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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don't Wear A Hat: Vermont's First Fall Season Wind Storm Today

Strong winds today in the Champlain Valley will break a few branches,
but it won't be anything like last year's epic October windstorm that
caused widespread damage, including to this Milton, Vermont home.

UPDATE, 11 AM:

The warm front that is coming through Vermont this morning has a lot more oomph to it than I thought it would, and that's a great thing.

Rainfall, accompanied by a few lightning strikes and thunder booms, has been heavier than I anticipated.

Burlington, Vermont is up to more than a half inch of rain. Much of the rest of droughty northwest Vermont got similar amounts.

The rain will soon end as the warm front goes by. This afternoon, and evening, we're still under the gun for strong winds.

The wind advisory has been upgraded to a high wind warning in Grand Isle County, Vermont and elsewhere right along the immediate shores of Lake Champlain. Wind gusts between 2 and 8 p.m. today in this area could reach or exceed 60 mph, which would cause a fair number of power outages.

The previous wind advisory for the rest of the region remains on.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

Hang on to your hat! Today in Vermont is going to be quite a windy one, especially if you're in the Champlain Valley.

It all started this morning with a warm front, which managed to bring some gusty winds and downpours to northern Vermont.

Which is OK, we needed the rain. The wind and downpours I encountered on the way to work this morning reminded me of a tropical storm, though of course today's weather has nothing to do with a tropical storm.

And if the rain hasn't tapered off and ended where you are, it will soon. .

The weather pattern almost every autumn features storms heading northeastward across the Great Lakes or up the St. Lawrence Valley of New York.

Once summer is over,  low pressure systems tend to get stronger and you get wind.

If a storm goes to our west, the wind comes from the south, at least until the storm's cold front swings through. The Champlain Valley of Vermont and New York, and the St. Lawrence Valley of New York, tend to channel these winds, and you get a lot of strong gusts as a result.

Today, we're going to get the first of these windstorms of the fall season.

A wind advisory is up for the Champlain and St. Lawrence Valley. The peak of the wind will come this afternoon and evening, when gust on exposed areas right along Lake Champlain could reach 55 mph. Otherwise, gusts will reach the 45 to 50 mph range.

Winds were already increasing before dawn at my house in St. Albans, Vermont, but I'd say peak gusts at around 6 a.m. were only about 20 mph. The real show starts later.

The expected winds will be strong enough to take down some branches, maybe a couple of trees and some power lines. There will likely be power failures here and there this evening.

This type of wind storm, as I said, is pretty common in the Champlain Valley during the autumn and early winter. But the first ones of the season, like this one, tend to cause more problems than the later ones.

That's because right now, most of the leaves are still on the trees. Each leaf acts like a little sail, and the leaves tug harder on the branches in the wind than when the trees are leafless. You tug harder on a branch, and it's more likely to snap off.

Which means your lawn is more likely to be littered by twigs and branches by Saturday morning than it would if the same storm came through in November. Leafless trees don't have those little "sails" so the branches don't get tugged and broken as much later in the year.

Though I'm talking about scattered power failures and broken branches later today, this storm will not be nearly as bad as the epic wind storm that swept through toward the end of last October. Unlike last year's storm, I don't expect widespread, long lasting power outages. I don't imagine people's roof shingles will blow off and I don't expect zillions of trees to come down

But if you thinking of wearing that fancy, dancy but loose fitting hat, today is not your day.

You should also cancel any plans to be out on Lake Champlain today. With winds gusting to 55 mph and waves of five to seven feet tall, it's dangerous out there. Though I suspect some wind surfers might go out there anyway.

Some forecasters were toying with the idea of severe thunderstorms this evening as the storms's cold front comes in. It does seem as if there's a decent chance of severe weather, maybe eve a tornado or two in western New York later today.

But those storms will weaken after dark as they move into Vermont. Some of those weakening storms might have enough punch left to pull down some even stronger winds aloftt and bring them down to the surface tonight. Which means one or two spots could get a particularly strong gust as the showers come through.

These showers don't look all that impressive in terms of rainfall amounts, despite this morning's downpojurs, so there won't be much relief from the drought over northern Vermont. Southern Vermont is not in a drought and got additional rain the other day, so they're not in trouble.

The good news is it looks like we're falling, at least for now into a somewhat cooler and wetter weather pattern. While the drought won't instantly disappear in northern Vermont, there's hope that it will gradually wane over the next couple of months.

Violent, Far-Ranging Storm Was Extreme Example Of "March Winds"

A tree knocked down by high winds in Michigan this week
smushed this car. 

The nearly coast-to-coast wind storm I talked about yesterday, the one that caused all those wildfires in the Plains and damage around the Great Lakes and the Northeast, was an extreme example of that "March Winds" cliche.

The folklore is that March is the windiest month.  As the viral video at the bottom of this post shows, most people learn about this early spring gustiness at an early age. And not always pleasantly.

March isn't necessarily the windiest month of the year in many parts of the country. However,  in March, early spring, you are often more apt than most times of year to get gusty winds.

