Foreign Media Attacked In China Flood Zone

Severe flooding in China this month. Journalists covering
the disaster have been attacked by people after the communist
government whipped up nationalistic fervor. 

Well, this is alarming.

Western journalists sent to and near Zhengzhou, China to report on extreme flooding there have been attacked and harassed by locals, almost surely egged on by the authoritarian and nationalistic Chinese government. 

The Guardian reports:

"As recovery and rescue efforts continue in Henan province after last week's deadly floods, groups including Reporters Without Borders and the Foreign Correspondents Club of China have condemned recent harassment and threats toward journalists covering the disaster."

Reporters from the BBC, Los Angeles Times, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera, CNN, Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press, among others, have been harassed.

Local Chinese employees of foreign news outlets have also been harassed and doxed.  

The Foreign Correspondents Club of China released a Twitter thread Tuesday detailing examples of the abuse. 

A crew with the Associated Press was stopped and reported to police for filming in a public area. Reporters with Agence France Presse were forced to delete footage by hostile residents. 

Local employees of the news agencies received death threats, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China said. 

Meanwhile, the BBC said the Chinese Communist Party put up social media posts asking citizens to post the whereabouts of BBC  crews covering the flood. Public comments posted to the Communist Party message included death threats against journalists. 

Chinese government minions are doing this because, as usual, there's a truth to power thing going on. Reporters are documenting a lack of preparedness, relief shortfalls and post-disaster relief missteps in China, and the Powers That Be don't like that. 

So, the Chinese Communist Party resorts to whipping up nationalistic sentiment to discourage journalists. The citizens become pawns and do the dirty work of the Communist Party. 

It is always difficult for residents of a disaster zone to deal with the media.  People generally want to tell their stories and journalists are always willing to oblige, But the heavy presence of the media sometimes feels like the rest of the debris: They're in the way and have to be moved. 

This dynamic is usually manageable, but not always in China and other authoritarian regimes. Worse, even many western democracies are becoming more authoritarian and encouraging harassment of journalists. 

This happens even in the United States. You see how the Trump cult often attacks journalists who don't stick to the cult's whackadoodle idea of "reality." Trump kept calling reporters "enemies of the people," after all. Jeesh! 

As climate change accelerates, so too will big weather disasters.  Big disasters tend to both increase political stability and in large segments of the population, increase the appeal of authoritarian governments. 

We talk about feedback loops in climate change.  An example: Arctic ice melts, exposing darker water. Darker water absorbs more of the sun's heat than ice, so the warmth in the Arctic accelerates, melting more ice and on and on. 

What we're seeing in China is perhaps a political dimension of a climate change feedback loop, or at least an example of what we could see more of.

Climate change creates or worsen a disaster.  Governments then try to muzzle the press to hide their own missteps, to deflect the spotlight away from their own disaster or climate change policies. That prevents needed information from getting out, and erodes democracy.  It becomes the new normal, and it feeds on itself, and spreads. 

News organizations and others should really keep up the pressure on China and anyone else who interferes with the media gathering information on disasters, or anything else for that matter.

I would like to see the Biden administration call out China on this as well. 

We can't ignore these abuses.

 

Flood Cleanup Continues S. Vermont; More Rain Due Sunday/Sunday Night

Heavy flood damage to a road in Putney, Vermont Friday.

 It will take weeks in some towns across the southern third of Vermont to fully repair roads, streets and other infrastructure after Thursday night's floods.  

Same is true in adjacent areas of New York and New Hampshire. 

In Vermont the worst damage seemed to be in Manchester, Sandgate and Arlington west of the Green Mountains, and in the Putney area east of the Greens. 

In Manchester, at least three badly damaged roads were still closed late Friday, according to the Bennington Banner.  Several homes and businesses also had flood damage.

An assessment is not complete yet but reports are still coming in. The Manchester Country Club reported flooding on the first floor of its clubhouse.  A burger restaurant in Manchester was closed due to flooding. 

A juror in a Bennington County criminal case had to be excused from duty because her road was washed out, making her unable to make it to court. Plus, the juror's basement was flooded.

The Battenkill River far exceeded flood stage, inundating fields and crops.

In New Hampshire, some residents were evacuated in Marlow when a dam threatened to collapse.  Extensive road damage was reported in Alstead, Goshen and Newport, New Hampshire. 

The southernmost two counties of Vermont have endured one of their wettest months on record. Parts of southern Vermont began the month as being "abnormally dry" according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. That's certainly not true anymore.

Areas of Vermont north of Route 2 keep missing out on most of the rain, so moderate drought continues up there.  Rainfall up there for July will come out to be close to average.

Here in St. Albans, I had a decent storm total of 0.8 inches Thursday night and Friday. However, it appears I got a lucky bullseye from some heavier showers. Rainfall was lighter than that across most of Vermont north of Route 2.

It really is remarkable that southern Vermont has already had two damaging floods this month, while the northern part of the state stays in drought.  

Vermont's hilly landscape makes the state prone to flash floods, but climate change makes the risk higher.  We've always had floods, some of them epic, like those in 1869, 1927 and 1936.  But especially heavy downpours have become more common and more prolific, so we get more destructive days like Thursday and Friday in southern Vermont.

We now almost never get through a year without a flood. In the past quarter century, the only years I can recall without a damaging flood were 2001 and 2020.

The current southern Vermont flood threat might not be quite as we get into the first day of August tomorrow. The next weather system could bring some locally heavier downpours Sunday night. 

Under normal conditions, I wouldn't think the anticipated rains would be heavy enough to cause much of a  flooding risk. But southern Vermont is so wet, and now damaged by repeated rains that have made roadways and such unstable, that downpours Sunday night could cause some additional damage.  It's worth watching. 

At this point, most of next week looks pretty dry, with a fairly low risk of scattered, generally light showers. 

Flash Flood In Southern Vermont; Nearby NY/NH Also Hit

Significant flash flooding last night in southwestern New
Hampshire. Photo from New Hampshire State Police.

 As per usual, southern Vermont got nailed last night, while we in northern Vermont were largely just bystanders.

Flash flood warnings rang out last evening as torrential rains ran in a band from Saratoga and Washington County near the southwest Vermont border, then through the southern third of the Green Mountain State and into New Hampshire.  

This was part of a severe weather outbreak that spun off destructive tornadoes in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  

Up in northern Vermont, relatively little rain fell, as the seemingly permanent drought rolls on.  I've become convinced it will never truly rain up north of Route 2 ever again.  A friend recently gifted me with a lovely cactus plant.  She knows what's up. 

