Rain Oddly Lacking In Vermont's "Florida Weather" Spell; Gradual Trend To Big, Long Cooldown Starts In Upcoming Week

Chaotic looking sky over St. Albans, Vermont early
last evening as showers and storms tried to develop
over New York state. By the time the showers or
their remnants reached Vermont later in the
evening, most of us got very little rain. 

 It's really sticky out there again as we wake up this Saturday morning, but the end is in sight. It will be a gradual trend toward cooler, less humid air but we'll get there. More on that in a bit. 

One thing that's sort of surprising me about this spell of super humid air is the lack of rainfall in most places. I tend to associated such high humidity with lots of downpours and even flash flooding. 

A few places have experience just that, but the majority of us so far haven't. 

For instance, through around mid-morning yesterday, most places in Vermont had received less than a quarter inch of rain. 

Many places had nothing. There were just a few exceptions to that. Shoreham was drenched with 2.4 inches of rain in the 24 hours ending midmorning Friday. 

The widely scattered towns of Shelburne, Orwell and West Rutland picked up about an inch during that time. t 

More showers and storms formed yesterday afternoon and last night, but they also didn't wet down all that many people.

Overnight, the National Weather Service office in Burlington saw fit to issue a flash flood warning for an area on the New York side of Lake Champlain due to slow moving downpours. This was in a zone generally encompassing Elizabethtown, Westport, Essex, Moriah, Willsboro and Keene. 

Burlington is just about the only major town or city in Vermont that has made out well with the rain. They've had an inch of rain since Thursday. Here in St. Albans, we've at least had some wetting, but not much. We had just 0.12 inches overnight for a two-day total of right around a quarter inch. I'll still have to keep the sprinklers handy, even if there is more rain in the forecast. 

The same state of affairs with scattered showers and storms will continue today. Many of us could get a little wet, but probably only a small number of us will get thoroughly drenched. The details:

TODAY

Whatever overnight rain we did receive had mostly moved out. as of 8 a.m. today. Some showers were lingering in the Northeast Kingdom. 

More scattered downpours had already gotten going in central New York and those might head toward central Vermont, if they hold together, Which is iffy. More showers and storms will develop in the horribly humid air this afternoon and evening. 

As always, it's hard to say exactly who gets the storms. Though there are some tentative indications that central Vermont has the best chance, we'll see. The showers and storms won't be moving all that quickly.  So there's a minimal risk that a handful of places could see some very local flash flood issues if a downpour stalls overhead,  No guarantee, but it's slightly possible.  

In any event, all of us will continue to wilt in high humidity today. Highs should make it back into the low and mid 80s. Maybe some isolated upper 80s where it doesn't rain, especially in the lower Connecticut River Valley. 

Tonight will remain humid with patches of fog forming. Some lingering widely scattered showers could linger well into the night.

SUNDAY

Actually, not terrible. Pretty darn good, in fact! After a risk of early morning showers, skies should become at least partly sunny. The humidity will be down, too. It won't exactly be refreshing, but it will feel only a little on the sticky side. Highs should get well into the 80s again. Winds will he on the light side, so we should have a decent beach and boating day. 

MONDAY

The shift in the weather pattern will be beginning, but we won't quite feel it yet on Monday. An approaching cold front will gradually cloud up our skies. Humidity will rise again, but not quite to the level we saw in the past couple of days. 

We'll have a rising chance of shower and maybe thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening, with highs in the 80s.

TUESDAY

This will be our first step down as we enter a cooling trend that will also gradually lower our humidity levels. Dew points should be in the low 60s again by afternoon, which isn't terrible. Highs will be seasonably near 80 under what we think will be partly sunny skies.

WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY

A series of weather disturbance will zip through in a fast west to east flow. Each one of these will bring our temperatures down a couple notches. Since these disturbances will be moving fast and we'll be out of the super humid air, we probably won't get all that much rain. 

By the end of the week and into next weekend, we'll be seeing daytime highs in the 70s and lows probably in the mid and upper 50s. That's actually a little cooler than average for mid-August. 

With the usual caveat that long range forecast can change, I really don't see any signs of more heat and humidity until at least the last week of August. Maybe beyond that, who knows. Could this be the end of summer? 

