday and especially Wednesday, when temperatures will fall - and I use that term loosely - to readings that are similar to what we've had the past three or four days.

Cristobal: Size Matters

Cristobal is expected to eventually cross the western Great Lakes
and go into Canada later this week. 

Tropical Storm Cristobal, which came ashore in Louisiana Sunday proves that "weak" tropical systems are anything but.  

Top winds with this thing were 50 mph, which doesn't sound like that big of a deal.  However, what Cristobal lacked in wind was more than made up for in size.

Cristobal didn't have a classic tropical storm shape while it was in the Gulf of Mexico.  In satellite photos, it looked more like a giant comma, like you would see in a strong nor'easter in coastal New England during the winter.

Tropical storms and hurricanes usually have a more circular, symetrical shape.

The tropical storm was large in size, which meant it could cause havoc over a wide area.  That's why you saw on the news tornadoes swirling through Orlando, Florida. It's also why parts of Florida got up to a foot of rain.

Size mattered in an even more important way.  Cristobal's relatively modest winds covered a wide are of the Gulf, so it was able to push a lot of water ahead of it.

This created a nasty storm surge, made worse by the timing. The surge came just as high tide rolled in.  Coastal communities like Grand Isle, Louisiana and Waveland, Mississippi were inundated as a result .

MORE CRISTOBAL TROUBLE

Cristobal, now a tropical depression as of early this Monday morning, will move generally north and end up in Wisconsin by early Wednesday morning. It will take a swath of heavy rain with it. Flood watches are up along the projected path of Cristobal in Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin.

The storm will be gradually becoming a non-tropical system as it moves northward through the Midwest. If it still has some tropical characteristics by the time it hits Wisconsin, which is quite possible, that will be something.

The storm is actually expected to strengthen as it approaches the Great Lakes as it gradually merges with another storm.  It could cause some damaging wind gusts midweek, and create the lowest air pressures on record for June in that area.

VERMONT EFFECTS

We won't have any direct impacts from Cristobal here in Vermont, but it sure is helping to make the weather forecast challenging.

The Cristobal storminess in the Midwest and a strong, but sharp and narrow upper level ridge further east puts Vermont in a weird spot.  A warm front out ahead of everything will try to move in, but there's disagreement in the computer models as to whether it will make it all the way through here.

High and mid level cloudiness will accompany this feature over Vermont Tuesday, and a pretty big temperature gradient will be setting up over or near Vermont.  We could end up with  a cool, cloudy 65 degree day up in Newport and a muggy 85 degree afternoon down in Bennington.  That's just one possibility, but the temperature contrast could set up further west, or further east. Who knows?

Wednesday's weather is a toss up. It all depends on where that warm front goes, and if it makes it north of us. It could either be humid and way up in the 80s to near 90 in a spot or two, or just in the 70s with more moderate humidity.

Amid all this uncertainty, the remains of Cristobal, and the cold front it will eventually drag through here at the end of the week, won't give us a lot of rain.  Which is too bad. We still need it, despite the showers we had over the weekend.

Here's a drone view of storm surge flooding from Cristobal in Grand Isle, Louisiana:

Cristobal Not The Only Threat: Wind, Tornadoes, Fire Even Snow Out West

WPTZ-TV's web cam captured this lightning strike at around 2:30
this morning over Plattsburgh, N.Y. Thunderstorms roamed through
northern New York and northern Vermont early this morning, bringing
much needed rain.  Hat tip to WPTZ meteorologist Ben
Frechette for posting this one. 

The weather headlines this weekend are dominated by   which is forecast to make landfall late Sunday night in or near Louisiana.

Storm surges three feet deep or more are expected in much of coastal Louisiana, and heavy rains will add to flooding woes.  The wind won't really be the problem. The water will be the issue.

As bad as that all sounds, it's the Rocky Mountain states and the western Plains that have even more action this weekend.

They'll have it all. Depending on where you are, wildfires are possible, so are strong winds not associated with thunderstorms, blowing dust, thunderstorms, possible tornadoes and even a snowstorm in a spot or two.

A strong cold front associated with a powerful upper level low pressure system in the Pacific Northwest are causing all this havoc.

Ahead of this storminess, strong south winds over the New Mexico and the High Plains of Colorado will gust to 65 mph.  This could cause some tree and power line damage. It could tip over high profile vehicles on highways.

Worse, it could make any wild or range fires in New Mexico and Colorado spread really quickly and become dangerous.

Further north and east, when you get up into South Dakota, the threat today will be tornadoes and dangerous supercell thunderstorms that will throw down huge hailstones and wicked straight line winds in some spots.

The highest chances of tornadoes and strong thunderstorm winds is over central South Dakota today.  The higher chances of damaging hail are more toward the Black Hills, where a hail storm the other day caused a lot of damage in and around Rapid City, South Dakota. 

The threat for severe storms and tornadoes continues tomorrow for northern South Dakota and the eastern half of North Dakota.

Heading back to Colorado and Utah, the problem up in the mountains today is not too little rain, like in the Plains east of Denver, but too much.  The strong cold front out there will set off some thunderstorms with heavy rain.

That'll trigger flash flooding, especially in a lot of those narrow slot canyons in Utah.

Up in Idaho, they're actually bracing for a snowstorm.  The National Weather Service in Pocatello said accumulating snows could reach all the way down to valley floors in towns like Stanley.  Some areas can expect several inches of snow.

All this is an extremely busy weather pattern for early June.  Severe storms and tornadoes are relatively common, as are flash floods this time of year. But this variety of weather, from winter weather, to tropical storms, to high winds, fires and those tornadoes, is pretty wild for what is generally a relatively mellow time of year in the weather department.

Up here in Vermont, we're missing out on the extremes, which is OK.  Thunderstorms blustered through northern parts of the state early this morning. My unofficial rain gauge in St. Albans captured  0.55 inches of much-needed rain from the early morning storms. Burlington only got 0.04 inches as the storms mostly missed them.

Scattered showers and storms will continue today and this evening, off an on, as a series of weather fronts and boundaries move through.  Any thunderstorms that get going today should not be severe, but a few might be gusty. Eastern and southern New England have a slightly better chance of a few strong to severe storms today.

After a cool Sunday and Monday, it will warm up to summertime levels again by mid-week.  I'm not sure it will hit 90 again. It did manage to get that warm in Burlington Friday.  We've already had three days this year that have gotten to 90, which is at least half our normal alotment for the entire summer.

