Florida Tornado Hits TV Station While On-Air Meteorologist Reports It, Storm Went On To Cause Lots Of Damage

House collapsed in Florida after a tornado struck
near Orlando, Florida. 

The first major tornado in years hit central Florida Monday, damaging homes, blocking roads, but miraculously causing no fatalities or injuries. 

The storm was notable because the tornado hit an Orlando, Florida-area  television station as an on-air meteorologist was warning the public about the twister.

It was an EF2 tornado, which top winds of 115 mph, which is stronger than usual for central Florida.  A

At the Fox 35 studios, meteorologist Brooks Garner was doing a live report of a tornado warning in the area and was tracking radar images of the dangerous storm for viewers. 

Viewers also saw images from the Fox 35 outdoor tower cam of the approaching storm. There was too much rain to see any kind of traditional tornado funnel, but a wall of wind and rain was seen approaching the studio. 

Soon the view turned into a maelstrom of water and flying debris as the television station was hit. You could hear the alarm in Garner's voice as he said, "Everybody in them Fox 35 building, get to your safe space under your desk, if you're not in a designated area." He ordered the news anchors to crouch under their desks, too. 

People watching all this could also hear debris hitting the Fox 35 building during all this. Security footage taken outside the studio shows visibility dropping to near zero in the tornado as piece of trees blow around and power lines snap along a nearby street. 

After the tornado passed, it turned out the television station building had not sustained serious damage; Garner was able to stay on the air to warn adjacent neighborhoods of the approaching tornado. 

The tornado did cause a lot of damage. One home with two occupants inside collapsed almost completely, but they pair escaped uninjured. In fact, no injuries were reported despite the fact numerous homes were damaged and the tornado roared through part of a major freeway with heavy traffic. 

The Florida tornado might be a precursor to what could be a large severe storm and tornado outbreak in the forecast Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the Midwest, Gulf Coast and southeastern United States. An intense Plains storm is forecast to create favorable conditions for such dangerous weather later in the week and weekend. 

Here's the on-camera episode as the tornado struck Fox 35 studios near Orlando.  It looks like the tornado wasn't super strong at the moment it hit the television station, but was still scary. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Weird Vermont Temperature Contrasts A Hallmark Of Early Vermont Spring

Traffic camera image from Route 7 in Bennington Monday
shows no snow on the ground, part of the reason why
temperatures were able to rise to 56 degrees there. 

 Whether or not you had a true springlike day in Vermont Monday really depending on where you were. 

Down in places like Bennington and Brattleboro and Springfield, temperatures under sunny skies reached the mid-50s so spring was definitely in the air. 

Up by the Canadian border, not so much. Highs barely struggle into the mid 30s in some towns, and the few inches of snow that fell Sunday night didn't entirely melt. 

In between the two extremes, the north and the south, Vermont had a pleasantly enough mild March day, but it wasn't hard core spring. 

These kinds of weird temperature extremes in the Green Mountain State happen frequently in the late winter and early spring. You're going to see a little more of that today, too.

MONDAY WEIRDNESS

Part of the reason there were such temperature contrasts in Vermont came up in a post I filed last week.  . This time of year, frigid air - lingering winter - often stays firmly in place over the vast frozen forests and lakes of central and northern Quebec. 

If winds are light northerly, a thin layer of that cold air can bleed southward into far northern Vermont, so places like Highgate and Alburgh and St. Albans and Newport can occasionally get that frigid Quebecois feeling in early spring. 

That's what happened Monday. Newport only managed a high of 36 degrees Monday. 

Meanwhile, daytime temperatures, especially on sunny March afternoons, depend greatly on what's on the ground. 

Still a good amount of snow on the ground around
my house in St. Albans, Vermont Monday, part of the
reason why high temperatures never got out of
the low 40s during the afternoon.

Bare ground absorbs the sun's heat, and thus warms the air in the lowest couple thousand feet of the atmosphere. Those places would be noticeably balmier than places that are snow-covered.

There's pretty much no snow left on the ground around Bennington. So, the sun was able to heat things up nicely, which is a big part of the reason why high temperatures there on Monday was 56 degrees.  . 

Southeastern Vermont, around Brattleboro and Springfield, does still have some snow on the ground, but that snow is thin with plenty of bare spots  A northwest wind Monday also helped the air warm up. 

When the air flows down the slopes of mountains, in this case the southern Green Mountains, it compresses. Compressing air tends to warm up. Which meant the valleys of southeast Vermont also enjoyed some mid-50s  in the afternoon

Central Vermont was in a sort of unaffected middle. There's still plenty of snow on the ground in most of the area between Route 4 and Route 2. So the sun's heat reflected off the white snow cover. Which means it couldn't get quite as warm as it would have with bare ground. Also, some of the sun's energy went into trying to melt some of the snow rather than heat the atmosphere. 

However, that cold air from Quebec wasn't able to bleed southward all that much, so none of that Canadian chill could make it as far south as Route 2.  

The end result was a happy medium with highs well into the 40s. Montpelier had a high temperature of 46 degrees Monday. It probably resulted in a decent sap run in the sugar bushes, so we can't complain about that. 

TODAY

Strong south to southwest winds will briefly bring temperatures well up into the 50s to near 60 statewide.

An exception to the warmth will be right along the shores of Lake Champlain. Those southwest winds will pick up the chill from the icy waters of the lake and blow it ashore Places like Burlington's Waterfront Park will be stuck in the 40s at best for most of the day. Meanwhile, communities a few miles inland from Lake Champlain will be flirting with 60 degrees this afternoon.  

These lake breezes will often keep the immediate shore of Lake Champlain cooler than other areas well into early summer at least. 

Large scale storm systems are still strong this time of year too, so those bring sharp changes in temperature. 

A cold front will turn our balmy Tuesday of near 60 degree weather to a subfreezing shiver fest for Wednesday afternoon. Then, we're still expecting that massive storm in the Midwest to pump us right back up into the 60s again this weekend.

Those are the typical wild temperature gyrations we expect out of a March and April in Vermont.   As always, expect a wild ride and some surprises as we move through the first part of spring. 

More Bad News, And A Glimmers Of Good News, Regarding Foolish Trump NOAA Job Cutbacks

Bad consequences are starting to emerge
from the Trump administration's firing
of hundreds of NOAA employees.

The Trump administration's destruction of NOAA and the National Weather Service, along with so many other necessary federal entities, continues apace.  

Obviously, we'll focus on NOAA and other weather and climate entities here, since that's the subject of this here blog thingy, so we'll give whatever updates we can.

I'm saying "whatever updates we can," because everything the Trump administration is doing is chaotic, on again, off again, just going along with the whims of the moment. 