Here's why:

In the winter, upper level winds are often quite strong. This state of affairs usually continues well into March, sometimes April, as winter-like storms cross the country.

But the sun is stronger in March than it was earlier in the winter. The sun heats the ground, which causes pockets of rising air.

What goes up, must come down. The rising air bumps up against that fast-moving air above, displaces it, and sends pieces and gusts of that strong wind down to the surface. That's a large reason why you got the destructive sharp wind gusts in many parts of the country this week.

That fast-moving upper level air is cranking earlier in the winter, too, but the sun that time of year is weaker, and is less prone to causing those updrafts that trigger these gusts.

Later in the spring and summer, the sun is much stronger than in March, but by then, the upper level winds are much weaker. So you're less likely to get that very gusty weather.

As of Friday morning, some areas of Michigan and western New York were still without power as crews cleaned up the mess left by winds gusting to over 70 mph Wednesday

Though March winds are common, this was an extreme version of it. The upper level winds, normally strong over the northern tier of the United States this time of year, were really, really screaming this week.

Winds are still gusty across the North Country today as we get more invasions of wintry Arctic air. This means wind chill alerts are up for parts of the Northeast as the temperatures plunge.

It's March. Bundle up and hang onto your hat.

Here's a video of a little girl in Ohio having a bad time of the strong winds Wednesday. The four-year old got caught in a big gust of wind when she tried to open her front door. She wasn't hurt. Watch:

Fort McMurray Smoke Drifts Over Vermont

Satellite photo from the National Weather Service
office in Burlington, Vermont shows smoke
over the region from Alberta  

People in Vermont and much of the rest of the Northeast might have noticed the sky took on a hazy look last evening, and the blue sky still has a greyish hue to it this morning.

That's smoke from Alberta, mostly from the fire that devastated Fort McMurray last week. The fire is still burning big time and spewing smoke far and wide.

Depending on which way the wind has been blowing, the smoke has gotten as far from Alberta as the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Winds have shifted, and now the smoke is blowing over us.

Air quality isn't wonderful, but it's not bad enough to trigger air pollution alerts.

But the hazy Vermont sky is a reminder that the North American wildfire season is off to a bad start.

And we'll probably have hazy days like this several more times this summer.

Everyone Knows It's Windy Season Now

An intense storm over the Great Lakes in late
October, 2010.  

In Burlington, Vermont,  the closest major weather station to my home, aeven of the past ten days in  have had wind gusts of over 30 mph.

Early Sunday, gusts reached 44 mph in Burlington, and to around 50 mph or a little more on and right near Lake Champlain.

A lot more wind is due later this week as a vigorous storm arrives.  The windy season is here for sure!

As we head through fall and into winter, the winds across much of the Northern Hemisphere really crank up. We sure feel that here where I live in Vermont. I bet you notice it, too, readers in the Northeast, Great Lakes, Great Plains and Canada.

True, we sometimes get our strongest, most damaging winds in summer thunderstorms and severe weather, but that never lasts long in any one place.

During the cold season, the wind might not be as strong as during a severe thunderstorm, but boy it lasts a long time.

Storm systems tend to be weak in the summer, even if they occasionally produce rambunctious thunderstorms and flooding downpours. Since the large scale summer systems are pretty puny, they don't produce much wind in large areas.

During the cold season, the jet stream in the northern hemisphere cranks up to something much stronger than it was in July. The temperature contrast between the Arctic and the tropics increases, and the result is stronger low pressure systems, aka storms.

These stronger storms crank out a lot of wind. Commonly, this time of year, we get "The Gales Of November," made famous in the Gordon Lightfoot classic song "The Wreck Of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

This time of year favors a weather pattern in which storms move north from the southern Plains or Gulf of Mexico, and then intensify to monsters over or near the Great Lakes.

These Great Lakes storms tend to intensify in the late fall because the water temperatures there are still comparatively warm, which adds energy to the atmosphere to give the storms more oomph.

One of those most intense Gales of November sank the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior 40 years ago this year. 

Right now, a storm system is forming in that classic November pattern (which often happens in late October and into early December, too.)

Jet stream energy from the north will combine with remnants from Hurricane Patricia along with boatloads of Gulf of Mexico moisture. That will create a hefty Great Lakes storm, not on par with the Edmund Fitzgerald storm, but still pretty hefty.

Later this week, the Gales of November will blow across the Great Lakes, and into the Northeast, including here in Vermont.

Upper elevations in Vermont could see gusts to 60 mph Wednesday night, and the slightly more populated northern Champlain Valley and northwestern New York especially could have gusts over 50 mph Thursday.

High wind warnings are already up in New York near Lakes Ontario and Erie for expected gusts over 60 mph Wednesday.

These gales of November are a sure sign winter is coming, as if you didn't know that already.

 It you haven't gotten a good enough taste of late autumn Vermont winds, here's a brief, slightly shaky video of my yard in St. Albans, Vermont late in the afternoon of November 1, 2013. Winds were gusting to 50 mph at the time: