Post-Helene Asheville, North Carolina Reaches A Clean Milestone

Hurricane Helene devastated parts of Asheville, North
Carolina and cut off its water supply. As of this week
the water is on, and doesn't require boiling before use.
Although sections of the city remain devastated, the
majority of this tourist town is open and 
looking for visitors to return. 

On Monday, for the first time in 53 days, Asheville, North Carolina residents could put a glass under their kitchen tap, fill it, and gulp down a refreshing slug of water.  

Without boiling it first. 

That simple task had been impossible since Hurricane Helene devastated the region on September 27.

Among a million other things, the extreme hurricane and flood trashed water treatment plants in the region cutting off water supplies for most of the 94,000 or so residents of Asheville.

Water service returned to Asheville in the middle of October, but that water was still unsafe to drink.  The reservoir that provides most of the water for Asheville was a muddy, turbid mess. Treatment plants couldn't purify the water enough. 

But, things slowly got better. Last weekend, the city tested 120 water samples. They all came back good. So the boil water order is finally gone. 

Residents are being told to not use huge amounts of water, because that could still introduce dirt and muck into the system. So, no filling swimming pools, no watering the lawn for hours on end, no half hour long luxurious showers. 

I'm sure that's a good trade off. Better than always having to boil water. 

The return of potable water is a relief not just because it's a pain in the butt to boil water. Asheville is a big tourist town, so the lack of good water was one of many reasons tourists understandably stayed away.

After Helene the road network in the region was pretty much destroyed. Since then, many roads have reopened. 

Much of Asheville's River Arts District was obliterated by Helene's flooding. It'll take years for some of these areas to recover

But huge swaths of the city were not touched by actual floodwaters. Hotels, brew pubs, shops and attractions, including the famous Biltmore Estate.

Tourists were understandably discouraged from visiting Asheville and the rest of western North Carolina in the immediate, chaotic, tragic aftermath of Helene.  But now, parts of the region, including the city of Asheville, and much of Buncombe County, where Asheville is located, are open for business, and could use your tourist dollars.

Per the Asheville Citizen Times:

"Buncombe County could experience a 70 percent decline in tourism over the last there months of the year, the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority told the Citizen Times in an email - translating to more than $584 in last revenue.

The travel and hospitality industries generate $3 billion in local spending, representing 20 percent of the local economy, the agency says."

I was in Asheville as a tourist years ago. It is a lovely city, and it's worth the trip. 

The city is moving ahead with its annual Christmas celebrations, which is an obvious move. People really need that distraction.  

Northeast Storm Update: Some Beneficial Rains Continue, Some Areas Surprisingly Snowy.

A little light rain falls on a very low Lake Champlain 
Thursday at St. Albans, Bay, Vermont. The lake is
very low due to our long, arid autumn.

 Needed precipitation was still falling in the Northeastern U.S, including here in Vermont, early today where modest, but still beneficial amounts of rain had fallen. 

Overall, the only surprising thing about this storm so far is how much snow is falling in some areas - again, just not here in Vermont. 

Though a little bit of the white is coming to the Green Mountain State soon.  More on that in a minute.

Snow fell Thursday as far west as Chicago, where 2.9 inches snarled traffic as this was the first substantial snowfall of their winter season.

A bonafide, pretty substantial winter snowstorm is  hitting parts of northeast Pennsylvania, especially the Poconos, southwestern New York and the Catskills in that state.

The core of the storm's coldest air has been in that region, which is why they're getting so much snow. The highest elevations of the Poconos can expect up to 16 inches of snow by the time this is done. It's been snowing there since yesterday. 

The higher peaks in the Catskills might see six to 12 inches by late tonight. 

Already, Leondardsville and Coventry, New York, in high spots northeast of Binghamton have reported 11 inches of new snow. Tomkinsville, Pennsylvania in the Poconos has gotten 10 inches. And it was still snowing there early this morning.  

It's even gotten into New Jersey. You might have heard about the long lasting, big wildfire on the northwest New Jersey/southwest New York border that had been burning for two weeks could see one to four inches of snow. 

Vermont ski areas can only look longingly at that snow. But the good news is, they'll finally get at least a little.

VERMONT UPDATE

As expected, round one of this storm dumped some decent rains in southern Vermont but not a whole lot in the north. The Northeast Kingdom was especially dry. For example, through early this morning, I don't think it even rained up in Newport, and if it did, it was only a few hundreds of an inch. 

As of a couple hours before dawn, Montpelier managed to pick up 0.21 inches, and Burlington 0.3 inches. Southern Vermont had between a half and two thirds of an inch. 

The map you'll see frequently in the coming months: The
National Weather Service snowfall prediction map.
This one, issued early this morning, shows much of
Vermont getting a bit of snow this weekend, but
any real accumulations would be limited to
high elevations. Click on the map to make it
bigger and easier to see.

If forecasts for the next 48 hours come true, another half inch of rain and/or melted snow is on the way. And yes, I said snow. But don't expect a huge powder day just yet. 

Patches of light rain were still moving east to west across Vermont early this morning. Some of that light rain is finally reaching the Northeast Kingdom.

But that should taper off for everybody in the Green Mountain State this afternoon as an area of dry air gets caught up in the Northeast U.S. storminess and passes through. 

This afternoon could actually be fairly nice, with breaks of sun and temperatures sneaking up to near 50 in the warmer valleys.  We should still have a breezy east wind, though.

Round 2

We're still expected Round 2 in the precipitation overnight and early Saturday and the forecast has actually trended a bit snowier. Most of us aren't in for a winter wonderland just yet, but many of us could see a coating of snow on the ground by Saturday morning. 

As I noted yesterday, a second storm will form well offshore of New England and the curl northwestward into the Gulf of Maine.

That will throw more precipitation westward into Vermont later tonight. There's still question marks as to how much rain and/or snow we we'll see, but the early guess is very roughly a half inch of precipitation, give or take.

Colder air should move in aloft, changing the rain to snow late tonight and early Saturday in many spots. Chances are some wet snowflakes will make it all the way down into the Champlain Valley. 

A lot of places at or above perhaps 800 feet in elevation have a decent shot of seeing a slushy coating to an inch or two. Mountain summits could see a few inches. Beware if you're planning on driving through higher elevations late tonight and early Saturday. Things could get slick in spots. 

As the storminess pulls away Saturday afternoon, we transition into class late November blustery weather 

That means plenty of rain and snow showers, through the rest of the weekend, especially in the mountains and western slopes. Additional snow accumulation will be slim to none in the valleys, but the ski areas could pick up a few inches.  Cold northwest winds could gust past 30 mph both Saturday and Sunday.

A weaker storm should spread some more light rain across the region later Monday into Tuesday. 