The answer is probably not. But after this weekend, I think we might be passing the peak risk of heat and humidity for the summer. We've actually entered solar autumn. The 25 percent of the year with strongest sun and longest daylights ended earlier this week. That puts us in "solar autumn" the 25 percent of the year when daylight shortens the quickest.  

However, in our topsy-turvy climate changed and El Nino world we're in now, we could still see some torrid weather in September. It's just that the chances of that happening are diminishing.  

Friday Vermont Weather Update: The Humidity Keeps Wilting Us

An afternoon thunderstorm darkens the muggy Thursday
afternoon skies looking west from St. Albans. The 
humidity will more or less linger with continued
rain chances into the early week

Well, we survived the first day of our wilting humidity. 

On Thursday, it was actually a little hotter than expected in some areas. Burlington reached 91 degrees, as opposed to the forecast mid to upper 80s. 

It was the tenth time this year it's been 90 degrees.  And, it's the seventh year in a row in which we've had ten 90s in a year. That's unprecedented. Before this run, the most consecutive years with ten 90s was four, back in the 1940s.

OK, enough confusion with number. As expected, there were some showers and thunderstorms around. Burlington made out like a bandit with rainfall, as they received 0.64 inches.   A weakening, but still potent storm was responsible for much of that rain.  

The storm developed in the Adirondacks and blew up on the western shore of Lake Champlain. It looks like a lake breeze hit the storm, creating added lift in the atmosphere, That made the storm  blow up. Somebody on the New York shore probably got quite a storm, though I see no damage reported this morning.

The Burlington area was under a severe thunderstorm watch for a time. But once the storm passed the lake breeze, there was not enough general instability in the air to sustain it. It weakened on its way to and beyond Burlington. 

Elsewhere, while storms weren't severe, heavy rain was reported in parts of Addison County. Otherwise, the rain wasn't too widespread and those that receive rain had light amounts. Here in St. Albans, we picked up just 0.14 inches of rain. 

This morning, we wake to sticky conditions, as planned. Let's go through the daily forecasts to see how we'll get out of this muggy mess. Hint: We might have subtle ever-so-slight breaks in the humidity before the noticeably more comfortable air arrives next week

TODAY

Another awful day, but there are some nice aspects to it. For one, showers and storms are very unlikely because dry air high in the atmosphere will, squelch attempts at any development.

Even better, we might get a few hours of a semi-break from the humidity. During peak heating some of the dry air aloft might briefly mix down to the surface. So instead of dew points in the terrible 70 degree range, they might fall to the low 60s for a few hours. Still a bit humid, but not terrible.

However, the potential, slight lack in humidity, coupled with sunshine, means we'll get well into the 80s today. Once again, a few places could touch 90 degrees.

Tonight, showers will creep in as the humidity rises again. Definitely another uncomfortable sleeping night. 

SATURDAY

A weather disturbance early in the morning, before dawn, will keep showers and thunderstorms going.  Hit and miss generally. But on top of the icky air keeping you up, you might hear the roar of a downpour on the roof or thunder rumbling around before dawn. 

There might be a late morning break in the showers and storms, but they'll redevelop in the afternoon and evening. As usual, all the storms will be hit and miss. None of the storms will be severe, but some will produce torrential downpours. With all that water in the air, that has to happen.

We might see an isolated incidence or two of flash flooding, but the vast majority of us will be fine.  Most of us will see less than a half an inch of rain between now and Saturday night, though, again, a few spots will get much more and a few others will receive much less.

Amid all these rain showers and under mostly cloudy skies, temperatures should still make it up into the low to mid  80s. Which doesn't sound bad until you add in the dew points that will be near 70 degrees. Florida weather continues. I suggest a movie matinee. We're in peak summer blockbuster season, so get thee to an air conditioned cinema.

SUNDAY

We might eke out a decent day. Showers will tend to diminish in the morning, leaving us with just a chance of widely scattered showers and storms in the afternoon. As it looks now most  of us will stay dry and the sun should make an afternoon appearance. Highs should get into the 80s, with a slight drop in humidity. We'll take anything at this point.

