Venice, Italy, Just Had Its Highest Flood Tide On Record. Here's Why It Wasn't News

The huge flood that didn't happen. The first test of a $6 billion
project worked: A near record storm tide in Venice, Italy
did not flood the historic city, for a change.

 Three years ago, the second highest tide on record hit  flood prone Venice, killing two people and flooding 85 percent of Venice, including St. Mark's Basilica.  

That flood was all over the headlines at the time. 

This past week, a similar tide menaced Venice, and I bet even people who closely pay attention to the news never heard about it. 

That's because Venice this time is fine. 

Here's why, according to the Washington Post:

"That's because of a $6 billion engineering project designed to protect Venice from mass flooding and the exhausting cycle of cleanup and recovery. The lagoon city's inlets are now guarded by 78 rectangular metal barrier, each the height of a five-story building, that are pumped with air and raised from the sea floor any time high waters threaten it. 

It's a landmark climate change solution, one requiring 30 years of planning and 20 years of construction, that has reduced fears of Venice turning into a modern-day Atlantis."

Venice has been inundated more frequently as climate change has raised sea levels. That makes high tides even higher, increasing flood problems in this region. Plus, the land in Venice is sinking, exacerbating the problem.

The actual protections around Venice are pretty cool. On most days, the barricades are hidden under water. Ships come and go just fine. During normal high tides without flooding salt water from the Adriatic flushes out the lagoons of Venice, so the water doesn't turn into a gross mass of algae, pollution, dangerous bugs, stink and yuckiness. 

The expensive safeguards clearly worked for Venice last week, but will that last forever?

As the Washington Post reports, the expensive engineering project that prevented a flood in Venice might not last forever. Projections call for a 30 centimeter (about a foot) rise in sea levels by mid-century. 

If that happens, the $6 billion project that project won't work anymore. At least not as well as it did last week. Of course, if emissions are cut dramatically in the next couple of decades, that would buy more time, making the system that protects Venice last a lot longer .

Venice was protected during the storminess of the past week, but not all of Italy was. 

As Al Jazeera reports, at least seven people, including a newborn and two children, were killed on Ischia island, on the south of Italy, as a landslide triggered by torrential rains hit a small town At last report, five people were still missing.

Five inches of rain poured down on the island within six hours.

Not sure if this tragedy was entire related to climate change, but storms are getting more and more extreme as time goes on. So this in consistent with global warming or weirding or whatever you want to call it. 

 

 

As Expected, Vermont Gearing Up For Storm After Tornadoes Trash Parts Of South

Ever the optimist, I'm hoping today's expected strong winds
blow a lot of these leaves off of my St. Albans, Vermont lawn.

 UPDATE, 4 PM

The expected high winds in Vermont were pretty spotty this afternoon, with some areas getting the gusts to near 50 mph, and other areas that had expected a lot of wind to miss out on it.

Not that those places were complaining

A thin inversion a couple thousand feet up prevented high winds from reaching some valley locations. For instance, gusts around Burlington were in the 20 to 30 mph range, which isn't a big deal.

An inversion is a layer of the atmosphere in which temperatures increase with height, rather than decrease, which is the usual state of affairs

The winds several thousand feet up were really screaming, as demonstrated by the 89 mph gusts atop Mount Mansfield and Whiteface Mountain, New York. 

Some mid elevation areas, and other spots mostly on the western side of the Champlain Valley did see some good gusts. Chazy and Plattsburgh Bay had gusts to 51 mph and White's Beach at Grand Isle reported 50 mph. Several other towns had gusts over 45 mph. 

A section of Route 16 in Greensboro was closed for a time by a fallen tree and wires. As of 4 p.m. about 1,400 homes and businesses scattered around Vermont were without power.

Light rain has been moving across Vermont, but a heavier batch of showers was just about to enter the area as the storm's cold front crosses the Adirondacks. Winds will pick up from the west tonight after this batch of rain.

Meanwhile, some tragic news regarding the tornadoes in the South. We now have a report of two deaths, a mother and eight year old son killed when a tornado in Alabama sent a tree crashing into their house. 

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Winds were beginning to ramp up outside my St. Albans, Vermont house before dawn this morning as a rather stormy day starts.  

The wind advisory that had been in effect in far northern and far southern Vermont has been expanded to include the whole state. 

Winds could gust to 50 mph or even a bit more in some areas. As the National Weather Service in South Burlington points out, given the wet ground that will be getting wetter and the relative lack of high winds this autumn so far, we might have a few more trees come down than we'd otherwise see in this situation.

This won't be enough to cause widespread power outages, but a few scattered ones will surely pop up occasionally between now and late Thursday afternoon.

Today, the strongest winds will come through in the late morning, and perhaps early afternoon further east. These winds will be just ahead of a soaking band of rain which will come through with a strong cold front. 

The wind will ease up during this rain, but if any taller clouds can form with this line of showers and rain, these taller clouds could briefly grab some strong winds from aloft and bring them down to the surface.

The rain might be briefly heavy, but won't last all that long in any one spot. That means flooding is not really anything to worry about. 

After the band of rain passes this evening, gusty winds will return tonight, this time from the west. By then the ground will be even wetter, and the wind will be coming from a new direction.  So that could bring down a few more branches and trees, keeping the isolated to scattered power outages going overnight. 

Tomorrow, winds will continue to roar from the west, gusting to 40 mph or even a little more. A second cold front could touch off some snow showers, and even a heavy snow squall here and there.  

Any squalls that do form won't create much snow accumulation, but cause the risk of whiteouts on the road and a sudden turn to icy pavement and dangerous driving conditions. So keep an eye out for that. 

We're in an active weather pattern, so expect another windy, rainy spell on Saturday as a new storm comes through. There won't be as much wind and rain as today's system, but you'll still notice it. 

Yet another storm of rain and/or snow is due on or about Tuesday. 

SOUTHERN TORNADOES

As expected, the storm that's affecting us here in Vermont today spun off several tornadoes in the South yesterday and overnight. 

On the bright side, the tornado outbreak wasn't as bad as it could have been, because it doesn't appear as if any super strong twisters scored any direct hits on population centers. But it was still a rough night in parts of the South.

As of early this morning, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center had 27 preliminary reports of tornadoes in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. 

Live Storms Media's YouTube channel reported four serious injuries from a tornado in Caldwell, Parish, Louisiana. 

Numerous homes were damaged, some destroyed.  More people were reported injured in Montgomery County, Alabama, where homes and a high school were badly damaged.

As of early this morning parts of Mobile, Alabama were under a tornado warning. A few more tornadoes are possible in southern Alabama and southwestern Georgia this morning. 

Some areas also had large hail, with reports of tennis ball-sized stones in Mississippi.

The next two storm systems coming across the nation between now and Tuesday are not expected to produce any widespread severe weather or tornadoes.

