Why Didn't The World Cool Down As Expected In 2024?

Earth was supposed a tiny bit cooler in 2024 than in
2023 but that ain't happening. Scientists are pondering
an apparent recent acceleration in the pace of
global warming. 

 Roughly at this time last year, I told you that 2023 would be the world's warmest year on record, due in large part to climate change, but 2024 would probably be slightly cooler.  

So much for that idea.

The final figures aren't in yet, but 2024 will certainly beat out last year as the world's warmest.

The Washington Post took a deep dive into what happened, and some scientists are worried we might have entered new, worse phase of climate change. But opinions are sharply divided on this idea.

 This year was supposed to be a tiny bit cooler than 2023 overall because an El Nino atmospheric and oceanic pattern ended. 

El Nino tends to boost global temperatures, so that El Nino teamed up with climate change to make 2023 especially torrid. 

One major factor is the oceans, which pretty much didn't cool off at all in 2024. That helped impart added warmth on land,

Scientists don't know whether this warmer ocean system is just a fluke that will correct itself in a few month or whether it's a still-poorly understood phenomenon that would make climate change even worse that thought.

Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, told WaPo that it's possible ocean temperatures could still crater in the next few months, and this whole year of hot oceans is just some weird natural variability. But, he added, "I think signs are certainly pointing toward fairly persistent warmth."

More often than not, the globe heating El Nino is followed by the world-cooling La Nina, an oceanic and atmospheric patter roughly the opposite of El Nino. But the expected La Nina phase, which should have been in full force by now, has sputtered.

Again, we don't know whether that's because of natural cycle or whether climate change is messing things up. 

Per WaPo:

"Whatever the mix of factors or how long they last, scientists say they lack of a clear explanation lowers their confidence that climate change will follow the established pattern that models have predicted.

'We can't real out eventually much bigger changes,' Hausfather said. 'The more we research climate change, the more we learn that uncertainty isn't our friend.'"

There's one major additional factor explaining the unexpected heat of 2023 and 2024 that scientists are paying close attention to: Clouds, Or rather the lack thereof .

New scientific research reveals that Earth has gotten less cloudy than it once was. Especially in the last couple of years. Fewer clouds, more solar radiation, more heat for you and me.

Once again, this question arises: Is the lack of cloud cover just a weird blip that will go away? Or is climate change evaporating some of Earth's clouds. If it's the latter, then climate change will continue to accelerate faster than most scientists expect. 

Or there's a third possibility, as NBC News reports. New pollution control in recent years means far less sulfur emissions from ships. Scientists has previous said that these new pollution controls did reduce particles in the atmosphere, which had a very minor warming effect the atmosphere. 

Now, says NBC and numerous other news outlets,  the lack of sulfur particles in the atmosphere is reducing the amount of low cloud cover over the oceans. That cloud cover help prevent the oceans from warming too fast. With some of those clouds gone, perhaps the ocean is now able to heat up faster. 

Which in turn could produce warmer, and sometimes wetter air currents making landfall on continents and extending well inland. 

In any event, the expected cooling after El Nino ended hasn't materialized. If that trend continues, the next El Nino could really make the hot global years of 2023 and 2024 seem downright chilly.

 

May 18, 2023 In Vermont: Winter. May 18, 2024 In Vermont: Summer. Then What?

Brown, ruined blossoms after the devastating
Vermont freeze on May 18, 2023.

 Exactly one year ago today, May 18, we were waking up to icy carnage in the gardens and the orchards.  

After an early, warm spring, temperatures fell to record lows. Most of us were well down into the 20s. A few places were in the teens.

Blooming apple orchards, vineyards, strawberry patches, gardens and even whole trees were decimated by the freeze. It was officially an agricultural disaster.

The freeze was the opening salvo in what turned out to be a summer of misery. After a brief late spring drought, clouds and humidity set siege for the rest of the summer. That wet air allowed frequent, torrential downpours which led to some of the most destructive flooding in Vermont history. 

By contrast, this morning, after a sort of warm spring, temperatures at dawn were on the warm side for the season. Most of us were in the 50s to low 60s, pretty far from the freezing mark. And we're in for a true summery stretch of weather. 

The contrast between the two years began in earnest May 17. 

On May 17, 2023, high temperatures in Vermont  never got out of the 40s, and snow flurries blew around in the chilly pre-freeze wind. Burlington managed a high temperature of just 48 degrees, a bit cooler than the average low for this time of year. Montpelier had  high of 42. 

On May 17, 2024, Burlington saw its first 80 degree reading of the season. The end of the day was punctuated by a small, brief, summer-like thunderstorms. Looking ahead, we have several more days during the upcoming week that should also reach into the 80s.   

By contrast, apple blossoms are doing just fine
in this frost-free May, 2024. 

I definitely hope the placid stretch of weather we're seeing this year is a precursor for a quiet summer. 

As of now, no super extreme temperatures are in the forecast, though expected temperatures in the mid-80s by Tuesday are awfully far above normal. (The record high on Tuesday is 92 degrees.)

At the moment, soil moisture seems neither particularly wet (except maybe in the Northeast Kingdom), nor excessively dry. 

Last year we went from drought in early June to floods by early July. 

We might see hints of wildfire smoke over the coming days and weeks from Canadian wildfires. But at least so far, no big dense smoke attacks seem to be in the offing, like they were on occasion from late May through July last year.

On a post I put out on May 4, I referred to the Goldilocks whether we'd been having - not too hot, cold, wet or dry. That Goldilocks trend has continued since then. 

I hope it continues for the rest of the summer, but who knows? Long range forecasts call for an oppressively hot, perhaps humid summer. I hope not. 

Wouldn't you just love to have just one standard, old fashioned Vermont summer for a change? You know, afternoons in the low 80s with minimal humidity, warm enough to hit the swimming hole, but  comfortable enough for a hike or garden work. 

How about some nice July starlit nights with lows down in the 50s? The kind where you leave your windows open and sleep comfortably in the cool fragrant summer air coming  into the house?

In this age of climate change, that might just be a pipe dream. Extremes are happening everywhere. Ask the folks down in Houston. Or flood-ravaged Brazil, Or heat wave-addled Asia. 

I just figure the other shoe will drop, and us Vermonters will suffer through something ranging from unpleasant to dangerous in the coming months. 

Maybe I'll be wrong. Maybe Goldilocks will bring us that idyllic comfortable summer, 

A guy can dream, right?

 

UN Says 2023 Global Heating Was "Red Alert" But Is the Message Too Doom And Gloom?

"Red Alert."

The UN's World Meteorological Organization called
climate change in 2023 a "red alert" but is dire
messaging the best way to encourage the public
to take action on climate change?

That's the conclusion of the World Meteorological Organization regarding the effects of climate change in 2023. 

The annual WMO Global Climate report is essentially the last word reviewing the crazy weather and climate events of 2023. 

 Records were smashed last year for the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,  land and water temperatures, and the melting of glaciers and sea ice. 

 "'Earth's issuing a distress call,' U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. 'The latest State of the Global Climate report shows a planet on the brink. Fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts.'"

 The Associate Press writes:

"WMO said the impacts of heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical cyclones, exacerbated by climate change, was felt in lives and livelihoods on every continent in 2023.

'This list of record-smashing events is truly distressing, though not a surprise given the steady drumbeat of extreme events over the past year, said University of Arizona climate scientist Kathy Jacobs, who also wasn't involved in the WMO report.

 'The full cost of climate change accelerated events across sectors and regions has never been calculated in a meaningful way, but the cost to biodiversity and to the quality of future generations is incalculable.'"

Other quick takeaways in the WMO report: 

--- Extreme weather is undermining socio-economic development around the world

--- The cost of climate inaction is higher than the cost of climate action

--- The increasing pace of transitions to renewable energy does provide hope. 

 The United Nations' goal of holding the extent of climate change to within 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average.  It's unclear whether that goal is even attainable. 

The 13 consecutive months through February averaged a bit more than that 1.5 degree threshold.  El Nino worked in concert with climate change to boost global temperatures to that level. 

As La Nina takes hold as expected later this year, the world will probably cool a tiny bit to a level below that 1.5 degrees. So it's not yet a permanent change. But at the pace we're switching to renewables, it looks like we'll blow past UN goal within a couple decades - so much for that idea

GLOOM/DOOM NOT HELPFUL?

The UN World Meteorological Organization report was released with a serious gloom and doom vibe, but was that really a good idea?   

According to Resilience.org, not really. 

"It turns out that critics are right to worry that doom and gloom can demoralize the public into inaction. We found that this strategy had no effect on policy support or climate beliefs. 

And doom and gloom even backfired when it came to more effortful behavior. When faced with the enormous stakes of the climate crisis, personal actions - and perhaps even policy change  - can seem futile. People withdraw or disengage." 

Doom and gloom messaging is great for social media clicks, the research shows, but not for motivating people.  

Potential audiences and societies in general are complex, so there's no one way to communicate about climate change and what people can do about it.  Different people responded differently to a variety of climate messages. The response varies country to country. 

Resilience.org continues:  "Sadly, we did not find a silver bullet for spurring climate action. But our research found several messages that moved the needle on climate change beliefs and actions. We suspect that similar lessons apply to other issues, from strengthening democracy to public health. In fact, we were recently part of a similar project designed to reduce affective polarization and found that several messages either didn't work or backfired. " 

However, framing messaging through a moral or ethical lens seems to be the most effective. 

The Official Numbers Are In And 2023 Was The World's Hottest Year By An Insane Margin

  Shades of red on this map are areas that were warmer
than the long term average for Earth. Dark reds are 
near record warms. Blue is colder than the long
term average, but as you can see, there's not much.

 The receipts are pretty much all in for the world's climate in 2023, and to nobody's surprise, it was the hottest year on record. 

NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information released their 2023 global climate report Friday, and the numbers are pretty shocking.

The world's overall temperature was 2.43 degrees above the pre-industrial average as measured between 1850 and 1900.  This exceeding the old 2016 hottest year record by 0.27 degrees. 

"After seeing the 2023 climate analysis, I have to pause and say that the findings are astounding.....Not only was 2023 the warmest year in NOAA's 174-year climate record, it was the warmest by far," said NOAA Chief Scientist Dr. Sarah Kapnick. 

 Breaking the world hottest year record by barely a quarter degree might not seem like much. But exceeding a record hot year for the whole globe by that margin is insanely huge. 

The top 10 hottest years on record for Earth were each of the past ten years - 2014 to 2023.  Bit of a trend there, huh?

NOAA's data indicates the hottest places on Earth in 2023 - relative to average anyway - were the Arctic, Canada, the northern tier of the United States, much of the North Atlantic, central Asia and the eastern tropical Pacific.

If you were looking for places that were cool relative to average last year, good luck. The only places that came in sort of on the chilly side were eastern and western Antartica, some of the ocean areas west of Antarctica and southern Greenland, for a change.

Other agencies that take Earth's temperature were completely on board with NOAA's assessment. 

The first major set of global data came in on Tuesday (January 9) from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which is Europe's top climate agency.  Along with agreeing that 2023 was by far the hottest year on record, they also noted it was the first year on record that all 265 days of the year were at least 1 degree Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial average. Almost half of 2023's days were 1.5 degrees Celsius on the warm side. 

WHY SO HOT?

NASA scientists said they were wowed by the fact that every month in 2023 starting in June broke the record for world's hottest month. Sure, El Nino influenced it, but the effects of El Nino on global temperatures are expected to peak in the late winter and early spring. 

El Nino is a periodic warming of the eastern Pacific ocean that tends to lead to higher global temperatures. 

Trend line in global temperatures compared to the
long term average. 2023 was by far the 
warmest of them all. Click on this image 
to make it bigger and easier to see.

Climatologists are scratching their heads. They knew 2023 would be warm, especially as El Nino developed. 

They're usually pretty good about predicting by how much an upcoming year will be different from normal. But 2023 was way warmer than anybody expected. Nobody is 100 percent sure why. 

