High Winds Rake Great Lakes, Northeast, Will Still Hit Us In Vermont

High winds pushed his immense pile of ice onshore
from Lake Erie Sunday. Photo via Twitter from
Erie County ESU 

As of 6 a.m. this morning, the wind that we anticipated in Vermont really wasn't  bad at all. They were gusting into the 25 to 30 mph, which is something we see all the time.

However, the strong, gusty winds are still coming. They've just been delayed a bit

Behind the cold front that came through last night, a very subtle, barely noticeable and transient little bubble of higher pressure temporarily kept the winds at bay.  That's little weather feature is passing by to our east.

With that gone and daylight bringing better atmospheric mixing, it will get windier during the day.

By atmospheric mixing, what I mean is stronger winds aloft will be better able to sneak down to the Earth's surface at times during the day, leading to stronger wind gusts down where we live.

In fact, as we got past dawn in St. Albans, Vermont, the wind began to pick up noticeably. Winds have started to increase elsewhere in the Green Mountain State as well.

The wind in Vermont today won't be as bad as they were in places like western New York and southern Ontario, where gusts exceeded 70 mph and caused a lot of damage. (More on that in a moment, including some wild, wild video.)

Still, most of the Green Mountain State will see gusts to around 50 mph today. In some open areas, and in some spots along the eastern slopes of the Green Mountains, winds could reach 60 mph.

Ice shove from Lake Erie threatening shoreline homes in
Hamburg, New York Sunday. 

Since these strong winds will persist all day and overnight, that gives ample opportunity for tree limbs and power lines to snap. This probably won't rival the big wind storm of October, 2017, but I'm sure there will be issues with the electricity being out in many parts of the state from time to time.

Even though Vermont's winds won't be as bad as some other places in the Northeast and the Great Lakes, I'd keep the phone charged and the flashlights handy, because you could still lose power today.

The strongest winds will skirt most of Vermont, heading across central New York, and screaming through southern New England and parts of New Hampshire and Maine. There, gusts will go as high as 65 mph.

There's a couple other factors to consider with this windstorm. A little snow fell overnight. I received about a half inch here in St. Albans. Higher elevations got two to four inches. The snow showers wil persist today, especially in mid and high elevations. The snow will be powdery and blow around a lot.

Even though we're not talking about much snow, the strong winds will blow it around, creating areas of white outs in exposed areas along roads and highways.

The other factor is wind chill. It wasn't that cold early this morning, with temperatures in the 20s. But readings will fall all day and into tonight. The strong winds tonight will create some pretty nasty wind chill as actual temperatures sink to near zero.

That state of affairs will continue Tuesday. The wind won't be as bad - only gusting to 30 or 35 mph. But temperatures will struggle to reach the low teens at best during the afternoon, so wind chills will stay in the teens to near 20 below zero. Brrrr!

We'll finally calm down Wednesday but stay very cold - definitely more like mid-January than the cusp of March. Things will temporarily turn somewhat milder by the weekend, but by then, another storm will come in.

At this point, it's looking like another round of mixed precipitation and wind. But computer models wildly disagree on the strength and path of the potential storm. Could be weak, could be relatively strong.  This forecast will get a fine tuning later in the week.

WILD WINDS ELSEWHERE IN THE NATION

Web cam image from near Kassan, Minnesota on Sunday shows
what strong winds and snow can do to a highway.

Vermont has been relatively calm with this storm so far, but that's not true elsewhere.

Power outages are a good measure: Only 500 or so outages were reported in Vermont at 8:30 this morning, before the wind really started gaining strength.

By contrast, more than 600,000 homes and businesses in the Great Lakes and Northeast were without electricity this morning.

Probably the most spectacular effects of this storm has been the ice shove along Lake Erie. Southwest winds gusted to near 75 mph over that lake, which before the storm was mostly covered with fragmented ice.

The wind shoved that ice toward the shore in western New York and southern Ontario. A boom had been across the mouth of the Niagara River, which was meant to keep the ice from blasting upstream. But the boom was no match for these crushing winds, and the ice chunks came rushing in.

The result was these sudden piles of ice that in some places were at least the height of a two story building, if not higher. There's an incredible video of this whole thing starting at the bottom of this post. It's quite a scene!

Similar ice shoves, as they're called, prompted evacuations on lakeshore communities like Hamburg, near Buffalo.

All that ice jamming the Niagara River also blocked the flow of water, causing a weird flash flood - one that was created without heavy rain, but an ice shove.

Further north, there wasn't as much ice on Lake Ontario, so ice shoves weren't as big a problem. But the open water created lake effect snows. That combined with gusts well over 60 mph, is creating a blizzard on the New York shores of Lake Ontario.

High winds gusting to near 80 mph in spots caused lots of tree damage and some structural damage in southern Ontario. A blizzard struck areas west and north of Toronto.

In the Midwestern United States, blizzards struck Iowa, Minnesota and surrounding areas as winds gusted past 50 mph. Many highways were closed due to zero visibility, and a number of motorists had to be rescued.

Here's the video of the ice shove along the Niagara River:



Another video showing the force, speed and danger of this ice shove along the Niagara:



News video showing wind damage around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:

Most Insane Part Of Arctic Blast Is Today, Relief Coming, I Promise

Early this morning, I took the dogs outside to do their business at my St. Albans, Vermont house.

Flooding, ice chumks, debris, stuck cars and snow
remained Friday in coastal Massachusetts, still
recovering from the nor'easter and near record storm
surge and now, bitter cold. 

Needless to say, Jackson and Tonks did NOT stay out long, not with a roaring wind, blowing snow, subzero temperatures and a wind chill in the minus 30s.

I even had trouble closing the door when I got the dogs inside. Blowing snow was getting into the door jam and freezing. It's that bad.

Yes, here in Vermont and the rest of the Northeast, today is insane, no two ways about it. And we're tired of it. Aside from a rather poor excuse for a break in the cold this past Wednesday, we've endured this since December 26 - nearly two weeks.

The end of this Arctic siege is coming though. It will very likely be a temporary end, as it's still early winter, but we'll take it.

As we keep saying, you want to be super careful today in northern New England, much of the rest of the Northeast and southeastern Canada. Don't go outside if you don't have to, and if you do, cover up everything. Skin can easily freeze in less than a minute in these conditions.

Check on your elderly neighbors, too, They can get in trouble quickly in this weather. They can have problems with heat, or busted pipes or something else. Make sure they're warm and safe.

By the way, there's been a lot of nonsense online and in the media as to whether this cold snap and big nor'easter is a sign there's no global warming, or that climate change is entirely to blame. Look for a reality check on this ridiculous jabber in the next day or two.

Here in Vermont, temperatures will stay below zero all day. If Burlington, Vermont stays below zero all day today, which is highly likely, it'll be the first time that's happened since January 22, 2014. (It used to happen pretty much every year, but winters have generally gotten a little warmer.)

The wind will continue to crank all day, too. So there will be little, if any improvement from this morning's conditions.

The news for tonight is a mixed bag. On the plus side, the National Weather Service has backed away a bit from what they expect to be cold overnight lows. Instead of 20s to upper 30s below zero, depending on your location, we're now looking at something like 15 to 30 below. Vaguely better.

But that's because the wind will keep going for a good part of the night, keeping the atmosphere mixed and interfering with radiation of what little heat there is out to space. The wind will die down before dawn, and that's when temperatures will really plunge. Exactly how cold it gets where you are depends upon how early the wind dies down. The earlier the calm winds arrive, the colder it will get, generally speaking.

Temperatures will start to warm late Sunday morning and afternoon but you probably won't notice it. When a cold snap like this one ends in Vermont, I like to say it "warms up cold" especially in the Champlain Valley.

What happens is, the temperature indeed rises. But as the warmer air begins to flood in, strong southerly winds also arrive, most noticeably in the Champlain Valley.  That means wind chills become an issue again.

