Pope Leo Continues in Predecessor's Footsteps, Embraces Climate Activism

Pope Leo XIV is following in the environmental footsteps
 of his predecessor Pope Francis with his concern
about climate change and similar issues

It looks like Pope Leo XIV is following in the ecological footsteps of his predecessor, and I'm sure the MAGA crowd is less than pleased.  

The Pope recently criticized certain world leaders without naming names of denying the reality of climate change as he presided over the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis' ecological encyclical Laudato Si (Praised Be). 

As The Guardian explains, that decade old encyclical "cast care for the planet as an urgent and existential moral concern and launched a global grassroots movement to advocate for caring for God's creation and the peoples most harmed by its exploitation."

Pope Leo said some world leaders have chosen to"deride the evident signs of climate change, to ridicule those who speak of global warming and even to blame the poor for the very thing that affects them most."

He said that protecting the Earth is a spiritual and political responsibility for Catholics, and everybody else in the world for that matter. 

Although Pope Leo didn't call anybody in particular out, he made his remarks just a few days after U.S President Donald Trump falsely told the UN General Assembly that people combating climate change were participating in a "con job." 

Pope Francis, who died in April, was something of a climate change activist. In his 12 years as Pope, he repeatedly brought up the dangers of climate change. The 2015 encyclical was only one of many examples of his deep interest in the issue. He was the first pontiff to take the name of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and ecology.

Pope Leo is the first U.S.-born pope. I'm sure some MAGA types were hoping for a break from Pope Francis' focus on climate change. But it looks like that's not happening. 

The goons on X, as always have coordinated themselves, with so many of them calling the ice blessing "pagan" and talking about how Christians are supposedly "persecuted" and why isn't the Pope dealing with that? 

The pope symbolically blessed a 20,000 year old block of ice from Greenland, the had broken away from the island. It was his way of advocating for the climate and environment. 

The MAGA types were furious. as a way

Pope Leo's celebration of the encyclical was part of a summit the hosted pope last week that was attended by more than a thousand climate activists and church leaders gathered at the Vatican last week. Pope Leo, speaking at the summit, urged everyone to speak up and put pressure on governments to protect the environment. 

Pope Leo said at the end of our lives, we will have to answer to God for how we treated the Earth. "What must be done now (is) to ensure that caring for our common home an listening to the cry of the earth and the poor do not appear as mere passing trends or, worse still, that they be seen and felt as divisive issues."

I know a very smart woman who was once approached in her yard by a Catholic priest who implored her to start coming to church. 

This was in May, when the woman's gardens and trees were riotously blooming and greening up beautifully.  It was gorgeous out there. The woman responded to the priest, "This is my church."

Pope Leo confirms the woman was absolutely right.  

Weekly Drought Report Gives Grim Vermont Update, But Tuesday Night Rain Helped A Little

This morning's weekly U.S. Drought Report shows
things got worse in the past week. Nearly two thirds
of Vermont is now in extreme drought (red shading)
with virtually the entire rest of the state in 
severe drought (orange shading)

As expected, the weekly U.S. Drought Report, issued this morning, shows the drought getting even worse in Vermont and surrounding areas compared to the previous week. 

Wall-to-wall daily sunshine and record October heat over the past week made everything worse.  The drought report includes data through Tuesday, so it doesn't factor in the rain we received Tuesday night and Wednesday. 

In this week's report, extreme drought covers nearly two-thirds of Vermont, up from about a quarter of the state a week earlier. 

Extreme drought covers all of Vermont north of Route 4 except the central and northern Champlain Valley, roughly from Charlotte north. 

The entire rest of the state is in severe drought except tiny slivers around Brattleboro and Alburgh, which were in moderate drought. 

Basically, 98 percent of Vermont was in severe or extreme drought with this new report. 

Unsurprisingly, the drought worsened in New Hampshire, too. Extreme drought covers more than half the Granite State, up from a third of the state last week. Drought expanded in Maine, too. Last week, 72 percent of Maine was in drought. This week, it's the whole state.  Drought deepened in New York, too. 

Back here in Vermont, the effects of the drought keep getting more noticeable.

Vermont has asked the federal government to declare much of the state an agricultural disaster area. 

Vermont Agriculture Secretary Anson Tebbetts asked for the designation earlier this month, citing dead pastures, reduced or nonexistent production of corn, hay and feed, dry wells, and vegetable and fruit crop losses.  

RAIN ARRIVES, BUT NOT ENOUGH

Rainfall Tuesday night and Wednesday was generous, 
with areas in yellow and orange getting an inch or
more of rain. But we need numerous storms like
that to make a serious dent in the drought. 