It's not that we stayed completely dry.  Just after I measured about a quarter inch of rain from overnight at my place in St. Albans, Vermont, a brief downpour passed through, adding a bit more. So there's that. I'll take anything I can get at this pont. 

But enough of my whining, as things got serious last night in southwestern Vermont and adjacent New York State in particular.

Flooding in Bellows Falls, Vermont last night. Photo from

Bellows Falls Fire Department via WCAX

It's been very soggy down that way over the past month and some of the storms yesterday dumped over three inches of rain in just a short time in the late afternoon and early evening. Flash flooding hit much of southern Vermont. 

Numerous roads were closed due to flooding around Manchester, Vermont, according to storm reports collected by the National Weather Service office in Albany, New York.  

Arlington, Vermont, where part of Route 313 was closed by flooding, received 3.57 inches of rain poured down.  Westminster reported a whopping five inches of rain. 

Several roads and culverts in Putney were washed out. Part of Interstate 91, both north and southbound, were closed by flooding near Putney for a time early this morning, but the highway is now open. 

In southeastern Vermont, the Saxtons River went from three feet deep to just under 14 feet deep in a couple of hours, almost reaching major flood stage. (Flood stage is 10 feet). 

WCAX-TV is reporting that serious flooding struck Bellows Falls, with waist deep water in some streets.  The Bellows Falls Fire Department pumped water from at least a half dozen home basements. 

Just over the border in New York, several streets and roads in and around Saratoga went under water. What is described as a significant mudslide occurred in Moreau, New York. Some towns in Washington and Saratoga counties in New York received nearly four inches of rain. 

A brief downpour in St. Albans, Vermont this morning. This

was needed rain for northern Vermont, in contrast to southern areas

of the state, which saw flash flooding last evening. 

The torrents in New York and Vermont continued on into New Hampshire, where serious flash flooding was reported around Newport and Goshen, New Hampshire.

Several roads washed out in Alstead, New Hampshire as well. Alstead is just east of Rockingham, Vermont.  

Further south, what appear to be significant tornadoes roared through Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 

 A car dealership in Bensalem, Pennsylvania was ripped apart by one tornado, and a nearby mobile home park was trashed.  At least five people were injured. 

The big blast of "Pre-Autumn" weather is blowing in now, and today will probably be the coldest in Vermont since July 3 at least, when we had another very chilly summer day. 

The showers and quick downpours that are around early this morning will move away by afternoon.  the scattered downpours will be a bit alarming for those trying to clean up after the overnight floods at the southern end of the state, but I don't think they'll be enough to cause renewed flooding.  

We'll be just left this afternoon  gusty, autumnal and mostly to partly cloudy skies. 

It will stay very cool for the season through Monday. The only chance of significant rain in the forecast is Sunday, when there maybe will be a half inch of rain.  Sunday's rain at this point does not look super heavy, but we'll have to watch any embedded thunderstorms with downpours in southern Vermont.  It won't take huge amounts of rain to set off new flooding.  

NOAA's Weather Prediction Center has a marginal risk of flooding in Vermont Sunday, with a zone of a second level "slight risk" in a sliver of southern Vermont. 

We're still thinking temperatures will be back up to fairly close to normal early August levels by the middle of next week. 

Autumn In July Has Started, Will Open August, Too

A beauty of a day Wednesday in Vermont was the start of

a spell of weather I'll call "pre-autumn."  I took this photo

in Georgia, Vermont Wednesday afternoon. 

If you were looking forward to autumn in Vermont, welcome to the season.

At least for now. 

Yeah, it's still the end of July but that well-anticipated summer cold snap of sorts is here, and will intensify tomorrow.  And last at least through the weekend. 

We'll get two shots of rain through this fall preview, but look on the bright side: It's not going to snow. 

To start, Wednesday was gorgeous, wasn't it? We got a reprieve from the hazy, smoky skies we've dealt with lately. We had blue sky, puffy clouds, low humidity and a nice breeze.  Just awesome.  It was cooler than normal, though, so we can consider Wednesday the start of our  "pre-autumn"

This won't be record cold, but it will be quite a change from what we're used to this time of year. Especially since the last several summers have been unusually toasty here in New England. 

To me, these out of season cold snaps look a little like bowling balls cold air rolling down from Canada, at least on upper air maps. 

The first of at least two bowling balls is on its way down now from Canada now. 

The severe thunderstorms from last night in the Midwest will go by well to our south and affect mostly the Mid-Atlantic states.

But these "bowling balls" are vigorous, we'll get our share of showers starting this afternoon and going on into tomorrow morning.  All of us will get some rain - which is still needed in far northern Vermont.  

NOAA's Weather Prediction Center has much of Vermont in a slight risk zone for flash flooding tonight, but I think any flooding will be minor.   Just watch for things like ponding of water on roads later tonight and early Friday. 

Rainfall will range widely, from a quarter inch to maybe an inch, perhaps locally a bit more in towns that get bullseyed by decent downpours.

Tomorrow you'll basically be welcoming October in to help close out July. 

It will be classic fall weather - temperatures will stay in the 60s all day.  Gusty northwest winds will make it feel even cooler.  A rather wet, damp morning will yield to a mostly cloudy afternoon. There will be a few breaks of clouds, but also the risk of light, chilly showers. 

Friday night, many of us will get down into the 40s. The "warm" spots will probably manage to stay at or above 50 degrees.

After a cool, but nice day Saturday, we get another bowling ball of showers Sunday, with temperatures remaining close to September levels through at least Monday. 

The autumn preview now doesn't look like it will last as long as previously thought. By the middle of next week, it might still be slightly cool for the season, but nothing odd for August. By then, daytime temperatures will be in the 75 to 80 degree range. 

So you might want to postpone that leaf peeping excursion for just a bit. Summer isn't quite over yet.

 

Billion Dollar Disasters Continue To Plague U.S. And World

A winter storm and cold snap focused on Texas was one of
eight disasters so far this year that cost more than $1 billion.

 So far this year, the United States has suffered no fewer than eight weather related disasters, each of which cost at least $1 billion, says the National Centers for Environmental Information. 

This continues a trend from last year, when the U.S. seemed to face a continuous string of weather calamities. In 2020, the United States endured 22 billion dollar disasters, the most on record. 

In 2021 the disasters included the big winter storm and freeze across the South and Midwest in February; a couple of outbreaks of severe weather in the East and Southeast during March, and the ongoing drought and wildfires out west.

Texas and Oklahoma seem to be taking the brunt of it. In addition to the February freeze, severe storms, tornadoes and hail twice struck the region in April, each causing more than $1 billion in damage.

