BIG Thump Of Snow Surprises Every Vermonter, Including Meteorologists

Winter wonderland in my St. Albans, Vermont yard this morning.

Yesterday and last night's big dumping of snow on Vermont, which surprised everybody, is proof that even with all the fancy-dancy computer models and super smart meterologists out there, the weather can still sneak up on everybody.

As we now know, what had been widely expected to be a decent snowstorm in southern Vermont and no big deal central and north turned out to be anything but.

A band of very heavy snow crept from south to north over all but far northwestern Vermont Monday afternoon and evening.  Snowfall rates in that band were up to three inches per hour, which is pretty much the heaviest snowfall rate possible.

Burlington, for instance, got 2.9 inches of snow in one hour for a storm total of 5.5 inches. The forecast Monday morning called for a storm total of about an inch, so Burlington got roughly three times the predicted snow in just one hour.

Not all Vermont storm snow totals were in yet as of early this morning, but the numbers we do have are impressive, to say the least.

The Northeast Kingdom and parts of central Vermont, especially in Rutland and Windsor counties were close. Quechee reported 11 inches, the most I've seen so far from this storm.  Mount Holly, Worcester, Winhall, Kirby, Calais and Walden all got 10 inches. Around 9 inches fell in St. Johnsbury, Middlebury and Benson.

The 10 or so inches in the Northeast Kingdom were especially impressive since only two or three inches of snow had been predicted there.

Only the far northwest corner of Vermont sort of escaped, but still got more than we bargained for.  Here at my St. Albans property, I collected 3.5 inches of snow.

WHY THE BOTCHED FORECAST

Winter returned overnight for a brief stay in St. Albans, Vermont 

So: Why was the forecast so wrong?  Very frequently in snowstorms, a heavy band of precipitation sets up on the north or northwest side of a storm. That was actually expected to happen with this storm.

Also, as expected, this band of heavy precipitation set itself up Monday across central New England, where winter storm warnings were put up well in advance of this expectation.

The problem was this band of heavy snow, against every expectations lifted northward all the way to the Canadian border in Vermont and New Hampshire. (Another band of heavy precipitation took shape in central New England and pretty much stayed there for a little while, as forecast).

That band of heavy snow lifting northward was not caught in advance by any of the computer models that meteorologist at least partly rely upon.  Sometimes, despite all the advances in technology, the models are not yet always sophisticated enough to catch relatively small scale features like that unpredicted snow band.  

The computer models got the path of the storm correct, they were right about its central strength and forward speed, but were wrong about what happened with the storm here in Vermont.  This time, when the forecasts ended up being wrong, we all surely noticed.

This is not to say we should just give up on weather forecasts. Meteorologists are smart scientists, and the computer models have gotten a lot better with their data over the years.  Which means most of the time, the forecast is correct. Generally speaking, at least 80 percent of weather forecasts for the next day or two turn out to be completely accurate.

But occasionally, we do have to deal with a big surprise, like we did last night.

WHAT'S NEXT

The storm is over, and the cleanup begins. It was a fairly warm storm. You'll notice that the snow is wet and heavy. If you must go out and travel, the main roads were pretty much OK by 7 a.m. - just wet. Secondary roads will have some iffy conditions for awhile, but they'll melt out.

Speaking of melting, if you don't like all this new snow, it will melt pretty fast. True, the unexpectedly deep snow will reflect the sun's heat back into space a bit, so it'll be a little cooler today than originally forecast as a result.

Still, most valley locations will get into the 40s today. Skies will partly clear, and even where it stays relatively cloudy, some of the sun's heat will get through. The sun angle is high now, so that will aid in melting the snow.  The ground is not really frozen, so that will help, too.

We're actually set up for a couple days of great sugaring weather. The snow cover will encourage chillier temperatures for the next couple of nights with lows well down into the 20s. Daytime highs Wednesday and Thursday will be in the 40s. That is perfect for maple sugaring.

A few days ago, it looked like another storm would take a path similar to yesterday's which risked bringing us more snow tomorrow.  But that system will be weaker and further south than the one we just had, so it won't give us any trouble. We're in the clear.

Some rain showers will probably creep in Thursday. A larger storm seems likely this weekend, but the details on that one are still very sketchy. Early indications are the weekend storm will be mostly, but not exclusively rain.  We'll have to wait and see.

Wild Videos Of Tornados Crashing Through South Carolina High Schools

Serious damage at a South Carolina high school after a tornado
struck it this month. Nobody was inside when this twister
hit on a Saturday night. 

Two South Carolina high schools were hit by tornadoes this month, but luckily in one case, nobody was in the school. In the second case, the twister hit the parking lot, but missed the actual high school building.

Dramatic vidoes of both tornadoes are at the bottom of this post.

Let's start with the high school parking lot tornado.  

It was an unexpected one, but it did yield some dramatic video, and a case lesson on how small, relatively weak tornadoes can be potentially deadly.

In this case, nobody was hurt when the tornado went through a high school parking lot, damaging dozens of cars. The twister tossed a few on top of each other.

You might have to watch the video at the bottom of this post  a couple times to catch the narrow funnel cloud going across the parking lot and tossing the vehicles. But it is something to behold.

As is often the case with tornadoes, this one is pretty narrow, so many of the vehicles in the parking lot do just fine.

The tornado goes to prove that it doesn't take a particularly large or strong tornado to put people in danger.

The tornado was an EF-1, with winds of 90 mph.  It hit the campus of Loris High School in Horry County South Carolina on Monday, according to numerous news reports, including television station WPDE  in Florence, South Carolina.

About 75 cars were damaged, and some of them were damaged, WPDE reported. 

Still, since classes were in session, we're glad the tornado didn't go through the high school instead. It would have only damaged part of the high school, but the part were students would have been in could have been really in trouble.

There was no tornado warning in effect at the time.  Meteorologists at the nearest National Weather Service office were tracking the parent thunderstorm and detected some weak rotation within it. But that rotation didn't seem strong enough to set off a tornado.

But it did. The rotation was just enough to set off a relatively weak tornado in a place where it could have hurt people.

This is another reason why you should take severe thunderstorms seriously.  You'll often hear a mention of weak rotation within the oncoming storm. Much more often than not, when the rotation is weak, you won't get a tornado. But in the case of Loris County, South Carolina, and I am sure many other instance it did. And it could happen any time.

This was the second time within a week that a tornado struck a South Carolina high school. On January 11, a  EF-2 tornado with winds up to 130 mph hit North Central High School in Kershaw County, South Carolina. Security cameras there yielded even more dramatic videos than the parking lot tornado.

Because it was a weekend, nobody was in the school, so nobody was hurt.

Which is a good thing Since so many people are in schools, they can be dangerous places to be in tornadoes.

Back on March 1, 20017 an EF-4 tornado with top winds of 170 mph hit Enterprise High School in Alabama, killing eight students and injuring 50.

Here's the video:



Here's surveillance video of another high school hit at night a few days before the video of the one above in South Carolina. Glad nobody was in there. Hallways turned into dangerous wind tunnels:

Surprised By Some Snow Again

A couple inches of new snow surprised me when I woke
up this morning in St. Albans, Vermont

Dustings of a half inch, an inch or even two inches of snow here in Vermont in late November are really no big deal.

But, I guess I'm not as set up mentally for winter as I thought I was, especially since I keep getting surprised by these seasonal light snows. To be fair, none of these in the past weekwere necessarily in the forecast.

So it was this morning in St. Albans, Vermont when I woke up to a fresh two inches of snow on the ground.

There were multiple reports of 1 to 3 inches of snow this morning in Vermont, with 3.3 inches reported in Waterville, Vermont.

I knew there'd be some flurries behind a cold front that went through last night, but I didn't expect enough accumulation to bring the state snow plows out. At least in valley locations.

Neither did a lot of forecasters. But oh well, it's that time of year where the least little weather disturbance can unleash some snow around here.

As of mid morning, we were getting a few breaks in the clouds, and some of the snow was melting. But more snow is in the offing, and you're going to have a tricky commute in some areas Monday morning in much of Vermont and surrounding areas.

Again, the snow that's coming tonight and Monday morning won't be a blockbuster. Looks like a dusting near Lake Champlain, one to three inches a little inland from the lake and maybe several inches up in the mountains.

It doesn't take much snow to make the roads slick, though, so I'd leave more time to leave for work than usual Monday morning if you live in northern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. And southern Quebec, including the Montreal area, too.

This will all be caused by a rather weak disturbance coming in from the northwest. It will have gone by us by Monday afternoon, so we should be fine by then with a cold, mainly dry afternoon.

