Very Strange Wintry Blast Still On Its Way

That purple bullseye over the Northeast is that chunk of
the polar vortex that broke off. .It will bring an exceedingly
cold Mother's Day weekend to us. 

The long anticipated, strange wintry blast still hasn't officially hit the Northeast and Great Lakes yet, but we here in Vermont and the rest of the North Country have already gotten a foretaste of it.

A dusting of snow on the ground greeted some people in the Northeast Kingdom when they awoke Tuesday morning.

It stayed chilly all day, too, especially up in the Kingdom. I noticed Lyndonville was only 39 degrees at 3 p.m. Tuesday.  It was down to 19 degrees (brrr!) in Saranac Lake, New York this morning.  

It will warm up, kinda, sorta, today and Thursday, but temperatures will still be below normal. Daytime highs both days will be in the 50s, with maybe a spot 60 degree reading here and there. That's still a few degrees on the chilly side for this time of year.

But that weird, big cold snap is lurking on our doorstep. By Saturday, it will seem like early March, not early May out there.

In the winter, the now infamous polar vortex spins up in the Arctic. Pieces of it occasionally break off, plunge southward and cause intense, subzero cold waves.  That didn't really happen in our neck of the woods this past winter.

By May, the polar vortex up there in the Arctic is very much weakened by the strong spring sun.  If a piece of it manages to break off, that cold chunk usually gets swiftly shunted eastward across Canada and out into the Atlantic.

Here in northern New England, when that happens, we get a bit of a cool snap and maybe a little frost in some spots.

This time, this will be a classic winter polar vortex thing.  A sizeable chunk of it has broken off and is plunging southward through eastern Canada and will crash into the Great Lakes and New England, just like the worst ones do in, say, January.

I'm not sure anyone has ever seen anything like this in May.  It could have happened in the past, but it's incredibly rare.

The upshot is a real return to winter on Mother's Day weekend.  Of course, temperatures won't go below zero like in a winter during a brush with a chunk of the polar vortex.  But it will be incredibly, weirdly cold for May.  With some snow to add to the misery.

You'll really start to notice in Friday as temperatures stay in the 40s and a few rain and snow showers filter down.

Saturday is when it really hits.  That chunk of frigid air will spin up a storm off the East Coast.  Luckily, it will be far enough offshore, as it looks now, to mostly avoid giving us a lot of precipitation. That's a good thing in this case, because the air would be cold enough to support a big late season snowstorm.  Kind of like a frigid January nor'easter.

Some forecast models bring the storm closer, but for now, we'll say it's a miss.

So, we will probably avoid a full-fledged snowstorm, but we'll still get snow. The storm will blow up into a powerful one as it heads toward the Canadian Maritimes.  That means a lot of wind for us in the form of cold, northwest gusts exceeding 30 mph at times. Moisture will wrap around that storm and come down over New England.

That moisture will spit out frequent snow and rain showers here in Vermont later Friday night, Saturday and into Saturday night.  Really, it will be mostly snow showers, believe it or not, except maybe in the warmest valleys.

Warm is a relative term for this weekend, that's for sure.  On Saturday, when normal high temperatures this time of year are in the low 60s, it will barely get above freezing up in the Northeast Kingdom.  In the Champlain Valley banana belt, it would actually get above 40 degrees for a brief time Saturday afternoon.

That's pretty incredible and rare for this time of year.  Since precipitation will be light, snowfall accumulations also won't amount to much. Still, I can't believe I just wrote that sentence with a straight face in May.

Higher and middle elevations could get an inch or two out of this, and there might even be a little coating in the valleys.

Wind and clouds will keep temperatures from really crashing Friday and Saturday nights.  It will get down to between 30 and 35 degrees both nights, which is not really cold enough to kill all the ew leaves on the trees.

We will have to watch for the risk of plant killing cold nights early next week.  Temperatures will "warm" into the 40s Sunday afternoon, which is still 20 degrees colder than normal. Highs will only be in the upper 40s Monday and Tuesday. If skies clear and winds die down on any nights Sunday through Wednesday we could get leaf-shriveling lows in the upper teens and 20s,

That remains to be seen.  We'll have to wait for updated forecasts.

The cold spell isn't just affecting us, obviously. Damaging frosts are a risk with this thing as far south as Tennessee and the Carolinas.

If you want a glimmer of hope through this cold spell, it does look like temperatures will start to climb to near normal levels toward the end of next week.

Rinse And Repeat: Wintry Threats Continue North, Severe Weather South

A snow shower is seen dumping a quick burst of snow west
of St. Albans, Vermont last evening. Similar conditions are
expected today in Vermont 

As if there isn't enough out there to keep most of us unhappy, the weather pattern is also stuck in a way that gives many of us little to cheer about.

A winter storm is creating a narrow stripe of rather heavy snow from Wyoming to Illinois, and that stripe of snow will eventually extend all the way to southern and central New England by Friday night and Saturday morning.  

Meanwhile, in the South, another severe weather and tornado risk looks like it will appear Sunday, and chnces are high that there will be couple more severe weather threats afrer that in the same region after that.

Up here in Vermont, there was still a dusting of snow on the ground in my yard in St. Albans from last evening and it was definitely cold out, with frost adding more winter to that bit of snow.]

That evening snow was caused by a reinforcing shot of cold air from Canada.  The band of snow was in far southern Vermont and northwestern Massachusetts this morning, causing slick roads in a few spots down there

Today in Vermont will look a lot like yesterday, especially in the northern half of the state. We'll have what I call self-destructing sunshine this morning. That sun will warm the atmosphere, but there's a pool of very cold air aloft.

The warm sun will cause updrafts, causing clouds to form and pile up, obscuring the sun for the most part. Between remaining breaks of sun this afternoon and early evening, those clouds will produce another round of snow showers.

Luckily, the air near the Earth's surface is dry, so much of the snow will evaporate on the way down. Still, many of those snow showers will have enough oomph to give many of us another dusting of snow. Nothing consequential, but also nothing you want to see this time of year.

Meanwhile, a pretty compact but vigorous storm is starting to zip west to east across the middle of the country,  laying down that stripe of snow in the Midwest. Southern Iowa not far from the Missouri border, is expected up to a foot of snow out of this.

That's an awful lot for that area of the nation for mid-April.

The storm will weaken a little, temporarily, but still have enough power to dump a few inches of snow Friday night and early Saturday in southern and central New England away from the coast.

In Vermont, up to three or four inches of snow could pile up Friday night in the mountains east of Bennington.  Further north toward Rutland, at this point it looks like a dusting to an inch, with little or nothing further north

After a brief sorta, kinda warmup on Sunday, it'll go back down to below normal temperatures in New England next week. The Midwest will warm up, but nope, not us!

SOUTHERN STORMS

The South is still reeling from those tornadoes and severe storms Sunday and Monday.  According to the National Weather Service eastern region, a total of 105 tornadoes from April 12-13 have been confired.

Tornadoes touched down in ten states, and if you added up the miles each one traveled, you'd get a total of 771.86 miles. If you combined all those tornadoes into one tornado track, it would extend from about Louisville, Kentucky to Burlington, Vermont.

The weekend tornadoes killed perhaps 30 people, and more than 60 Americans have lost their lives to tornadoes so far this year. If nobody else dies in a tornado this year, (which would be nice) this would still be the deadliest tornado year since 2012, notes the Weather Channel.

There might well be more tornadoes, severe storms and flooding on the way to the South this Sunday.  The expected rough weather won't be as extreme, or cover as big an area as last weekend, but people from Texas to Georgia better watch it on Sunday,  and toward the east on Monday.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center is already forecasting a few tornadoes and severe storms for that tie period.

The weather pattern is favoring pretty strong storms riding east from California through the South or south-central United States.  Two more storms are forecast to take relatively similar paths next week, which could again threaten the South with more tornadoes.

Spring On Temporary Pause In Much Of Nation, Including Vermont

Chilly winds, and even a few morning snow showers kept me bundled up Tuesday in St. Albans, Vermont as the weather here in Vermont turned a little more March-like again.

Get used to it.  The weather gods have pressed the "pause" button on spring.

All that dark blue in a huge aera of the nation's middle was
freeze warnings this morning. The lighter blue to the south
were frost advisories. We've hit a temporary halt to
our rather early spring. 

A persistent dip in the jet stream will keep us Vermonters kind of shivering most of the time, probably through the end of the month at. There might be a few warm days thrown in, but generally speaking, the spring green up is about to slow quite a bit.

I have a couple hundred daffodils in my yard that are this close to blooming. They might stay in that budding stage for awhile.

At least it's not record cold, and at least so far, not much snow is in the forecast.

The initial blast of cold air contributed to a stripe of snow Easter Sunday from Colorado, through the central Plains and up into the Great Lakes. Record cold followed, with temperatures dipping into the teens in cities like Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Denver, Colorado, among many others places in the middle of the nation.

Actually, Denver has had three consecutive mornings in the teens, the lowest being 11 degrees. The "high" temperature in Denver Tuesday was a wintry 25 degrees. Normal high this time of year there is around 60 degrees.

The Texas panhandle also had a few inches of snow this week.  Snow flurries dusted Nashville, Tennessee Tuesday at a time of year when daytime temperatures there should be around 70 degrees.

Even worse, in Chicago this morning, snow led to a 50-car pileup on an expressway, injuring something like 15 people.

Spring had come very early to much of the eastern two thirds of the nation, and earlier this year, I posted here on this blog thingy that I feared there's be a late season freeze do damage fruit crops and other agriculture later in the spring. Sure enough, freeze warnings were up this morning for a vast part of the United States from Texas to Tennessee

Frost advisories extended southward into northern Alabama and Mississippi.

For us here in Vermont, so far at least, I don't see extreme cold coming, though a real nasty, damaging to early plants blast is not entirely out of the question from now until early May. Snow is certainly not out of the question through the end of the month, especially in the higher elevations.  Right now, there's no signs of any kind of big winter storm, though.

Of course, as noted, we could easily get a few brief squirts of mild air thrown in, just to remind you it is still spring, in case you forgot.

As we enter into this cool period, we have one other sign of spring to warm your heart.  The famous Joe's Pond ice out contest ended this morning.  Whoever guessed closest to 6:07 a.m. this morning when the block on the ice fell through, stopping a clock attached to it by a cord, was the big winner.

A quick scan of Joe's Pond ice out dates suggests this year's was the fourth earliest on record.

Rinse And Repeat From Last Week, With A Welcome Difference

Snow covered trees in St. Albans, Vermont last weekend. More wintry
weather is due later in the week, but nothing like the storm
we had last Friday.

The weather maps and forecasts looks an awful lot like they did about this time last week, when we here in Vermont were getting ready for a blasting from  \the biggest winter storm of the winter.

As you know, the much of the state basically shut down last Friday amid ice and blizzard-like conditions.

As the storm gathered, floods and tornadoes spun up in the South, and the system organized itself for a rampaging trip toward New England.

This  current Tuesday morning, heavy rains and extensive flooding is hitting the South, and a storm is forecast to organize and head toward New England by Thursday. Sound familiar?

Before you panic, though, this next one won't be nearly as bad as last week's. There's a few differences this time that will prevent the storm from turning into a New England monster.

Still, expect some more snow, and maybe some ice on Thursday.

Just like last week, there a couple waves to this storm.  The first, the one that helped produce very heavy rain in the South Monday, will skirt by southern New England as a weak system today.  Here in Vermont, this will cause nothing more than a few areas of sprinkles, wet snow flakes and drizzle, mostly south and east.

This weak little storm will blow up into a huge monster, but not until it gets up by Newfoundland and out into the North Atlantic.  By then, it will be a hurricane-force of nature. But it won't be our problem, since it will be about 1,500 past us by the time it gets to be this enormous powerhouse.

We won't be so lucky in avoiding storm wave number 2 this week. But there are things working against this next one that will prevent a big blow for us. At this point, it looks like a sort of meh, mid sized storm for New England on Thursday. It will rocket through New England and never have a chance to tap deep Atlantic moisture or organize itself into a strong storm.

The forecast is subject to change, but at this point, it looks like we're in for a few inches of snow, with maybe some sleet and freezing rain thrown in, especially across the southern half of Vermont.

The way this winter is going, we can hardly get through any storms without a mix, can we?

Very much like last week's storm, a pretty strong push of Arctic air will blast into New England behind it. If anything, the next blast of frigid air will be even colder than what came through last weekend.

However, just like the last time, the Arctic blast will be brief. It'll get wicked cold Thursday night and stay that way through midday Saturday.  Then temperatures will creep up again, and start flirting or surpassing the freezing mark by next Sunday afternoon.

The bottom line: Get ready for plenty more wintry weather, but it's definitely nothing to panic over.

After A Long Break, Winter Returning To Vermont, Rest Of Northeast

Weather dog Jackson inspects the bits of ice and snow that have
fallen on our St. Albans, Vermont property since Sunday.
More snow and colder weather is in the forecast. 

Our long hiatus from winter is just about over here in Vermont and the rest of the Northeast.

Yes, yes, I know winter returned with the ice in far northern sections on Sunday, but it's still mild. That won't last too long.

First, a quick review of this odd season.

It really has been a strange winter so far. It came in very early and very strong, with record cold temperatures and heavy snows starting in before mid-November.