The biggest, most expensive disasters tend to be hurricanes, tropical storms and their associated flooding. We really haven't gotten into hurricane season yet, so we can expect more billion dollar disasters in the coming months.

That's especially true since most forecasts call for a busy hurricane season.

There's likely to be additional destructive wild fires in the West between now and November as well. 

There already could be a ninth billion dollar disaster in the making.  There have been repeated severe storms and flash floods over the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States in mid July.  

I have to wonder if the accumulated damage from this barrage of storms will exceed $1 billion.

Billion dollar disasters have been rising in recent years. And yes, that's adjusted for inflation. Part of it is more people are moving to and building in places that are prone to hurricanes, floods and wildfires. Another part of it is climate change.

The inflation-adjusted cost of disasters is rising, too. 

The most expensive year for disasters was 2017, which cost about $330 billion. That was the year of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which were the big drivers of that cost.

For the world as a whole, there have been 18 billion dollar disasters so far this year, through the end of June.  Four of those disasters were in June, the last month complete data is available. Those consisted of two outbreaks of severe thunderstorms, tornadoes and hail in central Europe, monsoon flooding in China and a drought in Brazil, according to the insurance experts at Aon. 

This list doesn't include the recent catastrophic floods in Germany and surrounding nations, which have already been estimated to have cost well over $1 billion. It also doesn't include last week's equally catastrophic flood in Jhengzhou, China, which also looks like a $1 billion disaster candidate. 

Smoke And Haze Lingers For A Bit Longer

Burlington, Vermont "haze cam" this morning. It's a little 
better than yesterday, but you still can't see the Adirondacks
because of the smoke in the air. 

 UPDATE: Shortly after I posted this, the Air Quality Alert was lifted in Vermont a few hours earlier than planned. It's still smoky and hazy, but the gunk is not thick enough to create a major health concern

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Air quality alerts remained in effect this morning in Vermont and most of the rest of New England as a stubborn cloud of smoke from Canadian wildfires lingered over the region.

Some relief from a cold front bringing in air from a not burning section of Quebec MIGHT help later today. The smoke will always be close enough to return or resurge for the foreseeable future.  

The smoke will either come from Canada, or the western United States. Who knows? There might even be a touch of it from Siberia.

For the next week at least, we'll be under an air flow from the northwest. So during that time, we'll blame Canada. At least for the smoke and their wildfires. 

 On some days over the next week, our air will come from further north in Canada, which isn't really smoky, so the atmosphere will be pretty clean. Sometimes the air will come from a little further south in Canada, picking up smoke from large wildfires near the eastern end of Lake Winnipeg. 

As of Monday, at least 128 wildfires were burning in Manitoba, so you know the supply of smoke from that region will continue.  That's not even including the smoke from fires in the western United States that is also drifting east across North America.

The air had already improved somewhat overnight, at least temporarily. On Monday, amid the thick haze, the air quality index was above 150, which is considered unhealthy. This morning, it was in the 50 to 100 range, which is called "moderate." In other words, not great, but not a disaster, either. 

The amount of smoke and haze in the air will continue to wax and wane today, but forecasts call for a general decline. This will be aided by that cold front from Quebec.  Scattered rain showers along and ahead of the front will wash some of the soot from the air, and suppress the smoke from Manitoba to our south and west, at least for awhile. 

The air quality alert is currently scheduled to expire at 1 p.m. today. 

There might be some strong thunderstorms with this in southern Vermont, with the best chance of that happening along and south of Route 4 in the late afternoon or early evening.

Further north, there could be showers today, but no biggie, really. 

Showers and thunderstorms are always a part of summer. We love summer rains when they do hit. It seems like smoke is now a part of summer, too.  And will be as climate change worsens.

This is not the summers we long for. 

The Smoke Is Back; Then It Gets Really Chilly For July/August

A small thunderstorm erupts amid smoky haze last evening
looking east from St. Albans, Vermont. The smoke is even
thicker today, prompting air quality worries.

UPDATE: 10:35 a.m:

As expected, an Air Quality Alert is now in effect for the northern half of Vermont due to all that wildfire smoke in the air. 

Southern Vermont isn't in the alert, but they are borderline, just short of the levels needed to trigger the alert.

No guarantees, but it looks like the air quality MIGHT slowly start to improve later in the day.

The Air Quality Alert is in effect until 11 pm. tonight

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION: Once again today, we'll be breathing air that isn't really all that great for you today here in Vermont and the rest of New England. 

Another batch of wildfire smoke has descended upon us, and it's about as bad as the last outbreak nearly a week ago that prompted air quality alerts.

Chances are they'll issue another such alert today.  The National Weather Service in South Burlington say they'll be coordinating with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation later this morning to make that determination.

Already, at dawn, the air quality index was nearing 150.  That's unhealthy for sensitive groups. Anything at or above 151 is unhealthy for everyone. 

It was quite hazy early this morning at dawn, and I got a couple whiffs of smoke in the air once again here in St. Albans.  If anything the smoke and haze could thicken up a little more by this afternoon. 

The air should start to improve by tomorrow, as the wind takes on a more northwesterly flow.  That will introduce us to, well, basically autumn.  Or at least a preview of it. I know, already, right?!?!

Another "heat dome" is setting up in the western and central United States.  This ridge of hot high pressure will keep things sweltering for most of the western two thirds of the United States.

The WCAX web cam showed  thick haze and smoke in 
Rutland, Vermont this morning. Smoke from Canadian
wild fires is causing air pollution concerns in Vermont today.

This heat dome is pushing the jet stream northward well into Canada in the middle of the continent. 

That in turn, will be making that same jet stream curve southward through Ontario, Quebec and down into New England.  

The result will be frequent cold fronts, and shots of chilly Canadian air. Each front will be accompanied by showers, but since the air source is kind of dry, each shot of rain won't amount to all that much. 

It should be at least 80 degrees by day this time of year and near 60 at night.  We have a long period of time coming up that will be colder than that, at times much chillier than those normal summertime readings. 

After some possible 80 degree readings today, and maybe in the southern parts of Vermont tomorrow, daytimes will stay in the 70s or even cooler than that at least through next Sunday and probably beyond. 

Nights will be cool, too, getting down into the 40s and 50s every day. If there are any clear, calm nights thrown into the mix, I wouldn't be surprised to see a couple 30s show up in the coldest hollows.

We think of cool summer weather as featuring clean Canadian air, but that won't necessarily be the case. Despite the air flow from Canada, there will still be bouts of haze and wildfire smoke here in Vermont over the next week because of wildfires burning in parts of central Canada. 

Vermont Weather Running A Month Ahead of Schedule This Year. Also: Rain, Smoke, Cool Air

One of my gardens in St. Albans, Vermont already has that
"end of summer" feel to it, a month ahead of schedule. Look
closely and you can already see a few fallen autumn
leaves in the grass.

 A not so exciting rainfall passed through Vermont early this morning, to the delight of people north of Route 2 still mired in drought, to the annoyance of those in soggy areas south of Route 4 and to the "meh" of those in between. 

Northern areas got about a quarter inch of rain, with amounts trending closer to a half inch across central Vermont. 

What strikes me about the current weather, and the forecast, is how it feels like the end of summer, rather than the middle of it. 

The peak of summer's heat on average hits around the second or third week in July, about a month after the Summer Solstice. From here on out, it's downhill.  Slowly at first, then it picks up momentum as we go through autumn toward winter. 

The schedule this year seems off, though. 

The Vermont weather of 2021 keeps seeming to be ahead of itself by a month. Back in March, I had April crocuses blooming.  In April. leaves on the trees started popping open, like they usually do in May.  Once we got to May, we had some June-style early season heat and drought. 

June this year was more like July in Vermont, as the season's heat peaked a month early.  July has been like August in a way, as it has cooled off from those July heights. 

It actually feels like the end of August now.  In the Champlain Valley this morning, wind gusts have been up to 30 mph or more. That kind of weather is common as we get into September but not so much now. 

At or slightly below normal temperatures will give way to even cooler temperatures later in the week.  The second half of the week will feature highs only in the low 70s and nighttime temperatures in the 50s.  It'll be kind of like Vermont's County Fair season that hits in early September.

That time of year is also around peak fire season out west, but already, we've seen smoke from early season fires out there. And we will again. There's some smoke in the atmosphere today.  Forecasts call for it to temporarily worsen tomorrow, and we might be facing new air quality alerts, like we did this past Tuesday.  

The cool trend is forecast to carry into the first week of August. 

Of course, we don't know how long or even whether this "month ahead of schedule" trend will continue here in Vermont.   Strong summer heat could well establish itself once again later in August or early September. 

But for now, the weather has sort of a back to school and watch out for fall foliage and carnival type of vibe.  Maybe it's just me getting ahead of myself.  I'm certainly am not anxious for summer to end. 

A (Relatively) Cool Vermont July About To Get A Little Cooler

Probably the most gorgeous evening of the summer so far in

Vermont on Friday had me tendng the tomatoes while enjoying

the blue skies and comfortable temperatures. 

 Heat waves have been plaguing many parts of the nation, and for that matter the world this month, but here in New England, we're escaping the torrid conditions.  

At home in Vermont, it's been a front loaded summer. Unseasonable heat in May, a blast furnace June. Then a July that, let's just say will not be all that painful in the air conditioning bill department. 

After experiencing nine days of 90 degree heat by June 30, Burlington will have a July without a single day reaching that 90 degree level. 

This month will NOT come close to becoming one of the coolest Julys on record, but it will be the nippiest since 2009.  

A persistent weather pattern has given New England this refreshing turn of midsummer weather. A hot ridge of high pressure through a deep layer of the atmosphere has parked over the western half of the United States.   It's been hot out in that part of the nation, and it will continue to be that way through the end of the month.

Back here in Vermont, it's also been awfully cloudy for July, but when the skies manage to clear, it becomes gorgeous.  It's warm enough to enjoy all those traditional summer outdoor things, like beaches and pool parties, but cool enough not to drop dead from the heat hiking, out in the garden or out on the golf course. 

Yesterday was a case in point. 

The cloudy nature of the month is driving the relative coolness at least as much as the generally northwesterly air flow we've experienced. The clouds have been holding daytime temperatures down, while keeping nighttime lows balmy, relatively speaking. 

In Burlington, the average low temperature so far this month is 62 degrees, which is close to the "new normal."  Remember, normal is different now because it takes into account the climate driven heat of the past 20 years. 

The average daytime high so far this month is 77.4 degrees, which is quite a bit cooler than "normal." 

If anything the cool nature of the month will intensify around here later next week as the northwesterly air flow from Canada becomes even more pronounced.

This, unfortunately for northern Vermont, is a fairly dry regime, so it won't rain much after Sunday.  Southern Vermont kinda needs a break from the rain anyway. 

The way this month has turned out in Vermont is quite the opposite of most long range forecasts I'd seen in the spring, which called for a hot summer. 

It's unclear how August will turn out as a whole, but early indications are the first part of next month will also be on the cool side. 

Extreme Flooding, Storms Keep Popping Up

Extreme flooding in Zhenghou, China this week.

 Massive storms and flooding keep popping up in various parts of the world as extreme weather events become the new normal.  After the cataclysmic flooding in Germany, new big water disasters occurred this week in China, and to a somewhat lesser extent, Turkey and Arizona. 

CHINA

Enormous floods in China this week killed at least two dozen people, mostly in Henan province, In that regions capital, Zhengzhou,   The amount of rain that normally falls over the course of a year came in just three days, the BBC reports.  

Two feet of rain fell there just on Tuesday, which is the same amount as Zhengzhou's normal rainfall for an entire year. Eight inches of that coming within just one hour.  

According to meteorologist Minghao Zhou on Twitter, it's a record for any of the 2,400 reporting stations in China, and might be a world record for the most intense downpour in a city of more than 10 million. Zhengzhou is home to about 12 million. 

This is another case of extreme weather this year far exceeding previous records. Happening a lot, isn't it?

 The inevitable result was a catastrophic flood that sent deep water through most of the city.   There's harrowing video circulating on social media of subway passengers in Zhengzhou trapped in chest and neck deep water inside rail cars. 

Twelve people died in the subways and stations, though another 1,000 or so were rescued from train cars and underground stations, according to The Guardian. 

As the Guardian notes, China has pretty bad flooding every summer, but rapid urbanization, paving over farmland and climate change have all conspired to create a worsening, deadlier trend in the nations' flooding issues. 

TURKEY

Extreme flooding also hit the Black Sea region of Turkey over the past week or so, causing at least six deaths. Video showed deep rushing water swirling around high rise buildings and cars bouncing along in the rapids. Other video showed houses toppling into raging rivers. 

Floods are common in this part of Turkey in the summer, but again, these were much worse than usual. 

NEW ZEALAND

Parts of New Zealand have also been afflicted by record setting floods this month. Rivers in the Marlborough region of the nation hit record crests after nearly a foot of rain fell over two days last week. 

Hundreds of people were evacuated from the floodwaters.  New flood control walls and dikes did help prevent damage in some areas along the flooded rivers. 

ARIZONA

Flash flooding is also common in Arizona in mid to late summer, as monsoon moisture flows into the state, setting off intense desert thunderstorms. 

The state was looking forward to this year's monsoon season, as the area was deep in severe drought and monsoons in recent summers have been lackluster at best.  

Now, Arizona is getting too much of a good thing. 

Deep in drought, Arizona welcomed a more robust monsoon season this month which has dumped rain on the parched state. But suddenly, parts of Arizona are getting too much of a good thing. 

Flash flooding has really become a serious issue out there. You might have seen the video of the Prius being swept away in a dramatic Flagstaff, Arizona flash flood last week, for instance. The city of Flagstaff has declared a state of emergency because of the flooding. 

It's going to get worse today. NOAA's Weather Prediction Center says there's so much moisture pooling in Arizona that rainfall rates could reach two to four inches per hour in the worst thunderstorms.  This would cause some pretty extreme flash flooding in a part of the nation where an inch of rain can set off pretty big floods and debris flows.

A weather disturbance moving westward from Texas will help intensify today's desert rains. 

The flash floods that have already hit the Flagstaff area were made much worse by debris flows from areas hit by flooding. 

Today, the areas at biggest risk are in and near where large wildfires burned this year and last. Massive debris flows are likely. 

Floods have always occurred and will always occur.  But in general, they're generally worse than in the past because of climate change. 

Warmer air can hold more moisture. That means, if other factors come together to produce storms, chances are the rainfall rates will be higher than if climate change were not a factor. 

For us Vermonters watching all this bad news, at least we have nothing exciting coming up in the next few days.  It might rain, especially Saturday night and maybe Sunday, but no flooding is in the forecast.

 

 

A "Yoda Storm" Viewed From Maryland

A giant, distant "Yoda Cloud" looms over Interstate
70 near Frederick, Maryland last Friday. 
Photo by Laura Stark 

 Summer skies tend to be more interesting in the summer than in the winter, which is why watching the clouds go by is such a iconic seasonal activity. 

The most relaxing way to do that is to lay down in a field and watch the clouds go by, and decide which cloud looks like what person, place, or thing. 

But doing anything else in the summer can yield fun results too, if you think to look at the sky from time to time. 

Which yields, at least for me, this excellent and entertaining photo by dear friend Laura Stark. The pic was taken last Friday evening along Interstate 70 near Frederick, Maryland.  It's the Yoda cloud. 

For the three people in the world who have no idea who Yoda is, well. Yoda is of course from Star Wars, small in stature but incredibly wise and powerful.  

To be honest, though the cloud resembles Yoda, I'm not sure how much it has in common with the Star Wars character. 

The cloud is a a cumulonimbus. It's an isolated thunderstorm off in the distance. They can be seen from long distances away.  This one is likely 60 or more miles away.

It's hard to tell from the photo, but the uppermost part of it might be an overshooting top.  The Yoda cloud's "ears" are probably the anvil top of the thunderstorm, and the top of its head could be an overshooting top, a powerful updraft that pushed above what had earlier been the uppermost ceiling for the thunderstorm to grow up to.

Thunderstorms with overshooting tops are very often severe, so this one might have been. I can't figure out exactly where it was located at the time Laura snapped the photo. Severe thunderstorm reports came in that evening from northern West Virginia and southeastern Pennsylvania, so this "Yoda" storm might have been one of those. 

I don't know if the Yoda thunderstorm was wise or not, but it was almost certainly powerful.

If you have photos of fun and/or interesting clouds, send them my way.  If you want a dose of deep weather geekdom, let me know if you want me to analyze them, like I did for the now-famous Great Frederick, Maryland Distant Yoda Storm of '21.  

Vermont Smoke Gone; Will It Come Back?

No view of Lake Champlain from St. Albans Hill in 
Vermont due to thick wildfire haze. 

 The air was much cleaner Wednesday in Vermont than it was Tuesday, when air quality alerts were up for the state.  

That was due to the wildfire smoke that drifted in from western wildfires. Air from clean northern and central Quebec is sweeping into Vermont, as I noted this morning, so it will be better, at least for awhile.

The smoke will be back, though! Once winds shift to more of a westerly direction, probably by the weekend, at least some haze will return. 

More than likely, it will be aloft more than it was yesterday, so we'll have hazy skies but not so much of a health threat. 

There's always the possibility that we could have days with air pollution at alarming levels, though. 

This state of affairs will go on well into the autumn, when winter rains and snows finally extinguish the worst of the fires. 

Here's a brief video of what it looked like in northern Vermont amid the smoke Tuesday.  Blogger has trouble displaying videos on mobile devices, so if you can't see it click on this hyperlink.

Video below. Click on the arrow then the YouTube logo for best viewing

Statewide Line Of Severe Storms Tuesday, But At Least The Smoke (Temporarily) Cleared

Interesting visible satellite view of the Northeast U.S.
and southeast Canada this morning. You can see
the milky tone of the thick smoke in the Mid-Atlantic
states that affected Vermont Tuessday. There's clouds
over Vermont/northern New York and clear, smoke-
free air in Quebec the cleaner air is headed 
in our direction. 
Vermont Tuesday

 It's actually kind of rare that the entire state of Vermont goes under a series of severe thunderstorm warnings for a single line of storms, but we accomplished that last evening. 

Everybody from Alburgh to Vernon got a good thunderstorm out of this.  Not everyone had severe, damaging storms, but reports of high winds and flooding came from all corners of Vermont with this. 

On the bright side, everybody got beneficial rain out of it, though southern Vermont at this point doesn't really need the rain.  

The storms also temporarily dramatically improved air quality, as the rain washed the dense wildfire smoke that had been hanging in the air, prompting air quality alerts.

Fancy pants meteorologists would define what went through Vermont last evening as a quasi-linear convective system or QLCS.   A QLCS is a particular type of squall line ahead of a cold front, and they can be pretty nasty. 

For our purposes, we'll just call it a line of thunderstorms, or a squall line. It originated way up in central Ontario, Canada during the late morning and made its way southeastward into northwestern New York in the afternoon and into and across Vermont in the evening. The line of damaging storms made its way all the way across southern and central New Hampshire to the coast.

Parts of this squall line had some pretty intense lightning. I have to wonder if the smoke particles in the atmosphere encouraged some of that. 

While there was tree and wire damage reported in spots across Vermont, it appears two of the hardest hit areas were around Burlington, and around Orange County in eastern Vermont. 

In Burlington, more than an inch of rain fell in less than an hour, flooding streets. The city reported a total of 1.24 inches of rain yesterday. Right around an inch of rain fell on my St. Albans, Vermont property. Not exactly record breaking, but it was still the wettest day here so far this year. 

A large tree fell on St. Paul Street in Burlington, smushing two vehicles. Another tree fell on Interstate 89 in Burlington. 

It looks like a power outage or wind screwed up automatic weather data at the Burlington International Airport as we still don't know the peak wind gust in the storm there. Hourly Burlington weather observations were still not working on the National Weather Service web site as of 7 a.m. today, but it looks like it was fixed soon after that. 

After the storm, a brighter setting sun as the rain washed
smoke out of the air, and a bit of a rainbow, too. Photo
taken in St. Albans, Vermont 

In Norwich and Thetford  there were reports of many, many trees down, blocking roads. Some power outages lingered in Orange County, Vermont early this morning. 

An area along the squall line near those two towns seems to exhibit some rotation, but it's unknown whether any tornadic activity occurred. 

Yesterday's storms might be the end of the decent rains most of Vermont has been getting lately.  

In northern Vermont this morning, it was murky with fog and drizzle. Showers and a few thundershowers will blossom and be scattered about this afternoon, but no severe weather is forecast. 

North winds over the next couple of days is bringing much cleaner air in from northern Quebec. At least for now, air pollution from western wildfires shouldn't be nearly as much of a problem as it was on Tuesday. 

We'll go into a northwesterly flow for the next week or more. That means frequent quick moving weather systems will come through, each of them with their own batch of showers and storms. But they won't have all that much moisture to work with, so any showers will be quick hitting and not amount to all that much in this upcoming weather pattern.

Update: Yucky Vermont Day: Air Pollution Alert and Severe Thunderstorm Possibilities

A very hazy "view" of St. Albans, Vermont this afternoon.
An air quality alert is in effect for all of the state due
to wildfire smoke coming in from Canada and the the 
western United States.

 An update from this morning's smoky post.

The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources as of this afternoon as issued an air quality alert for all of Vermont. A similar alert is up for all of New York State. 

That smoke is really hindering visibility and creating a hazardous amount of fine particulate matter in the air.

The air is nasty because of wildfire smoke drifting in from massive blazes in Canada and the western United States.

The murky air is, as the ANR puts it, "unhealthy for sensitive groups." They explain:

"Children and older adults, as well as people with heart or lung disease, should reduce prolonged or heavy exercise. Exposure to fine particles such as wood smoke can increase the likelihood of respiratory symptoms in sensitive individuals and aggravate heart or lung disease."

For those of us who are healthy, I'd avoid a lot of outdoor exercise anyway.  The air is not bad enough to make robust people keel over, that's for sure. But the smoke isn't good for you, anyway. 

The air quality index goes from a scale of good, with 0-50; moderate, 50-100; unhealthy for sensitive groups, 101-150 and just plain unhealthy for everyone, above 150.

The air quality in Burlington was at 141 early this afternoon and there were similar readings elsewhere in the state. So we're flirting with unhealthy for everybody. 

There's also a couple worse levels of air quality, including "hazardous" above 300. It won't get that bad, so I guess that's good?

It's also depressing. People come to the Green Mountain State, and we live here because, well, we enjoy looking at the Green Mountains. They're pretty much invisible in this smoke today. 

Large areas of the U.S. including Vermont, are under 
air quality alerts (gray areas) due to wildfire smoke
from western North America.

It's not just us. Air quality alerts are also up for much of the Northeast, and most if Wisconsin and Minnesota due to all this smoke. 

Back here in Vermont, there's still a good chance of developing showers and thunderstorms later this afternoon and this evening. 

Some questions exist as to whether the smoke that's partly blocking the sun will tamp down on instability,and thus the intensity of the storms. 

So far, they're developing despite the haze. 

Just as I was writing this, a severe thunderstorm watch was issued for all of Vermont. One area of concerning storms is up in Ontario, headed this way. There have been reports of extreme wind damage west of Ottawa. 

They could well remain damaging and severe as they cross the border into New York and Vermont later this afternoon and evening. 

A separate cluster of strong storms was headed into southwestern Vermont as of 3 p.m. More storms could develop elsewhere later.    A few might have damaging wind gusts. This won't be a widespread severe weather event, but a few places could get nailed. 

The good thing about these storms, if they develop, is they could wash some of the smoke out of the air, thereby improving air quality. 

 

Smoke From Wildfires Chokes Much Of Nation, Including Vermont

Much of the nation, especially areas in red, have smoky,
hazy skies today due to smoke from western forest fires.

 As I expected all along, waves of smoke and haze have been crossing the nation due to wildfires in the western United States and Canada.

Sometimes, the haze and smoke will get thicker, and this is one of those times. 

The air quality noticeably worsened yesterday in much of the Northeast and southeastern Canada as a wave of smoke came through. 

Here in St. Albans, Vermont, what would have been a pleasant summer evening of watching thunderheads majestically rise over the mountains was ruined by the haze obstructing visibility. Unfortunately, wrecking visibility is not the worst aspect of these episodes.  There's a bit of a health concern as well

Sometimes in these episodes, almost all the smoke goes high overhead, giving us a hazy sun but no real health concerns, at least locally. Other times, some of the smoke is at or near the surface. This is one of those times. 

An evening thunderhead rising in the sky is barely visible
through the smoke last evening as seen from St. Albans, Vermont.

You can tell just by going outside. Last evening, the usual organic aroma of a mid-summer evening outside my house had an added ingredient - a whiff of smoke.  I can smell it a bit this morning, too. 

Visibility is down to a few miles in the haze this morning, and that state of affairs will probably continue all day.  Air quality is not great, that's for sure. 

So far, Vermont health officials have not declared any air quality alerts as of this writing at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday. But there were already pockets of Vermont where the air was considered "unhealthy for sensitive groups." 

To be on the safe side, I wouldn't exactly go outside and run a marathon today. You won't keel over if you do, as long as you're healthy to begin with. But it's probably not the most fantastic idea to breathe in all those tiny particulates from the smoke that will lodge in your lungs. 

Local  conditions can vary in these situations as well. Up in Montreal, Environment Canada has the air quality at a rather high risk.  There is actually a smog warning for poor air quality today in Montreal and much of the rest of Quebec.

We'll have to get used to hazy skies more often than not for the rest of the summer and much of the autumn, since the air usually comes generally from the west, where most of the fires are.  With climate change, huge western fires have become the new normal. Which means smoky haze across much of the nation is also the new normal. 

Luckily, most of the time, almost all the smoke is high overhead, so air quality for us breathing down here on terra firma don't have to worry too much about health effects. 

This time, however, a fair amount of smoke is near ground level. This will happen from time to time. This won't be the last occasion we have to deal with breathing smoke from distant fires.

