Pink Light Amid Washington Flood Fuel For Conspiracy Theories

Pink sky/air over Buckley, Washington earlier this month.
Photo from Michael Bradbury via X.

In the midst of those atmospheric river storms in Washington State this month, there was a break in the bad weather right at sunset, the day before yet another brutal storm swept in. 

People in the Seattle area flooded social media - pardon the pun - with photos of a spectacular sunset. It really was gorgeous. 

However, some other people in western Washington posted photos of gloom, but with an odd, distinct pinkish, lavender-ish glow that filled the atmosphere. 

This odd glow was noted as far east as Spokane, not far from the Idaho border. 

Given the times we live in, everybody and their brother has an ominous conspiracy theory for everything. Including the pink glow in Washington. 

It was supposedly a sign the government was unleashing terrible storms on us, for whatever reason they come up with. Maybe it was aliens. Strange energy forces. Maybe even chemtrails. 

To be Captain Obvious, none of those theories are true. 

Here's what likely happened:

The sky over Washington indeed filled with gorgeous sunset colors that late afternoon. Oranges, yellows, reds and pinks. 

In some places, however, all that moisture from the downpours created lots of lingering low clouds and fog,  which obscured that colorful sky. But those colors tried to soak into that fog. The likely result was that otherworldly pink glow. It was just nature doing something interesting and cool.

I've seen this sort of thing around here in Vermont, too. When it happens, it's just an opportunity to enjoy some new colors of nature. 

An example came on June 29, 2024. A warm front was coming through, creating gusty winds, and low, fast-moving clouds. Above those clouds, there was apparently a bright orange sunset. The result down on the ground here in St. Albans was a weird pinkish, purplish, windy summer evening. The video of that evening is below. The pink hue starts at about 1:20 into the video. 

Click this link to view the video.  Or if you see the image below, click on that to watch. 

 

Deadly Atmospheric Rivers Swamp West Coast From British Columbian To Oregon, Now Targeting California

As rain began in San Francisco
Saturday it was already chaos
A power blackout meant many
driverless Waymo taxis stalled 
in intersections because they
didn't know what to do with
traffic signals that weren't working. 

After trashing British Columbia, Washington, and eventually Oregon this month, atmospheric rivers continue to harass the West Coast, and now the main target has shifted to California. 

The storms have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage in the Pacific Northwest. The wind energy from these storms has spread further damage from Idaho to New England. 

By the time we're done with these storms after Christmas. the entire area from north of Vancouver, British Columbia to San Diego, California will have been soaked and flooded and blasted. . 

I think this has turned out to be the nation's latest disasters costing $1 billion or more. And the damage will keep adding up. 

Let's take stock of what has already happened, and what we're bracing for, moving north to south. 

BRITISH COLUMBIA

The storms this month have caused a lot of power outages and flooding in British Columbia. Hundred of thousands of people lost electricity as surges of powerful winds blew through on several occasions in mid-December.

Ironically, drought in recent years has made the storms more damaging in British Columbia. Trees are weakened and damaged from the drought, making them more likely to snap and blow over in storms. 

Flooding hit British Columbia's Fraser Valley, damaging hundreds of homes   The Noosack River, which crossed into British Columbia from Washington, caused much of the flooding. 

Chilliwack, British Columbia had about 15 inches of rain between December 9 and 15, causing plenty of flooding and some landslides around the city, which is not far north of the border with Washington State. 

Power has not yet been 100 percent restored in British Columbia and some roads and highways remain closed due to flooding, washouts and mudslides. 

WASHINGTON

The last big atmospheric river surge finished crashing through Washington this past Tuesday into Wednesday with another gush of downpours and an even bigger gush of wind, as we noted the other day. 

Since then, the downpours have mostly devolved into the usual Pacific Northwest drizzles and mountain snows. But the damage is done and new post-storm problems keep popping up. 

Continued light rain, with a few bursts of heavier rain, falling on already super-soaked soil, is seriously increasing the risk of landslides in western Washington State. 

Sharp slopes on coastal bluffs, steep hillsides, road cuts and recently burned wildfire areas are most at risk. There have been several landslides already this weekend, The threat should continue for several days. 

A large marina in Tacoma was badly wrecked by debris and wind. Multitudes of trees were washed into the harbor by flooding rivers. Then, high winds turned those floating trees into battering rams, destroying docks and boats. 

Rainfall has been pretty incredible in some areas right along the Pacific Coast and in higher elevations. Forks, Washington, a little inland from the Pacific Ocean in northwest Washington, has received 22.1 inches of rain so far this month. 

Rain during the atmospheric rivers reached high into the mountains, melting the snow that usually forms a thick blanket way up on those slopes.  The snow levels are now down to normal elevations, and the fluff is finally piling up in the Cascades.

OREGON

In Oregon, one person died when he drove around flood barriers and got caught in swift, deep floodwaters. Elsewhere in Oregon, a family of five was rescued from a pickup truck that got caught in swift water. 

In Tillamook County, five drivers had to be rescued from floodwaters, most of them after they drove around barricades. 

The Clackamas River rose 26 feet, flooding through homes and leaving yards littered with large trees and other debris. 

Landslides closed many roads in Oregon, including several near Mount Hood National Forest; along a section of the Columbia River Highway and in Oregon City.  

The rain in Oregon has tapered off some, but rivers are still flooding, even if they are gradually receding. Forecasts of daily rain coming up through the next week, will slow the Oregon recovery. 

CALIFORNIA

Next on the atmosphere river hit list is California.  

The first blast of atmospheric river downpours is hitting California from roughly the Bay Area north. Flooding is a good bet today and tomorrow in many areas of northern California, but areas near Placerville, Oroville and Paradise, in the Sierra Nevada foothills. These areas could get five to seven inches of rain in the next 24 hours. 

Heavy rain would continue in those same foothill areas tomorrow, making any flooding even worse.

Another surge of deep moisture off the Pacific will renew heavy rains in California, and those downpours will spread south.

By Tuesday night and Christmas Eve, rainfall rates through much of the L.A area, especially higher elevations, could reach to an inch per hour or more. This sets the stage for lots of mudslides and debris flows, especially in areas that saw wildfires in the past couple of years. 

Moisture content in the storm will be near record high levels, according to the National Weather Service office in Los Angeles. The flood watch for northern California is lasting a long time. It starts today, and goes into next Friday. 

 In less than a week, Los Angeles could receive more than five inches of rain. Normal rainfall for the entire month of December in L.A. is 2.3 inches. 

Snow levels will be high in the Sierra Nevada, so some places that usually get snow in the winter will see rain. Rain today is falling at elevations below 8,800 feet, and the snow level should slowly drop to 7,400 feet, give or take, by Tuesday night  

Way, way up there in the high Sierra, accumulations this week will range from four to ten feet, or even more.

It's going to be a long, long, tedious Christmas week for California.   

Today Is Winter Solstice, But Sun Began Setting Later Several Days Ago. Here's Why

At 3:55 p.m. Saturday, the sun was already close to
setting over St. Albans, Vermont. Today is the winter
solstice, the shortest daylight of the year. But 
strangely, sunsets started getting a bit later
starting December 10. There's a reason for that. 