No single rainstorm can solve a drought. But the rain we got was a help. A tiny help, but a help.

 It was a good soaker. All of Vermont got over an inch of rain except southeast and northeast parts of the state got over an inch of rain. Even those "dry" areas saw more than three quarters of an inch. 

A few spots in western Vermont saw more than two inches. Addison County was the big winner New Haven had 2.64 inches of rain, and Starksboro had 2.41 inches. 

Sounds great, but at most, the rain made only the slightest dent in the drought. 

To demonstrate that one rainstorm won't solve our problems, the Vermont Department of Forests Parks and Recreation gives Vermont a high fire risk today. 

The rain we got just wetted the surface, and that dries out fast. Old logs and deep, underground dried out roots that can burn are just as susceptible to fire than before this week's rain. Because that rain wasn't able to penetrate all that far down. 

My guess is that next week's drought monitor will show no worsening, but also no improvement in the state's drought. 

Now, we need a series of storms just as soggy as this week's to start clawing our way out of the drought. 

Nothing like that is in the forecast, but at least there's a few chances of a little rain. 

The first shot at rain is still a highly uncertain one Sunday night into Monday. Yesterday, I noted that an expected nor'easter along the East Coast would get blocked from reaching us here in Vermont. 

That still seems to be largely true. But an increasing share of computer models suggest some rain will make it north into Vermont. The best chance of rain is in far southern Vermont. Some, but not all forecasts give places near Route 9 in Bennington and Windham counties a shot at getting as much as in inch of rain. 

It might not rain at all from the nor'easter in northern Vermont, but even those areas have a chance at a little precipitation. We'll have to wait for updated forecasts by around Saturday to get a better read on this. 

After the maybe/maybe not nor'easter, things don't look particularly wet for New England. But, instead of stretches of dry weather lasting two weeks or more, like we've seen since August, it looks like we'll have chances of mostly light rain once every few days. 

Such a weather pattern won't break the drought, but it gives hope that maybe it won't get much worse. No promises, as long range forecasts are unreliable. Weather patterns that cause drought tend to stick around, so we could be disappointed. 

As nice as one sunny day after another for weeks has been, we really could stand to see some traditional autumn gloom for a change.  

Stick A Fork In It, Garden Season Ends Tonight For Almost Everybody In Vermont

Agapanthus, an orange tree and other tropical plants on
my St. Albans, Vermont deck need to come in today
amid a freeze warning tonight. Other plants, like the 
half dead thing in the blue pot, will just be
abandoned to the frost, as the gardening 
season ends tonight amid subfreezing temperatures. 

 Well, this day had to come eventually. 

Your gardening days in Vermont are pretty much over. Until next spring. 

The biggest freeze of the season is on our doorstep, and from now on the only gardening the vast majority of us will be doing for the rest of the season is fall cleanup and storage.

 I've got some heavy lifting to do today as the orange tree, the hibiscus and several agapanthus plants in heavy pots that are on my deck all need to come indoors today. 

Who knew an autumn freeze would turn into a nice gym workout?

Anyway, it should get below freezing everywhere in Vermont except places right next to Lake Champlain. 

A freeze warning is in effect for the entire state, except the Northeast Kingdom, where the growing season ended with freezes earlier this autumn. And Grand Isle County, which is surrounded by the warm waters of Lake Champlain.

Even in Grand Isle County,  the National Weather Service is thinking about issuing a frost advisory for tonight, as temperatures might get close enough to the freezing mark to worry about frost. 

Most, but not all of us escaped a frost or freeze last night because clouds and wind kept up most of the night.  But you can tell the cold air is flooding in by looking at the mountains. 

As of 6 a.m., the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire was just 16 degrees, with a northwest wind gusting to 66 mph.  They're living up to their "world's worst weather" reputation.

The summit of Vermont's Mount Mansfield was down to 25 degrees at 6 a.m. Clouds might have left some rime ice at the summit. Skies cleared at dawn so you should take a peak at the Green Mountain summits. The tops might be white with ice.

Today will be bright and cool for your garden Emergency Frost Harvest. Sunshine won't help warm things up too much as actual temperatures struggle into the low 50s and a gusty northwest wind will add to the chill.

Tonight is a perfect setup for cold temperatures. The air will be dry, the wind will die down to calm, and the sky will stay clear. Which means you'll almost definitely be scraping ice off your windshield tomorrow morning. 

After our stretch of record October warmth, Montpelier could actually get to or at least close to a record low for the date tomorrow. Their record low for Friday is 24, and that's the expected low temperatures there. 

Any record lows won't be widespread, though. Most other towns and cities in and near Vermont should stay three to five degrees above record lows for tomorrow's date. 

Montpelier's forecast notwithstanding, this cold wave is not all that unusual for the first half of October. Though with climate change, it's been a few years since it's gotten this cold this early in the season. 

Another warmup is coming, starting Friday afternoon. But instead of record warmth, we're still looking at merely average temperatures. Heading through the weekend and into next week, that means lows within a few degrees of 40 and highs in the low 60s. 

Notice I didn't mention drought. There's too much to talk about there in this post, so look for an  update later this morning on that. Spoiler: The new U.S. Weekly Drought Report comes out this morning, and there has been some changes to the forecast for Sunday and Monday. 

An Arrest Has Just Been Made In One Of Two Huge, Deadly January L.A. Wildfires

Jonathan Rindernecht, 29, was arrested in Florida
Tuesday, charged with setting the Palisades Fire
in California.. That was one of two deadly and 
extremely destructive wildfires in
Los Angeles County back in January. 

A Florida man was arrested Wednesday for starting the Palisades Fire, one of two horrific wildfires that tore through Los Angeles County, California in January. 

Beginning on January 7, the two fires combined killed more than 30 people and caused massive destruction in southern California. 

One of the two fires, the Palisades Fire, killed 12 people and damaged or destroyed 8,000 structures in and around Pacific Palisades, California. That's the one Jonathan Rindernecht, 29 of Florida is accused of sparking. 

Prosecutors said Rinderknecht actually allegedly started the fire in the hours before dawn on January 1, after spending New Year's Eve as an Uber driver in the area. 

We learned in mid-January that the fire initially started on January 1. It erupted on Temescal Ridge in the Santa Monica Mountains and firefighters rushed to the scene, called it the Lachman Fire, and managed to contain the fire to eight acres.

They thought it was out, but smoldering embers that were probably semi-buried re-activated on January 7 when Santa Ana winds gusting as high as 100 mph began blasting over the region. 

ABC7 in Los Angeles picks up the story for us:

"(Acting U.S. Attorney) Bill Essayli said two of his passengers told law enforcement that he appeared agitated and angry that night. After he dropped off a passenger in the Pacific Palisades, Essayli said Rindernecht parked his car and tried but failed to contact a former friend. 

Then, Rinderknecht exited his car, walked up a trail, took iPhone videos from a nearby hilltop and listen to a rap song, whose music video included objects being lit on fire.'"

Prosecutors go on:

"After the Lachman Fire ignited, Rindernecht called 911 to report the blaze, fled the scene in his car but turned around when he saw fire engines approach, Essayli said.

'While the Lachman fire burned, the defendant walked up the same trail as earlier that night to watch the fire and firefighters,' Essayli said, adding that Rinderknecht recorded video of the scene using his iPhone."

ABC 7 describes the investigation:

"During an interview Jan. 2, Rinderknecht told investigators where the fire began, information not yet public and that he would not have now if he hadn't witnessed it, the complaint said. He lied about his location, claiming he was near the bottom of the hiking trail." 

According to prosecutors, it looks like the suspect used a lighter to set paper or vegetation ablaze. Prosecutors said Rinderknecht's ChatGPT log shows he created an image depicting a burning forest and crowds fleeing it. 

Rinderknecht is originally from Pacific Palisades but was arrest near his home in Florida Tuesday. He was charged with destruction of property by means of fire. 

Reading between the lines, it looks like Rindernecht didn't intend to cause the death and destruction from the fire. After all, he was not charged with arson. However, prosecutors won't rule out more charges against him. If convicted, he could spend up to 20 years in prison. 

Frustratingly, but not surprisingly at this stage of the proceedings, we don't have a motive for the crime yet. 

The other big fire that day, the Eaton Fire, raced mostly through Alameda, California, killing at least 19 people and destroying at minimum 9,000 structures.  

The origin of the Eaton fire isn't clear, but might have started from arcing electrical lines. 

Climate change is widely believed to have made both January fires worse than they otherwise would have been. Dry conditions had continued well into what is normally the wet season, making the fires possible. 

 

 

Up To 1,000 Hikers Stranded by Blizzard On/Near Mount Everest, Most Of Them Rescued; Lower Elevation Rain Fatal In Nepal

Hundreds of hikers being rescued from a blizzard near
Mount Everest after the unseasonable storm. 

