After A Weird Peak Hurricane Season Calm, Atlantic Ocean Getting Busy.

Hurricane Gabrielle has a classic hurricane look
in a satellite photo taken this afternoon

A very odd spell with no tropical storm activity at the peak of hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean is over, big time. 

There's a strong hurricane out there now, and there's two more wannabe hurricanes or tropical storms bubbling out there. 

Luckily, there's no real threat to the United States coastline, at least for several days at least. 

Let's go to the hurricane first.

HURRICANE GABRIELLE 

Highest sustained winds in Hurricane Gabrielle reached 120 mph late this morning as it headed slowly northward from a position about 180 miles southeast of Bermuda. 

This qualifies Gabrielle as a major hurricane, because major hurricanes need winds of at least 111 mph. 

It's only the second hurricane of the season, given we had that long quiet period. The trend this year is either big hurricane or wimpy little tropical storms.  All the storms except Hurricane Erin were pretty wimpy, pretty brief tropical storms. 

The exception was Hurricane Erin, which reached Category 5 status in August, them passed well off the U.S. East Coast. It was big enough to cause coastal flooding and beach erosion and dangerous surf, but it thankfully missed us. 

Gabrielle will miss us, too. 

It began its first few days as a wimp struggling with dry air and strong upper level winds. It could have ended up as another lame, small tropical storm.  But in the past three days or so, Gabrielle has really blossomed into a powerhouse. It escaped the dry air, strong overhead winds slackened and warm water fueled the storm.

On satellite pictures today, Gabrielle was a classic looking strong hurricane. It had a distinct eye, with a symmetrical swirl of dense clouds around that center.  It looks like Gabrielle has a chance to strengthen for a few more hours this afternoon and tonight before a weakening trend sets in. 

It'll start accelerating to the northeast and east tomorrow after throwing some gusty outer showers at Bermuda. It's no threat to land, except to the Azores in the eastern Atlantic. It might still be a hurricane when it gets near those islands Thursday night or Friday morning. 

Gabreille will start a weakening trend tomorrow as it encounters colder ocean water and stronger upper level winds 

It will have turned into a nontropical but still powerful storm northwest of Spain by Saturday. The storm could menace the UK as a former hurricane toward Sunday, but we're not sure yet. 

The United States will, like in the case of Erin, see some rough surf and rip currents because of Gabrielle, but that's it for us. But there's other things starting to stir out there.

OTHER SUSPECTS

An area of showers and storms in the central tropical Atlantic is slowly getting better organized, and forecasters think it will develop into Tropical Storm Humberto late this week as it heads northwestward. 

No promises yet, but it's beginning to look like wannabe Humberto might very roughly follow the tracks of Erin and Gabrielle and stay far away from the U.S. East Coast. We'll get a better confirmation of whether or not this is true later in the week, but so far I'm not too worried about this one. Even it develops into a full-fledged hurricane, which seems very possible.

There's another disturbance west of wannabe Humberto that's currently closer to the northern Leeward Islands. It's possible it could turn into Tropical Storm Imelda somewhere over the southwest Atlantic Ocean east of Florida, maybe in the Bahamas. 

Because this one will end up so much closer to the U.S. if it starts to develop late this week, as forecasters expect. Wannabe Imelda could turn into a threat if it develops starting late this week. Nobody is sure on this one yet.  It's nothing to worry about yet, but people in Florida and the East Coast  out to monitor this baby starting this upcoming weekend. 

 

There's Actually Rain In The Vermont Forecast! Spoiler: It Won't End The Drought

Lake Champlain at Oakledge Park in Burlington Sunday
showing its very low water level of 93.03 feet. That's 
only about half a foot higher than the record low
level for the date. 

It was so nice this morning to wake up and check the weather forecasts and the maps to learn there is a chance of showers almost every day this week. 

Normally, that would seem odd in normally inclement Vermont, where clouds and precipitation always pester us. But our deep and worsening drought needs a bucket of cold water - stat. 

Measurable rain has only fallen on 11 days since August 1, and amounts have been unimpressive. And most of us have gone two weeks with no measurable rain. Even the weeds are dying in the dust. 

The upcoming rain will barely put a dent in the drought, if that. But it will be nice to see the very surface of the ground to get wet to perk up the lawns and remaining garden plants. The forest fire danger will get tamped down for a few days, too. 

More on the the specifics of the rain coming up, but first let's look at what amounted to the first frost/freeze of the season for most of Vermont away from the Champlain Valley. 

SUNDAY FREEZE

Most of Vermont saw their growing season end Sunday, or at least come close to it. The Champlain Valley escaped, with readings there remaining above freezing. The temperature here at my house in St. Albans was at 37 degrees at dawn, actually three degrees warmer than 24 hours earlier. 

But most places had the coldest morning of the season so far. East Haven, Vermont was down to 22 degrees, which was the chilliest place Sunday in the United States outside of Alaska on Sunday.

Other cold spots were Plainfield, at 26 degrees and Bristol, with 27. Most major communities in Vermont, including Montpelier, Morrisville, St. Johnsbury, Newport, and Rutland each made it to or below 32 degrees. 

Note that there might be parts of each town that stayed above freezing. Clear, calm mornings like Sunday feature highly variable temperatures. 

In any event, the cold is gone for awhile. Sunday afternoon was dramatically warmer as south breezes rocketed temperatures into the 70s. 

It's good that it's going to rain soon. The frost and freeze added more dry and dead material to the landscape, more fuel for any drought-induced wildfires. The fire risk won't go away forever, but at lest we'll have a few days in which the chances of a fire won't be as great. 

THE FORECAST

The seven day rain forecast finally brings fairly
decent rains to the East Coast. The blues and purples
over Vermont signify a hoped for inch or more
of rain over that time period. But that forecast
is iffy, and we could receive less than that. 

There was already rain on the radar for a change this morning. But alas, it's not coming into Vermont, A dying cold front was spreading showers into the northwest corner of New York, but since the front is falling apart, so will the showers.

We have another dry day to get through. With south breezes continuing to crank, the fire danger is still there for sure.  

It'll start to rain tonight as a second weak cold front approaches. Unlike the past few cold fronts in recent weeks, some moist air is getting shoved our way from the south. So the skies will be able to yield a little precipitation this time.

The rain will continue off and on through most of Tuesday but fall quite lightly, except for a chance of a locally embedded downpour or rumble of thunder overnight tonight and on Tuesday. 

Total rainfall through Tuesday is forecast to be around a third of an inch, give or take. As mentioned, that's not nearly enough to put a dent in the drought but at least it will temporarily slow or even briefly stop its scary worsening trend. 

The forecast gets muddled after Tuesday as weak, sluggish weather systems linger around. The air will stay relatively humid for September, (but not oppressive, like summer). So we have a chance of some inconsequential, scattered showers both Wednesday and Thursday. 

A relatively strong upper level low is forecast to linger over the middle of the nation this week, causing a flood risk in and around Arkansas and some drought-denting rains in the Ohio Valley.

The hope is that when this upper low starts to break up, it will move toward the northeast and swing some decent rains our way later Thursday, Thursday night and into Friday,  

Preliminary forecasts thrown another half inch of rain our way Thursday night, but it's still too early to count on that. We still might or might not miss out.  Keep doing your rain dances!  Even if we get a half inch of rain, that'll only help a tiny bit. We need inches upon inches of rain and/or melted snow through the autumn and winter. 

Depressingly, the rain this week doesn't really look like it's signaling a big change in the dry weather pattern, at least not yet. A lot of the computer models brint another big, fat, dry Canadian high pressure system over New England most of next week. 

Some models even more frustratingly show that high deflected a nice soggy potential tropical storm heading up the East Coast away from New England. Forecasts that far out can change radically, so don't hang your hat on next week's weather just yet.

Instead, enjoy any bits and sprinkles and sporadic showers we get this week. 

If you want one more glimmer of hope, NOAA's three to four week outlook, released Friday, gives greater than even odds that the period from October er 4 to 17 would feature above normal precipitation. 

Trump Administration Stomps On Free Speech, Anything Could Be Targeted. Even This Little Blog

The whole Jimmy Kimmel brouhaha this week really 
crystalizes whether the First Amendment can
 survive Donald Trump. That matters to whether
this blog can continue, and much more 
importantly, whether you and everyone else
in American can continue to think 
and speak freely. 

 I'll start with a disclaimer: 

This post won't seem entirely related to weather and climate like usual, but it's an important topic. The future of real information and freedom and free speech is very much at stake. As is the risk of authoritarianism. 

As I'm sure you've heard you might have heard, Jimmy Kimmel's late night show was "pre-empted indefinitely" Wednesday. All for supposedly insensitive remarks regarding this month's murder of Charlie Kirk.

We're hearing a lot about Jimmy Kimmel and he's going to come up a lot in this post. But this isn't really about Jimmy Kimmel. It's about us. Essentially under Donald Trump's regime, we are all potential Jimmy Kimmels. Or worse. 

The whole thing this week is part of a fast-rising push by Donald Trump and his minions to block  anything but adoring praise for our Orange god. 

It's fascist and stomps all over the First Amendment, but here we are.  

Trump's idea of "free speech" is only speech that he likes. He claimed the other day that 97 percent of the news stories about him are negative. "I think that's really illegal, personally."

Even if his 97 percent figure was true, which it isn't, there would be nothing "illegal" about it. And he prefaced that statement with "I'm a very strong person for free speech."

Sure, Jan. 

No wonder the late night talk show hosts have been mocking him.  

Naturally, Trump is apparently going after late night comedians and daytime talk show hosts first.  Unlike his predecessors in the Oval Office, he is too much of our Snowflake In Chief  to withstand the usual late night comics digs and zings against presidents. 

Trump's administration pushed CBS to announce plans to end Stephen Colbert's show. He has repeatedly said he intends to end the late night comedy/talk shows hosted by Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers. 

That he's going after comedians first is telling. 

"Comedy does not change the world, but it's a bellwether. We're the banana peel in the coal mine. When a society is under threat, comedians are the ones who get sent away first," Jon Stewart said during his 2022 Mark Twain Award acceptance speech. 

Stewart was prescient, wasn't he?.

This blog is not a big target. Yet. Mostly because I'm really not much of a comedian. And I'm really small potatoes. But you have to wonder, as Stewart said, that if comedians are the first target the rest of us are next.   

We've already seen a bunch of people get fired after Trump's MAGA gang of internet trolls went after people who inadequately grieved over Charlie Kirk. 

I have been critical of the Trump administration's policies or lack thereof on NOAA, the National Weather Service, climate change and other related topics. 

I criticized the DOGE firing of hundreds of National Weather Service employees. I condemned cutbacks on meteorological and climate research. I've mocked Trump on his stance that climate change is a "hoax".  I'm working on a piece now about how some of  his Congressional minions held a conspiracy theory-filled House hearing on weather modification batshittery. 

So, I figure eventually the Trump people, or at least his ragtag social media censorship army will come along to stop all this. But I'll keep going, as everybody who knows me understands it's really hard to shut me up. 

It's not about me, though. It's about you. Unless somebody stops this, we are headed to a point where anything you say might get you in trouble. Even if you like Trump but say something "wrong." 

HOW KIMMEL HAPPENED

There are a lot of offensive things going on here, but Kimmel is not the problem. 

Let's pick it apart, like everyone else seems to be doing. 

Given the atmosphere, I must offer my Captain Obvious opinion on Kirk's death. The murder was horrible, abhorrent and was incredibly wrong no matter how you slice it.   Kirk absolutely did not deserve it. I hope the person who pulled the trigger is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. 

I'm not saying this to be nice, or to be "correct." Or to please Trump and his merry band of MAGA warriors. It's how I feel and it's how everyone I talked to about it feels.

Anyway,  Trump demanded, and ABC/Disney wimpishly agreeing to suspend Jimmy Kimmel from his late night show for saying something accurate, speaking truth to power, but in the process displeasing our snowflake King "president" Trump.

Here's Kimmel's supposedly objectionable statement: "We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it."

Notice that sentence, inelegant as it is,  doesn't characterize Kirk one way or another. It also doesn't precisely speculate on the motives behind the assassination. 

Kimmel went on to mock Trump for answering a question about Kirk's death by bragging about White House ballroom construction. 

Trump supporters would have you believe that it was just a private decision by Disney-owned ABC  and Nexstar, the largest owner of television stations in the U.S.,to yank Kimmel off the air. An outfit called Sinclair also owns a lot of ABC affiliates, and wanted Kimmel pulled, too.

Well, if someone says something to make a corporation makes "look bad," they can fire him, right?

Sure, it happens all the time. But what's really going on is an ugly Intersection of fascism and money.

Nexstar needs FCC approval for a deal to acquire an outfit called Tegan. The mega-merger would reach 80 percent of U.S households. But the FCC would have to bend the rules, since a longstanding rule prevents any one company from reaching 39 percent of U.S. households.

Enter Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr. He said, "We can do this the easy way or the hard way......These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead." 

Basically, he said,  "Nice network and TV stations you got there. It would be a shame if anything happened to them." Even right wing Republican Ted Cruz correctly criticized Carr's remarks as "right out of Goodfellas."

THE EFFECTS

You see how cute Carr and the rest of the Trumpsters are being with this. They can just say it was ABC and the television stations' decision. Never mind that they did so with a threat of a government crackdown. 

That's where the First Amendment comes in. If I'm your boss and you say something objectionable, in most cases I can fire you. But the First Amendment prohibits the government from suppressing free speech. Even if it's objectionable speech. . 

Apparently, the Trumpsters don't believe in the Constitution. 

Even if courts or somebody resists this trampling of First Amendment rights, free speech has been chilled, which is exactly what Trump wants. 

You can see it on other shows. The women on the ABC show "The View" always weigh in on the top news headlines of the day. They were silent on Kimmel's situation. Because Trump has already criticized that show so they figure they're on the cusp of being canceled.

Carr has already put "The View" in his cross hairs.   

Trump has also said other talk show hosts like Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon should be off the air, too, since they mock the Fearless Leader. Jon Stewart and his friends at "The Daily Show" are somewhat more out of reach of the Trump for now because they are Comedy Central, which isn't licensed by the FCC.

However,  Comedy Central is owned by Paramount Skydance Corp, which has also bended the knee to Trump's demands before. 

PATRIOTISM

To their credit, late night hosts are so far now cowed by Trump. On the day after Kimmel's firing, or suspension or whatever you want to call it, the comedians rallied around Kimmel, and more importantly, the First Amendment. 

Stewart's opening monologue was a mocking version of groveling acquiescence to Trump.  Stephen Colbert began his monologue saying "With an autocrat, you cannot give an inch. And if ABC thinks this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive."

To be blunt, ABC was incredibly unpatriotic in suspending Kimmel. The put money before country, and look where that got them.

People are dropping their ABC/Disney/ESPN subscriptions in droves. They're canceling Disney vacations and Disney cruises. It's too soon to say how big a financial hit ABC will take, and whether the hit will last long. 

 Trump and his team are actually besmirching Kirk's legacy.  I had a LOT of problems with what much of Kirk said while he was alive. But he really was a free speech advocate. Kirk said the Constitution protected even what he would regard as ugly, gross or evil speech.

 I wonder if Kirk would agree with what's going on if he were still alive. 

There are of course consequences for free speech. And if those consequences don't come from the government, that's mostly OK. Not always fair, not always targeted correctly, but at least the free market that Republicans used to embrace did its job. 

The trouble with all this is it leads to just one voice in the media - from the Trump regime. The ultimate goal might be to have no independent journalism. Whatever the government says would be the "truth."  

That never ends well. Look it up in your history books.  

Readers who are fans of Trump should also understand that his regime can turn on you if you say or do one wrong thing. MAGA always says they stand for freedom. If you really love freedom, this is your moment to speak up. 

 I don't whether somebody from the regime will try to shut me and everybody else down or not, because they don't like what we say and do. 

But remember, there's millions of us and only a relative few of them. We can still win this. Peacefully, with creativity, and resolve, and humor and persistence. 

It's time to be loud, folks!

Scattered Vermont Frost This Morning; Even Colder Sunday Morning

Sensitive plants covered up on my St. Albans, Vermont
deck this morning as temperatures bottomed out
at 34 degrees. It should be just as cold or even a
little colder early Sunday morning, so
we'll keep those sheets handy. 

As expected, patchy frost and freezes greeted many of us Vermonters at dawn today. Low temperatures across the state were in the 30s pretty much everywhere. With the exception of some 40s right near Lake Champlain.  

That was definitely cold enough for a frost in many places. Even if it was 33 or 34 where you are,  there might well have been frost. 

Temperatures are usually measured about five feet off the ground. It often is a couple degrees colder when you get down at lawn level). 

Keep those sheets and covers handy for your outdoor plants. It's probably going to be even colder overnight tonight and early Sunday morning. 

Before we get to tonight's chill, today will be delightful.  Though with this horrible drought, I wouldn't have minded a rainy Saturday.  Instead, it'll be a crisp fall day, with bright blue skies, clean, dry air, and sunshine bringing temperatures up into the 60s. Perfect September weather, really. 

So, do you hike, do your apple picking, do your Emergency Frost Harvest in your garden (I picked something like 12 cucumbers yesterday)  and enjoy the day

You'll notice it getting colder quickly the minute the sun goes down. 

TONIGHT'S FROST/FREEZE

The National Weather Service in South Burlington says that basically, if you live five miles or more away from Lake Champlain,  expect a frost by Sunday morning. There might be couple exceptions to the rule, but they should be pretty few and far between. 

There's also a slight chance a faint southeast breeze might save the night in parts of the Champlain Valley, but don't count on it! I'd cover your outdoor plants if you want to save them. If it doesn't ultimately frost, then so what, right?

The frost advisories that were in effect for much of central and northern Vermont this morning are being expanded to cover all of Vermont tonight except the immediate shores of Lake Champlain. Grand Isle County is the only region in the state not covered by the frost advisory.

The morning, a freeze warning for actual temperatures below 32 degrees covered only Essex County in Vermont in the extreme Northeast Kingdom.  The Adirondacks and far northern New Hampshire were also under this morning's freeze warning. 

Overnight and Sunday morning, the freeze warning will cover much more real estate, covering roughly everything along and east of the Green Mountains and along and north of Route 2. 

Part of the reason why it will be so cold tonight is the drought. Moisture in the air would keep temperatures a couple degrees warmer. Some moisture would have come from wet soils and that sort of thing.  But since everything is so parched, there's little moisture, so it will get colder.

The other ingredients for tonight's added chill is temperatures this afternoon will be a little cooler than on Friday. So the starting point is lower when the temperatures start to drop this evening. The air is even drier than it was Friday, so that will allow readings to crash pretty hard. And the entire overnight will be clear and calm, with no winds or clouds to halt the drop in temperatures.  

COLD IN PERSPECTIVE

This degree of chill in a Vermont mid-September isn't the least bit odd.  It might seem that way given the balmy Septembers we've had in most recent years. Thanks, climate change. 

Temperatures Sunday morning will not come close to any record lows. Burlington's record low Sunday is 29, and the forecast minimum temperature tomorrow is in the mid-30s. The record low Sunday in Rutland, Montpelier and St. Johnsbury is 26 degrees.  Lows in those three communities early Sunday are expected to be around 30 degrees.  

The first freeze of the season in Rutland, Montpelier and St. Johnsbury is, on average between October 2 and 4 or so.  So if it's under 32 degrees Sunday morning, the first autumn freeze will be earlier than average this year.

But it won't be close to record early by any means. Freezes have happened as early as September 8 in Rutland, September 5 in Montpelier and September 13 in St. Johnsbury. Burlington's earliest freeze was on September 13, 1964.  It's not expected to get to 32 degrees there tonight. 

BIG WARMUP, DROUGHT STAYS

The September cold spell will end dramatically during the day Sunday. Temperatures will rocket upward into the low or even mid 70s by afternoon. That's a pretty incredible 12-hour rise in temperatures. 

The frost risk will disappear for about a week at least, as temperatures stay at or above normal through the upcoming week. 

There are some chances of showers coming up, but the expected rainfall looks pretty lame at this point. Enough rain could fall Tuesday to temporarily tamp down the forest fire danger for a couple or few days, but that's it. 

As of now, early guesses are we might get a quarter inch or so of rain. That won't be nearly enough to get ground water back in gear, or noticeably raise water levels in rivers and lakes. 

The overall weather pattern continues to feature a series of dry high pressure systems bursting into New England, with each one stopping to linger overhead for at least a couple days. I don't see any soaking rains going into early October. And probably beyond. 

The drought is probably already the worst I've seen in my 60+ years in Vermont. And it looks like it will probably get even worse before it gets better.  ,

Fire And Ice: Risk Of Wildfires Today, Frosts And Freezes Tonight, Tomorrow Night

Very low water along the Brewster River in 
Jeffersonville, Vermont this week. High pressure
today and tomorrow is raising the risk of frost,
continuing the drought and keeping
a high forest fire danger going. 

 As expected, a cold front blew through last night, and even as the sun was breaking through the clouds this morning, temperatures were still falling. 

The cold air lagged, and it was still unexpectedly kind of mild this morning. It was still 70 degrees in Burlington at midnight and near 60 at dawn. 

But, as we go through the day, temperatures will struggle to get into the 60s this afternoon. 

It actually rained in a few spots overnight, too, though the word "rain" is probably a bit strong here.  Sprinkles came down in Burlington. 

Here in St. Albans, we were a particular "wet" spot with a whopping 0.01 inches of rain. 

Those paltry amounts of course make no difference with our deep drought. As the day goes on, skies will clear, winds will stay breezy from the north, and humidity will crash to low levels once again.  

That's a recipe for increased fire danger. Since everything out there is parched, any spark could trigger a wildfire. "If any fires were to start, the weather and fuel conditions could cause fires to quickly get out of control and be difficult to contain," the National Weather Service announced in a special weather statement that's in effect today. 

The Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation has rated the fire danger as high for the past week or so. For today, they've upgraded the risk to very high. 

FROST/FREEZE

The cool breezes will calm down tonight. Skies will stay clear, and the low humidity will allow temperatures to drop. We're in for the most widespread frosts of the season so far. 

A freeze warning is in effect overnight and early Saturday morning for Essex County, Vermont, in the far corner of the Northeast Kingdom. The freeze warning is also up for the Adirondacks, far northern New Hampshire and northwest Maine. In those places, the temperature will fall to between 25 and 30 degrees, so that will definitively end the growing season in those places.

Here in Vermont, a frost advisory is up for everybody in the northern half of Vermont except the Champlain Valley.  Temperatures will fall to between 30 to 35 degrees in these areas by dawn Saturday.  You'll want to bring in vulnerable plants, or cover them up with sheets and such to protect them.  

Or, if you have a vegetable garden, today would be an excellent day for what I call your Emergency Frost Harvest, in which you can take in anything that is vulnerable. Grab those tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers while you can! 

There's no frost advisory in southern Vermont yet, but I expect quite a few patches of frost down there, too.  

Keep those sheets handy, because you'll need them Saturday night and early Sunday. Saturday will be a bright, cool, crisp, autumnal day. The fire danger will still be around, as humidity levels will be even lower than today. But Saturday's winds will be light, so that will minimize the spread of any wildfires. 

If anything, Saturday night and the hours around dawn Sunday might be even colder than tonight. There might even be some frost in the Champlain Valley well away from the lake.   It depends on whether any late night light breezes kick in or not. 

After Sunday morning, temperatures will turn warmer again, so the frost threat will go away for now. If your plants survive the frost this weekend, they'll last into October. The overall weather pattern will lean warm through then. 

Of course, your plants might not survive the ongoing drought. It's not really going to get any better.  

WEAK RAIN PROSPECTS

The good news is looks like it's finally going to rain next week. We think, anyway. The bad news is the amount of rain will be completely inadequate to help in any meaningful way with the drought.  

But, at least some rain is in the forecast. The predictions are iffy, but early guesses give us a tenth to a third of an inch of precipitation next Tuesday through Thursday. That's far short of what we need, but we'll take anything.  At least a lame rain would minimize the fire danger temporarily. 

We'll have more details on next week's rain chances as we get closer to the potential weather system. 

To Nobody's Surprise, Drought Gets Much Worse In Vermont/New England

The U.S. Drought Monitor, updated this 
morning, shows worsening conditions in 
Vermont. A new sliver of extreme
drought (red shading) has popped
up in the Connecticut River Valley.
Darker orange is severe drought and
lighter orange is moderate drought. 

 The latest weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, hot off the press this morning, confirms the depressing news:  

The drought in Vermont and in much of the rest of New England continues to get worse. 

It hasn't rained since the last weekly report came out, so the news isn't surprising. But it underscores how bad things are getting. 

All of Vermont except the extreme south and extreme northwest is now in severe drought, according to the weekly monitor.  

Last week, 59 percent of the state was in severe drought with the rest being in moderate drought. This morning's report shows 78 percent of the Green Mountain State in severe drought. 

A small area of extreme drought that was confined to a limited portion of western New Hampshire last week has expanded. 

A sliver of the central Connecticut River Valley in Vermont between about Windsor and Newbury is now considered to be in extreme drought. 

The expanded area of extreme drought also now extends across central New Hampshire into southwest Maine. New Hampshire is arguably the hardest hit state so far in this Northeast drought. Around 73 percent of the Granite State is in at least severe drought, up from 52 percent last week. And 23 percent of  New Hampshire is in extreme drought, up from just 7 percent last week. 

Drought is expanding in northern New York, too. It covers all of eastern parts of that state along the Vermont border and is extending into the Adirondacks and parts of the St. Lawrence Valley. 

Actually, despite a few wet areas, the continental U.S. is getting drier. Last week, about 36 percent of the nation was in drought. This week, it's 41 percent. 

THE FORECAST

Very low water levels along the Lamoille River in 
Jeffersonville, Vermont Tuesday. 

Things continue to look grim in terms of rainfall around Vermont. I suppose the next week will be wetter than the one we just had. 

Only because most of us didn't get a drop of rain in the past seven days, and there's actually chances for sprinkles over the next week.  

Sprinkles aren't going to cut it, so the drought will continue to worsen. 

It means wells will continue to go dry, water in rivers and lakes will continue to recede from in some cases already record low levels.  At least six river gauges in Vermont were recording record low levels on Tuesday. 

And the fire danger will continue to rise. 

After the widely scattered sprinkles that might or might not hit tonight, that's it for rain until at least next Tuesday. 

I continue to be unimpressed with the forecast for next week and its rain chances. A storm that will be cut off from the main jet stream looks like it might get suppressed to our south. That would mean yet another system that promised to provide a little rain could just miss us entirely around next Tuesday or Wednesday. 

Sound familiar?

Other potential weather fronts coming after that look like they might be under-perform as well. Long range forecasts taking us into the beginning of October also paint a dry picture for Vermont and surrounding areas.

This drought has gotten incredibly frustrating, persistent, damaging and depressing.  I honestly wonder when it will even really rain again.  

Vermont Frost/Freeze Prospects Increasing For Friday, Saturday Nights

There's a good chance at least some of us will see
a frost or freeze in Vermont early Saturday morning
and again early Sunday morning. Not everyone
will get that cold. So far, the Champlain
Valley looks safe, but we'll update as 
information becomes available. 

On top of the droughts, we now have to worry about frosts and freezes.

Though I suppose on the bright side, a risk of a frost is very normal for this time of year in Vermont. 

For once, it's not another weird weather thing being plopped down our plate. 

I'll skip the drought news in this particular post. I want to wait until the latest U.S. Drought Monitor comes out later this morning, so watch this space for a big drought update before noon today.

FROST CHANCES

So, OK, let's get into the frost prospects. 

I'll start with a spoiler: Not everyone will see their growing seasons end this weekend. But the frost will be more widespread than anything we've seen yet this early autumn season 

Judging by how things will feel out there today, you wouldn't think a frost risk. It'll feel like the Good Old Summertime with highs in many warmer valleys topping 80 degrees. During droughts, the lack of moisture can make daytime highs warmer than they would be had it been wetter. 

Which means there's a chance that today's high temperatures could over-perform. I wouldn't be shocked if some warmer valley reach the mid-80s.  That would be just a couple degrees short of record highs for this time of year. 

Not only do droughts make hot days hotter, they can make cold nights colder. Moisture coming up from the ground can blunt falling temperatures through higher humidity and fog, especially this time of year. A lack of moisture can allow temperatures to fall further than they otherwise might on calm, clear nights. 

That might be the case this weekend. 

The trigger for the upcoming chilly nights is a cold front due to come through tonight.  As we've kept saying, the most we can expect out of the front is some scattered sprinkles and patches of drizzle overnight and early Friday. 

Tomorrow itself will really feel like autumn has arrived. Highs will stay in the 60s as skies clear during the day.  A brisk north breeze will add to the autumnal feel of a classic crisp fall day. Saturday will be like that, too.

The problem is the nights. With the low humidity, temperatures will crash Friday night. A light breeze might keep temperatures pretty uniform, but those temperatures will be cold. Scattered frost is possible almost anywhere in Vermont away from the Champlain Valley, as it looks now. 

Even away from Lake Champlain, not everyone will see a frost. If you're in a place that gets frosts while other nearby places don't, you'll probably get a frost Saturday morning. And Sunday morning. If you usually don't get an autumn frost when everybody else does, chances are you'll be safe. 

The coldest hollows will see a hard freeze. Saranac Lake, New York is forecasting lows as chilly as 26 degrees.

Frost and freeze advisories haven't been issued yet. The National Weather Service will do that when we get closer to the event.  But get ready to protect your plants. 

After a crisp, beautiful cool, autumnal Saturday, we'll have a similar frost/freeze situation overnight Saturday and early Sunday. 

After that, it'll warm right back up again. Highs Sunday through maybe next Wednesday should get into the 70s again in many places. 

I'll have an update on this frost situation tomorrow morning. 

August Was World's Third Hottest, In Line With Most Months This Year

As it has for several years now, the August world
map of whether temperatures were above or below
the 20th century average shows almost
 exclusively on the warm side. 

The latest monthly report on the state of the global climate tells us August was the world's third hottest on record. 

That's the same as most recent months, as this year continues to trend just a tad cooler than the record global heat of 2023 and 2024. But other than those two years, August was easily warmer than any other in at least the past 150 years. 

The top ten warmest global Augusts have all occurred since 2015. 

El Nino, which tends to heat the world even above those caused by climate change, boosted temperatures in 2023 and 2024. 

 El Nino is not active, so it's mostly just climate change keeping temperatures above previous years.

Land areas had their fourth warmest August, and oceans had their third warmest August. Warmest areas included the Arctic, which had its second warmest August on record after 2023. Other particularly hot areas were most of the northern Pacific Ocean, far eastern Asia, western and northern Europe, northern Siberia, the Caribbean, eastern and northern South America, and adjacent South Atlantic Ocean waters. 

Unprecedented heat waves hit Spain, France, Japan, and sections of the Middle East. 

 Cooler than average temperatures, as usual, were hard to find in August. The only places that were a wee bit on the chilly side were parts of the southeast United States, eastern Europe, Far East Russia, a couple little sections of Africa, a perennial little cold spot in the North Atlantic south of Greenland and parts of Antarctica.

There was actually a small dot in the southern Pacific Ocean that had a record cold August, which is relative rarity in this age of climate change. 

The bottom line is that 2025 will offer a break of sorts from two consecutive record hot years the world had in 2023 and 2024.  The bad news is 2025 will certainly be in the top five list of warmest years. 

Meteorological summer, running from June 1 through August 31 was also the third warmest on record. 

The streak of warmest ever global temperatures from 2023 and 2024 extended into January, which was the hottest on record. Since then, each month this year was third hottest after the previous two years. Except for April and May, which were the second hottest on record for the world. 

I'm already guessing that 2026 also might not break the 2024 record for global heat. La Nina, the opposite weather pattern of the heat-adding El Nino is beginning to take over, according to latest NOAA forecasts.

At the moment, it doesn't look like it will be a particularly strong one, and it might not last very far into 2026.  But that could keep next year comparatively "cool."  Meaning there's a decent chance the world won't get as hot as 2024. 

However, there is no sign that climate change will ever go away. The world will keep getting hotter, and we will have another year - probably soon rather than later - that we'll have yet another record hot year. 

 

 

Vermont Drought: Effects Are Getting Widespread And Severe

The beach at Sandbar State Park in Milton, Vermont is
a LOT bigger than it used to be thanks to a near
record low Lake Champlain. The drought is 
depleting water statewide. 

As anybody can see by just looking around them, Vermont's punishing drought keeps taking a mounting, frustrating toll.  

It's now doing pretty much everything a drought can do. Dry wells, water shortages, fire danger, crop losses, shockingly low rivers and lakes. And there's no end in sight. 

We're witnessing another side of the disastrous extreme climate change is bringing to Vermont. Climate change is hitting everywhere, and we have seen our share of trouble here in the Green Mountain State. 

We had so many floods in recent years that these inundations felt like our "new normal." That turned out to be only part of the story.  Climate change is surely bringing more intense rains and floods. But it also  bringing worse droughts. 

We had a close miss in that regard last fall, when things started getting disconcertingly dry in Vermont. We were on the northern edge of a punishing drought that set forests ablaze from Pennsylvania and New Jersey to Massachusetts and Maine. 

We got lucky because rain and snow returned last winter and spring. We were temporarily rescued from some serious drought effects.

Now, we're not so fortunate.  The drought is consuming so much of our lives now.  Even if our wells are still running well, we look around at wilted plants, brown mountainsides and Vermont's once clear, rushing streams now turned into empty gravel pits. 

There's so many examples of what this drought is doing to us. I have some of the receipts: .

CROPS/LIVESTOCK

The drought is battering crops. It's peak apple season. What apples we have in Vermont are of good quality, but there's just not many of them.  It was super rainy during spring pollination season, so bees didn't have a chance to do their work then, because they don't do their work in stormy weather. 

Then the drought hit. You need lots of water to make big apples. So, they're small this year. Between the wet spring and the drought, some Vermont growers are saying they only have 50 percent of their expected apples. 

Dairy farmers are struggling with a lack of feed and water shortages. Some farmers are being forced to buy feed from elsewhere, which is very expensive.  Since profits - when they come - are extremely slim in dairy farming, this could become a serious crisis for some.  It could even shut down some of Vermont's already dwindling number of farms. 

FORESTS AND FIRES

Most Vermont brush and woodland fires come in the early spring shortly after the snow melts. There's dead vegetation and sunshine dries it out. Green leaves haven't appeared yet.

This spring in Vermont was wet, so we didn't get the usual number of fires. A few months ago, we thought we'd have an easy fire year. I guess we thought wrong.  

Through September 11, Vermont has seen 60 fires which have burned through 52.41 acres.  Expect this number to rise, possibly fairly quickly, until we get some decent, consistent rains. That's more than the total number of fires in some entire years, like 2017 and 2019.

Last year, Vermont had a busy time with fires, with 99 of them scorching a total of 180.6 acres. That was in large part due to a dry autumn which helped spark numerous fires. 

Autumn, 2024 could give us a hint of what we face in the coming month or two. The trouble would really begin in October as leaves fall from trees and dry out, and underbrush succumbs to the increasing chill of the season, turns brown and dies. That will provide more fuel for fires. It could make last autumn's blazes look like a campfire in comparison. 

Some or even many of those trees on thin, rocky soil you saw wilting and turning brown in August might never come back. The drought might well have killed them. We won't know for sure until spring when trees normally leaf out. 

The drought is leaving behind more dry wood to fuel forest fires.  The drought-killed trees, combined with the many more ash trees done in by the emerald ash borer, are combining to leave a lot of dead, dry wood around. 

Areas with a lot of dead trees would burn more easily, and burn hotter in this current drought.  The problem will also last for several years as the deceased trees will be there for years. They'll increase the fire risk during future droughts. 

Meanwhile, the forest fire danger today is high, as it's been for a week or more now. 

WATER SUPPLIES

 Many private wells have gone dry. The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources asks people with low or dry wells to report their issues and to visit its website to find a list of local water haulers and other drought resources. 

Vermont officials are trying to make sure they understand the extent of the problem. If your private well or spring is dry or low, the Department of Environmental Conservation is encouraging people to submit information to their Drought Reporter. 

 Some fire departments are trying to refill wells with their trucks, but not all can do that. Municipalities are running short of water, too, and have to supply the whole town. They can't use the limited amount of water left in reservoirs to refill private wells. 

A glimpse of the near future in Vermont might be comings from Moriah, New York. The town of 4,800 a little west of Port Henry has imposed an emergency water ban that prohibits all non-essential outdoor and indoor water use for at least six days. 

TOURISM

The drought is certainly affecting Vermont's famed foliage season. Despite warm weather, trees are turning color earlier than usual because trees are stressed by the dry weather. 

Worse, the color might well be dull. I've seen some hillsides turning a sad brown because green leaves are wilting for lack of water.  Other areas are mainly still green.  Droughts often dull the vibrancy of autumn foliage, and that might be the case this year.  We won't know for sure until fall foliage season reaches its peak.  

It'll still be pretty, but perhaps not as colorful as most years. We shall see.

I haven't heard much yet about how the drought might affect ski areas. They use a lot of water to make snow, and there's no longer much water available. Ski conditions might suffer, we shall see.

OUTLOOK

The weather forecast still has not changed much. Some clouds will cover the sky today, but will yield no rain. The humidity will stay low, too. Thursday will bring warm, dry weather. 

A cold front is still likely to come through Thursday night. A couple towns might get a sprinkle, that's it. 

Then, after a couple cool, dry days, it will turn warm and dry again. The next chance of rain still looks like it would come around September 25 and 26. 

However, some early indications are that next storm might slide by to our south, keeping the dry weather going. We don't know that for sure, so keep your fingers crossed!

Forecasts through September 30 keep us dry,  I don't see any big changes in this bad, dry weather pattern. 

The next weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report comes out tomorrow morning. It  hasn't rained in Vermont since September 7, so I'm sure the report will confirm things have gotten even worse.  

All Tornadoes All The Time, Another Twister Post, This Time, Drama From Japan

Some of the damage from this month's tornado in Japan,
the strongest on record, or at least since 1961

 Tornadoes keep hitting places that aren't in tornado alley. 

Earlier this week I talked about a swarm of tornadoes in North Dakota and an odd one in rural, semi-desert Utah. 

But the real tornado news was in Japan of all places. On Friday, they had their worst  tornado on record. 

The Japanese tornado packed winds of up to 168 mph, killing one person, injuring 89 people and damaging at least 1,200 structures, mostly in the communities to Makinohara and Yoshida. This is roughly 110 miles southwest of Tokyo. 

The tornado, and a likely separate one in another town spun off from Tropical Storm Peipah, which passed near Japan Friday. In fact there might have been multiple tornado touchdowns in the region. 

The tropical storm itself forced the evacuation of 600,000 or so people due to the threat of flooding and landslides. At least 24 people were injured by the tropical storm, separate from the tornadoes. One time received three inches of rain within an hour from the system.  

Tornadoes happen occasionally in Japan, but most tend to be pretty weak.  The nation has had about 1,600 tornadoes since 1961.  By comparison, the United States averages roughly 1,000 twisters per year. 

AUSTRALIA, TOO

A couple of tornado hit Australia during severe storms and flooding on September 10.  The first twister was reported in Caragabal, New South Wales with another one nearby shortly afterwards.

The tornadoes were part of an odd springtime storm system that dumped the heaviest September rains since at least 1879 in Sydney. (I said springtime, as it is springtime Down Under). 

The torrential rains brought some drought relief to inland areas, but left much of Sydney under water after nearly five inches of rain dumped onto the city with a population of 5.6 million. Other cities in the region received six inches. 

The Sydney metro area had twice as much rain in one day as they usually do during the entire month of September.

Videos

Video compilation of the tornado in Japan. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.

Farmer turns into a tornado chaser recently in Caragabal, Australia. To view, click on this link, or if you see the image below, click on that:

 Scenes in Sydney, Australia via a newscast shows the city swamped beneath five inches of rain in a short amount of time. Once again, click here to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Confirmed: NOAA Reports Vermont, Two Other States Had Driest August On Record

Charlotte Beach along Lake Champlain this past Sunday
showing remarkably low levels due to our ongoing drought.

Vermont was one of three states in a broad area of super dry summer weather than endured their driest August in at least 131 years. 

The news comes from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) which releases monthly reports on the previous month's United States climate data, and that of the whole world.

Kentucky and Ohio were the other two states besides Vermont that had their driest August. Ten other states A broad area stretching from Missouri to Maine had one of their top ten driest Augusts in those 131 years of record.

Vermont in August had on average 1.43 inches of rain in August.  The only other year that even comes close to the record dryness was 1957, with 1.56 inches. 

For comparison, the wettest August was 2011, with an average Vermont rainfall of 10.08 inches. That was the year Tropical Storm Irene hit the state, causing one of the worst floods in Vermont history.

As we well know, a flash drought developed in Vermont during August and has been intensifying this month.  A new weekly U.S. Drought Monitor due out Thursday morning will give us an idea of how much worse it has gotten in the past rainless week. 

It wasn't just us, of course. Which such a large area experiencing a dry August saw drought start, expand and intensify. Those areas include the lower Mississippi, Tennessee and Ohio Valleys, and of course much of the Northeast. 

August for the nation as a whole was on the dry side, coming in  at the 23rd driest out of the past 131 years. . The only notably wet state was Georgia, which had its tenth wettest August. 

The only other states that came in wetter than average were California, Nevada, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and South Dakota.

The nation as a whole had its 27th warmest August out of the past 131 years. Six western states plus Florida had one of their top ten hottest Augusts on record. 

Both North and South Carolina had one of their top 10 coolest Augusts. A few counties in the Piedmont regions of those states had their coolest-ever August. In the age of climate change, it's become increasingly rare to see any region have a record cool month, but it still happens once in awhile. 

DROUGHT BRINGS ODD TEMPERATURES

Back here in the Northeast, including here in Vermont, droughts -  especially in the summer -  tend to bring above normal daytime temperatures and cooler nighttime lows. The air is dry, and the ground can't really add moisture to the atmosphere. 

So it becomes sort of desert-like. During the day, the sun doesn't use its energy on evaporation, because there's little to evaporate. So all that energy goes into boosting afternoon high temperatures. At night, moisture isn't around, so all the sun's heat radiates to space. 

Also, during droughts, there's no storms around to keep things cloudy. Cloudy skies would have brought cooler days and warmer nights. 

The lack of moisture and clouds in meant Vermont had its 20th warmest average daily high temperature and its 38th coolest overnight lows during August. This pattern was repeated throughout the Northeast and Ohio Valley. 

It's also continuing into September as the drought rolls on. Burlington has yet to see a daytime high under 70 degrees this month, which is odd for this late in the season. But most nights have cooled into the upper 40s and low 50s, and it's been even cooler than that away from Lake Champlain. 

VERMONT DROUGHT UPDATE

The situation obviously continues to worsen here in the Green Mountain State as we keep going day after day without rain. 

Some rivers, like the Otter Creek, are at record low levels. Parts of the Lamoille River near Jeffersonville, the East Branch of the Passumpsic at East Haven and the Clyde River at Newport are at their lowest levels on record for mid-September.

Virtually all other rivers and streams in Vermont are close to record lows.  I'll have more news on the drought's effects around here in a post coming soon. 

The weather forecast continues to be discouraging, with no change from the predictions I've been mentioning the past few days.

It was sunny, warm and dry Monday. It will be warm and dry today, tomorrow and Thursday. A decaying storm along the North Carolina/Virginia coastline might throw some clouds our way tomorrow, but, alas, no rain. 

The skies will clear out Thursday, and we'll have a brief excursion into summertime weather, with many of us reaching the low 80s.

You'd want sharp cold fronts this time of year to bring rain. We've got a pretty strong one coming Thursday night or very early Friday, but, again, it will have no rain with it this time, aside from a low risk of sprinkles in a couple spots. 

We'll have a brief cool down Friday and Saturday with highs only in the 60s. We'll have to be on the lookout for some areas of frost early Saturday morning. It will then turn warm again for a few days. 

Our next shot at rain still looks like it will come around September 25 or 26.  It's way too soon to know whether it will turn out to be any kind of real rain or another whiff with sprinkles or nothing. Some computer models give us some moderate rain, while others indicate practically nothing at all. 

We'll wait and see on that, Meanwhile, keep doing your rain dances. And do it with gusto.  

Surprising Cause Of Sea Level Rise: We're Pumping Out All The Groundwater

Giant aquifers, like those depicted in this map, are
rapidly being depleted by man, and that 
phenomenon has greatly influenced the
pace of sea level rise. 

When we think of the reasons behind sea level rise and climate change, the images that pop up in our heads are melting glaciers, torrents of water pouring off the Greenland ice sheet in the summer, that kind of thing. 

But one of the biggest drivers of sea level rise is coming from a surprising source: Pumping groundwater to the surface for drinking water, irrigation and industry. 

According to ProPublica:

"So much groundwater is now being pumped that it is filling the oceans as it drains off land, becoming one of the largest drivers of global sea level rise."

The result is vast parts of Earth's land masses are drying out, according to an ambitious new study.  

ProPublica goes on:

"More than anything, Earth is being slowly dehydrated by the unmitigated mining of groundwater, which underlies vast proportions of every continent. Nearly 6 billion people, or three quarters of humanity, live in the 101 countries that the study identified as confronting a net decline in water supply.  - portending enormous challenges for food production and a heightened risk of conflict and instability." 

This comes from a study led by Hrishikesh Chandanpurkar, an earth systems scientist working with Arizona State University. The research was published recently in the journal Science Advances. The study looks at most of the Earth, but excludes the fresh water ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland 

There's even more bad news in the research: The loss of water through groundwater pumping is happening as many areas are growing drier due to climate change. 

The study notes that with climate change, some areas of Earth are getting drier while others are getting wetter. However, drying regions are expanding quickly while places that have been getting wetter are shrinking. 

Deep, high quality aquifers are actually widespread, lying beneath one third of the planet. The aquifers are under about half of Africa, Europe and South Africa. They took millions of years to form and would take thousands of years to refill. 

But with us humans, a significant amount of that water is taken from underground, given over to irrigation or industry, then runs off, eventually finding its way to oceans. 

This loss of water from aquifers has gotten so great, that it is one of the largest causes of sea level rise. "Moisture lost to evaporation and drought, plus runoff from pumped groundwater, now outpaces the melting of glaciers and the ice sheets of either Antarctica or Greenland as the largest contributor of water to the oceans," ProPublica reports. 

The study was done using 22 years of data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE satellites. Images from the satellites measure changes in th mass of the Earth and can be used to estimate its water content. 

As ProPublica reports, study co-author Jay Famiglietti has for two decades used GRACE data to determine where aquifers were declining. 

Chandanpurkar and Famiglietti began to wonder what all this meant regarding all the water available on the continents. So the study, really an inventory of all land-based water contained in glaciers, rivers and aquifers, set out to see how things were changing. 

Spoiler: It's changing fast.

For instance, scientists and water managers were well aware that aquifers in the U.S. Southwest were receding.  Their research also showed a "creeping disaster" of accelerating drying in aquifers spreading out from the Southwest into Texas, and down into Mexico. The same pattern was noted in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Asia.  

So, draining the aquifers looms as a crisis for crops and industry, which would die out with the drying out of aquifers. Even if crops can still grow, shipping them out will be problematic, since the water from the aquifers is raising sea levels. Which floods ports and such. Not to mention important crop-growing regions like the Nile and Mekong deltas.

One the groundwater is lost to the seas, the only ways to get it back are through expensive and inefficient coastal desalination plants. Or waiting hundreds or thousands of years for rain to replenish desiccated aquifers.  

Other research that the climate change is not only warming up the air and the oceans. It's actually starting to extend its tentacles deep underground. The research says ground water is warming up as much as 40 to 50 meters (about 130 to 165 feet) underground. 

That underground warming could increase microbial production and allow chemicals such as arsenic, locked away in cold underground rocks, to get released as warming takes hold far below our feet. The warmer groundwater could also bubble up into lakes, ponds and rivers, allowing more damaging algae blooms and killing some aquatic life, as Grist reports. 

 As climate scientist Peter Gleick notes, drying out aquifers threatens global food production. And food is the foundation for stability. So don't get too smug, America. If you think we have immigration problems, brutal, often unfair and possibly illegal deportations and the political turmoil that comes with all that now, just wait until the groundwater dries up.  

Like or not food and climate refugees might well be stampeding toward our borders in the United States. No matter how many walls we throw up, or how many Executive Orders presidents declare. 

Water and the lack thereof is already contributing to war and violence, ProPublica notes. The Syrian civl war that began in 2011 started as rural unrest stemming from drought and groundwater depletion. Ukrainian wheat support much o the world, so Russia is targeting that nation's water infrastructure. 

There are things we can do to slow or even stop the groundwater depletion, the researchers said. Drip irrigation can cut water use by as much as 50 percent. Arid Israel has used that technique effectively. 

When California farmers reduced their use of Colorado River water in 2023 and 2024, Lake Mead rose by 16 feet. People in arid areas can remove lawns in favor of native plants. Cities can recycle a lot of their water.  

This is a solvable crises. But work has to start now to get this going. 

More Tornadoes, Storms In Weird Locations, But Still No Signs Of Rain Or Anything Here In Vermont

Screenshot from a video showing a large tornado in
North Dakota Sunday. The state was hit by as many
as 19 twisters yesterday. 

While we in Vermont can't even get a sprinkle of rain, weird storms have been hitting areas that are usually not particular stormy, especially this time of year. 

We had the tornadoes in Utah Saturday, which I've already mentioned in this here blog thingy.  I've got an update on that below, but first, more odd tornadoes, this time in North Dakota. 

During Sunday afternoon, a total of 22 reports of tornadoes came in, all but three of them mostly along a narrow north-south line in central parts of the state. The actual number of tornadoes will be determined by the National Weather Service.

Observers said this was probably the biggest September North Dakota tornado outbreak on record. 

The tornadoes hit sparsely populated areas, though there was damage in the tiny central North Dakota communities of Denhoff and Cannon Ball.   

The situation kept meteorologists exceptionally busy, as tornado warnings blared across central North Dakota most of the afternoon and evening.  At one point, storm chaser Brian Copic had two tornadoes in his sights: A large, wedged shaped twister and a skinnier one nearby. 

North Dakota does get tornadoes, averaging about 29 of them per year.  But we're generally past the season for twisters there. But Sunday was an exception. 

The direction of Sunday's storms was a little off, too. They headed north to northwest, not in an east or northeast that most tornadic storms travel. 

North Dakota is also not known for its heavy rain especially in the autumn.  It's in the middle of North America. Humid Gulf of Mexico or Pacific Ocean air has a lot of trouble making it that far north by September, so rainfall is usually fairly sparse. 

However,  Bismarck, North Dakota got more rain in an hour Sunday than they normally do in the entire month of September.  Just under two inches came within that hour, compared to the 1.72 inches that usually falls all month. The storm total in Bismarck Sunday was 2.44 inches.  

Not surprisingly, the city and points south were hit by widespread flash flooding. 

It's been a rough year for severe weather in North Dakota, even by their standards. Four tornadoes and 100 mph straight line winds hit areas near Grand Forks about a month ago. North Dakota also just approved for disaster assistance from damage caused by tornadoes, high winds and flooding back on June 20-21.

In Utah, two homes, two houses trailers, a hay barn and fifth-wheel trailer were destroyed in the tornado. Nobody was hurt, but several pets are missing. Two additional houses were damaged and power lines have come down. 

With Sunday's outbreak, it looks like North Dakota will have had about 60 tornadoes this year, the most there in a single year. 

VERMONT LEFT OUT

Here in Vermont, we often get the remnants of any big storms to our west. Usually in the form of some autumn rain. We could really use it, but, again, not this time. The drought stays strong. 

The Plains storm is lifting directly north into Canada and dissipating. It won't give us any rain at all. Instead, the forecast is the same as it was yesterday: It will be warm and dry through Thursday. Then, a rainless cold front will hit Friday and it will turn cool and dry. Then it will probably warm up again. 

Our next chance of rain isn't until September 25 or 26, but even that is highly uncertain. That storm might go by to our south, missing us again.  

We don't want tornadoes here, but it would be nice if one of those tornadic systems spun off a little rain our way. 

Los Angeles Wildfires In January Might Have Killed Hundreds, Not Two Or Three Dozen

The cataclysmic wildfires in and around Los Angeles
this past January officials killed 30 people, but a 
recent study suggest the real death
toll might have exceeded 400.

Data emerged this summer suggesting the death toll from the intense wildfires in and around Los Angles last January is much higher than official numbers.  

Officially, 30 people died in the conflagration that tore through Alameda, Pacific Palisades, Malibu and other densely populated areas of Los Angeles County. 

But county death records suggest the fires might have claimed an additional 440 lives. 

These weren't people trapped in burning neighborhoods. They were people whose health suffered in the smoky, depressing, dangerous and contaminated atmosphere during and after the conflagration.

As the Washington Post reports, scientists compared deaths in Los Angeles County between January 1 and February 1 with figures from past years, excluding 2020 through 2023 because of the coronavirus pandemic. 

They found this year, 6,371 deaths were recorded in that months span, compared to an expected 5,931 deaths. That leaves 440 more deaths that need explanation. 

A quote from the WaPo article: 

"The findings emphasize how climate-driven disasters can be far deadlier than they initially seem, with ripple effects in the weeks and months after the extreme events. The disasters are linked to lingering environmental damage and social upheaval that result in long-term, dangerous ills for hard-hit communities."

Calculating excess deaths the way they've done with the Los Angeles fires is a good way to capture the complete scope of a disaster. Scientists discover fatalities that weren't a direct result of the catastrophe. The event caused problems that proved fatal to some people, such as crappy air quality or health care disruptions and delays. 

The number of excess deaths from the L.A. fires surprised the researchers, according to the Washington Post. 

Moreover, there might have been additional deaths caused by the wildfire after February 1, when the study ended. 

The obvious next step would be to figure out how these excess deaths occurred. Was it the air pollution?

"That would require combining estimates of who was exposed to how much wildfire smoke with existing estimates of how given level of smoke exposure affects mortality," said Marshall Burke, a professor at the Stanford University Doerr School of Sustainability.

 The fires also left behind potentially cancer-causing contaminants. That could add to the fire mortality in the coming months and years. 

Looking wider, the study of Los Angeles fire deaths raises questions about the real death tolls of other wildfires and different kinds of disasters, such as hurricanes, tornadoes and floods. Additional deaths probably happen after the news cameras are pointed the other way after a disaster ends. 

For instance, other research after the wildfires in Maui, Hawaii in 2023 reached some disturbing conclusions.  

The official death toll in that fire was 102. But suicide and drug overdose rates on Maui skyrocketed in the month after the disaster. Another study showed that half of adults suffered from depression in the months after the Maui fire and 22 percent had decreased lung function. 

As climate change intensifies wildfires, storms, floods and droughts, it'll be important to get a handle on the real death toll associated with these calamities. Growing evidence suggests you're not necessarily safe if you survived the critical hours of the disaster. 

Weather and climate change can kill long after the sun comes back out, the fires are extinguished, the wind dies down and the water recedes.