Hurricane Beryl Not Going Down Without A Fight

Satellite view of Hurricane Beryl shows it looking
much less organized and symmetrical than 
yesterday as strong upper level winds 
disrupt it, but it's still managing to hold on
as a powerful, dangerous storm. 

 As of this afternoon, Jamaica is the latest island to be trashed by extreme, intense oddball Hurricane Beryl as the storm gets ready to hit, or at least make a close pass at that nation.  

Despite more than 24 hours of a hostile upper atmosphere, Hurricane Beryl still had maximum sustained winds of 140  mph as of late this afternoon.

 The storm still has the Cayman Islands, Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Belize and possibly southern Texas in its sights. 

Hurricanes don't like strong upper level winds. Those winds disrupt the nice round circulation of tall powerful thunderstorms that make up the ring of scary weather around the storm's eye.

When those upper level winds - known as shear - hit a hurricane they almost always weaken. 

Such is the case with Beryl, but the process has been stubbornly slow.  It's amazing that after 24 hours of westerly upper level winds, the central winds were still that 140 mph late this afternoon, down from its peak of 165 mph yesterday.  

If anything, Beryl actually looked more organized late this afternoon than it did this morning, which is definitely unexpected. 

Beryl has consistently kept meteorologists surprised, mostly because of its early season intensity, its development in an area of the Atlantic where hurricanes aren't "supposed" to develop until August, and now Beryl's reluctance to weaken in an atmosphere where it should be having some trouble. 

That slow pace of diminishing is why Jamaica is taking such a hit. The hurricane hadn't made its closest approach to Jamaica this afternoon and Kingston has already reported sustained winds of 48 mph with gusts to 81 mph, says the National Hurricane Center. 

Ferocious  winds will destroy tons of buildings in Jamaica, especially near the south coast. Torrential rains in Jamaica's steep mountains will cause violent flash floods and mudslides - they've probably started already as I write this at midafternoon eastern time. 

The destruction left behind is still being assessed in places like Grenada, where Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said destruction on the nation's island of Carriacou is "almost Armageddon-like.

Drone video taken over Carriacou makes the entire island look like it was put into a giant blender. Pulverized pieces of houses were everywhere. Most buildings lost parts or all of their roofs. 

Per CBS News: 

"'Almost total damage or destruction of all buildings, whether they be public buildings, homes or other private facilities,' Mitchell said. 'Complete devastation and destruction of agriculture. Complete and total destruction of the natural environment. There is literally no vegetation left anywhere on the island of Carriacou.

Carriacou, which means 'Isle of Reefs' is just 13 square miles, but is is the second-largest island within Grenada. Beryl's size and strength completely overpowered the island, as well as its neighbor, St. Vincent and the Grenadines' Union Island, which saw 90 percent of its homes severely damaged or destroyed.

Clare Nullis, a spokesperson for the World Meteorological Organization, said earlier this week that 'it takes only one landfalling hurricane to set back decades of development.'"

With climate change increasing the risks of super hurricanes like Beryl, that of course is bad news. Island nations are a dime a dozen in and near the Caribbean. 

There's been a slew of big hurricanes in recent years, and there's no reason to think it will stop this year. Most experts say the rest of this hurricane season will be extraordinarily busy. Hurricane Beryl suggests these forecasts might end up being right. 

After today, Beryl will continue its weakening trend, but will probably still be a hurricane by the time it reaches the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico by Friday morning. 

Time spent over land in Mexico will ensure Beryl weakens to a tropical storm. But meteorologists with the National Hurricane Center worry Beryl will get a new lease on life when it emerges over the warm waters of the southwestern Gulf of Mexico on Saturday.

It could strengthen into a hurricane again before hitting northeast Mexico or southern Texas by around Sunday or Monday.  Forecasts trends have been shifting the expected path of Beryl northward.  Earlier forecasts indicated it will make landfall again well south of Texas

Now, forecasts vary, but it could come ashore somewhere within spitting distance either side of the Mexico/Texas border.

 

"Traditional" Fourth Of July Weather In Vermont - Meaning Warm And Humid

Burlington's waterfront on a hot summer day a few years
ago. The area near the lake will be crowded today and 
tonight in anticipation of the fireworks tonight.
Fingers crossed, the rain should hold off. 

 We associated pretty hot, humid weather for the Fourth of July and this year is kind of delivering a traditional serving of it this year in the Green Mountain State.  

Luckily, no extremes are in the forecast, but you'll know it's summer. 

A warm front is passing though Vermont today with very little fanfare. It's replacing the perfect, dry summer weather we've had with a more humid version.

 It won't be so bad today as we slow transition to the ickier side, but you'll feel the humidity start to creep up a little on those south winds. 

You'll notice the difference from yesterday and the day before. 

That warm front will produce some increasing clouds as the morning and afternoon go on, but it probably won't be completely overcast. They're calling it partly sunny, which sounds good. Temperatures should get right up there into the 80s this afternoon. So warm enough, for sure. 