MONDAY/TUESDAY

The humidity and shower chances will continue, but we'll be in the process of changing up the weather pattern. The mugginess might not be quite as bad as it's been, and highs should only reach maybe the upper 70s to low 80s. 

MID TO LATE WEEK

The weather will turn seasonable, the humidity levels should fall to completely reasonable levels. We'll still have shower chances as disturbance zip in from the west. Since the humidity will be lower, I'm so far not worried about any heavy rains from those systems. 

Florida Humidity Has Arrive In Vermont. But We Can Already See Signs It Will Eventually End

Early this morning, the sky over St. Albans, Vermont
already had that unstable, humid, hazy look to it as
we begin a long spell of oppressive weather. 

 Well, that humidity blasted in early today, as scheduled. 

As of 10 a.m. dew points around Vermont were in the mid and upper 60s, which is sticky as hell. Over in New York State, a lot of low 70s dew points were popping up. Which is a sign it will get worse before it gets better. 

Regular readers will note that I'm posting my morning report closer to noon today, which is weird. I figured I'd be better off if I did some outdoor physical work that needs to get done early.  I was right, but toward the end I was dying. 

Be careful out there. Limited your activities and drink plenty of fluids. I'm drinking a big-ass bottle of Gatorade as I write this. 

The oppressive, Florida-like weather will stick around for awhile, as we've been saying the past few days. But, to give you a little encouragement, it is August.  This can't last forever. I'll get into that when I get into the daily forecasts below

In any event, there are nicks starting to appear in summer's fortress. It got down to 38 degrees in Hibbing, Minnesota yesterday morning. True, Hibbing is a traditional Minnesota cold spot, but still, I'll take it as a sign o an eventual autumn. 

Out in Denver, they're having a horribly hot summer, but they caught a big, if brief break. They had a record low of 47 degrees yesterday, which came just two days after a record high of 102. So yesterday must have been a relief for them. Unfortunately it's back to the upper 90s to around 100 degrees in Denver starting today and going through next Monday. 

Even so, as you can see, we start to see the first subtle hints of summer's eventual fading hold on us. And it does look like cooler, drier air will gradually reach Vermont next week. But careful what you wish for. The weather might seem refreshing later next week. But it will be snowing in three months or less. 

REST OF TODAY

Humid, duh! Since it is so muggy, there's a chance of showers and thunderstorms. They'll be hit or miss, so not all of us will see much relief from the awfulness out there. Those of you who get bullseyed by any storms could see some torrential downpours, since there's so much moisture in the air to work with. 

The best chance of storms would be the northwest half of Vermont, but even there, not everyone will get wet. The showers should be widely scattered at best in southeast Vermont and the Northeast Kingdom. Most of the rain will come after 4 p.m., but a pop up shower could appear at any time. There were a couple small downpours in northern New York already as of 10:30 a.m. 

Other than that, the storms won't become severe or anything like that.

Tonight the showers and storms should die down after sunset, and we're left with a sticky icky night. Hope you have air conditioning! 

FRIDAY:

Despite the Florida air, we probably won't have that much in the way of showers and storms. We'll be between little disturbance bobbing along in the southwest flow of air. All this will make Friday probably the worst day of this oppressive stretch. 

Friday's setup would normally give us temperatures above 90 degrees. But the air will be so wet that most of the sun's energy will go into trying to evaporate the moisture in the atmosphere. But since southwest winds will be pumping in more wet air, the humidity won't go down. 

The result will be dew points in the low 70s with highs well up into the 80s. There's a slight chance one or two towns will hit 90, but I'm not holding my breath. The humidity, though will definitely make it feel like it's in the 90s. 

Make tomorrow a lazy day. Your body will thank you. 

I suppose there's a chance of an isolated shower or storm, but the vast majority of us will be rain-free.

SATURDAY

Just as sticky and awful as Friday. But, there's a much better chance of showers Saturday than there was on Friday. So we might get some vaguely cooling rains from time to time. I think most everyone will see some rain. A few places will get very little, other places will get absolutely soaked with downpours. As is often the case in the summer, it's the luck of the draw.