It could be just a fluke. There's always been hotter than normal years, even before climate change became a thing. Maybe it was just destined to be a hot year then El Nino and climate change just made things insane.

Maybe it's new regulations that reduce aerosol pollution in the air. That could have let more sun through, baking the planet further. But many climate scientists doubt that had much of an effect.

In January, 2022,  the Hunga Tonga volcano in the South Pacific blew up spectacularly, sending an unprecedented amount of water vapor high into the stratosphere. The water up there could be having a slight warming effect on the Earth. But the volcano also sent ash particles high up into the atmosphere. Those ash particles from volcanos typically cool the Earth a little. 

Not only was the Earth's air the hottest on record in 2023. So were the oceans.

OTHER HEAT WEIRDNESS

The rate of increase in ocean temperatures was slower than the previous two years. But that's not exactly a positive size. El Nino transfers heat from the oceans below the surface to the air. That's why the world generally experiences hotter years during an El Nino.

El Nino and climate change worked in concert to make 2023 so much warmer than any previous hot year. El Nino boosts the world's temperature.  So does climate change. It was a double whammy in 2023

A lot of record hot individual days hit different parts of the world in 2023, too. A total of 21 nations or territories had their all-time hottest temperatures on record.

Three nations or territories did manage to have their coldest day on record. That's an example of how climate change can be described as global weirding. For the most part, we're warming up, but we're also seeing larger extremes. 

Which means record cold waves are now less likely than they used to be, but they're also not impossible. 

The best way to blunt further effects from climate change is to sharply reduce the amount of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane from reaching the atmosphere. 

We didn't exactly do a great job with that, says Yale Climate Connections:

"The two main human-emitted heat trapping gases - carbon dioxide and methane - both reached all time highs in 2023, with the methane growth rate hitting the highest level on record. Although CO2 concentrations have hit a new high each year for decades the increase in methane has been more irregular: There was an unexpected leveling off in the 2000s, followed bay a sharp increase in the 2010s and 2020s"

LOOKING AHEAD

Already, the predictions are grim for 2024. NCEI says there's a one in three chance that this year will break the hottest year mark set in 2023. They give 2024 a 99 percent chance of scoring in the top five hottest. 

There will be a few years in the immediate future that end up being slightly cooler than 2023, but not many of them. 

The record global heat of 2023 reminds me of 1998. when a strong El Nino and earlier stages of climate change rocketed that year to become by a large margin the hottest year on record at the time. Now, 1998 is not even in the top 10 hot list anymore. 

Probably 20 years down the road, 2023 will seem like a quaintly chilly year for Planet Earth. The extreme weather effects we'll see at that point will make the current disasters seem like inconvenient weekend downpours. 

You thought the weather extremes over past year in Vermont and much of the rest of the world were way too much. 

You ain't see nothin' yet.  

Hot USA In 2023 As Last Year's Final Climate Change Figures Keep Trickling In

National ranking by state of 2023 temperatures
compared to the past 129 years. Red states had their
hottest year on record in 2023. Dark orange states 
were much warmer than normal. 

The number crunchers are still working through the climate data for the hot year of 2023 - widely expected to be the world's hottest on record.  

One of the latest batches came out Tuesday, when we learned that the Lower 48 of the United States had its fifth hottest year on record. 

Six states - Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi,  New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Texas - had their warmest years on record. 

Vermont was among five states that had their second warmest year, though as reported earlier, the National Weather Service office in South Burlington had its hottest year on record in 2023. 

No states had a cooler than average 2023. Only one state, that being Nevada, had a near normal temperature year. The rest of the Lower 48 was on the warm side. 

The 2023 national overall heat was given a year end boost when the Lower 48 had its warmest December on record. 

Seven states all in or adjacent to the Northern Plains, had their hottest December on record. Twelve states, including Vermont, had their second warmest December. All states were warmer than average. In the rankings of the past 129 years, Florida had the "coolest" ranking. It was only the 88th warmest out of 129 years in the Sunshine State. 

The nation as a whole had a near-normal amount of precipitation in December. The Rockies and parts of the Gulf Coast and Mid-South were on the dry side, but the Upper Midwest and especially the East Coast were sodden in December. 

Minnesota, New Jersey and Delaware had their wettest December.  Here in Vermont we had our fifth wettest December. 

This is just a little bit of data. More important information on how the whole world did in 2023 is coming in - a new batch just arrived Friday.  I will of course update this as soon as we can. (Wind storm news is putting me a little behind schedule, but oh well)

As A Likely New $1+ Billion Disaster Hits, U.S. Recovering From 28 Billion Dollar Disasters From 2023

A man makes his way through floodwaters surrounding a 
house in Richmond, Vermont on July 11, 2023. This
summer's floods in the Green Mountain State was
part of one of 28 weather and climate disasters
in the U.S. that cost at least $1 billion. 

The storm that pummeled the East Coast this week will very likely cause over $1 billion in damage.

It will be the first of probably many billion dollar disasters in 2024, at least if trends in recent years continue. 

In 2023, the United States endured 28 weather and  climate disaster, each of which caused at least $1 billion in damage, the National Centers for Environmental Information said Tuesday. 

The disasters included one drought, four floods, 10 severe storm events, one wildfire and one winter storm. 

The upward trend in such mega disasters in recent years is worrying. Says NCEI: "The 1980-2023 annual average is 8.5 events (CPI-adjusted); the annual average for the most recent five years (2019-202) is 20.4 events (CPI-adjusted)."

If there was a bright side, the big U.S. weather and climate disasters in 2023 were less expensive than in recent years, but still well above the average since 1980. Again, all these figures are inflation-adjusted. 

The 28 disasters billion dollar disasters in 2023 cost $92.9 billion, which makes it the ninth most expensive year since 1980. But that's still more than the inflation adjusted average since 1980, which is $60.5 billion

But 2023's financial tally was less than in either 2022 or 2021.  The big disasters of 2022 cost $178.7 billion. In 2021, the figure was $159.8 billion.

The most expensive year was 2017, with $383.7 billion in damage from the big weather and climate events.  That year included hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which made landfall in Texas and Florida, respectively, causing catastrophic damage. 

Here in Vermont, we participated - for lack of a better word -  in three of those disasters. One was the flooding and severe storms in the Northeast, especially Vermont, on July 9-15.  Another was the extensive Northeastern U.S. floods in December. The third was a sharp cold wave on Feb 3-4, which, frankly, caused little damage in the Green Mountain State. 

NCEI has data for Vermont specifically. It basically shows that we're tied with 2011 as the most expensive weather year on record in Vermont. However, I don't see evidence they included the December, 2023 floods in the data, so it appears this year is worse. 

I'm pretty sure I've said this before but it's worth repeating. This big huge increase in expensive weather disasters is in large part due to climate change, but it's definitely not the whole story.

Storms are in general getting bigger, stronger, more intense and destructive than they used to be thanks to climate change. There's no question about that. 

We also continue to put ourselves in harms way, which probably explains much of the spiraling costs of these weather and climate disasters.  I think human are hard-wired to prefer living near water. Makes sense from an evolutionary stand point. We need water to survive, obviously. 

And we locate ourselves near oceans, which are obvious ways to navigate, to trade, to encourage commerce, all that. 

Beach front homes and condos,  vacation property along rivers and lakes and waterfront businesses that keep popping up are all prone to big floods and storm surges. Now more than ever.  You'll notice some of the most expensive disasters in recent years have been hurricanes and floods. 

I suspect municipalities don't really want to discourage building in such disaster-prone areas because they don't want to forfeit the tax revenue. It's short term thinking without considering long term losses.

So, as climate change intensifies and we keep building and rebuilding in flood prone areas, many of these disasters will keep happening, and escalating. 

 

2023 Was Quite A Year Of Weather Extremes In Vermont

Floodwaters pour over a dam along the Winooski River
in Essex Junction, Vermont on July 11 during the
state's extreme summer floods. 

Well, that was something. 

The year 2023 was really a bit much for Vermont in the weather department, wasn't it?  

If I had to go back through history, before 2023, I would spitball and say 1998 and 2011 were two of the most whacked out years for weather extremes in Vermont. I'd say 2023 is definitely on par with those two severe years.

I'm struck by the diversity of weather extremes we did have in 2023.  Most involved heat and rain, but there was a couple notable cold spells thrown in there as well. 

The elephant in the room is of course the extreme floods of July 10 and 11. I'd put that event easily in the top five list of worst floods in the modern era. The flooding and subsequent downpours brought July's total rainfall in hard-hit Montpelier to 12.06, its wettest month on record. 

I'm not even going to get into the July 10-11 flood here. I could go on all day about that. The National Weather Service in South Burlington has a great review of it, so I'll let them have the fun with that. 

Beyond that, there were so many big weather events in 2023 that I'm sure to miss a few of them. But, excluding July 10-11 here is a review of Vermont's top weather events of 2023:

 Intense Cold Feb-3-4

A brief New England arctic outbreak hit during an otherwise very warm winter. Boston had a record low of 10 below, its coldest temperature since 1957. The summit of Mount Washington had a record low 47 below and a record low wind chill of minus 108 degrees.  

Intense cold stirred up steam devils on Lake Champlain 
on February 3, as seen from South Burlington. 

Here in Vermont, temperatures during the afternoon and evening of February 3 dropped into the teens and 20s below zero, with wind chills in the 30s and 40s below. 

The bitter air over the still open waters of Lake Champlain produced many steam devils and some waterspouts. 

Less than two weeks after the arctic blast, record warmth returned to Vermont. 

Extreme Heat, April 13-15

New England, including Vermont had unprecedented mid-April heat, with temperatures reaching 90 degrees as far north as the southeastern corner of Vermont. Burlington reached 88 degrees on April 13 by far the earliest in the season it has gotten so hot. Another record high of 85 was set on April 15.

The early heat prompted plants and crops to grow much earlier than normal, helping lead to the next big event. 

Hard Freeze/Agricultural Disaster May 18. 

A brief, record cold snap hit on May 18, causing a severe agricultural disaster in Vermont. Burlington hit a record low of 29 degrees for the date. An unconfirmed report of 14 degrees came in from Enosburg  Falls. Confirmed lows include 17 in North Troy, 20 degrees in Lyndonville and 21 degrees in South Lincoln and Waitsfield. 

Southern Vermont also got into the mid-20s.  Some apple orchards lost almost their entire crop. There was extensive damage to vineyards, along with fruit crops such as strawberries. Vermont was declared an agricultural disaster area. 

Early June Heat.

Burlington reached 96 degrees on June 1, the hottest for so early in the season. Dry, hot conditions raised fears of a flash drought developing. But by the end of the month, we were building up toward our  eventual flood disasters. 

Thick smoke from Canadian wildfires reduces visibility
in South Hero, Vermont on June 25. 

June 25 Smoke Attack

The worst in a summer long barrage of smoky, polluted air hit Vermont all caused by Canadian wildfires, reduced visibilities to two miles or less and prompted health alerts.  Air quality in Vermont was listed as "very unhealthful." Similar conditions hit earlier in the month around June 5-6.

July 7 Precursor Flood 

Torrential and severe thunderstorms swept much of Vermont on July 7, helping soak the ground and set the stage for the July 10-11 disaster.

Damage on July 7 was extensive enough. A large mudslide closed Route 4 in Killington and caused damage to homes and businesses along the slopes of the Green Mountains in Killington and surrounding towns. 

Other flood and storm damage was reported in Washington County. 

A microburst over Lake Champlain during a severe
weather and flash flood outbreak on July 13. 

July 13 and 16 Worsen Vermont Damage

Within a couple day so Vermont's devastating flood, more damaging storms swept into the Green Mountain State.

The new round of storms on July 13 caused flash flooding in Orwell, Castleton, Belmont and South Lincoln, among other places. 

Several roads, like Routes 30, 73 and 22A in southwestern Vermont went underwater. Orwell had 2.1 inches of rain in just 75 minutes. 