On average, most 90 degree days in Burlington hit in July and August.

Semi-Tropical Storm Nestor: Weak On Paper, Nasty In Reality

Tropical Storm Nestor about to make landfall in northwestern Florida
this morning.

Tropical Storm Nestor, if you can call it that, is expected to make landfall in northwestern Florida today..

It doesn't at all look like a classic tropical storm. It looks more like just a regular old nasty batch of thunderstorms arranged in a comma shape. 

Top sustained winds  this morning were  a ho-hum 50 mph. It was even kind of hard to pick out its center of circulation, as it mostly consisted of rough weather to the north and east of the center. 

So on paper, Nestor is not much to worry about. In reality, though it's a pretty rough one.

It's coming ashore, as I said in northwestern Florida. The topography of the region is helping make the storm surge from Nestor worse than it otherwise would be, so flooding is a problem.

As you can see on a map, the coastline of western Florida makes an arc like a tilted, backwards "C" between Pananma City in the panhandle, and Tampa, halfway down the west coast.

Water is being driven from the southwest toward the northeast into this backwards "C".  That tends to shove and converge water into the middle of this curving coastline.  Which means Nestor is capable o storm surges of three to five feet above normal water levels.

Since much of this coastline is low and flat, water can definitely push inland past the beaches into homes and businesses. There was already a round of storm surge flooding last night, and there will be another one today.

Friction with land can also help make the disorganized storms with Nestor, creating tornadoes. There were already a couple last night, including one that sent debris flying across busy Interstate 4 near Lakeland Florida.

More tornadoes will probably touch down in Florida and Georgia today.

What's left of Nestor will move up over the eastern Carolinas today and tomorrow, then out ot sea.  It won't really affect Vermont much, except perhaps add a little moisture to a cold front coming in Tuesday night.

That cold front, and not Nestor, will be the main player for us here in Vermont. We'll get a decent slug of rain out of it but not nearly as much as we got from that nor'easter on Thursday. So the flood threat looks pretty low at this point

Worries Grow As Dorian Continues Targeting Florida

Bigger and meaner. Dorian looking larger and more intense
than it did yesterday or the day before.

Hurricane Dorian, becoming more and more formitable, continues on a path that continues to look like it will smash Florida.

Chances are now very high that it will come ashore as a major hurricane, Category 3 or higher, with winds of up to 140 mph, devastating storm surges and torrential rains which will cause severe inland flooding.

Yep, another disaster is in the works. 

The National Hurricane Center this morning said Dorian had top winds of 110 mph and forecasters say all kinds of factors are at play to make the storm strengthen more.

The water Dorian is passing over is very warm. Upper level winds are light, which hurricanes like.  Early in its life, Dorian battled dry air. The air surrounding Dorian keeps getting more humid the further west it goes. 

Regarding the track, computer models have been "windshield wipering," as they say, for the past couple of days and that might continue. By this I mean, forecasts have Dorian coming ashore further south, then north, then south in or near Florida. This kind of "windshield wipering" is common with forecasts leading up to a major hurricane.

Really, it doesn't matter that much in precisely what city Dorian comes ashore at.  It will cause big problems over a wide area of Florida. This is true even if Dorian manages to curve north just along or off the east coast of Florida, as a small minority of computer models indicate.

Here's a few other things to consider with Dorian:

Coastal flooding, in small part tied to Dorian, is already happening in the Southeast. The new moon is causing "King Tides" which are higher than normal tides created by the position of the moon.  Climate change has contributed to sea level rise, so King Tides have been routinely causing flooding in places like Miami and Charleston, South Carolina.

Easterly winds created by high pressure that's steering Dorian toward Florida and pushing even more water up against the shore from Miami to Cape Hatteras. Damaging coastal floods are starting to occur even though Dorian is nowhere near the United States yet. 

In the "here we go again" department, it looks like there's a good chance that Dorian's forward motion could slow down dramatically in or near Florida. That would prolong the torrential rains and surges and wind from Dorian. That would also worsen inland flooding. It seems we're going through these hurricane "stalls" a lot lately, what with the slow motion of Hurricanes Harvey, Florence and Matthew in recent years.

If you know anyone living in Florida, tell them to get ready if they haven't already.  Dorian at this point is expected to make landfall on Monday.  Tropical force winds and rain could arrive as early as Saturday, so things should be getting done now.

And for gawd's sake if the emergency managers tell you to evacuate, go. Don't ride this out. I'm sure evacuation notices will start flying today if they haven't already, so be ready to leave if you're in the hurricane zone.

I suppose it's possible Dorian could unexpectedly weaken before reaching Florida, or take a surprise turn away. But the chances of that happening look pretty slim at this point.

One last thought: Some long range forecasting models bring Dorian or its remains to eastern New England in about a week. That's speculation at this point, but we'll eventually have to watch and see what happens in that regard.

So Far, So Good With Barry But Danger Remains. Also Uncomfortable Vermont Impacts

Flooding from Barry in Mandeville, La on Saturday.
Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Reuters

Tropical Storm Barry its winds no longer much of a factor, continued to plow through Louisiana this morning, dumping heavy rains and unleashing lots of floods, as expected.

That's the bad news. The good news is, although the threat of destructive life-threatening floods is still big time there, some threatened areas have been spared so far. New Orleans, for instance, remains in good shape this morning.

Storm surges were certainly damaging along the coast, but could have been worse. The surge overtopped some levees, causing some serious flooding. People reportedly had to be rescued from rooftops in Terrebonne Parish, which is south of New Orleans.

The heaviest rain had so far mostly missed Louisiana, until this morning, when heavier rain bands started moving in.  That's about to get worse as the day wears on.

Barry has always been a weird storm.  When it was first starting to form in the Gulf of Mexico last Wednesday, it threw tremendous rains into New Orleans, flooding much of the city.

Since then, the most torrential rains with Barry have remained offshore, to the south of the storm's center.  That was true even early this morning, when the dying center of Barry was over western Louisiana.

True, some heavy rain bands did come in, causing some significant floods in southern Mississippi and coastal Alabama.

Today, however, as the remnants of Barry slog slowly northward toward Arkansas, that heavy rain in the northern Gulf of Mexico will pull north along with it. That's when the real torrents of rain will come, especially across central and southwest Louisiana, according to forecasters.  The highest risk for flash flooding there with this storm is actually this afternoon, evening and overnight.

Tomorrow, the best chances of Barry flooding are in the mid-Mississippi Valley, say in eastern Arkansas and western Tennessee.