Then, winter hits.  By Wednesday and beyond, we'll see daily high temperatures barely making it past the freezing mark in the valleys and staying subfreezing in the mountains. There's uncertain signs of some accumulating snow later in the upcoming week, but we don't know for sure whether that will happen or not. 

 But chances are better than even that if any precipitation comes into Vermont after next Wednesday and  for many days afterward, that precipitation would probably be snow. 

Stalling Hurricanes Are A Rising Concern In The Age Of Climate Change

Hurricane Harvey caused extreme flooding in 2017
when it stalled around eastern Texas. Research indicates
hurricanes and tropical storms are stalling more
frequently, causing worse flooding. 

 To be Captain Obvious here, any town or city struck by a hurricane gets a rough ride. 

The destructive winds, the storm surges that batter everything to death along the coast, and the inches and inches of rain that create instantaneous floods are to say the least, scary and depressing. 

If you can find any good news in these awful scenarios, hurricanes more often than not move right along. 

They'll batter coastal communities for maybe 12 hours before moving on to wreck somebody else's life either further up the coast or somewhere inland. 

Here's a problem, though. Hurricanes are becoming less likely to be "hurrycanes" if you will. 

Sure, the two most recent big destructive hurricanes -Helene and Milton - cruised along at a fast forward speed. And both caused horrible deaths, damage and suffering. But researchers are becoming increasingly wary of what seems to be a rising trend in slow movers.

As the Washington Post reported last month:

"That is raising threats that even weaker storms, the kind hardy residents might shrug off, could unleash outsize impacts as they batter communities with uninterrupted downpours and unrelenting winds. 

The finds add to proof that human- caused global warming is intensifying rainfall and encouraging hurricanes to rapidly strengthen, revealing yet another sign of storms' increasing potential for destruction."

Researchers who have been looking into these sloth like storms, needing parameters, defined stalled hurricanes or tropical storms as those that stay within 250 square miles for at least 72 hours. 

 Between 1966 and 2022, the frequency of stalled storms rose at a rate of 1.5 percent each year. The stalling seems to occur most often in the Bay of Campeche, the central Gulf of Mexico, the western Caribbean, near Florida and near the Carolinas

 These stalled storms can happen anytime during hurricane season, but seem to be most common in September and October. The oceans supporting the storms are warm, and steering patterns are often weak in the tropics that time of year, so things tend to get sluggish, making these storms prone to stalling

The Washington Post notes that the new research is in line with previous work on the subject.

A 2018 study said the forward speed of Atlantic tropical cyclones decreased by 10 percent between 1949 and 2016. Polar regions are warming faster than the tropics, and this change tends to slow circulation patterns, so hurricanes and tropical storms don't get a push to move along. 

In the United States, tropical storm stalls are most likely near Texas and Louisiana, the western coast of Florida (the fast forward speed of Helene and Milton notwithstanding) and near the northeastern Florida/Georgia and Carolina coasts. 

There's plenty of examples of nearly stalled extreme havoc in recent years. Hurricane Harvey is perhaps the most famous example. It stalled over east Texas for days in August, 2017, dumping more than 50 inches of rain in some spots and causing the the worst flood in metro Houston history. 

Other stallers include Category 5 Hurricane Dorian, which stalled near Great Abaco, the Bahamas, blasting the island with catastrophic winds, which maintained hurricane force winds for 24 hours an d at least tropical storm force for three days.  Hurricane Florence stalled in the eastern Carolinas for days in 2018, producing a catastrophic flood there. Nearly three feet of rain fell in some spots.

Just last week, Tropical Storm Sara stalled near Honduras, dumping up to 40 inches of rain and causing intense flooding. 

The recent research didn't get into why more tropical storms and hurricanes are stalling. They often stall near coastlines, so maybe it has something to do with differences in temperature between land and sea in those locations.  Also, polar regions are warming faster than mid-latitudes, and that might have something to do with it. 

The study does suggest emergency managers who deal with hurricanes might want to factor in what to do if a hurricane stalls nearby.  

Separate research also says climate change is making hurricane wind speeds higher. So the news is basically all bad. I'll have a separate post on those hurricane wind studies in an upcoming post. 

Did Northeast Drought Peak This Week? Updated Weekly Update Sets A Severity Baseline

The only part of the Northeast now escaping abnormally dry
or drought conditions is the Champlain Valley of 
Vermont and New York. 

 We've been doing regular updates as the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor arrives, and we're hoping this week shows the peak of the drought in the Northeast.  

The data in the latest report, which came out this morning, shows data through Tuesday, before a badly needed rainstorm arrived in the Northeast. 

 This rain won't even nearly end the drought, but we'll see in about a week if the precipitation put a dent in the problem. 

So, that's why I'm hoping the peak was this week. We don't want it to get worse. 

Thursday's report shows about virtually all of the Northeast from West Virginia to Maine is at least abnormally dry if not in drought. (The figure is 97 percent of the region).

  Somehow, only the Champlain Valley of New York and Vermont is considering at least just shy of being abnormally dry. 

The percentage land area in the Northeast which is in drought is now 61.4 percent, up a little more than three percentage points over the previous week. 

VERMONT

Here in the Green Mountain State, today's drought report shows little change from the previous week. As mentioned, only the Champlain Valley is free of officially dry conditions or drought concern. Southern Vermont - about a quarter of the state, is in drought. A small area in the extreme south is in severe drought.  

The drought in Vermont had been rapidly worsening week to week, so it was nice to see the downward trend slow to a crawl this week. That managed to happen even though less than a tenth of an inch of rain fell in northern Vermont and most places in the southern part of the state has nothing at all.

Vermont's drought isn't as bad as it is points south, so the rain that started today should help noticeably. It will fall well short of erasing drought and dry conditions, but it should make at least a little difference. 

Glorious Rain (And Snow!) Now Drenching Parched Northeast, Parts Of Vermont Might Wait A Bit For Drenching

Red sky in the morning sailors take warning, goes the
saying. Pink sky in the morning, like we saw in 
St. Albans, Vermont this morning, I guess heralds
some upcoming beneficial rain. 

 It's been raining much of the night and early this morning in places like Pennsylvania, New Jersey and southern New York. 

That would normally be not news at all, except that it's been so dry for so long there, that it is very noteworthy. 

As of 7 a.m. Philadelphia has reported 0.84 inches of rain. An unremarkable amount of a late November storm. 

But amazingly that's more rain than what's fallen this year in Philly between September 8 and November 19. (Normal rainfall during that period should have been roughly eight inches).

So the anticipated and hoped for  rains have arrived, the wildfires in the Northeast are being squelched as expected, but the drought is far from over. 

The weekly national drought update comes out later today, so I'll put together a new post about that later today. 

The Mid-Atlantic States will only get modest amounts of additional rain from this, but anything will help. 

Meanwhile, we in northern New England are in for a long period of rainy weather, with still some snow in the mountains.