Some showers, and possibly a couple of strong thunderstorms later today and this evening will probably help wash some of this pollution out of the air to make things improve at least somewhat overnight. 

Flooding Near And Afar Rages On

Flooding wiped out this section of road in West

Brattleboro, Vermont over the weekend. The occupants

of the car escaped with no serious injuries

Photo by Charles Kier/Brattleboro Fire Department

Flooding remains in the news, big time in Europe and to a somewhat smaller extent here in New England 

It's still raining hard in parts of Europe, terrible news for an area reeling from some of the worst flooding on record.  

At last check the death toll had risen to at least 188.

One German weather station got six inches of rain within 24 hours, obliterating a previous record for 24-hour rainfall, which had been 3.75 inches.

Renewed flooding in Europe spread to southern Germany and Austria over the weekend. 

Meanwhile, here in New England, people are beginning to clean up after areas of flooding in parts of New England.

A band of especially heavy rain moved through central Massachusetts into southwestern New Hampshire. This torrential area of rain clipped the southeastern corner of  Vermont.

At least one road was washed out and others were damaged by weekend flooding down in Brattleboro.  At one flood site, a car was caught in the flooding and collapsing roadway, but the occupants escaped. 

Reports also came in of flooded basements and streets in downtown Brattleboro. Up to five inches of rain fell on parts of southwestern New Hampshire.

In Vermont, outside the southeastern corner of Vermont, the rain was beneficial, dumping a good one to two inches of soaking water into areas that were still relatively dry.  The exception was along the Canadian border, where rainfall was quite light and did virtually nothing to dent drought conditions there. 

Scattered showers are in the forecast for the next couple of days in Vermont, but nothing heavy is on the horizon. Temperatures will stay mostly near or cooler than normal in the Green Mountain State, probably for the rest of the month. 

Beneficial Downpours For All Of Vermont Except For Part That Most Needs It

My St. Albans, Vermont gardens looked nice and wet this
morning, but looks are deceiving. Areas near the Canadian
border missed out on most of the beneficial rains. Run your
hands under the thickest foliage, and the soil is still
 dusty. Just 0.1 inches of rain as of 8 a.m. compared to 
1.2 inches just 30 miles south in Burlington.

 Everyone in Vermont was lucky enough overnight to get a soaking, long lasting drenching rain to ease the drought.  

Everyone, that is, except the one part of the state that needed the rain - areas closest to the Canadian border. From my perch in St. Albans - pretty much within sight of Canada - it feels like the drought is permanent. 

As of 7 a.m., Burlington had so far received a nice 1.22 inches of rain. Montpelier was close behind at 1.16 inches.  

I don't have widespread precipitation data yet, but Plattsburgh, New York had received just .0.34 inches of rain and it rapidly tapered off as you head into Franklin County, Vermont.

As of 8 a.m, my very unofficial rain gauge had collected just 0.1 inches of rain.  A little more might fall today, but not much. 

For those of you who want a classic mid-summer hot Sunday, you will be disappointed. Anybody that's still getting a soaking rain this morning will see it diminish into occasional light rain and showers.  A thick overcast, low clouds and fog will linger all day, and temperatures will be well below normal for the season. We'll be lucky to hit 70 degrees.

Plus, a little more rain is due through Wednesday, but really, not all that much. 

I'm not sure why this is happening, why there is such a block on rain along the Canadian border.

I can better explain why most of the Northeast has had such heavy rain this month.  A trough of low pressure seems to have persisted in the Midwest/Great Lakes region.  That, and the Bermuda High off the East Coast, keeps pumping tropical air northward.

That air interacts with weak, nearly stalled weather fronts, and the downpours roar on.

On paper, this weather pattern should have hit the areas of Vermont north of Route 2, too. We should have had plenty of rain.  

As I mentioned a few days ago, there always seems to be a reason why the rain avoids that part of the state. But there's no consistent explanation I can think of.  Maybe somebody smarter than me can provide a Grand Unifying Theory as to why it no longer really rains near the Canadian border?

The weather pattern that brought the record rain to the Northeast shows signs of shifting to a cool, but dry one.  That means the drought will go on, and probably worsen in far northern Vermont, while the rest of the Green Mountain State enjoys the fruits of a wet first half of July. 

At least we didn't get all the flooding that southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic states endure. 

 

Quick Update: Wet Vermont Weekend; Soggiest South Of Course

Large areas of the nation (green, yellow and red) have at

least some risk of flash flooding over the next 24 hours.

The yellow, and especially red zones, have the 

highest risk of flooding.

 It's really been a cloudy July for Vermont, even if rain has been uneven, as I noted in yesterday's post. 

True to form, we have another cloudy weekend, as you might have guessed by looking out your window this morning.  Don't expect a lot of sun.  

Do expect a lot of rain if you live in the southern half of Vermont.  Once again, true to form, if you're up near the border with Quebec, it's going to rain, you just won't get huge amounts. But it should be enough to help at least a little.

Further south, in New York below Albany, also western sections of that state, the New York City metro area, southern New England and parts of the Mid-Atlantic States, the weather this weekend will be downright dangerous in spots.

Yet again, that's true to form for this month, as those areas have all been plagued by severe thunderstorms and flash flooding all this month. 

Yesterday's cold front has stalled a little to Vermont's south, and little storms are rippling west to east along it.  

For those north of the front, like us in Vermont, this just means overcast skies, and a  steady rain, especially tonight.   Though the rain might come down fairly hard at time overnight from Route 2 south, it likely won't be enough to threaten us with flooding.

Downpours might be a little more intense near the Massachusetts border, so flood watches are up between Bennington and Brattleboro.

The National Weather Service in Burlington predicts somewhere between a half and two thirds of an inch up along the Canadian border over the weekend, to over two inches near Brattleboro and the mountains to their west. 

Sunday won't be a great day either, by the way. Of course, the day I'm planning an outdoor party at my house. At least the northern Vermont rain shield might help.  The rain will be first to taper off in my neck of the woods, so I'm hoping the steady rain will end during the morning. That would leave me with manageable overcast skies and just light sprinkles.

Most of the rest of the state can expect a rainy, dreary day, especially the further south and east you go.

As noted above, things look dreadful further south. NOAA's Weather Prediction Center has a relatively rare moderate risk zone for flash flooding today in eastern Pennsylvania, the New York City area, southwestern New England and northern New Jersey. 

That means life-threatening flash flooding could easily develop there today and tonight.  We just need to hope they don't have any Germany style calamities out of this. 