VERMONT IMPACTS

Although I don't think Barry will do many scary things here in Vermont, we will feel its impacts. Especially in the sweat department.

The remnants of Barry will move toward us, and that will make the humidity rocket upward, especially as we get into Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

It will probably be the worst spell of high humidity we've had so far this summer. Daytime highs will get into the 80s, with dewpoints probably in the low 70s. That's about as humid as it gets in a Vermont summer. Nights will be oppressively hot - too muggy to sleep without air conditioning.

One potential danger from Barry and all his wet air coming at us is the possibility of local flash floods. That risk is definitely iffy and may well NOT come to pass,  but we'll have to keep an eye on that as we get on later in the week.

We do know that the humid air, the remnants of Barry and stalled, weak weather fronts near the Green Mountain State will set off some fairly frequent showers and thunderstorms. With all the humidity around, some of these storms will surely set off some torrential downpours.

If these torrential storms slow down or stall over a certain area, or a string of several such storms goes over the same area, one after another, that would increase the flash flood potential.

Like other events this spring and summer, even if Vermont does get some flooding out of this, and that's a bif if, the trouble wouldn't be statewide. Some towns would get nailed, while most others would be fine.

A couple videos:

 News report of overtopped levee in Myrtle Grove, New Orleans. Looks ominous:

 

Storm surge flooding in Brathwaite, Louisiana. You can see in the drone video water overtopping a levee here, too:

Another Hurricane Abruptly Turns Into Monster. And Will Nor'easter Result

Satellite image of what was Category 5 Hurricane Willa off
the western Mexican coast on Monday. 

Following a dangerous and increasing trend in recent years, Hurricane Willa blew up into a monster off the west coast of Mexico between Sunday and Monday.

It's going to come ashore today in southwestern Mexico, and I imagine we're going to hear a lot of news about destruction in that neck of the woods in the next few days. It'll come ashore north of Puerto Vallarta.

Willa went from a humdrum tropical storm to a Category 5 monster in just two days. That's incredibly rapid intensification.  Waters off the Mexican coast are running one to two degrees warmer than normal, and that certainly helped with the intensification.

That type of explosive development seems to be a trend in tropical systems.

Willa might be an indication that rapidly intensifying hurricanes will likely become more common with global warming. There won't necessarily be more hurricanes than there used to be, but a greater proportion of them will intensify really quickly.

There's more research on this trend. A 2016 paper from MIT examined this.

Reports the Category 6 weather and climate blog:

"MIT hurricane scientist Kerry Emanuel explained that not only will global warming make the strongest hurricanes stronger, it will also increase how fast they intensify."

That's especially dangerous when the intensification comes just as the hurricane is getting ready to make landfall. We saw that with Hurricane Harvey in Texas last year and Hurricane Michael earlier this month in the Florida Panhandle.

Emanuel's argument makes sense. If the overall atmospheric conditions are favorable for a hurricane, warmer water will more efficiently feed the hurricane, making it intensify more quickly. Warmer ocean water is widely expected to be around as climate change continues to take hold.

When a hurricane intensifies greatly just before coming ashore, these monsters would catch people in the storm zone off guard. They might be expected a so-so storm and instead getting something more powerful. That happened with Michael this month on the Florida Panhandle.

According to the Category 6 weather and climate blog:

"The analysis found that the odds of a hurricane intensifying by 70 mph or greater in the 24 hours just before landfall were about once every 100 years in the climate of the late 20th century. But in the climate of the year 2100, these odds increased to once every five to ten years."

That might sound like a whole lot. But as we saw with Hurricane Michael, this type of intensification is beyond catastrophic.

In the case of Willa, the explosive intensification occured when the storm was a fair distance offshore. It looks like it peaked yesterday with top winds of 160 mph. As is typical with hurricanes, Willa has rearranged the thunderstorms around the eye of the storm. This tends to weaken the top winds, but spreads strong, dangerous winds over a wider area, and can make the storm surge worse.

Willa was down to 130 mph this morning, and wind speed will probably drop a little more before landfall. But it will still be a serious, life-threatening hurricane.

The remnants of Willa will cross through Mexico and into southern Texas, spreading more unwelcome rain in an area of the Lone Star State that has had far too much rain and flooding lately.

The ghost of Willa will then run eastward across the Gulf Coast and become an ingredient to the formation of what looks like the season's first nor'easter.  It will make a run up the East Coast over the weekend.

It's too soon to determine what exactly that nor'easter will do, but it could have implications here in Vermont later Saturday and especiallly Sunday.   We have a good chance of a cold rain, maybe some wind, and maybe some snow in the higher elevations. We don't yet how far to the east the storm will go, so we don't know how heavy the precipitation might be.

We'll know more by about Thursday.

This nor'easter will come just about on the anniversary of last October's nor'easter, which brought one of the worst and destructive windstorms on record to parts of Vermont. We're quite sure whatever this weekend's nor'easter does, it won't be as bad as last year's.

Hurricane Florence Is As Catastrophic As Expected, More Destruction Today

The first of numerous storm surges with Hurricane Florence
yesterday in North Carolina. 

Unfortunately, Hurricane Florence is playing out as expected, with devastating storm surges and widespread damage as the storm came ashore this morning.

Landfall was near Wrightsville Beach at around 7:15 a.m. This is very close to where forecasts have thought for days Florence would land.

There's a lot going on with this, and I have a lot of thought about Florence, so this post will seem rather random and scattershot, but I hope informative.

Since the storm is crawling along near the coast, torrential rains will continue through tomorrow at least, so inland flooding will now be the issue. The high winds associated with the hurricane will slowly diminish, but that's little comfort to people in the disaster zone. The fact that Florence is moving right along the coast, adjacent to warm seawater will mean it might take quite awhile for the hurricane to diminish.

SNAPSHOTS OF CHAOS

It sure was chaotic overnight and this morning. Many weather stations are obviously out of service due to flooding and wind. I did notice Wilmington, North Carolina had gusts over 100 mph this morning, with widespread damage reported.  .

Few people remain in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, so reports out of there are still obviously sketchy at best.

Accuweather reports that 70 people that were holed up in a Jacksonville, North Carolina had to be evacuated as high winds threatened to collapse the building. A storm surge slammed into New Bern, North Carolina, which prompted this very scary tweet from city emergency managers:

Waves from Hurricane Florence batter a North Carolina
pier as the storm approached the state Thursday. 