VERMONT UPDATES 

 This is turning out to be kind of a weird storm system, which is causing some odd twists in the forecast.

An upper level low with a cold pool of air was over the Ohio Valley this morning. Meanwhile, a storm formed along the Mid-Atlantic coast, which made all that rain blossom yesterday and last night. 

The upper low is tugging this storm northwestward, which is a somewhat odd direction for an albeit fairly weak coastal low to head.

The combination of this path and the cold pool aloft will cause quite a snowstorm in the high elevations of the Pennsylvania Poconos, where a winter storm warning is up for later today and tonight.

Up here in Vermont, we're a ways from that upper level low so the atmosphere is warmer. That means when precipitation comes in, it will be mostly rain, with snow limited to the highest elevations.

Oddly, the best chance of high elevation snow is in southern Vermont, which is closer to that cold pool of air. 

The storm will come in two parts. The precipitation in Vermont will never come down super hard, but it will tend to add up over time. 

Part 1

The path of this initial storm means northeastern Vermont will probably initially get cheated out of much rain. 

Most of it today and tonight will be closer to that storm, focused generally south and west of Interstate 89. 

Thursday morning forecasts from the National Weather Service in South Burlington called for as much as 1.3 inches of rain in Manchester, Vermont by dawn Friday. Meanwhile, Newport and St. Johnsbury can only expect 0.1 to 0.2 inches during that period. 

As the first storm gets absorbed into the upper low in or near Ohio, we'll get a break from the rain Friday here in the Green Mountain State. A few showers might stick around, but there could even be a couple shafts of sun breaking through the clouds too. 

But it ain't over

Part 2

Remember that cold upper low I mentioned over Ohio? By the weekend, it will have moved to near the Mid-Atlantic coast.

A new storm will form offshore, and much like the first storm, it will get tugged northwestward by that upper level cold pool of air. This second storm will get nudged sort of toward Maine, which will allow rain to re-blossom over northern New England. 

This time, the best chances of decent rains would be over northern Vermont. That would help soak the Northeast Kingdom. So by Sunday morning, the National Weather Service estimates storm totals in southern Vermont will be up slightly to 1.5 inches. But in the Northeast Kingdom, total rainfall through Sunday would go to 0.75 to 1 inches, so pretty decent.

This second storm will be a bit colder than the first, so there's a better chance of some high elevation snow, But not much. We still don't have much cold air to work with. So you'd probably have to go way up to summit level by Sunday to see a decent dump. Down where all most of the ski slopes are, there might be a dusting to a few inches, but nothing earth-shattering. 

Beyond that, the weather pattern goes somewhat quieter again, with no big new storms on the immediate horizon next week. But a shifting pattern means pretty much the whole Lower 48 of the United States will probably be trending colder through the end of the month and into December.

That includes here in Vermont. So far, it looks like the coldest air might focus on the Rockies and Plains. But we would get chilly enough to see winter finally take hold around here, too. 

I'm Shocked That So Far, Forecasters Aren't Really Backing Off Of Northeast Soaker Forecast

Rainfall forecasts with the upcoming storm remain
encouragingly consistent. Heaviest rain is 
forecast for southern Vermont, where it's needed most.
Up to two inches south, less than an inch Northeast.

 This is increasingly looking like this will be "the one."  

By that I mean for once, the forecasts have remained steady.  There's very little change to the idea that the drought-stricken Northeast is about to get a nice soaking rain. 

It won't be nearly enough to erase the drought. Some areas would need a good ten inches of rain to do that, and we're only talking about an inch of rain, two at the very most with this one. 

But unlike past hoped-for rains this autumn, this one still looks like it's going to come to pass.

Frankly his takes some getting used to, talking about a noticeable storm headed our way. That hasn't happened in ages, it seems. Not that I'm complaining.

If there's any trends in the forecast, they're minor. Things have trended a little colder to the southwest of the storm track. To the point where a winter storm watch has been issued for northeastern Pennsylvania. Up to a foot of snow could come down in some high elevations of the Poconos.

But moisture is moisture. Snow would tamp down brush and wildfires at least as well as a soaking rain, right?

Folks from New Jersey to New Hampshire will be dancing in the rain as they watch the smoke from these fires dissipate under the rainy overcast tomorrow

VERMONT FORECAST

Up here in Vermont, the forecast for this storm has trended a wee bit warmer. That means only the highest elevations will see any real snow, at least the way it looks now. 

Tail end lighter precipitation Friday night through Sunday might pile up a few inches way up high, but the period of heaviest precipitation Thursday and Thursday night would be rain, unless maybe you're way up at 3,000 feet of elevation or higher. 

The heaviest rain looks like it will hit southern Vermont, which is great, because that's where it's currently the driest. 

Best guesses through Saturday morning brings about 1.25 to nearly two inches of rain for most areas south of Route 4.

The Champlain Valley looks like they're in for maybe an inch of rain.

The Northeast Kingdom is most likely to get cheated out of some of the rain. There's a lot of east winds with this system, especially when the best moisture arrives. When there's a steady, strong east wind with a storm system, New Hampshire's White Mountains often block a lot of the moisture from reaching places like St. Johnsbury, Lyndonville, Newport and Island Pond. 

So, those areas will probably see less than an inch of rain, with a few places possibly only clocking in with a half inch. Still, that helps. 

Winds shift into the northwest over the weekend. Usually a departing storm this time of year will bring snow showers even to the valleys. It shouldn't be hard to get below freezing in late November. 

Not this time. There's very little cold air to our north to tap into, so valleys should keep going with mostly cold rain showers, while the high elevations do get a little snow.  

The precipitation - valley showers and mountain snow shower - will gradually wane during the day Sunday. 

Beyond the weekend, the forecast still looks iffy. Unfortunately, it looks like it's trending a little less stormy than earlier predictions, so we might not get as much needed extra rain and snow as I first thought. 

But who knows? I'll keep an eye on it.  

First Major West Coast Atmosphere River Getting Their Wet Season Off To A Doozy Of A Start

We've entered the season in which pretty big storms come off the Pacific Ocean and hit various parts of the West Coast, sometimes intensely, sometimes not.  

Satellite view shows the strong "bomb" cyclone centered off
the Washington and British Columbia coast this afternoon.
It's the comma shaped thing on the right hand side of the 
image. Part of the atmospheric river is visible as that
long white streak heading west from the storm

The first major storm of the season looks like quite a doozy. What is known as a bomb cyclone will team up with an atmospheric river .

A bomb cyclone is a storm that's intensifying super fast. A storm is a center of lower air pressure. In general, the lower the air pressure in a storm, the stronger it is.

 Technically, if the air pressure in a storm drops by 24 millibars within 24 hours, the storm is a bomb. 

Bomb storms are often dangerous they are simply strong and getting stronger. You can plan on a lot of wind and precipitation if you're hit with a bomb cyclone, and that will be the case with this "bomb"

This storm could be the most intense in the region since at least the 1940s. 

 An atmospheric river is a long narrow corridor of deep moisture.  When one of these comes a shore, a 200 to 400 mile wide band,

So we have a strong storm and a stronger than usual atmospheric river. The result is a West Coast mess that started today. 

THE RESULT

Between this afternoon and Sunday evening, ten to as much as 15 inches of rain to northwestern California and southwestern Oregon. 

NOAA's Weather Prediction Center says that by Thursday, there's a high risk of dangerous flooding in parts of northwestern California. High risk flood alerts from NOAA happen only about four times a year and it's exceedingly rare for them to be issued three days before the event, as this one was.

High risk days account for two-fifths of all U.S flood deaths and at least 80 percent of all flood damage. So this is serious. 

Emergency managers are especially worried about mudslides and debris flows, especially on slopes that suffered wildfires in recent years.

The storm is accompanied by those high winds. Many neighborhoods are pretty heavily forested, which means trees could fall on houses. People are being warned to stay in interior rooms on the lowest floors of their homes because of this risk, 

Those winds tonight could gust to 70 mph, with possible 85 mph gusts near the beaches. 

Ten to as much as 20 inches of rain could
fall in the yellow shaded area of 
northwest California and southwest
Oregon over the next several days. 

The rough weather extends all the way to Washington and British Columbia. High winds are expected even in the big cities of Seattle, Tacoma and Vancouver, Canada. 

Blizzard warnings are up for Washington's Cascade mountains, 

Previous to this storm, some strong systems have hit British Columbia, and sideswiped Washington State with some decent rains. But points further south have had just small introductory systems to introduce the rainy season.  

This will be a real slap of reality and could be the start of a rough winter on the West Coast, especially roughly from San Francisco north.  There's a La Nina weather pattern, albeit a weak one, and that often cause extra storminess in the Pacific Northwest

WEST COAST STORM AND VERMONT

The West Coast storminess is unrelated to the super welcome precipitation that we're expecting starting Thursday. That one got energy from a previous storm that came ashore from the Pacific a few days ago. 

Despite the power of what's hitting the West this week, I so far see few signs of that storm spawning anything extreme in our neck of the woods.   

One piece of that atmosphere river should come through New England in about a week as a modest system with light precipitation. After that, the weather pattern seems like it could be active for us, but that's uncertain.  

UPDATE: Tropical Storm Sara Thankfully Dies, Leaves A Flooded Honduras Behind

Damage in Honduras from now-departed Tropical
Storm Sara, which dissipated this past weekend.

 Tropical Storm Sara, having tortured Honduras for several days with torrential rains and flooding, finally moved inland over Belize and the southern Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico over the weekend and died away. 

Good riddance

It left behind widespread flooding in Honduras, with reports of up to 40 inches of rain. So far, I'm grateful to report only two deaths, which seems surprisingly and happily low for a storm of this magnitude

At last check, reports from Honduras indicate 11 bridges, 226 homes and 252 streets and roadways destroyed.  More than 7600 people have been rescued.  

Some forecasts last week suggested Sara would re-emerge over the Gulf of Mexico, head east and becomc a threat to Florida.

The remnants of Sara might end up in Florida this week as a patch of briefly heavy rain, but that's about it. Nothng to worry about. 

One weird aspect of this is the remnants might ended up heading south to below Jamaica in the Caribbean, which is where this thing all started in the first place. But there's very little chance - if any - that the Sara remnants would regenerate.

Sara will probably - but not definitely - be the last tropical storm of the busy 2024 season. The Atlantic hurricane season ends on November 30, though a few tropical and subtropical storms and even hurricanes have been known to form in December.

However, the National Hurricane Center as of this morning is forecasting no tropical storm development for at least the next seven days. 

 

Vermont/Northeast Storm Update: Still Looking Nicely Wet But Some White Question Marks

A first guesstimate of expected rainfall from the upcoming
storm, courtesy of the National Weather Service office
in South Burlington. Most of us can expect 1 to 1.5
inches of rain (dark green and yellow) with about two
thirds of an inch in the Northeast Kingdom. This is
through early Friday morning. A little additional rain
and snow is expected over the weekend. 

 On paper, there are some aspects of our long awaited soaker storm expected late this week to be more white than wet, but that's not going to  happen this time.
 

Usually, this time of year, given the forecasted storm track and the expected bout of moderately heavy precipitation, we'd expect a sticky wet snowstorm with this thing. 

While I guarantee there will be some snow in Vermont out of this thing, it will be mostly a rainer, at least as it looks now.

As the National Weather Service office in South Burlington points out, there's just not a lot of cold air anywhere nearby for the storm to tap into to.

 Storms like this often manufacture their own cold pocket of air, which is why I said on paper this storm looks a bit like a wet snowstorm. 

But the bets are that the storm won't be able to form a strong enough cold pool of air aloft to make it snow much. At least not in the valleys

Mountain peaks in Vermont, the rest of New England and the Adirondacks could do well, and several inches could fall at elevations above 2,000 feet. But most of us will experience a cold rain through most of the storm. 

The National Weather Service's first estimate of
snow in Vermont and surrounding areas through
Friday morning is not bullish at all. Only the
highest elevations would see snow accumulations
according to this forecast. 

That said, meteorologists are still fine tuning the forecast so we can still expect some changes on how much it snows and where, and how much it rains and where. 

Overall, rain and melted snow across Vermont should amount to between 0.75 inches and 1.5 inches between late Wednesday night and Friday morning. So that's a decent slug of moisture, for sure. 

That's true for the rest of the Northeast. The drought zone could expect a lovely one to two inches of rain from this. We're talking from New Jersey through New England all the way to Maine and beyond. 

This won't be nearly enough to erase the drought in the Mid-Atlantic States and southern New England. But it will put a dent in it, and increase runoff into very low reservoirs. At least a bit. 

Even better, this storm should be enough to finally squelch those wildfires in the Northeast that have been torturing the region for more than a month. 

Back here in Vermont, the Vermont Department of Forests Parks and Recreation has extended the burn ban in southern parts of the state until next Monday. It's still dry, after all until this rain gets here. 

BEYOND THURSDAY

The storm is expected to stall, linger and generally weaken overhead through the upcoming weekend. That means more light rain and snow, Friday through Sunday. It probably won't amount to too much, though a few forecast hint at a possible burst of somewhat heavier rain or snow in the middle of that somewhere.

But don't count that. 

At least during the weekend, some snow will pile up at the ski areas. It won't be huge, but it will help the resorts open, and put everyone in the proper frame of mind for winter sports. 

Early guesses are if the snow this weekend finds its way into the valleys, it will be brief, with intervals of light rain thrown in, so there wouldn't be much accumulation. 

After the upcoming weekend, the weather pattern still looks kind of active, but it's impossible to tell how much storminess, how much rain, much much snow will arrive to help keeping chipping away at the drought. 

In fact, it could turn dry again. It's just too soon to figure anything out beyond the upcoming weekend. 

Trump Picks Avid Climate Denier As Energy Secretary Nominee

Donald Trump isn't surprising anyone with his pick over the past couple of days for U.S. Energy Secretary.  

Fracking executive Chris Wright was just picked by Trump
to be U.S. Energy Secretary.  Wright says climate change
is no biggie and we should drill, baby, drill 

The lucky winner is Chris Wright, the head of fracking company Liberty Energy.  And you guessed, it, our buddy Chris thinks climate change is just a bunch of hooey. 

Per the Washington Post:

"The fracking executive runs a foundation focused on dispelling the conventional wisdom on climate change and promoting expanded fossil energy production as a solution to many of the world's problems, an approach others say would drive dangerous levels of warming."

Wright actually does think the climate is changing, but he also thinks it's no biggie. Let's hear from Wright himself, with this quote:

"There is no 'climate crisis,' he said. "The only thing resembling a crisis with respect to climate change is the regressive, opportunity-squelching policies justified in the name of climate change."

The news outlets have been telling us all this about Wright, too. the past couple days

As ABC News reports:

"He has argued that policies aimed at reducing the impact of climate change are misguided and alarmist, describing the terms climate crisis energy transition, carbon pollution, clean energy and dirty energy as 'destructive deceptions;' and 'nonsense.'

Wright claims that any negative impacts of climate change are 'clearly overwhelmed by the benefits of increasing energy consumption' and believes that extreme weather events like hurricanes, tornadoes and floods have not increased because of climate change."

As NPR points out, Wright's opinion there "contradicts the U.S government's own National Climate Assessment, which concluded that climate change is increasing 'the frequency and severity of many types of extreme weather events,' including contributing to more intense hurricanes, heat waves and flooding."

All this makes me more worried that the Trump administration will just wipe out any government information that relates to climate change, and send scientists who study this critical issue packing. 

Then, we'll all be gaslighted big time by "government reports" or what have you that lie about what is going on with climate, weather extremes and such. 

 A thing I've never truly  understood about climate deniers: To them, the only reason people are sounding the alarm over the issue is that for some reason they want to destroy the economy, make people eat only nuts and berries and end normal society. 

 I mean, huh?

Wright's blindness toward climate science is striking. Of course, I don't know the motivation. Willful ignorance? Or he doesn't want to stop getting rich off fossil fuels?   I'll bet our next weather disaster declaration that has to be part of the issue here. 

Wright's obviously a smart guy. He's got a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and a masters degree in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute Technology. 

I also so far haven't heard anything about Wright's background that suggests he's completely off the rails, unlike some Trump picks so far. 

Wright should already be happy with the Biden administration, which might surprise you.

ABC News notes:

"In 2023, during the Biden administration, the United States broke a record for domestic oil production. The U.S. produced more crude oil that any other country in history - an average of 12.9 million barrels per day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration."

Yes, the Biden administration has also been investing in clean energy. But those who think we've let domestic oil and gas production fall by the wayside are definitely mistaken. 

Late Week Storm System Not Weird, But We're No Longer Used To That Sort Of Thing

For the first time in ages, weather forecasts are calling
for a fairly substantial storm in the Northeast, which
would bring badly needed precipitation. This
map is one interpretation of how the storm 
might look like on the weather charts Friday morning. 

 In a normal Vermont November, we gradually slide into winter, with each storm featuring a little more snow and schmutz than the time before. 

This transition also usually features a lot of iffy forecasts that could go one way or another, snow, or rain, or ice, depending on locations just miles apart.

We've had such a dry, storm-free autumn that we never got a chance to get into practice for this sort of thing. 

Which means we now face an actual storm later this week that could bring an actual mix of fairly substantial precipitation. 

I'm not complaining. We sure need the moisture, and we'll take it however we can get it. 

There's questions as to what form the precipitation will take. After all, it's the end of November, so anything can happen. Early bets are mostly rain in the valleys and a tossup in the mountains on this one. Forecasts on the storm will certainly change and shift one way or another by the time it hits beginning Thursday.  

And this isn't even going to be a blockbuster storm by any means. Just a typical thing you'd expect around now. Still, we're in for what might be a fair amount of rain. And some snow. Whatever falls from the sky, it will be the most precipitation we've seen in at least five weeks. It might even be the most we've seen since late September. 

Bring it on.  

THE SETUP 

What will become ingredients for the storm was causing an outbreak of tornadoes, severe thunderstorms and flash flooding in parts of Oklahoma and northern Texas this morning. The parent storm causing that will head northward and eventually fade.

But the energy isn't going away. At first, it will look like that original storm's cold front will weaken and fall apart as it approaches the east, like so many such fronts have done this autumn. 

Remember that energy, though. The storm will stall in the upper atmosphere above the Great Lakes and spawn a new storm somewhere in the Mid-Atlantic States. That would move north into New England Thursday.

That will cause a decent slug of what I think will be mostly rain throughout the region. Finally! Something to squelch the wildfire risk. This won't be enough to put a huge dent in the drought, but at least we get something. 

The storm will get drawn into that slow moving upper level storm. That whole thing will slowly shift eastward from the Great Lakes into New England, continuing the unsettled weather through next weekend. 

This system won't have huge amounts of cold air to work with. But it is the end of November, so it's not hard to get snow, at least in the mountains. 

At times, the snow could venture into the valleys. 

We don't know the extent of any snow just yet, but the ski areas look like they're in for several inches next weekend. 

The early guess on this suggests Vermont could see a good inch of rain and/or melted snow out of this storm. So not bad, really. This storm should affect the entire Northeast, so the super dry zones in southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic States should be dancing with joy in the cold rain by the end of the week. 

I do see hints that even after this storm departs, we might see a more active weather pattern. That would at least give us a shot at a few more bouts of rain or snow to close out the month and head into December. 

We could sure use it, so bring it on. 

Report: Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases Continue To Zoom Upward

All kinds of greenhouse gases are continuing to increase,
so the pace of global warming shows no sign of slowing. 

 If you think the world is starting to find success at reducing the amount of greenhouse gases we belch into the atmosphere, think again. 

Concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide - three of the main greenhouse gases, rose even faster than in 2022, according to the World Meteorological Organization

 As the Washington Post reports: 

 Concentrations of carbon dioxide - the most important driver of global warming - are now growing faster than at any time since our species evolved, according to the World Meteorological Organizations' annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin. The increase can be traced back to stubbornly high rates of fossil fuel consumption, the report said, as well as ecosystems that are becoming more likely to produce emissions and potentially less capable of absorbing excess carbon."

The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere last year was a little over 420 parts per million, a level Earth hasn't experienced since the Pliocene Epoch, which was more than three million years ago. You missed that era because human beings didn't exist yet. But at that time, scientists estimate the world was about five degrees warmer than it is now and sea levels were 30 to 60 feet higher than they are now. 

Most of the extra carbon dioxide that accumulated in the atmosphere last year is from us burning coal, oil and gas, like we have since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Carbon dioxide started to increase with that Industrial Revolution and has accelerated since. 

But there might be something called a positive feedback loop increasingly adding to the equation. That's when a trend - climate change in this instance - gets reinforced and boosted by that very same phenomenon. 

Wildfires boosted by climate change also added extra carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The amount of this gas increased by 2.3 parts per million in 2023 the twelfth year in a row that CO2 went up by more than two parts per million.

This feedback loop also involved other greenhouse gases as well 

The WMO said atmospheric levels of carbon monoxide and methane both went up sharply last year. 

The spike in carbon monoxide was the largest yet observed. Most of that comes from wildfires, as burning trees release this chemical into the air. Global carbon emissions from forest fires were 16 percent above average during the 2023-24 fire season. 

A large share of that probably came from Canada, which had by far its worst fire season on record in 2023 with 37 million acres burned. 

Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Methane emissions are also increasing, too.

Those surging methane levels are partly due to bacteria living in landfills and from cows.  A lot of methane comes from wetlands.  It turns out this is a feedback loop. Methane helps warm the atmosphere. Then, a toastier atmosphere allows wetland to increase their methane emissions.

And on and on it goes. 

Thawing Arctic permafrost might well be adding extra methane to the atmosphere. Another example of global warming creating even more global warming. 

The only vague bright spot regarding methane is that 2023 emissions were a wee bit smaller than 2022.

The environment also takes up carbon, removing it from the atmosphere, so that's a good thing. However, there's bad news on this one, too. Per the Washington Post:

"Meanwhile the net amount of carbon taken up by ecosystems last year was about 28 percent lower than in 2021 and 2022, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Global Monitoring Laboratory. This decline may be in part because of 2023's record high temperatures, which are known to stress plants and cut into ecosystems' ability to serve as a carbon sink."

Since 2024 is virtually guaranteed to be even hotter than 2023, this trend will likely continue.  

Given the political climate, I don't see any slowing of greenhouse emissions anytime soon. So the world will keep getting hotter and hotter. 

"Flash Drought" The Cause Of Northeast Fires, Water Shortages

Today started with yet more crystal clear skies over
Vermont, super odd for normally damp November.
It was another moment of a flash drought taking
over the Northeast, including here in Vermont. 

 You've definitely heard of flash floods.

Lord knows we've had enough of them around the nation  - and here in Vermont - this year. 

As we know flash floods are extremely rapid onset inundations. Everything could be fine at one moment, five minutes later cars and even houses are washing away.  

The Northeast is now having the opposite problem: A flash drought.

Flash droughts obviously don't come nearly as quickly as flash floods. But they do hit with pretty shocking speed. Just a few months ago, the Northeast was sopping wet. Now, the region is parches and on fire.

Regular droughts develop over many months and even years. A drought takes hold as month after month, rain and snow fall short. It does rain some but not nearly enough. After many months of such weather, the water has run out.

 Flash droughts usually hit in a matter of several weeks.  Several factors usually gang up on a region to cause a flash drought. 

First, it's the lack of rain - duh!  In flash droughts, the lack of rain is often extreme - the faucets from the sky basically get entirely shut off

Hotter, sunnier than normal weather turbocharges evaporation, so things dry out faster. Add a lot of wind to disperse the evaporated ground water and you go from rain forest to practically the Gobi desert in no time. 

As the Washington Post outlines:

"DC, Philadelphia and Newark each just experience record-long dry streaks. In fact, Philadelphia has only seen 0.69 inches of rain in two months. Most major Northeast cities are running five to seven inches behind average for the past 60 days. 

Temperatures have been running above average, resulting in increased evaporation. For November to date, Boston has been 4.6 degrees warmer than normal. New York has been 4.9 degrees above average, and DC has stood some 7.4 degrees above typical values. Coupled with minimal rainfall, it's no surprise the landscape is rapidly drying out."

Here's another  for example:

New Jersey is so far arguably the hardest hit state with this drought so far. On September 3, absolutely none of the Garden State was in drought. Eight weeks later, the entire state was. The severe version of the drought came in faster. Exactly 0 percent of New Jersey was in severe drought on October 1. Just six weeks later, this past Tuesday, 100 percent of New Jersey was in severe category of drought.

That's an awfully fast onset. 

You've probably heard me say that warmer air holds more moisture than cooler air. And that since climate change has made the world warmer, and the atmosphere can hold more moisture, flash floods are tending to become more frequent and worse than they used to be.

That's all true - if there's a convenient storm nearby to grab that moisture and organize it into those torrential downpours.  

But, the weather patterns sometimes get stuck in such a way to divert storms away from a certain region. A big ridge of high pressure in the atmosphere has held more or less firm and strong all autumn in the Northeast.

That's been diverting storms off to our west, south and east this autumn.  

This type of weather whiplash is becoming more common with climate change. Periods of too wet and too dry conditions are getting more extreme, and come at us faster than they used to in this warmer world. The trend will only worsen

In this autumn's case, one result is all those wildfires in the Northeast.

And increasingly worrisome water shortages. For instance, reservoirs serving New York City are draining fast. Schoharie Reservoir, north of New York, was down to 63 percent capacity this past week. Streams flowing into the reservoir were at record low flows, so the reservoir will continue to empty until the region gets a ton of rain. 

In New Jersey, officials are begging residents to conserve water and avoid wasteful behavior like watering lawns. It would take a good ten inches of rain at this point to put a meaningful dent in the drought conditions in New Jersey.

VERMONT AND FORECAST 

Here in Vermont, it hasn't been quite as extreme, but still, the dry conditions have come on with lightning speed.   Less than 1 percent of Vermont's land area was abnormally dry on September 17, and that had increased to 77 percent last week, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Burlington crossed a threshold Saturday. Pretty much all year, precipitation had been running heavier than normal. Then the dry autumn hit, whittling away at that wet lead. On Saturday, year to date rainfall in Burlington went into the below normal column for the first time this year.

The Northeast- including Vermont - has their best shot in many weeks of seeing a decent rainfall later this week. Unless things fall apart once again, the region could 0.75 to 1.5 inches of rain if an expected storm behaves as expected.

That amount of rain would do very little to get rid of the actual drought, but it would go a long way toward tamping down all those wildfires in the region. 

Unfortunately, the storm could turn out just to be a temporary blip in the drought. Some long range forecasts suggest a return to drier than normal conditions in the Northeast starting in the final days of this month. 

It Goes On And On; Global, U.S. October Continues Climate Change Meltdown

 As we do every month, we check out the data NOAA provides to find out how the U.S. and the world did with their weather and climate the previous month. 

Another very red global monthly climate map as
October was the world's second warmest on record.

For years now, these monthly reports have been almost exclusively bad news regarding climate change. 

Why break from tradition now? The news for October was crappy, too! 

THE WORLD

October turned out to be the world's second warmest on record, just a tiny smidge cooler than October 2023.

You might remember that this September ended 15 months of consecutive warmest months, as September was only second warmest. We're doing the same in October.

Sort of. Land areas had their warmest October on record. But oceans only had their second warmest October, so that dragged the entire world's average for the month down to second warmest. 

This tiny "cooling trend" if you want to call it that, was expected. An El Nino - which boosts global temperatures beyond even what climate change can do -- ended a few months ago. So I guess we've stopped breaking some records. At least for now. 

As has been the case for a long time now, it was hard to find notable cool spots in the world in October.

An area in and near the southern tip of South American was sort of cool. Along with a corner of Antarctica.  And a little area in the North Atlantic between southeastern Greenland and Iceland. 

Even that chillyish spot near Iceland is bad news.  It's another symptom of melt water from the ice caps of Greenland and elsewhere in the Arctic flowing into the North Atlantic. This is decreasing salinity in the region's water.

That has scientists worried the melt and changes will make a large, crucial Atlantic current system to collapse, causing abrupt  climate changes in Europe and elsewhere many orders of magnitude worse than anything we've seen since humans have been around. 

In October, most of the Arctic, the southwestern U.S., northern Mexico, parts of India and Pakistan, and a few pockets of Africa and South America had a record warm October.

 Other parts of the world that were way, way warmer than the 20th century average include most of South America, the  central and northeastern United States, sections of North Africa, huge swaths of Europe, the southern half of Asia, most of Australia and western Antarctica. 

I write pretty much the following sentence virtually every month, but I vaguely remember when I used the number 35 in it. But here goes: If you are younger than 48 years old, you've never seen a global October that was cooler than the 20th century average. 

The year to date (January-October) is the world's warmest on record by a wide margin. Basically, unless a big asteroid hits Earth any minute now, 2024 will be world's hottest on record. 

UNITED STATES

Just as you probably thought, October was super warm and dry in the Lower 48 of the United States. Officially, it was second warmest on record and tied for second driest. 

Almost all counties in Lower 48 were warmer than average
in October (orange and red shadings) Only a handful
were near average (in white). Even in warmer than
normal months, a few areas of the nation are cooler
than average. Not in October, 2024!

Pretty much everybody was warm in the United States in October, but as usual, some areas were toastier than others. Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Utah had their warmest October in at least 130 years. 

California, Colorado, Montana and Wyoming had their second warmest October. Ten other states were also in the top 10 ranking for hottest October. 

New Jersey and Delaware had their driest October on record. 

The first ten months of 2024 are the Lower 48's second warmest on record. Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin are all  had their warmest year to date through October. 

To nobody's surprise, November nationally and globally has been running hot so far. I'm sure we'll have a similar post in November telling everyone how hot and sweaty the month is.

These monthly climate posts on the state of the global and United States climate might seem tedious broken record type things,

But they serve an important purpose. It drives home the fact that climate change is roaring on, it's not abating and the effects are worsening. No matter who puts their head in the sand over this issue, the world needs to face reality.

I'm waiting to see if we step up to the plate or not. 

 

 

Oddly Gorgeous November Weather Continues Vermont/Northeast Fire Risk

Another day, another nearly identical wildfire risk as Friday in Vermont and the rest of the Northeast..

Often this time of year, I post almost daily'
snowfall prediction maps. This November,
it's fire prediction maps for Vermont.
Today's fire danger is very high
(orange) in most of Vermont. 

I guess I'm focusing on the dark side of what has been a very strangely bright and sunny Vermont November. 

True, we've gotten a huge break from the usually dark and clammy Novembers we're used to. It's actually a pleasure going outdoors this month, which is not how one would usually describe a New England November.. 

But, as gorgeous as it is, the fire danger is the real news, and the thing that we have to sound the alarm on.

For the second day in a row, a red flag warning for fire danger is in effect for pretty much all of central and southern Vermont. 

That red flag warning extends through the rest of central and southern New England, through southern New York, all of New Jersey and in eastern Pennsylvania.

Fire departments, forestry officials and emergency managers will once again be busy today throughout the region. 

VERMONT SITUATION

Back here in Vermont, the Saturday risk of brush and wildfires isn't limited to the red flag warning zone. That's just where the risk is greatest. Wildfires can get going anywhere the Green Mountain State today. The ongoing dry weather/drought, sunshine, low humidity and a steady north wind are all conspiring to increase the risk. 

The Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation rate today's fire risk as very high across Vermont today, though it is "merely" high in the Champlain Valley. Which means we should be on high alert.  

The department has already dealt with some small brush fires this week. One of the worst of the week so far was down in Pownal Friday, where a trailer fire spread and became a brush fire. 

In neighboring Pittsfield, Massachusetts, a brush fire ignited a house, a clear demonstration that a forest fire doesn't always stay in the forest. Beware.

I suppose the least risky area today is the Champlain Valley, where it has been ever so slightly wetter than other parts of the state. That's not saying much, as Burlington has so far this month received about a quarter inch of rain in a time period where we should have had nearly an inch and a half.  

Winds will probably be slightly lighter in the Champlain Valley than elsewhere in the state today, which helps a smidge. But there's still quite a fire danger there, too.

Bottom line: Enjoy today's oddly mild and sunny November weather. Just do it without involving fire.

  Sunday and Beyond 

Tomorrow looks a little safer in Vermont, but that's not saying much. It'll still be dry, with low humidity. But at least winds will be light, so any fires that do start won't spread so easily. 

A weak little system might drop a few hundreds of an inch of rain - a pittance really - on northern Vermont Monday.  That's the same kind of inconsequential stuff we've kept seeing all month. And once again, like the previous episodes this November, it's doubtful it will rain at all in southern Vermont. Those sprinkles will avoid southern New England, and the Mid-Atlantic, too.

That'll keep the fire risk going.

There's still hope that a brief change in the weather pattern could give us our first fairly substantial rain (and possibly some snow) starting Thursday and continuing into the weekend. If we get that kind of storm, it won't be nearly enough to stave off the developing drought, but it would go a long way toward finally tamping down the fire risk.

New England Ski Areas Manage To Bring On Winter, Despite Autumn Heat, Drought

As usual, Killington was the first ski area in Vermont
to open for the season this week. Ski resorts are 
still hoping for colder temperatures and snow to
really bring on the season

 Two New England ski areas managed to open for the season Thursday. 

This despite the lack of much chilly air lately. And a dearth of precipitation of any kind. 

