Stormy Start to Work Week

I hope everyone is having a super Thanksgiving weekend. The weather has been fairly typical for November, and we'll see a spectacular late-November day tomorrow, with sunny skies and temperatures in the upper 40s to low 50s. That'll change for the start of the work week, as a stormy Monday is in store.

A low pressure system will move in by Monday afternoon, causing heavy rains and gusty winds, especially in the afternoon hours.

(Tropical Tidbits)

Expect rainfall on Monday to range from 1 to 2 inches, and I would not rule out the possibility for some power outages, as winds will be extremely gusty, especially in coastal areas. Here is what the NAM thinks for wind speeds on Monday afternoon:

(Tropical Tidbits)

Take a look at some of the gusts that the National Weather Service is forecasting for New London, CT on Monday evening. It looks like we'll see gusts up to 45 mph!

(NWS New York)

Another round of precipitation will look to impact us on Tuesday, though this batch will not be quite as strong.

(Tropical Tidbits)

For the later parts of the week, we'll enter a more quiet stretch of weather before another low pressure system looks to bring more active weather to the region for next weekend. Enjoy the sunshine tomorrow!

What I'm Thankful For

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

I had a fantastic Thanksgiving with my immediate family yesterday, and we were so lucky to have our whole family together for the holiday. Yesterday was quite rainy in the morning, though things cleared out for the afternoon, yielding temperatures in the 60s and some sunshine to close out the day. Here's a photo of the sun setting over I-84 yesterday:

In this unusual year, there is much to be thankful for, so in a shift from the norm for this blog, I wanted to share ten things that I'm thankful for this year (in no particular order).

1. I'm thankful to have a kind, loving, and supportive family and to get to spend Thanksgiving 2020 with them.

2. I'm thankful for the frontline workers who have worked tirelessly to ensure the health and safety of people during this pandemic.

3. I'm thankful for science, which I'm afraid has been undermined much too frequently this year.

4. I'm thankful to be a student at Middlebury College, which had a well thought out pandemic response and had an extremely successful semester.

5. I'm thankful good health.

6. I'm thankful for the great outdoors, which I've been luck to spend plenty of time in this year.

7. I'm thankful for my friends, who never fail to make life interesting and exciting.

8. I'm thankful for education.

9. I'm thankful for my track team. Even though we may not have a season this year, I'm lucky to have fun teammates that make college awesome!

10. I'm thankful for weather and climate, my passions. Weather and climate are dynamic, changing and fascinating, and I'll always want to continue exploring the perplexing phenomena in our natural world.

Thanksgiving Forecast

Thanksgiving is just 2 days away, so here is my forecast for the holiday. Unfortunately, thinks are looking pretty wet.

Rain will move in Thursday morning, and it will be pretty widespread throughout the region.

12z Thursday GFS (Tropical Tidbits)

The rain will look to continue for the afternoon hours before there may be some clearing during the evening, especially in northern New England.

00z Friday GFS (Tropical Tidbits)

I think the heaviest rain will be mid-day, which is unfortunate for groups that are hoping to hold outdoor gatherings this year, which is the safer thing to do given the pandemic. While they won't be extremely warm for this time of the year, temperatures will be manageable for spending time outdoors this Thanksgiving.

00z Friday GFS 2-m air temperature (Tropical Tidbits)

So if you are hoping to have Thanksgiving outdoors this year, you probably can do it, but you will want to make sure you have a tarp or tent to cover from the widespread rain. Have a safe and happy holiday!

New England Ski Update

Just over a week ago I posted about the slow start to this ski season in New England. Since then, some things have changed and a few ski areas have had their opening days.

Killington, the typical first mountain to open in New England, had its opening day on November 20. Right now, the mountain has 13 trails and 3 lifts open, and its webcam is showing some snow showers at upper elevations.

North Ridge Cam (Killington)

Wachusett Mountain, located about 45 minutes outside of Boston also opened on the 20th, with 4 trails. The mountain will close for the start of the week and reopen the day after Thanksgiving.

Lastly, Maine's ski season kicked off today, with Sunday River and Sugarloaf opening this morning. Sunday River currently has 11 trails open, compared to Sugarloaf's 5. 

While it has been a slow start to the ski season in New England this year, it's good to see some mountains starting to open up. More will look to open soon as temperatures cool tomorrow and snowmaking efforts can really ramp up. Here is a photo from Jay Peak yesterday, looking very snowy!