Tornadoes To Slam South Today And A Stormy Vermont Wednesday

Last December, a powerful night time tornado slammed into
Mayfield, Kentucky, killing dozens and destroying most of
the town. There's a similar weather set up in Mississippi 
tonight, but we hope any tornadoes that do form 
avoid populated areas.

 The forecasted tornado outbreak in the South I talked about yesterday is still on for later today. Several factors make this dangerous weather scenario even more risky than many other severe storm events.  

Meanwhile, up here in Vermont the same system that will produce the tornadoes in the South today will give us a stormy Wednesday.  Obviously, it won't be anything nearly as dire as in the South, but still worth a notice. More on that in a moment

SOUTHERN STORMS 

The ingredients are still coming together for a severe storm outbreak in the lower Mississippi Valley later today and tonight.  NOAA's Storm Prediction Center is still warning of the risk of at least one or two strong, long lasting tornadoes in this mix.

The target area for storms and tornadoes today seems to be Mississippi and parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, western Alabama and southwestern Tennessee.

Northern Mississippi is really in the bullseye, and that geography makes this a potential deadly set up, if the storms get going as some forecasters fear.

This area of the nation has a lot of poverty and a lot of mobile homes, many of which are pretty substandard. Mobile homes are particularly mobile in high winds. They are dangerous to be in or near during tornadoes. Much more so than a well built conventional home, which offer some protection if people seek shelter in basements or interior closets. 

In the latest map from NOAA's Storm
Prediction Center, an area centered on 
Mississippi is the target zone for a possible
tornado outbreak later today. 

Since a lot of people there are low income, they might not have the media, the weather radar or much ability to receive tornado warnings.  Outdoor sirens are unreliable, as power failures can render them inoperable, or high winds can mask the sound of the sirens. 

Many of the tornadoes that might form later today would come after dark, making them harder to see.  If you receive a tornado warning, you shouldn't wait for a visual cue that one is coming before taking shelter. But human nature being what it is, our brains seem wired to look for danger signals.  

Night time, and the fact there are so many trees in the area blocking views, means people might not be aware of an approaching tornado until it is too late.

I also have to wonder about the storm chasers that seem to be swarming toward Mississippi today. I suppose they might get footage of tornadoes before dark. 

But after dark, the only way you might see or be able to film a tornado is during quick lightning strikes, or in power flashes as the tornado mows down electrical transformers.

With all those trees in the way either obscuring views or blocking escape routes if they fall on roads, and the expected fast forward motion of any potential tornadoes, it will be really easy for a storm chaser to get in serious trouble in and near Mississippi tonight. 

Just sayin' 

VERMONT EFFECTS

To be Captain Obvious here, nope, still no tornadoes expected from this in the Green Mountain State.

We're still in for a rather stormy day, though. Which I suppose is typical of this time of year.

The main time period for the nastiest weather in Vermont will be during the daylight hours and then into the early evening. 

Before the rains arrive in the afternoon,  southerly winds are forecast to really ramp up.  That's especially true in northern Vermont, where a wind advisory is in effect for the day Wednesday.

Gusts there could go over 50 mph.  This could bring down some branches and a few power lines, causing some outages here and there. Plus, if you've put your Christmas decorations out, I hope they are really well secured, because they could blow away as well.  

The storm is sucking a lot of warm, wet air from the Gulf of Mexico, which will help support those southern tornadoes. That same wet air will also send a slug of pretty heavy rain at us with the storm's cold front that will come through.

This might come in the form of downpours just ahead and along the cold front. Luckily, things are moving along quickly, so heavy rains won't last in any one place for all that long  The quick motion of the front means total rainfall should stay at or just under an inch in most places.

Which means there might be some quick street flooding, deep puddles, maybe a little erosion on steep hills, that's it. 

Unfortunately for winter enthusiasts, this will be another almost completely rain event.  Some snow showers will hit the mountains with light accumulation late Wednesday night and Thursday, but that's about it. 

After a quiet couple of days, a smaller storm is due Saturday. That, too, looks like it will be mostly rain.  Don't worry. December barely starts on Thursday. There's lots and lots and LOTS of time for decent snows to come into Vermont.

 

Tornado Outbreak Looms In Lower Mississippi Valley

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center is warning of a possible
tornado outbreak on Tuesday, especially in areas of this
map that are shaded in orange and red. 

 We normally think of big tornado outbreaks and springtime creatures, but there is a "second season" for tornadoes in the late all and winter. 

Tornado outbreaks this time of year are not nearly as common as they are in the spring.  But they do happen. And, using last December's extreme and horrible tornado outbreaks as an example, winter tornado outbreaks might be getting worse with climate change. 

Which leads me to Tuesday's forecast for places like parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. 

There's growing confidence that several tornadoes might spin up in this region, and some of them might be quite strong and long-lasting. 

Forecasting tornado outbreaks, even just a day ahead of the event, can be tricky. Sometimes, all the ingredients are there for a bunch of tornadoes and nothing much happens. Or, only a few of the ingredients for tornadoes are there, but all hell breaks loose.

And sometimes, all the ingredients are there and sure enough, chaos reigns.

In this case, the factors that can create a tornado outbreak seem to be coming together. A storm system coming in from the west will pull lots of very wet air from over the Gulf of Mexico into the target region. 

Meanwhile, the storm will begin to cool the upper atmosphere over the lower Mississippi Valley, which would increase instability and encourage thunderstorms 

Additionally, strong winds will scream high overhead. The winds will change direction with height, which encourages supercell thunderstorms that spin. These spinning storms can then send tornados across the landscape. 

In the spring time, the sun is stronger, which means the surface can heat up better. That makes the atmosphere all the more unstable to encourage severe weather. That strong sunshine is missing this time of year, but the strength of the parent storm can overcome the lack of a contribution from the sun.

As noted above, there's also the risk that climate change could make late autumn and winter tornado outbreaks worse.

Whether climate change intensifies or not, we will always have the occasion strong winter storm with fierce upper level winds that can trigger tornadoes in the South. 

However, the air coming from the Gulf of Mexico during these episodes is becoming warmer and more humid with time. That wet air just adds fuel to the fire, possibly making tornado episodes worse. 

I would hope this doesn't lead to months like last December. An outbreak of large tornadoes in and around Kentucky killed 80 people and caused $3.9 billion in damage, according to estimates. 

Less than a week later, a large derecho with as many as 120 embedded tornadoes swept the Midwest as far north as Minnesota, which is extremely rare for December. This second storm caused seven deaths and caused nearly $2 billion in damage.

The storm that is expected to cause Tuesday's tornadoes is likely to bring wind and rain to us here in Vermont on Wednesday, but severe weather is not in the cards.  We might face some minor localized flooding if it rains hard enough, and we could also see some scattered power outages caused by the gusty winds that are in the forecast.