A relatively weak, but long-tracked tornado touched down in Benson, with top winds of 85 mph and a 13-mile track. Flooded roads hampered National Weather Service meteorologists as they tried to investigate the storm's aftermath. 

Torrential rains on July 16 caused additional signficant flood damage in the Northeast Kingdom and in eastern Chittenden County. Additional flooding hit eastern Franklin County on July 21.

Another Round Of Flooding August 3-4

Yet another episode of severe flooding hit some sections of Vermont on these dates. Drenching thunderstorms on the evening of August 3 caused severe flash floods in and near Middlebury, Vermont. The flooding blocked parts of Route 7, 116 and 125 in Addison County, and caused serious damage to some homes and business. A car was swept away in the flooding, but its occupants were rescued. 

The Middlebury Police Department was temporarily evacuated due to flooding. 

On August 4, Rutland was hit by flash flooding, forcing the evacuation of residents in several neighborhoods. Springfield also reported home and business damage from flooding that day. 

Thunderstorms at sunset cast an eerie glow on northwestern
Vermont at the tail end of a record early September heat wave.

Sept 4-8, Record Heat, Storms 

A late season heat wave hit Vermont, bringing temperatures in the state to or above 90 degrees for three or four consecutive days, depending on location. Burlington hit a record 92 on September 6. 

Severe thunderstorms caused scattered damage in northern Vermont on September 7 and in southern Vermont on September 8. 

Spectacular October Heat 

All-time record highs for the entire month of October were set on the 4th of that month. Burlington's record was 86 degrees, besting the old record of 85 in 1947 and 1949.  It was one of three consecutive days in Burlington with record highs. Montpelier tied its October record of 84 degrees.

Wet October

Burlington had a rare October with two calendar days having more than two inches of rain - on the 7th and 21st. The month's total was 6.41 inches, the third wettest on record. Luckily, this time, the flooding from the heavy rains was pretty minor. 

Surprise November Storm 

What had been expected to be a rainstorm mixed with wet snow turned out to primarily wet snow in many mid and upper elevations of Vermont. The result was lots of tree and power line damage, cutting power to more than 34,000 Vermont homes and businesses. 

December 18-19 Flood

As the end of the year drew near, another destructive flood hit Vermont. The Winooski and Lamoille rivers went into major flood stage, and communities like Barre and Cambridge were hit hard again. The Mad River Valley, largely spared in July, had significant damage. 2 to 4 inches of rain, record high temperatures and rapid mountain snowmelt led to this disaster. 

And now it's 2024.  I always like to see interesting weather, but I think we can all agree 2023 was a little too interesting. Let's hope for a calmer New Year! 

 . 

 

2023 Was Hottest Year On Record In Burlington, Vermont. One Of The Wettest, Too `

Spectators watch near record flood waters in the Winooski
River blast past Winooski on July 11, 2023. Not only did 
the past year bring lots of extreme weather to Vermont,
it also turned out to be the hottest year on 
record, at least as measured in Burlington. 

 It's official. 

For the first time since they started keeping track of these things back in the 1880s, Burlington, Vermont had its first year with an average temperature of 50 degrees.  

That beats the old record for hottest year, set in 2012, which came out to 49.9 degrees. 

Even more remarkably, this makes it the fourth year in a row that was among Burlington's top 10 record hottest years.  The years 1953 and 1898 are tied for the 10th warmest years in Burlington, but all of the top nine years have been since 1998, just a quarter century. 

By contrast, 1978 was the last  year to score in the top ten coldest, and that year barely made #10.

Climate change is really re-writing the weather history books in Vermont, as well as the rest of the planet. It's not just Burlington, after all. When the data is all in, it's widely expect that the entire globe will have had its hottest year on record in 2023.

In fact, some climatologists believe 2023 was the world's hottest year in the past 125,000 years.

Back here in Vermont, climatologists say that in general, Vermont's is not only getting hotter. It's becoming wetter through climate change, though that wettest will be interrupted by at times more serious drought. 

That trend bore out big time in 2023.  Burlington had its seventh wettest year on record, with 44.78 inches. This is despite largely missing out on the torrents of rain in July and the area experiencing a spring drought.   

The correlation with climate change and wetness in the Burlington weather records isn't as strong as it is with temperatures but it's there.   Six of Burlington's top 10 wettest years have happened since 1998, but only one of the top ten driest years happened in that time frame (2001, to be exact).

Over the course of 2023, Burlington saw daily record highs broken or tied on 10 days. That included the hottest temperature on record for all of October, with 86 degrees. Only one record low was hit, on May 18. 

Last year, I didn't think we'd have a fourth year in a row with a top 10 hottest temperature. Although I've been proven wrong this year, I do wonder if 2024 will be among the hottest on record in Vermont. Maybe, but doubtful, though the world is expected to break 2023's mark for hottest year, or at least come close to it. 

Here in Vermont, if 2024 isn't another top 10 warmest year, it will very, very likely be warmer than normal. Even with climate change, it's still possible to have the occasional cooler than average year thrown in over the next few decades. But they'll be increasingly few and far between.

I also highly doubt we'll ever have another year that ends up in the list of top 10 coolest, unless something dramatic and unlikely happens, like a massive volcanic eruption on the scale or bigger than the 1815 Tambora eruption. That caused temporary cooling, and gave us in Vermont the famous "Year Without A Summer in 1816

Tomorrow, I'll have a review of some of the many weather extremes Vermont endured in 2023.

 

Chilly, Dry November In Vermont, But December Starting Warmer, Wetter

November was somewhat chilly and dry in Vermont with
plenty of showery or snow showery days with limited
sun, as this photo taken in St. Albans, Vermont
on November 19 hints at. Still this year is likely
to be among the warmest on record. 

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - I'm still here enjoying his gorgeous Scottish city, but also still keeping an eye on the weather back home in Vermont. 

Here in Edinburgh, it's quite cold and bright, unusual for this area. Temperatures never made it above freezing here yesterday, and the sky was sunny all (short) day.  

Hills outside of town are snow-covered, and some cars in downtown Edinburgh had snow on them yesterday. 

Normally daytime temperatures here in Edinburgh are in the low 40s.  Overcast skies are almost always a sure bet this time of year.  There's always a risk of seeing rain showers.  .

Which is what Burlington was like yesterday. I guess Vermont we swapped places with Scotland, in terms of weather. 

Looking back at the Vermont November, that month was also very much like early winter in Edinburgh. Video of the November weather moodiness is at the bottom of this post.  

November was a rare cool month in what has been a warm Vermont year. In most places around the Green Mountain State, it was about two degrees cooler than the "new" warmer climate change-driven average. November temperatures were close to average, or even a little above average, had this month happened half a century or so ago.

Still, in Burlington, November had its greatest departure below normal of any month this year - 2.1 degrees under the average of the years 1990 to 2020.

No days were super cold, though. By the end of November, it can often get into the single digits above or even below zero. But it never got below 18 degrees in Burlington during the month. Everyone else, except the coldest valleys also stayed in the teens or warmer all month.

We never got that warm during November in Vermont, either. The warmest day for most of us was in the low 60s. That's a far cry from the all time November highs we saw a year ago.  

November was on the dry side, too, with most of us running somewhere in the half inch or so shy of normal, give or take depending your location. Again, it was really nothing that out of the ordinary.

In fact, in a year that has brought Vermont some wild extremes, and some pretty big disaster, November, with one big exception was a pretty boring month in terms of weather.  I guess we needed the break.

That exception came on November 27, when unexpectedly heavy, wet snow cut power to around 34,000 homes and businesses. That was yet another big disaster of Vermont electric utilities that have suffered several such widespread outages in recent years. The same storm caused lots of travel trouble and highway crashes. 

Despite the relative chill of November, we are on track to have one of our warmest years on record, at least in Burlington,

If December turns out to be exactly average (remember, it's the new average that is warmer than in past decades) 2023 will end up being the second or third warmest year on record. Unless December is exceptionally cold, we'll easily have a top ten warmest year.

Remarkably, if this year ends up in the top 10 warmest list of years, it will be the fourth year in a row to make that rare list. Especially considering the Burlington records go back all the way to the 1880s. I wonder if there's something to this climate change thing everybody talks about?

As you can tell, December is off to a relatively warm start (In Vermont, not Edinburgh, obviously). As always, I don't generally trust long range forecast, but for the record, those longer range forecasts call for near to perhaps slightly warmer than average temperatures through mid-month. We shall see. 

Despite the relative chill here in Vermont, the world as a whole will probably have its warmest November on record. That would continue the trend we've seen for at least the past five months, as El Nino and climate change really turbo-charge global temperatures to new and dangerous heights. 

Video: The different cloudy moods of November in Vermont. Taken at various times in November, 2023 in northwestern Vermont. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

U.S. Has Already Had Seven $1B+ Weather Disasters This Year

So fart this year, the nation has suffered seven weather
disasters costing $1 billion or more. 

If you think you've seen a lot of weather disaster coverage in this blog thingy so far this year, you're right. 

According to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, the United States has seen seven weather disasters so far this year that each cost at least $1 billion.  That's a very fast pace of disasters for so early in the year. 

Five of the disasters were tornado and severe outbreaks in the South. Another was all those floods in California over the winter and early spring. 

The seventh one surprised me.  Remember that intense, but short cold wave in early February up here in New England and other parts of the Northeast? That one cost $1.6 billion, according to NCEI. 

I knew there was damage from that cold snap, considering high winds in parts of New England cut power, which led to frozen pipes and interior water damage in many homes. Apparently, there were some timber losses here and there in Maine and elsewhere too. The rapidly falling temperatures caused water in trees to abruptly freeze and expand, splitting some trees. 

The most expensive of the disasters was a rash of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms that hit wide areas of the Southern Plains, Southeast and Ohio Valley. The cost was $4.5 billion.

Another tornado outbreak on March 31-April 1 in the South and East cost $4.3 billion. Those California floods cost $3.6 billion.  

Yet another burst of storms less than a week later caused $2.2 billion in damage. Another $1 billion or so in damages came in a severe weather outbreak on April 15,  

A steam devil on Lake Champlain during the intense Arctic
outbreak in early February. That cold wave was one
of seven weather disasters costing $1 billion or more
so far this year. 

Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes tend to be the most frequent source of calamities costing $1 billion or more, On average, the U.S, sees three or four such events every year, notes the Weather Channel. 

It is worrying that we've already had five billion dollar tornado outbreaks, and the season is still fairly  young. We are in the peak of the season through this month into early June. 

Though severe weather is forecast in parts of the nation in the next few days, I don't think any of them will be super large scale.

But you never know what will happen later this month.

The pace of inflation-adjusted billion dollar weather disasters is increasing. We've had 60 such events in the past three years. 

Climate change might be one, but definitely not the only contributor to this trend. People are building and moving to vulnerable, storm-prone areas, which boost disaster costs. 

In parts of the Midwest and South, cities and suburbs continue to sprawl outward away from old downtowns, giving tornadoes many more targets to hit.  A century ago, if a tornado just missed, say, the middle of St. Louis, no biggie. It would just hit a minimal number of houses.

 Now, the same tornado would plow through suburbs packed with homes and businesses. 

 

With Another Weird Tornado Outbreak Just Ended, 2023 Off To A Very Bad Twister Start

Tornado damage Monday in Norman, Oklahoma. Photo
by Ray Banner, OU Daily 

A two-day outbreak of tornadoes in the U.S. Sunday and Monday continues a fast - and destructive - preview of our annual national spring tornado season.  

Wintertime tornadoes happen virtually every year. But this winter has been much worse than usual. 

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has so far tallied 191 preliminary reports of U.S. tornadoes through this morning.  That number might go up, as local National Weather  Service offices investigating possible tornadoes Sunday and Monday in Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. 

For comparison, last year through February we only had 48 tornadoes. 

Unfortunately, we've seen eight confirmed tornado deaths so far in 2023 A ninth death will likely be confirmed soon from one of Sunday's tornadoes in Oklahoma. 