(Jay Peak)

Rainy Pattern Ahead

Before I talk about the weather in detail, I wanted to quickly mention that I'm now home for Thanksgiving break and will be for a little while, so the focus of this blog will shift to Connecticut, though I'll continue to post about VT and the rest of New England.

I hope you enjoyed the nice stretch of weather we've had over the past two days, as that will take a turn looking ahead. Here's a look at the weather map from the GFS through Thursday.

(Tropical Tidbits)

After a cloudy start tomorrow, low pressure will work its way into the northeast, bringing rain for Sunday afternoon into Monday. We'll have a bit of a washout for Monday, and I don't expect the skies to clear out at all. With this storm, some areas at elevation in Northern New England could also see some snow showers.  By Tuesday morning, there is the possibility that some areas will see up to 2 inches of rain, especially in southeastern New England.

GFS total accumulated precipitation through Tuesday (Tropical Tidbits)

We'll clear out for Tuesday and Wednesday, and then the next batch of rain will move in for Thursday, Thanksgiving day. This is unfortunate, as I know that many are considering holding their Thanksgiving outdoors this year. By late afternoon on Thursday, things should clear out a bit as the rain moves out to sea:

(Tropical Tidbits)

Temperatures for Thanksgiving look seasonable to above normal. I'll have a more detailed Thanksgiving forecast soon! Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Cold Weather

This past two day stretch has brought some of the coldest weather of the year so far, as high pressure moved in and strong northerly wind gusts picked up. The normal morning low at Burlington International Airport (BTV) for November 19th is 30 °F. This morning, we saw a low temperature of 18 °F at BTV, making the start to the day feel very winter-like.

(NWS Burlington)

At Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, the temperature this morning dropped to 3 °F, almost tying the daily record low of 1 °F, set there in 2008. It's interesting to think that just 9 days ago, the temperature at Saranac Lake was 70 °F.

Maximum temperatures were not much warmer either, not reaching the 30s.

(NWS Burlington)

For BTV, the normal maximum temperature for this time of year is 44 °F, so we're seeing temperatures well below normal right now. Hopefully this will be a big aid for the ski areas in northern New England that would like to make snow after a delayed start to the snow-making season.

Mid-storm update

Tonight is an active night of weather along the eastern seaboard. I had my last radio show of the semester tonight, and I spoke a bit about the frontal passage tonight that would bring some active weather to much of the Northeast.

The National Weather Service in Burlington has issued two severe thunderstorm warnings so far for northern New York. So far here in Vermont, we've seen some heavy precipitation and gusty winds. Here's a current look at radar:

(Radar Scope)

Here in Vermont, we're seeing some heavy bands of rain with gusty winds. I showed a zoomed-out version of radar so you can really get a sense of there the frontal passage is it the moment. That line of NWS warnings extends from Washington, D.C. to Chicopee, MA. Anywhere along that line is seeing some impressive storms with extremely gusty winds at the moment. Interestingly, the New England Patriots are playing in Foxbourogh tonight. That must me treacherous conditions for football.

The frontal passage shows up very clearly on the HRRR model for 03z this evening.

HRRR (Tropical Tidbits)

In areas further south, tornado warnings have been issued, and challenging conditions persist. We'll return to calmer, more stable weather tomorrow after the front has passed through.

Update on skiing in New England

Mid-November is typically the time of year when ski areas in New England begin to open. Not so much this year. 

Killington, typically the first ski resort in New England to open each year, was slated to open tomorrow, November 14th, but it had to delay its opening due to a severe lack of snow. After some minimal snow coated the mountains of New England last week, temperatures sky-rocketed over the weekend and into the start of this week, halting any efforts for ski areas to open. Here's a look at what the slopes are looking like right now:

(Stowe)

(Erik Osterland/Jay Peak)

  

(Stratton)

Put simply, things are looking bleak for skiing in Vermont and New England. At this time in a typical year, several ski areas would have already opened, but we essentially have no snow at the moment. When could things change? Things look decent for a pattern change within the next 10 days. Here's the CPC 6-10 day temperature outlook:

(NOAA/CPC)

The CPC is indicating a >50% chance of below normal temperatures during the period from November 10 to November 23. Hopefully this will verify and ski areas will be able to fire up the snow guns. But for now, with the new rise in COVID-19, it may be for the better to not have the ski areas open, as it'll prevent people from congregating together. We shall see.