The cold continued well into mid-December, making people think this would be one of the longest, coldest winters in memory.

Then the official start of winter - at least astronomical winter - arrived on December 21, and winter weather took a hiatus.

In Burlington, Vermont, only three days since since December 22 have failed to get above freezing.  So far, temperatures this month in Burlington are running a good ten degrees above normal.

There was only 18 inches of snow atop Mount Mansfield, Vermont as of yesterday. Normally at this date, there's about 42 inches of snow at that mountain snow stake. At this point last year, there was 64 inches of snow on the ground atop Mount Mansfield.

Then, to cap it off, we had that springlike record warmth Saturday, and on Sunday in southern New England.

True, we had more than our share of ice and sleet and schmutz here in New England since December 22, but you have to admit it's been darn warm!

The warm weather and the relative lack of snow is about to end. Normal winter cold and snow looks like it will make a grand return for pretty much the rest of the month.

Today and tomorrow in Vermont will be relatively mild, with highs in the 30s, and very warm (at least for January) overnight lows in the 20s.

But our unfriendly bugaboo freezing drizzle, which we had yesterday, a little bit today and a little bit more tonight, will linger. But we've had a bit of snow, too over the past 24 hours in Vermont.

That's the start of a process of rebuilding our lost snowpack. A little snow will come tonight along with that freezing drizzle, which will bring an inch or two of accumulation to much of the area.

A slightly stronger system Wednesday night will bring most Vermonters another two or three inches of snow, with higher amounts near six inches in some of the mountain ski areas of central and northern Vermont.

Then it turns cold later Thursday and Friday, with temperatures getting down to around zero at night and only making it into the teens at best in the afternoon.

Forecasters are also watching a potential storm for this weekend. It at least has the potential to bring us several more inches of snow, perhaps a decent dump. We'll see. Then it'll turn cold again after that storm

This forecasted wintry weather is pretty typical for Vermont in January. But it's definitely a change from what we've gotten used to over the past few weeks.

Odd Quiet Weather Pattern This Week Producing Fog, Pollution

Aftermath of a pileup on Interstate 64 in Virginia this morning.
Fog lifted after the crash. But dense fog and ice contributed
to this crash. 

The eastern two-thirds of the United States is still oddly quiet in the weather department.

Great for travel, but not so great for air quality. Or the production of fog.

The storminess we usually see this time of year mixes the air. Strong winds dissipate and blow away any emissions we produce and most of the fog that tries to form in moist air.

But high pressure is dominating this week, so the air is relatively still. When high pressure, fair weather systems dominate in the summer, you can get pollution problems too. But the strong sun of summer mixes the air, so that helps dissipate fog and pollution.

Around now, the winter solstice, the sun is weak, of course. So you don't get the updrafts caused by the sun's heating, and the air doesn't mix. In fact, an inversion often forms, in which the air above is warmer than the air at the surface. That locks in the air, not allowing fog and pollution to escape.

That's why it's hazy from the Plains through the Midwest to the East Coast this weekend. I noticed this while flying from Burlington, Vermont to Sioux Falls, South Dakota on Saturday. During a stopover in Chicago, it was actually kind of smoggy.

As my plane took off from O'Hare, you can see a brown smudge enveloping the air over the Windy City, which was anything but windy on Saturday.

Some places are worse than others. There's an air quality alert in southwestern New Hampshire, as air pollution is accumulating in low elevations there.

Elswhere, dense fog advisories were up for large parts of the central Plains this morning. Where I am this morning in Yankton, South Dakota, the sun is out, but you can see haze accumulating in the atmosphere.

Sometimes, this situation can get dangerous. Fog can get thick, and in the winter, the moisture from the fog can ice up bridges and highways. Motorists start sliding on the ice, and can't see each other in the dense fog.

Such was the case early this morning in Virginia. Dense fog and ice contributed to a 45-car pileup on I-64  and many people are injured, according to Virgina State Police.

Weather conditions will slowly begin to get more active on and after Christmas, so the haze and fog will start to decline, only to be replaced by our usual winter hazards of snow and ice, at least in some parts of the country.

While Watching California Burn, Wishing We Could Send Vermont's Dreary Downpours To Them

Yesterday was as dreary a day as you can get in Vermont.

A foreboding, stormy, gloomy late autumn day Sunday
in my St. Albans, Vermont yard.

Stuck inside, I watched videos depicting parts of California burning amid arid, blowtorch gales. A few of the videos are at the bottom of this post.

 I also watched yet another drenching storm soak Vermont, keeping me from doing my outdoor autumn chores. It was a classic, dark, wet, foreboding late October day as we race toward winter.

I wished I could teleport all that rain and wetness to California.

Not that's it's been an ugly, awful month in Vermont. Quite the contrary.  We've had a lot of gorgeous days this autumn.  But the rainfall, especially in northern Vermont, is kind of impressive for October, which is normally a relatively dry month in Vermont.

A little over an inch of rain dropped into my unofficial rain gauge in St. Albans, Vermont, bringing the month's total to 6.4 inches. That surely must put us in the top 10 wettest list for Octobers. Again, we haven't had a lot of rainy days, really. It's just that this month, when it rains, it pours.

Burlington, Vermont so far has had less rain than right up along the Canadian border. The Queen City has had 5.14 inches as of last midnight. That doesn't place October in the top 10 wettest, but if the next storm comes early enough, on October 31, it could put this month in that top ten list.

The storminess here and the fires are related meteorologically. And climate change might have a hand in it.  When the Arctic is warm, it does seem the jet stream has more and bigger northward bulges and southward dips. And those patterns seem to get stuck.

This month, an enormous northward bulge in the jet stream has kept Alaska very toasty, at least by their standards.  What goes up must come down. So there's been a corresponding major dip in the jet stream into the Rockies and western Plains.

Which is why they've had some odd wintry cold fronts and snowstorms out in that neck of the woods.

The cold in the Rockies and the warmth in California has increased the pressure gradient between the West Coast warmth and Rockies cold.  Bigger pressure gradients mean more wind, which is in part why these periods of very gusty, dry downslope winds have brought fires to California.

That dip in the jet stream means there's a corresponding northward bulge further east, off the East Coast.  Which puts us Vermonters in a flow that comes from the southwest.  This arrangement allows storms to pull lots of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, so it rains hard.

Yet one more storm is coming along, as I said on Halloween and November 1.  Details are still sketchy, but there could be heavy rains and strong winds in and around Vermont with this one. We'll keep an eye on it.

Meanwhile, California keeps burning. The biggest danger today shifts toward the southern part of the state, especially near and north of Los Angeles. Already early this morning, a roaring wildfire developed near the 405 and Getty Center. It was rapidly spreading, a few houses were already on fire and there were hasty evacuations going on.

So the day doesn't look good at all in that region

Some videos:

A grass fire trapped cars on Interstate 5 near Sacramento. Some people had to run for their lives as their cars caught fire. Others looked for an escape route as traffic jammed amid the smoke and embers.

Here's somebody on that Sacramento freeway as the wildfire closes in, directing traffic onto a dirt side road that would help them escape the fire. Chaotic!



A dangerous fire developed in Vallejo, California, but firefighters eventually, somehow got the pper hand on it.  Here's what it looked like for awhile:



A home burning during the Kincade fire. Watch to near the end as a tree explodes dramatically overhead:

"Flash Drought" Hitting Southeastern United States

The U.S Drought Monitor map from a week ago. Yellow indicates
abnormally dry, shades of orange are drought. Notice how
much more orange there is, especially in the Southeast,
in this week's map, below.

We've all heard of flash floods, when a torrential downpour turns quiet water into raging torrents pretty much instantaneously. That's why we call them flash floods. Duh! They hit in a flash.

There's actually such a thing a flash drought, too, believe it or not. Droughts usually develop over months or even years as persistent below normal rainfall dries out the ground, rivers and aquafers.

Under the right conditions, a strong weather pattern can create a drought in just a few weeks. That's what's now happening over the southeastern United States, as the Weather Channel reports. 

We've talked about that persistent heat ridge that has been stuck over the Southeast for over a month now. That has created the perfect conditions for a flash drought.

Of course, high pressure prevents rain from falling. The sinking air in a high pressure system tamps down clouds, so you don't get billowing clouds that can produce rain.

This weather pattern has also brought at least three weeks of record high temperatures, too. In general, the higher the temperature, the faster things dry out. Such is the case in the Southeast, where daytime temperatures have been consistently in the 90s or even 100s.

A great example of the weather that brought on this flash drought is Macon, Georgia.  They reached 102 yesterday, the hottest for so late in the season. It was the third day this month where it got to 100 degrees. Only one day so far this September has failed to reach 90 degrees in Macon.  Even worse, Macon has only received 0.02 inches of rain so far this month. They should have gotten a good three inches during that time period.

Much more orange this week as drought rapidly intensifies
and expands in the southeastern United States.

The U.S. Drought Monitor shows how fast this is developing. A week ago, 15 percent of Alabama was experiencing drought. This week, its more like 34 percent.

In Georgia, it's even worse. A week ago, about a quarter of that state was in drought. The U.S. Drought Monitor says this week, almost three quarters of Georgia is experiencing drought. That's an incredibly fast change for a building drought.

The flash drought also extends well into Texas, except in areas around Houston that drowned in flooding from Tropical Storm Imelda earlier this month.

The flash drought sneaks in to a lesser extent into New England, including here in Vermont.  There are currently no official drought regions in Vermont, but 72 percent of the Green Mountain State is regarded as abnormally dry by the U.S. Drought Monitor. That's up from 46 percent last week.

Vermont is on the northern edge of that heat ridge causing the baking dryness down south. Northern Vermont has been blessed by a series of weather fronts that have dumped some decent, but not overwhelming rains.  The southern half to two thirds of Vermont has lately largely missed out on these showers, hence the increasing dryness.

The weather outlook in the Southeast isn't very good. They will endure a few more days of record heat, along with a continued lack of rain through the weekend.

Extended forecasts into first ten days of October indicate continued warm, dry conditions in the Southeast. Up here in New England, it looks like it will turn chillier and wetter (mountain snows?) during early October.

"Amplified" Weather Pattern Keeps The Severe Storms, Weird Weather Going

Satellite view of a storm system in the middle of the nation on
Tuesday. It's rare to get a storm this well developed and
wound up this late in the spring. 

It's true that the current extreme weather pattern in much of the nation did not produce the expected huge tornado outbreak in the southern Plains Monday.

That's great, of course. But the current weather pattern is keeping a large part of the nation in a
daily grind of flooding, spots of severe thunderstorms, almost daily tornadoes somewhere in the nation, and other bad stuff.

Storm systems coming across the country this week are stronger than they normally would be this time of year.

It's an incredibly weird, stormy May in large swaths of the nation, and that's not going to change anytime soon. Some videos at the bottom of this post illustrate some of the damaging weather.

It's hard to get precise as to what will happen where beyond three days from now, so we'll stick to what's happening now, and what will occur in the next couple of days.

Here in Vermont, there might be a couple moments of "interesting" weather over the next week or so, but it won't be a wild as other parts of the nation.

The weather pattern is what weather geeks would call amplified.  That just means the dips and upward bumps in the jet stream are bigger than usual.

Generally in the winter, the jet stream is amplified, meaning there are deep southward pushes in the jet stream matched by big bulges northward.

By this time of year, the jet stream is normally much less "amplified" as we head toward summer. The dips in the jet stream aren't that big, and the northward bulges aren't impressive, either. Plus the entire jet stream tends to shift northward into Canada, leaving most of us here in the United States with relatively few extremes in the weather department.

The jet stream this week has clearly not gotten the memo that winter is over. It sinks way down deep into the western United States, created odd snowstorms and an unusual chill. Meanwhile, a strong ridge of high pressure is over the Southeast, which will create a heat wave there over the next few days.

The battle zone between the cold west and the hot southeast runs diagonally from roughly and broadly from Texas to the Northeast. That battleground is where the repeated storms and possible flooding will occur.

TEMPERATURE EXTREMES

The cold out west is incredibly impressive for this time of year.  High temperatures this time of year are normally in the low 90s in Las Vegas. Today's expected high temperature there is just 64 degrees, which is chillier than the expected high way up north in Burlington, Vermont, where it's supposed to get up to 67 degrees today.

The snow across parts of Colorado, Wyoming and the Black Hills of South Dakota has been impressive, too. Some higher elevations in Colorado got up to 20 inches of new snow over the past couple of days. There's massive tree damage in some towns, like Colorado Springs, as several inches of wet, heavy snow clung to the leaves on the trees, weighing them down so branches snapped.

Meanwhile, record heat will grip the Southeast. High temperatures near 100 degrees are likely over the Memorial Day weekend in parts of Georgia, the Carolinas and some Gulf Coast states. Some of these readings would be all-time high temperature records for the entire month of May.

THE STORMY BATTLE ZONE

As mentioned the Midwest, and occasionally parts of the Northeast are in a storm zone in part because of the temperature contrasts between the west and Southeast.

To give you one example of this weird contrast: It snowed in western Nebraska Tuesday, but in the eastern part of the state, there were tornadoes.

Severe thunderstorms and perhaps a few tornadoes are possible
tomorrow in areas shaded in yellow and orange.

There were actually more tornadoes reported Tuesday - a preliminary count of 38 - in the midde of the nation than on what was to have been the great big outbreak on Monday, when the preliminary count was 22 twisters. (These numbers are subject to change as the National Weather Service investigates tornado reports.)

More tornadoes are possible today in parts of northeastern Oklahoma, Missouri and eastern Kansas.  On Thursday, the interesting weather heads to the Northeast, where severe thunderstorms are possible.

The greatest risk on Thursday of severe weather is in Pennsylvania, where there could even be a few tornadoes out of this. Some strong to severe storms could develop in northern New York and move into western Vermont late in the afternoon or the evening.

Though there won't be widespread bad storms, a couple spots in western Vermont especially could have thunderstorm winds strong enough to knock down some trees or branches. It could also hail.

Another round of severe storms looks like it could strike the Northeast Saturday. Early indications are Vermont will get a good slug of rain, but we will be too far north to get the severe thunderstorms.

There will also be almost daily chances of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes in the southern Plains through the weekend.

Flooding will continue to be a threat, as if there hasn't been enough of it in the middle of the nation already. Flood warnings remain in effect across a broad area of Missouri, southeastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma.

Flooding has been extreme in Oklahoma, with one creek rising from six feet to 36 feet deep within a day.

Flood warnings and watches are also up for western South Dakota.

The stormy spring continues on....

Some videos:

Television station KTVQ aired this tornado video from Oklahoma on Monday:



CBS News report really shows the great extent of Oklahoma flooding:



NBC News shows a woman in Oklahoma being rescued from rushing water:



And a news report of the snow and tree damage in the Denver/Colorado Springs area:

Tornadoes Didn't Hit Big Towns, But Extreme Weather Continues

News9 in Oklahoma City captured these twin tornadoes
north of Oklahoma City Monday. Photo via Matt Mahler
on Twitter. 

That highly anticipated tornado outbreak in Texas and Oklahoma did roar into being on Monday, but thankfully, none of the larger tornadoes went right through major towns.

There was plenty of damage from the 22 tornadoes reported in the region so far, but no deaths. A particularly nasty tornado hit the outskirts of Magnum, Oklahoma, causing lots of damage.

Tornado warnings are still going out in eastern Oklahoma this morning, and more twisters are a definite possibility, especially in Missouri and Arkansas later today.  

FLOODING WORSE THAN TORNADOES

As I alluded to yesterday, the flooding in the region is actually worse than the tornadoes. There is widespread, serious flooding going on in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri, and the rains keep falling.

Areas in red can expect several inches more of rain over
the next seven days with continued serious flooding. 

The weather pattern is "stuck" again, with a ridge of hot high pressure in the Southeast and a deep dip in the jet stream in the West. This is creating a parade of storms moving diagonally southwest to northeast in the middle of the nation.

This is, of course, very bad news, as the severe storm risk will continue all week in the Midwest.  Worse, repeated bursts of heavy rain will fall on already flooded areas, worsening the situation Parts of Oklahoma got six inches or more of rain just yesterday.

Parts of Interstate 40 west of Oklahoma City were closed by flooding this morning. Water was invading the Ponca City, Oklahoma police station. Cars were swept off roads by flooding in Joplin, Missouri, says the Weather Channel.

Parts of Missouri, Iowa and Kansas can expect at least six inches more rain in the next seven days. This is on top of serious flooding going on already in those states.

COLORADO SNOW, AGAIN

In the cold air to the west of the storminess, odd late season snow continues to fall in Colorado, Wyoming and in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Denver reported three inched of new snow, one of only seven times since 1882 that an inch or  more of snow has fallen in the city.

Unfortunately, the wet, heavy snow was snapping branches on trees that had already leafed out. Car crashes on snowy highways led to the temporary closure on Interstate 70 through the mountains.

SUBTROPICAL STORM ANDREA

In one more unusual weather event in a week of odd weather, Subtropical Storm Andrea formed yesterday well off the Southeast U.S. coast. It's weak and will probably dissipate tomorrow, but this is yet another year in which a tropical or tropical type storm formed ahead of the normal hurricane season, which starts June 1.

VERMONT/NEW ENGLAND UPDATE

The Storm Prediction Center has Vermont in
a marginal risk zone for severe thunderstorms
Thursday, with a somewhat greater chance off to our west

Luckily, little in the way of severe weather developed in New England Monday, despite much of the region being under a severe thunderstorm watch. Storms did cause some tree damage in and around Providence, Rhode Island.

Here in Vermont, we were lucky that most places didn't get any additional torrential downpours during the day Monday.

The storms Sunday night dumped up to three inches of rain in a few hours in parts of central Vermont, leading to minor flooding and road washouts.

Sunday night's heavy rain will prolong the Lake Champlain flooding. By Sunday, the lake had fallen to 100.25 feet, which is just four inches or so above flood stage. It looked like the very long, but minor flood that began on April 20 would end soon.

But the lake is temporarily rising again, getting up to around 100.4 feet by this morning. It'll start to fall again soon, unless we get more heavy rain.

The next shot of rain is Thursday, when another round of showers and thunderstorms will blow through. There's even a marginal chance of perhaps a few more severe storms. We'll see.

All those storms in the Plains will keep ejected northeastward toward us over the next week, so we'll get frequent bouts of rain with just short intervals of dry weather in between. Luckily, they won't be as intense as they were in the Plains by the time they get here, but we'll still have to watch occasionally for locally heavy rain through next week.

Vermont Weather To Go From Wild To Mild, But For Rest Of Nation, Just The Opposite

A spring snowman in Peacham, Vermont today. Photo via
Twitter from Tim Scott Real Estate.

As expected, snow was falling in the higher elevations of northern New England, including here in Vermont.

Web cams from the ski areas all show snow covered slopes. According to National Weather Service reports this morning,
Greensboro and Woodford reported four inches. Danville, Vermont has seen 3.5 inches of new snow, with 3.3 inches on a hill above Ludlow; 2.5 inches in a high spot in Plainfield, and 2 inches at the 1,600 foot elevation in Marshfield.

After today, the weather in Vermont will improve through the rest of the week as we head toward near normal temperatures, we think, by the weekend. The weather will probably remain unsettled, but the snow will be over by Wednesday morning.

Meanwhile, big trouble is brewing in much of the rest of the nation. It's peak tornado season. We're in a bit of a lull with the severe storms, which is great, but that's not going to last. Things might get very bad in the middle of the country by the weekend.

It looks like there will be a multi-day outbreak of severe storms and tornadoes in the middle of the nation. It will begin Friday and last through at least Monday. Weather pundits are saying this could well be the most impressive and potentially dangerous weather pattern in the Plains since 2003 or 2004.