About 1,000 hikers were caught in a blizzard Friday and Saturday up on Mount Everest, or near it as unseasonable weather took hold. 

Hiking in the region is most popular this time of year because the wet monsoon season is usually over and October skies are usually clear in the region. 

Temperatures are also usually mild in the region this time of year. And the weekend coincided with a local holiday in which tens of thousands of people traveled to the mountains. 

Most of the hikers weren't the type seeking to reach the top of the world's highest mountain, but they were pretty far up there. The stranded hikers were at an elevation of around 16,000 feet above sea level. Mount Everest is about 29.000 feet tall. 

USA Today reported that officials recruited hundreds of local villagers and rescue teams to help remove snow blocking access to the area the hikers were trapped.

As NBC describes it:

"'About one-third into the trek, it began to rain and the rain kept getting heavier,' Chen Geshuang, a 28-year-old astrophotographer who began climbing Saturday afternoon but decided to retreat Sunday, he told NBC in an online video interview.

'Later, it turned into sleet, and eventually a full-on blizzard.' 

Overnight Saturday the snow intensified, with almost continuous lightning. Hikers had to keep shoveling snow out of their tents, and by Saturday morning, much of the area was under three feet of snow. 

"It was the most extreme weather I've ever faced in all my hiking experiences, without question," said Dong Schuchang, a Chinese trekker who was caught in the storm. He said the blizzard a "violent convective snowstorm."

 As of today, it looks like most if not all the hikers are out of the danger zone. Some have been treated for hypothermia but so far, no deaths have been reported. 

However, at lower elevations, the heavy snow was of course heavy rain. That rain set off a deadly flood in Nepal. 

At least 44 people died there in floods, landslides and lightning strikes, according to the Associated Press. 

The Nepalese government on Saturday grounded all domestic flights because of the bad weather, but flights resumed Sunday. Major highways connecting the Nepal capital Kathmandu were closed by landslides, but some of them have since reopened.   

The entire region affected by the storms is popular with tourists, but the bad weather illustrates how chaotic things can get when the weather doesn't behave the way it usually does. 

A Welcomed Drencher In Vermont After Record October Heat. But Drought Continues, And A Freeze Tomorrow Night, Too

Some pretty clouds early Tuesday morning over St.
Albans, Vermont were the first sign of some welcome
rain that hit Vermont overnight. Many places had
well over an inch of rain, but that won't be 
nearly enough to mitigate our serious drought. 

The weird Vermont October heat wave is decidedly over, drowned by a cold front that brought some extremely welcomed and locally heavy rain to the region. 

The heat did hang on for one more day on Tuesday before the rain moved in. 

I'm not aware of any more record highs in Vermont Tuesday, but several places got above 80 degrees. Burlington had its fourth consecutive 80+ reading before the clouds and rain arrived.

I had been reporting that four 80 degree days in a row would be a record long streak for such warmth in Burlington, but I was mistaken. 

There was also a four consecutive day stretch of 80 degree weather from October 16-20, 1947. So I stand corrected. We did tie that record though. 

Rainfall was gloriously generous in at least some parts of Vermont overnight.  Burlington had 1.63 inches, and my unofficial rain gauge in St. Albans filled up to 1.77 inches. 

As of 8 a.m., it was still raining at a pretty good clip in central and southern Vermont, but through that hour, Montpelier had so far accumulated 1.42 inches, St. Johnsbury 1.3 inches and Rutland 1.85 inches. A few lucky spots near and west of the Green Mountains might have rainfall totals near two inches.  

Bennington and Springfield had an inch or less of rain through 8 a.m., but one more patch of fairly heavy rain was about to go through both communities as of this writing. 

This marvelous rain will probably prevent the drought from continuing to get worse for a few days, but will by no means end it. We need inches and inches of rain over a few months to really soak through and recharge the ground water, and once again make our forests too wet to burn.  

Before the rains came, there were some new reports Tuesday of brush fires in Vermont. A pretty good sized one was reported in Bakersfield Tuesday. Some outbuildings were reported damaged. 

To demonstrate how one rain storm cannot erase a drought, there were reports of some minor rekindles of Bakersfield fire early this morning, despite the drenching overnight rains. 

Unfortunately, it looks like there's very little rain in our immediate future. More on that in a bit

FROST/FREEZE

The rain was exiting Vermont as of mid-morning.  There could be a few light showers in the mountains this afternoon and evening, but that won't amount to anything. As cold air rushes in, there could even be a few snowflakes on some of the summits tonight. It's that time of year, folks!

