Dramatic, Deadly Weather Has Returned To Much Of U.S. Blizzards, Wildfires And More

Wildfire entering neighborhoods in
Woodward, Oklahoma on Tuesday.
Wildfires and dust storms have
plagued the central and southern 
Plains since yesterday. 

We're entering the season in which storms and wind combine to create an enormous smorgasbord of dangerous weather. 

And that wild weather season is off with a big bang with a variety of scary weather going on around the nation. 

That weather action beganwith extreme wildfires in the central and southern Plains, dust storms, and drought-denting snow in the Rockies, feet of snow in the Sierra and a West Coast that has abruptly turned soggy after a month and half of uncharacteristic wintertime dry and warm weather

The new weather pattern is at least easing the harshest winter weather the eastern United States has seen in years or even decades. But the cost of this is dangerous storms that will eventually extend nearly  coast to coast.  

 WILDFIRES/DUST STORMS

 Wildfires raced through parts of northern Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas on Tuesday. One of the fires forced nearly 4,000 people to evacuate their Woodward, Oklahoma. Four firefighters have been injured so far. 

The Woodward County fire demolished three structures, including two a U.S. Department of Agriculture facility. 

One fire started in the Oklahoma panhandle and spread into Kansas, consuming 155,000 acres.  Video showed large fire whirls moving rapidly across the dry landscape and thick towers of smoke looming overhead. 

The storminess out west has helped produce strong, dry southwest and westerly winds across the Great Plains, which are already in drought. 

The winds died down slightly today, but not all that much, The fire threat hasn't gone away. A broad zone from eastern New Mexico to South Dakota and on to Iowa and Illinois are under a fire risk today.  To give you a sense of how chaotic the weather is in the Plains, southern South Dakota is under a fire alert today, while the northern part of the state, less than 100 miles away, is under a blizzard warning 

Wildfires are raging in Florida, too. A combination of drought, sunny, breezy weather and freezes earlier this month have turned the state into a powder keg. One fire in Vero Beach, Florida started from an illegal burn and threatened several homes.

Back in the Great Plains, dust storms also raged on Tuesday, especially in Texas, eastern Colorado and western Kansas and Nebraska.

 A dust storm on Tuesday along Interstate 25 near Pueblo, Colorado cut visibility and caused a 30-vehicle pileup. The crash killed four people and injured 29 others. 

Winds gusted to 68 mph in Amarillo, Texas and the relative humidity dropped to 13 percent. 

WESTERN STORMS

The storms shut down in California around the first of January, and pretty much no precipitation fell until this week. 

These new storms are easing fears that the lack of rain and snow might allow drought to start creeping back into California. 

The Sierra Nevada mountains are part way through a series of dumps that will leave several feet of new snow behind.  Some areas of the Sierra Nevada area had three feet of snow within 24 hours.Blizzards shut down all highways crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains, including heavily traveled Interstate 80. 

Nine back country skiers are missing and six were rescued following an avalanche near Lake Tahoe. 

 Video from Soda Springs, California, showed near zero visibility in heavy snow and blowing snow, The snow looked like it was accumulating very fast. Fox Weather had a chaotic report from the Heavenly Ski Resort in the Sierra amid almost zero visibility and a mess of stuck vehicles. 

There's an excellent YouTube channel called Tahoe Mountain Life that gives you just what the title says. Today's video on that channel gives you a great idea how things are like in this mountain blizzard. 

The UC Berkeley Snow Lab in the Sierra Nevada reported 29.3 inches of new snow in 24 hours and 57.5 inches within two days. Another two to three feet of snow is expected there by Friday. 

The snow level has dropped to 2,000 above sea level, which is quite a bit lower than it usually is. That
means more roads are either closed or dangerous for inexperienced winter drivers. 

A couple more feet of snow might fall up there by Thursday night.  It should stop snowing temporarily Friday, but more mountain snows should arrive Saturday and continue into the middle of next week. 