It could also possibly be the worst outbreak of severe weather for the nation as a whole since 2011 or 2012, but that remains to be seen. The potential is there.

Details of how this possible outbreak of severe storms and tornadoes plays out is TBA, but I think you will be seeing such weather on the news by the weekend.

Vermont Agency of Transportation web cam image along
Interstate 89 in Brookfield at mid-morning today. 

The stormy weather will also dump a lot of rain on the Mississippi River Valley and surrounding things. Not good, considering all the flooding that's been going on in the region since March.

Meanwhile, on the West Coast, an unseasonably cold and wet storm is expected to come in this week.  By this time of year, the kind of storm that brings inches of rain to the lowlands of northern California and feet of snow to the Sierra Nevada mountains is pretty much over.

But that's exactly what they're going to get. Several inches of rain could fall in northern California over the next week. Winter storm watches are already up for the Sierra Nevada above about 6,000 feet in elevation.

California already had a wet winter, and there's still plenty of snow still on the ground in the mountains to keep already full reservoirs filled to the top. I guess these storms are the icing on the cake.

All of the weather drama I've described above is all related to each other. A deep dip in the jet stream is about to carve itself out along the West Coast. That'll drive the big storms inland into California and Oregon.

Then, pieces of storm energy will eject through the Rockies into the Plains. This will draw warm, wet air northward into the Plains. This will also cause strong wind shear in the atmosphere. (Wind shear is  wind direction and speed changing with height, which is one necessary ingredient for tornado outbreaks.)

The dip in the jet stream out west will build a northward bulge in the jet stream in the East. That will be one way to keep the warm, wet air flowing into the potential tornado zone, and it will warm much of the eastern United States up to summertime levels.

But that warm outlook is super uncertain here in Vermont. We'll be on the northern edge of that northward bulge in the jet stream, which means we'll be close to the border between summer like air to the south and springtime chill to the north.

Weather disturbances will zip along this boundary, whipping it up and down like a rope. That makes it impossible to time out when it will rain in Vermont over the next week and when it won't rain. It also makes it almost impossible to tell more than a couple days in advance how warm or cold it will be coming up.

As usual, what will happen next with Vermont's weather is anybody's guess.

Torrential Rain, Floods In Southeast, But Storms Will Barely Affect Northeast

Map shows large areas of the Southeast receiving five to
ten inches of rain over the next seven days. (orange areas.)
The area is already saturated, so now there's the threat
of some veryserious flooding. 

A weather pattern that has been more or less in place all month is reinforcing itself across much of the United States, and that will bring some seriously flooding across the southeastern United States.

The pattern has shifted a tiny bit in the past couple of days,  so that California will be slightly drier and the Pacific Northwest will be slightly less snowy.

But there will continue to be a dome of cold air affecting the northwestern half of the nation, and a warm ridge of high pressure in the Southeast keeping some areas down there springlike.

In the middle, a stormy battle zone between the cold and warm continues, especially in the Southeast and Tennessee and Ohio valleys. It has already been one of the wettest Februaries on record in parts of this region. Within the next week, another five to eight inches of rain, and in some places more, will drench this area.

The state of Tennessee and adjacent areas seem to be the epicenter of the latest, upcoming round of flooding. Nashville has already had nearly seven inches of rain so far this month, which is 4.5 inches above normal.

It's wet today in parts of the Tennessee Valley and the Southeast, but the real downpours won't begin until Tuesday. Then they will continue through the end of the week.

They've already had some flooding there, and it's going to get a lot worse. Much of the lower Mississippi River is already at flood stage and so is many of its tributaries.  With all the rain coming, the Mississippi River flooding looks like it will go well beyond nuisance water and will flood neighborhoods by early March.

A large section of the Ohio River is also already at flood stage. That flooding of course might get worse after this upcoming wet week.

The National Weather Service in Nashville, Tennessee is already alerting residents that things could get pretty bad by the end of the week.

The bottom line is that you will hear lots of stuff on the news later this week about flooding, especilly in the Ohio and Tennessee Valley, and in the northern Gulf States.

CLIMATE CHANGE INFLUENCE?

In terms of wet weather this year is really picking up where 2018 left off. Last year, large parts of the eastern half of the nation - and a few places further west - had their wettest year on record or close to it. Now, 2019 is off to an incredibly soggy start in large swaths of the nation.  This includes parts of California, Arizona, and the southeastern third of the nation, with the exception of Florida.

I can't attribute a single weather event such as this to climate change, but scientists have been warning us that some areas of the nation, especially the eastern half, face much more rain than in the past as global temperatures rise. 

Which means this pattern is at least consistent with climate change.

Another thing that is going on which somewhat consistent with climate change is the "stuck" weather pattern. The science on this aspect isn't as settled as the overall concept of global warming, but some experts say climate change could create more "stuck" weather patterns, in which the saame type of conditions remain over a particular area for weeks or even months.

This month, the relatively "stuck" pattern is causing some very different temperature departures, never mind the precipitation. In the heart of the "cold" zone this month, temperatures are running at about 25 degrees colder than normal for February. Cut Bank, Montana endured 12 consecutive days in which the temperature constantly remained below zero.

In the Southeast, spring is way ahead of scheduled due to a remarkably warm February. Most of the region is running six to ten degrees warmer than normal so far this month.

VERMONT EFFECTS

This month's weather pattern has gotten Vermont caught in the middle of the two extremes, but at least the storminess it's causing hasn't been too bad here.

Floodwater cascades through forests along the Lamoille River near
Cambridge, Vermont in 2011. While spring flood potential is
certainly lower in Vermont this year than in 2011, there's
still a risk of trouble. 

This northwest cold/southeast warmth has kept the Green Mountain State in a very active weather pattern most of this winter.  Some sort of storm system seems to affect us almost every other day.

On the bright side, the storms here have not been really extreme. The best moisture has been mostly going by to our south with most of these systems.

The result is a wetter and snowier than normal January and February here, but we're not shattering records. Temperatures have been see-sawing back and forth since we are in the battle zone. That means the winter overall has been running close to normal. January was a little on the cold side, and February so far is a little on the warm side.

We've also had more than our share of freezing rain and sleet.

The next storm is a pretty weak one that will affect us later tonight and Monday. It's going by to our south, and this means just a little snow. Areas around Bennington and Brattleboro might get up to three inches of snow, while spots near the Canadian border basically get flurries.

Other storms will bring some snow and mixed precipitation to us, probably on Thursday and Sunday, but neither storm looks big.

If this weather pattern keeps going or gets worse, we might have to worry about spring flooding in Vermont. Snow cover and the water content in the snow up in the mountains is above normal. So are stream flows and soil moisture. Lake Champlain is higher than normal for this time of year.