The location of some of the tornadoes has been unusual as well. Oklahoma is known for its tornadoes, but they tend to happen in the Sooner State later in the spring and early summer. On Sunday, nine tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma. The previous record high number of February tornadoes there was six. 

Some of Sunday's Oklahoma tornadoes were quite strong, too. The fatal tornado near Cheyenne, Oklahoma swept a house entirely off its foundation and shredded it into small debris. Another tornado in Norman, Oklahoma injured 12 people and caused extensive damage in parts of the city. 

In a still from a video, debris flies
in front of a motorist in McCordsville,
Indiana from a possible tornado on
Monday. Photo via Twitter from 
Todd Klaassen

Earlier this month, on February, 21, a tornado struck in New Jersey.  It was only the third February tornado on record in that state. It was also the strongest winter tornado to hit New Jersey. 

On Monday, tornadoes were reported as far north as places west of Chicago.  At least one tornado from Monday was confirmed by investigators in Ohio on Tuesday,   making it the second time that state has seen a tornado this February. 

It's interesting that Oklahoma has been so busy with tornadoes this winter. They still see a lot of tornadoes in the spring and early summer, but over the past decades, the trend has been for somewhat fewer tornadoes in the Sooner State and more further east, along and east of the Mississippi River. 

The trouble isn't finished yet.  A potentially significant tornado outbreak appears as if could easily develop in the Gulf Coast states Thursday and Friday. 

It's impossible to tell whether the real tornado season will turn out to be horrible. The number of tornadoes in the U.S. usually begins to ramp up in March, continue to increase in April, then peak in May and early June. 

 I haven't seen a strong trend regarding what happens after a lot of January and February tornadoes. Some tornadic springs follow busy tornado winters. Others do not. It's really not possible to tell for sure in advance what will happen during the business spring severe weather season.  

As Winter Sets Back In For Now, A Remarkably Springlike February So Far

This week, my yard in St. Albans looked as it should
around April 1 after a very warm February so far. 

 As I write this late this morning, it''s awful outside my St. Albans, Vermont window.

All morning, we've had freezing drizzle, freezing rain, sleet and a little snow, and even a brief hail storm. 

However, until now, I have to stop and mention how remarkable this month has been so far. 

In Burlington, the snowfall this month as of yesterday was 0.4 inches. That's it. Not even  half an inch.  That's a full 11 inches below normal for this far into the month of February. Some more will come today, but it won't be a whopping amount. 

The least snow of any February in Burlington was 1.3 inches in 1957.  We do have several shots at receiving some snow before the end of the month, so I can't say that we'll set any record in that department. At least not yet.

So far this winter, Burlington had received just 37.7 inches of snow as of Thursday. That's a full 20 inches below normal for this point in the winter. 

We won't have a record low year for snow totals. That was set in the winter of 1912-13 with just 31.8 inches. We have an outside chance of scoring in the top 10 least snowy winters, though. In 10th place currently is 1937-38 with 45.1 inches. 

Also, despite the intense two-day cold wave on February 3 and 4, in which both days were roughly 20 degrees below normal, this February has turned out pretty warm so far.

As of yesterday, Burlington was running 6.5 degrees warmer than normal. 

Though we do have a couple mild days coming up Sunday and Monday, today's weather marks a general change for the rest of the month. It won't necessarily be frigid, but the balmy air we had the past couple of days is a thing of the past, at least for now. 

If you were enjoying the mild conditions, cheer up.  The normal daily temperature has started rise withy the increasing sun angle. 

The normal average temperature on February 1 was 20.5 degrees. Today, that average is 23.5. A month from now, on March 17, the normal average is 32.5. It's gradually going to get harder and harder to see any extremely cold, wintry temperatures. 

We're heading toward "real" spring but it might take awhile.

Video:

Scenes from a February that look completely like March, including melting snow, mud, March winds and brooks breaking through the winter ice. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Worldwide, January Was 7th Warmest On Record, Continuing Earth's Climate Change Trend

The numbers are in, and January was, globally among the top 10 warmest in history. 

As we report every month, January, 2023 was among
the  hottest in history. It came in at 7th hottest.
As you can see by this map, very few areas
were cooler than longtime averages. 

According to the NOAA's National Centers for Environmental information, January, 2023 was the seventh warmest out of the 174 years of NOAA records.  

With just one month clocked in for the year, NOAA has already determined there is more than a 99 percent chance that 2023 will rank among the ten warmest years on record. 

January, 2023 was the 47th consecutive January and 527th consecutive month with temperatures at least slightly above the 20th-century average.

So, as I like to do every time the NCEI monthly summary comes out, I'll point out that if your birthday is this month (February) and you are at or under 44 years of age, you've never seen a month on Earth that was cooler than the long term average.  

The warmest places relative to average were the Arctic, western Europe, the eastern continental United States, all but northeastern Canada, Alaska, and southern South America. 

Pretty much the only places in January that were cool relative to average, were northern Siberia, parts of southwestern Asia, Antarctica and sections of Greenland. 

Where the were cold waves, some of them were intense. As Yale Climate Connections reports, China reported its coldest temperature on record on January 22 with a temperature of minus 63.4.  It was a fairly brief cold wave, and most of China ended up having a slightly warmer than average January. 

Myanmar tied its all time coldest temperature on record at 21 below, 

For the month as a whole, 13 nations and territories - almost all of them in Europe - and their warmest Januaries on record, says Yale Climate Connections. (As I noted on February 14, seven of the United States, including Vermont had their hottest January on record).

No nations or territories reported a record cold January last month. 

At the Earth's poles, the news from January wasn't good. Despite some relatively below normal temperatures, sea ice extent around Antarctica was at a record low last month.  Arctic sea ice was the third lowest of the 45 years they've been keeping track of it. 

If you look at a trend map of global temperatures over the years, you'll see that temperatures reached a new peak at around 2016 and have stayed roughly at that level ever since. 

Climate change goes in fits and starts, so it's not surprising there are periods when the trend line in global warming varies.