Sunday, then, won't be a nice day. There will also be a lot of blowing snow around. Remember, the wind Sunday will be coming from the opposite direction as it has for the past two days. That means snow that blew into protected areas will blow around again. Look for snowy, icy patches on roads, drifts and areas of poor visiblity.

It's going to snow again, too, on Sunday night and Monday. Not much. We're looking at one to three inches most places.

By Monday afternoon, however, the warm air will have flooded in. Look for temperatures somewhere in the 25 to 35 degree range Monday. That's above zero, my friends.

If the temperature rises above freezing in Burlington Monday, that would mean we spent 15 consecutive days below freezing. That's not an amazing record, though. That would tie us for the 63rd longest continuous stretch below freezing. The record is 52 days, during the tough winter of 1976-77.

Another cold front will come through Tuesday, but don't worry, this next cold front is really lame. You really won't even notice it. High temperatures Tuesday will be near 32 degrees and "cool" into the 20s Wednesday. Not bad.

Toward the end of the week - Thursday and Friday - we could genuinely get into some thaw conditions in Vermont, with temperatures possibly in the 30s to low 40s during the day. The only problem is mixed precipitation or even rain is a good bet on those days.

Even if there's plain rain, it's been so cold lately that the ground temperatures are frigid. Say it's 38 degrees and raining Thursday afternoon. We'd still be getting freezing rain because the precipitation would likely freeze on contact with pavement. But at least it will be warmer!

This pattern change is good news, though, for most of the country. The eastern half of the nation has been in a deep freeze for so long now. This new weather pattern will keep almost the entire nation warm.

It also has been scarily dry in California this winter. Wildfires lasted into the end of December, which is unprecedented. This new weather pattern makes rainstorms and mountain snowstorms a very good bet for all of California in the upcoming week or two. They only drawback to the California rains is that, starting Monday, locally heavy rains will cause potentially dangerous debris flows in the vast areas hit by wildfires between August and December.

This warmer, and for California, wetter pattern looks like it will last at least into the third week of January. (We'll get brief cold spells here in Vermont, but nothing extreme.) Who knows, though, what we'll deal with in late January and February? At least we're getting a break, though.

January In March Will Freeze Your Tush. Starting Tonight.

Snow in southern New England Friday, marking the start
of a very wintry next week or so for the entire region.

There's an old weather saw in New England that says if you get March weather in January or February, you'll get January weather in March.

Given the forecast, you'd better believe it!

We thought that spell of Arctic weather last weekend was impressive, what with those record low high temperatures on Saturday.

This is going to be worse.

It's already started.

A quick storm this morning and early afternoon dumped a few inches of snow on southern New England. Snow fell as far south today as the Washington DC area,.

Meanwhile, an Arctic front is sinking south from Canada, threatening to make a mess of our evening commute home here in Vermont this afternoon with likely snow showers, squalls and wind.

This will mark the start of a cold wave even worse than last weekend's, one that will last most of the upcoming week and threaten some more records.

Nighttime lows in northern New England probably won't break records, but it will be plenty cold with readings near or below zero and a stiff north wind.

Record low high temperatures are likely Saturday, with highs across the northern half of New England remaining in the single numbers, to maybe low teens if we're lucky. Gusty north winds will keep wind chills below zero.

If you're going to the big Mardi Gras parade in Burlington, Vermont Saturday, dress in lots of layers and be ready to go to a warm building if you get chilled, which could easily happen.

The wind will relax somewhat Sunday and Monday, but the cold really won't. Overnight lows will keep going to zero, and daytime highs will only be in the teens.

Normally, we have lows in the 20s this time of year with highs near 40.

Here's more wintry news: Watch out for Tuesday!

It looks like a strong nor'easter will spread a lot of snow across parts of the Northeast. It's still too soon to say how much snow will fall. It will depend on the exact track of the storm.

But there's the potential for some areas, including Vermont to get TONS of snow, like a foot or more of it.

That's still very iffy and might not happen,, but it's something to watch.