All this spells potential trouble as we head into later March and April.  Conditions aren't nearly as scary as in 2011, when Vermont faced destructive river flooding in April and record flooding along Lake Champlain in May.  The flood potential will still have to be monitored, though.

Wicked Fast Jet Stream Over Pacific Contributing To Our Changeable Weather

Jet stream forecaast for the Pacific Ocean between Asia and
North America for this coming Saturday The fast flow (in pink and orange)
denotes a fast west to east flow that is influencing the weather
across the United States, pushing repeated storms
into the West Coast, which turn into fast moving
disturbances racing generally west to east across the
United States. 

Lately, there's been a hugely fast west-to-east jet stream over the Pacific Ocean from Asia all the way to the North American west coast, and that's been influencing our weather here in Vermont.

This state of affairs began before Christmas and will continue at least into the middle of this month, if not beyond.

I'll get into how this affects Vermont in a bit. -

This jet stream has been sending a series of fast-moving storms into the West Coast from central California north into British Columbia, Canada.

These storms have been, and will continue to dump bursts of heavy rain and blinding mountain snow in these region

These have also brought damaging winds to California, Oregon, Washington and especially British Columbia over the past couple of weeks. Just over the weekend, Seattle had a gust to 60 mph, it's highest gust in 12 years. About 300,000 people were without power because of the storm.

The good news with this pattern is rain has been falling off and on through most of California, and a decent snowpack is building up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  That's great for the parched state's water supply.

Of course, a lot of those occasionally heavy rains are falling on massive areas scarred by last year's wildfires. Mudslides in one of these burn areas over the weekend closed the Pacific Coast Highway near Malibu. This is an area that was hit by a large wildfire late last year.

Several motorists, including rapper Soulja Boy, were trapped in the mud and debris on that highway. Everyone was rescued, nobody was hurt, but many of the cars were badly damaged or destroyed.

A couple video clips of the rough West Coast weather are at the bottom of this post.

THE OVERALL PATTERN

These storms have been zipping eastward across the United States, seemingly just on momentum alone. Most of the moisture from these storms get stripped off by the mountains in the West, so they become somewhat moisture-starved.

Some, but not all of the storms manage to pick up replacement moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, which helps explain why the Southeast has been so wet lately.

All this energy from had been those strong storms on the West Coast is still mixed up with all this. Pressure gradients between the storms and brief high pressure systems have caused frequent bouts of windy weather coast to coast, including here in New England and Vermont.

I noticed winds gusted to 40 mph in Burlington Sunday. The next system Tuesday morning will bring gusts of 45 mph to the Champlain Valley. More gusty winds are in the forecast for Thursday.

This seemingly endless parade of storms running east to west across the nation have been blocking any long-lasting cold waves from invading the country. Behind each storm, a bit of Arctic air does get stripped off and sucked southward from Canada, giving brief cold snaps to the northern tier of states, especially here in New England.

Notice that temperatures were in the single digits either side of zero here in Vermont this morning with subzero wind chills.

Then the next storm comes along, scooping a bit of mild air up from the south to give us a quick warm spell. Then the cycle repeats, over and over again. This is why the weather has been so changeable here in Vermont since Christmas: Warm to cold back to warm again.

The relatively flat east to west jet stream means most of the storms don't get a chance to become super strong. The last really substantial storm we had was on December 21 and 22, which caused flooding across Vermont. We've had six quickie storms since then, all of them pretty minor.

It's January, so it's not too hard for some pretty cold air to briefly bleed in between storms.

BOTTOM LINE FORECAST IN VERMONT

The first round of snow this week, late tonight and Tuesday
morning, will only amount to an inch or two for most
of us, with possibly even less than that in the Champlain Valley.

Here's how the next few days look The next one coming along tonight and Tuesday morning will bring some more relatively light snow, with patchy valley rain.

The strong winds, those 45 mph gusts in the Champlain Valley and 35 mph gusts elsewhere in Vermont, will peak late tonight and during the early and mid-morning hours on Tuesday.

Total snow accumulations with this initial burst will be one to three inches, with locally less than that in parts of the Champlain Valley.

There will be a lull in the action Tuesday afternoon and evening. No cold air will be able to sneak in during this time, so it will remain mild, with highs in the 30s to near 40 Tuesday and temperatures staying in the low 30s for most of us Tuesday night.

Another disturbance in this quick jet stream flow will come in late Tuesday and Wednesday. This one looks like it might be good enough to dump several inches of snow, perhaps two to six inches of powder, by Wednesday afternoon in much of Vermont.

The Champlain Valley might miss out again: It will be mild, so there, some of the precipitation, especially earlier on Wednesday might come down as a cold rain, which would minimize accumulations.

Overall, these frequent snows are great for winter sports prospects this month in the Green and White Mountains, and the Adirondacks.

After this relatively snowy period, the door will open for a piece of an Arctic high pressure system will break off and head south into New England, giving us the strongest, or nearly the strongest cold snap we've had all winter. This will hit next weekend, but don't worry too much about it.

Snow showers, mostly in the mountains, will continue amid the strong northwest wind gusts and falling temperatures Thursday, introducing a good three-day long cold snap.

It will be a run of the mill January cold snap, nothing we haven't seen before. We'll gethighs in the single numbers to near 10 and lows mostly in the 5 to 15 below range over the upcoming weekend. However, the west-to east race of storms will continue, though, so the cold snap won't last long.

It's possible, but not definite, that the next weather disturbance that originated in the Pacific Ocean could create a coastal storm that could dump some snow on us toward next Monday. That is highly uncertain but something to watch. One computer model gives us a substantial snowstorm, most of the others forecast not much of a storm and little or no snow for the region. We'll see.

Beyond that, the fast air flow across the nation will probably continue and our changeable, back and forth Vermont January weather will continue as it has since the start of the month.

Here are some of those weather video clips from the stormy West Coast.

First, a news clip about the mud slide along the Pacific Coast Highway:



Here's some footage of wind storm damage in Washington State from Saturday night and early Sunday morning:

"Ring Of Fire" Pattern Keeps Plains Hot, New England Coolish, Other Areas Very Stormy

A schematic of the "Ring of Fire" weather pattern. Hot, dry condition
persist in the souther Plains, while frequent storms and disturbances
ride up and over the heat dome (along the blue arrows in image)

There's a common summertime weather pattern that has set up which will bring scorching heat to parts of the Plains, lots of stormy weather to the parts of the northern Plains and the soggy Middle Atlantic states, and gorgeous, but maybe too dry weather to us here in northern New England.

As The Weather Channel points out, the pattern across the country is known colloquially as the "Ring of Fire."  