"Currently - 150 awaiting rescue in New Bern. We have 2 out of state FEMA teams here for swift water rescue. More are on the way to help us. WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU. You may need to move up to the second story or to your attic, but WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU."

New Bern had for days been regarded as Ground Zero for some of the worst storm surge flooding. Again, those forecasters were unfortunately accurate.

Among the swift water rescue teams in North Carolina are from the Colchester, Vermont technical rescue team. I obviously wish everybody, rescuers and those to be rescued the best.

Storm surges began Thursday well before the hurricane made it to shore, and continued with last night's high tide cycle and this morning's. More surges will happen over the next day or two as the storm continues to crawl near the coast for the next 24 hours at least.

I've always been among those who wondered why people don't always evacuate when told to ahead of a storm. An opinion piece in Scientific American gave me a new perspective. 

Many people don't have the option to evacuate, even when there's mandatory orders. Says Scientific American:

"It takes money to displace yourself. It takes having somewhere better to go and a way to get there. Having a full tank of gas is a luxury when you live paycheck to paycheck. Spending money up front and then waiting for reimbursement requires that you have the money in the first place, while knowing what expenses are covered and how to file the paperwork, requires knowledge not everyone has or has access to. 

Missing shifts at work is unthinkable when every dollar counts. Some workplaces keep emploees as long as legally possible, more worried about lost profits than lost lives."

Yup, I guess if you are poor you don't deserve to survive a disaster. This situation does not exactly make me proud. We can do better.

"DOWNGRADED?" NOT SO FAST!

 I'm sick and tired of reporters saying the hurricane has been "downgraded" to a weaker storm. I guess part of the problem is the scale hurricanes are judged by is the wind. But there should be a different system that takes into account the severity of storm surges and inland flooding associated with hurricanes.

So called "weak" hurricanes and tropical storms, like Harvey after it came ashore in Texas last year, Irene up here in Vermont seven years ago, Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and now Florence, are incredibly destructive and dangerous due to storm surges and inland flooding. By calling storms "downgraded" we in the media lull people into a false sense of security.

Florence will probably be "downgraded" to a tropical storm, probably Saturday if not even a bit earlier than that.   But potentially the most destructive part of this storm will come after it has "weakened." The torrential rains will spread inland across the Carolinas. Incredible flooding is inevitable through the weekend.

Already, we have one unofficial report of 30 inches of rain in coastal North Carolina. These incredible totals will spread inland, especially in a zone between Wilmington and Charlotte, North Carolina. This is obviously not good.

The slow forward pace of Hurricane Florence and its unusual path has me thinking about whether climate change influenced this storm. Maybe, maybe not. I'll have more on that subject in a later post.

VERMONT IMPACTS?

It seems like every time there's a bad hurricane in the southeastern United States, we in Vermont get a spell of spectacular weather. Yesterday and today are no exception. Skies cleared into a deep blue by Thursday afternoon amid warmer than normal, summerlike air. This state of affairs will continue through the weekend, with only the very slightest chance of a shower north Saturday afternoon.

After trashing the Carolinas this weekend, Florence could bring
Vermont some rain next week

Eventually, after Florence meanders around the Carolinas for a few days, the remnants of it will move north, possibly giving us some rain.

The path and intensity of the rain from Florence in Vermont is unknown, but we certainly won't have anything like the disaster that's unfolding further south.

In a worst case scenario, some flooding might happened in the Green Mountain State, especially in southern sections. Overall, though, we still need more rain. Like the remains of Gordon last week, Florence has the potential to do more good than harm in Vermont.

Rains from Florence, if they arrive, won't come until Monday night at the earliers. The details of the forecast will come into better focus later in the weekend.

Hurricane Florence Still Set To Unleash Terrible Disaster On The Carolinas

Hurricane Florence as seen from space. Photo via Reuters.

Hurricane Florence continues to churn menacingly in the Atlantic Ocean this morning. The Carolinas are still in its crosshairs, and all indications are that unfortunately, this is going to be very, very bad.

If you were heartened by reports that Florence weakened a little bit overnight, don't be. It's still an incredibly dangerous hurricane, and there's no reason why it can't restrengthen.

When you get a hurricane as big and bad as Florence, the eye of the storm often collapses and re-forms.

During these so-called eyewall replacement cycles, the strength of the storm will fluctuate. Hurricanes like Florence will weaken a bit when the thunderstorms surrounding the eye of the storm rearrange themselves. Once the storms are done fixing themselves up, the hurricane re-strenghtens.

Worse, these cycles often make the area of strong winds in a hurricane cover a larger area, which would eventually make the wind damage and storm surge worse and more widespread once the hurricane makes landfall.

Forecasts are consistent that Florence will probably come ashore somewhere in North or South Carolina. Don't pay too much attention to exact spot where Florence will land. The whole region is in trouble, regardless of whether Florence makes landfall a couple dozen miles north or south of where it's currently expected to.

The projected path of Hurricane Florence continuies to
consistently target the Carolinas. 

The bottom line is that the Carolinas and some surrounding areas are really screwed,  and the people who live down there know it. Already,  more than 1.5 million people have been wisely told to evacuate inland and away from rivers that will inevitably flood.

Although the core of the hurricane isn't expected to hit land until Thursday night, Florence is already causing some problems.

The evacuation of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, those barrier islands that jut out into the Atlantic, was slowed because high surf was washing across some of the roads that serve as evacuation routes.

Reuters reported that traffic was backed up for nine miles because of this. But at least the traffic jam was a sign that people are taking Florence seriously and are getting out of Dodge.

Even though the hurricane hasn't hit yet, it's still disruptive. What do you do with 1.5 million people who are fleeing inland? And fleeing inland isn't necessarily good enough. You want people to move to places that won't be affected by river flooding. Some are going all the way to place like Tennessee and Kentucky or even more distant places to get away from the storm.

Echoing the disaster with Hurricane Hugo in 1989, South Carolina officials are blocking eastbound lanes of Interstate 26. Both east and westbound lanes will become all westbound, which will help facilitate evacuations.

By the way, if you know anybody in the Carolinas, or Virginia or anyplace else threatened by Florence, tell them to heed all warnings and alerts. If they're ordered to evacuate and they don't, tell them you will hate them, disinherit them or whatever it takes to get them to move.

