Former Hurricane Humberto, Reborn As Storm Amy, Blasts UK With 96 MPH Winds

Storm Amy, which had its origins in Hurricane 
Humberto, slammed much of the UK with damaging
winds. Here, a derelict building crashed down on
a car in Glasgow, Scotland. 

The UK was just blasted by what used to be Hurricane Humberto. 

At least one death has been reported in Ireland, in what has been re-named Storm Amy by the UK Met Office.  

Gusts as high as 96 mph were reported in the Inner Hebrides, a group of islands off the west coast of Scotland.  Northern Ireland recorded its highest October wind gust on record, at 92 mph. 

Storm Amy also set a record for the deepest area of low pressure in the UK during the month of October. In general, the lower the air pressure at the center of a storm, the stronger the storm is. 

As of Saturday morning local time, 62,000 homes and businesses across Scotland were without power and another 22,000 had no electricity in Northern Ireland, the BBC reported. 

Winds were not as strong further south, but still gusty enough to be dangerous. All eight of London's royal parks closed Saturday and opening times will be delayed Sunday, says the BBC. 

This past week, Hurricane Humberto transitioned to what is know as an extratropical storm - which is basically they type of system most storms are.

Hurricane have warm core and no warm and cold fronts. Extratropical storms have colder cores and those weather fronts. Once hurricanes get far enough north and away from the warm water needed to feed them, one of two things will happen.

The hurricane might simply dissipate. Or, especially if there is another disturbance around, like a cold front, the dying hurricane might reinvent itself as a regular storm.  Since the storm had its origins in the tropics, that energy might be an added boost to the re-formed storm.

That's what happened to Humberto. It transitioned to an extratropical storm. The UK Met Office even gave it a new name - Amy - so we no longer call it be its dead name, which was Humberto.  (The Met Office gives names to the powerful storms that often sweep the UK, especially in the winter. ) 

Storm Amy took off into the North Sea today, so conditions were improving in the UK and Ireland. 

Two More Houses Falls Into Sea In North Carolina. Video Shows Sad Home Destruction, Somber Onlookers

"Skybox," a house on the shore in Rondanthe,
North Carolina that has been teetering
for days, finally collapsed into the waves
Friday evening. Photo via Facebook
Wes Snyder Photography.

On Thursday, I told you seven houses fell into the Atlantic Ocean at Buxton, North Carolina, thanks to big swells created by now-former hurricanes Humberto and Imelda.  

Later on Thursday, an eighth house fell in. Like many of the other homes, this one was widely caught on video. 

One video, by Brett Barley I found to be quite striking.  It really brings home the sense of loss and sadness in the Outer Banks as climate change teams up with a naturally unstable barrier island to create a slow motion disaster. 

I'll link to it on the bottom of this post.

A ninth house known as "Skybox", collapsed in nearby Rodanthe, North Carolina last evening, bringing to 21 the number of houses lost to the rising sea over the past five years. 

Skybox had been teetering for days, and local residents were impressed by it resilience, despite being battered by hurricane swells for days. 

Several other houses look ready to go in the inevitable next hurricane or nor'easter 

The collapses over the past five years are often taking place under clear, balmy skies. Gorgeous weather, except for the falling houses. It's often been distant storms hurling powerful swells into the Outer Banks that have caused the destruction. 

In Barley's video, you can see a large crowd had gathered just behind a big debris field left by the other homes that fell to the waves.  It was a somber crowd, without the kinds of hoots and hollers you get the people watch other dramatic moments. 

Barley explains why in the note below the YouTube video:

"The majority of these homes were built buy locales, they are maintained by locals, the visitors who come and stay in them support the local economy. They are more than 'just someone's rental property.' They are a part of this community regardless of who owns it. 

They have helped put food on the table for may families here over and and over again. They have made memories for those who came and stay.... weddings, birthdays, honeymoons, family vacations, etc. They are part of the memories of those who live here and work/play amongst the beach and neighborhoods they make up."

Much like the case of Skybox, people root for other clearly doomed houses. Part of us always want to deny the inevitable. 

When the house in Barley's video first collapses, it bumps in a large green house next door, which is also being battered by the swells from the two distant hurricanes. You can see the green house is in rough shape, and could go at any time. The porches are askew, and you can detect a slight lean toward the ocean. One of the main pilings is badly cracked. 

Comparison photo showing homes in
Buxton, North Carolina a decade ago
and this week. The erosion has been
incredible. Photo via Facebook, 
Edward Sneed. 

Meanwhile the house that collapsed in the video slowly breaks apart. The first floor was partially crushed in the immediate crash, and the waves take apart the rest of the lower walls. The second floor briefly stays intact, which is what we've seen in previous collapse videos from the Outer Banks. 

The video lingers on how pieces of somebody's life come apart with each wave.  A striped couch and matching chairs suddenly bob in the waves. Then a refrigerator floats out of the house 

As the house is slowly disintegrates, it starts out to the left of the green house, and the waves take it front of that green house, and finally leave the wreckage to the right of the green house. The collapsed house never really hits the green house after the initial bump.

But sure enough, we'll one day, probably soon, see video of the green house collapsing, or the wreckage of it floating in the surf. 

The collapsed houses are an enormous mess, of course. The debris - wood, broken glass, nails, potentially toxic insulation and other materials, spread along for miles of beach.

Crews were moving in fast to remove the wreckage, but the waves are faster. All the Outer Banks collapse videos this week show debris spreading far and wide. 

I've seen a lot of talk about people being dumb to build houses right on the water. But the houses that just collapsed in North Carolina actually used to be at least a block or two inland from the beach. 

One person who commented on Barley's video said they rented the house that collapsed a year ago. They said at the time, the house seemed quite stable, despite a strong storm they experiences while staying there. 

Rising sea levels inevitably change the shape of the seacoast, and this is what you get. 

In North Carolina, a 2024 report stated that 750 of nearly 8,800 oceanfront structures are at risk from erosion. Dealing with this is expensive. Reinforcing the shore with dredged sand or rock is expensive. So is using state or federal funds to buy out the threatened homes and demolish them before the waves do. 

We're going to see more and more of this, not just in North Carolina, but up and down the East Coast as those sea levels rise and storms get more intense with climate change. Meanwhile, people are still flocking to the seacoast. 

This is going to be part of a very costly depressing future. 

VIDEO

Video of a house collapsing into the water Thursday in Buxton, North Carolina and then gradually disintegrating . Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

October, 1965 Cold Wave Got Me Started With Weather. But Man, Have Times Changed!

The autumn, 1965 cover of Vermont Life
magazine. A weird October cold wave
that year helped start a lifetime of 
weather geekdom, which has morphed
into a horrified fascination 
with climate change. 

When weather geeks like me are asked what got them into keeping their heads in the clouds, so to speak, they'll often mention childhood memories of dramatic storms like hurricanes, tornadoes or blizzards.   

My experience is more odd and convoluted.  I don't think what got me into weather and climate geekdom was one particular thing. But a long-forgotten early October cold wave piqued my interest. At a very, very early age.

I seemingly was born with the desire to understand nature, and wind and clouds and the sky. How it works, and why it's all as cool as it is.  

For some reason my memories of early October, 1965 are vivid, even though nothing particularly exciting happened, and I was only three years old.  

It was Sunday, October 3. West Rutland, Vermont. When I got up that morning, my parents were in the kitchen, talking about an expected cold wave and even the chance of snow. 

Outside, a stiff north wind had just started, peeling colorful leaves off of sugar maples with gleeful abandon.

The temperature fell all day. I stood by the windows watching my dad doing stuff outside. These were big windows, with three panes stacked atop each other. As an adult, standing in the living room, I would look out the top window. At age three, I was so short I could just barely peek out the lower pane. 

From the base of the window, my breath steaming the glass, and my mother warned me about getting fingerprints on the spot she just cleaned. 

I watched my dad, looking rather bundled up, working one of the outdoor projects he was always doing. I think he was building a stone wall. He repeatedly pushed a  steel wheelbarrow loaded with rocks and dirt up a hill like he was out for a stroll. He was 45 years old at the time and had the strength and stamina of a bull. 

I wanted to go outside to "help" dad, but my mother said no. It was too cold. I was a smart ass, and frankly, sometimes actually smart even at that age. I pointed out that dad was outside, and that was OK. And I told mom she let me play outside in the middle of winter when it was even colder. 

But I lost the argument. My mother must have not felt like digging all the winter clothes out. It was too early in the season to deal with it.   

That evening, though, my mother turned on the outdoor lights in the backyard. It was snowing, only a little, and it wasn't sticking. But it was snowing. Both of us were excited. The first snow of the season. 

It flurried for each of the next two days, in one of the earliest bouts of winter on record. I looked it up recently and learned the temperature in Burlington fell into the 30s during the day on October 3, 1965 and did not get above 40 again until the afternoon of October 6.  

The high temperatures on October 4 and 5, 1965  in Burlington were 39 and 37 degrees, all record low high temperatures. 

A WEATHER JOURNEY, CLIMATE UNEASE

Anyway, from then on, for the next six decades I bored people to death with my weather obsession, but I just couldn't help myself.  I overcame a childhood fear of thunderstorms so that they're now my favorite weather. The louder, the better.

I get a stir of excitement with every storm. Except the dangerous ones that have been hitting with greater frequency with climate change.  I actually cried a bit when I woke up on the morning of July 11, 2023 to see Montpelier under water. 

Then the floods kept hitting. Until the worst drought I can remember hit this summer and fall. 

The ever-changing Vermont weather I grew up with has started to change too much. It's gotten scary. And sad. This isn't the Vermont climate I grew up with. Epic floods. Epic droughts. Epic heat waves. It's so much weirder nowadays than a snow flurry in early October could ever be.

I don't think we'll ever get another October, 1965 in Vermont because the climate is so much different now.   

Just two years ago, it was 86 degrees in Burlington on October 4, an all time record high for the month.  That's as big a contrast to October 4, 1965 as you can possibly get. We're expecting potential record highs in the low 80s this Sunday and Monday.

When I was young, I LOVED snow, and 1965-66 turned out to be the start of a series of snowy winters that lasted well into the 1970s. That era was a great time to be both a kid who simultaneously loved snow and was an incorrigible weather geek. 

The stats back me up. Burlington's average annual snowfall is 72.6 inches. Every winter from 1965-66 through 1975-76 had at least 85 inches of snow. Yeah, my ADHD always leads me to the stats for some reason. 

Nowadays, I'm not nearly as big a fan of snow.  A changed climate has minimized the amount of snow we get. Fortunately for me, but not for a lot of other Vermonters.

Snow in the winter has become uneven. Some winters don't get much snow at all. Other winters recently have had tons of snow. At least on paper. But it seems every snowfall is followed by a thaw. The snow cover never really gets deep like it used to half a century ago.

I'm still a geek who - unlike 99 percent of the rest of the world - can still get breathless over a mesoscale  convective complex. (Don't ask).

I'm still as fascinated with the weather as I was as that three year old, who just wanted to join his dad outside on a wintry day during what should have been foliage season. 

That joy I find in the sky and clouds and air is now tinged with a bit of sadness and fear. What will climate change bring next?  I've always gotten excited when the weather got a little extreme.

But now, it's a little too extreme for my tastes. I imagine a lot of other people feel the same. Even if they aren't weather geeks.  

Next Up: Possible Vermont Record Heat, Little Drought Relief

Some late season flowers hanging on in my St. 
Albans, Vermont gardens. Near record heat coming
up should keep them going, unless the drought
finally does them in. 

We're in the midst of our latest big, honking, dry, sunny high pressure system here in Vermont.

It hasn't rained in a week, which will surely worsen the drought, and no rain is in the forecast until Tuesday. And even then, I'm unimpressed with the rain forecast. 

More on that in a minute, but first we have to get through the weekend. It feels strange to say this but it'll be a hot one. At least for October.

Our big honking high pressure is moving off a bit to our east now, opening flow of very warm, but - of course - dry air from the Midwest and South.

 Some of those areas in the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes have had some record high temperatures, and that's coming our way. 

Today and tomorrow will brings us balmy temperatures in the 70s. Then Sunday and Monday get really warm. 

RECORD HIGHS?

In early October, Vermont days should have a pretty crisp feel to them. Highs are usually just a little over 60 degree, and nights get into the 30s and 40s.

Daytime highs coming up will instead be more like early to mid August.  That means we could have some record highs on Sunday and Monday.

It Burlington, the record high Sunday is 83 degrees and on Monday it's 82.  In Montpelier, Sunday's record high is 82 and Monday's is 79.  All those are in reach. 

In St. Johnsbury, the record high Monday is 83, and that could fall, but their record high Sunday is 87, which is insanely warm for October, That record was set in 2023, which brings me to my next point. 

This will be the third year in a row with insanely warm October weather. 

That St. Johnsbury's record high of 87 from 2023 was part of the biggest October heat wave in Vermont history. Burlington reached 86 degrees on October 4, setting the all time record high for the month of October.  Montpelier tied its October high with 84 degrees. Woodstock, Vermont had three days in a row with highs of 86 degrees on October 4-6, 2023.

Last year, the end of the October brought a summer redux. Record highs were set on October 21-23 with highs in the mid and upper 70s. 

Then, Halloween hit, and I think the 2024 costume of the year had to be beachwear. Record high were shattered with Burlington hitting 77 degrees, breaking the days's record high by six degrees. Plattsburgh was even more ridiculous, reaching 83 degrees.  

In 2022, the autumn heat waiting until November. On November 6 that year, Burlington reached 76 degrees, setting a new all time high for the month of November. Summer-like thunderstorms hit that day, too. 

Climate change is altering all our seasons, and autumn is certainly included!

RAIN CHANCES

For a change, the next cold front that will end our October heat wave won't be a dry one. But it won't be an especially wet one, either. 

It will cloud  up Tuesday but still be oddly warm for October. Showers could start in the afternoon, then continue into the evening. Early guesses are we could see roughly half an inch of rain, give or take. That will do almost nothing to help with the drought, but we'll take what we can get.

Also, in the past couple of months, I've seen optimistic forecasts of rain dry up before the weather system actually got here, so I have that bit of pessimism in my brain.

Even if it does rain Tuesday night, we have yet another in our long series of big honky dry high pressure systems that will linger around here for perhaps a week after Tuesday night's cold front, so drought relief does not look like it's in the cards. 

Houses Collapse in NC Ocean As Hurricanes Humberto, Imelda Get Really Weird

Of of seven houses that fell into the ocean at Buxton,
North Carolina floats in the surf generated by
Hurricanes Humberto and Imelda. The house in
the background collapsed soon afterwards, 
done in by the high surf and debris from the
houses that had already fallen. 

That weird pairing of Hurricanes Imelda and Humberto has stayed well offshore the United States, but that didn't prevent them from causing damage. 

Six homes collapsed into the powerful waves stirred up by the hurricanes in Buxton, North Carolina. That's on the vulnerable Outer Banks of coastal North Carolina.   

The storms remained hundreds of miles off the North Carolina coast, but hurricane waves can travel a thousand miles or more. 

Five of the homes collapsed Tuesday within 45 minutes of each other. A sixth collapsed later. 

All six were not occupied because they had been declared uninhabitable after they were damaged from waves in August. Those waves were generated by offshore hurricane Erin. 

Last night, a seventh home collapsed into the waves on the Buxton shore.

The seven homes lost to the ocean brings the total that collapsed into the waves to 19 in Buxton and Rodanthe, North Carolina in the last five years.

As of this morning, Hurricane Imelda and now-former hurricane Humberto were still stirring up big waves and surf up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Local officials in North Carolina said more beach houses might collapse into the water. 

Part but certainly not all of the problem is climate change. Sea levels are rising, so waves during storms can extend further inland. 

Also, land overall in eastern North Carolina is sinking, too. The North Carolina Outer Banks are skinny barrier islands which have also always shifted and moved over time. 

It's probably not a good idea to build on unstable barrier islands, with or without climate change. 

This week, the waves hitting the Outer Banks were especially powerful, thanks to the dual efforts of Hurricanes Humberto and Imelda, far offshore. 

Hurricane Imelda hit Bermuda early this morning with strong winds. I don't have early reports of the outcome, but Bermuda is among the most hurricane-proof islands in the world. 

STRANGE INTERACTION

Schematic showing the wind flow around Hurricanes
Humberto and Imelda a couple days ago. They
were close enough to create one big wind
field.  You can see the calm eyes (blue shading,
indicating lighter winds). Also, halfway between 
the storms, the two circulations canceled each
other out, creating another small pocket
of light winds. 

I've been telling you in the past week about how Hurricanes Humberto and Imelda have interacted with one another, since they have been oddly close to one another. 

Humberto was initially the more powerful storm and had dominance over Imelda. 

Humberto, being the bigger, macho one, pulled Imelda away from the southeast U.S. coast, sparing the Carolinas a much bigger disaster.

Though each hurricane had its own internal core circulation, their close proximity created an even larger overall circulation, with an odd calm spot in the ocean halfway between the two storms.  

Then a funny thing then happened. Imelda grew stronger and became the dominate storm. The dance between the two hurricanes ended with Imelda shoving Humberto northward into a cold front, which turned Humberto into a regular, non-tropical, albeit still strong storm. 

The move left room for Imelda to strengthen further, enabling it to blast into Bermuda last night. 

The experience turned Humberto transsexual, in a way. Now that it's a non-tropical storm, Humberto is a powerful storm in the Atlantic, complete with a warm front and a stormy cold front and lots of dangerous winds. The UK Met Office has renamed it Amy. 

Storm Amy is expected to create widespread wind gusts in the 60 to 70 mph across Scotland and northern England. Some parts of northwest Scotland could see gusts to 95 mph. 

Now that Imelda is past Bermuda, it, too, has just transitioned to a non-tropical storm as of early this afternoon. It will sort of follow Humberto Amy into the North Atlantic, but it remains to be seen whether former Imelda will affect the British Isles.    

Now that Humberto and Imelda are out of our hair, the National Hurricane Center is watching two new areas. 

A disturbance not far from Miami is forecast  to move northwestward across Florida. There's a low chance it could become a weak tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico in a few days. Whatever happens, large parts of Florida should expect heavy rain over the next 

Forecasters are also watching another weather disturbance emerging off the west coast of Africa. It, too could develop into a tropical storm next week. 

VIDEO:

Video shows collapse of homes and lots of debris as five homes collapse into the waves in Buxton, North Carolina on Camp Hatteras.  Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.

 

Last Week's Rain Didn't Ease Vermont Drought, Says Weekly Report

The new weekly U.S. Drought Report issued
this morning is unchanged from last week.
Red in central Vermont is extreme drought.
The orange covering almost all the rest
of the state depicts severe drought. 

Lately, many of us have waited with bated breath to see the weekly Thursday U.S. Drought Report to find out how badly our big drought is punishing Vermont.  

The one that came out this morning show us last week's rain didn't help at all with the drought. 

On the bright side, things didn't get worse, either. Instead, drought conditions in Vermont are exactly the same as the week before. 

The same zone of extreme drought covers central Vermont. Most of the rest of the state is in severe drought, just like the week before.

Also like the previous week, only the extreme northwest and southeast corners of the state are "merely" in moderate drought. 

Drought conditions were also unchanged in most of the rest of New England, with the worst conditions in central Vermont, central New Hampshire in southern Maine. 

The Drought Monitor people explain it this way:

"In New England, heavier rains of mostly one to locally four inches were only enough to put the brakes on the developing drought, as streamflows decreased substantially after the event and rains struggled to infiltrate deeper into soils. Additionally, significant short-term rainfall deficits still exist in many areas despite the rain."

One way to look at it is to see what happened to Lake Champlain after the rain. If soil moisture had been adequate, last week's rain would have created more runoff and rivers would have risen noticeably. The Lake Champlain lake level would have also risen by perhaps a few inches.  

Instead, the lake level only went from 93.03 inches to 93.13 inches. That's barely a blip and still a remarkably low lake level. As of Wednesday, it was back down to 93.07 feet. 

The Drought Monitor measures conditions as of Tuesday, two days before the report is released. It hasn't rained in Vermont since last Friday, and no rain is in the forecast until at least Tuesday. So, chances are, the drought will go back to its worsening trend after this week.

As you'd expect, Vermont and surrounding areas are still increasingly suffering from this drought.  

According to Vermont Public, the state's Department of Environmental Conservation has received reports of more than 400 wells running dry since August. That's four times as many as they received from 2016 to 2025. 

About 40 percent of Vermonters get their water from a private well. But information on what share of that total is from spring-fed wells or dug wells. 

Drilling a new well can cost $20,000, and there's little public assistance for people who need a new well. This is turning into a financial crisis as well as a water crisis for many Vermont households. 

Vermont ski areas are warily watching the drought, WPTZ reports. At Sugarbush in Warren, the snowmaking ponds have enough water to start the season. But the resort relies on the Mad River to withdraw water for snowmaking. The river has to be above a certain level for that to happen. Right now, the river is far too low to allow the resort to pull water from it. 

Sugarbush officials are hoping some good late autumn rains arrive to fill up the Mad River, and the snowmaking ponds. 

Jay Peak has invested in snowmaking equipment that uses less water than old systems but makes about the same amount of snow. 

Climate change overall is making New England wetter. But paradoxically, droughts are worsening, too. 

Much of the rain we do get comes in short, sharp, extreme events, and the long, slow wet periods we used to see are less frequent. For instance, almost all the Vermont rain in September fell in just four or five days. 

Also, weather patterns seem to be getting "stuck" one way or another, wet or dry, for longer periods. The climate is warmer than it used to be, too. Warmer weather tends to increase evaporation, allowing droughts to develop more quickly and become more severe. 

That's what happened in Vermont this year. The drought started developing in July, one of the warmest on record. Then it abruptly, seriously deepened in mid-August amid a record breaking and extraordinarily arid heat wave.

September was also very warm and dry, which exacerbated things even further. October is opening the same way - warm and dry.  

Long range forecasts offer us Vermonters little encouragement. It still looks like an occasional series of light rainfalls might start around October 9, but so far, each "storm" looks modest and would do little if anything to ease the drought. 

Among Jane Goodall's Many Lasting Legacies Is Advocacy For A Sustainable Earth, Climate Change Solutions

Practicing what she preached: During Jane
Goodall's September visit to New York City
for Climate Week, she got around town
on an environmentally friendly 
Pedicab.  Goodall passed away
Wednesday at age 91. 

As you've almost surely heard already, the world lost a Great One Wednesday. Jane Goodall, the famous  primatologist, anthropologist, conservationist, media figure and one of the best women to ever grace this Earth, passed away at the age of 91.  

A big part of Goodall's advocacy was creating and keeping a sustainable planet for all creatures. Climate change might have seemed tangental to Goodall's mission, but it was a critical part of it.   

For Goodall, it wasn't just about keep the world safe and clean and stable for chimpanzees. She had all animals - including us humans - in her heart. 

In a 2019 ABC interview, she said climate change has left the planet imperiled. "We are definitely at a point where we need to make something happen... We are imperiled. We have a window of time. I'm fairly sure we do. But, we've got to take action," she said. 

Her advocacy lasted until the very end. Goodall was on a speaking tour in California this week and died of natural causes. Retirement had never really crossed her mind. 

Just recently, on September 21-28, she attended New York Climate Week  during which she gave interviews to publications like Forbes, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg regarding the natural world and our need to preserve it. 

She has acknowledged that people have come to her "depressed" 'about climate change and other environmental dangers. But she responded with a message of courage.

On her Facebook page from Climate Week, Goodall said the climate crisis is the greatest challenge of our time, but change is still possible if we act with courage and hope.  

Alway finding ways to be a good example, Goodall got around New York City when visiting there by hiring Pedicabs, which are carriages powered by drivers propelling the vehicles via bicycle. 

Vox highlighted recent interviews in which Goodall gave a plug for literally saving Earth from excessive technology, the worst excesses of business interests and - of course - climate change. 

According to Vox:  

"'It seems these days everybody is so involved with technology that we forgot that we're not only part of the natural world, we're an animal like all the others,' Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, a conservation group, said last week during the Forbes Sustainability Leaders Summit in NYC. 'We're an animal like all the others. But we depend on it for clean air, water, food, clothing -everything.'

And yet - 'We're destroying the planet,' she said.

Vox noted that as recently as last week, she said we know what's killing the planet: Industrial agriculture, including livestock and burning fossil fuels. 

People magazine noted that Goodall acknowledged that caring for humans and the environment is "a tough problem" as she put it. But she believed solutions were out there.

"We've got to get together," she said. "And scientists are beginning now to really work out the technology that can help us live in greater harmony with the natural world....But it's a problem that should be at the heart of everything. It should be at the heart of politics, and it should be at the heart of business."

At her core, Goodall was an optimist, a rarity in our fraught world nowadays. I suspect she saw how animals often ingeniously figure things out. She had confidence that the creatures known as humans could do the same if we could just learn to understand that advancement isn't necessarily just bulldozing through everything. 

Goodall taught me and I'm sure countless others to look at all animals with awe and wonder, and, ultimately, understanding. In large part because of Goodell, I frequently stop and watch the animals and birds I encounter as they live their lives.   

I observe how nothing goes to waste in the animal world, that everything has its purpose, there are important symbiotic relationships between species, and that we also need to take a moment to play, and find joy. (If you've ever seen a bear cub in action, you know what I'm talking about).  

Goodall was a joyful warrior on a quest to teach us (sometimes dumb) humans that we can find ways to live in a world that sustains us all. To the end, she had faith that we would somehow find a way to make it happen. Wrestling climate change to submission is a big part of that. 

Her thinking on this might seem naive and pollyann-ish. But Goodall was far, far too smart to indulge in optimistic fantasies. 

She spend a lifetime watching and researching and loving the animal kingdom and all the wonderful things they do.

If chimpanzees can do it, so can us humans.  Where others saw defeatism, Goodall saw possibility. Of all the incredible things Goodall did in her 91 years, her sense of hope is her greatest legacy.   

UPDATE: Frost Advisory Upgraded To Freeze Warning In Much Of Vermont

A frost advisory that was in effect has been upgraded
to a freeze warning for much of Vermont away 
from the Champlain Valley. The valley continues
to be under a frost advisory. 

 The frost advisory that was in effect for the majority of Vermont has been upgraded to a freeze warning.

Expected lows early Thursday morning away from Lake Champlain will be a tad cooler than first thought, which means it'll get to or a bit below 32 degrees by dawn in much of the Green Mountain State.  

Such temperatures are not at all unusual for early October, but it's been so warm that a lot of people still have outdoor plants they want to protect.

So, it's back to digging out those old sheets to cover everything you want to save this evening. And hope for the best.

The big garden coverup should happen in the Champlain Valley as well. 

A frost advisory is still in effect there, which means temperatures should get perilously close to 32 degrees there. Remember, even if it's 34 or 35 degrees five feet off the ground where you'll read your thermometer, you can still get frost at your feet, where you lingering tomato and cucumber and flower plants are. 

There's still two places in Vermont without a freeze or frost alert. One of them is the Northeast Kingdom. The growing season is considered over up there. So there's no point in issuing a freeze warning there. 

Still, if you live up that way and were trying to hang on to outdoor plants, try covering them up. Better yet, bring 'em indoors if you can because most tender plants don't survive temperatures in the upper 20s.

The other spot escaping the frost advisory is Grand Isle County. It's surrounded by Lake Champlain, so the still warm waters of the lake should radiate a bit onto the county, keeping temperatures a bit above the level that you can get frost. 

It wasn't actually that cold this afternoon, so you'd think we'd escape an overnight frost. Temperatures were in the upper 50s to near 60 in most places. But that breeze we've had will diminish to calm. Skies will be clear all night. Daytime humidity was low. All those ingredients set us up for those temperatures to plummet overnight. 

Another thing to watch out for is locally dense fog early in the morning. Lord knows there's not much moisture in the ground to contribute to any fog. But the low rivers, ponds and lakes should be enough to create fog in the river valleys early tomorrow. 

You'll want to get a bit of an early start if you have to leave before, near or just after dawn tomorrow. You'll need to scrape the ice off your windshield, and you'll have to drive slowly through those dense fog patches. 

Tomorrow will be another nice, sunny, day, a little warmer than today. There's still a risk of scattered frost tomorrow night, but it won't be as widespread as what we'll get tonight. 

A big warm up is coming this weekend and early next week, so if your gardens survive tonight, they'll have a little October life in them yet. 

A Beautiful September In Vermont Makes Drought Worse; Climate Data Is In

Despite a couple rain storms, precipitation was once
again below normal in September, so the drought
worsened. Pictured is low Lake Champlain water
as seen at St. Albans Bay, Vermont Sept. 22.

If it weren't for the drought, September was a beautiful weather month in Vermont. Lots of sunny days, comfortable temperatures, all great for outdoor activity. 

Unless of course you were trying to save your wilted garden, or watch the leaves on your trees turn brow and curled and fall off ahead of foliage season. 

This kind of weather stayed consistent all month.

PRECIPITATION 

September was a dry month in Vermont, but not as dry as you'd might think, given how the drought kept getting worse.  

The drought worsened in large part because any rain we did get fell in two short bursts, one around September 5-6 and the other mostly from September 24-25. The rest of the month was bone dry. 

Although September is usually a relatively sunny, pleasant month in Vermont, we almost always get a few periods of gray, drizzly weather that can last nearly a week. Those kinds of conditions prevent things from drying out too fast. 

This year, September instead featured day after day of sunny skies

Burlington had 2.89 inches of rain, which was about three quarters of an inch below normal. Most of northern Vermont was about an inch on the dry side. Which means it wasn't among the driest on record, which was a nice change from August. But still we needed more rain than we got.  

Southwest Vermont was drier. Rutland received about two inches of rain during the month, which was 1.36 inches below normal. Bennington was worse, receiving just 1.37 inches of rain  during September. That was about 2.5 inches on the light side. 

Woodstock in the southeast was actually a tad wetter than normal in September with 3.9 inches. However, all except a third of an inch of that came on September 24-26. 

A new weekly Drought Monitor report is due out tomorrow. That one will take into account the rain last week. However, most observers do not expect much improvement in the drought conditions, 

TEMPERATURES 

The overall mean temperature in Burlington was 64.1 degrees, or 1.4 degrees warmer than normal.  That doesn't sound like it was all that much on the toasty side, but remember, as I remind you every month, is the "new normal."

It's based on the average of temperatures from 1990 to 2020, a time at which climate change had already  made things warmer than then were in the 20th century. 

As it was, September, 2025 was tied for the tenth warmest on record in Burlington. That's part of a trend. There are 15 Septembers in the top 10 list of hottest Septembers in Burlington. Including this year  nine of the top 15 warmest have happened since 2011. 

There weren't really any extremes in September. We saw no record highs or record lows to speak of. Just steady warm nights and somewhat chilly nights. 

That's where that weirdness comes in 

The drought also helped make September temperatures a bit odd: Daily high temperatures were much warmer than normal, and daily low temperatures were near or even a little cooler than normal.

That's because on so many days, the air was unusually dry, the humidity was low. On such days, the sun heats up the air more than when it's humid. But muggy nights stay warm, while the temperature craters on drier nights. 

That's what kept happening in September. In Burlington, the average high temperature or 75.2 degrees was 2.6 degrees, but the average low temperature of 53 was just 0.1 degrees above normal -basically average under the "new normal."

In St. Johnsbury and Rutland, the daily low temperature in September was more than a degree cooler than normal, though highs in both towns were three to four degrees on the warm side. 

There were no truly cool days like we normally get in September. The coldest high temperature of the month this September was 63 degrees.  I could only find one other year with a warmer "coldest" day. That was 64 degrees in 2023.

Interestingly over the past decade, the coldest September high temperature in Burlington was at or above 60 degrees on seven out of ten years. But such days were rare before that. Between 1900 and 2002, all Septembers except two had days with highs in the 50s. Or even 40s in some years. 

I say this every month, as well, but I'll say it again: This is not your grandfather's Vermont climate, that's for sure. 

As noted in this morning's post, October is getting off to a relatively brisk start, but the overall warm trend will return within a couple days. It looks like it might stay generally warm through most of the first half of October. We shall see! 

The really bad news is it looks like it will stay drier than normal through at least the first half of October, too. The drought won't be going anywhere. 

Fire And Frost Again In Vermont, Fire Risk To Last Longer

Leaves are coming off the trees, like these maples
near Richmond, Vermont on Tuesday. The leaf
litter is adding to the fire risk that the 
Vermont drought has created. 

Henry the Weather Dog, a native of Texas, didn't stay outside nearly as long as he usually does when he went outdoors early in the morning. 

He didn't like the temperatures near 40 degrees here in St. Albans, especially considering the chilly north breeze bringing wind chills into the 30s.  It doesn't bode well for winter, but we'll deal with it. 

Those chilly breezes are a sign that frost and a higher fire danger are back to harass us in Vermont. 

FIRE DANGER

The strongest breezes today will be in the Champlain Valley, due to the funneling effect of the Green Mountains and Adirondacks. Those gusts should go at at least 25 mph. The skies will stay clear, and the relative humidity will drop to around 30 percent. 

There are a lot more dried, dead leaves on the ground than there was in mid-September, so there's more fuel for any fire starts. The wind and low humidity will make any fires that start spread fast. 

The National Weather Service has issued a special weather statement alerting the public to the fire danger. 

The fire danger is very high today in
western Vermont and the lower 
Connecticut River valley, and
high elsewhere in the state today.

The fire danger is high all over Vermont, of course, but the states's Forests, Parks and Recreation department lists the danger as very high west of the Green Mountains and in the lower Connecticut River valley and high elsewhere.  

The risk of fires will keep going at least through Monday, as sunny skies and dry air will continue through the weekend. 

Winds will be lighter, so fires that start might not spread as quickly as it would if it stayed windy. But you'll surely see reports of new brush fires here and there in and near Vermont. 

You'll need to be especially careful with fire for the foreseeable future.

FROST RISK AGAIN

As mentioned it was chilly this morning.  Most of us got down well into the 30s, with some temperatures near 40 near Lake Champlain. 

It won't warm up all that much this afternoon.  It's the first day of October, and fittingly, it'll be a classic autumn day. That breeze will add to the crispness of the air. 

High temperatures will only reach the 50s with maybe a few low 60s in southern Vermont valleys. That'll be the chilliest day of the year so far, which isn't saying much. It's been warm lately, so today's weather seems cold. But the expected highs today aren't at all odd for the beginning of October.  (I'll have a complete climate summary for September in a post later today).  

Today's brisk weather will set us up for a frosty night. A frost advisory is in effect for all of Vermont overnight and early Thursday except for Grand Isle County and the Northeast Kingdom. 

The lack of any frost of freeze alerts in the Northeast Kingdom is because the growing season is considering over up that way, so there's no need for such alerts

A warming trend will start tomorrow, but it will still be a little cool, with highs in the 58 to 65 degree rage

But that warming trend means business. By Sunday and Monday, warmer valleys could reach 80 degrees. That will bring us close to record highs for this time of year. 

There's a chance of showers in about a week from now, but whatever comes along won't be impressive and won't solve the drought. It will also probably turn much colder again in about a week. Summer is over, after all. 

Drought, Wildfire Risk Back In Vermont

Fire danger in Vermont is back to high again.
Rain last week tamped the fire danger 
down a little, but it has dried out
again. Breezy weather won't help. 

The dampness from the rain we had last week has dried up in Vermont and we're back to our regularly scheduled drought. 

I noticed I was once again stirring up a lot of dust working in my St. Albans yard yesterday. 

The fire danger in Vermont is back to high again, after dropping to "moderate" for a few days after the rain.  

Today won't help. A dry cold front went through this morning, and all it will do is drop temperatures somewhat and make the winds pick up. Gusts to 25 mph or so could fan flames. 

Luckily, the winds shouldn't get extremely strong, so that helps. The humidity will be quite low, but not as low as it can possibly get.

Which means we're not really in a worst case scenario for wildfires today and tomorrow, the but the risk is definitely heightened. 

Make sure you don't send any sparks flying to start a blaze that could spread pretty quickly. No burn piles or camp fires, either. A statewide burn ban remains in effect.

Already, just this morning, I saw a report of a brush fire near the Ben & Jerry's plant in St. Albans. Early reports are that blaze was quickly contained. 

Yesterday afternoon, a reported vehicle fire in Alburgh was spreading into a field. That fire, too, was quickly controlled. 

Tomorrow will be breezy, too, so we won't see any improvements then. 

There has been an increasing number of brush fires in Vermont this month, but luckily all have been contained pretty quickly. At least so far. 

Through September 19, 65 fires were recorded in Vermont this year. As of yesterday, that number had increased to 73. However, only 57.47 acres have been burned so far this year through yesterday. That's just four or so acres more than the total on September 19.  

After sunny, cool, dry weather for the next few days, it will stay sunny and dry, but turn warm again over the weekend and early next week. Warmer weather accelerates evaporation, so that's not good.  However, if ay new brush or wildfires start, I don't see any strong winds to fan flames until maybe next Monday, October 8. 

It still doesn't look like Vermont will see any showers until around Tuesday, October 9. but early guesses are those showers will probably be on the light side. 

Humberto, Imelda Find Love After All In A New World Of Category 5 Hurricanes

Weakening Hurricane Humberto, right, and strengthening
Hurricane Imelda, of the Southeast U.S. coast in this
mornings satellite photo. High clouds extending all
the way to New England are the warm "exhaust" 
from the storms. The two hurricanes will 
head east out to sea. 

Hurricanes Humberto and Imelda continue to foster their close relationship in the southwest Atlantic Ocean, now pretty far offshore of the United States.  

I painted the two very close to each other tropical systems as a sort of tumultuous couple in my Saturday post. One of many guesses were that Humberto would accelerate away leaving a jilted Imelda to wander near the U.S. coastline. 

But, instead, they worked things out. Humberto is tugging Imelda along for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean.

That comes as a big relief of the United States, because it means no landfall, no big flood, no disaster . Instead, the Southeast is just seeing relatively minor coastal effects like rain, gusty, non-damaging winds and some rough surf and rip currents. 

It turns out Humberto and Imelda were made for each other.

They are incredibly close together by tropical storm standards, with only 580 miles separating them as of yesterday. In the past only nine pairs of tropical storms or hurricanes have come as close or closer to each other as Humberto and Imelda, according to meteorologist Michael Lowry. 

Imelda is now swept up in the atmospheric steering currents created by Humberto and both are heading northeastward together out into the open Atlantic. Both will eventually die in the cold waters out there. 

Before that could happen, Imelda strengthened into a hurricane this morning with top winds of 75 mph. It could achieve winds of 100 mph within a day or two. Imelda is expected to pass near Bermuda Wednesday night or Thursday morning, so they could receive quite a blow.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Humberto is to the northeast of Imelda and tugging her along. Humberto was briefly a Category 5 storm with winds of 160 mph. But as of this morning, it was down to 100 mph. Hurricanes are like big chimneys.

Warm air is pushed upward into the upper atmosphere.  The "exhaust" from the Imelda's chimney is helping to suppress Humberto's strength.  Also, strong upper level winds caused in part by the atmospheric chaos created by two big storms is also weakening Humberto by stripping its intense thunderstorms away from its center. 

You could see the "exhaust" from Imelda on satellite photos yesterday and this morning.  

And overhead here in Vermont. That warm air belching from hurricanes often takes the form of high thin cirrus clouds. Those thin clouds that went south to north over Vermont yesterday afternoon and evening, and produced another nice sunset, was part of the exhaust plume from Imelda. 

That Humberto reached Category 5 status before its tango with Imelda is disconcerting, since these Category 5 monsters are becoming more frequent in the Atlantic Ocean. Category 5 hurricanes are the worst of the worst, with top wind speeds of at least 156 mph. 

Humberto was the 12th Atlantic Category 5 hurricane in the last decade, and the fourth in the past two years. Beryl and Milton were Category 5s last year, and this year we had Erin and Humberto. Unlike last year's Category 5s, neither storm bothered the United States all that much.  

Hurricane season is not over, and there could be a couple or few more tropical storms or hurricanes between now and the end of November. However, the National Hurricane Center says they don't expect any new tropical storms to form over the next week or so.  

National Weather Service Still Struggling With Staff Shortages

Despite promises of rehiring, the National Weather
Service remains dangerously low on staff.
Burnout looms large and that could
hurt public safety in the U.S. 

As tropical storms and hurricanes whirl, and wildfires threaten, and winter storms loom sooner than you think, the National Weather Service is still struggling with deep staff shortages, as the Washington Post reported this weekend. 

The stupid staff firings led by the odious Elon Musk last winter and spring, along with resignations and retirements means 600 workers, or about one in every seven, left the National Weather Service. 

Adequate staffing at the National Weather Service is at about 4,500 employees. Right now, they're well south of 4,000. 

According to the Washington Post: 

"Some National Weather Service staffers are working double shifts to keep forecasting offices open. Others are operating under a 'buddy system,' in which adjacent offices help monitor severe weather in understaffed regions. Still others are jettisoning services deemed not absolutely necessary, such as making presentations to schoolchildren."

Somehow, National Weather Service storm monitoring and weather forecasting have gone almost without any interruptions.  

However, just think if two big weather emergencies happened at once.  I don't know whether the NWS would have been able to handle it. Take this week for example,

Hurricane Humberto and soon to be hurricane Imelda have been very close together in the Atlantic Ocean, making forecasting difficult. .But neither storm is a direct threat to the United States, so forecasting for the two tropical systems is being managed OK.

But what if everything was further west. Imagine a scenario in which Hurricane Humberto was about to make landfall in the Carolinas while at the same time Imelda was threatening Houston or New Orleans.

Would the National Weather Service have the bandwidth to manage both crises? Once upon a time, they would. Right now, I'm not so sure. 

CURRENT NWS SITUATION

The Trump administration did a reversal earlier this year and granted the National Weather Service an exemption to a government-wide hiring freeze. But the fresh hiring largely hasn't happened yet. 

The incoming new NOAA director, Neil Jacobs, has pledged to address the staff shortages, but a U.S. Senate Committee just barely advanced his nomination on September 17. 

NOAA staffers, including most everyone at the National Weather Service are working overtime. Their work/life balance is shot to hell. WaPo says managers are picking up forecasting shifts. Some offices are sharing their employees remotely with locations that don't have enough staff. That requires overtime and working weekends. 

Even worse, if the government shuts down this week, NWS meteorologists considered essential employees. So they would be working without pay on top of everything else. At least until Congress and Donald Trump finally decide to get their act together. 

Good luck with that. 

There was a lot of concern this spring and summer that overstretched NWS meteorologists would miss things like rapidly developing tornadoes and flash floods. If that has happened, it's been rare. I haven't come across data showing whether or not forecasts for dangerous weather have degraded under the Trump regime. 

Stay tuned for eventual studies and research on that topic. 

Here's an example of the potential danger. The National Weather Service office in central Texas was able to issue timely flash flood warnings ahead of and during the epic and deadly July 4 weekend Texas Hill Country flash floods. Those floods still claimed more than 130 lives, despite the warnings.   

At the time of the flood, the Austin/San Antonio NWS office which covers the area hit by the flood, was  understaffed by six employees. One of the vacant positions at that NWS office was warning coordinator. 

The warning coordinator is the one who alerts local officials to danger. In the Texas flood, local officials appear not to have responded adequately to the warnings. Early indications are that was not primarily the fault of the National Weather Service. However,  communication between the NWS and local emergency officials is still under investigation, the Texas Standard reports. 

Three months after the flood, the Austin/San Antonio NWS office is now seven employees short of fully staffed. The warning coordinator position is still unfilled.

EXHAUSTED STAFF

Meanwhile, the longer the meteorologists are overworked, the more likely the will start to miss things. 

That could cost lives. 

"They're going to run out of gas," John Sokich, a retired National Weather Service employee told the Washington Post. "They're going to start missing things. You can't sustain that level of effort for much longer."

A NOAA spokesperson blandly said that the NWS "remains equipped to meet its mission of protecting American lives and property through timely forecasts and critical decision support services."

Yeah, only because NWS meteorologists are now practically killing themselves accomplishing that mission.  

Vermont, Back In Sunny Drought, Will See Temperatures Bounce Around

Henry the Weather Dog says his favorite weather is
warm, sunny weather, so he's been very happy 
lately. He's not as worried about the drought as
many Vermonters are. In this photo, he's taking
a quick break from playing with his friends
in Sunday's sunshine at a 
St. Albans, Vermont dog park. 

After our welcome rains last week, and a slow clearing trend, we're back to the sunny, drought-idled regime we've been on here in Vermont since mid-summer. 

A weak disturbance gave us some clouds Saturday, but no rain, of course. 

Sunday was beautiful and mostly sunny and oddly warm for the end of September. The high temperature in Burlington was 81 degrees, just two degrees below the record high for the date.

That band of clouds that came through midday Sunday was allegedly a cold front. It had no rain with it - again, of course. The "cold front" introduced some less humid air, which allowed temperatures to fall a little lower this morning that the very mild previous nights. 

Sunday's alleged cold front was the start of a temporary cooling trend that will reverse itself by the end of the week.  By next weekend, it'll be strangely warm again. The only constant through all this will be the daily almost wall to wall sunshine. Not great if you're sick of Vermont's deep, destructive drought. 

Today will be almost as warm as Sunday, ahead of the next cold front. That front will come through tonight with no fanfare, no rain, no nothing.  All it will do is make tomorrow feel noticeably cooler. But still mild enough for the last day of September.

BRIEF COOL SPELL

The trend will keep running cooler Wednesday through Thursday. Temperatures will actually be fairly close to normal for this time of year. Highs both days should be within a few degrees either side of 60. That's not bad, considering in the past we've sometimes seen highs in the 40s in the opening days of October. 

Even so, we'll have to worry about scattered frosts and freezes again Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. It won't be anything out of the ordinary for the first days of October, but it you're hanging on to your outdoor plants, you probably will have to cover them up again. 

Much of the Champlain Valley looks like it will escape the frost, but pay attention to future forecasts in case it gets unexpectedly cool any of those nights.  

One thing that could slightly mitigate the risk of frost comes in part - believe it or not - from Hurricane Humberto and soon to be Hurricane Imelda far offshore of the East Coast. 

The contrast between those storms, and massive, dry high pressure coming down from Quebec, will stir up a north to northeast breeze. Overnight breezes might keep temperatures up just a bit.  

By the way, the forecast trend has been more and more for Humberto to tug Imelda away from the southeastern United States, so the effects of Imelda won't be nearly as bad as first feared. 

Meanwhile, back here in Vermont, that big, fat, sunny, dry high pressure will stick around. Starting Friday and even more so during the weekend, the high will shift a little to the east. 

Because of that, the cool north breezes will shift and become very light puffs of wind from the southwest. That will bring back the warm air. Despite the relative chill on the opening two days of the month, October looks like it will come in hot. 

I wouldn't be super surprised if temperatures flirt with 80 degrees once again by Sunday or early next week. That's definitely unusual but not unheard of for early October. I don't know whether the entire month of October will be warm, but the balmy weather coming up for the beginning of this October fits a recent trend.

Three of the past four Octobers - at least as measure in Burlington - were among the top ten warmest on record. Maybe we'll do it again this year. 

In terms of rain, it's still looking grim heading into October. The dry air that's become established in Vermont will erase the slight gains against the drought we saw with last week's rain. Then it will continue deepening our serious drought. 

I've been saying our next chances of rain are around October 9.  I'm not sure yet, but that needed rain is beginning to look like it might be postponed a few more days. Let's hope not! 

It's Still The Year Of The Floods, Arizona, Tennessee Latest Victims

The inside of a flood-destroyed 
restaurant in Globe, Arizona. 

Over the spring and summer, I kept calling 2025 the Year Of The Floods. Devastating floods kept hitting so many parts of the U.S. through the winter, spring and summer.   

Those culminated with the immense Texas Hill Country flood over the July 4 weekend that killed at least 135 people. 

August in the U.S. was generally drier, but local floods continued to pick off communities and occasionally cost lives in various other parts of the nation.

The Year Of The Floods Hit again over the past few days. This time, Arizona and Tennessee were the big trouble spots.

The worst of these were in Arizona.

ARIZONA MONSOON

At least four people have died and there's widespread damage in normally arid Arizona due to intense monsoon storms. 

The worst of it hit the small city of Globe, Arizona, east of Phoenix. The old mining town with a population of 7,200 was swept by a flash flood Friday that turned downtown streets into whitewater rapids. 

About two inches of rain hit Globe Thursday, then several more inches poured down Friday, overwhelming dry washes and sending walls of water through the city and the nearby community of Miami. 

There have been three known deaths in and around Globe, and several other people are missing, reports the Arizona Republic. 

About 1,000 propane tanks from a distribution center were washed away in Globe and are scattered throughout the area. That obviously complicates the recovery effort, since some of them could still explode.

Video showed cars and propane tanks floating in downtown Globe with bursts of gas coming from some of the tanks. People at a baby shower in a Globe historical center said water burst in and almost immediately became at least waist deep inside the structure. Everybody at the baby shower was rescued. 

Downtown Globe has many historic buildings dating back to its mining past in the 1800s. Many of those buildings are now badly damaged. Exterior walls of the Wild Horses Saloon were blown out bye the rushing water. 

Serious flooding also hit around Phoenix and Scottsdale, where one person was reported dead and several other people were rescued from stuck, inundated cars. Phoenix had 1.64 inches of rain Friday, its wettest day since 2018.

TENNESSEE

In the mountains of east Tennessee, flash flooding and mudslides caused havoc on Saturday, especially around Great Smoky Mountains National Park. 

A landslide closed part of the Gatlinburg Bypass, a heavily traveled road around the tourist city of Gatlinburg and a gateway to the national park. Several other roads in the region were closed.

The rain has moved out of eastern Tennessee. Moisture from what will be Tropical Storm Imelda is unlikely to reach as far inland as the Smoky Mountains to an extent serious enough to cause more flooding.  

Although it's hard to determine whether the floods in Arizona and Tennessee have any link to climate change, they are consistent with it. A warming world means the atmosphere can hold more moisture that it could during cooler times. 

When the right storm comes along, that added moisture can result in extreme downpours, more intense than those we saw decades ago. 

Humberto And Imelda Continue Their Dance; Will Carolinas Escape Trouble?

As pot this morning, Hurricane Humberto to the right
is a classic, intense hurricane. Meanwhile, that elongated
cluster of clouds in eastern Cuba and the Bahamas
will become Tropical Storm Imelda, Click on this
photo to make it bigger and easier to see.

The Southeast continues to watch super powerful Hurricane Humberto and what as of early this morning was still soon to be Tropical Storm Imelda. 

The news is cautiously optimistic for the Carolinas as early hints take what will be Imelda a little further offshore than previously forecast.  

The reason: Hurricane Humberto is by far the dominant one in this relationship.  It achieved Category 5 status Saturday with top winds of 160 mph.  Category 5s used to be relatively rare, but they seem to have gotten more common.

Hotter water brought on by climate change is powering up many more hurricanes to Category 5 than we used to see.

 This hasn't been a particularly busy Atlantic hurricane season so far, and yet this is the second Category 5 of the year. Hurricane Erin reached that status in August.

Humberto was marginally weaker early this morning with top winds of 155 mph, so still wicked powerful. 

Since Humberto is so strong, compared to relatively weak Imelda, it will have more influence over the situation. Imelda is still forecast to move northward through the Bahamas parallel to the Florida east coast today, through Monday into Tuesday. 

Imelda didn't strengthen into a tropical storm Saturday as some forecasts indicated. But it was getting better organized just off the northeast coast of Cuba early this morning so today will be the dawn of Tropical Storm Imelda. I guess she didn't want to be a Saturday baby or something. 

The water north of Cuba and toward the Bahamas is quite warm, and that will fuel Imelda.  Meteorologists think it will manage to become a hurricane by around late Monday night or Tuesday morning. 

Imelda will still be weaker than big bad Humberto, though. probably will manage to become a hurricane by around late Monday night or Tuesday morning. Between the influence of Humberto and the fact a weather disturbance over the interior southeastern United States won't be able to draw Imelda toward the coast, it's looking a bit safer for the Carolinas, and Georgia, and even Florida for that matter. 

Instead, the best guess is by midweek, Imelda will slow down, and take a turn to the northeast, and follow big Humberto into the north Atlantic, where both will eventually die in the cold water up there. 

That's not to say the Southeast coast is completely out of the woods. A few forecasts still bring Imelda close to or even on the coast, which would be a mess, but most keep it offshore. 

Even if forecast is accurate and Imelda lingers offshore, it will probably come close enough to send heavy rain bands and gusty winds into coastal areas of South Carolina and parts of North Carolina. And maybe Georgia and coastal Florida. 

Imelda could also bring some storm surges and rough seas to the Southeast coastline. Because it will be moving so slowly, it'll have a lot of time to pound and erode the beaches.

Plus, remember, Humberto is still out there and is a monster. Much like Erin in August, it will send swells and rough surf to the entire East Coast to augment what Imelda plans to do. 

We might be lucking out with our unfriendly couple Humberto and Imelda in that the U.S. avoids another direct hit by a hurricane. The two storms will cause trouble for us, but thankfully, probably no cataclysm. We don't need another one. 

No guarantees, but it's possible a hurricane might not make landfall in the United States this year. It's slightly past the peak of hurricane season, and there's plenty of time for tropical trouble in October. But so far, unlike the devastation of recent years, the U.S. might get a break from hurricanes. 

With all the other weather and climate disasters this year - and there has been many of them - along with the nation's political instability, we'll take any break we can.