Crazy Warmth

I haven't been able to write in a little while since I've been pretty busy, but the weather has been fairly quiet as high pressure has dominated since the weekend here in New England.

The big story has been the crazy November warmth that we're seeing. On a normal day for this time of the year, high temperatures are around 49 °F. Since Thursday the 5th, we've seen high temperatures that topped 67 °F! And for the past 3 days, we've had temperatures above 70 °F. 3 days above 70 °F is the record number of days where the temperature is greater than 70 °F in November in VT. Also, this is the first November ever in which we've had 3 consecutive days of 70 °F or higher temperatures.

The craziest thing this month is that the mean temperature for BTV to date is 49.9 °F. Normally to date, we'd have a mean temperature at 41.8 °F, so this year the temperature departure from normal is 41.8 °F.

Temperature graph for November 2020 (NOAA Regional Climate Centers/xmACIS

The above temperature graph shows just how warm it has been at BTV. All I can say is that I'm ready for some cooler VT November weather.

BTV October 2020 Recap

It has been a busy few days for me, and I'm finally getting a chance to sit down and recap the weather that we had this past October here in Vermont. As usual, I will focus on Burlington International Airport (BTV) in South Burlington, VT.

Temperatures

As has been the case for seemingly every month this year, temperatures were above normal this October. The month's average temperature was 50.1 °F, when normal is 48.1 °F, giving us a 2.0 °F departure from normal.

(NOAA Regional Climate Centers/xmACIS)

And as the above figure shows, if we didn't have that colder stretch of weather to close out the month, temperatures would have likely been even more above normal. BTV reached its highest temperature of October on the 15th at 78 °F, while the month's low temperature occurred on Halloween at 20 °F. On 4 days, the temperature dipped below 32 °F.

Precipitation

It was a fairly normal month for precipitation, as we saw 3.43 inches of precipitation at BTV, when a normal year would have 3.60 inches.

(NOAA Regional Climate Centers/xmACIS)

The above accumulation graph shows that precipitation remained very consistent throughout the month, never rising or falling too much below the normal (brown) line. The rainiest 24 hour period occurred from October 15-16, when 0.77 inches of rain fell as a cold front moved through on the heels of the warmest day of the month (the 15th). 14 days had 0.01 inches or more of precipitation, 10 days had 0.10 inches or more, and 2 days saw greater than or equal to 0.50 inches of precipitation. It certainly felt like there were stretches when it rained almost every day this month. The National Weather Service WFO at BTV also reported our first traces of snow, on the 26th and 27th.

Interestingly, 2019 had the wettest October on record at BTV, and temperatures ran 4.0 °F above normal. There were 8.50 inches of total precipitation in October 2019, and on Halloween, a major storm moved through bringing 3.30 inches of rain.

Wrap up

October 2020 was a warm month with fairly normal precipitation at BTV.

The clocks have now shifted, the sun is setting before 5:00 pm, and we are in the swing of things in November. After a cool start to November, we'll see a big warmup for the next week or so. It'll be interesting to see what November 2020 has in store weather-wise.

Election Day Forecast

Tomorrow, November 3rd, is an incredibly important day here in the United States - it's election day. If you have not already done so, be sure to vote. Without getting into the politics of the day, I wanted to give a quick forecast for the country. I'm not sure if there have been any studies on the impacts of weather on voter turnout, but I'd imagine that in the past there have been some instances where weather has made it difficult to get to the polls. So what can we expect for tomorrow?

Forecast Map for tomorrow (NWS)

High pressure is the name of the game for much of the country on election day. Areas in the Southeast, Midwest, Rocky Mountains, and Southwest will see clear and calm weather, making for nice conditions at the polls. As the above map shows, the only areas where we can expect some precipitation are in the Northeast and Pacific Northwest.

Here in the Northeast, we can expect some morning snow and cold temperatures for election day. This snow will especially be in mountainous areas, where we could expect up to a foot of snow overnight tonight.

(Tropical Tidbits)

And at the other side of the country we can expect heavy rains that'll effect high-population areas in the Pacific Northwest. This rain should continue for much of the day on Tuesday.

(Tropical Tidbits)

Aside from the cold and snow here and the rain in the Pacific Northwest, the rest of the country will see perfect voting conditions, and weather should not impact the trip to the polls for most.