That's because a dome of heat sets of in the middle and southern Plains. Weather disturbances ride along the north side of this dome, going northeastward over the Rocky Mountains, across the top of this heat dome in the northern Plains, then southeastward into parts of the Midwest and Middle Atlantic States.

Those disturbances often interact with the heat just to their south and form clusters of strong, sometimes severe storms, hence the term "Ring of Fire."

This pattern, as I noted, is pretty common in the summer. It can get particularly nasty if it stays in place for a long time. Under the heat dome, the ground dries out and drought ensues.  The areas getting hit by thunderstorms deal with local problems with wind damage, hail and flooding.

Also, if the pattern holds the thunderstorms keep going over the same area, so the flooding gets particularly bad in spots. I do worry about the upcoming days around the Middle Atlantic states. It is absolutely soggy there, and flooding has been a big problem in recent weeks. This pattern could make things even worse there.

In the short term, Iowa seems to be the target of the storms and flooding. At least for today and maybe tomorrow.

Depending upon how the "Ring of Fire" sets up, we here in northern New England can get caught up in the train of strong storms. This time, though, it doesn't look like that's in the cards, at least into the first half of next week.

The heat dome is well to our west, so we here in Vermont and surrounding states will get caught in a dry flow of air from the northwest. Temperatures through next week will be near normal (Highs most days in the 70s.) There will be a fair amount of sun, though weak cold fronts will come through from time to time to provide widely scattered, light showers.

But this is a dry pattern. We did, fortunately, get rain this week, but we could use more, and things are going to dry out more in the coming days. Certainly, we're not into any kind of drought, but we will want a wetter pattern later this month.

Late May Often Terrible, Dangerous Time For Tornadoe. Not This Year

A deadly EF-5 tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, May, 20, 2013. This was
the most recent  EF-5 tornado recorded in the United States.

As I do every year for about a week to 10 days, I've moved myself and this here blog thingy out to the lovely little city of Yankton, South Dakota. The main reason to do this is to visit my outlaws, er, I mean inlaws.

Southeastern South Dakota is also a decent vantage point this time of year to observe spring thunderstorms. And they're often severe. And there's sometimes tornadoes here and there.

That might be the case this year, but I'm not counting on it. Which is a good thing. Tornadoes are dangerous, after all, and like I said, Yankton is lovely, and I'd hate to see any damage here.

As I think I've mentioned before, this remains a slow severe weather season, with a definite dearth of tornadoes, notwithstanding the nine tornadoes that struck the Northeast last week,

Often, during the final 10 days of May, there are very, very often dozens of tornadoes spinning out of the supercells and storm complexes that typically cross the nation this time of year. There were pockets of severe storms yesterday, but nothing spectacular.

Devastation from an EF-5 tornado in Parkersburg, Iowa in 2008

One weak tornado was reported Monday in Colorado, and it caused no damage. Some places had strong winds and hail, particularly in Colorado, New Mexico, Ohio and North Carolina.

Today and tonight, there will be new pockets of severe storms, especially in and near eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Also, there might be some, especially tonight, in parts of the northern and central Plains, including here in Yankton.

But the tornado threat is very low, and these patches of severe storms won't be nearly as extensive as they often are this time of year. The rest of the week also looks quiet.

This is a huge contrast to many late Mays. The devastating Moore, Oklahoma EF-5 tornado, for instance, came on May 20, 2013. And thirteen days later, an immense 2.6 mile wide tornado in El Reno, Oklahoma killed storm chasers trapped in its path.

On May 29-31, 2004, a total of 170 tornadoes killed five people and injured 150 people in 16 states.

On May 23, 2008, 80 tornadoes touched down in just Kansas alone, and two days later a huge EF-5 tornado wiped out much of the city of Parkersburg, Iowa. 

Stunned survivors after the EF-5 tornado in Joplin, Missouri, May 22, 2011.

On May 31, 1985  30 tornadoes touched down, mostly in Ohio and Pennsylvania. This included an EF-5 tornado, the strongest you can get, that pretty much wiped out Wheatland, Pennsylvania. (the Moore tornado was EF-5, too.)

We also can't forget the EF-5 tornado that devastated Joplin, Missouri on May 22, 2011, that killed 161 people.

Notice I'm mentioning all these EF-5 tornadoes that often come this time of year. These are the ones that make most of the tornado news every spring or summer. They're rare. The United States has had only 59 of them since 1950. But EF-5's cause the most damage and are the most deadly. These are the worst tornadoes you can get, with winds of over 200 mph.

There's a couple videos of EF-5 tornadoes at the bottom of this post to give you an idea of how scary they are.

The nation, mercifully is now in one of the longest streaks in history in which no EF-5 tornadoes touched down The last EF-5 tornado the nation endured was that Moore twister in 2013. That's five years without such a tornado. That's the second longest period of time we've gone through without such a strong tornado since 1950. (There were no EF-5 tornadoes in the eight year span between May 3, 1999 and May 4, 2007.)

Regular tornadoes are also in relatively short supply this spring. So far this May,  there have been 52 confirmed tornadoes in the United States. During the entire month of May, there's typically more than 200 tornadoes in the U.S.

Greensburg, Kansas was destroyed by an EF-5 tornado in 2007

So why has this May been so benign in terms of tornadoes and other severe weather?

And why has each year since 2012 been relatively calm in the tornado department? Unlike many climate trends, I don't think we can clearly pin climate change on this fortunate turn of events.

It's probably just dumb luck. This year, the first part of spring was dominated by blasts of Arctic air that suppressed the warm, humid air needed for tornadoes well to the south. So there was not much severe weather back in April.

In late April and early May, the weather pattern shifted dramatically and abruptly toward a summer pattern. The jet stream, which energizes storm systems, usually comes across the middle of the country this time of year, helping spawn severe weather outbreaks.

This year, the jet stream shifted far north, mostly over southern Canada or the extreme northern United States where it usually resides over the summer.  That means there's not as much energy to produce big storm systems.  Which means we just have relatively small weather disturbances that produce modest outbreaks of severe storms.

You can still get a lot of severe weather in June, and in the northern United States in July and August, so we're not out of the woods.

But in a time period over the past five years in which the United States has endured incredibly severe wildfires, deadly floods, severe winter storms and, last year, devastating hurricanes, the general lack of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms is a gift.

Here's a video of the Moore, Oklahoma tornado on May 20, 2013 as it rapidly intensified from something small to an EF-5 monster:



Famous surveillance video of the EF-5 tornado blowing away a house in Parkersburg, Iowa
back in 2008:



Storm chaser Jeff Piotrowski and his companion go from excitement to terror to horror as they watch an EF-5 tornado destroy much of Joplin, Missouri.