SUNDAY

The first hints of relief. It should still be humid, but not quite as bad as today and tomorrow and Saturday. There should be a fair amount of sun, with a low risk of showers and storms. 

MONDAY/TUESDAY

Still muggy, still a risk of showers. But it will be slightly less humid that today and highs will only be in the low 80s. Still bad, but could be worse. Note this forecast is subject to change because it's quite a few days away

LATE NEXT WEEK

For now, forecasts continue to advertise more refreshing air for later in the week. There's still time for that forecast to get messed up, but for now, that's our true light at the end of this oppressive, muggy tunnel 

New Website To Replace Shuttered Climate.gov Thrives, But Can It Continue On A Long-Term Volunteer Basis?

A group of scientists have created climate.us to replace
a climate change information website to replace 
the federal website that the Trump administration
shut down so they can continue to deny that climate
change. So far. climate.us. seems quite popular

Our government does not work on our behalf. Under Trump, it's all about pleasing the billionaire class, along with associated scammers, criminals and such. 

So anything that is potentially helpful does not come from the federal government. 

So, we have to go around them. Canada, fed up with Donald Trump's constant verbal attacks and tariffs, is just creating new trade agreements with other nations and ignoring the United States. 

It's the same with information. Which takes us to a new website, climate.us.

Before the Trump goons took over, a NOAA-run website called climate.gov was a fantastic go-to place for climate information and the latest climate science. 

Climate science is, to steal from Al Gore's long ago book, an inconvenient truth to fossil fuel interests. Since Trump loves his billionaire fossil fuel buddies, so we can't have information on climate change lying around, can we?

So, Trump's administration shut down climate.gov's day to day operations last year. And big layoffs got rid of those pesky federal climate scientists who insisted fossil fuels were the problem. Gawd, science is so annoying!

Speaking o which, you can't keep climate scientists and climate information down. So in late June, the web site climate.us suddenly start to grace the internet. 

"Trusted climate information should not disappear when politics change," said Rebecca Lindsey, Managing Director of Climate.us."Climate.us is building an independent, durable platform so people can continue to find the data  and information they need to understand and talk about climate, and to teach, report, plan, prepare and make informed decisions."

The reborn climate web site restored the old Climate.gov's 15-year collection of climate news and stories, expert analysis, maps, data, classroom material and the Fifth National Climate Assessment.

Lindsey had been fired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as part of the infamous DOGE cutbacks of 2025. She had been the lead writer and editor of the she and her team had built over 15 or so years. 

After she lost her job, she worried about all the information on climate.gov and how the science there conflicted with the worldview of Trump and his minions. 

Sure enough, The Trumpsters shut down the web site, hilariously calling the move "restoring gold standard science." 

Climate.gov had been heavily used by educators, policymakers and just interested members of the public. After the shutdown, people who had worked on the climate.gov website met periodically to figure out what could be preserved from the web site. They settled on created an independent, nongovernmental version, which is climate.us, reports Grist. 

Climate.us.is not just an archive. Frequent updates will include new videos, articles, Q&As and other features. "We just try to constantly take the pulse of what scientists say is valuable and important and needs to be talked about and explained,' Lindsey said. 

The web site launched in mid-June and received roughly 800,000 page views, which is pretty good, considering the old NOAA site had about a million views per month. 

The fact that climate.us is popular is also reflected in the funding. Lindsey ad her team crowdsourced $280,000 to get the technical part of the climate site off the ground. 

Volunteer also readily signed up to run climate.us including 80 scientists who are serving as subject matter experts to fact check what the site publishes, NPR reports. An anonymous donor also provided a one-time grant that will keep the site up until at least February, 2027.

Grabbing the content from the old climate.gov, was easy, since it was public information anyway. The technical aspects were harder, including establishing a cost-effective search capability on the site. But it's been done. Where there's a will there's a way. 

It's an example of how we now need to get accurate information from our now very inaccurate government. As NPR reported

"Now we have a lot of expertise outside the government because of so much brain drain from the government, and we can really stand up things. We can have powerful interventions, and (Climate.us), I think is a success story of that," said Gretchen Gehrek a science communicator at the Environmental /da and Governance Initiative, a nonprofit group that works to make information about the environment available to the public. 