Active Weather Week Coming To Vermont (Spoiler: Not Very White, Though)

A rare sight in northern Vermont in late November. Clear
 skies and relatively warm temperatures graced my 
St. Albans, Vermont  yard Saturday afternoon.  This
didn't last long. Cloudy, stormy week coming.

 As I've said before November and December are the cloudiest times of year in Vermont. Late November and early December tends to bring us peak cloudiness.  

So, it was a treat Saturday when skies cleared, and we enjoyed a mild, bright day for a change. 

Don't get used to it. We're back in the clouds for the foreseeable future. And it will be kind of stormy, too.

The first storm to come through is later today. Some of us will see glimpses of sun this morning, but it will soon be solidly overcast.  From mid to late afternoon and well into the evening, we'll get a decent shot of rain. 

Today's rain won't be extreme, ranging from a third of an inch to two thirds of an inch or most of us. Far southern Vermont might end up closer to an inch or rain. 

The rain surely will disappoint early season skiers and riders. But it is only November. This storm will end in mountain snow showers later tonight and tomorrow, so there's that. 

Tuesday will be quiet and seasonable, and we might actually get a little more sun to enjoy. That, too, will be short lived.

It'll get quite stormy for the middle of the week. A strong storm and cold front will march across the middle of the nation.  Chances are rising for a potential outbreak of tornadoes, some possibly quite strong, in or near the lower Mississippi Valley on Tuesday. 

For us, no tornadoes, but this storm will scoop quite a bit of moisture up from the Gulf of Mexico, so we could see quite a bit of rain out of this.

And wind. Strong south winds seem likely Wednesday as temperatures warm up to 50 degrees - well above normal.

Behind the storm Thursday, strong, colder west winds will hit. 

Details of this storm need to be ironed out, so I'll have updates and better details in the next couple of days.  

The overall weather pattern will remain active, so there's chances of more stormy weather beyond Thursday.

I've seen quite a bit of hype among weather geeks on social media regarding the potential of colder, snowier storms during the second week of December.

Some of this hype has the worst of the bunch screaming about large New England and Northeast snowstorms in a little over a week. 

Don't hold your breath. The weather pattern that favors storminess like that might or might not develop. Even if it does, that's not a guarantee of any kind of big storm. I would just say the chances of a snowstorm during the second week of December are ever so slightly elevated, but definitely don't count on it. 

Poll: Oddball "Soup Can" Climate Protests Don't Help The Cause

Polling indicates that stunts like this, in which climate 
activists threw soup on a Van Gogh painting, tend to
discourage other people from advocating
against climate change. 

 Remember that protest last month in which a pari of young people threw tomato soup onto a Van Gogh painting to protest climate change? 

At least according to one poll, that type of demonstration isn't really getting people to join the anti-climate change bandwagon. 

According to Politico:

"Forty-six percent of respondents to a survey conducted by SSRS and published by the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Science, Sustainability and Media said that non-violent disruptive actions decreased their support for efforts to address climate change. Only 13 percent of the more than 1,000 people polled said these actions boosted their support, while 40 percent said these types of incidents had no effect."

These non-violent, disruptive protests include throwing cans of soup onto famous paintings, as I've posted about, block major highways during rush hour and throwing paint onto the facades of buildings and shops. 

To nobody's surprise, political positions and divides affected the attitudes in the polling.   Sixty nine percent of Republicans said these climate protests turned them off, compared with 27 percent of Democrats. 

Even so, the figures indicate more Democrats are turned off by these protests than energized. 

Atmospheric scientist and climatologist Michael Mann told Poltico that the survey results shouldn't discourage activist from engaging in non-violent, direct action.  They just have to be smart about the ways they do it. 

In that October protest involving the tomato soup, the Van Gogh painting was not damaged because it was protected by glass. 

The survey found that framing the polling questions in different ways didn't affect the results much. The surveyors found no difference in support for these protest when they varied whether respondents were asked about "damaging pieces of art: or "pretending to damage pieces of art."

These protest - throwing stuff on paintings, blocking traffic, do not seem to influence whether the public believes climate change is real.  It just affects whether people want to personally take up the cause of fighting climate change. 

 

Some Employers Don't Care If Their Workers Die Of Heatstroke

It appears that some industries really don't care if low wage
workers die in climate change driven, worsening heat waves. 

Yes, I know hot weather is over for the year for pretty much all of the nation, but I'm still stewing big time about a Washington Post article I ran across this past August.  

The headline is infuriating enough: "As Temperatures rise, Industries Fight Heat Safeguards For Workers."

Basically, the gist of the article is this: Many employers don't give a crap if some of their workers die of heat stroke. They figure they can just hire somebody else to replace them. No biggie, apparently.   

The Washington Post article starts out with an introduction to Sandra Ascencia, a South Florida plant nursery worker who once spent a week in the hospital from work-related heat stroke and once saw the body of a coworker in a parking lot, dead from heat stroke. 

WAPO continues: 

"Today, she belongs to a growing group of immigrant laborers in South Florida pushing for what for what many health experts say is the best way to prevent heatstroke as temperatures reach new extremes: A law requiring employers to provide outdoor workers with drinking water, shade and rest breaks on hot days."

Wait, what? Outdoor workers aren't entitled to drinking water, shade and rest breaks on hot days?

Ascencio goes on, as quoted in the Washington Post:

"'We're seeing temperatures above 100 degrees,' said Ascencio, 50. 'We meet workers who tell us bosses don't give them even 10 or 15 minute breaks. They know it's inhumane to work under these conditions but they have to pay their bills.'"

Ascencio is being Captain Obvious here, but you wouldn't know it from many industry leaders who say we shouldn't worry about heat stroke killing workers. My cynical side says some employers figure that workers, many of the POC and immigrants, are just cogs that are easily replaced, kind of like a part that breaks in a machine. To them, these workers aren't really human, so what's the big deal? 

Unless workplace safety rules are finally enacted, all this will keep getting worse. Climate change is making summers hotter and in many cases more humid. It is becoming more and more untenable to work in our worsening heat waves. 

The Washington Post says some states, like California and Washington, have enacted laws to protect workers from heat exposure. But in many other states, attempts to pass similar laws were killed or weakened by industry lobbyists. 

The Biden administration is also enacting rules to protect workers from excessive heat. At last check an OHSA vote on these rules has been delayed several times, so the fate is unknown. 

The rules are needed nationwide. An investigation by NPR and Columbia Journalism Investigations released in the summer of 2021 indicated 384 people in the U.S. died of work-related heat exposure in the last decade. 

This problem is bound to get worse without reforms, as a worsening climate crisis is intensifying and prolonging both extreme heat and humidity.

The reaction from several industries has been beyond callous regarding safety rules for heat. 

Here's some choice WAPO quotes on this, followed of course with my eye roll that can probably be seen from Neptune.

