Wild, weird Sandy to arrive in Vermont today

Springfield could get up to three inches of rain.
http://blogs.burlingtonfreepress.com/weather/2012/10/29/wild-weird-sandy-to-arrive-in-vermont-today/

Strong wind still on tap in Vermont from Sandy Wild, weird Sandy to arrive in Vermont today Posted on October 29, 2012 by Matt Sutkoski Hurricane Sandy has been hyped for a week now, and today’s the day she arrives in Vermont. Here’s a map from the National Weather Service in South Burlington, depicting predicted wind gusts tonight as Sandy affects the state. Click on the image to make it bigger and easier to read. Sandy has actually grown a little stronger off the coast of New Jersey, with highest winds now 85 mph, up from 75 mph Sunday, according to the National Hurricane Center. It might even grow a little more powerful today before it hits land in southern New Jersey later today or tonight. It will also probably transform from a tropical system to a more of a gigantic nor’easter, but that’s just semantics. It’ll be a huge, dangerous storm for the entire Northeast, as you’ve heard over and over again. Sandy’s a weird storm, too. Aside from the forecasts of record storm surges along parts of the East Coast, there is a blizzard warning up for the mountains of West Virginia, and strong, dry north winds behind the huge storm have created warnings of possible wildfires in Florida. Here in Vermont, the basic scenario is still set. Strongest winds will blow along the western slopes of the Green Mountains, and in much of the Northeast Kingdom. Gusts are still forecast to exceed 70 mph in those areas. In other parts of Vermont, the wind forecast is a lot trickier, say the meteorologists at the National Weather Service in South Burlington. When there’s a strong east wind like this at night, there’s sometimes a thin layer of stable air near the earth’s surface. When that happens, the strong winds just above us sometimes have trouble mixing down and blasting the valleys, where most of us live. So, tonight’s wind storm in Vermont will in many cases seem pretty random. Most Vermont towns will probably get damaging wind gusts, while a few places in more protected valleys might not see anything too serious. It’s hard to tease out in advance where the strong winds will hit, and where they won’t, with the exception of that general forecast of big winds on the western slopes. Some spots on the eastern slopes of the Green Mountains, places like Ludlow, Waitsfield and Stowe, could escape the worst of the winds. But that’s no guarantee, so people in those communities should prepare for strong winds anyway, just in case. And conditions will vary greatly over very small distances. One neighborhood could get strong winds, the next neighborhood might stay relatively quiet. The flood threat in Vermont from Sandy still remains fairly low. The eastern slopes of the Green Mountains, while maybe receiving the least wind, could get the most rain, up to two inches. Actually, in far southeastern Vermont, the higher ground east of Brattleboro and Springfield could get up to three inches of rain. But in any event, minor local flooding is possible, but as they’ve told us repeatedly, don’t expect another Irene. In western Vermont, the weather overnight could get weird, even without factoring in the wind. An tongue of relatively dry air might get inhaled by Sandy, and combined with the fact air dries as it roars downhill off the mountains, means that skies could partially clear overnight in western Vermont. Also, the temperature could warm well into the 60s by dawn, which is the kind of readings you’d normally get early in the morning in July, not at the end of October. Later this week, the remains of Sandy will likely go right over Vermont, or at least close to it. But by then, Sandy will be a ghost of its former self, right in time for Halloween, right? When Sandy does come close to Vermont Wednesday and Thursday, all we can expect are showers, maybe some light mountain top snows, lots of clouds and some unremarkable breezes.