Vermont weather geek's hodgepodge of weather and climate news and opinion. Often Vermont focused, but taking a national and global approach, with sometimes an appropriate dash of fun, outrage, cynicism and compassion.
National Weather Service has decent rains over much of New England including Vermont over the next seven days. Purple shading is at least 1.5 inches of rain. If this forecast materializes, almost all of that rain would fall between Tuesday and Thursday. Forecast is subject to big changes, though. It's possible we'll end up missing out again.
As we enjoy our beautiful summer weekend, our gardens are getting a little fed up with all this sunshine.
It's getting drier and drier out there. No drought to report out there yet. But we could be heading in that direction if widespread rain doesn't arrive soon.
The ongoing dry weather is well-timed, since it's hitting on the weekend. Comfortable nights, warm summer day on Saturdays and Sundays during Vermont's short summers are precious. So let's enjoy it.
A little shift is coming up in the weather pattern that could, perhaps, give Vermont a good soaking during the work week.
For the past couple weeks, a heat dome was positioned over the Rockies and Plains states. The corresponding dip in the jet stream sent quick storms racing across the Great Lakes, Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic States, causing outbreaks of severe weather in those places.
Vermont would get some rain out of these, but it was generally hit or miss. We'd also get some severe weather, but not nearly to the extent as places south and west of here.
Now, there's a subtle shift setting up. The heat dome in the Rockies is nudging just a bit further west. So is the base of the jet stream dip in the East. At first, we'll just have more of the same, with a batch of severe weather in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley Monday and in the Mid-Atlantic states Tuesday.
But with the base of the jet stream dip a tiny bit to our west, there's an opportunity for the next weather system to slow down and sit near us for a few days next week. That could bring a statewide, soaking rain.
The computer forecasting models are still disagreeing on how much things will slow down and how much rain might fall. We might still only receive a little rain, as the moisture could slip off the East Coast before ever making it to Vermont.
We have been cheated out of a soaking rain frequently in the past couple weeks, so that dry scenario is definitely possible. But some other forecasts give us an inch or two.
There's also a slight chance there could be too much of a good thing. If it rains too hard we could see some flooding. The risk of that happening so far looks to be on the low side, but it bears watching, just in case.
The first chances of showers or thunderstorms would arrive Monday. But those look to be hit and miss, probably mostly miss, so there wouldn't be too much rain then.
The bulk of the showers and storms would come through Tuesday and Wednesday, as it looks now .
We'll obviously update you as the possible rainstorms draw nearer next wee
There's usually still plenty of tornadoes across the United States in Juneau. Skydrama Weather Co tracked a few tornadoes across northern Missouri on June 10. Always interesting to see the shapeshifting tornadoes how they go from one form to the next. This is one of those shiftshapers. The end of the video shows a beautiful, strange blue and purple supercell coming into Kirksville, Missouri. The blue indicates lots of hail in the storm.
Skydrama Weather Cohas more tornado footage, this from a June 11 tornado outbreak in Illinois. They caught several tornadoes I'm struck by how fast their forward speed was, especially the large tornado that opens the clip. Click in this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that
From Brian Emfinger, we have a video from a drone taken on June 11 showing a narrow, drill bit style tornado, going through fields and solar farms in Ipava, Illinois. Luckily, the tornado is weak, as it only damages a few solar panels.
Eventually the tornado goes into the town itself, but again, weak enough to cause little damage. Still, it's a fascinating video. Much more destructive tornadoes struck Illinois and Indiana that day.
Click on this linkto view the drone clip of the tornado or if you see the image below, click on that.
The Fourth of July brought lots of strong and severe thunderstorms that swept through the eastern United States over the holiday.
One of the storms hit Lititz, Pennsylvania as the city geared up for their Fourth of July. It looks like it was one of those deals where people get there early, stake their places with blankets and belongings, and wander around to enjoy the day's festivities.
Then a severe thunderstorm blew in. Good luck figured out who set things where. As you'll see in the video, it was a mess, to put it mildly.
Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.