"Victoria Carreon, an administrator at the Nevada Department of Business and Industry, said the agency is in talks with industry groups about the burdens on businesses of having to implement regulations."

Yeah, like it's absolutely impossible for any business to provide enough water or workers and make sure they receive a break in a cool environment every once in awhile.  

Oh, and here's this gem from the National Cotton Council:

"The National Cotton Council wrote that many heat related issues are not caused by farm work or poor management 'but instead result from the modern employee lifestyle in an advanced 21st century global economy.' The group pinned workers' inability to withstand high temperatures on 'present day luxuries such as air conditioning and Americans' sendentary lifestyle.'"

Hear that kiddies? Cotton pickers aren't dying or getting dangerously sick from extreme heat. They're actually a bunch of wusses who are so completely lazy that they seek out air conditioning when they are off work and overheated. The selfishness of those cotton workers! They should be miserable 24/7!  Never mind that heat is dangerous to cotton pickers whether or not they have access to air conditioning during their off hours. 

In Oregon, trade groups for the timber and manufacturing interests are saying that heat rules would regulate "a societal hazard rather than an occupational hazard."

In other words, it's hot. Deal with it. Never mind that the workers in question would not willingly go out and kill themselves in the heat in their off hours. 

 In Virginia, Juley Fulcher, a worker health advocate for nonprofit Public Citizen said she was infuriated when one business representative told her, "If we give them breaks, it costs us money."

Fulcher said her reaction was "If you don't give them breaks, they die and that costs you money, too."

By the way, A United States farm worker is 35 times more likely to die from heat related problems that people toiling in other industries, according to Fast Company and Nexus News Media. Heat is also responsible for 170,000 heat related injuries. 

I'm guessing here that for many of these industries, this has nothing to do with ethics, morals, or humanity. To their minds, keeping employees alive in heat waves is more expensive than disposing of the dead ones and replacing them.  I'm being pretty blunt here, but that's what it seems to boil down to.  

Pretty demonic, but there you go. 

Of course, if we insist on talking just dollars and completely ignore humanity and morality, there is more that should be of interest to the billionaire overlords who want to rake in more dough. 

On NPR's Planet Money, they recently made a good case that workplace heat regulations would actually save industries money. 

David Metz a senior quantitative analyst at the RAND Corporation, laid it out for Planet Money. 

Metz crunched some numbers and concluded work place heat regulations in California would cost industry $100 million a year. Yeah, that is a lot of money but consider that California is a big state.

However, the same businesses that would lose that $100 million through regulation would also save $200 million, mostly through better worker productivity.  Which seems obvious. A worker who isn't about to keel over from the heat will probably do a better job.

As Planet Money explains, worker injuries increase when it's too hot. Decision making and cognition wilt in the heat too. 

So heat regulations in the workplace are a win-win, right?  Then why aren't employers embracing this idea?

Metz theorized businesses this cost/benefit ratio hasn't dawned on the Powers That Be because it just never crossed their minds. Metz charitable toward these managers with this assessment, but I'm a lot more skeptical.

The managers - the bad ones, anyway - never thought about this because they never wanted to. To them, who cares about employee safety?  They just want to make money. 

My whole screed here isn't an indictment of capitalism in general. It's a howl of disgust over the fact that many no longer regard capitalism as a system that at least has the potential to lift all boats. It's instead a game of which billionaire can vacuum up more cash and impoverish and exploit the greatest number of people.

We thought the last Gilded Age in the 1800s was bad enough. In some respects, the current one seems even worse. 

 

Vermont's Thanksgiving Weather Pleasant Enough This Year. That's Not Always The Case

The biggest travel trouble in Vermont this Thanksgiving
might be scraping TONS of frost from vehicles. 
Thanksgiving weather in Vermont isn't always this easy. 

If you have to drive anywhere in Vermont today for Thanksgiving, you're in luck. 

The forecast remains the same as we've been touting for a few days now. There's no weather issues, save for slick spots on bridges and overpasses early this morning from frost. 

 There's nothing else to worry about on the roads, at least in terms of weather. 

Temperatures will be quite close to normal. The average high temperature in Burlington on Thanksgiving is 39 degrees. The normal low is 26 degree. The forecast high for today in Burlington is 43 degrees The low this morning was right around 25.

This Thanksgiving will be the first in four years without measurable precipitation.  That's a little off normal, because most Thanksgivings tend to have at least a trace of precipitation, and fairly often, that's in the form of snow. 

On average, there's just 0.11 inches of precipitation on Thanksgiving and 0.5 inches of snow.

I really can't detect any trends in temperature and precipitation over the years on Thanksgiving. It does of course, hit on different dates each year, so that just increases the amount of potential randomness about the kind of conditions you'd see on the holiday.

The warmest Thanksgiving in Burlington, at least, was 63 degrees in 1941. The low temperature that day in 1941 was 52 degrees, which is the highest low temperature for Thanksgiving. 

The chilliest Thanksgiving on record was in the cold year of 1972, when it got down to 2 degrees. 

However, a great argument can be made that the actual coldest Thanksgiving was just four years ago, in 2018. The high temperature that day was 14 degrees, the most frigid "high" temperature for a Thanksgiving. Next morning, November 23, 2018, for the Black Friday sales, it was minus 1 in Burlington, setting a new mark for the earliest subzero reading on record.

The wettest and Thanksgiving was in 1920, when there was 0.95 inches of melted precipitation. That precipitation came as 7.5 inches of snow, so 1920 held the record for snowiest Thanksgiving, at least until 1971

That 1971 Thanksgiving produced 8.6 inches of snow in Burlington. This was a pretty epic snowstorm, and Burlington actually had among the smallest snowfall totals in the state that day.  

It snowed all day on Thanksgiving, 1971, with 20 inches reported in Waitsfield and Montpelier, a foot in Rutland and 14 inches in Rochester. That was the start of a Vermont snowy winter. The 108.9 inches of snow that fell on Burlington in the winter of 1971-72 still ranks as the seventh snowiest winter on record. 

We've seen some other memorable storms on or around Thanksgiving. The day after Thanksgiving, 1950, the Great Appalachian Storm hit, bringing a killer blizzard west of the mountain range and extreme winds east. Burlington, Vermont in that storm had a gust to 72 mph, still its highest winds on record. 

So, overall, we're lucky, at least in terms of weather this Thanksgiving. The weather won't be memorable at all. But I do hope everyone has a happy, memorable and lovely Thanksgiving 2022.

 

COP27 Climate Conference Ends In Weak, Iffy Financial Deal For Climate Victim Nations

Agreements reached at the recently ended UN COP27
climate change meeting in Egypt are vague and
don't seem likely to make much headway with climate change. 

 The just ended COP27 UN climate global conference resulted in some deals, some agreements, but things seem vague enough that I don't know what exactly will be put into action. 