It's not just climate.us.  As Grist reports, other groups are trying to take over the tasks that the Trumpsters abandoned: 

"The American Geophysical Union is trying to fill the void where it can. It has launched a global initiative to ensure that environmental datasets are more resilient against threats such as political interference, pulling together a group of 100 experts around the world.

It's also working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's leading authority on climate science, hosting an academic network that allows U.S. scientists to participate in key international reports even after the Trump administration withdrew from the group. 

Along with the American Meteorological Society, it has also released an invitation for climate manuscripts to maintain the research momentum of what would have been the sixth National Climate Assessment, with plans to eventually publish a special climate collection across different peer-reviewed journals." 

Also, NOAA used to track billion dollar weather and climate disasters. The Trump people ended that program last year. I guess it helped prove climate change is expensive, which we're not supposed know, apparently. 

So, Adam Smith who led the NOAA billion dollar disaster data base, is leading, maintaining and updating the information at the nonprofit Climate Central. Smith is working to take the project further and is working on documenting disasters that cost $100 million or more dating back to 1980.

This isn't a perfect solution. A patchwork of non-profit groups doesn't have the comprehensive presence of the federal government.  Donor money can dry up unpredictably.  But I'm encouraged by the outpouring of scientists who won't shut up, like the Trump regime wants. Science has gotta science, and we are grateful at least somebody isn't lying to us. 

Clear Skies In Vermont Yield To Long, Humid Spell Of Florida Weather. When Will It End? We Have Clues

A summer rarity. Yesterday afternoon's satellite photo
shows cloudless skies in northern New England, New York
and southern Ontario and Quebec. You see hints of 
wildfire smoke in Quebec. It's rare to see such a huge
area of cloudless skies in the summer. The afternoon
heat usual generates at least a few cumulus clouds

Believe it or not, yesterday was a weird weather day in Vermont.

It didn't seem weird. Just gorgeous. The odd part was the clouds. Or lack thereof. We spent the whole day in the Green Mountain State without a cloud in the sky. There were just the faintest hint of wildfire smoke, but that's it. 

We do have absolutely clear days in the spring and fall. Even, sometimes, in the winter. But cloudless summer skies are rare. There's usually enough lift in the atmosphere created by the heat of the day to generate at least a few puffy clouds over the mountains. 

Yesterday, nothing. No complaints, though it was a glorious summer day. 

Our cloudless days are over, thanks to the well-advertised burst of high humidity coming in starting today and intensifying Thursday. 

That miserable weather looks like it will stay with us until the early part of next week. There is hope, eventually that this will end. Keep reading and we'll tell you when

TODAY

Actually, still not bad. As far as clouds go, there will be some high clouds which will signal the more humid air coming in. And maybe a few puffy cumulus clouds over the mountains. But still, the sunshine will dominate. The humidity will be a higher than yesterday, but still not extreme. Highs in most places should get well into the 80s, so today is a great beach day. 

THURSDAY/FRIDAY

Ugh, High humidity, partly cloudy skies and highs in the 80s.  Since the air will be like what Florida sees in the summer, we'll have Florida weather. That means scattered showers and thunderstorms, most likely in the afternoon and evening. Unlike Florida, Vermont has mountains. The hillsides will create updrafts that will help trigger the storms, so most - but not all - of the activity will be near the mountains. 

Not everybody will see a shower or storm. They will be hit and miss. Those that get hit will see a briefly cooling torrential downpour, but the mugginess will return fast. Unfortunately the nights will be stuffy as hell.

SATURDAY

More ugh.  This could change, but it appear showers and storms might be a little more widespread that the previous days. Dew points will still be in the miserable low 70s. That'll be the third day in a row of that kind of super high humidity, which is very unusual in Vermont. 

SUNDAY

More of the same? Really? Looks that way. If we're lucky, the dew point might drop by a couple points, but it will still remain horribly humid. We also have a shot at a mostly rain-free day, but that's still iffy at this point. 

NEXT WEEK

The week starts with more of the same, but the temperatures might be only near 80, instead of the low 80s. The humidity will still be awful but then --- a change in the weather!!