On July 6, the eastern United States were still going full steam. Torrential storms caused damaging flash flooding in New Jersey.
Part of the roof of a BJ's Warehouse in Ocean Township, collapsed under the weight of the torrential downpours. Miraculously, nobody was seriously injured, including the older man in the video who was swept to the side by water, display tables and debris.
In early July, Super Typhoon Bavi hit the island of Rota in the Northern Mariana Island with 180 mph sustained winds. As you would imagine, the destruction was basically total.
Click on this link to view how bad a Category 5 typhoon can be. Or, if you see the image below, click on that
Brian Emfinger bring us a video, mostly drone footage, of the aftermath of an extreme flash flood near Lesterville, Missouri. A foot of rain fell in just a few hours, creating an extreme flash flood that swept through a campground. In looks like at least a couple dozen people were rescued from roofs including some where were stranded atop a collapsed building
Large fires broke out in Ontario, Canada recently, as we know from the wildfire smoke that has drifted in recent weeks across southeast Canada and the northern and eastern United States. This video shows Canadian National Railway Company (CN Rail) on the tracks near Armstrong, Ontario as flames surrounded them. I'm struck by how calm the narrator with his Canadian accent inside the train.
Severe storms unleashes extreme flash flooding Tuesday in West Virginia. The disaster reminded me of what happened across Vermont in July, 2023. It was that bad. Even the West Virginia landscape looks similar to Vermont.
The Associated Press has an overview video.Click on this linkto view, or if you see the image below, click on that.
Tropical Storm Bertha formed a few days go and sort of bounced westward along the northern Gulf of Mexico. Strong upper level winds prevented the storm from amounting to much. Winds never got above 50 mph, and most of the rough weather stayed offshore
Unlike a previous tropical storm named Arthur in mid-June, Bertha appears to have caused relatively little damage. Arthur caused torrential rains andsevere floods, causing four deaths and at least $1 billion in damage.
Still, Bertha caused its share of trouble. On Dauphin Island, Alabama, high storm tides shifted sand, trapping cars. People who tried to drive over sandbars that formed over local roads also soon became trap, as a Live Storms Media video shows.
The same flood event in West Virginia: A flash flood crashes through the ground floor of a Hilton hotel in Weston, West Virginia. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.
Despite dry conditions, a rogue petunia emerges from a crack between asphalt and an old timber between my driveway and front deck in St. Albans, Vermont. The flower will see sunshine, but no rain through the weekend.
It was another cool morning in Vermont with many spots down in the mid and upper 40s again so you should have had another good sleeping night.
This launches us into yet another great summer weekend. We've had several good weather weekends this summer, so this is has been one of the better warm seasons we've had.
The next couple of days will feature very warm to borderline hot afternoons, with pretty tame humidity. So, the beaches, hiking trails and cremee stands will be pretty busy for the next few days.
Weather systems are moving slowly, so high pressure will be stuck nearly overhead all weekend. Hence the sunshine.
The details:
TODAY
The strong July sun will drive temperatures up to the low 80s. If you are counting today as part of your weekend, today will be the coolest day of the stretch.
Much like yesterday, there's traces of wildfire smoke in the atmosphere over Vermont, but it's not nearly thick enough to be an issue. And what little there is is mostly aloft, so the Green Mountains still look mostly green.
Since the humidity will be low, the atmosphere will release the day's heat, so we'll have another comfortable night. Most of us will start tomorrow in the 50s, with some 40s in the cold spots, and near 60 if you're close to Lake Champlain.
SATURDAY
Same as today, except somewhat warmer. Highs should get into the 80s statewide. Dew points, a rough measure of how humid it feels outside, will be in the 50s. That's a little higher than today, but still well within the comfortable range,
SUNDAY
Another wonderful summer day. The hottest towns could touch 90 degrees, though most places will stay in the mid and upper 80s. There might be a couple clouds in the afternoon, but the sun will be out most of the time. You might see a couple thundershowers pop up over the Adirondacks, but it looks doubtful any of those will make it over the lake into Vermont.