The wind and storm surge are going to be immensely destructive with Florence. Winds could easily gust past 130 mph along the coast. Storm surges could reach six to 12 feet. More than 750,000 homes are in the path of this potential storm surge. Coastal areas in the Carolinas are flat, so storm surge flooding can extend inland quite away.

Speaking of inland, flooding in the interior of the Carolinas and surrounding areas still look to be the biggest problem with Florence.   There are still signs that Florence will slow down or stall once it gets inland. The wind with the storm will quickly diminish, but the rain will keep pouring down.

The benchmark for how bad a hurricane can get in the Carolinas is
Hurricane Hazel in 1954. This photo shows what Hurricane
Hazel did to the North Carolina coast. 

There's the potential for one to two feet of rain. A few computer models hint at as much as 40 inches of rain, the amount of rain we in Vermont normally get over the course of a year.

Some of these downpours will bump up against the mountains in the western parts of North and South Carolina, and maybe Virginia and West Virginia.

The wet air rising up and over the mountains would intensify rainfall rates, sending walls of water down the slopes of the mountains and into populated areas.

Even if most of the rain falls in North Carolina, people in South Carolina are still screwed because most of the rivers enter South Carolina from the north.

Heavy rains could also spread into saturated areas of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware, causing another round of serious flooding there.

Hurricane Florence is even a national security risk. There are military installations in low lying areas around Norfolk, Virginia and along Chesapeake Bay, and storm surge flooding has the potential to be especially destructive there.

As Reuters notes, Camp Lejeune, the largest U.S Marine Corp base on the East Coast, is on the beach near Wilmington, North Carolina.  Navy ships are leaving the port in Norfolk, Virginia ahead of Florence

This will certainly be a life-threatening, and very expensive disaster. It's something the United States doesn't need, given the horrible hurricane season last year, and the parade of floods, wildfires and storms that have continually raked the nation in recent months and years.

Gordon Now More Likely To Be A Hurricane

Satellite view of Tropical Storm Gordon getting stronger just off the east
coast of Florida this afternoon. It's a definite threat to the central Gulf
Coast and beyond 

In this morning's post, I speculated that Tropical Storm Gordon might end up being stronger than forecast.

It looks like that might well happen.

Gordon briefly developed an eye today, which is a bit ominous, but that well-organized core has since at least temporarily eroded, the National Hurricane Center tells us at their 5 p.m advisory.

Still, Gordon has otherwise been organizing nicely, so the NHC now thinks it will become a hurricane before making landfall. A hurricane warning is now up for the central Gulf Coast. 

Although Gordon probably won't be a blockbuster Gulf hurricane like Katrina or Harvey, it's still a force to be reckoned with, and taken seriously.

There could be a storm surge of three to five feet. At least a half foot of rain will fall on some areas with already saturated soils, so flooding is pretty much a sure bet.

The flooding looks like it will be a risk well past the time Gordon makes landfall and becomes just a remnant. Heavy rains seem like they will cause inundations along a stripe extending northwestward from southern Mississippi to Oklahoma in the coming week.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Florence is still way out over the central Atlantic Ocean, with highest sustained winds of 70 mph. That's a bit stronger than it was expected to be at this time. The added strength could actually be a good sign, as it might help make it turn north and stay away from the United States.

Florence is still expected to weaken temporarily over the next couple of days, but then regain some oomph later this week. It's still too soon to tell exactly what it will do, but it's not any kind of immediate threat.  People along the U.S. East Coast will still want to keep abreast with what Florence is doing, because it can still cause trouble. We'll see.

More disturbances are emerging from the west coast of Africa and some of these will have to be watched for eventual tropical development.

Hurricane Lane Nears Hawaii And The Islands Are Screwed

A view of Hurricane Lane from the International Space Station. Photo
by astronaut Ricky Arnold, @astro_ricky

Hurricane Lane is beginning to affect Hawaii and it's going to be a rough couple of days on the island chain.

Hurricane warnings are up for much of Hawaii, including Honolulu, which had gone 26 years without such a warning. It's rare for a hurricane to affect Hawaii this much, rarer still for such a storm to take a track that affects the whole state.

The eye of the hurricane probably won't even come ashore on any of the islands. You'd think that's good news, and it is. The core of the highest winds will miss. But the hurricane is coming close enough, and it's large enough to engulf most of the island in at least tropical force if not hurricane force winds.

How bad things get depends largely on whether an expected shift in its path to the north is strong or lame. A strong northward turn will really make things bad.  A less sharp turn will help keep the worst of the weather offshore.

Regardless on what happens with Hurricane Lane's track, storm surges and battering waves are a huge threat. Even worse, the island chain is mostly mountainous. Heavy rains will cause flash floods that will rush down slopes, carrying away everything in their path.

The flood risk is the worst part of this storm. The hurricane warning for Hawaii says the flood impacts have the potential to be "devastating to catastrophic."

The hurricane warning continues with a dire picture of Hawaiians might face with the flooding:
"Flood waters can enter numerous structures within multiple communities, some structures becoming uninhabitable or washed away. Numerous places where flood waters may cover escape routes. Streets and parking lots become rivers of raging water with underpasses submerged."

And that part doesn't get into the high risk of destructive mud and landslides.

As I mentioned, hurricanes don't often hit Hawaii, so they're not as prepared as say, Florida. Many houses might not be able to withstand the high winds. It will take awhile for relief supplies to get everywhere, too. Most food and other goods come into Hawaii via ship. If ports are damaged, this flow of goods might slow down.

"Be prepared to shelter in place with 14 days of food supplies and water and any other necessities," Hawaii Gov. David Inge said Friday.

Huge crowds Wednesday at Hawaii grocery stores.

Good luck with that. Residents had already cleared store shelfs of water and nonperishable food. If anyone needs more, too bad at this point, unfortunately.

The first island to get hit is the Big Island, where Hilo is located. Up to eight inches of rain had already been reported there as of Wednesday night, and some places could get 30 inches.

 Flash flooding was already occurring this morning in Hilo and much of the the Big Island. A good chunk of the island will get tropical storm force winds, which are between 39 and 73 mph

Stormy weather will continue to advance northwestward along the island chain as Hurricane Lane itself heads in that direction. Things will deteriorate today across the Hawaii. The worst of the storm will reach the Big Island by the evening and around Honolulu Friday or Friday night.

Yesterday, Hurricane Lane was a dangerous Category 5 storm, the worst you can get. It's slowly weakening as high upper level winds begin to suck the life out of the storm. But that process is very slow, and it's still a major hurricane. Even if the hurricane is a low end Category 1 off the coast of Honolulu  - nearly the best case scenario at this point -  it could still cause dangerous rains, surges and wind.  

