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| Water beads up on a clematis in my St. Albans, Vermont garden today after a pre-dawn thunderstorm. The storm only deposited a quarter inch of rain, so drought worries will linger, even as cooler air blows in to Vermont today and tongiht. |
However, across the Northern Hemisphere, this is shaping up to be another climate changed, torrid summer, with many more records sure to fall.
It's only the first half of June, and already, some terrible heat waves have hit disparate places.
We're in for a long, smoky summer. Smoky, because huge wildfires inevitably come with the heat waves and droughts across vast northern and mid-latitude forests.
The hot spell here in Vermont was certainly impressive, bringing us the toastiest readings for so early in the season.
Relief is at hand. Today will be another warm one here in Vermont, but you'll notice the humidity dropping pretty quickly.
As of 6 a.m. dew points in Vermont were still near 70, pretty oppressive. But the dew point in Montreal had already crashed to 55 degrees and in Quebec City the dew point was a refreshing 48 degrees. That's the kind of air that's about to come toward us.
A final band of showers and thunderstorms was working its way southeastward across Vermont at dawn. Some spots got a little needed rain yesterday in southern Vermont and before dawn today in northern areas.
There was actually a flash flood warning in effect in parts of southeastern Vermont for a time Tuesday due to some torrential rains there.
Early this morning, Burlington picked up 0.28 inches of rain, which really isn't much at all, but it was still the wettest day since May 5 - over a month!
There are no signs of more hot weather for at least the next 10 days around here, but that doesn't mean lots of other places will avoid it. Heat is already the story of this young summer
WESTERN "DEATH RIDGE"
The heat is sloshing back to the western United States, where another "death ridge" as I and others call it lately, is going to envelop the Rocky Mountains and Intermountain West. This not-so-scientifically named "death ridge" is an enormous, stubborn northward bulge in the jet stream.
Underneath a summer death ridge, droughts rapidly intensify as temperatures records break under relentless sunshine.
In the Midwest and Great Lakes the heat wave that grabbed at us in New England started last Friday, and with the "death ridge" building, it's going to stay wicked hot in the Intermountain West and Plains.
This dry heat will probably break more record highs out west, and worsen the drought, and the wildfire situation.
I think I mentioned it was 106 degrees the other day in North Dakota, by far a record for so early in the season, so you know that state, often an icebox, is wilting. Since the heat is sloshing back out that way, much of the western and northern Plains are in for an extended period of torrid condition.
Tuesday was the sixth consecutive day over 90 degrees in Minneapolis. They'll have two more hot days to go before temperatures temporarily "cool" into the upper 80s.
In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the 90 degree heat started June 3 and escalated to 101 by June 5. It'll be probably be in the 90s there every day through most of next week except for perhaps a break on Friday.
It's always hot in the Desert Southwest this time of year, but the "death ridge' will really pile things on. Phoenix should get into the mid one hundred teens early next week. Death Valley will have little trouble hitting 120 degrees.
The United States isn't the only place that's broiling.
GLOBAL HOT SPOTS
As in most recent summers, pockets of extremely hot weather are popping up across much of the Northern Hemisphere. This year, it's getting an early start.
Some areas of the Middle East and Central Asia just suffered through the worst heat on record for so early in the season. In the United Arab Emirates it got up to 125.2 degrees, the hottest on record for that nation. It equals the national record set in July, 2017. According to @extremetemps on Twitter, a city in Iran hit 51 C.. In Turkmenistan, it as 46.7 degrees. It was as hot as 44.7 in Uzbekisgan and 43.7 in Tajikistan.
FIRES AND DROUGHT
All this heat is naturally helping fuel wildfires.
There have been periodic forest fire alerts in the north woods of Minnesota for days, and that's expected to continue. A wildfire in Arizona expanded dramatically over the weekend, forcing evacuation in and near the town of Superior.
A bigger concern is the West Coast and Intermountain West, which is in the grips of a severe drought. Wildfire alerts have become a daily occurrence out there, and that's no going to change. Probably for the rest of the summer.
Water shortages are becoming critical in the Southwest. The dry heat expected over the next week or more exacerbates evaporation, and increases the use of water by us humans.
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| Lake Oroville, a reservoir in northern California is almost empty due to drought. Trees on the left are scorched and dead due to a wildfire last year. Photo by Noah Berger/AP |
The Colorado River provides water to 40 million people in seven states. Lake Mead, the reservoir behind the famous Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, is at just 37 percent capacity, says CBS News.
"Since 2000, Lake Mead has dropped 130 feet, about the height of a 13-story building. Islands in the lake that used to be completely submerged are now visible."
By late summer, many areas of California, Nevada and Arizona will have cuts in water allocation for consumers, mostly farmers, due to this mega-drought.
Further north at Lake Oroville in California, the reservoir is only at 39 percent capacity and dropping. This after a winter in which precipitation fell short by over a foot. The dam at Lake Oroville might have to stop generating hydro power later this summer due to the low water level. To underscore the point, trees along much of the lake's shore are scorched and dead, victims of a wildfire last summer.
New wildfires in California are inevitable this summer. They'll start any minute now.
Meanwhile, satellite images caught large wild fires already burning, very early in the season, north of the Arctic Circle in Siberia. California vegetation is ready to explode into flames, and parts of Canada are a tinderbox, too.
And though we are about to start a pretty good stretch of comfortable weather here in Vermont, there's no telling whether we will have even bigger, longer, hotter heat waves than the one we just had once we get into July and August.
The way things are going, that's a real threat.
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