MAGA Denial Continues As Wildfires, Boosted By Climate Change, Ravage Northern Hemisphere

Horses flee a wildfire in Biscarrosse, France
recently. There was no time to evacuate them,
so the horses released so they could run away
on their own. Followup stories reported 
the horses were later found and retuirned
to their owners. 

While MAGA was complaining this month about wildfire smoke wafting across the border into the United States, blazes were breaking out all over the Northern Hemisphere in a relentless, climate changed summer. 

MAGA has been complaining about the wrong thing, obviously. Climate change, the problem that most in the MAGA world deny, is driving much of this fire trouble. 

And, while MAGA complains about Canada supposedly not managing its forests and driving smoke south across the border, the Trump administration has cut forest management funds and jobs in the United States.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Wildfires are a risk every summer and fall, with or without climate change. These days, many of the blazes are turbocharged by climate change. 

The warmer world is helping make fires worse. As I noted in a previous blog, Canada and other far northern areas area especially susceptible to climate change. 

The snow melts earlier in the spring than it once did, leaving more time for the vast boreal forests to dry out. Summertime heat waves up north often set record highs. Hot, dry weather dries things out further. 

When weather disturbance finally grace the Great, formerly White North, the heat helps increase atmospheric instability. So you get lightning strikes. That set new fires amid a landscape that doesn't receive adequate wetting from the scattered thunderstorms. 

Europe is burning, too. It's the world's fastest warming continent, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service. 

The extra hot summers Europe has seen in recent summers are certainly killing thousands of people across the continents. That's the biggest problem. But that hot weather is also drying out the continent's woodlands, forests and scrublands, leading to enormous fires, some of which are burning as I write this. 

Here in the United States, the western half of the nation endured a record hot, dry winter and early spring. According to World Weather Attribution, the heat, particularly the hot temperatures in March, would have been virtually impossible without climate change. 

That heat early this year set the stage for the deadly wildfires in places like Utah and Colorado in the late spring and early summer.  A hot, dry spring and summer also contributed to serious wildfires in northern Minnesota. 

The Minnesota fires might have been made more intense because of our MAGA president. As the Washington Post reports:

"Last year, the Trump administration delayed a $10 million grant that was supposed to help Minnesota thin out about 4,000 acres of dense, dry forest at high risk of burning. Most of that work ever got started, according to five people familiar with the situation and a document reviewed by the Washington Post. And now, some of those areas are on fire."

The project would have removed decades of dead trees and undergrowth, creating breaks that would stop advancing fires. The grant would have paid for fire prevention efforts along a key 36-mile gravel road.  One of the two dozen lightning-sparked fires burning since the beginning of the month jumped the road and threatened houses. 

Remember, Trump and MAGA complained that recent big fires were so destructive and smoky in California and Canada because they didn't "rake their forests" or whatever he was trying to say. 

So, Trump & Co. canceled money that would have literally raked Minnesota forests. 

Even worse, many in the West and elsewhere fear that the 6,000 permanent U.S. Forest Service staff lost to layoffs, buyouts and early retirements as the Trump people keep decimating critical government work. The Trumpsters also wants to move the agenda headquarters to Utah and consolidate or close dozens of research centers and regional offices. 

Dave Upthegrove, Washington state's elected public lands commissioner told NPR: "These layoffs at the federal level are presenting risk to our ability respond to major wildfires."

U.S. Forest Service said in June that they have reached or exceeded seasonal hiring goals for woodland firefighting this summer. 

We shall see. It might be hard to tell whether firefighting capability this summer is as robust as it could be, amid the noise of all the wildfires out there. In the United States and elsewhere. 

THE FIRES

As of this past Saturday, 932 wildfires were still burning on Canada.  Those fires were burning in a  huge band from Yukon and the Northwest Territories and through northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan  into most of Ontario and central Quebec. More recently, there's also been a burst of new fires in southern British Columbia. 

The British Columbian fires are extending into the new United States fire hot spot in Washington and Oregon.  

In Washington, the Kaiser Mountain Fire not far north of the Grand Coulee Dam has covered more than 100,000 acres. That one is likely the largest of dozens of fires burning in the state. 

Down in Oregon, 1,200 wildfires were burning on Oregon. Crews were arriving in Oregon fro as far away as New Zealand and Australia to help. 

In Colorado and Utah, monsoon rains have tamped down, but not eliminated the fires. A turn toward drier weather will almost immediately help the wildfires power up again. The monsoon downpours hit areas where wildfires stripped the landscape of trees and vegetation that held the soil together. The fires also cooked the soil, so water runs off instead of soaking in.

These factors have already created huge flash floods and debris flow. One debris flow caused widespread damage in and below Cottonwood Canyon, where a fire burned through earlier this summer. 

Europe

As of Saturday, at least 250,000 people had been evacuated in France and Spain because of the fires. That includes 70,000 people evacuated in central Spain. That was said to be the largest European evacuation since World War II. At least one death was reported in Manises, Spain. 

The fire around Madrid was described as the worst in that city's history. 