I don't think these annual meetings are actually getting much done, but I guess you have to give people credit for trying. 

The COP meetings comes each year to encourage nations to cooperate in tempering the worst of climate change and dealing with its effects. This year's two-week long conference ended Sunday as nations hammered out at least some tentative paths forward.

This year's conference focused largely on the fact that poor countries, which never emitted much greenhouse gas, that are bearing the brunt of climate change. Meanwhile, richer countries, which have belched out those emissions for decades aren't compensating these poorer nations.

In negotiations that extended two days beyond what had been the scheduled close of the conference, richer countries agreed to establish a loss and damage fund to support those more impoverished regions.

I predict this will be a mess going forward. Sure, COP27 agreed to create this fund, but didn't work out the details. Countries involved have a year to cross all those t's and dot all those i's. 

The agreement struck Sunday also doesn't spell out which countries will be required to contribute to the fund. They also didn't specify when the bills to pay into this fund are due. 

Yikes. 

As NPR notes, past COP conferences have established various funds. Many nations, including the United States, haven't followed through on billions of dollars of promised cash. 

With so many nations and interests involved at the conference, there were a lot of moving parts, so striking a deal was complicated.

NPR gives this example: 

"The U.S. is the largest historical contributor to climate change by a large margin. Today, China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions. But Chinese representatives at COP27 said, while the country is open to voluntarily contributing to loss and damage, it should only be an obligation for historically wealthier countries like the U.S. and European Union."

However, Europeans pushed back, saying a fund that didn't collect money from current big emitters of greenhouse gases, like China and India, was unacceptable.

As NPR explained, United States participates kind of kept their mouths shut, though the Biden administration had previous said it wanted to focus on using existing humanitarian aid channels and not create a new, separate fund. 

The goals coming out of this year's COP are ambitious to say the least. NPR again:

"'In all, the world needs to invest at least $4 trillion every year to create a low-carbon global economy,' the final agreement says. Raising that sort of money will require a 'transformation' of the entire financial system.'

Yeah, good luck with that. 

By 2030, damage from warming could cost the world from $290 billion to $580 billion a year by 2030, according to at least one estimate. 

COP27 clung to the goal of keeping total global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. That's getting harder and harder to do, as we're getting closer and closer to that threshold. 

To get to that goal, many nations, including the European Union have pushed nations to reach peak emissions by 2025, followed by declining emissions. 

China and India want to allow emissions to rise through the end of the decade. 

COP27 didn't end with any firm deadlines for new emissions commitments. So that doesn't help. 

Estimates out there say that if we want to keep warming checked at 1.5 degrees Celsius, emissions would need to drop by 45 percent by 2030. That's just a little over seven years. Not much!  Current estimates are that emissions will only fall by 10 percent by 2030.

The annual COP conferences, though definitely well-intentioned, are awfully unwieldy and chaotic.  Too many cooks are spoiling the pot. There's all these conflicting interests, there's these sideshows of celebrities swooping in to tell us they are big climate saviors, activists do their thing, which seems to fall on deaf ears. 

I honestly don't have a solution to this mess. The world has managed to make the rate of increase in greenhouse emissions somewhat less, but the trend line is still up. Meanwhile, the world grows hotter and hotter. 

Money still talks louder than anything.  Horrible regimes like Russia and Saudi Arabia are still making money hand over fist from fossil fuels, so they're not going to give up on this cash cow.

In western democracies like the United States, oil interests are also slowing progress on finding alternatives to fossil fuel.

As long as oil remains big time profitable, no substantive agreements will be made, be it through big UN conferences or other means. 

Probably the only solution is to make alternatives like wind, solar or what have you more profitable than fossil fuels. Like I said, money talks. 

 

 

 

 

Knock On Wood, Vermont Forecast Finally Getting Consistent For Weekend: Wet

A frozen flower on a snow dusted honeysuckle vine at 
our house in St. Albans, Vermont. Winter hit 
fairly abruptly, and this flower wasn't ready. Looking
forward to more blooms next year. 

After I whined yesterday about forecasts being totally inconsistent for the end of this week and weekend, things seem to be stabilizing, knock on wood. 

Since things are a little more reliable, maybe we can make weekend plans better.

One piece of the forecast that's been solid for days now is for today and tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day. And that hasn't changed a whit with updated forecasts, which is great news. 

If you have travel plans in the region for both days, you're in good shape. 

Some of us did get a dusting of snow early this morning and a few flurries linger, but don't worry about those. They won't amount to anything. 

Skies today and tomorrow might not be totally sunny, but there probably will be a few breaks. The bonus is no precipitation is in the cards. No ice on the roads to worry about.

We finally do get into the precipitation Friday, but for most of us, it will be rain. It wont be a blockbuster at all, either.  

Current forecasts give us a quarter inch or less.  Some places might see some wet snowflakes when the little storm starts Friday, but it probably won't amount to anything. Mountain summits in Vermont might see mostly snow out of this, but anybody below 2,000 feet in elevation or so is looking at mostly rain.

If you haven't installed your outdoor Christmas decorations yet, Saturday is shaping up to be a great day to do it. It'll be sort of mild, with afternoon temperatures getting into the 40s. We'll also see some sun, and the wind won't be particularly strong at all.

The next storm on Sunday is still looking like a rainy one.  At this point, Sunday is looking like a washout, but given how forecasts can change this time of year, (Boy, can they!) we'll attention to updates. 

 

Forecasts More Squirrely Than Usual; Post-Thanksgiving Storm Forecast Out The Window

We've had some snow on the ground for a week now
in St. Albans, Vermont, but seasonable temperatures will
probably thaw most of the remainder away, for now. 
Meanwhile, forecasts for after thanksgiving keep changing. 

 I unintentionally lied to you yesterday. 

I waxed poetic in yesterday's post about a potential fairly big storm Friday and/or Saturday with the risk of a fair amount of rain, wind and maybe some snow. 

So much for that idea. 

All the forecasts shifted since yesterday, so now the predictions for what's going to happen late week are all different. And, frankly, I don't trust those forecasts yet, either. 

I'm still confident on the weather today through Thanksgiving Day.

Aside from the risk of a few snow showers overnight tonight, it'll be dry with average temperatures through Thanksgiving. That means highs in the upper 30s to low 40s, lows in the 20s. Really not bad for this time of year. 

Beyond that, the computer models have been really having a hard time, which makes real life meteorologists pull out their hair. 

At this point, instead of a big system coming up the coast, we'll just get a cold front with some light rain and a little wind Friday, no big deal. It might end as a little snow Friday night, but again, meh.

Then, supposedly, another storm comes along Sunday that will bring more mostly rain, but again, not an epic storm

Like I said, I'm not entirely trusting this forecast as it stands now, so stay tuned for more changes. On the very bright side, we don't have to worry nearly as much about post Thanksgiving travel trouble. I think. 

There are always shifts in forecast in the days before any storm, but this time, the shifts have been enormous. I'm not sure why. 

The Covid Pandemic Sucks To Put It Mildly. Will Climate Change Bring Us More Awful Viruses

Will climate change melt glaciers and release dangerous viruses 
from within them? Unlikely, but......

To start here, there's no evidence that the the grinding Covid-19 pandemic has anything to do with climate change.  

There's lots of ills in the world that we can attribute to climate change, but Covid isn't one of them. However, will climate change bring back zombie viruses that could be as bad or worse than Covid?

Maybe.

According to Gizmodo: 

"In the Canadian High Arctic, climate change is bringing together viruses and potential hosts in new combinations, according to recently published research. Every novel interaction increases the risk of 'viral spillover."

 If that sounds familiar, it's because one of the leading theories about Covid-19 originated from interaction between humans and some sort of bird in a live animal market. 

The last thing we need is more interaction with strange viruses.  

As Gizmodo continues:

"Viruses rely on their hosts to replicate and spread, yet most viruses are intricately co-evolved with the organisms that support them. Hosts develop defenses that viruses must work to overcome. But in instances of spillover - where a virus jumps ship to a new life form - hosts lack evolved immunity. As with the Covid-19 pandemic, when a virus finds a new host for the first time, the results can be catastrophic. "

A recent study of a high Arctic lake shows the evolutionary overlap between viruses and possible host organisms is lowest near places where glacial run-off is highest. As Gizmodo explains, that means less shared history and more opportunities for unfortunate cross-overs

Glacial ice is often thousands of years old and probably harbors ancient viruses, too. Since almost all the world's glaciers are now melting at an increasing rate, you can see where this is going. 

Before you go off on a panic about the next pandemic caused by a melting glacier, here are some things to make you relax. So far, nobody has actually seen a "cross-over" from a glacier virus to a human. Besides, most viruses out there don't even infect humans.

So the study Gizmodo cites in no, way, shape or form predicts the next pandemic. It just says that it's one more bad thing that could happen with climate change. 

There's already history that the Great Melt can create trouble in humans. For instance as The Guardian reports, a 2016 outbreak of anthrax in northern Siberia that killed a child and infected seven others was caused by a heat wave that melted permafrost that in turn exposed an infected reindeer carcass. 

Scientists have also been able to revive thousands year old viruses recovered from permafrost.  And scientists have found previously unknown viruses within Chinese and Tibetan glaciers.

So, the bottom line is climate change could start a new pandemic, but that isn't the biggest threat from climate change. It's just one more reason to try and combat it. 

 

Winds Of November Are Back; Still Watching Late Week Storm

This forecast map, for this coming Saturday, is just
one of many possibilities of how a storm will
move and behave at the end of the week. Be ready
for big shifts in forecasts.

 During the warm start to this month in Vermont, it was not only unusually sunny, it was also not that windy, which is a bit odd for November.  

The standard weather pattern in November is for large storms to sweep up into the Great Lakes, causing strong, warm winds in Vermont, followed by a cold front which brings cold, strong northwest winds. 

Sometimes a nor'easter will also bring some winds.  Burlington's strongest wind gust on record - 72 mph - was recorded in November. (1950). 

The gales of November, according to the familiar saying. 

This month, not so much. Even when we abruptly flipped to a colder pattern at mid-month, the wind never really picked up.

That seems to have just changed. 

That blast of cold air that came in yesterday really ramped up the gusts. Several places, including Burlington, gusted past 40 mph. This obviously isn't enough to cause widespread problems, obviously, but it gave us a taste of that familiar, seemingly constant gustiness we experience here in Vermont during the cold season. 

Some of us will get another good blast of wind today. Another cold front is coming in. Ahead of it winds are shifting to southerly.  Those winds will get channeled over the Champlain Valley especially, so wind gusts there could crank to over 40 mph again today. High elevations will be quite windy today as well. 

I don't know if there will be any boaters on Lake Champlain but beware: Wave heights on the broad lake in today's strong winds could reach five to seven feet.  Ferry crossings across the lake should be pretty exciting, too. 

After today, we should see a pretty nice reprieve from the winds Tuesday through Thanksgiving. But then there's that late week storm

FRIDAY/SATURDAY

We still don't have what will happen with the end of the week storm pinned down. There's the potential for a fair amount of precipitation, but we still don't know what type. Latest trends are going in a rainy direction, but that trend might or might not hold. 

It could be a fairly strong storm, so we might be talking about some pretty good winds again. Stay tuned!

The upcoming storm is part of yet another pattern change. Nearly the entire Lower 48 has been cold for the last week or so.  It's definitely unusual for that widespread an area to be colder than normal. 

Much of the nation is now warming up, and we will see bouts of warmer than normal temperatures in large swaths of the U.S. over the next week or two.  So far, I don't see signs of a big warm up here, but at least temperatures starting midweek look to be near normal, instead of colder than normal.

Wintry, Windy Rest Of Sunday In Vermont, And There's Always Some Sort Of Storm Thanksgiving Week

The National Weather Service's seven day map of expected
precipitation shows something coming through the 
Northeast. We'll see what happens.

This is among the stormiest times of year in the United States. The increasingly strong rushes of cold air from Canada conflict with the lingering warmth of autumn in the south.  

Plus the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes don't cool down in the autumn as fast as the air. So they're relatively warm.  

All this clashing helps encourage storms. There's almost always some sort of disruptive storm somewhere in the nation during Thanksgiving travel time.

True to form it does look like we here in Vermont will have to deal with some sort of precipitation event toward the end of the week. How much and what type of precipitation is still way open to question, but it's something to keep an eye on.

The good news is it looks like whatever comes out of the sky will wait until after Thanksgiving Day itself to do so.

Before we get there, we'll have to deal with a pretty real blast of winter today and tonight.  Some of the last vestiges of that huge band of lake effect snow made it into Vermont early this morning, so many of us saw a dusting of new snow.

Meanwhile, a piece of the famous polar vortex is being tugged down briefly right on top of us today and tonight.

As a reminder, the Polar Vortex is a normal big circulation of very cold air that always sets up shop somewhere in the Arctic during the winter. It drifts around, and sometimes it gets elongated so that it extends further south, or pieces of it break off. Whoever is under the elongation or the broken piece gets to enjoy a sharp cold snap.

Today's our lucky day. 

The super cold air aloft will do three things today that most of us won't welcome. The just sort of cold air near the surface and really, really frigid air high up will increase instability. So you'll see an increase in snow showers, and some of them could be very briefly heavy.

Accumulations won't amount of much, but these could create visibility problems on the roads, along with icy patches

The second thing is the wind coming across the relatively warm water of Lake Champlain might enhance the snow showers on parts of the Vermont side of the lake at least to the summits of the Green Mountains.