Kind of like a regular weather forecast, what will happen next with Trump and Elon Musk and NOAA and NWS is subject to change. But of course more unpredictable than the weather. 

Speaking of which, I have more evidence that the weather itself will get more unpredictable, thanks to some emerging practical effects of the government slashing. 

The National Weather Service offices in Albany, New York and Gray, Maine this past week announced they are suspending some weather balloon launches due to lack of staff. 

Usually, the National Weather Service launches weather balloons twice a day from 100 sites. These balloon launches take detailed weather measurements through multiple layers of the atmosphere. This data is fed into the computer models that guide weather forecasts.

The fewer balloon launches, the less data goes in, so the accuracy of the computer forecasts goes downhill. 

Meteorologist Mallory Brooke, writing on Facebook, explained it this way. 

"Weather balloon launches are critical in understanding what's happening in the atmosphere. Weather isn't created on the ground, it's above our heads! These cuts will have huge implications on forecasting, data accuracy, reliability, and ultimately knowledge of what's coming our way. AI *cannot*  replace this --- this is the core of how our computer models are initialized and run. 

It's like trying to bake a cake but you're going to guess what temperatures to set the oven at. Doesn't usually work out well. These are sad days for the science community as a whole."

Balloon launches were previously canceled up in Alaska, which is bad because there's already a dearth of data from the far north, which is often a weakness in computer models, This will just make it worse. 

MORE FIRINGS CONFUSION/FEARS

There's been conflicting reports of whether some NOAA employees that were fired under Elon Musk's DOGE hatchet firings were reinstated or not.

An unknown number of some probationary employees -  individuals who have worked for their federal agency for less than year - have been reinstated. For instance, three meteorologists let go from the Boise, Idaho National Weather Service office reportedly have their jobs back. 

Also, the building housing the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma appears to be off the closing list, at least for now. The center is a hub for weather research, forecasting and supercomputers that house crucial computer model data. 

Meanwhile, there are reports that more NOAA firings are in the offing. 

Details are emerging about the kind of forecasting and disaster services and activities going away because of the cutbacks

Hurricane Hunters

Included in the chaotic firings appears to be a group of hurricane researchers, two hurricane hunter flight directors and an engineer. 

The hurricane hunter cutbacks are concerning to say the least. These are the seemingly crazy people who fly planes into hurricanes. Their work is invaluable. The dense data the collect from flying into these storms are critical in helping forecast where the storm is going and how strong it will get.

As we learned from Hurricane Helene and Milton last year, and from countless other hurricanes, knowing as precisely as possible where they will hit and at what intensity is essential for getting people out of harm's way, stacking resources in advance where you will need them, and accurately warning the public about what's to come. 

The cutbacks in hurricane experts threatens to diminish the accuracy of the hurricane forecasts. Even if you don't care about human life, and just care about financial responsibility. these firings do not make sense. 

Inaccurate forecasts mean that coming up, people who should have been warned to get out of the way weren't, and people who were warned of an impending hurricane and fled would do so unnecessarily, as the storm went off in a different direction, due to bad forecasting. 

Fired federal hurricane researchers had also been working on improving forecasting models.  So better forecast accuracy is once again out the window. 

I guess Elon Musk is rich enough to avoid danger from hurricanes. The little people who would bear the brunt of these storms don't really matter, do they?

FEMA AND WILDFIRES

It's already been a busy year for wildfires, with that mega firestorm in Los Angeles in January. Plus other wildfires in Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, South Dakota, North Dakota, New York and other states already. 

You'd want well-trained crews to fight these fires. But that's not on the Trump agenda either, apparently. 

The National Fire Academy, the nations pre-eminent federal fire training center, has canceled its wildfire training courses as amid what it announced was the "process of evaluating agency programs and spending alignment with Administration priorities," the Associated Press reported.

In other words, battling wildfires and saving lives and property is not a Trump administration priority. Good to know. 

Wildfire training was set to begin next week.  People already had their plane tickets ready to go to this thing.  Maybe we can get Donald Trump and Elon Musk to rake the forests so that we won't have any wildfires?

I dunno. 

Vermont Weather This Week: Springtime Arrives, But With A Big Interruption

A couple inches of new snow from overnight in St.
Albans, Vermont this morning should quickly
start to melt today as temperatures rise into the 40s

If you've been waiting for spring, this will definitely be your week. 

But being Vermont, it's not like it's all going to be balmy breezes and sunshine and rainbows and bird song all the time. But you'll see your share of that, too. 

There's always interruptions to springtime here. If you're not used to that by now, I don't know what to tell you. 

Many of us awoke this morning to a fresh coating of snow, thanks to a quick moving disturbance that zipped through this morning.

 Some places got a fair amount of snow. I measured 2.0 inches here in St. Albans, Vermont. Stowe reported 3.5 inches as of 1 a.m. and it was still coming down at a good clip at that hour. Calais, Vermont reported 3.8 inches of new snow. 

I'm sure we'll see a couple five inch reports from some of the higher elevations. 

TODAY

That snow is pretty much over. And if you're in the maple sugar industry, get ready for another sap run! 

Temperatures before dawn in the Champlain Valley were already starting to sneak to above freezing levels, so last night's snow should start to melt fast. Sunshine should break out later this morning or by afternoon and we'll see temperatures up into the low and mid 40s  for many areas of the state. There could be some readings near 50 degrees in warmer southern Vermont valleys. 

That's nothing weird for mid-March, but it's still welcome, considering also the wind will be fairly light. The sun angle is similar to the way it was in late September, too. It will actually feel a little warmer than it actually will be.  

More or less clear skies and light winds tonight will drop us all below freezing tonight, which is - again - a good thing if you're in the maple industry. 

TUESDAY

It wasn't very warm in St. Albans late Sunday afternoon 
with temperatures only in the mid-30s, but the sky sill
managed to have a sort of springlike look to it. 
The moon is visible as the white speck in the middle 
of that patch of blue sky. 

We're getting a quick squirt of warm air Tuesday ahead of a cold front. The broader valleys will get well into the 50s   

Maybe even low 60s in banana belt low elevation towns in southern Vermont like Bennington, Brattleboro and Springfield.  This will be the mildest air we've seen all year so far. Again, those of you in the maple industry better prepare for a busy, busy day.  

Then there's that cold front. There's always a cold front. It's Vermont, after all. This front means business, not in terms of any precipitation, but what it's going to do to our temperatures. 

 It might trigger some late Tuesday afternoon showers central and northern Vermont, and then...

WEDNESDAY

After just a few scattered snow showers with the front overnight Tuesday, we'll be in some pretty chilly air. We'll start Wednesday in the teens, and everybody except the warmest southern Vermont valleys should stay below freezing all days.  That's a good ten degrees colder than average. 

But at least the sun will be out at least and winds will be light, so it won't be awful. Plus the cold air will be out of here in a jiffy

THURSDAY

A warm front should come through early, perhaps throwing down a handful of snowflakes or rain drops early in the day. It'll be the start of a huge warm up.  Though highs Thursday will only be in the seasonable low 40s

FRIDAY/WEEKEND

 A new, massive spring storm will gather forces and blast through the central Plains this weekend. Typical of these storms, it will spread misery through vast parts of the nation.  We'll see a blizzard to the northwest of the storm; tornadoes and severe thunderstorms to the south; wildfires and dust storms again in New Mexico and Texas, and lots of wind from the Rockies to the East Coast.

As this storm forms, it will pull huge amounts of warm air from the Gulf of Mexico into the eastern half of the United States. (You can call it Gulf of America if you want, but that's not what it is, despite the demands of our Dear Leader).

For us, Friday and this weekend promises to bring us some true spring weather. We could get into the low 60s in some parts of Vermont maybe Friday, but more likely Saturday and Sunday. If this pans out, it will be the hottest weather the Green Mountain State has seen since early November, 2024. 

If any sun manages to linger into Sunday, it could actually hit 70 degrees in a couple spots that day. 

We will have to watch for the possibility of flooding with this early season hot spell.   The warm air coming in is humid, as it's coming from the Gulf.  The snow will be melting rapidly anyway, and humid air melts snow faster than dry air. 

Also, the massive storm will probably drag a wet cold front through Vermont sometimes on Sunday or Sunday night. We don't know how much rain will fall with it, but it could come down hard for a time.   If this forecast pans out, then by Monday, virtually all of the snow below 1,000 feet in elevation will be gone.  A good chunk of mountain snow will have run off into melt water, too. 

That's an awful lot of snow to get rid of in a short period of time. And an awful lot of run off, too.  We'll have to watch carefully as this could well result in a flood. 

It's way, way too soon for specifics. I would say at least minor flooding is going to happen. But we'll have to wait and see how widespread that will get, and how serious the flooding might be. 

As wonderful as it will feel to have those days of springtime warmth, it could prove to be too much, too soon.  

Wildfires That Plagued The East During Last Autumn's Drought Are Back

Large wildfire in eastern Long Island,
New York Saturday. Photo via Facebook
from Long Island Advance

The spate of brush and forest fires that harassed much of the eastern United States during last autumn's drought are back. 

Spring wildfires are more common than autumn. Dry weeds and foliage dry out in the strengthening March sun. The landscape hasn't started greening yet.  

If it gets dry and windy, fires can break out under those conditions,  

We've already had large fires in the Carolinas that started last week. At least one of them near Myrtle Beach is still burning.  At last report it was 55 percent contained and had consumed 2,000 acres after threatening several homes.

A 40-year old woman was arrested for starting that fire. Last Saturday, the woman started a fire in her fire pit near the tree line in back of her home while strong, dry winds blew. She did not have a water supply or other fire fighting tools ready when she lit the fire, authorities said. 

On Saturday, three large wildfires broke out on eastern Long island, New York, forcing the closure of major roads, forcing evacuations and damaging two commercial businesses. Two firefighters were hurt, but their injuries are said to be not that serious. 

Investigators are trying to determine if those fires were accidental or did somebody set them. Two of the fires were contained as of Sunday afternoon, and firefighters were making substantial gains on the third one. 

Several fires broke out in New Jersey in the past week, including one that threatened about 30 buildings in Hopewell Junction. A new wildfire broke out amid dry winds gusting to 40 mph on Saturday near Pennsville Township, New Jersey, just across the Delaware River from Wilmington, Delaware. 

Most of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania remained under fire weather alerts today   as the humidity remained low and gusty winds continued. No real rain is in the forecast for most of the Northeast until next Saturday night or Sunday. 

Last autumn's drought that affected the Northeast never really went away. It is still ongoing in many areas, especially in Maryland, New Jersey, southeast Pennsylvania, southeast New York and southern New England.  Those dry conditions are making the usual early spring fires that much more easy to erupt.

Believe it or not, brush and wildfire season is approaching in Vermont. True, many areas are still deep in snow, and that won't disappear immediately, despite the warm air that's in the forecast in the next several days. 

However, the snow will eventually disappear, and before we green up for spring, the dry brush from last year can easily burst into flames and spread rapidly during the type of dry, windy days we often have in April.  

Global Sea Ice Hit Record Low In February, Aided By Arctic's Year Without A Winter

The trend line in Arctic sea ice extent in February.
It hit a record low this year. The trend line has
been sharply downward

 The steady drumbeat of climate change news and details keeps coming along, and it just doesn't stop.

The latest is a new low in the extent of sea ice around the world. 

Per the Washington Post:

"Europe's Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that the daily global sea ice extent, which combines the amount of sea ice present in the Arctic and Antarctic, hit a new low in early February and remained below the record from 2023 for the rest of the month."

The Arctic was largely to blame for February's poor ice performance. WaPo continues:

"In particular, researchers said, the Arctic has continued to experience steadily less ice over time. The region has warmed at several times the global average, and while sea ice in the Arctic usually reaches its annual peak in March, it recorded its lowest ever monthly extent for February last month."

Much of the Arctic experienced their version of a year without a winter this year. Yes, it was frickin' cold up there, with temperatures usually far, far below zero.  

But not as far below zero as usual, and some weird winter heat waves extended well north into the Arctic this winter.  February temperatures were as much as 20 degrees above normal, so the usual winter manufacturing of sea ice up there faltered. 

MIDWINTER ARCTIC THAW?

The weirdest moment came on February 2, when areas very close to the North Pole were an incredible 68 degrees warmer than normal. Which meant the actual temperature was very close to the freezing mark of 32 degrees. A buoy just south of the North Pole registered a temperature of 33 degrees that day. 

You're supposed to be rapidly forming and thickening ice near the North Pole in early February, not melting it. Ice is supposed to grow steadily in the Arctic during February. Instead, it stalled twice, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The Groundhog Day hot spell was caused by a strong storm near Iceland that pulled very warm air toward the North Pole. The air was made extra hot by record warm sea temperatures in the northeast Atlantic Ocean. Climate change helped turn a rare winter Arctic hot spell into something extraordinary 

Scientists aren't sure if something like this has happened before, but an event in February, 2018 at least came very close.  

Meanwhile, at the end of the Antarctic summer, the extent of ice down there was close to its annual minimum for the year as February closed.  It looks like this year's minimum ice extent in Antarctica will come in at a tie for second lowest, with the years 2022 and 2024. Final figures on that are due soon.   

WHY THIS IS BAD

Here's why a lack of sea ice in the Arctic is bad. The white ice reflects the sun's heat back to outer space. Blue open ocean water absorbs it. If not much ice forms in the darkness of an Arctic winter, then there's lots of extra blue Arctic ocean water to absorb sunlight in the spring and summer. This further warms the Arctic, and in turn the rest of the world. 

It's a classic feedback loop. 

The loss of Arctic ice won't raise sea levels. I mean, when the ice cubes in your gin and tonic melts, your glass doesn't overflow. Same principal here.

However, the fact that the lack of ice in the Arctic is helping accelerate global warming, that would in turn accelerate melting off of glaciers on land. Which of course would increase the worldwide sea level. 

Final figures aren't in yet, but early indications are February globally had the slightest cooldown compared to most months in recent years. But it's no reason to cheer. 

February might end up as the world's third warmest on record, instead of the hottest or second hottest we've kept seeing over the past couple of years.

But a February that comes in at #3 on the top ten hottest list during a La Nina, which is supposed to cool the world a little bit, is not encouraging at all.

I'll have more details on our global February once more data becomes available.  

"Dirty Rain" In Midwest, East Blamed On Texas Duststorm

A car in Truxton, Missouri this weekend after light rain
showers mixed with dust from Texas hoisted aloft by
strong winds caused mud showers across large
areas of the Midwest and East the past few days. 

When my late father was a teenager in the 1930s, he woke up one March morning at his home in West Rutland, Vermont to find it had snowed overnight. 

Hardly an unusual occurrence in the Green Mountain State this time of year. 

But the snow wasn't white. It was brown. 

Those were the Dust Bowl days, when an unprecedented drought and poor farming practices joined forces to create immense dust storms in the Great Plains. 

These dust storms were so big that the dust carried high aloft, merged with storms further east. Those storms deposited rain and snow, mixed with the dirt in the sky carried from places like Kansas and Nebraska.

I thought of dad's story this week when I saw news reports of "dirty rain" falling this past week in places like St. Louis, Cincinnati, Charleston, West Virginia, Columbus, Ohio, Raleigh, North Carolina  and numerous other cities in the Midwest and East.

Turned out it was a similar situation to the Dust Bowl era.

The huge windbag of a storm that struck the middle of the nation last week swept New Mexico and Texas with winds gusting to more than 60 mph. Parts of western Texas and New Mexico are in extreme drought, so things out there are even dustier than usual. 

Those winds stirred up huge clouds of dust that darkened the skies and cut visibility to a mile or two in cities like El Paso, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas.  

False color satellite photo from last Friday morning. A 
powerful storm had sent clouds of dust from New Mexico
and Texas aloft. Here, the dust was concentrated high
over Oklahoma. Winds moved that dust 
eastward into areas of showers in the Midwest and
East, where it mixed with raindrops to create 
weird mud showers 

The winds were so powerful the dust was carried aloft - much like in the 1930s. That dust blew through the air over Illinois, Missouri and other states. That grime ran into lingering rain showers over the Midwest and East.  

The result was light showers of mud. 

These mudowers, I'd guess you'd call this dirty rain showers, had people wondering what the heck was going on. Residents of central Virginia, awakening Saturday morning to find their cars speckled in dirt, wondered if some nefarious agent was spraying some dangerous substance. 

Residents of Raleigh, North Carolina also found cars speckled in dirt after overnight showers. 

St. Louis, Missouri had their mud showers Friday, leaving cars and windows covered in dirt. The storm was probably a huge bonus to window washing businesses and car washes. 

There was some snow up here in Vermont during this episode. But the dust aloft did not make it this far to the north and east.  The dust aloft moved eastward through the Ohio Valley and eventually off the Mid-Atlantic coast. So the snow that fell Friday and Saturday here in Vermont was your traditional white, not brown. 

Some more snow is likely in Vermont today and tonight, but since the air flow is from frozen southern Canada,  not dusty west Texas, the snow should stay white, unless something completely  unexpected happens. 

These dirty rain storms parts of the nation have seen in recent days might not be over. Another powerful storm - perhaps even stronger than last week's is forecast to develop in the Great Plains toward next weekend. 

That storm could pull more dust from the drought zones of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas and drop more mud showers, who knows?

 

Rare Cyclone Menaces Brisbane, Australia, With Damage Already Mounting

Screen grab from Sky News video shows damage
around Brisbane, Australia from Cyclone Alfred.

 A rare cyclone has blasted Brisbane, Australia's third largest city and surrounding cities Friday and Saturday, and it has already caused widespread power outages, flooding, wind damage and storm surges.

A cyclone is exactly the same as a hurricane. It's just what they call hurricanes in Australia.  

Cyclone Alfred has been menacing and damaging parts of eastern Australia for days now.  It has dumped up to 16 inches of rain on some towns. 

Brisbane was last hit by a cyclone in 1974, though there were close misses with such storms in 1990 and 2019.  Technically, Alfred didn't hit Brisbane because its strength fell just below official cyclone intensity before splashing ashore early Saturday local time. 

Video footage showed howling winds swirling past Brisbane high rises, fallen trees and flooded streets. At least 350,000 homes and businesses were without power, and it could take a week or more to get all the electricity back. Numerous houses and cars were damaged by falling trees. 

The storm moved only slowly westward into Brisbane early Saturday local time.   The winds weren't the real problem. The rain was. 

Its slow forward motion raised fears of intense flooding. Up to 16 inches of rain have fallen in parts of New South Wales already. One person is already reporting missing in the floods. Nearly 40 others had been rescued from high water at last report. 

Forecasters warn areas near Brisbane could see an additional 15 inches of rain, which could give some areas a storm total of nearly 30 inches of rain. That's a recipe for major flooding that will remain a threat for days yet.t.

Even though Alfred had moved inland and was weakening, winds in the region gusted to as high as 65 mph Saturday night near Brisbane. 

WEIRD STORM

Cyclone Alfred was weird from the beginning. 

Alfred was one of three cyclones that formed almost simultaneously in the South Pacific in late February.  Usually, you don't have three storms forming from the same large area of disturbed weather, but this was an exception.

The other two cyclones headed off in different directions, but Alfred targeted Australia.  Usually, when a cyclone targets Australia, it makes a beeline for the nation's northern or northeastern coast.

Instead, Alfred meandered slowly southward toward Brisbane. Its slow pace ensured that its battering waves caused extra serious amounts of beach erosion, since storm waves hit the beaches day after day. 

It also ensure heavy rains in eastern Australia for days, causing the extensive flooding. 

It's hard to say whether climate change influenced Cyclone Alfred. It's not the only weird cyclone to ever hit Australia. Odd things just sometimes happen. 

It's possible cyclones might be able to get further south along Australia's coast than they once did.  

Ocean temperatures off of southeastern Australia are usually too chilly to support tropical storms. But climate change is heating up the oceans, which expands the area in which tropical system can survive.

Also, a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture than a cooler one. So it's possible Alfred's rains were a little heavier than they would have been without climate change. 

One more weird thing about Cyclone Alfred. It was supposed to actually be named Cyclone Anthony. 

However, the Prime Minister of Australia is named Anthony Albanese. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology thought it best not to name the storm the same as the prime minister, hence the switcharoo to Alfred. 

Video:

A tour around Brisbane as the worse of Cyclone Alfred hit the city. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

 

Snow (Temporarily) Rebuilding In Vermont Mountains; Flurried To Death Elsewhere

After a sunny day, traffic cams show a snow squall
hitting Interstate 89 in Williston shortly before 6 p.m.
It was brief, but left areas of black ice behind. 
Same situation could well happen in parts of
Vermont today. 

Vermont weather on Friday was certainly windy, with a wait a minute it will change character.  

So stereotypical of March, so there you go. Winds gusted as high as 63 mph at a  fairly  high elevation in Jay. Elsewhere, we had reports of 53 mph in Lowell, 51 mph on Colchester Reef and in Springfield and 49 mph in Alburgh and West Rutland. 

Almost everybody saw top winds in the 40 mph range. The gusts were enough to produce some power outages. The number of homes and businesses without power Friday peaked at around 2,400 shortly before 2 p.m. Friday. 

Also true to March character was the weather. It was bright and sunny in much of Vermont for a good chunk of midday. Then, as expected, those briefly sorta heavy, gusty hit and miss snow showers rolled in. 

I noticed Burlington got a quick. 0.7 inches of accumulation in a brief burst of snow late Friday afternoon. Traffic web cams showed highways in parts of Chittenden County getting iffy. There were quite a few reports of black ice, and a few slide offs and car  mishaps.   

NEXT UP

More of the same this weekend as a spray of small disturbances blow through from the west and northwest.

Snow prediction map from the National Weather Service
office in South Burlington through Monday morning.
Most of us won't get much, but some areas of the
northern Green Mountains, New York's Adirondacks
and New Hampshire's White Mountains could get
 a  decent six inches of snow out of this. 

None of these disturbances will be capable of bringing much snow. But it will add up in the central and northern Green Mountains, where a fresh four to seven inches should be on the ground in those high elevations by Monday morning. 

One of these little weather disturbances was putting down some snow showers mostly across  central Vermont early this morning. 

As of 6 a.m., it was snowing again a little in Burlington, though skies were clear overhead here in St. Albans. The hit and miss character of these snow showers continues. 

Judging from the traffic cameras, you might well encounter areas of snow covered roads and black ice this morning.  I'd take a little extra time getting to where  you are going early today because of this. 

Looks like new snow overnight ranges from less than an inch in the valleys to at least a couple inches in some of the mountains. 

Another hiccup in the wind flow overhead will bring central and northern Vermont another smattering of gusty snow showers this afternoon and evening. 

Much like Friday's snow showers, these will be hit and miss, and a few of them might contain very briefly heavy snow and gusty winds. Just enough to make it a little dicey on the road if you drive into one.

Today will stay windy, though not as bad as Friday. But it will be colder, with most places staying at or below freezing all day. 

After maybe a little sun Sunday morning, the next little weather thingy comes in from the west and northwest.  This will have a slightly better, more organized packet of snow showers with it.  Still, it will be light stuff. Most of us will see yet another dusting to two inches, with a little more in the mountains. 

SPRING, WITH INTERRUPTIONS

It'll start to warm up on Monday, and Tuesday should give us a brief treat of springtime temperatures. Many of us will see some sun and highs up in the low 50s.  Very nice!

Yesterday, I thought there'd be a little cold air oozing into northern Vermont Wednesday and maybe missing the south. 

Now it looks like that cold front from Quebec will blast on southward through the state, giving us a brief return to chilly conditions Wednesday. 

Then, it looks like a large storm will blossom somewhere in the central Plains next weekend. As it stands now, it looks like that storm will pump the warmest air of the spring so far into our region.  Early hint suggest it's even possible the warmer towns could reach 60 degrees in a little over a week.

Will be interesting to see if that comes to pass. As usual, spring will be coming to Vermont in reluctant fits and starts. 

New Gizmo That Converts Methane To Harmless Stuff To Help Combat Climate Change

The British tech firm Levidian has figured out a way to 
convert methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas into
two harmless but very useful byproducts. 

Levidian, a British carbon climate tech business, is on a mission to make methane into a hero instead of a villain. 

No, Levidian doesn't love methane. It's a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide. Increasing methane emissions are worsening climate change. 

The company has figured out ways to break methane down into two substances that actually can do a world of good. 

 As CBS explains:

"The technology uses microwave energy and a special nozzle system to split methane molecules intl the gas' component parts - hydrogen and carbon - and captures them."

That hydrogen left over from the process is pretty valuable. It can be used to power factories, vehicles, ships and machinery.  When burned, hydrogen provides heat and energy, but the only emission is water vapor.

Water vapor is pretty harmless, and I supposed if you have a big enough operation, you can capture the water emissions for,  I don't know, irrigation or something. But you'd need to break down a LOT of methane. 

The leftover carbon from Levidian's process turns out to be even better. That carbon left over from that technology becomes a solid called graphene. Scientists have only known about this stuff for about two decades but it turns out it's one of the strongest materials in the world. 

It's also a great conductor of heat and electricity.

So Levidian is working on ways to use graphene in everyday products. Putting graphene into tire treads, for instance, makes them stronger and yields a longer-lasting, more fuel-efficient tire.

Adding graphene to concrete makes that material stronger and less likely to crumble. 

Graphene is even flexible enough to include in the manufacture of medical gloves to make them stronger. 

This stuff can also boost the battery life in electric vehicles. And it can be mixed in with plastic to help factories make material that uses less petroleum based material. 

As the BBC reports, most efforts to combat climate change have been to reduce emissions. You know, electric, cars, heat pumps, efficiency improvements. 

Not so many outfits have found ways to remove emissions altogether, so Levidian's efforts are unique and laudable. 

Luckily, Levidian is British, as noted, so we don't have to worry about the mendacious Trump administration from discouraging this or banning public investment. (The UK government is interested in doing some funding for technologies like Levidian's).

We're hoping more companies find ways to innovate our way out of climate change. Anything helps in that global battle, 

 

Hints Of Springtime In Vermont That Feel Wintry Happening, And Coming Up

River gauge readings from yesterday on the Mad River
in Moretown, Vermont. Click on the image to make
it bigger and easier to read. You can see an
abrupt rise in the river as water backed up behind
an ice jam. Then the river level dropped back down
suddenly when the ice jam broke up.

 No big storms are on Vermont's immediate horizon, but some subtle and potentially frustrating little weather events coming up are sort of signs of spring.  

Even though those signs of spring are paradoxically wintry.

ICE JAMS

The first of course is ice jams, something we had to keep an eye on during Thursday. 

Thawing weather and rain basically created piles of ice. 

There was a lot of ice movement on the rivers, and some of that ice got jumbled up into piles and clogs near obstructions. There were only perhaps a couple real ice jams in Vermont that I'm aware of. They caused at worst minor flooding and minor damage.

The jams didn't form in the "wrong" places - i.e. just downstream from a riverside town or city.  So in this case we didn't have to deal with a lot of buildings getting flooded, 

The most notable jam was - as mentioned yesterday - on the Mad River near Moretown. You can see on the chart in this post how the jam abruptly made the river rise to flood stage. Then the jam apparently broke and the water level almost instantly returned to normal levels.

With colder air in place, if there are any ice jams, they're probably pretty stable for now. They could always abruptly move, but the chances of new problems with these over the next few days is pretty low.

CONVECTIVE SNOW?

Convective clouds and updrafts gather themselves into
rain and snow showers last March 17 in St. Albans,
Vermont.  This time of year, the sun begins to get
strong enough to help power scattered hit and 
miss snow showers even on cold, blustery days.

In the warmer seasons, strong sunshine can cause updrafts.  Under the right conditions those updrafts can help form showers and thunderstorms. That's why we do have those hit and miss storms all summer around here. Those scattered showers and storms are known as convection. 

Now, today by any measure will be a chilly and blustery one, nothing summery about it.  Temperatures will barely get to freezing if that. It's so gusty that a wind advisory is up for most of Vermont outside the Champlain Valley. In the advisory area, gusts to 50 mph could cause some isolated power outages.

Helping with the gusts is the strengthening March sun. It's getting powerful enough to heat the ground to an extent, creating updrafts and instability that can bring higher gusts to the surface. The fields and forest floors are still snow-covered, so the effect isn't nearly as pronounced as it would be with bare ground, but the sun can have an effect. 

The air is a bit unstable to begin with, so a few snow showers are inevitable anyway. That sunshine peaking through the clouds today might help power up some scattered hit and miss snow showers, much like those summer thunder showers.  Since this is convective, a few might be very briefly heavy with stronger, gustier winds. 

Most of us won't see something like this today, but a few places probably will. So yes, a harbinger of spring will probably generate a few minutes-long little mini-blizzards here and there. Luckily, there will be no big snow accumulations out of any of this. 

You're probably going to see more of this type of situation on blustery days during the rest of March and probably a good chunk of April.

BATTLEGROUND

A frustrating aspect of spring - especially in March and April in Vermont - is those pesky stalled fronts in which it seems everybody in the central and eastern U.S. is enjoying spring weather except northern New England. 

The battle line this time of year between the forces of spring and the waning strength of winter is right along the Canadian border.  For the most part, that battle line is further north than, say, January. 

The result this time of year is that as most places warm up, often  a shallow, dense layer of chilly air oozes down from Quebec, making parts of Vermont shiver while places not that far south enjoy balmy, sunny spring breezes.

This set up seems to most often affect the northern Champlain Valley. They cold air hugs the surface and often extends upward only a few thousand feet. 

There's no mountains to block this shallow cold air between Quebec and northwest Vermont, so the chilly air floods in.  You end up with days in which say, Bennington, might be sunny and 60 degrees and St. Albans is stuck in the mid-30s. 

This set up looks like it might happen toward Wednesday. Initially, some warm air would bathe pretty much all of Vermont. Forecasts call for highs in the low 50s Tuesday, which would make it the warmest day so far this year. 

Then that pesky shallow cold air from Quebec seems to want to make an appearance. Currently, forecast highs in the northern Champlain Valley are around the low 40s Wednesday, but I think it might even be colder than that. This situation would probably linger into at least Thursday. 

These things are a little hard to predict and tease out days in advance, so things might still work out differently midweek. We shall see. 

Even so, that low level cold air is another paradoxal sign of spring.  Northern Vermont is in the war to reach spring. Chances are we'll lose the battle Wednesday, but we'll win the overall war eventually. 

California Keeps Struggling With Getting Enough Winter Rain And Snow

Officials with the California Department of Water Resources
measuring Sierra Nevada snow on February 28.
An on and off winter has left the snow at about 85
percent of normal, so they're a little short

California is experiencing an on again off again wet season, and that has implications for how the state will handle both droughts and wildfires through the rest of the year.  

If a water shortage were to develop in California, it wouldn't be just a California problem. The reservoirs near the mountains depend on snow melt to stay full and ready to provide water to homes and farms. 

If farmers don't get enough irrigation from the reservoirs, that would damage crops, causing shortages and add even more inflationary pressure to your grocery bill, which is already too high, I'm sure. 

A lack of snow would help cause an earlier and longer-lasting and worse wildfire season. Severe fires would take federal resources to help manage.  And that federal help has suddenly become quite unreliable user the Trump administration. 

THE SITUATION

We do know things are not nearly as dire as they were in the 2010s, when several years of far below normal snowfall in the mountains - and a major lack of rain in the valleys - plunged California into one of its worst drought crises in memory. 

This year, it has been snowing in them thar mountains, but in sort of an unsettling on and off pattern. 

Large storms in early winter got the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains off to a rousing start, leaving the  amount of snow up there as of January 1 actually a smidge above average.

Then January, a traditionally stormy, cold month in those mountains, was sunny and warm.  Some of the snow actually melted. 

Some storms did come in during February, which helped. The result is as of this week, the northern Sierra Nevada mountains are doing OK, with the snow there more or less normal.  But the central Sierra Nevada are somewhat below normal and the southern Sierras are doing even worse. Taken as a whole, the Sierra Nevada snowpack was at about 85 percent of where it should be this week. 

You can sort of see a pattern in what I just described. Storms are more or less coming in, but there are big gaps in this storm parade, and many of those gaps feature sunshine and springlike air that melts some of the snow. 

Snow-eroding winter heat waves are becoming more common in the Sierra Nevada, yet another sign of climate change. 

The Sierra Nevada has maybe a month and a half to collect major new snows before the wet season wanes 

There has been a recent change in the weather pattern that is sending storms into almost all of California over at least the next two weeks.  I don't see signs of a "March miracle" in which phenomenal amounts of snow pile up.  But it looks like those mountains will make gains in the amount of snow that's up there. 

Still, reservoirs are still in pretty good shape given a near average 2024 and a whopping amount of snow in 2023. 

However, the fact that the snow melts so quickly could mean the ground will become bare in many areas prematurely, which could in turn herald another earlier than average start to the fire season. 

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

It's been a weird  year in southern California, too, which as we know led to absolute disaster by January. 

Drought continues in southern California. The 
darker the shade of orange or red, the worse
the drought conditions are. 

Pretty much no rain fell there through the first half of the "rainy" season. The first substantial rain of the season hit on January 26, which was way too late. 

Considering how the drought, combined with ferocious Santa Ana winds caused what will go down as the worst wildfire disaster in Los Angeles history. 

The rains finally tamped down the wildfires - for now, anyway. The rains in late January only amounted to an inch or so in Los Angeles, barely over a third of normal for the month. 

February's Los Angeles total was 2.66 inches, just slightly below average. But the rain shut off again starting February 15, and no measurable rain had fallen until Tuesday, when nearly a half inch of rain fell on L.A. 

That change in the weather pattern I mentioned gives southern California some more chance at more rain this month. But again, we don't know how long that rainy period will last or whether it will provide a huge boost.

As of Thursday, northern California was pretty much drought-free but widespread drought still plagued the southern half of the state.   This month's rains do not seem destined to fully erase that problem. 

So Far, As Of Early This Morning, Only One Vermont Trouble Spot Due To Thaw, But More Could Pop Up

The "Woof River," which is what I call the tiny stream
that runs by my St. Albans, Vermont house flowing
for the first time in awhile with our thaw. Forecasters
are watching for ice jams on larger rivers today.
Hard to see here, but there's evidence an ice jam
backed up water behind a culvert under my
driveway overnight, but the ice jam has since 
broken free and there's no damage or trouble. 

 As expected, Vermont had a rainy, warm overnight, and there's noticeably less snow on the ground compared to yesterday.  

Still a lot of snow in many areas, but it's diminished. 

As the runoff from the snowmelt and rain continues, rivers are starting to rise, ice is beginning to crack and move, so we have the risk of ice jams and the flooding those can cause.

As of 7 a.m. I've seen just one trouble spot so far.  The river gauge along the Mad River near Moretown started acting weird. Around midnight, the river there started to rise rapidly, and the pace accelerated.

Then, in the 15 minutes ending at 4 p.m. the river rose by 2.68 feet into flood stage.  That kind of change is a tell-tale sign of an ice jam.  So a flood warning was up for that section of the Mad River early this morning. 

Water levels near this river gauge then stabilized. After 7 a.m., water levels at the Moretown gauge began to abruptly fall, hinting that the ice jam broke or moved further downstream.  The jam could still get more intense and raise water further downstream, flooding new areas.

That's not just true along the Mad River. It could happen anywhere an ice jam decides to form. The National Weather Service in South Burlington has noted some ice movement along the Lamoille River, and the East Branch of the Passumpsic River in the Northeast Kingdom.  Same thing is happening on some other smaller Vermont creeks and streams. 

So far,  these haven't resulted in ice jams, but they might.

Rainfall with this storm was in line with expectations - most place saw anywhere from a third to two thirds of an inch of rain. Temperatures rose well into the 40s to a few low 50s last night, too. So yeah, the snow is really melting. 

NEXT UP

The end of the thaw is coming later this afternoon. We are going to see some more rain, but not much. Showers were pretty liberally scattered around the state as of 7 a.m. 

The relative warmth - temperatures in the mid 40s for the most part, should hang on through early to mid-afternoon. Then the cold front arrives, and it's back to winter for awhile.

The snow melt run off will slowly wane, so the threat of new ice jams will begin to fade late this afternoon into tonight. 

The cold front might renew the rain showers briefly, but they'll quickly switch over to snow showers. Most of us will just receive an inch or less of snow. Though, as usual, the central and northern Green Mountains could pick up a few inches from this. 

The weekend will be typical Vermont early March. Clouds, a little sun, blustery winds, maybe a snow shower or two in the mountains and chilly.

Of course, it's March now, so "chilly" doesn't mean the same thing it did in the middle of winter.  Friday through Sunday, we can expect highs in the mid 20s to mid 30s and lows in the teens. 

A small Alberta Clipper storm Monday might throw some snowflakes at us, too, but nothing huge.

Weather forecasting beyond a few days out is always iffy, especially in March, so I won't promise too much one way or another for next week.  But early indications are no big storms, and a temperature trend that might give us afternoon thaws with temperatures in the 40s and overnight freezes.

Perfect for maple sugaring, so there's always that big of potential good weather news. 

Destructive, Wide-Ranging U.S. Storm To Finally Wind Down Thursday.

Texas Storm Chasers posted this photo of tornado damage
in Irving, Texas on Tuesday.

Just as expected, an enormous windbag of a storm has caused havoc this week from the Rocky Mountains to the East Coast. 

Two people were reported dead in Mississippi as the severe storms rolled through Tuesday.  Po wer was out to more than 400,000 homes and businesses in several states across the South and Midwest.

The storm disrupted Mardi Gras, or at least tried to, in New Orleans Tuesday as the city was under a tornado watch and high wind warning. The National Weather Service had warned revelers to be careful, in part because winds could topple Mardi Gras floats. 

Some of the biggest parades were held earlier than scheduled and shortened to avoid the worst of the weather. 

No tornadoes struck near New Orleans, but the city endured downpours and gusts as high as 53 mph. 

Minnesota traffic cameras showed miserable 
conditions this morning as blizzards hit swaths
of the Midwest, part of a large storm hitting
huge parts of the nation

At least seven tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma, northwest Louisiana and possibly Texas on Tuesday. Tuesday's tornado count will likely rise as damage is analyzed. A few more tornadoes are possible today in the Southeast.  There's even a very low, but not zero chance of a brief twister as far northwest as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania today.

In Texas, the larger problem was brush fires. One brush fire amid the 50 mph winds destroyed 10 buildings, while another south of San Antonio destroyed 17 structures, including nine homes.

The strong winds also blew clouds of dust from West Texas into cities like Austin and Dallas, sharply cutting visibility and prompting air quality alerts. 

Further north, blizzards struck parts of the Plains and Midwest. While snow totals were not extraordinary, but still substantial in spots. Areas near Minneapolis-St. Paul were closing in on a foot of new snow this morning. 

The wind has been extraordinary, though.    Gusts commonly reached between 50 and 70 mph. Hugoton, in western Kansas, had a gust to 93 mph. 

The storm was forecast to move off into Canada today, while throwing a flood threat at sections of New England and New York as a parting shot. 

Videos

Footage of fast-moving wildfires in Bexar County, Texas, near San Antonio, with winds gusting to at least 50 mph. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Kind of a happy post, really, but this one is costumed characters at the New Orleans Mardi Gras deal with strong winds amid the party. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.  

Rainy, Mild March Vermont Day To Set Off A Bit Of A Flood Threat

Footprints and paw prints in last evening's snow, now
turned to melting slush as today's rainy thaw began
moving into the St. Albans, Vermont area this morning. 

 Welcome to the first truly rainy, mild day of spring, 2025 in Vermont. 

It will indeed rain most of the day statewide, and temperatures in many areas will warm to levels not seen since late December. 

Yes, rain and warm temperatures equals snow melt and a risk of flooding and ice jams. 

However, the conditions of the snow cover before the rains started, and the middling amount of rain in the forecast means this time around, flooding shouldn't be very extensive. 

 Ice jams are possible, of course but unless one forms in a very, very bad spot near a village or town along a river, we should be largely OK.

Knock on wood, there should only be a few scattered ice jams. Take it seriously though. f there is any kind of high water or jammed up ice, it's most likely tonight or tomorrow. 

Also, as we always know in early March, winter is NOT over so of course we'll need to deal with some of those issues coming up.

OK, the big picture is out of the way, let's get into the details:

TODAY

After a burst of snow and a little rain in northern Vermont last evening, things got quiet and warm-ish overnight. It was in the 30s to low 40s and western Vermont as of 6 a.m. but still a little below freezing east of the Green Mountains. 

Meanwhile, rain was moving in from the southwest, and should get through most of the Green Mountain State by mid to late morning. 

Sprinkles of rain have already made it into Vermont as of 7 a.m. but the main bands of it were still just approaching southwest parts of the state. 

There might briefly be a few patches of freezing rain at the start where it's cold in eastern Vermont, but that should resolve itself pretty quickly. The National Weather Service in South Burlington has issued a special weather statement that warns of potential black ice, especially on bridges, overpasses and around curves through this morning's rush hour in central and eastern Vermont. 

There's even a couple of pockets of cold air left in parts of Rutland County, so it could get slick there, too, for a little while this morning. 

The bulk of the rain should come through during the day today and the first half of tonight. Rainfall amounts might be as little as a quarter inch in the far northern Champlain Valley to up to an inch in southern Vermont. 

If there were no snow and ice to melt, that amount of rain we expect is absolutely no big deal. Just a routine amount for any storm system. 

But there is snow and ice to melt. Plenty of it in some areas. Obviously, only some of it will melt in this episode. And especially in high elevations and in eastern Vermont it might take awhile for it to start melting. 

Meteorologists say the snow has to "ripen" first. That means the temperature of the snow cover has to rise enough so that it starts spewing water from melting.  By the time the snowpack "ripens" in areas with deeper snow especially, the bulk of the rain will be over. 

It will stay warm overnight. In fact, high temperatures today in the mid and upper 40s to near 50 probably won't be reached until we get toward evening. Readings will stay at those levels overnight and into Thursday morning. 

The air will have an oddly humid, springlike feel to it, too. Humid air melts snow much more effectively than dry air, so even after most of the rain is over, the snow in many areas will be melting pretty rapidly. 

FLOOD/JAM POTENTIAL

If we have any flooding or ice jams at all in this episode, they are most likely to  happen overnight and through Thursday. 

There is a lot of water in the snow pack. The National Weather Service estimates the amount of water coming out of the snow through melting tonight and Thursday would be the equivalent of 1.5 to two inches of rain in parts of central and southern Vermont. 

That might well be enough to make river levels rise enough to break up the thick ice covering parts of those rivers. The ice starts to flow downstream, hits an obstruction, so the ice just backs up behind that obstruction and voila! You have an ice jam.

These things form quickly, so if you live in a flood-prone area, keep an eye on the river ice and be prepared to skedaddle if you see water backing up behind an ice jam.  You won't have all that much time to deal with it. 

Again, this won't be a widespread problem. But where any of those few ice jams form, it could be locally a very, very big problem. Any river from about the Winooski south in Vermont is at some risk of an ice jam or two. 

Even without ice jams, some rivers, like the Otter Creek, Mad River and Winooski, might get pretty high, and could peak just a little under minor flood stage during and just after this thaw.

In northern Vermont, where it will take longer for the snow to "ripen" only about the equivalent of an inch of rain will ooze out of those big snowbanks through melting. That reduces the chances of ice jams in northern Vermont. 

COLD RETURNS

It's only early March, so the cold will return, though not to the subzero levels we saw Monday morning.

The storm's cold front will come through Thursday afternoon with little precipitation but falling temperatures. Early afternoon will be balmy, and by the time the sun sets, you'll be starting to notice a  chill in the air. 

You'll need to watch it a bit Friday morning. By then, everything will have frozen back up again. Including any standing water left on untreated roads. Light snow showers will add to the back-to-winter scenario.

Snowfall won't amount to much. Most of us will see less than an inch, though the central and northern Green Mountains might pick up one to as much as four inches of new snow between Thursday afternoon and Saturday morning. 

Friday itself will be blustery and cold with temperatures staying at or below freezing. It should stay below freezing all weekend, including during the days. Though banana belt towns in low elevation southern Vermont could poke into the mid 30s both Saturday and Sunday. 

Early guesses are the next week or so should be fairly mellow, with frequent chances of a little snow or even rain later in the week, but nothing heavy.  

Next week will be a bit changeable and unpredictable too. As is typical in March, Vermont will be right near the springtime battleground between mild air to the south and still-wintry air encompassing most of Canada. 

Burst Of Snow Interfering With Tuesday Northern Vermont Evening Commute

Traffic camera grab for Interstate 89 in Georgia shows
pretty gnarly road conditions as a burst of "warm front"
snow passes through. Roads in northern Vermont
look like they will be pretty slick this evening. 

 A warm front associated with that large storm in the center of the nation is giving a surprisingly hefty burst of wet snow to northern Vermont. 

As of 4:30 p.m. a full inch of new snow had accumulated here in St. Albans. Traffic cameras show iffy driving conditions in Vermont, north of Route 2.

As of 4:30 p.m. traffic cameras showed it had just started snowing along Interstate 89 in Colchester and road conditions didn't look that bad - yet. 

As you headed north along the Interstate, things were just beginning to deteriorate along I-89 at the Lamoille River bridge in Milton. By the time you get up to Georgia, I-89 was obviously snow-covered and slick.

Since the snow is headed east, almost everyone along and north of Route 2 will see at least some snow and likely slick roads late this afternoon and this evening. 

The atmosphere continues to warm, and some of this snow might still flip to rain. 

But still, you might be surprised by some ice and slush under your tires as you head home from work. Be careful out there. I'm sure we'll have some slide offs, a few crashes and some delays on the highways.  If you were planning on going somewhere in northern Vermont but really don't have to, it might be wise to stay home this evening. 

This is all a precursor to the warm rain we're having tomorrow. I'll have much more on that in Wednesday morning's post.