After that, no rest for the weary. That strong nor'easter, no matter what it does in New England, will pull a reinforcing shot of very cold air down on us during the middle of next week.

Put those spring dreams away and grab those ear muffs and those snow shovels.

Looks like we didn't skip winter this year after all. It just arrived unfashionably late.

Northeast Frigid Spell Has Begun, But Will Really Intensify By Saturday

Steam rises from Lake Champlain at Burlington, Vermont
during a sharp cold wave a few winters ago.
Similar scenes are likely this weekend. 

Yesterday, in Burlington, Vermont, it was the first cooler than normal day since January 24, ending a 17-day stretch of consecutive mild days.

This morning, I awoke in St. Albans, Vermont to a temperature of 5 below. It was a bone chilling 23 below over in Lake Placid, New York.


Burlington also had its first zero degree reading of the winter. Pretty late for the first one, but there you go.

The well-advertised cold wave has begun, but this is just a preview. We're still expecting the Big Chill to really descend on us tonight and last through the weekend, into Monday morning.

Wind chill warnings are up for most of New England and New York. After a warm winter, we're not used to this.

By this, I mean wind chills easily in the minus 20s, minus 30s even minus low 40s, especially Saturday afternoon, Saturday night and early Sunday morning.

High temperatures Saturday in northern New England will probably start the day just above zero, then slowly fall below zero during the day.

Saturday is going to be a truly awful day. The Arctic cold front that will bring this chill will have dropped anywhere between an inch and six inches of snow across the North Country. Winds gusting to at least 30 mph from the northwest will blow that snow around, and make it feel just brutal.

It really will be like living at the North Pole.

Saturday night looks totally brutal. Temperatures will all into the teens below zero across most of northern New York and northern New England. There will be a few 20s below as well. Winds will stay strong, so the wind chill is going to be a nightmare.

It might make it to 30 below in the Adirondacks.

The strong winds will drive the cold air into the southern New England cities. I wouldn't be surprised if Boston and New York have a rare subzero reading early Sunday morning.

Sunday looks frigid, too, but at least the wind will die down in the afternoon. After another subzero night Monday night, the cold wave will be over by afternoon. It will be in the 20s during the day Monday.

So, a couple of tips to get ready for the weekend:

Home Heat: Make sure there's enough fuel in your home furnace to make it through the weekend. Running out of fuel can make the house cold enough to freeze your pipes very quickly.

The Car: Keep the gas tank full in the car, too. It will start better with a full tank. Make sure the car battery is in good shape, too.  

My dog Jackson enjoys the outdoors last winter.
He won't want to stay out much during this weekend's
cold snap, and it would be dangerous to let him. 

Allthough trust me, even the most winterized car won't start that well in such cold temperatures.

If your car does start in this weather, there's no need to let it run for a long time before you drive off. With most cars nowadays, you only need let it run for a minute or so before you drive it in this weather.

You might want to leave a blanket, extra clothing and snacks in the car too, in case it stalls and you're stuck out there in this weather.

Your Neighbors: Give your elderly friends, neighbors and relatives a call or two this weekend, too. They're particularly susceptible to the cold, so you want to make sure they're OK.

Your Pets: Your dog will need to go outside and do his or her business no matter what the weather is, but it will be best not to let them linger outside too long. Yeah, pets are furry, but they still get dangerously cold in this weather.

Postpone your romp in the dog park until maybe Monday. And whatever you do, don't leave your dog or other animal chained up outside in this weather. Even if there's a dog house out there. That's just cruel, And dangerous. Please be kind to your furry companions.

Pro tip: A warm dog or cat is a great companion to have sleeping on your lap in these cold waves.

Your Weekend Plans: You'll also want to cancel that outdoor cross country ski excursion or ice skating party or snowboarding blast Saturday. It doesn't take long to get frostbite and hypothermia in this kind of weather.

Wait until Sunday afternoon, or better yet Monday when things get toastier.

Besides, it's Valentines weekend. If you've got a honey, just keep snuggling with him or her.