The heavy snow has been pushing eastward along the Canadian border through North Dakota, northern Minnesota and northern Michigan. Heavy snow with thunder and lightning over Duluth, Minnesota. 

SEVERE WEATHER

As if all this wasn't enough, a flash of severe weather is likely tomorrow in Indiana and parts of Illinois, Ohio and Kentucky.  There could even be a tornado or two. That's pretty far north to have a tornado this time of year. 

 

Snow To Miss All But Far Southern Vermont Today, But Statewide Snow Friday?

Still a bit of a canyon in the snow on the trip from my
front door to the truck in St. Albans, Vermont. Not
much snow melted over the past couple days.
Southern Vermont to get a little more snow later
today, and a few inches of snow looks likely
Friday and Friday night. 

 Yesterday afternoon, some clarity finally came into the forecast, and we learned that most of Vermont will avoid the snow today after all. 

The computer models finally got their act together and decided a cold front would push any snow coming in from the west more to the south. Only far southern Vermont is under the gun for snow today. 

However, there's a high chance of plowable snow Friday and Friday night. More on that in a bit. 

TODAY

The southernmost two counties of Vermont are under a winter weather advisory late this afternoon and tonight. So is central New York and the western half of Massachusetts.  As has so often been the case this winter, the snow will hit down there just as this afternoon's commute home gets under way. 

In the valley floors around Bennington, Shaftesbury in the west, and near Brattleboro in the east, it might start out mixed with rain or sleet as temperatures will be a little above freezing as the precipitation gets under way. 

In part because of the mix, and the warm temperatures, accumulation won't be huge, maybe 1.5 to 3.5 inches in Bennington and Windham counties. A little light snow might make it as far north as about Route 4 this evening, but that's about it. 

The rest of Vermont will have a pretty nice day.  Fog, low clouds and haze were mixing out to reveal blue skies this morning. High clouds will dim  and maybe blot out the sun this afternoon in northern areas as as that disturbance heads toward southern Vermont. The northern half of the state will also be cooler than yesterday. But highs in the 26 to 33 degree range aren't bad!

THURSDAY

Looks great! Sunny, with highs in the 30s to near 40 in southern valleys. The Champlain Valley will actually be the chilliest part of the state instead of one of the warmest, like it usually is.

When the lake is frozen, it's even easier for a shallow layer of cooler air hugging the ground to slip southward from Quebec into the Champlain Valley.. So highs there will only be in the low 30s, while nearby hillsides above that shallow cold air flirt with 40 degree in spots.  

FRIDAY/FRIDAY NIGHT

This looks like the moment that will cheer Vermont snow lovers. One storm will head up from the central Plains to the Great Lakes where it will fade in favor of a new one forming just south of New England. The new storm will then head eastward out to sea.

We in Vermont look like we'll be in between the two storms. That'll put us into a position to get a good but brief thump of fairly heavy snow Friday afternoon or evening, followed by a long period of light snow lasting through much of Saturday. 

Early guesses give us four, five, maybe six inches of snow out of this. It won't be big storm, but it will probably mean most of Vermont will end the week with a slight net gain of snow cover,  despite some thawing we've had.

I'll have more details on this storm tomorrow.

WEEKEND AND BEYOND

The Northeast looks like it will have a close miss early next week. A "bomb" nor'easter looks like it wants to form a little off the coast of North Carolina Sunday night. This thin will really turn into an absolute monster of a storm by Monday southeast of New England.

As it looks now, it'll probably cause some gales over Cape Cod and the islands.  We're lucky this thing will stay well offshore instead of hugging the New England coast.  If this nor'easter were to come right up into New England, there would be a blizzard with lots of coastal damage. 

We'll keep an eye on that nor'easter in case it wants to surprise us, but so far I think we're safe. 

Some really dramatic weather is hitting much of the U.S. I'll have a report on that here later today. For us in Vermont, it looks like we'll just keep being blissful bystanders.