This won't be anything like the six feet of snow from the recent Lake Erie snow blitz, but some spots could see an extra inch or two of snow in some areas.

The third thing the cold air aloft is giving us is fairly strong, gusty winds. The same instability that will cause those snow showers will grab high speed air from aloft and bring it to the surface.  I wouldn't be surprised if a couple places have gusts to 40 mph. Many of us will reach at least 30 mph.

This will bring wind chills down to as low as 10 degrees.

Speaking of 10 degrees, some places in Vermont will get that cold tonight and early tomorrow. Not wind chill, actual temperatures. 

The super cold air aloft will quickly depart and go back up where it belongs over Canada, so the weather will turn normal between now and Thanksgiving - highs within a few degrees of 40, lows in the 20s.

Then there's the storm this weekend.  Chances of some sort of precipitation in Vermont Friday and/or Saturday seem to be going up and up. 

We really don't know how much precipitation we'll get and whether it will be snow, rain, ice, slush or all of the above.  A lot of it will depend on whether a coastal storm gets going in this mess, how strong it will get, and whether the coastal storm, if it forms, goes a bit inland or offshore. 

Stay tuned! 

 

Florida Hurricanes In 2004 and 2022 Eerily Similar. And Other Strange Tropical Coincidences

The Washington Post gave us this graphic, showing
the remarkable similarities in paths for hurricanes Charle
and Jeanne in 2004, and Ian and Nicole
in 2022

Now that Hurricane Nicole is long gone, the Washington Post and many other meteorologists are struck by a strange Florida hurricane coincidence.  

In 2004, powerful Category 4 Hurricane Charley roared ashore from the Gulf of Mexico into Cayo Costa, Florida. It moved northeastward across the state. Just 43 days later, Hurricane Jeanne came in off the Atlantic and hit the east coast of Florida, making landfall south of Daytona Beach.  Jeanne's path crossed Charlie's in central Florida.

In 2022, powerful Category 4 Hurricane Ian roared ashore from the Gulf of Mexico into Cayo Costa  Florida. It moved northeastward across the state. Just 43 days later, Hurricane Nicole came in off the Atlantic and hit the east coast of Florida, making landfall south of Daytona Beach. Jeanne's path crossed Ian's in central Florida.

You probably noticed the similarities between the two previous paragraphs. 

The Washington Post reports the similarities between the four storms was first noticed by Matt Devitt, chief meteorologist for Tampa television station WINK.

In that busy hurricane season of 2004, Hurricane Frances and the above mentioned Hurricane Jeanne came ashore in Florida at the exact same spot, Hutchinson Island, less than three weeks apart. 

Weather is so complicated, with so much going on, there's bound to be strange coincidences. There's a few others that involve tropical storm, like the double Allison the Weather Channel highlights 

In June, 1989, Tropical Storm Allison, came ashore near Houston and meandered around southeastern Texas and Louisiana for days. The slow moving storm dumped 10 to 25 inches of rain, which produced flooding that killed 11 people.

The National Hurricane Center rotates through names that are repeated once every sixth year. If a hurricane is especially notorious, the name is retired and replaced. Allison was not deemed big enough to be replaced.

Which meant another Tropical Storm Allison came ashore near Houston in 2001. Like the previous Allison, it meandered around southeastern Texas for a few days, dumping up to 40 inches of rain and producing catastrophic flooding that killed 23 people.

With that, the National Hurricane Center decided to retire the name "Allison" from its roster.

On Sept. 16, 1988, Gilbert, which had been a monster Category 5 storm with the lowest pressure ever observed in the Western Hemisphere up to that point, landed as a Category 3 cyclone at La Pesca, Mexico. 

Twenty-five years later on the exact same date, high end Tropical Storm Ingrid hit the exact same spot - La Pesca, Mexico.

In 2021, two dying tropical storms  came ashore within a month or so of each other in Westerly, Rhode Island.  Elsa hit Westerly at 12:15 p.m. July 9.  Henri limped into Westerly on August 22 at - you guessed it - 12:15 p.m. 

By the way, another tropical storm hit the unlikely target of Westerly in 1985.  It's name? Henri.  Yep, another one.  

Over Six Feet And Counting: Today Is (Mostly) Final Day Of New York Snow Blitz

The sharp northern edge of the intense lake effect 
snow band as viewed from the Buffalo waterfront Friday.
Photo submitted to Twitter by Kristen Mirand @kristen_mirand

 The lake effect snow blitz in western New York continues on pace this morning, but the places receiving the heaviest snow have shifted. 

Until late afternoon yesterday, the main snow band of of Lake Erie stayed fixated on suburbs just to the south of Buffalo. At last report, Orchard Park had 77 inches of new snow, Blasdell, 65 inches and Hamburg 61 inches. 

To give you an idea of how localized these snow bands can be, and the small areas that can be affected, the 61 inches in Hamburg was measured a mile north of the town center. Another measurement, just one mile south of the Hamburg town center, yielded a less impressive but still nasty 34.5 inches.

Late yesterday and overnight, the main snow band shifted north, pounding downtown Buffalo for several hours. As of early this morning, that band was actually focused a bit north of Buffalo.

The snow band will slip south through Buffalo again tonight, but will only last three hours or so in any one location.

Suburbs south of Buffalo will get it again tomorrow, but not as badly as yesterday.

I'm a little surprised and dismayed about people getting caught and trapped in the snow on the New York State Thruway south of Buffalo.  Before the snow really began, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency in that part of the state. The Thruway in the region was closed to commercial traffic.

Still, I saw on the news plenty of tractor trailer trucks stuck on the Thruway and I have to wonder why. Cars, too. One woman who was interviewed who got trapped in the snow on a long car trip said she checked the weather forecast from where she was departing and for her destination. She didn't check what was going on in between. 

Is weather messaging a problem? Why didn't this woman know what she was about to run into? Food for thought anyway. 

I also saw video of people trapped on local roads. Some of those interviewed said they were trying to go to or from work. I can see how essential employees, like hospital personnel, police, fire, emergency services had to work.

I have to wonder, though, how many employers simply didn't care about the dangers and insisted people work at the convenience store, or McDonald's or whatever. Some - not all - employers worship the dollar above all else, even their employees' lives.

Maybe I'm making assumptions here, but that is my worry.

Already, two people have died in this storm - heart attacks suffered by people trying to remove this snow.

This whole thing should wind tomorrow, but I imagine it will take forever to clean the mess up.

Videos:

From WAAY-TV: Snow in Orchard Park, NY is too much for the snowblower: 

WAAY-TV also gives us a glimpse of a lovely Friday in Hamburg, New York: 

From WGRZ-TV, a wall of snow moves into downtown Buffalo, New York last evening: 

 

Lake Effect Snow Blitz Continues In New York, As Expected

Larry Dubill, @LarryDubill on Twitter, photographed these
cars in Hamburg, NY, and this is before the snow 
really got super deep. 