Weird, frustrating winter that it's been, the big warmup continues Tuesday as a storm rolls up the coast, and quite possibly tracks inland over New England.

It's uncertain exactly what will fall with this, but there's an excellent chance that any snow that gets going Monday night or Tuesday morning will change to mixed precipitation or rain Tuesday afternoon, even in northern New England.

This Tuesday forecast, I'll caution, is still EXTREMELY iffy. It could stay snow, it could be almost all rain, it could be an ugly mix. Just stay tuned for this one.

After Tuesday, another blast of cold air looks like it might envelop New England again, but that colder spell the middle and end of next week won't be anywhere nearly as frigid as the one now at our doorstep.

Saturday Morning New England Blizzard Update

An image of what the beast of a noreaster
is forecast to look like on Sunday.  

New England blizzard weekend is here! Are you excited?

Conditions were already sort of starting to go downhill Saturday morning and the disturbance that will give birth to the explosively forming nor'easter hasn't really formed yet.

It's still over the eastern Great Lakes, setting off snow showers and a few heavy snow squalls in places from Pennsylvania, western New York and Ontario.

The disturbance that will form the nor'easter is very energetic, so there's ares of blizzard conditions in those regions already.

That disturbance will, as expected, move east and fade today as the new storm gets going off the coast of New Jersey.

As it does so, the disturbance has so much energy that it will probably touch off a line of intense, gusty snow squalls, possibly accompanied by thunder, in the Mid-Atlantic states today.  Such big energy is rare for this type of storm in the formation stages and is reminiscent of a very cold version of the spring storms that can cause severe weather in the middle of the country.

Light snow is spreading across the Northeast. Where I live in northwestern Vermont as of 8:30 this morning, it was already miserable out. Light snow was falling the temperature had barely risen above zero. South winds out ahead of the eastbound disturbance are gusting to 25 mph, and there's a lot of blowing snow.

That south wind will bring temperatures only up to the mid-teens today, then as we all know, temperatures will totally crash tomorrow.

All the blizzard, winter storm, wind chill, coastal flood warnings and all other advisories that were in effect for the weekend in the Northeast are still in place

It's still going to be a very dangerous storm, especially Sunday, when things really wind up.

FORECAST CHALLENGES

Eastern New England is still under the bullseye for this thing. That's where they'll get the deepest snow and the strongest winds.  

The disturbance that will touch off the massive nor'easter in
New England was creating bursts of heavy snow
in Ontario Saturday morning, a testament to
the potential strength of this thing.  

The entire Northeast is going to be miserable and dangerous on Sunday, though, with blowing snow reducing visibility, even in areas that only get a couple inches of new snow.

Winds outside the blizzard zone in New England will still be strong enough to cause scattered minor damage and power failures.

The potential power failure are ominous considering how cold it's going to be.

There's still a lot of questions as to where the heaviest snow bands on the northwest flank of the storm might set up.

As was the case yesterday, snowfall on the coast of Massachusetts is the biggest question. The heaviest snow might set up right along the shore, from Portsmouth, New Hampshire down to Boston and a little south of that.

That will mean about a foot and a half of snow. Or, the heavy snow band could set up just a few miles to the east, meaning offshore. That would mean much, much less accumulation. As little as six inches.

People who live in the blizzard warning zone are understandably confused by the widely varying snowfall predictions among various weather forecasters, meteorologists and the media.

The wise thing to do is not get too hung up on the snowfall accumulations from this storm. That'll end up being an interesting exercise later for meteorologists on how to, or how not to forecast storms. Kind of a learning experience

For the general public, i.e. most of the rest of us, any way you slice it, two inches or two feet of accumulation,   this is a dangerous storm no matter what.

Here's what the meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass. (near Boston) have to say about this in their forecast discussion:

"Just a slight shift west or east up to the time of the storm can make a huge difference that can lead to angst and agony among fellow meteorologists.

It's not easy and (we) can understand everyone's frustration. Aside, we are reasonaby confident that the eastern half of southern New England will experience significant, if not life-threatening impacts."

