Everyone Knows It's Windy. At Least Here In Vermont

An October, 2017 wind storm toppled this spruce tree in Milton, Vermont
Though there won't be widespread damage, enough wind is in the
forecast today through Saturday morning to put a few trees
and power lines at risk. 

Yeah, I woke up early this morning humming that cheesy 1967 song "Windy" by the Association, mostly because, well, the wind was howling outside my house and I think weirdly.

We've got a windy 24 hours or so to get through as the storminess that gave us our freezing rain and freezing drizzle, and this morning, plain rain, is headed up into Canada.

The storm is to our north and strengthening. There's a strong high pressure system to the west. We are in the squeeze play in the middle, and that means a windy Vermont today, tonight and Saturday.

The wind early this morning was ahead of the storm's cold front and is funneling up the Champlain Valley. Mountains to the west and east of the valley are helping channel and strengthen that wind. The rest of the Vermont and surrounding areas weren't that breezy - yet - as of early morning.

Still, even as of 6:30 a.m., there were already a handful of power outages in southern Vermont.

The cold front will bluster through with its showers, and temperatures will start to fall this afternoon. That's when the wind kicks in. It'll blow in from the west, and gust to or even past 50 mph in many locations.

This won't be the Strongest Wind Storm Ever. Not even close. But I've been surprised in some cases by this type of set up.  The wind can gain momentum as it descends the east slope of the Green Mountains.   It's possible things ould get fairly ugly at times east of the Greens.

Which means places like Ludlow, Waitsfield, Stowe and Newport, along with other parts of the Northeast Kingdom and lower Connecticut River Valley could get some particularly strong gusts, as the National Weather Service in South Burlington pointed out last evening. Again, nothing devastating, but enough to put a few trees and power lines at risk.

For now, most of Vermont and New York is under a wind advisory for gusts up to 50 mph today, tonight and Saturday morning.  I'm thinking some gusts could be stronger than that in some of the places I've outlined.

The Champlain Valley is not under the wind advisory because gusts won't be quite as strong. We're too far east of the Adirondacks to feel those downslope rushes of wind. But still, the expected 40 to 45 mph gusts are nothing to ignore.

The bottom line is - to remind you again - there is a risk of downed trees and power lines today into Saturday. Most of us will have our lights stay on and our trees stay upright. But a few of us won't.  So it's something to keep an eye on.  A few of us will need flashlights and battery operated LED candles. (No real flame candles, please. Those are a fire risk.)

Speaking of keeping an eye on things, there's hope for winter enthusiasts who don't like this rain and freezing rain we've been getting. No guarantees, but there's hope for a possible decent snowfall around this coming Tuesday.

It might or might not happen, but things are starting to come together that could make it happen. Stay tuned.

Severe Ice Storm To Slam Central United States

The University of Vermont green during the epic ice storm of 1998.
There will likely be similar scenes in the central United States
this weekend as a large ice storm is set to develop.
Photo from the Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation

You'll be hearing about this one on the news over the coming few days.

A long lasting, crippling ice storm is about to hit the middle of the nation, and this one has all the potential to be one of the worst on record.

A huge area in the middle of the country is under an ice storm warning. The zone include almost all of Missouri, most of Kansas, part of Illinois, the northwestern half of Oklahoma and part of northern Texas.

This area is expected to be hardest hit, but a huge surrounding area extending all the way into the Ohio Valley and north to South Dakota and the Iowa/Minnesota border are also under the gun for snow, sleet and freezing rain.

The areas expected to be hardest hit including bigger towns like St. Louis, Kansas City (hunker down, brother-in-law Brian!) and Wichita.

This isn't just going to be a day of super icy roads. This will go on for two or three days, and the ice accumulation will be so thick that very many trees and power lines will come down. People are going to be without electricity for days.

For us Vermonters with a fairly long memory, I would compare the upcoming Plains disaster to the epic ice storm in Vermont, New York, Maine and Quebec in January, 1998 that caused massive destruction and killed dozens of people.

I'm not sure the Plains ice storm will be as bad as the 1998 storm in New England and Quebec, but it will be almost as disruptive.

By the way, if you're in Vermont and worried we might get eventually be hit with us, it's not going to be too bad. It looks like the sprawling storm that will cause the severe ice in the Plains will throw a little mixed precipitation our way, but the consequences will be potentially icy roads, and not tree or power line damage here.

Out in the Plains, the ice will slowly move northwestward with time. Areas in the southern fringes of the ice zone, like Oklahoma City and eventually St. Louis and Kansas City, will likely change to plain rain Sunday.

By Sunday, the freezing rain will have spread north, to places like Iowa and Nebraska and maybe South Dakota, so those regions will be in the crosshairs of the ice by late in the weekend.

This ice storm is the same system that dumped a foot of snow on Portland, Oregon, paralyzing that city with the most snow in two decades.