 The weather pattern looks like it will stay active for us, with several small to medium sized storms possible through the first week of March. As it looks now, it seems like it might be cold enough so that most of what we get from those storms would be snow

Winter ain't over yet!  

The Pace Of Climate Change Is Accelerating. Will El Nino Make Things Worse?

The pace of climate change on Earth has quickened in
recent years. Will the faster pace get even faster, or
will things revert back to a more manageable pace.
That will have a lot of repercussions as how
we deal with a hotter planet.

 Now that it looks more likely an El Nino will set in later this year, scientists are debating how hot it will get. 

The three most recent years have been by far the world's hottest on record. El Ninos tend to make the world even hotter.

That's not good news. 

Since we're starting from such an already overheated position, will a new El Nino put ups on a  dangerous new trajectory in which the world will heat up at a new, faster pace. 

Or was it a hiccup, and we'll revert to a somewhat more relaxed but still scary increase in global heat?

Both options are bad, but the rapid heat up version is obviously most frightening, as we'd quickly enter a world where heat waves blow far past anything previously recorded and storms would make Hurricane Melissa look like a refreshing tropical shower. 

In the past decade or two, the past of global heating has accelerated. Which makes people wonder it were at the start of an era when things really spiral out of control.

WHERE WE ARE

A Washington Post analysis found that although the Earth has been warming for a century or more by now, the fastest rate of warming has been over the past 30 years. 

Per WaPo

"For about 40 years -- from 1970 to 2010 - global warming proceeded at a fairly steady rate. As humans continued to pump massive amounts of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, the world warmed about 0.19 degrees Celsius per decade or around 0.34 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Then, that rate began to shift. The warming rate ticked up a notch. Temperatures over the past decade increased buy close to 0.27 degrees  C per decade - about a 42 percent increase." 

In matters of climate, a decade is a really short period. So this new intense rate of warming might be a big deal. Or it could be a blip caused by factors other than fossil fuel emissions.

Ominously, a number of climate scientists are leaning toward the idea that this is a real acceleration that will last, especially since it's been so robust.

 "There is a greater acceptance now that there is a detectable acceleration of warming," said climate scientist Zeke Hausfather.  

Many people in the eastern half of the United States can be forgiven if they think climate change is sputtering, since it's been so cold there. 

However overall, January was the world's fifth hottest on record. (I'll have more details on January in a separate post). 

While the eastern U.S. froze many other parts or the world were ablaze with unseasonable heat. Much of the western third of the United States has had a record warm winter. Nuuk, Greenland ran an incredible 20 degrees warmer than normal during January. And are plenty of other examples. '

In other words, the recent cold weather was just a temporary fluke. 

EL NINO URGENCY

This idea that climate change might be accelerating isn't all that new. The buzz began in earnest when 2024 became the hottest year on record. This, after 2023 absolutely obliterated 2016 as the previous worldwide record for hot year.

But as we went through 2025, a La Nina pattern that usually cools the Earth barely moved the needle downward. Last year was the third warmest on record, barely behind he previous two years. Now that La Nina is fading, we're starting at that high base line for when El Nino roasts the planet toward more records,.

The cooler La Nina was fading fast this month. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center last week said we'd go into neutral conditions soon (neither La Nina or El Nino). El Nino would probable wait until autumn to arrive. 

 Since El Nino is starting later this year, climatologists are beginning to make 2026 seems unlikely to become the hottest year.  

The UK Met Office is predicting 2026 will end up as second warmest, behind 2024. Which means it will be slightly warmer than the hot years of 2023 and 2024

Hausfather thinks 2026 will be among the top four hottest on record.

 The year to watch is 2027 when, if trends continue, the unprecedented global heat could turn especially intolerable.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

So why didn't the La Nina we just experienced over the past year or so fail to cool the world down noticeably?

One explanation for the added warming is pollution controls. We've seen news on this before, too. Asian nations, and the shipping industry have cut back on sulfur pollutions. Those environmental laws have removed particles called sulfate aerosols from the atmosphere. 