Now, it's mostly a waiting game to see how bad things get in Hawaii.

On the brighter side, the Atlantic Ocean, unlike last year, is very quiet. Ocean temperatures are cooler than last year in the prime breeding ground for hurricanes. Plus, upper level winds that tend to squelch wannabe hurricanes are stronger this year than last.

Still, we haven't hit the peak of hurricane season yet and there's no reason to believe a destructive Atlantic hurricane can't still develop.  A weather disturbance is about to come off the west coast of Africa and could develop into something next week.

Stay tuned.

Deadly Nor'easter To Slowly Move Away After Trashing Eastern U.S.

Beleaguered Quincy, Massachusetts on Friday. Photo
by Greg Higins, Quincy Patriot Ledger

It's still cloudy and windy across most of the Northeast this morning, but in most locations, the worst of the storm is over.

The exception is coastal New England, where another punishing, near-record storm surge will hit later this morning.

Note there are some wild storm videos to watch at the bottom of this post.

The storm has killed at least seven people, and that toll might go up. Most of the deaths involved trees falling on houses and cars.

About 2.5 million people lost power across the East.  The stats, as I noted last night, are incredible. There was a wind gust of 93 mph in Barnstable, Massachusetts, with several other gusts in the 85 to 90 mph range along the southeast Massachusetts coast.

I suspect those are, or close to the strongest wind gusts on record in southern New England not associated with a hurricane, tornado, or localized thunderstorm microburst

The most snow from this storm fell near, and south and west of Albany, New York. Cobleskill, New York picked up a wild 39.3 inches of snow.

Storm surge floods into Boston Friday from Boston Harbor
Click on the photo to make it bigger and easier to see. The
sign in the background reads "Global Climate Change
and Boston Harbor"

Far southern Vermont barely got clipped by the heavy snow. Woodford reported 14 inches of new snow.

This was the type of storm that should come through rarely - perhaps once every several decades. It's a bit disconcerting that there were two nor'easter with record or near record storm surges in New England in less than two months.

I imagine some people whose houses keep getting flooded in places like Scituate, Plymouth and Marshfield, Massachusetts are reconsidering where they live.

There's no rest for the weary. Another nor'easter looks like it will affect New England later next week. It won't nearly be as strong as the one that is now departing. However, given the damage to the coastline, even a small nor'easter will just make things that much worse.

Here are some videos:

It's a wonder these oceanfront homes in Scituate held up as much as they did:



Here's what Winthrop, Massachusetts looked like Friday:

 

Lots of tree damage around Bronxville, New York

Epic Northeast Storm: I Have No Words

Chaos in Watertown, Massachusetts amid the epic winds
of the current Nor'easter. 

I'm not going to give you a long discussion of the storm pummeling the Northeast today. I'll get my thoughts together and give you that over the weekend.

But this is absolutely extreme by any measure. It'll easily be among the top 10 non-tropical storms to hit the Northeast in the past century.

I'll just give you a few factoids that gives you a picture of how incredible the storm has been so far. And by the way, it's going to be a very rough night, especially in coastal areas from Maryland north to Maine.

As of late this afternoon, I'm aware of two deaths associated with the storm, and that death toll will surely rise. A six year old boy died when a tree crushed a mobile home in Chester, Virginia. A woman, age 77, died when a tree fell on a house in Baltimore County Maryland.

Top wind gusts so far have been 88 mph in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, 83 mph in East Falmouth, Massachusetts, and 83 mph in Little Compton, Rhode Island. To give you an idea how awful the weather is in coastal Massachusetts, here's the conditions as of 6 p.m. on Nantucket Island: Temperature, 41 degrees. Heavy rain. Wind north at 53 gusting to 75 mph.

Water levels were four feet above normal at low tide this evening. Imagine how bad things will be at high tide tonight.

Scary scene today in Scituate, Massachusetts. At around
 11 p.m. tonight in terrifying darkness, the tides, waves
 and floods will be even worse than this. 

Dulles airport in suburban Washington DC recorded wind gusts of at least 50 mph for at least 12 consecutive hours.

The airport closed when it became unsafe: Winds gusts as high as 71 mph forced the evacuation of the Dulles control tower.

In New York City, video on social media shows winds blowing the roof off at least one building there.  

No fewer than one million people in the Northeast have power outages.

In New York State, especially south and west of Albany, the problem was incredible snowfall. The snow is also wet and heavy, which means it's practically impossible to move. So far, we've gotten reports of 37.5 inches in Richmond, New York and 34.5 in Jefferson, New York.

As I've been harping on, the worst destruction is from the storm surge and battering waves. Severe flooding was widespread in Massachusetts during today's midday high tide. Later tonight, the storm surge and waves could easily be even worse. 

As destructive as today's high tide was, tonight's could be as bad or worse than in the Blizzard of 1978 and the Perfect Storm of 1991.

For most of the Northeast, this storm is one of a handful of candidates for Storm of the Century. Which is why I feel lucky to be living just outside the severe storm zone in northwestern Vermont. Up here, the storm rated as Snow Flurry Of the Week.

It was kind of rough in southern Vermont, but up here in the north, we dodged a real bullet: All we got was an inch of snow with wind gusts of 30 mph.

Boring never felt so good.

Thursday Evening Update: Historic Storm Friday In New England

Under clear, calm skies today in Scituate, Massachusetts,
there was still minor coastal flooding. When the big storm
arrives Friday and Saturday, expect devastating, record or
near record storm surges in the Northeast. Photo from
NBC10 and NECN.

Just a quick update on the massive storm about to strike New England and much of the rest of the Northeast.

This one will be a beast that will be remembered for generations to come, I think.

The worst of it still looks like it will be the enormous storm surges and battering waves that will hit the coast from the Middle Atlantic states to Maine. Southeastern New England will take the brunt.

There's an excellent chance that the storm surge heights will be at or above record levels, possibly exceeding the Blizzard of 1978 and the near record storm surges in early January. 

Like the Blizzard of '78 but unlike the January, 2018 storm, there will be three or four high tide cycles with destructive surges and waves.

Officials are advising people in coastal locations to evacuate ahead of time, so they won't get caught. Today, before the storm even wound up, there were reports of minor coastal flooding in parts of New England.

The National Weather Service in Taunton, Massachusetts is warning of tides up to five feet above normal. Whole neighborhoods might be cut off, and some houses will probably be destroyed.

There will be less snow than in the Blizzard of 1978, but whatever falls will be wet and heavy, as opposed to the powdery stuff that hit most of New England back in 1978.

The bulk of the heavy snow with this system will occur inland, and at higher elevations. The wet snow, combined with high winds, threatens massive power failures in parts of New England, New York and Pennsylvania.

This storm is going to cover an enormous area, and high winds will affect most of the East from the Carolinas north. Gusts to 50 or 60 mph will be common in most of this area, with some coastal locations going to 80 mph or more. That will cause a lot of additional damage.

This will be yet another $1 billion dollar storm, with losses from this system almost certainly exceeding that figure. Yeah, just what the nation needs. Another very expensive weather disaster.

VERMONT IMPACTS

The forecast philosophy for the Green Mountain State hasn't changed much this morning. Fortunately for us, this mega storm will cause lots of unpleasant weather. There will be damage, but nothing extreme like further south.

It's still tricky to figure out who will get mostly snow and who will get a fair amount of rain. But anywhere in the state, expect both. Unless you're pretty high in elevation. Then it will be virtually all snow.

Southern Vermont continues to be most under the gun. The southernmost two counties in Vermont are under a winter storm warning for five to 10 inches of wet snow, especially in higher elevations, combined with wind gusts to 50 mph.

That's a perfect recipe for lots of tree damage and power failures, so you want to be ready down there. I think this type of risk will extend northward into the central Green Mountains, so beware in places like eastern Rutland County or western Windsor County.

MEANWHILE, IN CALIFORNIA

California is finally getting into some storminess, which in general is good because, except for one big storm in early January, it's been dry. Many feet of snow will accumulate in the Sierra Nevada, which the state needs for its water supply.

However. And this is a big however. You might remember those big wildfires in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties during the late fall and early winter. It covered the biggest area in California history.

When that one storm came in early January, the burn scar unleashed an epic  water and debris flow that killed 23 people in and around Montecito, California.

A new storm is coming in Friday, and officials have ordered up to 20,000 people to evacuate in Montecito, Santa Barbara and other communities near the site of the massive fire in late 2017. The concern is a repeat of the deadly debris flows in January, and nobody wants to take chances.

The storm coming into California Friday is not quite as strong as the one in January, but it's dangerous enough and emergency officials don't want to take chances.

By the way, the storm coming into California tomorrow has the potential to cause mischief in our neck of the woods by the middle or end of next week.

1 p.m. Nor'easter Update: Major Massachusetts Coastal Flood Disaster Now Unfolding

Storm chaser Simon Brewer captured this chaotic cene of brutal
crashing waves, storm surge flooding and blizzard conditions
today in Scituate, Massachuaetts. (Click photo to make
it bigger and easier to see.)

It's even worse than expected in coastal Massachusetts. It looks to me like a severe disaster is unfolding.  

Storm surges and tides with the big nor'easter are even worse than dire earlier forecasts. There is some pretty major flooding in many coastal towns, including Boston, Scitutate, Duxbury, Quincy, Marshfield, Nantucket and Plymouth.

The tide in Boston looks like it will be even higher than that during the epic Blizzard of 1978. Social media is showing cars inundated on Winthrop, Massachusetts streets, waves slamming into homes in Scituate. It looks like there was at least two feet of water on Easy Street in Nantucket.

NECN reports numerous cars stuck in the flooding in Quincy, and rescue operations are under way. Also in Quincy, water is entering homes.

The National Weather Service in Taunton, Massachusetts says this is some of the worst coastal flooding in Boston area history. Water in Chatham, on Cape Cod, cut through a barrier island and water is now up to condominium doors, at last report.

As you can gather by all these tidbits, this is a breaking story and I'll have more info as reports come in later this afternoon.

From Twitter. @charlesorloff captured this storm surge
flooding in Barnstable, Massachusetts today.

Elsewhere, bands of heavy snow set up in various places so far today, including the Jersey Shore, New York City and eastern Massachusetts, including Boston. White out and blizzard conditions were reported there, as you might expect.

Here in Vermont, it's more mellow, which is of course a good thing. Light to at times moderate snow is falling across the state.

The wind is just beginning to pick up, and will get much worse as we go through the afternoon and evening. Blowing and drifting and bad visibility will become a major issue.

Parts of eastern Vermont are now under a wind advisory, with gusts to 50 mph expected tonight. Elsewhere in Vermont, gusts will top 40 mph in a lot of places.

The new snow will be difficult to measure. It's also difficult to forecast. On the one hand, very dry Arctic air is coming in from the northwest, which would tend evaporate incoming snow. On the other hand, bands of heavier snow are pivoting westward from the storm toward Vermont. Which wil win?

The Vermont forecast still seems pretty accurate in my opinion with three or four inches west and up to ten inches east and south.

Nightmare Storm Coming To New England Coast, Vermont Gets Ugly, Too

From Twitter: @whoizmark enjoys the snow falling this
morning in Tallahassee, Florida of all places. 

The media is in a weather frenzy now, and with good reason. Most of the news sites are leading with what they're all calling a bomb storm that is going to sock the East Coast.

I've been talking about this storm for days, and it's becoming a reality. It's still going to stay offshore, but will come close enough to the East Coast from Florida to Maine to really raise some havoc.

They're calling it a bomb storm because it will undergo what us weather geeks call bombogenesis. It's going to intensify and escalate super fast, like a bomb going off. I'll go over the impacts south to north below. Note to my Vermont readers that there is a section below on what forecasters expect out of this for the Green Mountain State.

SOUTHERN NIGHTMARE

Since the storm is heading to the north and northeast, first stop is Florida, where mixed precipitation is falling in the northern part of that state, and winter storm warnings are still flying there. There are lots of videos now flying around the internet of snow falling in Tallahassee, Florida.

Tbe expected path of this storm is well off the coast, which
normally would mean this would be no big deal. But the storm
is so strong and so huge in area that it is and will cause
lots of big probems from Florida to New England and on
into southeastern Canada.

Coastal Georgia is likely to get hit hard. The Weather Channel said the snowiest day in Savannah, Georgia history had 3.6 inches of snow. They're forecasting up to six inches of snow for Savannah, though the National Weather Service says it will be mainly freezing rain there. Either way, horrible.

There might be as much as a quarter to a half inch of ice accumulation in northern Florida and southern Georgia. That much ice is enough to cause real problems here in northern New England. Imagine that part of the country!