Those south winds are a little gusty in the Champlain Valley today, so take care if you take your boat out onto the lake. Wave heights on the broad lake could end up at around two or three feet as winds gust up to 35 mph out there.

Otherwise the breeze will sort of offset the warmth a bit.

Burlington has its fireworks tonight, and I think they'll squeeze in some good enough weather for it. A dying cold front is approaching, and will set off some overnight showers. Although some raindrops might creep in during the fireworks, most of the rain will probably hold off until overnight. 

Though a few places overnight might have a rumble of thunder and a local downpour, most of us probably won't have much of anything. 

That cold front pretty much washes out overhead and largely disappears by tomorrow morning. That leaves us with pretty typical summer weather.

Expect it to get up into the 80s again, and the humidity will be noticeable. Stay hydrated. It won't hurt to bring a bottle of water with you to watch the parades.  The sun will be in and out all day. 

There will be the ever-present risk of an afternoon or evening shower or garden variety thunderstorms. But they should be very few and far between. If you're unlucky enough to get one,  it won't last long. 

By the way, as mentioned yesterday, the warm, humid weather is going to stick around for awhile, so get used to it. 

Category 5 Hurricane Beryl Continues To Amaze Amid Windward Island Destruction

Formidable Category 5 Hurricane Beryl late
Tuesday morning over the Caribbean. 

 Despite the idea this was impossible at the very start of July, Hurricane Beryl last night grew to a Category 5 storm - the most intense possible - with top sustained winds of an incredible 165 mph. 

This, after trashing some of the Windward Islands as a high end Category 4 yesterday with sustained winds of 150 mph. 

Category 5 hurricanes are relatively rare in the Atlantic Ocean, but have been becoming a little more common in recent years. 

However, such powerhouses were considered virtually impossible until August and September, when oceans reach their peak temperatures and atmospheric conditions are most primed to pump a hurricane to its maximum potential.

With ocean temperatures in and near the Caribbean Sea at record highs and at readings more typical for around Labor Day, Beryl was able to become the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record for so early in the season.

This, after setting records for the earliest major hurricane known to have formed east of the Windward Islands. When it was just getting its act together last week, it was also the furthest east in the Atlantic a tropical storm is known to have popped up in June.  

All this is a combination of a perfect set of conditions to make Beryl a monster, and probably climate change, which is serving to warm oceans more and more. This creates better and better incubators for hurricanes. 

DAMAGE AND FUTURE

As you might expect, Beryl devastated the islands it hit on Monday.

Says the Washington Post:

"Grenada and the nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines were reeling from a storm that probably will be the region's most intense hurricane on record.

'In half an hour, Carriacou was flattened,' Grenadian Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said Monday. 

At least one person died on St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the prime minister said Monday evening. 'There may well be more fatalities,' Ralph Gonsalves said in an address to the nation, adding that hundreds of houses had been severely damaged or destroyed in the country, including on the main island of St. Vincent."

Latest reports as of early this afternoon suggest seven deaths have already been reported in association with the storm.

Beryl has finally reached peak strength. I can't image it possibly getting any stronger anyway. But stronger upper level winds will steadily weaken Beryl as it moves west to northwest across the Caribbean Sea toward Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.  

The weakening trend will start this afternoon, but Beryl will still be a pretty intense hurricane as it passes over or  close by Jamaica tomorrow. By then, it will be a little less powerful than it was this morning, but still an intense, destructive hurricane. 

Beryl will eventually probably pass over the Yucatan Peninsula and menace northeastern Mexico or southern Texas. But by then it might be reduced to a tropical storm or a much less formidable hurricane than it is now. 

 

 

Heat Looms Coast To Coast, But Especially In The West

Midsummer flowers, including day lilies, hollyhocks and
astilbe, enjoy a refreshingly cool start to the day today
in St. Albans, Vermont. Humidity is set to return
Wednesday for what looks like an extended stay 

 I have to say Monday was my version of a perfect summer day in Vermont. 

Warmish, but by no means hot, humidity was perfectly reasonable, a sunny sky was dotted by a few pretty clouds and a soft breeze blew around lovely scents of flowers and forests, and kept the bugs at bay. 

After a comfortably cool dawn, we have another gorgeous one on the way today. Then the humidity returns. Probably for an extended stay. 

The pattern in the coming days is a lot like what has long been predicted for the summer. 

Heat will be concentrated on the West Coast and Intermountain West, and more or less along the East Coast. Nobody, really anywhere in the nation will experience truly cool weather, unless you include Alaska, of course. 

The weather pattern in the coming weeks might or might not hold for the rest of the summer. But long range forecasts call for warm to hot weather lasting for quite awhile, even if a few brief cool breaks sneak their way into New England every once in while.

 At least for now, the stronger of the two heat domes is in the West. Here in the Northeast, it will definitely be warm and humid, but at least in the immediate future, we in Vermont will escape the true torrid heat, like the kind we suffered through in mid-June. 