It'll warm up Tuesday through Thursday with temperatures a little above normal in the 40s to near 50 in the valleys. So if you still have a little fall cleanup to do, the light snow cover will melt, at least in the low elevations, you'll be able to get it in some last minute fall cleanup in your yard.

Surprise Vermont Snow Had Source In Warm Great Lakes

A car slid off the road in yesterday's surprise snow in Williston,
Vermont. Image from WCAX-TV

Surprise!

I didn't tell you it was going to snow yesterday in Vermont, beyond flurries. Neither did the National Weather Service or all the other good meteorologists in the Vermont media.

Yet, Burlington got its first measurable snowfall of the season, with 1.3 inches.

The western slopes of the Green Mountains got clobbered, with 6 inches of new snow reported in Jericho Center and 5 inches in Jonesville, which is sandwiched between Richmond and Bolton, Vermont.

I'm sure the surprise snow cheered Thanksgiving week skiers, but motorists grumbled over the unexpectedly slick roads. There were a number of accidents and slide-offs.

So what  happened?

Forecasters knew there was enough moisture coming off the Great Lakes to pose the risk of snow flurries on Monday, especially along the western slopes of the Green Mountains.

However, when subtle weather disturbances get involved with lake effect snows from the Great Lakes this time of year, surprising things can happen.

This is prime lake effect snow season for the Great Lakes. There's virtually no ice on the any of the lakes yet, so they're wide open. Cold northwest winds can pick up moisture from anywhere on those lakes and deposit snow on downwind shores.

The lakes are also relatively warm. In fact, warmer than normal for this time of year. If the contrast between cold air and the lakes increases because the water is toastier than usual, you can get more widespread lake effect snows.

As of yesterday morning, lake effect snow was coming off all the Great Lakes.  The snows from the Great Lakes sometimes make it all the way to Vermont's Green Mountains, but usually it's only a limited amount of snow, confined to the upper elevations in a narrow area of the state's mountains.

But a very subtle weather disturbance - almost too small to be detected by meteorologists - moved over the Great Lakes and made it into northwestern New England yesterday. This disturbance was able to pick up lake effect snows from Lakes Superior, Huron, Ontario and Erie and bring it all the way over to us.

Hence the surprise snow. It is kind of cool in a weather geeky way that we managed to get lake effect snow in Vermont from four of the five Great Lakes.

It's warmer today and tonight ahead of a cold front, so some of the snow will melt. But don't worry, skiers and riders! The general trend through early next week is for chilly weather. Cold fronts tomorrow and Sunday will bring more mountain snow showers, ,and possible a little more lake effect snows courtesy of the Great Lakes.

Surprise! Tropical Storm Don Forms Out Over The Atlantic

This mess of clouds in the Atlantic Ocean east of the
Windward Islands is Tropical Storm Don
which formed Monday. Don't expect big things from this one.

Things named Don lately tend to be full of bluster and ineffective.

I'm talking about Tropical Storm Don.

Don formed today, somewhat unexpectedly, east of the Windward Islands in the central Atlantic Ocean.

I say somewhat unexpectedly because some forecasters never thought it would amount to anything.

Other forecasts, and several computer forecasting models, did predict a weak tropical storm in the past couple of days.

Don't expect really big things from Tropical Storm Don. It was tiny, and barely strong enough to be a tropical storm as of 5 p.m. Monday.

It might strengthen a little tonight and Tuesday, but strong upper level winds are likely to rip Don to shreds once it gets into the eastern Caribbean Sea.

It's pretty damn early to already have had four tropical storms in the Atlantic by mid-July. However, including what we expect to happen with Don, three of these storms were very weak and short-lived, and caused little harm.

Things might change starting in August, when we start getting into the heart of hurricane season.

Surprise Rogue Thunderstorm Surprised Vermont's Champlain Valley Friday Night

Web cam at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont
captured lightning from a surprise thunderstorm
over Lake Champlain Friday evening.  

The weather was gorgeous in Vermont's Champlain Valley yesterday, with sunny skies, a few puffy clouds, a breeze and low humidity.

It continued a stretch of pleasant, sunny, warm weather that began Tuesday and is expected to last through the weekend.

Forecasts issued Friday afternoon did not mention any chances of rain in the evening.

Then where the hell did that evening thunderstorm come from?

The lone storm developed north of Montreal in the late afternoon and headed due south. It put on an evening light show of lightning as it moved south over Lake Champlain, passing to the west of St. Albans, and on into the Burlington area and points south.