And they don't have ice removal trucks and salt down there. They're going to have to wait for a warm up in a few days for the ice to melt.

For the record at 9 a.m. this morning, normally mild Savannah was reporting a temperature of 28 degrees with freezing rain. Sidewalks and streets in Tallahassee were iced over this morning. It even snowed 30 miles offshore of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico last night, which is really something almost unprecedented. Parts of Interstate 10 are closed due to ice. Interstate 10 is the furthest south east to west Interstate in the U.S.

Because the storm is staying offshore, the severe effects of this storm will hug the coast from Georgia on up to the Mid-Atlantic states. In the south, freezing rain will ice things up, and the ice won't go away anytime soon as the cold air surges in behind the storm today and tomorrow.

Along the Mid-Atlantic Coast and along Interstate 95, it'll be a mess of powdery, badly wind driven snow. Travel and commutes will be a nightmare. Closest to the coast, around the Norfolk and Virginia Beach, a blizzard warning is up for winds of 50 mph and whiteout conditions tomorrow. They're warning folks in that area that travel will be impossible, and to be prepared for power failures amid cold and falling temperatures.

Further north into New Jersey and the New York City metro area, forecasters are pulling out their hair trying to determine how much snow will fall on this heavily populated area. If the storm makes a slight jog to the west, they get a lot more than forecast. A slight jog to the east puts them pretty much out of the snow zone.

All this time, the storm will be bombing out and roaring toward New England.

NEW ENGLAND DISASTER?

Normally, when a nor'easter stays as far off the coast as this one will, the effects are only moderate along the New England coast. Generally, this path for a storm would cause some minor coastal flooding, a few power outages from wind and maybe a half foot of snow.

But this storm is so vast and so strong, the New England coast is in for a real pummeling. Here's something to give you an idea how huge the storm's circulation is: The eastern extent of its circulation will be in the central Atlantic, halfway to Europe. The very western edge of its circulation will be somewhere around Iowa. Yeah, that bad.

This forecast map depicts the worst case scenario
for this storm, bringing it very close to the New
England coast. However, this is the NAM computer
model, which is rather unreliable. Most forecasts
take the storm further off the coast than this. 

Plus, the expected track of the storm keeps getting nudged a bit westward closer to New England. Which would increase the impacts of this storm on the region. All this means that in this case, coastal New England is in big trouble.

 There is a blizzard warning for eastern Massachusetts, the immediate coastline of New Hampshire and southwestern Maine, and in Downeast Maine.

The storm is, again, far enough off the coast so the actual snowfall totals won't break any records. Areas near and to the south and east of Boston could easily get a foot or more, but they've seen that before.

But the real story is going to be the wind and the coastal flooding. In some areas on an near Cape Cod the snow will become wet and heavy, and maybe even change to rain for a time. Combine this with winds of up to 70 mph, and you have a recipe for widespread power outages.

Then consider the frigid air that will surge in behind the storm. Imagine having no power with daytime highs of near 10 and lows of near five below, as is expected Friday and Saturday in southeastern Massachusetts.

The real damage from this storm looks like it will be coastal flooding. East and north facing coasts, especially south of Boston, are most vulnerable to this thing. First of all, we're starting with astronomical tides that are above normal on Thursday, with or without a storm.

Then factor in a storm surge of two to three feet. Then consider the waves generated by a long fetch of gales over the Atlantic. You'll have some terrible, battering waves. Also, a lot of ice has formed along the coast with this recent cold wave. Chunks of ice will become additional battering rams during the storm.

The Boston area National Weather Service is expecting structural damage, especially in and near Plymouth, out on the Cape near Dennis, and maybe around Scituate.

At least this is a fairly quick mover, so it won't linger and cause additional damage like the Perfect Storm of 1991 and the Great Blizzard of 1978. Still, this one is very dangerous for the coast.

One other note of caution: One forecast model, called the NAM, brings the storm much closer to New England on Thursday than the other models. If the NAM bears out, the conditions will be much worse than even I've described above. However, the NAM has been a pretty unreliable model, so most forecasters are dismissing that. At least for now.

VERMONT IMPACTS

Here in Vermont, this storm won't be a disaster, but it will be awful and potentially dangerous. Snow will break out amid increasing north winds on Thursday. Since the storm is moving more westward than forecasters thought a few days ago, we'll get a bit more snow than earlier forecasts indicated.

Winter storm watches have been extended westward to the New Hampshire, Vermont border, while the entire state of Vermont is under a winter weather advisory. Vermont will probably get somewhere in the neighborhood of three to eight inches of snow with this, as forecasts now stand.

There's a decent chance there might be a sharp gradient in snow totals in Vermont from east to west, with eight inches or even more near the Connecticut River Valley and perhaps as little as one or two inches near Lake Champlain. That's an uncertain forecast, because precisely where the heaviest snow will fall is anyone's guess at this point.

Wherever the heaviest snow falls, we're not getting all that much by Vermont standards, but the winds will really pick up Thursday afternoon and night, and on Friday. The snow is going to be very light and fluffy, so it will blow around A LOT. There will be whiteouts on the highways at times, and the snow will very quickly drift, which means it'll be hard to keep it off the roads for more than say, five minutes.

As advertised, the temperatures will really take a plunge as well, going below zero sometimes early Friday and staying there until Sunday afternoon.

Wind chills will be ridiculous and downright dangerous, as winds could easily gust to 40 mph or more, especially Thursday night and part of Friday. There could be scattered power failures due to the wind, which is dangerous in such cold conditions. But the good news is I don't think we'll have long lasting or widespread power failures here in Vermont.

It will get insanely cold at night, with widespread teens to near 20 below zero, plus gusty winds Friday night and early Saturday. Late Saturday night and around dawn on Sunday, the winds will be lighter, but temperatures will be in the 20s below zero regionwide, with numerous 30s below popping up in many northern valleys.

This isn't going to be a picnic for our friends in Canada, either. Enviroment Canada is warning people in Nova Scotia and surrounding provinces of damaging storm surges, near hurricane force winds and very heavy snow.

LOOKING AHEAD

After this storm goes by, we'll get the cold, but the Arctic chill will begin to come to an abrupt end starting Sunday afternoon. By Tuesday, temperatures in some areas of New England, including Vermont, could get above freezing. That, of course raises the spectre of possible mixed precipitation and rain, which would create its own new mess. Stay tuned on that one.