Even so, it finally got chilly enough this week to allow the snow guns to run for enough hours to put down a decent coating of snow. 

Opening day Thursday at Killington was basically just a preview. The resort had an invite-only Passholder Appreciation Day.  

The resort is open to the general public today, Friday, November 15. 

You can't expect too much terrain on opening day, especially since it hasn't exactly been snowing lately.  Only two advanced trails are open at Killington.

The only substantial snows Vermont's mountains have had so far were in mid-October, and that has long since melted in several bouts of record warmth.  

Because of the warm autumn, Killington did open later than usual. It was the third latest opening in the past decade.

In 2022 they opened on November 17.  In 2020, skiers had to wait until November 20. The earliest opening in the past decade was October 19, 2018.

Other ski areas are on the cusp of opening.  Traditionally ski areas start their season on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. I guess you can call it White Friday up at the ski resorts, since that's the color of snow. Thanksgiving is later than usual this year, falling on the 28th.

Ski areas like  Bolton Valley, Bromley, Burke and Jay Peak expect to open on November 29.

They'd better hope for a change in the weather.

Sure, it has often by cold enough to make snow in the past few days, and there should be more opportunities next week. It would be nice if there were some natural powder coming from the skies up in the mountains, too.

There are preliminary signs we could see a little snow in Vermont about a week from now, but we shall see!  

Rare Red Flag Warning For Vermont Fire Danger Today, SaturdayLooks Bad Too. aed Flag Warning

Today's fire danger is rated as "very high"
across most of Vermont and "high" in 
the Champlain Valley  and far
northern parts of the state.

You've seen a lot of fire danger posts about Vermont and New England in the past month, but this one is probably the highest level one you've seen yet. 

A rare red flag warning for fire danger is in effect today for the southern Vermont. It covers Bennington and Windham County, and everything east of Route 7 as far north as Middlebury. 

This part of the state should see the gustiest winds and some of the lowest humidities today, which prompted the warning. 

The National Weather Service in South Burlington says this is the first autumn red flag warning in Vermont in at least 18 years. 

The rest of Vermont is not off the hook today. While the weather and drought conditions in the northern and western parts of the state don't quite meet the criteria for that red flag warning, conditions there will still be pretty ripe for any fire starts. And those fires can spread quickly. 

WHY TODAY?

It's just as dry today as it was yesterday, so why the added concern?

The answer is wind.

Thursday featured almost no wind that could spread fires easily.

Today, a storm in the Canadian Maritimes is hooking westward, a little closer to us. It won't get nearly close enough to set off any precipitation in Vermont. But it will be bumping up against high pressure to our west.

That will sort of "squeeze" the air, causing a pretty stiff north wind to get going. The strongest winds, possibly gusting as high as 30 mph, are forecast in the red flag warning zone. That coincides with the part of Vermont that is driest, and deepest in drought. 

Tomorrow probably won't be much better. The humidity in the air will increase a little, which could help a bit. But gusts will probably be as strong as today, if not a little more hefty. 

WHAT TO DO

Obviously, if you've been meaning to burn that pile of brush in the back 40, don't do it. Most places aren't issuing burn permits anyway. 

As for you slobs that flick cigarette butts out your car windows, Stop it! That's one very easy way to set a brush or forest fire. You shouldn't be doing that anyway even if's been raining continuously for a month, as you're littering. 

I'd avoid those outdoor fire pits. Embers from that could land in a nearby field or forest and set a fire. No campfires, either, please. 

Here's another tip that I hadn't thought of until recently. If you're doing some last minute clean up with your lawn mower, remember this: Unlike previous autumns when the leaves and grass were relatively wet, this year they're bone dry.

The hot components of a lawn mower and other landscaping equipment can start fires under these conditions. There have been several brush fires in New Hampshire in recent weeks started by lawnmowers, WMUR reports. 

Also those weed whackers can hit a rock, create a spark and off you go to the races with a fire. 

THE NORTHEAST

It's not just Vermont.

The red flag warnings today extend across the southern half of New Hampshire and all of southern New England. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center says there's an elevated fire danger today from New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania northeastward all the way to southwest Maine. 

A similar region has an elevated fire risk Saturday. 

A weak cold front Monday might - if we're lucky - produce isolated very light rain showers in a couple spots in Vermont and New England, but don't count on it. The next chance of any relief is late next week, when signs point to a possible rain storm.

But we've been to this rodeo before.  A few times this autumn, it would sometimes seem we're teed up for a rainstorm a few days out, only for everything to fall apart before the event actually got here.

I'll believe the rain or snow when I see it.  

Tropical Storm Sara A Catastrophe For Honduras. But Forecast Is Encouraging For Florida

Satellite view of Tropical Storm Sara already 
unleashing torrential rains on Honduras.

The mess of storminess in the western Caribbean Sea got its act together enough today to be declared Tropical Storm Sara.   

As of late this afternoon, it had top winds of only 40 mph, which certainly isn't a blockbuster in that department. 

But Tropical Storm Sara is a big blockbuster in terms of rain, and it's drenching Honduras with dangerous downpours.  Worse, that state of affairs will continue into most of the weekend. 

The storm's forward speed, already kinda glacial, is slowing down even more. Sara will crawl along the northern coast of Honduras all weekend, at a forward pace as slow or slower than an average person's walking speed. 

All the while, it will dump extreme downpours on the nation, especially in the north. Mountains just inland from the northern coast of Honduras are subject to great rushes of water rushing down the slopes, and catastrophic mudslides. 

Some places could easily see 30 inches of rain. Fatalities are inevitable, I'm afraid. 

SARA'S FORECAST

Expectations of what Sara might do over the next week have changed markedly from earlier this week. Initial forecasts had the storm staying far enough offshore to gain lots of strength from near record warm Caribbean waters. 

Fears grew that Sara would become possibly a powerful hurricane.  And maybe have enough oomph left over to menace Florida.

Florida can't completely let down its guard as of late this afternoon, but residents there can certainly breathe easier. 

Sara's center is now forecast to hug the Honduran coast as it unleashes its cataclysmic rains, so it won't be able to strengthen much. Its interaction with land will probably disrupt its circulation,

Unless Sara somehow manages to edge a little further north into open water, forecasters now doubt top winds will go much above 55 mph or so.

Toward Sunday, Sara should finally get a gentle kick in the pants and start heading northwest into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Since it probably won't be all that strong to begin with, Sara will probably die a relatively quiet death over land down there. 

Originally, Sara was supposed to emerge into the Gulf of Mexico, possibly as a hurricane targeting Florida next week. Now the best guess is that what will be former Sara will cross Florida during the middle of next week as a modest rainstorm.

Things could obviously change.  Tropical systems have surprised us several times this year with unexpected strength and resilience, so Florida should remain aware of this thing, just in case.