The storm grew strong enough that the National Weather Service office in South Burlington issued a special weather statement, saying the storm would produce dangerous lightning, and wind gusts to 40 mph.

It's odd that most meteorologists didn't predict a chance of storms, but in this case, subtle atmospherics were at work to make it happen.

Remember the icky weather Sunday and Monday. Those clouds, unseasonably chilly north winds, cold rain showers and even a couple mountaintop snowflakes?

A strong storm near Nova Scotia brought on those cold north winds.

That Nova Scotia storm kept moving northeastward, away from New England, and the sunny weather moved in from the west.

But that ocean storm is still out there. That's why we've had that nice north breeze in Vermont the past couple days.

That ocean storm had just barely enough influence yesterday to add a little lift to the air. And it helped bring  a little pocket of cold air to the upper atmosphere. That created those nice puffy clouds dotting Friday afternoon's blue sky.

One of those puffy clouds grew big enough to create that shower that formed north of Montreal. The shape of Champlain Valley caused winds to converge near that shower as it headed south. Converging winds add more lift to the atmosphere, so the shower/thunderstorm grew.

On top of that, all that wonderful Friday sunshine also added energy to the atmosphere. All this combined to create that rogue Friday evening thunderstorm that disrupted a June evening on Lake Champlain.

Hat tip to WPTZ-TV meteorologist John Hickey for the help with this explanation.

That ocean storm still heading further, so it shouldn't bother us anymore. Plus, high pressure is gaining strength over us. That causes sinking air, which strongly discourages thunderstorms. So I'm pretty sure we're safe from any more atmospheric surprises in Vermont for the rest of the weekend.

Then again, you never know. There are always those subtle weather disturbances that can surprise........

Surprise Seven Inch Snowstorm Northern Vermont, More Trouble Today

One of the decks at my St Albans, Vermont home, and
the surrouding landscape, were buried in a surprise
seven inches of snow this morning. Add caption

Well, that was a shocker.

I knew the current storminess at the end of a near record level April cold snap would yield some snow yesterday before going over to rain, but wow!

At my weather headquarters in St. Albans, in the northwestern corner of Vermont, I got seven inches of snow, count 'em, seven inches!

There's more weather trouble coming to Vermont later today and tonight. More on that in a little bit.

First, the Surprise Snow

VERMONT APRIL SNOW

That was easily the biggest snowstorm of the admittably paltry season here in St. Albans. There were no snowfall in the heart of the past winter that were this big.

The forecast had called for a thin slushy coating of snow last evening at most, so this was really a big, BIG surprise.

The heaviest snow was confined to far northern Vermont. Drive down to Burlington, Vermont, less than 30 miles south of St. Albans, and there was only 0.8 inches of new snow -- less than an inch.

By the way, that light snow in Burlington means that so far, 2015-2016 is still the least snowiest season on record in Burlington, in records dating back to the 1880s. However, if 0.3 more inches of snow falls this month, which is a distinct possibility, this WON'T be the least snowy winter.

Back up in northern Vermont, Belividere got 8 inches, here in St. Albans, as mentions we got 7 inches, as did Eden.

Another surprising thing about this snow was it all came while a stiff south wind was blowing. I've seen a few bigger snowfalls than this in Vermont during April, but I've never seen so much April snow with a south wind.

All the other big April snows in Vermont involved some variation of a north wind. Maybe northeast or northwest, but not south. This really was a weird one.

Seven inches of snow in my backyard this morning.
The snow never got that deep anytime during this
past winter here in St. Albans, Vermont.  

The reason it snowed so much in far northern Vermont was a warm front ever so slowly trying to push out the entrenched cold air.

The warm air flooding in lifted up and over the cold air still entrenched mostly north of Route 2 in Vermont, condensed and fell as snow.

Areas south of Route 2 got little or no snow because they were south of the warm front, and south of a  moisture feed riding up through the Midwest, then turning eastward across the Great Lakes, far northern Vermont and northern New England.

The reason the forecasts were wrong about the snow was because most computer models placed the core of the colder air and moisture with the warm front more to the north, in Quebec. There wasn't supposed to be that much precipitation of any kind in northern Vermont.

Ooops.

As of 7 a.m. this morning, the snow had stopped, the warm front was in Quebec, the temperature had risen above freezing pretty much everywhere in Vermont and the snow is starting to melt.

Which leads us to our next weather problem today.