Weak weather fronts will keep cutting off the hottest, most humid air at the pass, keeping it mostly south of Vermont. There won't be much oomph from Canada, so those fronts won't exactly push in the refreshing air, either. 

So, it'll be mostly highs in the 80s, lows in the 60s, rather humid, with chances for showers or thunderstorms at times for at least the next week in Vermont.  You might have to water the garden, though. Most of the rain looks scattered and not super impressively heavy, except in local thunderstorms that won't cover much area. 

WESTERN HEAT

While much of the nation will be hot, even dangerously hot, the real epicenter of the heat this week is in the West.

Record highs will surely be broken in what is expected to be a long lasting hot spell.

Sacramento is forecast to endure five consecutive days of temperatures at or above 109 degrees. Previously, they've never had more than three consecutive days such days there, so if the forecast holds, that will be an impressive record. 

Redding, California at last report, was expecting a high of 117 by later in the week. That city's all time record high is 118 degrees, so that will be close. 

As the Washington Post tells us, here's the expected daily  highs this week, today through Sunday in Death Valley: 122, 125, 127,128,128 and 129.

The hottest reliably measured temperature on record in Death Valley is 130 degrees. A 134 degree reading measured there in 1913, but that mark is considered unreliable and suspect.  

The heat wave is expected to poke up into the Pacific Northwest, where Portland, Oregon expects a high of 101 degrees this coming Saturday. 

The extreme heat and dry conditions are raising the risks of wildfires, which of course are even harder to control when firefighters are dealing with temperatures in the 100s and 110s. 

This kind of thing is consistent with climate change. There's heat waves every summer, of course. But the trend is for longer, more intense hot spells, and the western heat coming up seems like an example of this. 

It's only early July. We'll probably be dealing with heat waves right through Labor Day, so buckle up. 

 

June Was Another Very Warm Month In Vermont. Definitely A Trend Here

An intense thunderstorm in Hinesburg, Vermont on 
June 23. The storm carried a tornado warning, but
none touched down in this case. Frequent bouts
of heat and humidity encouraged storms
in the Green Mountain state during June. 

 In another month that showed that this isn't your grandfather's Vermont climate, June turned out to be among the warmest on record in much of of the state.  

Burlington had its seventh warmest June with a mean temperature of 70.3.  Montpelier scored its ninth warmest June with an average of 65.1 degrees.

June is the third month this year that scored in the top 10 warmest on record in Burlington.  

Months in any given locality usually yo-yo between being on the cool or warm side. In Burlington, at least, the last time we had a somewhat cooler than average month was November,

Note that by average, I mean the "new normal." A normal month is the average for all of them between 1990 and 2020,  That period was warmer than the long term average from the 20th century, due to the effects of climate change. 

While most days were on the warm side in June, the event that really helped push the month into the top ten warm list was a heat wave from June 18-20.  Temperatures got well into the 90s through most of the state. Burlington tied its all time record for highest minimum temperature for any date on June 19, when the "low" temperature only reached 80 degrees. 

Overall, though, the warmth was pretty consistent. Eighteen days made it to at least 80 degrees in Burlington. I could only find nine Junes in Burlington in the past 130 years that had as many or more days that reached 80 degrees.

As is typical of summer months, rainfall was pretty variable around Vermont. Along and north of Route 2 it was on the wet side. Central and parts of southern Vermont were dry, but areas near the Massachusetts border were wetter again. 

A picturesque thunderstorm near Sheldon, Vermont
on June 9. This storm produced a brief, harmless
"cold air funnel" over nearby St. Albans. It 
was caused by the interaction of warm humid
air at the surface and cold air aloft. This was
not something that would actually produce a tornado.

Burlington and St. Johnsbury each had well over five inches of rain for the month, which is more than an inch on the wet side. Rutland, meanwhile, was an inch on the dry side with only 3.15 inches of rain. 

Because of the frequent availability of heat and humidity, severe weather made occasional visits to the Green Mountain State.

 The National Weather Service in South Burlington said there were six days in June in the region with reports of damage from severe thunderstorms 

The worst of it came on June 23, when flash flooding caused a lot of damage in the north-central Green Mountains, especially around Stowe, Worcester and Elmore.  The cleanup is still ongoing in many of these areas.

There was also a tornado watch and three tornado warnings that day. But the rotating storms managed to produce wall clouds and a couple reports of funnels, but no actual tornadoes in the Green Mountain State. There was a tornado in southwestern New Hampshire, not that far from the Vermont border.

That swath with the heaviest rain had a months total of between six and nine inches, which is a lot. Meanwhile, the U.S. Drought Monitor is rating much of south central and southeastern Vermont as abnormally dry.

Looking ahead to July, the early read on it suggests more warmth. Today will actually be a little on the cool side for the season, but that should change to a slightly toastier string of days starting Wednesday. Long range forecasts, though not always accurate, do fairly strongly suggest mostly warmer than average days through mid-month.