That allows the sun to shine stronger and brighter, heating the world even more.  

However, as WaPo explains, the missing sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere doesn't  explain all the recent warming.  Neither does natural variability.

Scientists, said they've notice low-lying cloud cover has decreased. Those clouds reflect sunlight. Fewer clouds mean more heat. 

One question is why are the clouds disappearing?  Clouds tend to form around particles. A lack of sulfate in the atmosphere might mean fewer particles for clouds to develop. This could create a feedback loop. Fewer clouds mean more heating. That additional heat makes still fewer clouds form, and it all feeds on itself from there.  

The Washington Post explains the question

"If most of the current record warmth is due to changing amounts of aerosol pollution, the acceleration would stop once aerosol pollutants reach zero - and the planet would return to its previous, slower rate.

But if it's due to a cloud feedback loop, the acceleration is likely to continue - and bring with it worsening heat waves, storms and droughts. 'If there is a strengthening cloud feedback - a positive cloud feedback associated with warming - that's going to persist,' Hausfather said."

The  bottom line is, we're playing with fire. The faster climate change moves, the harder it will be to adapt to it, and the more damage and suffering we'll encounter. 

This should be a sign we ought to double down on reducing fossil fuel emissions, and quickly. Humankind has barely been able to manage the changing climate so far. If things go a lot faster than they are now, god help us.  

After A Springlike Monday, Winter Returns To Vermont

Huge pile of snow an ice at my front door that 
crashed down seconds after Henry the Weather
Dog warned about it. Thawing temperatures
today will continue to sent ice  and snow
sliding from Vermont roofs

I hope you had a chance to go outside yesterday. It was such a relief to go outside without 15 layers of clothes on. Temperature in the 30s felt like hard core spring compared to what we went through this winter. 

And I have to give great kudos and thanks to Henry the Weather Dog.  He's just a little guy.weighing in at 18 pounds. 

We went outside yesterday afternoon to investigate just how warm it was getting.  The two of us were finishing up and were about to go in through the front door  of the house

A tiny piece of ice fell off the roof. Then Henry heard a noise that I didn't notice. He bolted away from the house. Since he was on a leash, he pretty much yanked me away, too. 

 As soon as we were far enough away, the entire roof load of ice and snow crashed down right where we had been standing by the door.

Both of us really could  have been hurt.  Good boy, Henry! 

That's just a reminder that there are still some big piles of snow and ice on roofs that could come crashing down, since it will be above freezing again today. You might not want to stand beneath one of those roof ice dams, or park your car there. 

Now on to the weather. 

TODAY

Henry the Weather Dog spent much of February like'
this, so he was happy for yesterday's warm weather
despite the close call with the snow sliding off the roof

A lot of us had a little wet snow and freezing drizzle this morning. It wasn't amounting to much and it will tend to taper off as we go through the day. I'm sure the weather this morning left some slick spots on untreated roads and sidewalks. It's still that time of year.

It was also mild overnight, which is a nice break on the heating bills. The Champlain Valley stayed in the mid-30s all night while the rest of the state was in the upper 20s for the most part. 

There's no real influx of warm air breezing in, so temperatures should stay in the mid and upper 30s today. A few warmer valleys could hit 40. There won't be much sun today, either.  No complaints here. That's still pretty nice for February.

That will be pretty much it for thawing for awhile. Daily high temperatures for at least the next week after today should mostly be near or below freezing. 

WEDNESDAY QUESTIONS

Frustratingly, forecasters are still struggling with what will happen tomorrow. A narrow band of precipitation will make its way into New England. Precipitation will probably come down at a good clip   for awhile in the midst of that band. Most of it should be snow, too. 

So who gets this slap of winter?   It's only a day before the event but the computer models are still struggling. At the moment, the snow band seems to be leaning toward setting up in southern Vermont.  

An early crack at guessing accumulations would bring three or four inches, maybe even five, to the southern half of Vermont. Central Vermont would get a couple inches and places north of Route 2 would see less than an inch. 