Widespread areas of eastern New England are still under the gun for wind gusts of 50 or 60 mph, with gusts to 75 mph or so out on Cape Cod and the Islands. This will blow the immense amount of snow already on the ground into drifts of many feet tall.

The heavy snow on roofs, plus the pressure from the strong winds could cause structural damage. Power outages will be a problem, which is dangerous, given the extremely low temperatures.

Visibility will be zero, so it will be very easy to get stuck and or/lost out in the snowdrifts. The dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills could easily be fatal for anybody stuck outside, as frostbite and hyperthermia can come on in as little as 15 minutes.

You can see why the National Weather Service says this storm can be life threatening.  

Shoreline flooding is another hazard. The flooding won't be as intense as in the late January blizzard. Areas severely damaged by that late January blizzard, places like Scituate and Marshfield, Mass., face new damage from storm surges and battering waves.

The way this storm is set up, places like Cape Ann and Plum Island on the North Shore are also particularly vulnerable.

MAINE, CANADA

It still looks like eastern Maine, and in Canada, parts of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are going to get the worst effects of this monster storm. Winds will gust to 60 mph and up to two feet of snow will come down in these areas.

Coastal flooding could extend into Nova Scotia, including the Halifax area, says Environment Canada. 

The Gulf of St. Lawrence could get interesting, says Environment Canada: "Strong ice pressure and ice pile up are possible Sunday night and Monday along the north facing coastline of the Gulf of St. Lawrence

Sounds awful.

As I mentioned, people in New England and the rest of the Northeast outside the blizzard warning zone are up for a tough Sunday.

Stay home there, too. Lots of blowing and drifting snow, and dangerous wind chills.

There's more winter trouble to come after this storm, but really. Let's get through this first.

Storm Relatively Minor In Vermont, Bitter Chill Is Pretty Major

As of 7 a.m. this Thursday morning, the storm that's expected to pound parts of the Northeast was just cranking up, and will be a wild one by tonight.

Expect bitter cold through Saturday morning in
Vermont. Many places won't get above zero
until Saturday afternoon.  

Meanwhile, here in Vermont, it's terribly cold, with readings between five and 12 below zero.

Since it's cloudy and getting ready to snow, or already snowing a bit in some areas, the dampness deepens the chill.

The wind is going to pick up, too, and continue into Friday. Wind chill advisories are up as it's going to often feel like 30 below out there.

Temperatures in Burlington, Vermont went below zero last evening and aren't forecast to rise above zero until probably late morning Saturday. If this works out as forecast, Burlington will have spent the most consecutive hours below zero in years.

So called high temperatures today and Friday will be somewhere near 5 below zero.

This is quite a cold snap.

I'm harping on the cold because unlike in most areas of the Northeast, the northern reaches of Vermont, New Hampshire and New York won't be as affected by the nor'easter as other places. Sure, it will snow, the roads will get slick and road salt will be worthless since it's too cold for it to work.

But in the northern halves of these states, snowfall will only accumulate to between 1 and 6 inches, the least being in the St. Lawrence Valley and the most in central Vermont and New Hampshire.

In the southern halfs of Vermont and New Hampshire, a winter storm warning is up for six to 10 inches of snow, maybe even a little more, by Friday.

Southern New England is going to get a pounding, with heavy snow of more than a foot, strong winds, whiteouts, and coastal flooding. Some areas, particularly near Cape Cod, are under a blizzard warning.

Up here in Vermont and adjacent areas, the snow will taper off Friday, and the deep cold will continue Friday night with quite a few areas getting to near 20 below

Saturday will be "warmer" if you can call it that, with late afternoon temperatures in the teens.

Then, this winter's seesaw weather continues. Another storm is coming, this time with warmer temperatures. It looks as if snow will start Sunday, turn into mixed precipitation Sunday night, and even to plain rain for a time Monday. (This could change, but that's how it looks now)

Then it's back into the icy deep freeze next week.