Maybe not everyone is happy with the epic lake effect snow blitz that's ongoing in western New York, but I imagine one person is. 

The world's biggest fan of thundersnow, Jim Cantore, the intrepid long time reporter for The Weather Channel, has parked himself in Hamburg, New York to report on the storm. Video shows him gleefully wading into waist deep snow.

Overnight and early this morning, there were lightning strikes around Hamburg, too, so I'm sure he was elated.

The fact there was is lightning is a sure sign that these lake effect snow bands are super intense.

So far, the heaviest snow has been mostly just south of Buffalo.  The intense snow band has shifted north from time to time into the heart of the city

As of this morning, the total snowfall in Buffalo, at least officially measured at the airport, is a somewhat manageable 12.5 inches. But the band of intense snow is starting to creep north again, and should engulf Buffalo for much of the rest of the day. 

The sweet spot is probably where Cantore is, just south of Buffalo where the several feet of snow forecast is still in play.

I'm  having trouble keeping up with the snow total for places like Hamburg. It changes every minute. As of 10 a.m. Hamburg had received 33.9 inches of snow. Twenty-one of those inches came in just six hours. 

Needless to say, the New York State Thruway is closed south of Buffalo.

Oh, and by the way, they had the wisdom to move Sunday's Buffalo Bills vs Cleveland Browns game out of Buffalo and moved it to Detroit. Smart move.

These snow bands are pretty narrow, too.  Drive several miles north or south of Hamburg (good luck with that!) and you basically get a routine light snowfall. 

Satellite photo shows intense lake effect snowband coming
ashore on Lake Erie south of Buffalo this morning, and another
intense one off of Lake Ontario punching into northern
New York. Click on the image to make it bigger and
easier to see.

A similar snow band is coming off of Lake Ontario with feet of snow accumulating near Watertown, New York as expected.

The lake effect snow machine is so strong that some of it is making all the way to Vermont. One piece of a streamer from Lake Ontario broke off and dumped a quick inch of snow on northern parts of the Green Mountain State early  this morning. 

Another push of this snow band was dumping a few inches of snow on the central Adirondacks at mid morning. It also caused light snow to break out again in norther Vermont.  Visibility was very briefly down to maybe a mile in St. Albans, Vermont at 10:15 a.m., so these are more than just flurries. 

Winds will bend a little more southwesterly today, taking the snow more into Buffalo, as noted, and near or even north of Watertown, New York. That would temporarily mostly nend the lake effect light flurries in Vermont

This is the midway point of this storm.  I will not at all be surprised to see these forecasted six foot snow totals in a few spots.

 

Draft U.S And World Climate Assessment States The Obvious: Climate Change Is Screwing With Us Already

Several big reports highlight the urgency for participants
in the UN climate conference in Egypt. I hit a few of the
highlights in this post. 

 A couple of big preliminary reports are telling us a lot of what we already know about the current effects of climate change, but they are still very much worth noting:  

The basic message from these reports: Climate change sucks. And it keeps sucking more and more. 

The first report is the United State's Fifth National Climate Assessment. The assessment on how climate change is affecting the U.S. and what is being done about it, must be compiled once every four years, per Congressional mandate. 

According to the draft report:

"Americans are feeling the effects of climate change in their everyday lives, as intensifying extreme events strain public services and outdated infrastructure.....As climate risks continue to increase in scale and frequency, multiple climate hazards and cascading climate impacts are disrupting essential societal systems in every part of the country."

The document says the U.S. has warmed about 68 percent faster than the planet as a whole, or 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the continental U.S. 

After a public comment period, updates and editing, the final report should be released next year. I'm not sure whether it will lead to any policy changes. But at least the Biden administration seems to be taking this at least fairly seriously. 

Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organization released a provisional State Of the Climate Report for 2022  

This is an annual report that summarizes the global state of climate change for the most recent year. Of course, 2022 isn't over yet, but a preliminary world report for the year was released early to emphasize to the UN annual global COP27 climate conference . That conference in Egypt is schedule to end this weekend. 

Like the U.S. report, the World Assessment for 2022 wasn't exactly loaded with cheery news. A main takeaway of this document is that not only are the effects of climate change getting worse, the rate at which things are going down the tubes has increased 

As I've noted in past posts, it seems every month this year has been fifth or sixth warmest on record on a global scale. (October was an exception, coming in a fourth warmest).

This provisional report says they indeed expect 2022 to be the world's sixth warmest year on record. The publication also says that the the years 2015-2022 will be the hottest eight year period since reliable records started around the mid 1850s.

As I've also noted in past posts, it's alarming that 2020 through 2022 have been so warm.  A Pacific Ocean pattern called La Nina has been present through most of this time.  La Nina cools large swaths of the eastern Pacific Ocean, which in turn tends to lower overall global temperatures a little bit. 

Which means this year and last should have been cooler than they were. The opposite pattern in the Pacific, called El Nino, tends to boost global temperatures a little bit. So it will be interesting when the next El Nino inevitably hits. Especially if it's a strong one, like in 1998. 

The report also notes that glaciers globally have taken a huge hit in 2022, especially in Europe, which endured repeated record heat waves over the summer. This year's European glacial loss has accelerated a decades long trend in melting. Switzerland has lost a third of its glacial ice since 2001.

Meanwhile, as The Weather Network reports, global sea level rise is accelerating, with devastating, dangerous effects:

"(Sea levels) continue to rise and are now an average of at least 100 millimeters (about four inches) higher than they were in the early 1990s. Also, the rate that the ocean surface is rising is accelerating. The rate over the past ten years has more than doubled from what it was 30 years ago, and roughly 10 percent of the total rise was seen in just the past two and a half years."

A four inch rise doesn't sound like much, but in low, flat coastal areas, of which there are many, four inches can really worsen flooding, especially when you mix in storms and storm surges. 

Look at it this way.  If a flood inundated the inside of your house with six inches of water, that would be terribly damaging. Then add another four inches to that, and the damage to your stuff is definitely compounded. 

Against the backdrop of these two reports, and many more released in recent weeks, the COP27 climate conference in Egypt continues into the weekend. to November 18.

It's a big global United Nations climate conference with the unwieldy name: The 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change." It's a yearly gathering first started in 1995, hence the 27 in the title.

Yeah, I'll stick with COP27

It IS an important meeting, though. COP27 is a continuation of trying to reach global cooperation on reducing greenhouse emissions, financing climate action and adapting to the growing effects of climate change. 

It's a great opportunity to basically put world leaders in the same room to (hopefully!) collaborate on climate change solutions. 

I know everybody's eyes glaze over when we start talking about big UN conferences, but it's worth watch how this one works out. The more global cooperation the better.