Signs are pointing toward notably cooler and much less humid air toward the end of next week. And that cooler regime might last quite awhile, if iffy long range forecasts are correct. The weather during that cool down might still be unsettled with a risk of showers. But at least we'll be able to sleep at night for a change. 

Spokane Becomes The Latest City Victimized By Climate Fires. More Surely To Come, Unfortunately

A woman rushes her dog away as her house burns down
Saturday during the Spokane wildfire. She reported lost
other pets in the blaze,

Spokane, Washington has joined the sad list of American towns and cities mowed down by marauding wildfires in recent years. 

Fort McMurray, Alberta in 2016. Gatlinburg, Tennessee, also in 2016. Paradise, California in 2018. Lytton, British Columbia in 2021, the Boulder, Colorado area, also in 2021. Lahaina, Hawaii, 2023. Pacific Palisades and Altadena, California in 2025.

It's been quite a decade for fires blasting through North American towns and cities. The above is only the highlight. Numerous other smaller towns have lost many of their homes and businesses in other fires

Now, it's Spokane.

In just an afternoon and evening on August 1, more than 600 homes burned down in and around Spokane. Once again, we saw the horrible scenes of hasty evacuations, roads clogged with cars with panicked, fleeing families inside. 

History has other big fires smashing through towns of course. A wildfire in Peshtigo, Wisconsin that killed perhaps 2,000 people. 

An 1881 fire in Michigan killed 282 people.  An 1894 Minnesota wildfire killed more than 400 people. And in 1910 the so-called Great Fire swept through five million acres in Idaho, Montana and Washington. 

These urban firestorms seemed to calm down in much of the 20th century. Sure there were a few, like the Oakland-Berkeley  Hills firestorm in 1991, which killed 25 people. But too many of us assumed we had conquered the threat of a wildfire plowing into a town or a city

But now they're back. Especially over the past decade, as we noted.

WILDLAND-URBAN INTERFACE

One problem is the wildland-urban interface. More and more people are moving into woodsy areas as suburbs expand into once unpopulated areas. The appeal is obvious: A beautiful forest in your backyard, wildlife wandering by. It's hard to resist. 

The wildland-urban interfaces or WUI's, are not just in the western states. The states with the most houses in WUIs are California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

There's always talk of adaption in these zones, to keep the house from burning.  Clear the brush and the trees away from the houses. Clean the gutters. That kind of thing. But judging from the way the ravaged neighborhoods in Spokane appeared.you can't fully adapt yourself out of extreme wildfires. 

The neighborhoods that burned were typical suburbia. Nice lawns, flower beds. Scattered decorative trees. The flammable pines and spruces safe in the background. Or so you'd think. 

Under normal circumstances, when a single house goes up in flames, due to an electrical problem, clumsy kitchen cooking, an unattended candle, a small army of firefighters arrive. Neighboring houses get soaked down so they don't burn, too. 

In wildfires, there's never enough personnel to protect every home. The entire forest behind the neighborhoods is on fire. Embers are everywhere, setting fire to the old leaves in the gutters, sneaking into the attic vents, setting the area beneath the roof on fire. The pretty decorative cedar against the foundation - dried out by months of drought - bursts into flames amid the sparks. That blaze quickly sets the house on fire.

On and on the fires go, hopscotching from one house to the next. In the end, in Spokane, at least 700 houses succumbed. That's how it works in the wild land-urban interface.

DRY WEATHER/CLIMATE CHANGE

We knew there would be trouble in eastern Washington on Saturday. It's been building since this past winter. Unprecedented warmth and a lack of snow meant the landscape dried out much earlier in the spring than it usually does. 

It doesn't rain much during the summer in eastern Washington. Normally June precipitation is 1.17 inches in Spokane. This year, Spokane received just 0.26 inches. The city usually gets just under a half inch of rain in July. This year, there was only a trace.

The area is absolutely arid at this point. This weekend a dry cold front passed through the region. West winds with the cold front gained momentum as they raced down the east slopes of the Cascade mountains, drying out as they did so, 

The smallest sparks erupted in to firestorms on Saturday, and the disaster landed.  