Don't be surprised if those  forecast amounts changes by tomorrow.  There's a chance that today's accumulation forecast turns out to be a complete work of fiction. Wherever this sets up, it'll probably come in right in time for the Wednesday afternoon commute. 

Beyond Wednesday, it looks like we'll stay in a wintry, active pattern. It won't be as cold as the first half of February was, but we're not getting an early spring, either. 

There's a solid chance of more snow Friday night from a mid-sized storm coming through. After that, several storms will pass fairly nearby through the rest of the month and into the opening days of March, but it's too soon to know how or even if they'll affect us here in Vermont.  

If you're tired of the snow in your yard, too bad. It's going to be there for awhile. 

Death Valley Strangely About To Become A Flowery Paradise

Death Valley, California looked anything
but dead in this photo of the last super
 bloom in 2016. It looks like Death
Valley is on the verge of a new 
super bloom.  Photo from Wildlife
Trekking/Facebook.

Work with me here, but I really wish I was in Death Valley now.

I know, I know . Why would I want to go to a ridiculously hot place that's barren, sandy, rocky and sometimes dangerous? 

The reason to go is a relatively rare super bloom of flowers that is just beginning to blossom into desert gorgeousness.    Since my big perennial beds in Vermont are buried beneath a foot of snow and are frozen rock solid, you can understand my reasoning. I desperately need winter flower therapy. 

Death Valley super blooms come maybe once in a decade. Park rangers there say there was one in 2016 and another in 2005. It was a pretty good flower year in 2024, but last year was pretty colorless amid drought and early season heat. 

Though a few flowers and interesting plants sprouts every year in February and March, this year's Death Valley Dream looks like it might be spectacular.  

To be Captain Obvious, Death Valley doesn't get a lot of rain. To get a super bloom, you need some heavy showers that come just at the right time.    The best time for that is late autumn or very early winter. 

This past November was soggy by Death Valley standards. They got 1.76 inches of rain, compared to normal of just 0.10. 

Next, you need warm weather. Temperatures have been above normal in the region over much of the winter. 

A cool spell is moving in to Death Valley, but it won't be enough to harm any plants. Plus, some more showers are likely daily today through Tuesday night. 

After this latest bout of rain, temperatures look like they'll start to warm up again in the desert, with temperatures maybe reaching close to 80 in about a week and a half. 

So it looks good. 

Super blooms go fast, as the desert designs plants so that they quickly sprout from seeds, produce flowers, then convert those flowers to a lot more seeds for next time. This will all happen well before summer, for good reason, Death Valley is the hottest place on earth. Summertime temperatures regularly go into the 110s and 120s,   . 

The best time to see the blooms is now through early April.  Wonderful flowers last into May in higher elevations. You can find some great flowers and plants as late as July way up high around 8,000 feet or higher. But who wants to climb a steep desert mountain when the temperatures is higher than the hot chocolate or coffee you're drinking as you read this.

Alas, I won't be going out to Death Valley for this year's super  bloom. But I hope other people do, and post what they see on line for the world to see.

VIDEO

That last Death Valley Super Bloom was in 2016.  Associated Press video walks you through how it looked like. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.

Still Not Much Clarity On Vermont Weather Forecast But Some New Clues Emerging

A big icicle formed on my shed yesterday as the
warming sun of mid-February increasingly fights
against the cold. Today will actually feel rather
springlike but winter isn't done with us yet. 

 If you have plans for this coming Wednesday and Wednesday night in Vermont, we can't help you much with any weather forecasts Those annoying computer weather forecasting models are still arguing amongst themselves. 

Which is odd, since Wednesday is only two days away. More on that in a minute, but if you are more of in the moment type, we've got you covered.

TODAY/TOMORROW

For starters, today will be the most springlike day we've had yet.  Temperatures should get well into the 30s across most valleys, and we should have a fair amount of sun, which feels warmer and stronger now that we're nearly two months past the winter solstice. Winds will be on the light side too,

I get it. A day with a high of 37 degrees isn't exactly full-blown spring. But it's a start after the frigid weather we've had over the past month. 