Already, this morning. flooding and flash flooding has been reported in western New York, near Buffalo. That heavy rain will only develop further as it heads east 

Additionally, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center says some thunderstorms in eastern Pennsylvania, around NYC and New Jersey today could be severe. Strong, damaging winds are the biggest threat. Since it's been so wet in that region, the soil is soft, so it would be easy for winds to push trees over

Shocking, Extreme German Floods Take Huge Toll

Flood chaos in Liege, Belgium. Photo by Bruno Fahy/Belga/
AFD via Getty Images

As you might have seen on the news, incredible floods have hit Germany and Belgium.

Like many disasters of late, this one is off the charts in terms of extremes. The death toll in Germany stood at at least 100 as of Saturday morning.  In neighboring Belgium, at least 12 people lost their lives to the flooding.  

The death toll is testimony to the suddenness, and extreme power of the flash floods. This was no local cloudburst. 

Germany, as you might well know, is a well-organized nation full of experts with an excellent meteorological bureau and emergency warning system. Still, dozens died

The flash flooding was made worse by the topography of the hardest hit region, which is much like Vermont's.

There are mountains, steep hills, with small streams feeding into creeks and rivers in narrow valleys. As in Vermont, the landscape in North Rhine Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, the hardest hit German regions is very pretty. 

But also like Vermont, the gorgeous mountains, steep hills, with cool clear small streams feeding into creeks and rivers in narrow valleys can turn deadly if there are extreme rains. Think Tropical Storm Irene back in 2011.

The rains in Germany were brutal.  More than seven inches of rain fell in two days in some areas. Normally, it takes a couple months for that much rain to fall in the worst-hit areas.

Up to 1,300 were reported still missing as of Friday morning, but many of those could be people who survived in fairly remote areas where the disaster took down mobile and transmission lines, so they can't be reached. 

Of course, climate change was almost immediately brought into the conversation. According to NPR:

"In response to news footage showing the massive destruction and desperate families perched on rooftops waiting to be rescued on Friday, Environmental Minister Svenja Schulze said that 'Climate change has arrived in Germany.'

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed shock over the flooding and said that action needed to be taken to prevent future catastrophes. 'Only if we take up the fight against climate change decisively, we will be able to prevent extreme weather conditions such as those we are experiencing."

Of course, floods have always occurred in this area of Germany and Belgium.  Maybe the same weather pattern would have developed with devastating floods without the aid of climate change.  

Climate change, though, loads the dice, making heavy rain storms like this more likely and intensifying the rainfall rates in storms that do occur.  I can't draw a straight line between climate change and this European disaster, but the fingerprints of that climate change seem to be all over this one.

Some videos.  Before each one, I'll include the URL because I can't get blogger to display the videos on many mobile devices

First one: URL on this hyperlink then displayed 

If anything, the extreme destruction in this ABC News report are even more stunning:

In one Belgian town, a fire broke out amid the floodwaters, worsening the destruction.

 

A street in Belgium is turned into a river:

  

Northern Vermont Keeps Missing Rain (Continued)

Nice wet, billowing clouds earlier this week in northern 
Vermont, but only brief showers, not the heavy stuff that
has erased drought in southern Vermont. 

 The Northeastern United States is by any definition, soggy.

Many cities are on their way to having the wettest July on record. Here in Vermont, the month's wet pattern extends through the southern half of the state.  

While the pattern is super wet on paper for the north, too, the rain has miraculously avoided that part of the state.  The drought goes on. 

The area that seems to avoid the rain includes northern Vermont, northern New Hampshire, parts of interior Maine and southern Quebec.

Sure, the pattern has allowed for some rain to finally fall in the north. But it's still running a little below normal. Every opportunity for rain this month - and there have been - gets screwed up across the north. 

A weather front doesn't set up close enough. A punch of dry air in the upper atmosphere comes through at the wrong time. A push of maritime air from the Atlantic Ocean comes in just in time to squelch some incoming storms.

Wednesday, the strongest storms and the heaviest rain hit southern Vermont, again, as the best instability stayed mostly south of Route 4. 

The priced the south paid was in the form of locally severe storms, with trees reported down in Wilmington and Vernon.

Drought hangs tough in northern Vermont (orange
shading) as heavy rains that keep hitting most of the 
Northeast steadfastly avoid the north. 

In the north, it was all pretty clouds Wednesday, with  some even prettier sun showers scattered about, but no soaking rains.  It did rain here in St. Albans this week.  A little. We had a half inch of rain over two days. But the ground is still dry, and the rivers and streams have little water in them. 

Thursday was dry, as we know. At least it was a nice summer day. 

Forecasts that look impressive for rain in northern Vermont a few days out don't pan out as the day draws near. 

For instance, earlier this week, it looked as if the front limping through today would give the whole state some serious rains. 

Today's forecast for rain? Yawn. 

Just some quick hit little showers here and there this morning.  A brief burst of rain passed through St. Albans, Vermont as a wrote this at 6:30 a.m today, so yay.

It won't last, as radar indicates, so maybe we'll get a tenth of an inch or so.  I'll take anything, of course, but I would have liked more. Some places in northern Vermont won't even be lucky enough to get a brief shower like I just did.  

Next up,  another super soaker Saturday night in southern Vermont and central and southern New England, with possible renewed flooding. In the north, meh. Maybe it will rain a little. 

These factors that have prevented rains north of Route 2 this  month all seem unrelated, but I have to wonder why it can't and won't really rain in the north, which is now the only part of the region that needs. 

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor, issued Thursday, tells the story. Drought and dry conditions in southern Vermont have eased or gone away altogether. In northern Vermont, the drought hangs tough. 

The drought in northern Vermont, already among the longest on record, appears as if it will go on indefinitely. 

The weather pattern that favors the very wet weather in the Northeast will continue into early next week before trending drier. 

Evening sunshine in St. Albans, Vermont Thursday after
a shower dropped a small amount of rain.

As noted, the next very wet storm for the Northeast will affect all of Vermont Saturday into Sunday morning. 

Current forecasts call for maybe a quarter inch of rain up by the Quebec border, but the way things are going, I bet they'll reduce that expected rainfall by the time the event draws closer.

Central and southern Vermont will get a good drenching - an inch or more. 

But, of course, northern areas will miss out again while the soaking continues south.  Some forecasts give us a good shot of rain in north of Route 2 on Tuesday, but we know what will happen to the forecast by Monday.

Pfft. 

You might remember the song, "It Never Rains In Southern California."  I guess you could also do a sequel, "It Never Rains In Enosburg,"  Or Swanton. Or Norton. Or Lowell. 

I guess you can have fun with those revised lyrics as you watch your well go dry and watch your neighbors down in Boston muck out their flooded basements.