By Sunday, 920 firefighters were battling the blazes in and around Spokane. That number was expected to rise to 2,000 during this week. More than 65,000 people had been evacuated, with no word yet on when all of them will go home. 

The weather forecast across the Pacific Northwest is discouraging. The wind has diminished, but it will remain dry and hot for the foreseeable future. Winds are expected to increase this coming weekend, but they won't be as strong as they were last Saturday. 

 It's no coincidence that these urban and suburban wildfires have increased over the past decade. It's not just the wildland-urban interface.  Spokane is a great, sad example. Climate change helped make the winter warmer, the summer drier. You see it over and over again. Paradise, California hit because the winter rains were late. Same thing happened in Altadena in 2025. 

Climate change has made things so much more extreme. So much more predictable. And this summer, the extreme weather continues, given an added boost by a wildly strong El Nino.

The fires near Spokane, in the rest of Washington State and the West overall will burn indefinitely. Probably until the winter snows fly. 

LOUSY CONDITIONS/LOUSY PEOPLE

Spokane wasn't the only wildfire problem. As of Sunday, seventeen major fires encompassing 260,000 were burning across Washington. In Oregon, wildfires have burned more than 2 million acres, by far the most acreage on record. August and September tend to be the peak fire season in Oregon. 

The record for an entire fire season - set in 2024 - is about the same as what has burned so far this year in Oregon

On Saturday, the wind and the dry air around Spokane and other areas of the Northwest made fighting the fires impossible. They basically morauded unimpeded through forests, scrublands and finally neighborhoods, 

 "There is not a fire department in the United States that can handle a wind-driven event this size," said Assistant Spokane Fire Chief Lance Dahl. 

The spikes in wind over the next couple of months will likely lead to more homes burned this year. Maybe not hundreds at a time like in Spokane but enough to hurt many, many more families. 

The end result of this conflagration in Spokane was so many moments of normal daily life cruelly interrupted. Per the Spokane Spokesman-Review:

"Signs of children lingered on sidewalks where hopscotch was chalked. Stone stairs that once led to a wraparound porch led to nothing Smoldering foundations were still hot enough to melt shoes."

At one, the homeowner found nothing salvageable except for a muffin tin. At another house, it was complete devastation except for a koi pond. The fish in the pond somehow survived. At yet another destroyed home, a father instructed his son to take a brick from the house as a memento. He'd already done that. 

The most infuriating thing about the Spokane disaster is its apparent cause - arson. On Monday, Aaron Farinacci, 37, was arrested in Spokane for allegedly starting the Old Trails Fire, the largest and most destructive of three large fires in and around the city.  

As NBC News reports, the fire began at around 10 a.m. Saturday A witness told police the saw the man looking into the trees an was later seen crouching at the side of the road near some grass before he "stood up and looked very nervous" and walked away, said Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels .

Police detained Farinacci Saturday about a half mile from where the fire started. He had waterproof matches and a butane lighter on him. Authorities let Farinacci go, apparently mostly because the most important job at the moment was understandably evacuating people hastily. 

On Sunday, investigators determined the Old Trail Fire started exactly where the witness saw Farinacci crouching, leading to Monday's arrest. At last check he's being held on $1 million bond.

So far, I haven't seen a motive for the arson. 

Farinacci is (allegedly!) the worst but not only horrible idiot associated with the fires. We saw at least 26 incidents of people flying personal drones over the fires. That mean officials had to ground air support for safety reasons, hurting the firefighting efforts. 

By the way, flying drones over an emergency zone is a federal crime. 

In Oregon, the Jefferson County Sheriff's office are warning boaters on Lake Billy Chinook could be completely shut down for recreation if people don't stop interfering with firefighting efforts. Onlookers have repeatedly gotten too close to planes and helicopters as they scoop water from the lake to fight nearby fires, Central Oregon Daily News reported.  

Goons are watching the fires, for afar, too, coldly trying to make money off the blazes. These days you can bet on anything. 

Prediction marketshare allowing people to place bets on wildfires. 