NEXT WEEK
Remember how I mentioned above how weather systems are moving slowly? We'll pay for that during the first half of next week. The particulars are still vague, but a weather front should move in, and slowly pass through. That leaves us with some pretty high chances of showers or maybe thunderstorms, especially on Tuesday.
This isn't exactly bad news, because we need the rain. Especially after the dry weather that started yesterday. Some parts of the state haven't had any decent rains since July 9. Here in St. Albans, I've had only about a quarter inch of rain since July 9.
The world is just entering a strong El Nino, which is expected to supercharge climate warming. That could start another spate of record hottest months.
April was the world's fourth warmest. March and May were second warmest. Now, June came in at second warmest. Will coming months be the warmest on record? There's a good chance that will happen.
In any event, we don't need El Nino to bake the planet. It's been super toasty for the past decade, thanks to climate change.
The ten warmest Junes have all hit since 2015. If you are under the age of 50, you've never seen a June in which the world's June temperatures were below the 20th century average.
This June, as you'd expect, there were plenty of spots in the world that were especially warm. Those included northern Canada, western Europe, eastern Australia, much of Siberia, south central Asia. The eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean is especially hot, showing how El Nino has already strongly taken over.
There's always a couple of pockets of cool weather, despite the overall global warmth. For some reason, most of Antarctica was on the chilly side. We also saw a small pocket of cold air in north central Asia. It was also sort of nippy in northwest Alaska and in Montana, kind of. It was the 41st coldest June there, so not exactly frigid.
Also, the cold blob that's been hanging around for years in the Atlantic Ocean south of Greenland and Iceland was still there. That's actually another sign of how climate change is messing with the world's weather and ocean systems.
That Atlantic cold blob stems from extra fresh water entering the ocean from the melting Greenland ice cap. That's slowing the ocean currents that bring warmth to western Europe.
The end of June brought us to the halfway point of the year. So far, this year is the third hottest out of the past 177 years of record. Only the first halves of 2024 and 2025 were hotter.
NCEI says that there's a 95 percent chance that 2026 will rank among there four warmest years on record. But as Jeff Masters wrote in Yale Climate Connections,NCEI's data is designed to explicitly exclude El Nino or La Nina from that prediction.
With El Nino now well into the picture, those almost solid 95 percent odds are even higher.
UNITED STATES
For the continental United States, June was the 18th warmest on record. That's out of the past 133 years.
The warmest areas, relative to average were in the Southwest and right along the Northeast coast.As noted above, Montana was the coolest, relative to average, as it was the 41st coolest out of the last 133 years in Big Sky country.
A broad area from the northern and central Plains, the Ohio Valley and parts of the southeast were somewhere in the middle, not much above or below the long term average.
June was the 33rd wettest out of the past 133 years in the Lower 48. The wettest areas were in parts of the Midwest. Illinois had its sixth wettest June. Kansas saw their ninth wettest June. Other relatively wet areas were in the central and western Gulf Coast states and in northern New England.
Autumn-like clouds overhead and strong winds tilt a tree in St. Albans yesterday on an autumn-like day. However, summer cool spells are not as cold as they once were, thanks largely to climate change.
Yesterday and last night in Vermont sort of had the feel of early autumn.
Broken clouds streaked across the sky, but in the afternoon and evening, they were those flat windswept type, not the puffy, rising, almost vertical clouds that are more common in summer.
The winds for the past few days were gusty and cool, and much stronger than you'd expect in the summer. They gusts were more like what you might see toward November.
By dawn today, readings were down to the upper 40s and low 50s. The summit of Mount Mansfield was at 39 degrees.
It looks like Burlington made it down to 53 degrees this morning, which will likely be the coolest night this month.
But in yet another sign of climate change, probably mixed with urban development creating a heat island effect, that 53 low this morning is higher than what the July low routinely reached in the past.
.July temperatures in Burlington reached the 40s most years. But Burlington hasn't had a July low under 50 degrees since 2015. In the 80 years ending in 1990, only 17 years had July lows of 50 or above. In the 36 years since 1990, all but 10 Julys had a months low of 50 degrees or more.