We've been in an La Nina pattern for a few years now. A La Nina tends to cool the world a bit, and is a large reason why recent years have been among the top ten warmest, but not THE warmest. 

Still, each of the nine past years were in the top nine warmest, with 2022 placing at #6. 

La Nina is weakening now, though there is a months-long lag on how that will affect the world's temperatures. Many forecasts indicate we might flip to an El Nino pattern by this spring or early summer. 

El Ninos tend to warm the globe. Depending on how strong any upcoming El Nino is, we could easily see the world set a new record for hottest year in perhaps 2024 or 2025,

No Surprise, Vermont January, 2023 Was Among Hottest On Record

Early in the month, it was so warm in St. Albans, Vermont
that daffodil shoots were coming up. Photo taken on Jan. 5

 The numbers are in for the weather in January, 2023 are in and it was, indeed the hottest first month of the year in parts of Vermont. 

In the rest of the state, it was close to the warmest.  

Montpelier had its hottest January on record, with a mean temperature of 29.1 degrees. 

That shattered the old record of 27.3 degrees in 1990. Usually, in the rare instances when a weather station breaks a record for warmest month, it's by no more than a few tenths of a degree. That Montpelier broke the record by 1.8 degrees is really impressive.

It looks like St. Johnsbury also broke its record for warmest January. The mean temperature for 2023 came in at 28.8 degrees, higher than any other year in January. 

Montpelier and St. Johnsbury were among numerous cities in the Northeast, including Portland, Maine and New York City, that had their warmest Januaries on record. 

Burlington only came in at fourth in the list of warmest January, with an average temperature of 29.2 degrees. That's two degrees shy of the all time warmest January of 1906. 

I'm not sure on this, but I think several areas of Vermont had their highest minimum temperature on record for January. The coldest night in Burlington was 7 degrees. Montpelier's lowest reading was 8 degrees. Rutland's lowest temperature was 9 above.

January, 2023 was an especially gloomy month in Vermont,
with frequent bouts of low clouds, fog, drizzle and 
light, wet snow. Photo taken in St. Albans, Jan. 6.

Nights were especially warm in Burlington and elsewhere during January. The average low temperature was 23.6, which is the second highest mean temperature for low minimums. 

There was not much of a range in temperature between low and high temperatures most days. 

The difference between the high and low averages was 11.2 degrees. Usually this time of year that range between daily highs and lows is about 16 or 17 degrees.  

That lack of range between low and high temperatures reflects something you surely noticed.

It was incredibly cloudy in January. I would rate 26 days in Burlington and vicinity during January as overcast, or overcast with a very limited number of breaks. 

When it's cloudy, high temperatures are usually a little lower than you'd expect and low temperatures are a little warmer than they would be if was clear. 

All those clouds provided plenty of precipitation. Rain and melted snow amounted to 3.40 inches in Burlington. This fell just outside the top 10 list of wettest Januaries in Burlington. Number 10 on the list had 3.46 inches. 

By the end of the January, it was at least looking a lot
more wintry.  True winter weather didn't really hit, though,
until January 30, too late to prevent January, 2023
from becoming one of the warmest on record in Vermont.

Other areas of Vermont were pretty wet, too. St. Johnsbury had 4.07 inches of precipitation, against a normal of 2.68 inches for the month.

 Rutland, with 3.63 inches of precipitation, about an inch above normal. Montpelier was closer to normal with 2.49 inches, less than a quarter inch above normal.

After a nearly snow-free beginning, snowfall picked up, and most places ended up within the range of normal snowfall for the year. St. Johnsbury ended up with 20 inches of snow, which was actually 0.1 inches above normal.

Looking out to February, we know we're starting the month with intense Arctic cold, at least on Friday and Saturday. 

But overall, the outlook for the month is for above normal temperatures again. Do note that long range forecasts are iffy. So take the forecast for the entire month with a bit of a grain of salt. 

World In 2002 'Was 5th or 6th Hottest On Record, Depending On Who You Ask

Global trend in temperatures since 1880. See a trend?

Climatologists continue to crunch the numbers on the world's weather and climate for 2022, and it's becoming clear that the year was either the globe's fifth hottest or sixth hottest on record. 

On Thursday, NOAA ranked 2022 as the sixth hottest year on record. Meanwhile, other organizations, including NASA, Copernicus Climate Service of the European Union and Berkeley Earth, an environmental data science non-profit, said Earth had its fifth warmest year in 2022, the Washington Post reports. 

The difference in rankings stems from varying ways scientists measure the Earth's temperature. The differences between the two organizations are only at most a few hundredths of a degree.

According to NOAA' National Centers for Environmental Information, the new data means that all of the last nine years were the Earth's warmest on record and all the top 10 hottest years have occurred since 2010.  If you are under the age of 46, you have never seen a year on Earth that was cooler than the 20th century average. 

The latest count shows 28 nations set new records for warmest year in 2022. They're all over the place, too, not just one region. They include several European nations, China and New Zealand. 

Record breaking, deadly heat waves cropped up all over the world in 2022. Examples include India in March, Pakistan in April, much of western Europe and swaths of the United States, China an Japan in July and August and parts of South America in November and December.    

Additionally, 11 nations or territories broke or tied all time high temperatures. They are Paraguay, Australia, Uruguay, Vatican City, United Kingdom, Jersey, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Barbados, Dominica and the Falkland Islands. 

Extreme droughts and devastating floods hit many countries in 2022,with some nations, like Pakistan and the United States, suffering through both. Droughts and floods have always occurred, of course, but climate change accentuates them, making the disasters more intense than they otherwise would be. 

As the Washington Post reports: 

"Heat record fell last year despite the presence of La Nina, an episodic cooling of the ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific. The Earth's top several warmest years on record have occurred during El Nino events, when the tropical Pacific has been warm. La Nina is likely to fade this year, which could boost the planet's overall temperature and make weather around the world more extreme." 

The UK Met Office is already predicting that on a global basis, 2023 will be hotter than last year, since La Nina will be fading. If El Nino really takes charge, some scientists think 2024 might end up breaking the record for hottest year for Earth on record.