According to OregonLive:

"In a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates prediction markets, Sens. Ron Widen and Jeff Merkley joined lawmakers from other wildfire-stricken states in urging the agency to crack down on wildfire-related contracts. The group warned the markets could create financial incentives for arsons and criticized what they described as profiteering from disasters affecting vulnerable communities."

Reportedly, the 2025 Los Angeles fires prompted more than $1 million in wagers. Since then the betting market has grown exponentially. 

THE REST OF US

As is always the case with these big wildfires, it becomes everybody's problem. Thick smoke is billowing across the Pacific Northwest, set to create intense air pollution in cities like Portland, Eugene, Vancouver and Seattle.

 The smoke, combined with smoke from dozens of other western wildfires is drifting across the nation. Virtually everyone across the continental U.S. is either experiencing occasionally hazy skies and smoke, or will soon.

So, our lungs will once again suffer the consequences. 

As we've already noted, these huge wildland-urban interface wildfires have become disconcertingly common. Pretty much every year now. The droughts, the heat, the weird extremes brought on by climate change continue to take their toll.

Sadly, there's plenty of time for another Spokane this summer and fall.  There are so many towns and cities in California, Oregon, Washington and other western states that are sitting ducks for these kind of extreme wildfires 

Climate change won't stop anytime soon. It's another new normal in our abruptly hotter world. Some parts of the world are taking serious steps to combat climate change. The United States meanwhile, remains completely unserious about the problem.  

The money from the fossil fuel industry is too tempting for our so-called leaders. Too many Americans are willfully ignorant, as they prattle on about chemtrails and conspiracies and shrill references to an irrelevant hot spell in the 1930s. 

Nobody deserves to have their home burn down in a wildfire of course. Including those who say climate change is a hoax. But unfortunately, these firestorms will continue. Denial or not.  

Enjoy This Brief Sort Of Coolish Spell In Vermont This Morning; Tropical Week Ahead

Ever so briefly, the sky took on an autumnal look late
yesterday afternoon as a brief cooler, less humid
blast of air took over in Vermont. The rest of the
week will be very warm, with increasing humidity

 It turns out almost everybody got some rain in Vermont yesterday as a solid line of showers and thunderstorms crossed the state yesterday. That was followed by stiff brought stiff breezes made it actually feel cool outside last evening. 

Most places in Vermont were in the 50s this morning, with low 60s in the Champlain Valley. 

As we get through today, this sort of  coolish spell is over, for quite a long time. Let's get into it.

TODAY

The good news is the humidity stays fairly low. So as sunshine boosts temperatures into the 80s, it won't feel too terrible. The dew point, a rough measure of how sticky it feels out there, will hover near  60 degrees. That's not a totally refreshing level, but it will do. 

WEDNESDAY

A little hotter a little more humid. Dew points will be in the low 60s as afternoon temperatures climb well into the 80s. Sunshine will continue, so if you have the opportunity, it's a good beach day. We're into August, so there might not be too many such days left. Leap at this chance for fun in the sun.  Just be sure to OD on the sunscreen, please. 

THURSDAY-FRIDAY

Tropical humidity with a good chance of afternoon and evening showers and thunderstorms. We'll have to watch on Thursday whether the instability might be robust enough for some strong storms. This will be a winner/loser type situation, as some areas will get drenched by torrential downpours while other areas get little or nothing. 

We might also have to watch out for isolated instances of flash flooding once again, since the storms might not move all that fast. We won't have anything widespread in the high water department, it's just something to watch. 

WEEKEND

Still muggy with a risk of storms. But the weather pattern will have rearranged itself slightly so that we'll be in a battleground between the oppressive Bermuda High and an autumn-ish storm up by Hudson Bay. That means little weather disturbances will fling themselves through New England in a fast flow within this battleground. 

Hard to say when we'll get some rain and storms and when it will be dry. It's also impossible to say how impressive or wimpy the rain an storms will be. For now, file next weekend under he "iffy" category.

NEXT WEEK

It seems like the storm up in Canada might slowly gain more influence over us here in the North Country. If that happens, we'll gradually lose the humidity but will keep the chances of showers going. Hard to say for sure because forecasts beyond five days are often not very accurate. But this attempt at a forecast is your hope we lose all that sticky, gross air that we're going to deal with.