FLOODING?

A surge of warmer air is flooding into Vermont today. It'll easily get into the 50s in many areas. That's not far from normal for this time of year, but it's decidedly warmer than it's been.

The warm air is wet, and associated with a pretty vigorous storm. It's going to rain pretty hard later today and this evening across much of Vermont. Many areas will get close to an inch.

That's enough to cause rapid rises on streams and rives. Where there was little or no snow in central and southern Vermont, there will be little or no flooding.

In far northern Vermont, I have to wonder if the abruptly melting snow cover, the fast warmup v  and the downpours will lead to flooding.

I don't think the flooding will be super severe or widespread up north, but it's definitely something to watch.

If you live in a low spot, or will drive tonight on roads prone to flooding, be careful!  It's hard to see flooding at night, and you don't want to drive into three feet of cold water, or into a water-filled ditch because the road washed out.

By the way, there is a flood watch up for much of Maine, due to predicted heavy rain and snowmelt. And there's coastal flood advisories along parts of the New England coast due to astronomically high tides and strong south winds.

MORE SNOW AND WINTER?

Next, another big cold wave is coming into Vermont. Aren't you excited?

This next one won't be quite as intense as the one we just had, but it will be pretty big for April. And it will be accompanied by more snow.  Not another big snowstorm for Vermont, but still.

Temperatures will fall Friday amid rain and mountain snow showers in Vermont. The snow level will gradually fall all day Friday.  Wet snowflakes might be falling in the valleys by evening.

There won't be an organized storm,  just rain and snow showers. A few inches might pile up on the northern Vermont mountain peaks, but nothing in the valleys.

Friday night, there might be a light coating in the valleys as temperatures go below freezing, but knock on wood, I doubt places like St. Albans will get another seven inches. Burlington could conceivably get the 0.3 inches that would prevent the winter of 2015-16 from being the least snowy on record.

Saturday looks very cold, and rather interesting. Temperatures during the afternoon in Vermont and the rest of New England will barely get above freezing and a few places won't even do that. It'll get into the teens once again in many towns Saturday night.

The reason I said things will be interesting is the next cold wave will be caused by another very sharp dip in the jet stream, similar to the one that set up last weekend.

Like last weekend's cold snap, there will be fairly intense disturbance flowing through the dip in the jet stream.

One of those disturbances looks like it might spin up another fast developing storm in southern New England Saturday.

It's unclear still whether the storm will be close enough to the coast to drop snow on southern New England as it really winds up, but it definitely could. Places like Hartford and Boston could get their third snowfall this month, a big rarity for April.

It doesn't look like this potential weekend storm will bring snow to Vermont. There will just be some random snow showers blowing around that will drop dustings here and there.

After another brief warmup and rain early next week, another cold wave comes in the middle of next week. That next cold spell won't be as bad as the one we're getting Saturday and Sunday, and nowhere near as bad as the one last weekend.

Tornadoes, Some Expected, Some Not.

The tornado that was pretty much unexpected
sweeps across an Ohio field Monday.  

As is often the case as we approach spring, there's been a few tornadoes over the past couple of days in the nation.

There were a few in Arkansas Sunday, and these were remarkably well forecasted. As many as two days before they touched down, forecasts focused right on Arkansas as ground zero for the risk of severe storms.

And that's where almost all of the severe weather occurred. You can see a very eerily lit, striking tornado in Arkansas Sunday at the bottom of this post.

Today, at least one tornado touched down in Ohio. While meteorologists issued a timely warning when it became apparent there was strong rotation indicating a tornado, twisters were considered to be highly unlikely at most in Ohio today.

Sure, forecasters knew there would probably be thunderstorms in Ohio today, tornadoes seemed almost completely out of the realm of possibility.

But there you go. Just because tornadoes are unlikely in any given place when there's thunderstorms, they're not impossible. Scientists know a lot about how tornadoes form, why they form and when they form.

However, they don't know everything about what leads to tornadoes. Ohio today was your proof.

By the way, there's a possibility of a tornado or two today in far eastern Iowa, northern Illinois and perhaps far southern Wisconsin.

You'll see a video of the Ohio tornado, below the video of the Arkansas twister. It was filmed near Star City, Arkanas by Live Storms Media:



Next, we have a fairly close range of the narrow EF1 tornado in Ohio that damaged at least one house and several other buildings. Here it dances ominously and seductively across a field: