Hurricane Melissa Even Stronger On Approach To Jamaica. Very Scary

Satellite photo of Hurricane Melissa this afternoon.
It's a classic example of a super strong hurricane at
its peak. Note the perfectly circular core surrounding
a tiny eye, and a huge spray of outflow clouds
mainly to its east. 

The 5 p.m. update on Hurricane Melissa from the National Hurricane Center just came in and it's not a good one.  

Top sustained winds in Melissa were at 175 mph. 

One measurement around noon or so indicated a surface wind of 188 mph, which, if accurate, is incredible. 

According to meteorologist/hurricane expert John Morales, the air pressure at the center of Melissa was 908 millibars early this afternoon, which made it the 11th strongest hurricane on record in the Atlantic. 

As of 5 p.m. the pressure was down to 906 millibars, making it the strongest Atlantic hurricane for so late in the season. Melissa is also the world's strongest tropical cyclone so far in 2025.

The hurricane is forecast to make landfall Tuesday on the southern coast of Jamaica probably on the western half of the island. Everybody there, including tourists, were hunkering down and hoping for the best. The airports are closed, and cruise lines have gotten out of Dodge, so to speak. 

As of midafternoon, Melissa was already responsible for eight deaths, five in Haiti, two in Jamaica and one in Dominican Republic. 

The main body of Melissa is a perfectly circular buzzsaw, with its intense winds still just offshore of Jamaica after this afternoon. It's probably at peak intensity now, Even if it starts to weaken a little before landfall, it will be far too little, far too late. 

On satellite, it looks like a classic, intense hurricane. Besides the circular buzzsaw core, it's got a tiny little eye, surrounded by lightning flashes and a huge spray of clouds billowing far to the east of the center. That's the storm's outflow, which is contributing to torrential rains in Haiti, Dominican Republic and elsewhere. 

This will be by far the worst hurricane Jamaica has ever experienced. And it will also be a huge nightmare for Cuba, too. The southeast Bahamas are still seriously under the gun, too. 

QUIET SEASON UNTIL NOW

The average Atlantic hurricane season has 14 names storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes.

This year, including Melissa there have been 14 named storms, five hurricanes, three of them category 5. Only 2005 had that many or more Category 5 hurricanes, which have winds of at least 157 mph. 

Until Melissa, you'd never know it's been such an active season. Except for relatively weak Tropical Storm Chantal, which hit the Carolinas in July, none have hit the United States. This will be the first year since 2015 with no U.S. hurricane landfalls, unless there's some sort of November surprise.

Melissa will miss the United States. And Melissa is the first hurricane to directly strike land while close to its full fury.  So until now, this year was "one of the most benign hurricane seasons in a long time."

EXPLOSIVE DEVELOPMENT

Melissa grew from a tropical storm to a major hurricane in almost a blink of an eye. That's been the pattern this year. 

As CNN states

"Melissa isn't just another major hurricane. It's the latest in a string of Atlantic storms that have exploded in strength at breakneck speed.

Melissa grew from a 70 mph tropical storm Saturday to a 140 mph Category 4 hurricane by early Sunday. This 70 mph wind speed increase in only 24 hours is double the criteria storms need to meet in out to qualify as rapid intensifiers. 

This type of explosive strengthening used to rare, but is happening more often as the world warms due to fossil fuel pollution. "

Four of the five Atlantic hurricanes in 2025 have undergone extremely rapid intensifications: Erin, Gabrielle, Humberto and Melissa. 

Climate change does seem to be affecting how many particularly strong hurricanes there are out there. As Jeff Masters at Yale Climate Connections writes:

"Numerous studies over the past 20 years have found that hurricane strength storms are not becoming more numerous globally, but the fraction of such storms that reach Category 4 or 5 strength is growing and is expected to keep growing, so the world is seeing more pop these intense tropical cyclones, which tend to be the most deadly and dangerous ones."

We're increasingly going to have disasters like this. It's already been a big problem in the past decade. Harvey in 2017, Michael in 2018, Ida in 2021, Beryl, Helene and Milton last year. It's going on and on and going to get worse. 

In other words, we're going to have quite a lot of Jamaica calamities in the coming years.   

Australian Rain Forests Have Stopped Sucking Up Carbon

Rain forests absorb carbon from the air, and they are 
considered a key ally in the fight against climate
change. But a study in an Australian rain
forest suggests after climate change might
turn these forests into carbon emitters. 

Tropical rain forests in Australia have stopped following the rules. 

Rain forests are supposed to be "carbon sinks." That means live trees in the forest absorb carbon from the air more than dead trees in that forest emit into the atmosphere. If you don't like climate change, rain forests are your friend. 

Or at least used to be, in Australia, anyway. Tropical rainforests there have begun to release more carbon into the air than they take in. 

The problem is that extreme temperatures, drought and arid air masses are killing trees. Queensland, Australia has also experienced an increasing number of cyclones, and the ones they're getting are becoming more severe.

These storms are killing more trees and making it harder for new ones to grow and take the fallen trees' place.

There's been more tree deaths than growth, so when trees die and begin to rot, they release stored carbon back into the air. 

The change in Australian rain forests isn't new, but it's newly discovered. And it is a change from what it always has been. 

The Smithsonian explains about how researchers looked at the rain forests plants:

"The tracked plants absorbed about 552 pounds of carbon per acre on average, each year from 1971 to 2000. Then, from 2010 to 2019, they emitted about 830 pounds of carbon per acre, on average, each year."

All this could have implications elsewhere.   

The Australian rain forests are the first to transition from so-called carbon sinks, which store carbon grabbed from the air, into areas that release carbon into the atmosphere. The researchers said they feared other rain forests around the world would suffer the same fate. 

"And that's really significant. It could be a sort of canary in the coal mine," said Dr. Hannah Carne of the Western Sydney University, according to the BBC.

"Current models may overestimate the capacity of the tropical forests to help offset fossil fuel emissions," Carle added. 

Especially since other rain forests might well follow the example of Australia. 

Per Smithsonian:

"No other rainforests have yet shown evidence of emitting more carbon than they absorb. The Amazon rainforest has shown an overall decline in carbon capacity, and part of it has become a carbon source due to human caused deforestation and forest - but its trees have responded to increased CO2 in the atmosphere by increasing their own growth."

But that ability to increase absorption might have a limit. And the research in Australia illustrates those limits might be close in places like the Amazon.  

Hurricane Melissa Category 5 This Morning, Jamaica Is In BIG Trouble

Satellite view of Hurricane Melissa this morning
The pinpoint eye is a sure sign of an incredibly'
intense hurricane that will hit Jamaica.

 Hurricane Melissa was upgraded to Category 5 this morning, with top winds of 160 mph had its sights on Jamaica as it crawls across the superheated waters of the Caribbean Sea. 

Those very warm waters are fueling Melissa's strength and the hurricane's strength won't change all that much before the eye reaches Jamaica Tuesday morning. 

The advice from the National Hurricane Center to Jamaicans was harsh:

"Do not venture out of your safe shelter. Catastrophic and life-threatening flash flooding and numerous landslides are likely today through Tuesday. 

Destructive winds, especially in the mountains, will begin this evening, leading to extensive infrastructural damage, long-lasting power and communication outages, and isolated communities. Life-threatening storm surge and damaging waves are expected along the southern coast through Tuesday."

This will be the strongest, worst hurricane on record for Jamaica. Despite its hurricane-prone location in the western Caribbean, Jamaica has never been hit by a Category 4 or 5 hurricane, though several hurricanes have affected the island. 

The worst hurricane in Jamaica until now was Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. That high end Category 3 storm killed 45 people and caused $700 million in damage. 

This hurricane is the third this year to achieve Category 5 in the Atlantic this year. Only 2005 had more such monsters. 

Hurricane Melissa might or might not be Category 5 when it makes landfall in Jamaica. Intense hurricanes usually re-adjust the circle of intense thunderstorms and winds around the eye, and those readjustments can sometimes briefly and slightly weaken a hurricane.

So Melissa could end up being a Category 4 by the time it reaches Jamaica. If that happens, top winds would be 130 to 156 mph, not the 160 mph Melissa carried this morning.  But if Melissa weakens ever so slightly, it won't matter. 

As the National Hurricane Center noted this morning: "Both categories can produce catastrophic wind damage. In addition, winds in the mountains of Jamaica are likely to be higher than the winds at sea level, and are likely to add to the seriousness of the situation."

Tropical storm conditions are hitting Jamaica already. Webcams this morning showed gusty winds and rough surf in Kingston's harbor and in other areas.

They've already had bursts of torrential rain, and that will continue with increasing intensity well into tomorrow.  Flooding is already ongoing, and the landslides and floods will become catastrophic. 

As I noted yesterday, I don't know what will happen to people who are in their safe space, only for a landslide to destroy it. How will they move to another safe place in winds of more than 100 mph with debris flying through the air. 

The worst winds will come within a 30 to 50 mile radius on Jamaica, which is roughly 150 miles wide and 50 miles long.  It looks like the worst effects of Melissa will hit the western and maybe central parts of the island.

So parts of Jamaica will thankfully miss the worst of the winds, at least in low elevations,  but all of Jamaica will suffer through the floods. Up to three and a half feet of rain is likely in some parts of Jamaica. 

The Jamaican coastline, at least parts of it, can expect a storm surge of nine to 13 feet. That's potentially high enough to flood the nation's main airport in the capitol, Kingston. 

AFTER JAMAICA

Part of the destructive force of Hurricane Melissa is the fact that it is moving forward so slowly. That would prolong the destructive force of the rain and winds.

Once Hurricane Melissa gets past Jamaica, it will slowly start to weaken, and pick up forward speed. But it will still be a major hurricane by the time it reaches eastern Cuba early Wednesday, with expected winds of 120 mph.  Melissa will then move on into the southeastern Bahamas later Wednesday or early Thursday. 

By Friday, Melissa will be racing northeastward near Bermuda, then it will finally die in the North Atlantic. 

While Melissa is far out in the Atlantic Ocean,  an unrelated nor'easter will be developing along the East Coast. That nor'easter might siphon deep moisture from Hurricane Melissa and make the rain especially heavy along parts of the East Coast.

It's unclear if that for sure will happen, and if so, where. Up here in Vermont, the nor'easter will very likely bring us some badly needed rain, but so far it looks like the really heavy rain might avoid the Green Mountain State.

Meanwhile, back in the Caribbean, Haiti and the Dominican Republic won't be directly hit by Hurricane Melissa. But it's close enough to have dumped a lot of rain on those countries and will continue to do so. 

Horrific flooding will continue there for the next couple days.  There have already been at least three deaths in Haiti because of the heavy rain and flooding. 

Hurricane Melissa Explodes In Caribbean; Is Dire Threat To Jamaica, Maybe Cuba

Forecast track and timing of Hurricane Melissa, which
is about to decimate the island of Jamaica. 

Jamaicans, and weather forecasters are waking up to a horror this morning. 

Hurricane Melissa is following the worst case scenario, having blown up from a tropical storm to a powerful hurricane packing 140 mph in a matter of less than 18 hours. 

Worse, the storm is still getting strong, still moving forward at a snails pace, and still locking in on Jamaica as a target.

Melissa is forecast to reach Category 5 intensity today, the strongest possible hurricane. It would be the third category 5 Atlantic hurricane this year, which is incredibly rare. Climate change doesn't seem to make hurricanes more frequent, but it does seem to make it more likely that some of them will reach intense Category 5 intensity. 

Fortunately, the other two Cat 5's of 2025, Erin and Humberto, did not hit land.

Our luck has run out with Melissa. 

As of this morning, Melissa was moving over water that is record hot, 88 or 89 degrees. This patch of water under Melissa is the warmest of anywhere in the Atlantic.  The hotter the water, the more fuel for a hurricane, and the stronger it will become. 

Whether it's still a category 5 or a "mere" category 4 when Melissa makes landfall in Jamaica, probably Tuesday morning, is besides the point. This is going to be a devastating, deadly blow to the island. 

It's already been raining for weeks in Jamaica.  The soil is saturated. There was flooding even before Melissa entered the picture. 

Hurricanes always dump incredible amounts of rain. You virtually always have inland flooding once they come ashore.  Most hurricanes come and go, with a forward speed of maybe 10 to 15 mph.

Melissa's forward speed was just 5 mph this morning. As a tropical storm and more recently a hurricane, it was just sitting over the Caribbean, dumping heavy rain on Haiti and Jamaica before it ever grew into the monster it is now. Melissa will only just begin to move faster over Jamaica, but it will be much too little, much too late. 

More than three feet of rain is expected on at least parts of the island, guaranteeing horrific landslides and catastrophic flooding. Jamaica is mountainous, so it's especially prone to flash flooding and heavy rains. That was the problem in western North Carolina last year with Hurricane Helene. The water just cataclysmically rushed down those slopes. Same will happen in Jamaica.

The wind will tear things apart for sure, but the flooding will be much worse.

How do you run away from flash flooding and mudslides when the wind is gusting well past 100 mph and debris is flying through the air like giant box cutters, slicing through everything?

I'm just sick about this. 

In the past, the United States would often swoop in with truly lifesaving aid when there's an extreme disaster like what is about to happen in Jamaica. But the Trump administration has turned its back on the rest of the world. So the suffering will be even worse due to the indifference of MAGA. We might send aid, but not the way we once did. 

Hurricane Melissa won't directly hit Haiti, but its torrential rains are blasting that impoverished nation on Hispaniola. This will be a nightmare for them too. We already have reports of three people killed by Melissa in Haiti and one in neighboring Dominican Republic.

We need to include Cuba in this mix. Once Melissa is done with Jamaica, it will move on to eastern Cuba. The storm might be slightly weaker than it will have been in Jamaica, but it still will be a powerhouse, with extreme flooding and seriously damaging winds in Cuba by late Tuesday and early Wednesday.

From there, Melissa will head northeastward, blasting through the Bahamas with more destruction before heading out into the open Atlantic Ocean. It might threaten Bermuda toward Friday. Then it should finally die out in the cold North Atlantic next weekend.  

Vermont Weather Week Ahead: Somewhat Encouraging For Drought Relief

For most of Vermont, today is dawning as another dreary one, as the sky is having a lot of trouble clearing out. 

A carpet of leaves beneath a sugar maple in St. Albans
Vermont during yesterday's overcast. We're rapidly
getting into stick season. The hope is November will
be wet, and there are chances of some storms, 

We've gotten into that time of year in which it doesn't get sunny too easily, even if there's high pressure nearby. 

We're actually going through a typical November/December type thing now, in which moisture from the Great Lakes, cold air aloft and lingering moisture keep us cloudy. 

Going into this week, it looks like an inversion might set up, meaning we'll have a layer of warm air a few thousand feet up.

That kind of set up also tends to keep thins pretty overcast. The heat from the sun when it is high and strong in the late spring and summer tends to mix the air and get rid of inversions. Which clears the sky. '

The low sun angle this time of year doesn't really have the power to do that.  WHile there is a chance we might clear out at times Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, don't count on it. Especially in northern valleys.

In a way, this is good, because the overcast doesn't allow us to dry out as much as a sunny, unseasonably warm day would.  With our ongoing drought, we don't need things to get worse. 

RAIN CHANCES

What we really need is a series of nice soaking rains like we had this past week. We do have an uncertain shot of something like that toward the end of the upcoming week. And extended forecasts are slightly optimistic on precipitation chances.

The late week shot at rain would come from a potential nor'easter. As always, whether we in Vermont get some decent rains depends on the track of the storm. Too far offshore, and we get nothing spectacular. 

A track that hugs the coast or goes a little inland would be wonderful. And wet.

There's even a chance that horrible Hurricane Melissa would do some good after causing a lot of pain and suffering in the Caribbean.  By the end of the week. Melissa is expected to be out in the Atlantic Ocean, far off the East Coast, zipping northward and weakening. 

There is a chance that the nor'easter could syphon some moisture extra
off of Melissa, and that would enhance the rains in New England. That scenario is far, far from a slam dunk, but it would be nice. 

After our hoped for late week or weekend nor'easter, we want to look for even more rain. We've kept telling you it would take a long time to dig ourselves out of the drought, and that's still so true. Yeah, it might seem damp to you outside now, but we need a lot of rain to really soak into the ground and recharge aquifers and such. 

Extended forecasts are not as reliable, and much more broad brush than the predictions for the next few days. The long range forecasts out this weekend do give us some more hope for more rain. 

The six to ten day outlook, which runs from Halloween to November 4, leans toward above normal precipitation, which makes sense, considering there might be a coastal storm around then. 

The 8 to 14 day outlook, which goes from November 2 to  9, is a tossup, giving us near normal precipitation, with below normal temperatures. Maybe the first snows of the season? We shall see! 

There's also a NOAA three to four week outlook, which takes us well into mid-November. That forecast slightly favors above normal precipitation in northern New England,  but it's not a perfect setup for big soakers. 

A decent share of the computer models in that three to four week range  place a dip in the jet stream somewhere near or over Quebec.  That's not ideal, as it could steer the wettest storms off to our south and east.

However, even if the three to four week forecast is correct, the location and the strength of that dip in the jet stream would vary.   Exactly where it sets up, if it sets up, and how it interacts with other weather systems would determine how much and what kind of precipitation we get.

Note I said what kind. Once we get into November, all bets are off. We could get rain, snow, ice, a mix, you name it.  

At least it's beginning to appear we're escaping that horrible weather pattern we had in August, September and much of October in which warm, arid, sunny high pressure systems would stall over us for weeks at a time. 

This blog thingy might, for a change, frequently mention oncoming inclement weather.  For once, if we get lucky, Vermonters might end up embracing our famously bad November weather. 

Another House Into North Carolina Ocean, As More Storms Loom

An 11th house to fall into the ocean at the Outer Banks
of North Carolina sits in the water shortly after it fell
last weekend. The one that fell is on the right. The one on
the left was damaged by the wreckage and is in danger,
The green house in the background
is also ready to go

 In case you're keeping track, another North Carolina house fell into the Atlantic Ocean a week ago.

And there really wasn't much of a storm going on. Like many houses battered by recent storms, the sand dunes removed from underneath them, it was time to sadly collapse. 

It was the 11th one to go since mid-August, when powerful Hurricane Erin passed by far offshore. Under sunny, beach weather skies, Erin send battering waves into Cape Hatteras, starting the chain of collapses, 

They all went due to large swells from offshore hurricanes, or a fairly routine nor'easter. Theses were by no means any kind of record breaking, intense storms raking North Carolina's Outer Banks. 

It's just the ever shifting sands of barrier islands, which want to move westward, leaving the houses to the whims of the ocean. This is made all the more precarious by rising sea levels brought on by climate change. 

Which means this isn't going away,.

The house that collapses last Saturday was built in 1956.  It was once well inland from the beach, but the sands shifted and eroded, and the sea level came up, making its destruction inevitable.

The wreckage of the house that just fell smacked into another one, which I'm sure caused damage. There's other houses, battered, on rickety stilts cracked by the pounding of waves, which will inevitably make them fall.

Maybe within the next few days. 

Two nor'easters, one Tuesday, the other Thursday or Friday, will buffet the Carolina coast. Hurricane Melissa, now menacing the Caribbean, is expected to finally scoot northward far offshore the East Coast toward the end of the upcoming week. Melissa will probably swing more battering ocean waves into the Outer Banks, too.

Video:

Aerial views of the latest house to collapse into the waves, and views of other homes that are in imminent danger. As always when I put videos in this here blog thingy, click on this link to view. or if you see the image below, click on that.

Trump Denies Disaster Assistance To Blue States, Including Vermont; Send Money To Red States

Damage in Sutton, Vermont after flooding this July. 
President Donald Trump rejected a disaster declaration
for the Northeast Kingdom, likely over politics.

 We've got some more likely evidence that everything Donald Trump does is transactional. And some of the latest news involves us here in Vermont.  

Here's the news, straight from the Associated Press:

"President Donald Trump approved major disaster declarations for Alaska, Nebraska, North Dakota and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwa late Wednesday, while denying requests from Vermont, Illinois and Maryland and leaving other states still waiting for answers.

The decisions fell mostly along party lines, with Trump touting on social media Wednesday that he had 'won big' in Alaska in the last three presidential elections and that it was his 'honor' to deliver to the 'incredible Patriots' of Missouri, a state he also won three times."

Trump just cannot keep his mouth shut. 

If he hadn't bragged like he always does, he'd have plausible deniability about him picking favorites.  

Trump has approved more disaster declarations than he's thrown away. But he keeps talking about phasing out FEMA, saying he wants states to take the lead in disasters, 

The Vermont piece of this was for July 10 flash flooding in the Northeast Kingdom. State officials waited more than nine weeks for Trump's negative decision. Damages far exceed what some of the affected little towns up there in the NEK can afford, said Eric Forand, the Vermont Emergency Management Director. 

The flood caused more than $1 million just in the town of Sutton, which has a population of only around 200. Across Vermont the July 10 storm caused almost $2 million in damage. The minimum threshold to qualify for federal aid should have been $1.2 million, reports WPTZ.

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott said his administration won't appeal the decision. "When submitting the request we knew that there was a chance it could be denied - and we do mot plan to appeal the decision... Moving forward, we'll explore ways to support rural communities with limited resources and what assistance could look like."

Scott is a Republican, but a moderate who, unlike most members of the GOP, has expressed no fealty to Trump and criticizes him at times. Vermont is also known to be among the bluest of blue states. 

In recent public opinion polls, Vermont ranks second behind Hawaii as the least supportive of Trump. Only 24 percent of Vermonters approve of Trump versus 72 percent who oppose him. 

In deciding not to appeal, Scott probably looked at Maryland as an example of what could happen if he did go ahead with asking again. 

Maryland, also a decisively blue state, requested a disaster declaration for two counties in the western part of the state that suffered significant flooding. In July, Maryland requested a disaster declaration, but Trump turned it town. Maryland appealed that decision, because the counties suffered $33.7 million in damage, three times its threshold for federal assistance, reports the AP.

Trump this week turned down that appeal. 

"President Trump and his administration have politicized disaster relief, and our communities are the ones who pay the price," said Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat.

White House officials are trying to portray the denials as heroic efforts to save taxpayers money and mot the partisan attacks that the probably are.

"President Trump provides a more thorough review of disaster declaration requests than any Administration before him," said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson. 

Yeah, right. 

But she went on, saying Trump was "ensuring American tax dollars are uses appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement - not substitute, their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters."

Sure, because the tiny town of Sutton, Vermont  has a million dollars lying around their town offices to fix the flood damage. 

By the way, I can't begrudge anybody who did receive disaster assistance. They need it. Particularly in western Alaska, which was hit earlier this month by a record strong former typhoon that produced a destructive and deadly storm surge. 

But if you live in a blue state, and you're hit with a hurricane, tornado, wildfire, flood or something dramatic like that, remember that Trump wants you to use those experiences to love him, or else.

Like that's going to happen. 

I'll have a separate piece coming up about how the federal government is shortchanging major disaster zones like western North Carolina, which was devastated by Hurricane Helene last year.  

Climate Central Takes Over Billion Dollar Disaster Database That Trump Administration Abandoned.

Climate Central has taken over a data base of
billion dollar disasters in the United States.
The federal government had maintained the
data, but the Trump administration ended
it because they don't want to 
acknowledge climate change. 

Weather and climate science runs on data.

The more data you have, the better information you have, the better judgement you'll have, the better prepared you'll be.  

As I've noted numerous times, the Trump administration has been cutting back on the tools scientists need to keep track of the weather and climate.

One of the things gone is a data base of disasters that cost a billion dollars or more. 

The Trumpsters hate anything that shows climate change is causing trouble, since they insist climate change doesn't exist.

So they decided if climate driven disasters aren't reported, they don't exist. 

Or something like that. 

AsABC News Explains: 

"But in May, the Trump administration announced it was shutting down the website that hosted the dataset. That made it difficult for the public and experts to track the impact of major disasters, as the program used a combination of private and public data, some of which was not available to organizations outside the government."

Obviously, anyone who cares was bummed about the loss of that information. 

However, the data is coming back. Climate Central, a non-profit organization that communicates climate change science, affects and solutions to the public and policy makers. 

A guy named Adam Smith is running and managing the billion dollar disaster data set. He managed the billion dollar list at NOAA, but he was let go by the Trump cutbacks. He is now Climate Central's Senior Climate Impact Scientist. 

ABC continues:

"'The billion dollar disaster analysis is vital in demonstrating the economic impact of extreme weather and climate events, which helps communities understand the real-world consequences of climate change and the increasing impact of these different events," said Smith. 

'I would also say this dataset was simply too important to stop being updated,' Smith added. 'We've seen a widespread demand for its revival from many aspects of society and industry, including the private sector, academia, local community decision makers, even Congress,'"

Climate Central replicated all the data sources for the disaster report, so the information going into it is equivalent to what we used to see on the federal NOAA website.  They'll also use the same peer reviewed methods as the NOAA version did. 

The billion dollar data base isn't the only set of information being rescued from the follies of the Trump administration. 

The Trump administration pretty much got rid of the web site climate.gov, which was the go to place for comprehensive, accurate climate information. The site now directs you to noaa.gov, which has some climate information, but nothing nearly as comprehensive as what was once on the site. 

A non-profit developed an alternative site called climate.us that has much of the information that was removed from climate.gov. 

THIS YEAR'S DISASTERS, COMPARED

According to the revived data compiled by Climate Central, so far this year, the United States has had 14 disasters costing $1 billion or more. (This is all inflation-adjusted).

Mostly because of the incredible wildfires around Los Angeles in January, the cost of this year's disasters are so far is running well above average. The fires alone cost more than $60 billion in damage.

Through June big U.S. disasters have cost $101.4 billion. Most of them involved, tornadoes, severe thunderstorms and flooding. 

This means even if no other big disasters hit this year, 2025 will end well above the average of $67.3 billion. 

However, 2025 won't necessarily be the most costly year on record, despite the strong start. Years with large hurricanes in the U.S. tend to be the most expensive, The year 2017 was the most costly, in large part because of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, with $405.2 in damage.

 Next was 2005, which included hurricanes Katrina and Rita, with $275.5 billion in overall damage. 

It looks like no big hurricanes will hit the U.S. this year. (Forecasters worry Tropical Storm Melissa will turn into a giant hurricane, but most predictions expect that storm to have relatively little effect on the U.S. 

If no other billion dollar disasters happen this year, it looks like 2025 would be the eighth most expensive since 1980, which is the beginning of the data base record.

The disaster total will probably go up for this year. Four other disasters are still being assessed to determine whether they cost at least $1 billion. These include the horrible, deadly July 4 weekend floods in Texas, and three severe weather outbreaks between May and August.  

And gawd knows what the final two months or so of 2025 might bring. 

 

Gloomy Vermont Weather Is The New Gorgeous, As It's Preventing Drought From Getting Worse.

Lingering fall foliage brightened up the surroundings
a little under a dark overcast in St. Albans,
Vermont Thursday. Unlike in recent months,
clouds and showers have lingered after rain
storms, preventing the drought from
getting much worse.

 During our long drought in Vermont, every time we managed to get some rain, the precipitation would zip out as quickly as cat fleeing after falling into a full bath tub. 

The sun would come out immediately, the air would turn more arid that Phoenix in June and the drought would intensify. 

This week's go around was different. And wonderful, if gloomy. Our storm blasted through Monday with some good rains, and the remnants of the storm....lingered.

Even though Monday's storm moved away at a brisk pace, its upper level low lingered nearby. That has kept disturbance swinging through northern New England. Which has meant bursts of showers all week.

When it wasn't raining, skies were cloudy most of the time. The air stayed damp. For once, we didn't immediately begin to dry out again. 

Except for some good downpours in northwest Vermont Wednesday, the rain that fell this week was quite light and probably was not significantly enough to ease the drought. But at least, for a change, it's probably not getting worse. 

Only northwest Vermont improved with the latest U.S. Drought Monitor report yesterday. And the northwest has continued to do better than the rest of the state in terms of precipitation. 

On Thursday, most places in Vermont that did get any rain saw less than a tenth of an inch of it.  

Here in St. Albans, though, I collected another 0.21 inches. Not much, but still good.  As of 9 a.m. this morning, another decent batch of showers were moving into northwest Vermont. 

The clouds will more or less continue over Vermont for the next few days. Especially in the north and mountains. We'll tend to see some more breaks of sun between the clouds starting tomorrow and going into next week. Tuesday and Wednesday should have the most sun.  

Any showers or mountain snow flurries today and over the weekend won't amount to much. But at least we won't get blasted by near record warmth and wall to wall sunshine.  The final week of 10 days of October last year featured bouts of record high temperatures and sunny days. That would have been a disaster this year.

Toward the end of next week, it looks like some sort of coastal storm might want to come up toward New England.   It's way too soon to tell whether that storm will give us another good dose of rain or just some light stuff.

But indications are that the storm a week from now might linger for several days near or over us, just as we saw this week. That would give us more cloudy, damp, showery, somewhat unpleasant weather. 

With the drought still ongoing, for Vermont, unpleasant weather is the new gorgeous. 

 

Forecasters Worred Tropical Storm Melissa Could Turn Into Catastrophic Caribbean Hurricane

Satellite view of Tropical Storm Melissa starting
to get its act together over the Caribbean today. 

When we last checked in on Tropical Storm Melissa in the central Caribbean Sea two days ago, it was a fairly weak and disorganized mess with a highly uncertain future. 

Today, Melissa is still a weak system, still in the central Caribbean, still rather disorganized and still facing an uncertain future. In fact, winds with Melissa were just 45 mph, a bit less than they were on Tuesday. 

So no news, right?

Oh, but there is news, and it's ominous. 

Here's the deal:

Strong winds aloft have been keeping Melissa in check, blowing apart the thunderstorms Melissa needs to sustain itself and grow. 

Those winds are weakening, and as of late morning, Melissa was showing signs of the monster it might well become.

Thunderstorms started erupting on the storm's west side, not just to the east. Also, some of Melissa's clouds were showing curved, banded shapes. These are signs those strong upper level winds are starting to subside.  Meteorologists believe those upper level winds will continue to die down. 

Tropical Storm Melissa is sitting over record warm Caribbean Sea waters. That makes Melissa a ticking time bomb, ready to go off.  

The question is, where will the bomb go off? 

The official forecast as Melissa slowly growing stronger later today into early Saturday, then really going off to the races to become a major hurricane. A few computer models have it going to Category 5, which would mean top sustained winds of at least 160 mph. 

For now, the National Hurricane Center isn't going that far. But they do have official forecast has Melissa with top sustained winds at 130 by Sunday.

Where Melissa will go is still super hard to figure out. Much harder than usual for a hurricane. There's a complex dance of other weather systems far to its north that will control where it goes. 

This time of year, almost every time a storm goes by to the north, it will try to "pick up" a tropical storm and fling it northward through the Atlantic.  Not every storm can "reach" a Caribbean hurricane. In those cases, the hurricane stays well to the south. 

A sort of storm, a weak thing near the Bahamas is trying to tug on Melissa, which is why it's ever so slowly crawling northward. It'll keep doing that through about Friday, the National Hurricane Center thinks, at a pace that this 63 year old writer could easily outrun -really outwalk -  it if Melissa were a person. 

The disturbance near the Bahamas will zip away, and forecasters think this will make Melissa make a sharp left turn and intensify. When it makes its left turn - if it does - will have a huge effect on how bad things get in Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic,and maybe Cuba.

At this point, Jamaica looks like it might really be in jeopardy. Melissa is already coming close enough to Hispaniola and Jamaica to raise the threat of flooding and mudslides. If a powerful Hurricane Melissa hits Jamaica, that would be absolutely catastrophic. 

The forecast is really complicated, so Melissa can, and probably will pulls some surprises. It could keep heading north to blast Haiti or maybe eastern Cuba. It could turn toward the north or northeast near or just west of Jamaica, putting western Cuba and the Bahamas in the crosshairs. 

There's a chance it could hit Florida, but for now, most computer models have Melissa missing the United States. There's also a chance Melissa could keep plowing west toward Central America.

One of the few certainties about Melissa is that it will continue to move incredibly slowly. So it's going to be a problem for maybe a week or more.  

This looks like a really dangerous one for somebody. 

Mexican Flood Another Disaster That Did Not Get Enough Attention

Destruction in Mexico after deadly flooding this month.

 A huge flood and a series of mudslides last week in Mexico killed at least 76 people and caused widespread damage across huge swaths of the country. 

At last report, more than three dozen people were still missing. 

The torrential rains came last week from the remains of Hurricane Priscilla and Tropical Storm Raymond, which sent moisture streaming across central and eastern Mexico. 

Reports Mexiconewsdaily.com:

"The government announced a relief plan of 10 billion pesos (US $543.2 million) to cover damages in Veracruz, Hidalgo, Puebla, Queretaro and San Luis Potosi, pledging rapid reconstruction along with a new cell phone alert for floods and storms."

The storms and flooding damaged 70,445 home. Of those, 43,578 were in Veracruz state. In some areas of Veracruz, two feet of rain fell within four days. 

In some places the devastation was catastrophic. The entire village of Chapula, population 400, was wiped off the map by a wall of water and mud. 

In one incident, a floating seafood restaurant in Tuxpan, in the state of Veracruz was swept free of its moorings along the raging Tuxpan River and and was launched into the Gulf of Mexico. 

In the Gulf, the restaurant broke into two parts, one of which traveled in the Gulf southward a total of about 350 miles. 

It's hard to say whether this had anything to do with climate change. It's consistent with a warming world. Rainfall can get more intense than they otherwise would be. So perhaps the rain wouldn't have been as intense had the world not warmed up so much. 

This was one of those disasters that were really huge, but didn't get much media attention. Maybe it's all too much to cover. Or, nobody is interested. Or the media outlets that should cover it don't want to. Not enough clicks on line? Too expensive to cover?  Or maybe we, me, haven't been paying enough attention.

In any event,  I've barely heard about it. There is some coverage from outlets like NBC, like you'll see below. 

Video:

NBC News report from when the confirmed death toll was 60. It gives you a sense of the breadth of this flooding. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

 

Drought Update Still Grim, But Wednesday Rain Over-Performed In Parts Of Vermont, Rain Turns Light

Drought conditions improved just slightly in 
northwestern Vermont, but stayed the same
elsewhere despite Monday's rain
Moderate drought is light orange, severe
drought is dark orange and extreme
drought is depicted in red. 

I'm not surprised, but in the past week, the drought in Vermont has barely improved, despite some heavy rain earlier this week. 

The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report comes out every Thursday, and it's hot off the presses as I write this. 

As expected, rain fell Wednesday in Vermont, but that wasn't considered in the drought report. It used data through Tuesday. If Wednesday's rain had any effect, we'll see it in next week's report.  

This morning's new Drought Monitor shows northwestern Vermont improving somewhat, but little change elsewhere in the Green Mountain State. That makes sense, given that some of the heaviest rain on Monday fell on the central and northern Champlain Valley. 

Western Chittenden and Franklin counties improved from severe drought and are now considered to be in moderate drought. That's good, I guess.

Eastern parts of those counties, along with western Lamoille County "improved" from extreme drought to a mere severe drought. 

Elsewhere in Vermont, there was no change in drought conditions from the previous week. 

Bottom line: Things are still really, really bad.  It's good that things improved a little in parts of Vermont, but this morning's report confirms that we really, really need a bunch of super wet storms to get out of this mess. 

I guess we can count Vermont as lucky. For the Northeast region as a whole, drought conditions worsened and expanded a bit since last week. 

In New Hampshire, the drought was exactly as bad this week as it was the prior week. In Maine, the drought intensified, especially up in the northern part of that state. In New York, drought more or less held steady. 

WEDNESDAY RAIN

Storm clouds looming over lingering fall foliage 
Wednesday in St. Albans, Vermont. Heavy 
downpours once again blessed northwest
Vermont, but rain was lighter elsewhere in the state,

Wednesday's rain probably helped with the drought, at least in northwest Vermont, which as noted has already improved a little. Especially in the Champlain Valley, the rain really over-performed, dumping much more precipitation than expected. 

That was due to a band of heavy showers, followed by another band of thunderstorms that moved northward up the Champlain Valley. 

These storms had some oomph to them. Pea sized hail accompanied some of them. In Jericho and a few other places, the hail was heavy, piling up on decks and lawns. 

More importantly, the rainfall was notably heavy. 

Here in St. Albans, 1.1 inches of rain poured down on Wednesday. We've had four inches of rain within three days, a bit more than what normally falls in the entire month of October. I took Henry the Weather Dog to the dog park after the rain yesterday, and he was very unimpressed and annoyed by how swampy the park was. 

Us humans, on the other hand, rejoiced in the dent all this rain put in the drought. 

Burlington had 0.79 inches of rain Wednesday, far more than the third of an inch or so that had been forecast. Total rainfall this month in Burlington is 4.13 inches, actually a bit above normal for the entire month of October.

That's great to see.

Elsewhere in Vermont, rainfall Wednesday wasn't nearly as heavy. But many places got a little bit more than forecast. Montpelier, St. Johnsbury and Rutland, for instance, each received right around 0.4 inches. 

Not huge, but not bad. 

OUTLOOK

The rain machine is largely shutting off now, but things won't dry out quickly like they did right after what ever rains we did manage to see in August, September and early October. 

Today will be the "wettest" day of the forecast period. Showers will be pretty frequent, especially north and mountains and especially this afternoon. Unlike yesterday, there's no atmospheric energy to promote downpours. Instead, we expect basically irksome, light, chilly showers. 

Rainfall totals today will be around a tenth of an inch or less, except maybe a little more in the central and northern Green Mountains. 

Over the next several days, we can expect typical late October/early November weather. That means partly to mostly cloudy skies in general, cool temperatures and a frequent chance of inconsequential sprinkles. 

Those will be mostly in the mountains. Higher up, those sprinkles will take the form of snowflakes. 

A parade of super dry, huge high pressure systems that have been stalling near us since August to intensity the drought. That's happening again, but this time, it's setting up a little further north in Quebec than previous dry highs, so at least we'll get a few clouds and sprinkles as a result. 

We still desperately need a series of very wet storms. In the near future, nothing's coming. The next shot we have at a decent rain would possibly be around Halloween. 

Us Vermonters generally dread a gloomy, soggy November, but this year, I'm all in. 

Mosquitoes In Iceland? Climate Change Adds Bugs To "Cold" Nation

Thanks to a warming planet, mosquitoes have been
found for the first time in Iceland. The bugs, and
the diseases they carry, have been heading into 
colder areas largely because of climate change. 

 Mosquitoes have invaded Iceland. 

The cold island in the North Atlantic was considered too nippy for mosquitoes to take hold. 

But thanks to climate change, it's toasty enough in Iceland for those nasty little buggers. 

Per ABC News:

"The disease-carrying insects twas first spotted by insect enthusiast Bjorn Hjalstason, who posed to Facebook group 'insects in Iceland' about a 'strange fly' he spotted on Oct. 16."

Since then, three mosquitoes, two females, one male, have been caught in Iceland. 

ABC News again: 

"The mosquitoes are Culiseta annulata, a cold-tolerant species that live in the Palearctic region, which includes northern Africa, Europe and Asia north of the Himalayas, according to the National Institutes of Health."

It's the most common mosquito in the UK, and has been found in Canada and the northern United States. 

Until recently, Iceland was too cold for mosquitoes. They breed in warm, stagnant water, like in buckets, drainage ditches, flower pots and discarded tires. 

In the good old days, standing water in Iceland was too cold for mosquitoes. But thanks to climate change, not anymore. A mosquito "dumb" enough to find itself in Iceland is no longer guaranteed an immediate, frigid death. 

Or at least its offspring might survive. They'll survive in basements and barns and other protected places around Iceland. 

Pretty much the whole world is warming due to climate change. Iceland is warming at a rate four times faster than the rest of the northern hemisphere.

This year, Iceland had a long, hot summer, at least by their standards. It started early, with a May heat wave bringing Icelandic temperatures to as high as 80 degrees, which was by far unprecedented for that time of year. 

The early start of this year's Iceland summer might have helped mosquitoes gain a foothold. 

MOSQUITO DISEASES HEAD NORTH

Meanwhile, places that already have mosquitoes are finding that diseases spread by these bugs are also spreading north, thanks to climate change.  For the first time, mosquitoes in the UK had the West Nile virus, which in rare cases can cause severe illness or even death in humans. 

Experts also said mosquito-borne disease like dengue and chikungunya could become endemic in Europe soon as the continent warms. 

A type of insect called the tiger mosquito is moving north into Europe as the area becomes toasty enough to allow the mosquito to survive.  Dengue outbreaks have already hit Italy, Croatia, France and Spain. 

Here in the United States, the tiger mosquito (the one that spreads dengue) is on the move north in tune with climate change. They've been spotted as far north as southern New England.

As they move north, subsequent generations of this mosquito evolve to survive slightly lower temperatures. 

That makes them more likely to stick around. 

Because of climate change here in Vermont, we're getting warmer and wetter, the drought this summer and autumn notwithstanding. The hotter and soggier it gets, the more mosquitoes thrive. So if those bugs bother you every summer, they're going to bother you even more, and for a greater portion of the year as time goes by. 

 

Some More Showers, Even Thunder Today, Adding To Needed Vermont Rains

After the rains in my back yard, St. Albans, Vermont 
on Tuesday. Got out there between the the rainfall
Monday and today to get a little fall cleanup done
Was nice to be in such beautiful surroundings. 

We have more rain in the Vermont forecast today, which is great for those of you, ( i.e. everybody)
who hates our deep northern New England drought. 

It won't be a huge dump of water, but any rain is good rain. 

The best rain was of course on Monday. Final rainfall totals are in. 

The best rains were along and just west of the central and northern Green Mountains, and in the northern Champlain Valley.  Some of these totals were really impressive.

Nashville, which is a section of Jericho, Vermont was the big winner with 3.79 inches, though I did receive an unofficial report of 4.25 inches out of Georgia, Vermont. 

Other big totals included 3.55 inches in Warren; 3.44 inches in Chittenden; 3.17 inches in Underhill and 3.16 inches in Hancock.

It was nice to see rivers with actual water in them after that rain. 

TODAY

The amount of rain we'll see today won't come anywhere near what we saw Monday. The National Weather Service is going for maybe a tenth of an inch south of Route 9 near the Massachusetts border a quarter inch give or take between Route 9 and Route 2 and perhaps a third of an inch north of Route 2.

But that's broad brush. This is going to be a showery type thing, so some places will get extra rain, other places will miss out. Kind of like a summer cold front. 

Total rainfall from Monday's storm. Heaviest rain was
in the central and northern Green Mountains and
northern Champlain Valley. A few spots got more
than three inches of badly needed rain 

We even have a chance of a few thunderstorms mixed in. It's kind of a dynamic storm even if its moisture supply isn't huge. Since it's a little chilly, a few storms might feature a bit of small hail.

Don't worry, if you do see hail, it would be the size of peas, not Volkswagens. So nothing damaging or scary. 

We've already seen some brief downpours in northwestern Vermont a little after dawn today. It's a sign the bulk of today's action will be between now and mid afternoon. 

We'll see a lull late this afternoon through most of tomorrow morning. We'll only see widely scattered light showers.

Showers will pick up again tomorrow afternoon. They will be light, though. Just chilly and annoying. We'll be lucky to see another tenth of an inch of rain.  It'll be cold enough on the Green Mountain summits for a little snow.

DRY TIMES AGAIN?

Unfortunately, we are yet to fully escape the weather pattern that encouraged this drought. Since at least August we have repeatedly had huge honking high pressure systems stall over us or in Quebec. 

At first, on Friday and Saturday, it will stay generally cloudy, with maybe a sprinkle or mountain snow flurry or two. Then, nothing. 

These highs have featured super dry air. They also deflect any storms that want to come our way, and eat up any moisture that wants to drift up toward northern New England. 

We have yet another huge honking high that will set up shop over us and Quebec beginning Saturday. That'll keep us in Vermont dry for at least a week.

One cold front will try to approach us next Thursday but that high will probably make those go poof before they get here. Then the big honking high will get reinforced. So after the sprinkles this Friday or Saturday, expect no rain until at least November 1.

That's a full week without precipitation. We've had longer stretches. And since it's late fall, the sun won't dry us out as fast as it could in the summer and early autumn.

Plus, long range forecasts are somewhat encouraging, leaning toward above normal precipitation for at least a little while in early November. 

The drought will linger for a long time yet. But fingers crossed, I'm hoping the drought peaked last week.  Maybe we'll slowly improve. 

The newest weekly U.S. Drought Monitor comes out tomorrow. It will reflect conditions through yesterday. I'll provide an update once it's available 

Tropical Storm Melissa Forms In Caribbean; Future Track A Toss Up

The forecast track of a tropical storm or hurricane 
usually takes the form of a "cone of uncertainty."
The future track of Tropical Storm Melissa is
SO uncertain that the cone of uncertainty is a
circle, meaning it could go anywhere. 

 
was born this morning in the central Caribbean Sea, but where this storm will eventually end up is anybody's guess.

The disturbance that grew into Melissa had been rocketing westward across the Atlantic Ocean. It was moving so fast, it couldn't really develop into analyzing. 

Now, the storm's forward speed is slowing way down, so it has been able to grow into a tropical storm. As of 11 a.m. this morning top wind speeds were 50 mph.  

The National Hurricane Center alerts the public about a predicted path of a tropical storm or hurricane with something called a cone of uncertainty. 

It's called that because the graphic looks like a cone. The middle of the cone is where the official forecast is, but areas either side of the path are shaded in to reflect the possibility the storm could go to the left or right of its predicted path. 

Forecasters usually know where a tropical system is headed over the next 12 to 24 hours so the range of predicted paths is initially small. A few days out, there's more uncertainty, so the areas on a map shaded in where the system might go is wider. Hence the cone of uncertainty. 

I bring this up because today's "cone of uncertainty" for Melissa is essentially a circle. Which basically means it could go anywhere.  It's the weirdest cone of uncertainty I can remember with any tropical storm or hurricane. 

Steering winds in the atmosphere are weakening so it's hard to say which direction Melissa might go. That said, even though steering winds are weak,  there are fairly strong winds blowing the tops of Melissa's thunderstorms askew, so the storm might not strengthen all that fast. Plus, dry air might get injested into Melissa, which would also slow a strengthening trend. 

Satellite view of Tropical Storm Melissa shows it's kind of
a mess, as strong upper level winds are screwing
up the thunderstorms that power the storm. 

Whether Melissa grows into a hurricane also depends on where it goes. If it gets stuck over land, it would weaken, or at least not really strengthen. 

On the other hand, the Caribbean waters are at record warm levels for this time of year.  If it stays over the water, there's a chance this thing could get pretty strong. 

Super warm water is jet fuel for tropical systems, so if Melissa ends up growing into a pretty good size hurricane, I wouldn't be surprised.

Since Melissa will be moving so slowly, any island it nears will get incredible boatloads of rain. 

 Big flash floods and landslides are already in the forecast though this weekend in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. 

A hurricane watch is also in effect in parts of Haiti. Jamaica is under a tropical storm watch.  

It's going to take a few days to figure out where Melissa is headed and whether it would be a threat to the United States. If it does eventually make it to the U.S., the most likely state to be hit would be Florida. But even there, the chance looks reasonably low at this point. 

Glorious Rain Soaks Much Of Vermont, Slightly Denting Drought

One of a series of downpours approaching West Rutland,
Vermont Monday morning. This one even had sort of
a shelf cloud feature you'd see 
with a summer thunderstorm, 

One of the most beautiful sounds I've heard in ages came while I was watching "The Voice" last evening. 

Nope, it wasn't the talented singers on the TV screen. It was the roar of a heavy, long lasting downpour overhead on the roof of the house. 

We got a lot of rain, with a grand, unofficial total of 2.8 inches of rain here in St. Albans. 

Rainfall reports for Vermont were still sparse as I wrote this around 8 a.m. today. 

But it seems rainfall totals were impressive across all but far southern Vermont. Almost everyone along and north of Route 4 had at least an inch of rain.

 In the Green Mountains and in northwestern Vermont, it was closer to 1.5 to 2.5 inches of rain. There were spot reports of 3.5 inches. Plattsburgh, New York set a rainfall record for the date of 2.1 inches. 

Other totals include 1.60 inches in Burlington, 1.43 inches in Rutland, and 1.27 inches in Montpelier. 

If we were not in a deep drought, we might have even had some minor flooding this morning. 

The drought is so severe, though, that I'll bet the rain, as wonderful as it was, only put a small dent in the drought. We'll need several more storms this fall and winter to get us out of trouble with dry ground, empty wells and low water. 

Still, the rain had some immediate benefits. 

Satellite view of Monday's storm, taken around 4 p.m.
Judging by this image, I'd guess the center of the 
storm was about over Fair Haven, Vermont at the time.

A fire sparked by ammunition Sunday at the Ethan Allen Firing Range in Jericho is contained. Because of live ordnance, it's too dangerous to send firefighters in. But Monday's rain certainly helped.

Several wild and forest fires blew up in northern New York Sunday. The largest ones were in Plattsburgh, Hogansburg and Bloomingdale, New York, according to WPTZ . 

The fires were being brought under control Sunday night, but torrential rains in eastern New York Monday had to  have helped immensely. 

THE STORM

The storm system Monday was a best case scenario for all but southern Vermont. 

The center of circulation passed up through western Vermont. Ahead of the storm, a feed of deep Atlantic moisture swept northwestward into all but southwest Vermont. 

During the evening, what is known as a deformation zone formed mostly in northwest Vermont and northeast New York. The storm was generally heading slowly north, while moisture was wrapping around heading westward. 

This stretched the atmosphere in a sense, helping create rising air over the northern Champlain Valley. Rising air helps created rainfall, especially if a lot of moisture is already in the area. Which is why the rain was drumming so hard on my metal roof in St. Albans while I was watching TV last evening. 

It was interesting to watch the radar of the rainfall yesterday afternoon. By 4 p.m. the storm center was close to Rutland. Rain was moving southeast to northwest roughly along and north of Interstate 89.  South of Interstate 89, showers were traveling in the exact opposite direction, northwest to southeast.  

Around 8:30 last night, the rain let up for a little while here in St. Albans. The radar showed heavier rain swirling in a circle centered more or less on St. Albans,  meaning the storm was nearly overhead. 

Far southwest Vermont missed out on that initial moisture feed off the Atlantic. And places like Bennington were too far south to enjoy much rain from that deformation zone. So they only received 0.34 inches of rain. 

We hope the Bennington area gets hit with a storm soon, but there's no immediate sign of that. But Vermont is still in for a little bit more rain. 

UPCOMING

We don't have another drenching storm on the horizon to batter the drought even more. But it's going to rain again this week, so that'll help hold the bit of gain we got yesterday. 

A few light showers were lingering in northern Vermont this morning, but those should evaporate before noon.

Rainfall forecast now through early Friday. This is subject
to change, but right now we're looking at maybe a 
quarter inch additional rain in western Vermont 
with up to half an inch east. 

We'll see some sun behind our big soaker of a storm today and it will be mild-ish for this time of year, with highs reaching the low 60s

Enjoy today. because it's going to get chilly and damp. A slow, lumbering storm -much weaker than the one we just had, should spread frequent showers across Vermont tomorrow. 

This thing may even have enough energy to spit out a rumble or two of thunder. 

This thing will linger through Thursday night or Friday, so expect continued light showers to continue until then. 

Rainfall won't amount to much, but anything is still good at this point. Early guesses that between late tonight and Friday morning, western Vermont could see a quarter inch or so of rain with up to a half inch east. 

It still looks like mountain summits might get cold enough to see a little snow. It'll only accumulate near the tippy top of the highest peaks. So you won't have to worry about winter driving. But the mountain snow might get you thinking about, and putting yourself in the market for winter tires. 

It's coming sooner than you'd think.  

Coral And Antarctic Sea Ice Climate Change Tipping Points Underway?

Coral bleached out from exposure to too-hot water
If this goes on for too long, the coral dies. 
Coral reefs worldwide are now suffering
from big bleaching events. 

Scientist are eyeing coral reefs and Antarctic ice more than ever lately as the two wildly different parts of nature seem to be headed toward what is known as climate tipping points. 

Climate tipping points are defined as critical thresholds that, when exceeded, can create huge, irreversible changes in ecosystems. 

Recent studies have found that we are at, or about to reach two big climate tipping points. One in the tropics, one in the icy environment around Antarctica. 

All this is part of the second Global Tipping Points report from the University of Exeter's Global Systems Institute in England. The report examines some of the fundamental processes that support life on the planet and how close they are to suffering permanent damage. 

CORAL REEFS

In recent years, we've heard about coral bleaching, in which these organisms lose their colorful appearance and turn ghostly white and die, due to the water temperatures being too hot to support them. 

As climate change warms the oceans, these bleaching or diebacks are becoming more common. 

Now, according to CBS News:

"Scientists have determined that the 'tipping point' for coral reefs begins the global warming reaches 1.2 degrees Celsius, with somewhere between 70 and 90 percent of coral dying when that number climbs to 1.5 degrees. 

About 84 percent of the world's coral reefs had bleaching this year in the most intense event of its kind in history, according to the International Coral Reef Initiative."

Sure, coral reefs are pretty, but most of us won't get to see them. So if they die back, is it really a big deal? 

The answer is a loud yes. Coral reefs provide habitat for about 25 percent of all  underwater species. They also support the livelihoods of about a billion people. 

The past two years have been the warmest recorded on Earth. Though 2025 will be a tiny bit cooler than the previous two years, it won't be by much. With such intense warmth, coral reefs have reached their breaking point. 

ANTARCTIC ICE 

This chart shows pretty stable levels of ice
around Antarctica until around 2000. Then
it began to increase. But starting a
decade ago, the amount of ice began to
drop sharply. 

A paper in the journal Nature describes previously unnoted details of interrelated effects of abruptly melting ice. 

The study in the journal Nature stated: 

"A regime shift has reduced Antarctic sea ice extent far below its natural variability of past centuries, and in some respects its more abrupt, non-linear and potentially irreversable than Arctic sea ice loss." It also said.

 Evidence is emerging for rapid, interacting and sometimes self-perpetuating changes in the Antarctic environment. "

According to Reuters, the study gathered data from observations, ice cores, and ship logbooks to charge long-term changes in the area of sea ice, putting into context a rapid decline in recent years. 

That decline means a smaller ice sheet at the bottom of the world. Ice reflects the sun's heat back, to space, So less ice in and around Antarctica means more warmth is sucked in by the planet, making climate change that much worse. 

Reduced Antarctic ice  can shift ocean currents, which changes the distribution of krill, phytoplankton and other sources of nutrition for larger animals in the region, like emperor penguins. 

The amount of Antarctic ice remained pretty stable for at least the century ending around 2000, making life relatively predictable for the region's ecosystem.

Then. as the new century began,  the level of Antarctic ice began to increase, contrary to what you'd expect from climate change. Scientists suspect increased snowfall due to a warming world's ability to produce excess precipitation, in this case, snow, was partly responsible.

After that, suddenly, around a decade ago, the amount of Antarctic ice began to plummet rapidly. The amount of ice is now well below where it was during most of the 20th century. The decline so far shows no real sign of stopping or slowing down. 

The loss of coral reefs and the Antarctic ice situation are two examples of how one effect of climate change can have a snowball effect, making other aspects of a warming world worse, and also accelerate the rate of warming. 

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