The winter solstice hits today at 10:03 a.m. 

It is the shortest daylight of the year, but even, the earliest sunset and latest sunrise of the season don't exactly line up.  

Believe it or not, our earliest sunset was about a week and a half ago. And our latest sunrise won't hit until just before the New Year arrives.  

Why?

It's a little complicated, but here it goes: 

As Timeanddate.com explains:

"This is because of a discrepancy between our modern-day timekeeping methods and how time is measured using the Sun, known as the equation of time."

The equation of time is the difference between time measured using a sundial, also as true or apparent solar time, and the time measured using a clock, also known as mean solar time.....

Most clocks run on the idea that a day is exactly 24 hours. Technically a day is the duration between one solar noon, the time of day the the sun is at the highest point in the sky, to the next."

A solar day is not exactly 24 hours long. It varies through the year because the elliptical shape of Earth's orbit and the tilt of our planet. A solar day is longer than 24 hours in the summer and winter solstice. It's a little shorter than 24 hours at the spring and autumn equinoxes. 

This means solar noon comes at a different time than the noon you see on your watch or smart phone. For instance, in New York City, solar noon hits at 11:54 a.m. clock time.  By January 3, the Big Apple's solar noon and "watch" noon both hit at 12 on the dot. On January 4, solar noon as at 12:01 p.m., and it keeps getting later through January, as Timeanddate.com explains. 

That shift in solar noon means both sunset and sunrise keep getting later into the first days of January. 

In Burlington, Vermont, the earliest sunsets of the year hit on December 8 and 9, at 4:12 p.m. With both sunrises and sunsets getting later, today is the shortest day of the year with a sunrise at 7:26 a.m. and sunset at 4:16 p.m.

Our sunrises will keep getting later for awhile yet. The latest sunrises are at 7:29 a.m. each day between December 30 and January 5. After that, sunrises start getting earlier while sunsets keep getting later. 

Basically. days get longer from now until January only very slowly. Once we get into January, the pace of lengthening days begins to pick up. 

COLDER TIMES AHEAD?

There's an old saying that as the days lengthen, the cold strengthens. 

And it's true: On average, the coldest weather of the winter comes around the third week in January. Every winter is different, of course, so the most frigid days in some years can come in December or February instead. 

But, the depths of winter are generally in the second half of January. 

Even though the northern hemisphere begins to get a little brighter after today, the high Arctic remains deep in darkness. What little warmth might be left up there radiates out into space. The supply of gelid air keeps growing, just waiting for a chance to rush southward onto poor unsuspecting people like us Vermonters.   

Meanwhile, lakes in southern Ontario and Quebec continue to freeze up. Parts of the Great Lakes do, too. That means Arctic air coming from the North Pole can't as easily absorb a bit of the warmth of the lakes to modify those pushes of frigid air. 

Also, as the lakes freeze, they're less able to transfer moisture to the air. That means fewer clouds downstream from the lakes here in Vermont. Nights are a little more likely to be clear in January than they were in November and December. Clear, calm nights tend to be the coldest. A clear January night a mean the bottom falls out of the thermometer. 

Though the days will slowly lengthen over the coming weeks, you probably won't get much of a break from our cold winter winds. 

But slowly, you'll eventually notice a change. Maybe on a February day, the winter sun will actually feel a little warm. As we get through the late winter, thaws start to become a little more frequent. Before you know it. balmy spring breezes will ruffle your hair and brighten your mood.  

Trump Administration Breaking Up Renowned Climate Center; Retribution Against Colorado Governor Suspected

The National Center for Atmospheric Research in
Boulder, Colorado. The Trump administration
wants to break it up saying the scientists there
are "climate alarmists" with no evidence to back
that up. It appears the announcement might
be related to Colorado refusing to release
from jail a 2020 election conspiracy theorist.

One of the world's leading climate research centers, in Boulder, Colorado, is targeted for closing because Donald Trump has his head in the sand. 

And also probably because he's still butthurt that Colorado won't release a 2020 election conspiracy theorist from jail.

At issue is the National Center For Atmospheric Research, or NCAR. It was founded in 1960 and has resources like supercomputers, data sets and high-tech research planes that conduct meteorological and climate research. It's also an educational center for future scientists. 

As you'd expect, scientists are almost uniformly outraged by the plan to dismantle NCAR. 

Katharine Hayhoe, a Texas Tech University professor and chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy, called the center "quite literally our global mothership," and said "Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet."

Hayhoe also said on her post on the social media platform X: 

"(NCAR) supports the scientists who fly into hurricanes, the meteorologists who developed new radar technology, the physicists who envision and code new weather models and yes, the largest community climate model in the world" 

Casper Amman, a former research scientist at NCAR, told the Washington Post the center plays a unique role by bringing together soiled specialists to collaborate on some of the biggest climate and weather questions of our time. 

"Without NCAR, a lot could not happen....A lot of research at U.S. Universities would immediately get hampered, industry would lose access to reliable base data."

Weather and climate services around the world use NCAR modeling and forecasting tools. It also supplies real time data to people dealing with events like big wildfires and floods. 

Of course, the Trump camp has a completely different view about their plans to dismantle NCAR.

 Here's a Trump minion on X:

"The National Science Foundation will be breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado......This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country."

One of Trump's favorite whines is climate change. Every chance he gets, he says climate change is a hoax and a con job, his words. He apparently thinks that he's smarter than the vast majority of scientists who tell us climate change is real. Those scientists are growing increasingly alarmed about that warming. 

 USA Today, which first reported this development, reported:

"The administration plans to identify and eliminate what it calls 'green new scam research activities' during an upcoming review of the center, according to the White House while 'vital functions' such as weather modeling and supercomputing will be moved to another entity or location. 

Efforts to dissolve the National Center for Atmospheric Research will begin immediately, the official said, with the plan being to fully close the center's Mesa Laboratory in Boulder."

NCAR's staff consists of 830 employees who are part of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a nonprofit consortium of more than 130 colleges and universities. Those universities focus on earth system sciences. We don't yet know how many jobs or programs this dismantling would affect.

THE REAL REASON

There's almost certainly more to all this than just Trump's aversion to any true information about climate change. Trump's focus seems to be suddenly all about Colorado 

 As USA Today reports:

"The move to break up the National Center for Atmospheric Research comes after the Trump administration earlier in the day announced the cancellation of $109 million environmentally focused transportation grants in Colorado that sought to boost electric vehicles, rail improvement and research into hydrogen and natural gas-powered trains."

Amid these announcements, and on the same day the NCAR breakup was announced, Trump called Polis "weak and pathetic" and "incompetent" because he refused to release former Colorado County Clerk Tina Peters from prison.

And there it is: Revenge. 

Peters was once the top election official in Mesa County. She's part of the election 2020 conspiracy gang, convinced the election that year was "stolen" by the Joe Biden campaign. There's no evidence that ever happened. 

Eventually, in 2024,  a Colorado jury convicted Peters of giving Trump supporters unauthorized access to a voting machine after the 2020 election. She's serving a nine-year sentence on those state charges. 

Recently, Trump said he is pardoning Peters. There's one teeny, tiny problem with that. The president can only pardon people who were convicted on federal charges and are in federal prisons.

Peters was convicted on charges brought by the State of Colorado and is in a state prison. 

"Tina Peters was convicted guy a jury of her peers, prosecuted by a Republican District Attorney and found guilty of violating Colorado state laws, including criminal impersonation. No President has jurisdiction over state law more the power to parse a person for state convictions," said Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. 

How dare Polis stand up to Glorious Leader Trump!  So the Trump people brought out their usual mob boss schtick. "Nice state ya got there. Would be a shame to see anything happen to it."

Here's the quote to prove it:

"'Maybe if Colorado had a governor who actually wanted to work with President Trump his constituent would be better served,' a senior White House official told NOTUS in an email on Wednesday."

NOTUS.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan digital news outlet.

The Washington Post said an unnamed White House official declined to say how Polis is not cooperating with the administration, but denied the move was in response to Polis and his team not releasing Peters from prison.

Sure, Jan. 

Colorado is already fighting back 

According to Politico,  the U.S. Senate adjourned for the holidays this past week without passing a government funding package that would prevent a partial government shutdown starting January 30. 

One big part of the holdup are Democratic Colorado Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, who said they would hold up the spending package because of the plan to dismantle NCAR.  

Trump appears to be in a weaker position politically than he was earlier this year. Stay tuned at this bat channel to see whether the plan to end NCAR really happens.

We should all hope not. 

Saturday Vermont Update: Big, Gusty Storm Over; But It Will Stay Windy And Changeable

Tree and wires down on Stone House Road in Enosburg
yesterday. Photo by Christopher Bergeron via Facebook

The weather was certainly all over the place on Friday, with those howling winds, record highs, drenching downpours, then crashing temperatures. 

See last night's post for a complete rundown of record highs and top wind speeds across Vermont. 

We won't have anything quite that extreme for awhile. But it's going to stay windy with more yo-yo temperatures for the next several days. 

Before we get into that, a couple more aspects of that wild storm we had yesterday. We here in New England were actually the victim of an atmospheric river, much like what hit the Pacific Northwest last week. 

Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow regions in the atmosphere, basically rivers in the sky, that transport enormous amounts of water from the tropics. The average atmosphere river carries an amount of water vapor equivalent to the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River, according to NOAA. 

The difference is, yesterday's atmospheric river targeted us only for a very short period of time. The Pacific Northwest event was a fire hose aimed at the same spot for weeks. 

Our atmospheric river, which originated in the Gulf of Mexico, was a lot like a firefighter sweeping his hose across a long, burning wall. We only got soaked for a few hours. 

But you can tell how strong these wet tropical fire hoses are.  We had those record highs, statewide, including that 63 degrees in Burlington. It was also Burlington's wettest December 19 on record, with 0.84 inches. Virtually all that rain fell in just five hours. 

Atmospheric rivers, working in tandem with storm systems. more often than not cause strong, often damaging winds. Which is what we saw in Vermont Saturday. 

Yesterday's atmospheric river didn't last long enough to cause any flooding. But they can cause havoc in New England, and they have. Our huge, catastrophic flood in July, 2023 was caused by an atmospheric river. 

According to reporting by Inside Climate News, researchers have concluded that atmospheric rivers along in the eastern United States  are increasing in frequency, while those on West Coast are decreasing, this month's weather notwithstanding. 

Between 1980 and 2020, eastern atmospheric river activity from the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean increased at a rate of five percent per decade, according to the research.  Most of those atmospheric rivers affected the southeastern U.S, but some of them do make it up into the Northeast. 

One caveat: The distinction is a little dim between an atmospheric river and just blobs of deep moisture coming off the Gulf  and Atlantic. But this atmospheric river situation is a climate change signal that we ought to keep an eye on. It could be helping grow the propensity for extremes in the Northeast, including here in Vermont. 

LOOKING AHEAD

Over the next few days atmospheric rivers will be back to tormenting the West Coast. More on that on an  upcoming, separate post. 

There's no immediate sign of another atmospheric river for us anytime soon. But a fast coast-to-coast jet stream across the northern United States will ensure constantly changing weather here in Vermont, and a more windy days and nights.. 

Luckily, I don't see signs of winds getting as strong as they did yesterday. 

As of 9:45 a.m. today, there were still about 2,800 Vermont customers without electricity. A second big push of wind overnight kept creating new outages even as crews fixed problems created during the day Friday. Other damage included a building in downtown Winooski, where winds blew off a large section of brick veneer from the structure. 

The wind has died down, and the sun is out, so we're getting a Saturday break from all the noise outdoors. But it's a short break. Especially in the Champlain Valley. 

Another storm passing well to our north will pull in some stiff southerly winds over the Champlain Valley tonight. We won't get much precipitation out of it, maybe a few snow showers tomorrow morning. 

The storm will create strange temperature trends again, only this time it won't be extreme. Temperatures will slowly rise into the low 30s overnight instead of falling like they usually do. And during the day Sunday, temperatures will fall in the late morning and afternoon instead of rising like they're supposed to. 

For those of you who have no snow left on the ground after yesterday's storm, there's still one last chance of a white Christmas. 

It looks like another storm diving southeastward from the Great Lakes will cross New England Tuesday, laying down a stripe of snow across the region. Not much. Early guesses put us in the two to four inch range. And there's a possibility it could get warm enough for the snow to mix with rain. 

We'll get updates as we get closer to the event. 

Beyond Tuesday, it gets even harder to predict what will happen. With such a fast west to east flow in the atmosphere, it can get tricky to tease out when each disturbance will come through, how strong they might be, and whether enough warm air will come in to mix in some rain or ice with the snow chances. 

The weather pattern will mean more spells of gusty winds, so hang on to your Santa hat. 

Meteorologists, and probably everyone else will need to stay on their weather toes Christmas week. But I don't see any signs of another big storm anytime soon. 

Wild Vermont Weather Day Is Over; We Still Face A Few Issues With Wind, Snow Showers

View from St. Albas, of the sharp squall line
approaching from New York State shortly
before noon today. 

Well, that was quite a weather day here in Vermont, wasn't it? 

Between the damaging wind gusts. the torrents of rain, the record high temperatures, then the big temperature crash, there was a lot going on. .

WIND/POWER OUTAGES

I'll hit some of the highlights in this update, here on this (much calmer) late Friday afternoon. 

The number of customers across Vermont that lost electricity to the gales reached as high as nearly 21,700 at a little before noon. That reportedly represents a bit over 20 percent of all Vermont electricity customers

As of 5 p.m. the number of people still without electricity was still at nearly 8.500.

The wind this morning was the obvious culprit. Those high speed winds a few thousand feet aloft mixed down to the surface in some places, while it wasn't all that windy in others.

The places that did get windy really had their hats blown off. Top winds reported included 73 mph in South Lincoln and  67 mph in Pleasant Valley. That's the area between Underhill and Cambridge in the shadow of Mount Mansfield.

Other reports include 66 mph in Jay, 63 mph at the Morrisville/Stowe Airport, and in West Enosburg. Sections of some roads in Vermont closed temporarily because fallen trees and power lines were draped across them. 

Radar image of today's squall line approaching
from NewYork showed in really meant business. 

.The Green Mountain summits poked up into that layer of high speed air overhead. A gust on Mount Mansfield reached 106 mph.  Most ski areas in Vermont either shut down or had lift holds today. 

RECORD HIGHS

The big surprise today were the record highs. We knew it would be really warm, but it got pretty crazy. Burlington got up to 63 degrees,  roaring past that old record of 49 set in 1895. 

We now have no December daily record highs in the 40s. December record high in the 60s are increasing fast. Climate change again. 

Burlington's high today was a tie for eighth hottest December day on record. Pretty impressive considering the rest of the month so far has been decidedly on the cold side.

Other record highs today include, the following, with the old record in parentheses; Plattsburgh, NY, 59 (49 in 1967); Bennington, 57, (47 in 20-17); Newport, 53, (49 in 1949) and Montpelier, 53 (49 in 1949).

One piece of good news is so far, despite the midday deluge, there's been no reports of flooding.

REST OF THE STORM

Technically the storm isn't done with us yet. A brief slot of dry, rather calm air came in late this afternoon. There was even a decent sunset around Burlington. 

But as the evening goes on, you'll feel the west winds increase. All of Vermont except the Champlain Valley is still under a wind advisory.  That advisory goes until 7 a.m. Saturday and calls for peak gusts in a few spots to 50 mph. That's enough to trigger a few more power outages. Yay! 

It'll be blustery overnight in the Champlain Valley, with the strongest gusts in the 40 to 45 mph range. 

Snow showers were just beginning to make their way back into Vermont as of 5 p.m. A few of them will actually come in the form of a few raindrops in the valleys early this evening before the cold air solidly arrives overnight. 

The snow won't amount to much. Most of us will get somewhere between a few flakes and a little under an inch. But that bit of snow, combined with all that water freezing, will create icy spots on the roads overnight and Saturday morning. 

The weather pattern is still active, and I'll get into that my Saturday morning post. 

Huge Western Winds Continue; Big Colorado Fire Threat Today

Rangeland fires in Colorado Wednesday amid high
winds. Today, there's a particularly dangerous
fire risk along parts of Colorado's Front Range
as winds could reach 100 mph. 

 More rounds of high winds are hitting the West today after some incredible gusts roared through an enormous part of the western United States. 

In most places, today's gush of wind in the western United States isn't quite as bad as Wednesday's mess. But it will cause added damage in a wide area that has already suffered huge amounts of tree loss, power outages and structural damage.

The scariest place today will be along and just east of the Front Range in Colorado, where an incredible dangerous potential fire situation is unfolding. More on that in a bit. 

Some of the top wind gusts in mountainous areas included 144 mph at Mount Coffin, Wyoming, 142 mph at Goldwater Ridge Washington; 127 mph at Whitewood, South Dakota and 123 mph in Red Canyon.

Down where people live, the gusts were still incredible. Reports include 102 mph in Golden, Colorado, 101 mph in Rapid City, South Dakota, 99 mph in Missoula, Montana and 85 mph in Casper, Wyoming. 

Miraculously, I'm only aware of one death so far. It was a 55 year old man in Idaho who died when a tree crashed through the roof of his house and landed on the bed where he was sleeping. 

COLORADO DANGER

In Colorado, about 25,000 households were still without power Thursday afternoon after Wednesday's storm. That one brought local wind gusts of up to 100 mph. 

On Wednesday, areas around Boulder, Colorado Springs and places like that were worried about wind-driven wildfires. Thankfully, no heavily populated areas had wildfires. But three of them broke out in rural Yuma County. 

The largest of them raced through 12,000 acres and destroyed four structures, all either sheds or abandoned houses. The fire was 90 percent contained as of Thursday afternoon, Colorado Public Radio reported.

Now, a new storm looms today with a new round of winds of up to 100 mph in the immediate foothills of the Front Range again.  The hurricane force gusts are not expected to cover as large an area as Wednesday's storm. 

But, it's even drier than it was Wednesday, and the winds will be widespread. A large area covering an area from Nebraska down through the western half of Texas is at risk for large, wind driven wildfires today. 

A smaller area right along the Front Range from about Boulder and Fort Collins Colorado up through Cheyenne, Wyoming is really scaring people today. 

The strongest winds and lowest humidity in those cities will hit this afternoon through early this evening. A rare "particularly dangerous situation" red flag warning is in effect for areas immediately adjacent to the foothills in and near Boulder, west of Fort Collins and near Cheyenne. 

It's rare to see that kind of wording in a fire risk advisory. It means any fire that can get going could race erratically through trees, rangeland and neighborhoods. You'd expect that if winds gust to as high as 100 mph, as predicted. There's a risk of another firestorm like the one in December 2021 that destroyed around 1,000 homes around Boulder. 

A grass fire in Cheyenne Wednesday forced the evacuation of a neighborhood. The fire was contained, and people are back home, but today's weather forecast is surely freaking people out around there. 

WIND ELSEWHERE

People are still cleaning up from the gales from Washington to South Dakota.

Rapid City, 101 mph gusts were reported, not far from downtown. At the official weather station at the regional airport, the wind gusted to 94 mph, the highest wind gust on record, beating out an 89 mph gusts during a July, 2002 severe thunderstorm. 

A wildfire broke amid strong winds in Rapid City, South Dakota. It burned along Skyline Drive, a posh section of the city. It looks like firefighters contained the fire before it could burn any houses. 

However, around Rapid City, a radio tower collapsed in the winds, buildings lost their roofs and a lot of trees toppled. 

Throughout the huge state of Montana, crews were clearing fallen trees. Big Sky Country often gets big wind, but it's usually not as widespread for as persistent as this. At one point Wednesday, the entire state was under a high wind warning. 

Today, it's only the western half of Montana under a high wind warning, but winds could still reach 80 mph in some mountainous terrain. 

As new storms come off the Pacific, more high wind warnings are in effect for parts of Oregon.  The weather pattern will continue to feature a fast, west to east blast across the U.S. so more windy weather will keep cropping up here and there coast to coast through the Christmas holiday.  

Friday Morning Storm Forecast: High Winds Are Main Worry

The updated National Weather Service forecast wind map
for today has more dark orange shading on it than
the map I posted yesterday. That means stronger 
wind gusts this morning, possibly lasting into 
the very early afternoon. 

 UPDATE: 9:30 a.m.

The high wind warning has been expanded to include the Champlain Valley.

Higher than expected temperatures will allow for better mixing with strong winds aloft. 

The temperature in Burlington by 9 a.m. was 58 degrees, definitely above projections and shattering the previous record high of 49 degrees.

Winds could gust to 60 mph between now and noon-ish.  That's when that strong squall line comes through. As of 9:30 a.m., the squall line was clearly visible on radar coming into the Adirondacks. 

Winds at 9 a.m. were already gusting to 54 mph in Bennington and 53 mph in Morrisville. Power outages across Vermont are skyrocketing, up to 3,800 or so as of 9:15 a.m. 

Batten down the hatches for the next few hours. 

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

The big update to this morning's forecast for today is that winds look like they'll be a little stronger than we were thinking yesterday. 

That means a greater chance of power outages, tree damage, that sort of thing. 

The wind advisory that was in effect has been upgraded to a high wind warning along the spine and slopes of the Green Mountains. Between now and around 1 p.m. today, winds in the high wind warning area could gust to 60 mph. 

Elsewhere in Vermont, the wind advisory remains in effect, also until 1 p.m.  Potential peak gusts for those of us in the advisory zone could reach 55 mph, which is a little higher than the forecasts we had last evening. 

Winds a few thousand feet overhead are absolutely screaming this morning, and those winds above us will actually increase for a time later this morning. How windy it gets depends on how well those winds mix down. 

In many areas, this setup means that winds might not be so bad a good portion of the time, but every once in awhile you'll get a huge gush of wind as a mountain, or wave in the air flow grabs some of that high speed air above and brings it down on us.

As of shortly before 8 a.m. today, power outages in Vermont weren't that widespread just yet. But they were increasing pretty fast. Only about 270 customers statewide were affected as of 7 a.m. By 7:45, that figure was up to 463. The number of outages will keep rising, probably well into the thousands by noon.  

While those south winds are blowing, it will be warm for a change. Today's record high in Burlington is 49 degrees, set way back in 1895.  This is a lower record high than most days this time of year. In fact, it's the only daily record high in December that is under 50 degrees. 

Not for long! As of 7 a.m.,, Burlington had already tied that record high, and it will surely get into the 50s later this morning.

We'll have some showers around all morning, but they probable won't be that impressive. 

Until..... 

THE COLD FRONT

The main drama today will be when the cold front arrives. It's looking like there will be thin line of torrential rains and super gusty winds when it comes through. Arrival time looks like it will be between 11 a.m and noon in the Champlain Valley and down Route 7 all the way to Bennington and beyond.  It will be in the Connecticut River Valley around 1 p.m or a little after that. 

Winds will temporarily be much lighter after the front goes through. That's why the wind advisories and warnings shut down at 1 p.m. today. Pretty substantial rains will probably continue for a few hours after the front goes through. 

The flooding risk continues to look pretty low. You'll see streams gurgling pretty intensely and the state's rivers will show a rapid rise this afternoon. That's all thanks to the burst of heavy rain with the cold front and from all that snow melting so fast. 

But this episode of warmth and rain will be just a little too short to cause anything other that a few instances of minor flooding.  Predicted rainfall has actually fallen a little since yesterday. Most places should see a half inch to as much as an inch. 

Temperature will be noticeably falling too, this afternoon. But the heaviest precipitation will be over well before temperatures in the valleys drop below freezing around dark or shortly after. I don't think the evening commute will have much trouble with icy roads, unless you're going over mountain passes.

TONIGHT

Overnight, winds will ramp up again, this time from the west. We might see new wind advisories issues for tonight, especially along and east of the Green Mountains where gusts could really crank again.

The winds overnight will probably be a little less intense than those expected this morning, but enough to risk more scattered power outages and instances of tree damage.

A few snow showers will bluster through, too, but most places won't get much more than a dusting, if anything. 

SATURDAY AND BEYOND

We're in a volatile weather pattern because there's exceptionally warm air starting to build through most of the southern two thirds of the U.S., and absolutely frigid air covering most of Canada.

This can be a recipe for huge storms, but luckily, I guess, we'll have a fast west to east jet stream. That means frequent, hard to predict, fast ,moving storms and disturbance. We'll also probably have plenty o of windy days through the rest of the month. 

As each of these things go through, we could have quick bursts of warmish air, followed by bursts of winter air. This type of fast weather is really hard to predict more than a couple days in advance. Which means we're not at all sure how warm the mild bursts will be and how cold the chilly days will become. We also don't know much about the timing of these things. 

It does seem like a weak a windy system will go by to our north Sunday, possibly spreading a little snow our way. That will be mainly north and mountains. 

If we get lucky and if forecasts hold, another little zipper storm will, well, zip through Tuesday, laying down a stripe of snow, maybe one or two inches across Vermont. If that happens, we get a white Christmas after all. 

Stay tuned!

Thursday Evening Vermont Storm Update: A Real Wind Maker Coming In

National Weather Service in South Burlington released
this wind gust forecast map for Friday. Darker shades
of orange depict gusts to at least 45 mph. The little
red areas in the mountains depict gusts over
60 mph at an near the summits. 

 High winds have been the big weather story across rthe nations today, and our storm here in Vermont will be a blg blustery blow, too.

Don't worry, we won't have those 100+ mph gusts some areas near the Rocky Mountains experienced, but we will have gusts half that strong or even a little more. Just remember, 50 to 55 mph winds don't exactly represent a calamity, but they will cause problems. 

As expected, the first area to see the strong winds today is the central and northern Champlain Valley. 

So far, we've seen winds gust to 45 mph on the Route 2 Sandbar between Milton and South Hero, and 39 mph in Burlington. Here in St. Albans, I'd estimate top gusts at around 40 mph before sunset, with some stronger gusts as darkness settled in. 

The wind advisory in Champlain Valley has been expanded to cover the whole state. It's in effect until  1 p.m. tomorrow. Top winds should be in the 50 to 55 mph range, at least in some spots. 

Sheltered areas east might not see much wind, at least until later. That means a few spots in eastern Vermont might fall into the upper 20s this evening before slowly rising. Western Vermont temperature overnight will probably rise through the 40s amid the gusty south winds. 

This is enough to create some scattered power outages through tonight into tomorrow morning. 

RAIN THEN MORE WIND

Only light rain showers seem to be in the cards between now and around daybreak Friday. Most of the rain will come within two or three hours before and after the storm's strong front comes through. 

The whole cold front with this strong storm now looks like it will come in a little later than we thought in this morning's forecast. As it stands now the gush of wind and rain with the front looks like it might the enter the Champlain Valley around 11 a.m. and leaving eastern Vermont around mid-afternoon.

Meteorologists have cut back expected rainfall amounts in the Green Mountain State just a little since this morning. Still a good three quarters of an in most places, plus rapidly melting snow, should cause water to rise rapidly tomorrow. 

Minor flooding is still possible, but, fingers crossed, it probably won't be all that serious.  

After the cold front goes through, the National Weather Service in South Burlington said they suspect they might have to issue another wind advisory for at least part of Vermont for strong west winds.  It will be windy everywhere in Vermont from Friday evening into Satuday. But the strongest winds with gusts to 50 mph along and just east of the Green Mountains. That poses the risk of more power outages. 

 The cold air behind the front is lagging just a bit. That, and the fact that the front is moving more slowly than first thought, might minimize the amount of ice on the roads for the evening rush hour. 

Things will freeze up Friday evening as temperatures go below freezing but by then, most of the precipitation will be over. Expect some snow showers overnight Saturday, with a possible brief burst of heavier snow in some spots  late Friday night or really early Saturday morning as a second cold front comes through. 

Most places will see an inch or less of snow, but there might be three or four inches in some of the northern Green Mountains.  As if anybody will be able to measure it with the wind blowing so hard. 

Tomorrow is not the day for winter sports, I'm afraid. On Saturday, the resorts will start grooming back what's left, and enjoying light replacement snow.  But I'm betting at least some resorts will have lift holds amid the gusts during the day Saturday. 

After this tempest, it doesn't look like there's any big new storms in our immediate future. Just little things coming through once every couple of days through probably through New Year's Eve.

Given the strong jet stream overhead, I imagine we'll have several more days with gusty winds between now and the end of the month, too. 

 

Thursday Morning Vermont Storm Update: Expect

Expected rainfall with our upcoming storm is still
close to an inch or so. That, combined with melting
snow, might set off some scattered flooding on Friday. 

This morning, Vermont is in the calm before the storm, as we get ready for a blast of strong winds, possible power outages rain, and maybe some flooding. 

So let's get into what we think will happen with this storm, based on what the National Weather Service in South Burlington has assembled for us.

WIND, ROUND ONE

Wind storms have caused widespread damage across the western half of the U.S, and some of that energy will affect Vermont with this storm.

The first places in Vermont to see the wind will be the Champlain Valley, as south winds ahead of the storm funnel up the valley this afternoon and overnight. 

A wind advisory is up for the Champlain Valley from noon today until 7 a.m. Friday.   Those gusts could reach as high as 50 or 55 mph, so expect a few power outages. There's a lot of Christmas decorations out there. If you have 'em, it might be a good idea to go out and secure them this morning, or take them indoors temporarily. 

If you do take them indoors, you might not want to put them back out until Saturday. More on that in a bit. 

Elsewhere in Vermont, today and tonight will be blustery but it won't be as bad as in the Champlain Valley. 

Temperatures that were below freezing for awhile this morning will rise all day and through the night, rising through the 30s today and 40s tonight. 

We won't see much rain with this storm probably until after midnight. Once it starts to rain in earnest, the wind might diminish somewhat in most, but not all areas. A few unpredictable pockets could still have some strong winds. And it will remain rather gusty in the Champlain Valley even after the rain gets going in the hours before dawn Friday. 

In other words, expect a noisy night. 

RAIN/FLOOD RISK

Overall, NWS/Burlington expects about an inch of rain more or less across Vermont. Really, between about 0.75 and 1.25 inches. That warm weather overnight an early Friday will add another inch or snow of "rain" in the form of snowmelt from the mountains. 

Most of this would come within about 18 hours, so that's a pretty fast flush of water into Vermont's rivers.  That could be enough to set of some minor flooding.  Most of the rain would come between about 3 a.m. and noon Friday, give or take a couple hours either side. 

For now, the Mad River at Moretown is forecast to rise to just under minor flood stage around noon tomorrow.  The Otter Creek at Center Rutland would be just under flood stage Friday afternoon or evening.

As of early this morning, there's not yet forecast peak river level forecasts for the Winooski, Lamoille, Missisquoi, Passumpsic and other Vermont rivers, but I'm sure you'll see sharp rises with those. 

Also  some small streams might get too rowdy, there might be some street flooding, and newly created ponds in some backyards. State highways for the morning commute will probably become Hydroplane Hell. 

The river crest forecasts we have are not set in stone, so keep an eye out if you live or drive or work in a flood-prone spot.  This storm reminds me a little of the one we got in December, 2023. That one produced unexpectedly destructive flooding across much of Vermont. 

I do NOT expect things to get nearly as bad as December, 2023.  We won't have as much rain, and it won't rain for as long a period as it did in 2023. The ground before tomorrow's storm is drier than in 2023 and river levels before the storm are lower than in 2023. Which is why we won't have a repeat of that December flood two years ago.   

However, given how much moisture this storm has, and how climate change has sometimes made storms more intense than expect, it's possible we'll be surprised in the end with a few flood-closed roads and maybe even a few basements with water in them.

Overall, it will be a wet feet kind of day on Friday. 

WIND, ROUND TWO

The storm's strong cold front should blow through Vermont between mid morning and mid-afternoon. At least that's the timing we're thinking at this point. 

It looks like the cold front will come through with a big gush of wind and rain. It'll essentially act like a squall. The high winds with it won't last long, but they'll do their best to tear down some trees, branches and power lines during their brief, loud visit.   

Once we get through that, winds will pick up from the west and become gusty Friday afternoon and night. This time, the strongest winds would be along the eastern slopes of the Green Mountains, Especially the southern Green Mountains. Another wind advisory is in effect for southern Vermont tonight through early Saturday.  

Temperatures will be dropping through the afternoon and evening, eventually freezing things up. Rain will change to snow, although there won't be much of it. It'll be less than an inch, except maybe a bit more in the mountains. 

Hurricane Chaser's Melissa Video Is Horrifying, Heartstopping, Sad And A Must-Watch

A still from Josh Morgerman's video of Category 5 
Hurricane Melissa violently dismantling 
western Jamaica. 

Josh Morgerman, known all over social media as icyclone, has chased down dozens of powerful hurricanes and typhoons worldwide. 

He willingly endures extreme winds and rains, interrupted only by the sudden calm of hurricane eyes. 

Of course Morgerman was in Jamaica for Hurricane Melissa. He said it might have been the most intense hurricane he's ever experienced. 

Morgerman just released his YouTube video of his experiences. It's a long one, lasting an hour and 54 minutes. But it's a must-watch for anyone who wants a glimpse of what a Category 5 hurricane is like. It's nerve-wracking, terrifying, tragic and heartbreaking. 

The video starts with Morgerman stressing out over getting to the right spot that is both safe and in a spot where the worst intensity of Melissa would hit. 

But soon, we get into the storm. Morgerman rode out the storm in solidly built concrete hotel building along the southwest coast of Jamaica. We spend a gusty. r ainy, night in his hotel room the night before Melissa hits. You could hear the howling start in the video by 2 a.m. 

And hit it does in this video. 

The storm ramps up awfully quickly. At 7:56 a.m. he said. "this is going to be a mighty blow."' By 8:15 a.m. there were already full blown tropical storm conditions - the palm tree in front of the hotel already bouncing around in the gales. The air pressure was beginning to fall so fast he could feel it in his years. 

By 9:30 a.m. all hell was breaking out.. By 10:15 debris was flying. At 10:45 a.m. with the hurricane peaking the howling wind and the falling pressure were hurting the ears of the people huddling in the building.

It's just a video, but I found myself getting scared watching it. After the storm, Morgerman interviewed survivors. Some of the stories left me wondering how they were still alive after the storm passed. 

Scenes of obliterated buildings and skeletons of large trees looks very much like the aftermath videos I've seen of especially intense Midwestern tornadoes. 

The video is so much worth watching. Especially since monster Category 5 hurricanes have become more common, and are expected to become even more common. Climate change is making the world more scary, and here's an example. 

I appreciate Morgerman's efforts to let us see for ourselves the power and terror of these hurricanes.  While you're at it, check out the rest of his YouTube channel for other incredible hurricane and typhoon footage. He's also got a web site and he's all over social media.    

Here is Morgerman's video. Click on this link to view, or if you see this image below click on that. 

Huge Windstorm Causing Havoc Through Most Of Western U.S.

Wind damage on the campus of the University of
Idaho in Moscow, Idaho. Strong, damaging winds
are hitting a remarkably huge area of the western
and central U.S. 

A widespread windstorm is slamming much of the western United States today as powerful storms and an even more powerful jet stream are roiling the atmosphere. 

Alerts for strong winds extend 1,400 miles from the West Coast in Washington and Oregon to Iowa. This is the second widespread area of strong, destructive winds in a week, and this second one is the worse of the two. 

Washington State has been enduring atmospheric river storms for over a week now. The state suffered its first fatality when a man accidentally drove his truck into a ditch while driving into a flooded road that had been closed. 

Overnight, an immense surge of wind blustered into Washington and Oregon. A gust of 138 mph was measured on Mount Hood in Oregon this morning. In high elevation Washington, gusts reached 112 at Alpental, 99 mph in White Pass and 82 mph at Snoqualmie Pass. 

Where torrential rains fell in the past week in the Olympic and Cascade mountains, blizzard warnings were up today.

As of this morning, the winds had cut power to 500,000 in Washington and Oregon. Across the border in British Columbia, Canada, about 90,000 people had their electricity cut by the gales. 

The winds raced into eastern Washington and Idaho this morning. Lewiston, Idaho gusted to 84 mph and Moscow, Idaho reported 81 mph. Spokane measured a gust to 75 mph. Coeur d'Alene, in northern Idaho, had severe thunderstorms and gusts this morning to 66 mph. 

Another seriously out of season severe thunderstorm packing winds of up to 70 mph was menacing Twin Falls in southern Idaho this morning. Two children were reportedly critically injured in Twin Falls when a tree fell on them as they were waiting for a school bus. 

Remarkably, virtually all of the vast states of Montana and Wyoming are under high wind warnings today, as are most of the Dakotas and Nebraska.  Near the Rocky Mountains in Montana, winds could reach 100 mph.  

It's been oddly warm in western Montana, with heavy rains. The winds will topple more trees than usual for a strong winter storm since the ground is so wet and not frozen like it usually is this time of year. 

The winds in Montana and Wyoming are expected to be strong enough to cut power, sometimes for days, create blinding dust storms and topple tractor trailers. The National Weather Service and officials in both states are discouraging truck traffic because of the impending storm. 

The National Weather Service is comparing the looming Montana storm to the high winds of January, 2021. That storm brought wind gusts of 75 to 80 mph to cities like Great Falls, Helena and Havre. The 2021 storm. also set off some destructive rangeland fires in Montana. The same is possible in central and eastern Montana today, as those areas have not gotten nearly as much snow and rain as areas west of the Continental Divide. 

Similar fears have erupted in Colorado, where intense winds are in the forecast today along the Front Range and the Plains to the east.  The fire risk today actually extends from southeast Wyoming, through central and eastern Colorado down into New Mexico. 

 Memories of the December, 2021 firestorm around Boulder, Colorado are still fresh. Violent downslope winds fanned a wildfire that raced through Boulder-area subdivisions

That fire was the worst and most costly in Colorado history, destroying more than 1,000 homes. The fear is, it could happen again in the upcoming windstorm. 

Winds will be ferocious this time but not as bad as in 2021. Top winds then reached 100 mph. This time, they'll be closer to 80 mph. But that's more than enough for dangerous wildfires. Especially since it has been unusually dry and warm lately.  

The utility Xcel sent a notice to customers Tuesday telling to expect possible power outages.  The utility might shut off power in susceptible areas to avoid the risk of wildfires.  That way, if power lines snap in the wind, they won't start fires because the juice will be off.  

As of early this afternoon, wind worries were spreading. A high wind warning is up for parts of western New York tomorrow. Most of the rest of New York, along with parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont are under wind advisories. 

The stormy regime out west shows no signs of ending. More storms will crash into Washington, Oregon and California several times before New Years Day. 

 

 

Windy Vermont Continues As Nasty Storm Continues To Loom

Rainfall prediction map for Thursday night and Friday.'
Most of should get about an inch or so of rain. Combined
with melting snow, we could get some minor flooding.

 It got blustery again overnight, especially in the Champlain Valley, as Vermont's windy, cold month continues. 

The cold is about to disappear big time, if only briefly, but the winds will keep howling. Today is the 13th day out of the 17 this month in which winds have gusted to at least 30 mph in Burlington. I'm sure Thursday and Friday will also get above 30 mph. 

The high winds are hitting in huge parts of the nation today, which I'll get into more detail in another post today. 

But for now, let's focus on Vermont.

The south winds today are coming from a storm way up in central Quebec. Wind have already gusted to 40 mph in Burlington earlier today, and as of this morning was still going over 30 mph. Meanwhile, there's not much wind in central and eastern Vermont. 

The channeling effects of the Champlain Valley really help the wind blow. But almost everywhere in Vermont, whatever south winds hit will get us above freezing today for a change. 

The storm will drag a cold front through later today, but it doesn't have much moisture to work with. So, just a few rain and snow showers. Though a couple of the snow showers could come down hard briefly late this afternoon and evening in parts of northern Vermont, especially near the Green Mountains. But if there's any accumulation anywhere, it won't be much. 

The cold front will also create gusty west winds after it passes, with the highest gusts along and east of the Greens.

THURSDAY/FRIDAY

This will be our runup to our big storm. The wind will shift to the south and again, and start blowing even harder than it is today in the Champlain Valley. Some spots there will see winds gust to 35 mph. 

Temperatures will rise into the upper 30s and low 40s in the afternoon and keep going up overnight Thursday into Friday.

It now doesn't look like there will be much rain until midnight or after. The bulk of the rain will come between that midnight hour and noon Friday. There will be quite a bit of it, too. Current forecasts give us an inch or so of rain.

That, combined with the snow melt amid the warm temperatures does put the risk of flooding in play. It's still a little early to get a forecast as to how high water will get, but minor flooding definitely looks possible in some spots. 

Ironically, given the cold month we've had, we could easily see some record high temperatures Friday morning. For some reason, the current record high on Friday in Burlington is only 49 degrees, lower than most daily record highs this year. Most of 'em are in the 50s to around 60 .

Montpelier's record high Friday is also 49 degrees, so that might get eclipsed, too. St. Johnsbury's record high Friday is 60, so that looks safe. 

Don't get used to those balmy temperatures. It's back to winter Friday afternoon and probably on through the rest of the month.

We might have trouble with some snow behind the cold front Friday afternoon or evening along with water freezing on the roads. Stay tuned for those travel alerts Friday evening. 

After Friday, it looks like just weaker systems are on tap,  one on Sunday, the other on Tuesday or early on Christmas Eve. Neither storm would bring much snow, but they'll keep the gusty winds going. 

ICE Detainees Ironically Face Heat Risks

ICE detention centers are more likely than other jails
and prisons to be in hot parts of the nation. ICE
is allegedly holding detainees in dangerously
hot conditions. 

The word play is ironic, and infuriating. 

According to a Washington Post analysis by Amudalat Ajasa and Daniel Wolfe: 

 "Detainees at U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities may be more vulnerable to extreme heat exposure than people housed in federal, state and county prisons, according to a Washington Post analysis, and this disparity is likely to grow as ICE expands the nation's immigration system."

ICE expects to double the number of people it can hold from about 55,000 to more than 170,000.

Meanwhile, ICE facilities are disproportionately in hotter parts of the nation. According to WaPo's analysis:

"The facility endure an average of 29 days of dangerous heat per year - 11 more than other prisons in the federal, state and county leave. The hottest 10 percent of ICE facilities experience an average of 93 days of unhealthy temperatures each year."

Advocates, watchdog agencies and others report lots of problems with air conditioning in detention centers, at least according to the detainees who told them about the issues. Comprehensive data on the temperatures in those detention centers are not available. 

WaPo was able to compile reports and some Congressional oversight reports to glean some information. 

A 2016 DHS report on private immigrations detention centers found that detainees at every facility that was investigated detainees complained of problems with heat and cooling. Unannounced inspections at ICE facilities found that staffers "struggled to comply" with detention standards "related to environmental and health safety. 

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill) reported lots of trouble and overheating at two Florida ICE facilities he visited in June. 

WaPo's Ajasa and Wolfe also got into the Eloy Detention Center, which is 60 miles south of Phoenix, Arizona. They wrote:

"In a June letter, Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Az, pressed DHS and ICE officials about conditions at Eloy following a visit to the detention center. The letter included allegations that detainees ha been ordered to walk laps in a courtyard for hours until they were dizzy and ill. 

'Detainees described overcrowded, moldy cells, forces and dehumanizing marches outside in the Arizona heat, constant berating from guards conditions worse tha prison,' Ansari said in a statement at the time of her visit."

In statements to an immigration and refugee advocacy group, two detainees said they'd use wet rags and damp underclothes to cool themselves because the air condition units there in the middle of the desert would go out for a week or two or more at a time. Other detainees said air conditioning in some cells never worked at all. 

DHS denies there were problems with air conditioning at Eloy.  

I know a lot of readers here will say:  "So what! They're getting what they deserve!"  

Well, no. 

Definitely, let's get rid of the alleged criminals and rapists and gang members the Trump Administration said were among the migrants in the U.S. We don't want those dangerous people  here. 

But this used to be a nation of due process. You find out whether individuals are indeed as nasty and alleged, and then we deport and/or give them prison sentences. 

But they're rounding up what seems to be immigrants who are trying to do the right thing, take the legal paths to citizenship, and just throwing 'em all in detention centers. Mostly because Stephen Miller doesn't like brown people. 

Apparently, Miller, and the rest of the Trump administration seem intent on using our summertime heat as one method of torture. 

Cruelty is the point. 

Satellite Photo Today Shows Snow Covering Most Of Northeast

Snow covers most of the Northeast now, as today
visible satellite photo shows. Click on the photo
to make it bigger and easier to see. Unfortunately
for White Christmas lovers, a lot of the snow
cover will be wiped out before the holiday. 

 Skies cleared across almost all of the Northeast today, revealing just how extensive the snow cover is.

A storm that missed Vermont on Sunday laid down a stripe of snow from Delaware to Maine. The Northeast now has a more extensive snow cover this early in the season that it's had in a long time. 

If you click on the satellite photo in this post to make it bigger and easier to see, the snow cover extended all the way down the coast to southern Delaware. 

Sunday's storm hugged the coast, so you can see that north-central Virginia and a little piece of south-central Pennsylvania missed out on the snow. 

Further west, you can see that West Virginia is snowy white, mostly from small weather systems that moved in from the west late last week, and the remnants of lake effect snows from the Great Lakes running up against West Virginia's mountains. 

It's still early in the season so you can see that lakes aren't frozen yet. Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire looks wide open. Same thing for Lake Champlain, as you can just see poking out of some cloud cover late this morning near the spot where Vermont, New York and Quebec converge.

For those of you dreaming of a White Christmas, that's a really iffy proposition for most of the Northeast except for northern New England and a lot of areas near the Great Lakes. 

A warmer weather pattern is taking shape, which will melt the snow. Aside from the wet and windy storm late this week I talked about in this morning's post, northern New England should remain mostly cold enough to get a little more snow before the Big Day  

Nasty Storm Due In Vermont/Northeast Thursday Night And Friday

The snow is too deep for little Henry the Weather Dog
to explore the backyard, so I dug a series of paths
through the snow so he can at least sniff around in
some places. A late week storm looks like it
will melt most of this snow, so Henry might
once again get an opportunity to go anywhere
he wants in the yard. 

The upcoming break from the relentless chill we've endured this month is not going to be a nice one. 

It's going to get stormy. 

It's a little soon to give you exactly what will happen Thursday night and Friday, and exactly when they will happen. Whatever we get, you're definitely going to notice it.

But it looks like we have a lot of rain, wind and then a sudden freeze and a little snow to deal with in that episode. 

Before we get there, we will manage a quiet weather interlude with a warming trend. 

Low temperatures this  morning were chilly, but much warmer than forecasts from a few days ago anticipated.  Instead of subzero weather, we had lows in the upper single number and low teens east, and low 20s in the Champlain Valley. 

It won't warm up all that much today, but readings in the upper 20s to near 30 aren't terrible, at least. Still a tad colder than average, but manageable. 

South winds ahead of small storm passing far to our north should bring in clouds and maybe few light snow showers north. In the Champlain Valley, those might even mix with sprinkles as warmer air comes in By warmer, I mean high in the 30s to near 40 in the warmest valleys. 

STORM BUILDS

Then we get into Thursday. South winds will increase, especially in the Champlain Valley as we begin to feel the effects of a strong storm approaching us from the west. 

This thing will have a nice feed of warm. wet air ahead of it, which will eventually engulf us late Thursday night and Friday. 

The timing of this has slowed down from previous forecasts, so now it looks like the worst of it won't come through until late Thursday night and Friday. 

It's too soon to know precisely how much rain will fall or how windy it will get. We'll have that information in a day or two. 

Broad brush, it appears we might have at least a half inch of rain, and maybe up to or even over an inch in spots. We could even hear a rumble of thunder thrown in. The storm will be that dynamic. 

All that, combined with snowmelt, will have us watching the rivers. So far at least, nobody is expecting a major flood, but it's still ironic that at least a little flooding is possible given parts of the Vermont are still technically in a drought. 

The next question is winds. The gales will howl a few thousand feet overhead. But we don't know yet how much those high speed winds would mix down to where we live. In fact, for awhile, protected valleys might not have much wind at all during the rain. That's a recipe for dense fog in this situation, so that's another consideration. 

Some time during the day Friday, the storm's strong cold front will come through. Temperatures should start to crash Friday afternoon, and all that water will start to freeze. We also don't know whether there will be a burst of snow at the tail end of the storm. Another unknown is the precise hour or hours the colder air blasts in on Friday. 

Again, we'll get that defined more in the coming days. 

After the thaw, it looks like it will stay cold most of the time though the end of the month. There will be occasional brief warmups as quick-hitting systems come through, but we in northern New England will ,mostly miss out on a warm weather regime that will embrace most of the U.S. in the days around Christmas. 

As for a white Christmas in Vermont, even if all your snow melts with the storm Thursday night and Friday, there's still a chance that a couple small storms could deposit a little snow by the big day.