It will be cool today, but since we started the day still on the warm-ish side, we will manage to reach the 50s to around 60 this afternoon. 

Tonight will not actually be the coldest night of this seasonable October cool snap, but if you have plants out there, you probably should try to protect them.

Thursday will be bright and chilly. Sunshine and crisp air in the 50s, with some upper 40s in northern hilly areas. This should make it feel like autumn has finally, belatedly arrived.

Thursday night and Friday will bring the end of the growing season to all of us except maybe some places right along the shore of Lake Champlain. 

I think almost everybody will be at or below freezing by dawn Friday. As for your gardens, I guess it's time to stick a fork in it. Most places away from the Champlain Valley will get into the 20s, with maybe something close to 20 degrees in the coldest hollows.

The average date of the first autumn freeze in Burlington is around October 8, so it looks like this year will be pretty close to average.

After Friday morning, temperatures will rise to seasonable levels and stay that way into next week. That means daily lows near 40 and highs in the low 60s, give or take. 

MISSED RAIN OPPORTUNITY

A very wet, kind of strong nor'easter looks like it wants to get going along the Mid-Atlantic Coast this weekend, giving areas along the coast from the Carolinas to Long Island some heavy rain. 

Usually, such a setup would mean rain for us in Vermont, too. But the latest in a series of big, dry, honking high pressure systems looks like it wants to stall nearby or just north of us, as so many similar systems have done since August. 

That high will probably prevent the nor'easter from bringing much if any rain our way. Some but definitely not all runs of the American computer model do manage to  bring rain from this system our way. The other computer models keep us dry, because they predict the Big Honking High will block the storm from moving north and then deflect it southeastward out to sea. 

Most experienced meteorologists are going with the drier forecast in this case. 

That would leave us with another long dry spell, and an opportunity for the drought to start worsening again.  

First EF Tornado Since 2013 Confirmed In North Dakota. It Happened In June

Screen grab from a video of the EF-5 tornado in
Enderlin, North Dakota. The tornado happened at
night, and when this image was taken, it was
illuminated by lightning. 

A tornado that struck near Grand Forks, North Dakota has received an EF-5 rating, the most powerful kind of tornado, and the first such twister to hit the U.S. since 2013, the National Weather Service said Monday.  

The tornado actually hit back on June 20 in Enderlin, North Dakota with estimated winds of 210 mph. It killed, three people, stayed on the ground for a little more than 12 miles and was about a mile wide at one point. 

The tornado derailed a freight train, tipped over several fully loaded grain hopper cars and lofted tanker cars, including one empty tanker care that was tossed about 475.7 feet, according to the National Weather Service office in Grand Forks, North Dakota. 

National Weather Service meteorologists usually visit the damage path of a tornado within a day or so of it occurring to start assessing the strength of the storm. It often takes days or weeks of analysis to come up with a rating for a tornado.  This one took longer to analyze because the damage it caused on the train was unusual, the Associated Press reported. 

The tornado also left trees in a river valley with only stubs of large branches or trunks remaining. The bark was torn off the remains of the trees. Other trees were entirely uprooted and moved away from their original spot. 

An EF-5 tornado is the worst of the worst. Their winds are 200 mph or more. They're strong enough to shred a well-built home and just leave a bare concrete pad standing. Sometimes the twister will take the concrete pad, or parts of it. An EF-5 tornado can peel bark from any trees left partially standing after the storm. These tornadoes can suck the pavement off of streets, and dig trenches in fields. 

It used to be the U.S. would have an average of one each year. Some years have none, a few have a handful. 

But until this tornado, there hadn't been an EF-5 since May, 2013 when a twister of that strength trashed Moore, Oklahoma, killing at least two dozen people. 

In the North Dakota tornado, a home was entirely swept away and disintegrated, leaving a concrete slab, which would indicate a possible EF-5.  But investigators noted that the anchor bolts on the house might have been substandard, so they couldn't use the house to declare an EF-5. It took the damage to the train to seal the designation. 

As I wrote in March, part of the reason for the long EF-5 drought might have been the way they were measured. 

Before 2007, if a tornado swept a house entirely off its foundation and shredded it, it was considered an EF-5.   Starting that year, such damage was designated as having been created by high-end EF-4 tornadoes.  

So, that rule change meant that some tornadoes between 2013 and 2025 that might in the past would have been rated EF-5 ended up being rated EF-4. Researchers think that as many as 13 EF-4 tornadoes since 2008 would have been EF-5s had not the change been made.