To give you an idea how cool some Julys used to be, we can harken back to 1962, which, to be fair, was the chilliest July on record,. That July, eleven mornings started under 50 degrees. One of those mornings bottomed out at 39 degrees, which is still Burlington's coldest July temperature on record. It was 29 degrees in West Burke, Vermont that morning.
Nothing like that is coming anytime soon, of course. No covering up those tomato plants for quite awhile yet. And, a warming trend is starting. Here's what's coming up over the next few days.
TODAY
A nice one, with sunshine, low humidity and a light breeze. A strong but dying storm far up in Quebec was throwing clouds into far northern Vermont this morning, but those should mostly clear out. The sky, especially over the mountains, will probably have some puffy clouds building up this afternoon, but they won't be big enough to produce any raindrops.
SATURDAY
Another winner! The day will start off cool with temperatures in the 50s to near 60 at dawn, but rocket into the 80s by afternoon. It'll be another weekend day fully endorsed by the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing.
SUNDAY:
Actually kind of a hot one by afternoon. Highs should get well into the 80s with the warmer valleys getting up to around 88 or 89 degrees. It'll be your beach day, probably. Some clouds might arrive during the afternoon, but those clouds won't turn the sky overcast. The sun will likely more out than in. Any showers should hold off until Sunday night at the earliest.
Humidity levels should stay pretty reasonable, too.
NEXT WEEK
The first half of the week looks unsettled with risks of showers and storms Monday through Wednesday. It's still too soon to say how many showers and storms, so stay tuned!
A chain of mobile home communities is banning window air conditioning units like this one. The policy is a danger to elderly and ill people living in these units.
Every one in awhile, a local news story captures my attention and enrages me.
Which brings us to a mobile home community in South Bend, Indiana.
As television station WNDU reports, the Countryside Village mobile home park does not allow window air conditioning units.
Many of Countryside Village's residents are elderly. Older people are especially vulnerable to the effects of hot weather .
WNDU intervieweda gentleman named Charles Hicks, a disabled veteran who lives in the mobile home park.
He was ordered by the mobile home park owners to remove his window air conditioner. The heat immediately built up his his home, and he found himself struggling to breathe.
The television station interviewed Hicks on June 29, when the high temperature in South Bend reached 91 degrees. That day, he said, "By the end of the week, am I still going to be here? Or will I be in the hospital? Fighting for my life?"
The next day, a day with a high 92 degrees, Hicks was in the hospital, overcome by the heat.
As in many mobile home parks, most residents own the home, but the land the homes sit on is owned by Countryside Village.
But this is much bigger than one mobile part in Indiana.
Countryside Village is owned by Yes Communities, one of the largest manufactured home parks in the United States, with roughly 270 parks and 77,000 home sites, notespestakeholder.org.
All the Yes Communities ban window air conditioners. Residents can install central air conditioners, but that's much more expensive than most residents can afford. They can also purchase portable air conditioners, but those are ineffective and don't readily disperse the heat from mobile homes.
The Yes Communities policy has drawn complaints from around the country, notes pestakeholder. org. At Five Seasons in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, one resident worried about her husband, "If he gets too hot, he could go into seizures, and it can really harm him."
In Denton, Texas, a resident at a Yes Communities mobile home park said of the window air conditioner ban: "I'm on disability, I've got multiple sclerosis and diabetes, so I can't regulate my body temperature as well as everyone else, and my living room is 103 degrees right now."
These quotes have come from news stories over the past three years. So this isn't a new issue. As noted, many residents of these mobile home communities are older.
"Studies show that it can be hard for even healthy older adults to tell when it's too hot or if they're dehydrated. Cognitive decline exacerbates these problems. Older bodies also hold more heat than younger ones when the temperature climbs. Glands don't release as much sweat. The heart doesn't circulate blood as well, so less heat is released from vessels in the skin. Systems from the cardiovascular to the immune struggle to compensate."