Any hints of spring are fleeting this time of year, too, and so it goes this time. Yet another weak disturbance should come through later tonight and early tomorrow. As has so often been the case this winter, the system is no big deal, but might have atrocious timing. 

The problem is some light snow showers might switch over to light, patchy freezing drizzle just in time for the Tuesday morning commute. In the case of any kind of freezing rain, it takes only a tiny bit to send your car flying off the road and into a ditch if you're not careful enough.

The tricky thing is this will be patchy and temperatures will be just below freezing. So you'll be cruising along on just wet pavement, then all of a sudden it's ice and the cars and trucks on the Interstate are suddenly doing a literally smashing dance with each other. 

So, slow it down just in case Tuesday morning. 

WEDNESDAY QUESTIONS

We're to the point now in which we can say there will probably be some sort of precipitation in at least part of Vermont Wednesday and Wednesday night.   

Tbat's not very helpful, but that's all we've got for now. 

A storm in the Midwest will be heading in our direction but it will be shearing out on its way east. That means the storm will be pulled and stretched and weakened. And therein lies the forecast questions. 

By the time it gets to New England, it will be a fairly narrow band of snow or mixed precipitation. Colder high pressure from Quebec will on Wednesday try to nose down into New England, while to the south, moisture from the Gulf of Mexico will tried to feed into our weakening storm.

So, will the cold air win out and we get nothing? Or will the warm air win and we end up with a mix? Or, choice #3 favored by our winter sports industry, does this thing just drop a swath of snow right across Vermont.

For now, the best guess is far northern Vermont gets little or no snow, and perhaps far southern Vermont sees a mix with snow in the middle. Whatever happens, this doesn't look like it will be a blockbuster storm. 

But don't hang onto that gift to the ski gods scenario.  We should have a more clear view on this tomorrow. Or at least we'd better, as time is running out. 

After Wednesday, the weather pattern looks really active, so there will be several other chances for snow or a mix between now and early March.  I'm not even going to try and tease those out yet. 

"Frost Quakes" Another Aspect Of Harsh Winter Of '26 Not Seen In Ages

Frost quakes rarely cause damage, but in this recent case
it caused a bulge underneath a Michigan  convenience
store that damaged some of the flooring.   

It's a frigid winter night, and all of a sudden you hear a boom and the house shakes.

An earthquake, right? 

No, not in the traditional sense. People in several places in the eastern United States in recent weeks have experienced what are known as frost quakes. 

The Associated Press explains what these things are: 

"These noises are known as frost quake for cryoseisms, a cold-weather phenomenon that occurs when rain or melted snow in the ground quickly freezes, expanding as it solidifies, when temperatures rapidly fall below freezing. As the ice expands, pressure builds around the surrounding soil, causing it to crash  and make booming sounds and light shaking." 

Frost quakes can damage water mains due the shifting ground. However, most winter water main breaks come because frost shifts the ground without shaking it or making noise. Or water freezes in the water main itself, causing it to burst. 

More ominously, on extremely rare occasions, shifts in the ground can cause gas leaks.

However, frost quakes almost never cause appreciable structural damage, but there was recently such a case.  

 A frost quake in st. Claire Shores, Michigan  was strong enough to cause damage. At a 7-11 store on 11 Mile Road in St. Claire Shores, surveillance video shows a ridge suddenly rising across the floor in the middle of the shop.  An eight-foot long section of floor tile inside the store was destroyed. 

When the deep cold of this winter hit states around the Ohio River Valley, frost quakes were heard and felt across much of  Tennessee and Kentucky.  It usually doesn't get cold enough long enough there to get frost quakes, but this year was different. 

Frost quakes have also been reported in Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and other states this winter.

With a somewhat warmer weather pattern settling in now, more frost quakes are gotten less and less likely, unless you're in the relatively chilly air up near the Canadian border.