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| This gloomy thunderstorm cloud, photographed Sunday matched my mood Monday evening as I contemplated bad weather, climate change, and environmental threats |
I was sitting outside, sweating in the tropical Vermont humidity, a few hours after an alleged "cold front" had passed through town where I am, not far from the Canadian border.
I'd tried to do some needed yard work, but it was too sultry to get much done. I figured I should just sit down and enjoy the day lilies blooming around me.
Mid-summer flowers usually improve my mood. Last evening, those flowers, bright as they are, weren't lifting my spirits as much as I'd like.
Sure, Vermont was lucky with the weather once again on Monday. A few places around the state saw some strong storms, but there wasn't really any damage, no real flooding this time. That was good news.
But as usual these days, my social media feed last evening was filled with news of new weather emergencies, probably fueled in large parts by climate change.
A tropical system was brewing near Florida. But once again, it produced news of another one in 1,000 year rainfall event. This time it was around Plant City, Florida, which managed to receive 10 inches of rain in just three hours. Funny how those one in one thousand year flood events keep happening like, every hour.
I continued on, doom scrolling with my iPhone, coughing a bit in the Vermont air that had once again become smoky from giant, distant wildfires in Canada. I saw we're under another air quality alert. So much for pristine Green Mountain air.
That air quality alert will stay in effect through at least today. It's going to be another hot, humid one, too. Health officials are telling us that the combination of sultry, tropical air, the smoke and all that means we should once again limit outdoor activity, especially if you have pre-existing health issues.
More weather updates on my phone. New York City just had its second wettest hour on record, with 2.07 inches, half its normal monthly installment of rain. The Central Park downpour was second only to the mega-former Hurricane Ida floods in the Big Apple in 2021.
Subway service was suspended, roads were under water, cars were trapped, flights were delayed, What a mess!
In neighboring New Jersey, as much as six inches of rain fell in a matter of hours. Flash flood warnings were blaring in most of the Mid-Atlantic states. Parts of the New Jersey Turnpike were really rivers. Fast flowing water raced through homes and businesses in Plainfield, New Jersey, and other towns. The governor of New Jersey declared a state of emergency.
Emergency? Yeah, no kidding.
Climate change is really turbocharging summer downpours. As I've written previously, it's the summer of floods in the U.S.. and that shows no signs of change.
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| Day lilies glow in the hazy morning sun today in St Albans, Vermont. Despite worries like climate change and the environment, there's lots to be grateful for, |
I gazed up my phone at the yard as it was growing dark. A couple fireflies blinked half-heartedly in the humid dusk.
There used to be a lot more fireflies. I don't know whether this is a one-summer lull at my house or something else. But I do know firefly numbers are declining.
I used to enjoy the bats that once swooped around my deck at dusk in the summer. They're gone, too, decimated by something called white nose syndrome, a fungus that kills them,
My crowded perennial gardens used to buzz with bees. This summer, only a few have been buzzing around. Was it this year's rainy weather or something else? I know bee populations are crashing, mostly because of our use of pesticides and a disease spreading mite that came from overseas in the 1980s.
Global trade is great on our pocketbooks, but not on the environment. All kinds of invasive are killing things we love. Giant chestnut trees were lost at the turn of the 20th century Our big gracious big elms in the mid-century to dutch elm disease.
I glanced upward last night in the gathering dusk around my house at the nearby dead trees. They were deceased white ash trees, decimated by the emerald ash borer. Those dead ash trees are everywhere now, giving a winter look in spots to our oppressively hot, smoky Vermont summer.
Next on the list potentially is our beloved sugar maples, central to Vermont's identity. Asian longhorn beetles are spreading in the U.S., and could eventually create real, disheartening trouble to our maple syrup industry.
I turned again to the weather forecast before giving up for the evening. We'll have a couple days that reach at least 90 degrees in many locations today and tomorrow. Great beach days, right? Despite the smoke?
Well, some beaches are closed due to algae blooms. And Burlington has an unfortunate mishap at the sewage treatment plant, and that closed beaches around that city.
By Thursday, the risk of showers and thunderstorms returns with the approach of a cold front.
That might be a reason to lift my spirits. The next cold front looks like it means business. We could actually have some delightfully dry and seasonably cool air by later Friday and Saturday. A reason to go on living!
I've always been fascinated and embrace the weather, the outdoors, nature. Sure, I get gloomy sometimes thinking about what's going on. With climate change. Environment trouble. Invasives.
The solution, of course, is to not let the negativity that I was experiencing last evening to linger. Do something about climate change and the environment to the best of your ability. There's only so much we can contribute, of course.
Most importantly we need to love what we still have. And if you think about it, that's still plenty.
Which brings us to this morning. Songbirds, as usual, were my sunrise happy alarm clock. I ventured outdoors. The view from my house of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks beyond was obscured by smoke.
But those day lilies happily danced in the early morning breeze and hazy sunshine, this time doing their job and making me smile.
The woods around my house had that beautiful, soothing deep green mid-summer lushness it always has in July. The hydrangeas were decked out in their early season white blooms, flecked with delicate pink. A couple of dragonflies did their helicopter-like aerial acrobatics, expertly removing annoying biting insects from the yard.
Despite everything, there's still a lot of beauty out there. Enjoy it. For your own sanity.
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