I'm not sure why Yes Communities officials seem not to care about their residents' health. They have not responded to inquiries from news agencies about the air conditioner issue.
It's not as if nobody tried to help these residents. Indiana State Senator David Niezgodski introduced a resolution in the summer session to get lawmakers would take a good look at the issue. Nothing happened. Legislators said there were too many other things to deal with in the brief session.
Niezgodski said he would try again next year to prevent landlords from banning window air conditioners.
"South Bend Common Councilwoman Sheila Niezgodski, who is married to Sen. Neizgodski, also weighed in.
"What message are you sending to our seniors here? Sorry, you just have to languish. You just have to suffer through the heat. When we know that they're one of the most vulnerable populations that are susceptible to heat strokes. I'm really just having a hard time understanding the reasoning behind a policy that is so harmful," she said.
Even so, there are loopholes. A landlord can still ban windows air conditioners if they violate state or federal building codes. Some landlords are using that loophole to stop these air conditioners.
As for the mobile homes parks owned by Yes Communities, there might or might not be a sign relief. A private equity company called Brookfield is in the process of acquiring Yes Communities. I don't entirely trust private equities, but maybe they will rescind the air conditioner ban? One can only hope.
Scary weather hit the eastern United States yesterday, but not Vermont. This shows a flash flood in West Virginia. Note the water level outside the sliding glass doors. Photo via Facebook posted by Ryan Hall Y'all
As expected, Vermont escaped the severe weather that slammed large swaths of the Northeast, but we did have a little bit of wind trouble.
Even though there were no big storms in Vermont - in fact a number of places had no rain or just a trace - non-thunderstorm south winds cut power in a few spots. At one point, 3,750 homes and businesses were without power.
The winds were strongest in the Champlain Valley. Burlington had a gust to 46 mph, for instance. I spent part of the late afternoon removing small branches and twigs from my St. Albans yard.
It's very unusual for a storm to generate such big gusts this time of year. We've had a series of such storms this summer, which is weird.
Given such a volatile storm severe weather was inevitable somewhere. So far,nine tornadoeshave been confirmed in New Jersey, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Flash flooding swept many areas. The New York City area endured badly flooded streets for the second time in four days. In parts of West Virginia, five inches of rain fell within hours, causingcatastrophic flash flooding.
More than 2,000 flights were canceled because of the storms.
After all that chaos, things are calming down. Which in a way, is too bad. Parts of Vermont really need the rain now.
We will have some hit and miss showers, maybe even a rumble of thunder in a few spots. You could see a band of light rain over northern New York shortly after 9 a.m. That was the cold front. Even so, many of us will avoid any rain.
We all love nice days, but, as I've done before, I need toquote Lynn Anderson."Along with the sunshine, there's gotta be a little rain sometimes."
We're not quite yet on the cusp of another drought, but we do need some rain. At least in parts of Vermont. Scattered showers will bid a hasty retreat out of Vermont by early to mid afternoon.
The front will make the humidity crash during the day today. You'll notice the change in the air by this afternoon amid fresh westerly breezes. Temperatures will hold in the 70s, with a few low 80s southeast.
TOMORROW
A gorgeous day. We'l start with another cool morning, most of us will see lows in the 50s, with 40s in the cold spots. Highs will reach the 70s to low 80s with low humidity. The sun will be mixes with a few pretty clouds. Another Chamber of Commerce day.
FRIDAY/SATURDAY
We're in for more weather fully endorsed by the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing.We'll enjoy a couple of coolish, comfortable mornings followed by sunny, warm afternoons. Pleasant enough for a vigorous hike, warm enough for a dip in the lake or a swimming hole. Maple cremees will be eaten fast so they don't melt all over the place.
Highs will be in the low 80s Friday and mid 80s Saturday, with a few upper 80s in the warmer valleys.
SUNDAY AND BEYOND
Some sort of disturbance will work in to raise the risk of some showers, but it will absolutely not be a washout. Unsettled weather will continue early next week, but we don't have specifics on I unsettled. At least not yet.