The city of Bordeaux, France appeared to be in serious trouble.   The wildfire was described as a "firestorm"  last Friday but had later calmed down somewhat Saturday. Still, the Associated Press description of the wildfire fight sounds like a war battle:

"....fire crews and authorities were digging trenches, using retardants and taking other blaze-blocking steps. French Interior Minister Laurent Nunex said,  predicting a 'long and very difficult' battle."

The final stage of the Tour de France was shortened as thick smoke hit the region, CNN reports. 

Temperatures in western Europe are forecast to climb again this week, heightening the risk of new fires, and possibly making existing fires worse. 

During mid-July a wildfire swept through a section of southern Norway, destroying more than 100 homes. 

Finally, in what should be damp Edinburgh, Scotland, the second wildfire in three months ravaged Arthur's Seat, a landmark extinct volcano that offers sweeping views of the city. The fire came somewhat close to housing for students at Edinburgh University, but no damage to those structures was reported. 

June Was World's Second Warmest As EL Nino Continues To Build

The world had its second warmest June on record this
year. With an El Nino looming, things could get
even hotter later this year. 

Continuing a trend started earlier this year, June ended up as the second warmest on record for the world, according to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. 

The world is just entering a strong El Nino, which is expected to supercharge climate warming. That could start another spate of record hottest months. 

April was the world's fourth warmest. March and May were second warmest. Now, June came in at second warmest. Will coming months be the warmest on record? There's a good chance that will happen.  

In any event, we don't need El Nino to bake the planet. It's been super toasty for the past decade, thanks to climate change. 

The ten warmest Junes have all hit since 2015. If you are under the age of 50, you've never seen a June in which the world's June temperatures were below the 20th century average. 

This June, as you'd expect, there were plenty of spots in the world that were especially warm. Those included northern Canada, western Europe, eastern Australia, much of Siberia, south central Asia. The eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean is especially hot, showing how El Nino has already strongly taken over. 

In western Europe, eight nations had their hottest temperatures on record. Not the June records. The all-time records. 

There's always a couple of pockets of cool weather, despite the overall global warmth.  For some reason, most of Antarctica was on the chilly side. We also saw a small pocket of cold air in north central Asia. It was also sort of nippy in northwest Alaska and in Montana, kind of. It was the 41st coldest June there, so not exactly frigid. 

Also, the cold blob that's been hanging around for years in the Atlantic Ocean south of Greenland and Iceland was still there. That's actually another sign of how climate change is messing with the world's weather and ocean systems. 

That Atlantic cold blob stems from extra fresh water entering the ocean from the melting Greenland ice cap. That's slowing the ocean currents that bring warmth to western Europe. 

The end of June brought us to the halfway point of the year. So far, this year is the third hottest out of the past 177 years of record. Only the first halves of 2024 and 2025 were hotter.  

NCEI says that there's a 95 percent chance that 2026 will rank among there four warmest years on record. But as Jeff Masters wrote in Yale Climate Connections, NCEI's data is designed to explicitly exclude El Nino or La Nina from that prediction. 

With El Nino now well into the picture, those almost solid 95 percent odds are even higher. 

UNITED STATES

For the continental United States, June was the 18th warmest on record. That's out of the past 133 years. 

The warmest areas, relative to average were in the Southwest and right along the Northeast coast.As noted above, Montana was the coolest, relative to average, as it was the 41st coolest out of the last 133 years in Big Sky country. 

A broad area from the northern and central Plains, the Ohio Valley and parts of the southeast were somewhere in the middle, not much above or below the long term average.

Here in Vermont, we had our 16th warmest June, according to NCEI

June was the 33rd wettest out of the past 133 years in the Lower 48. The wettest areas were in parts of the Midwest. Illinois had its sixth wettest June. Kansas saw their ninth wettest June. Other relatively wet areas were in the central and western Gulf Coast states and in northern New England. 

Vermont had its 22nd wettest June on record.   

Yes, It Was Autumnal In Vermont But July Cool Spells Aren't That Cool Anymore. Now Back To Regularly Scheduled Summer

Autumn-like clouds overhead and strong winds tilt a tree
in St. Albans yesterday on an autumn-like day. However,
summer cool spells are not as cold as they once were,
thanks largely to climate change. 

Yesterday and last night in Vermont sort of had the feel of early autumn. 

Broken clouds streaked across the sky, but in the afternoon and evening, they were those flat windswept type, not the puffy, rising, almost vertical clouds that are more common in summer. 

The winds for the past few days were gusty and cool, and much stronger than you'd expect in the summer. They gusts were more like what you might see toward November. 

By dawn today, readings were down to the upper 40s and low 50s. The summit of Mount Mansfield was at 39 degrees.

It looks like Burlington made it down to 53 degrees this morning, which will likely be the coolest night this month. 

But in yet another sign of climate change, probably mixed with urban development creating a heat island effect, that 53 low this morning is higher than what the July low routinely reached in the past.

.July temperatures in Burlington reached the 40s most years. But Burlington hasn't had a July low under 50 degrees since 2015. In the 80 years ending in 1990, only 17 years had July lows of 50 or above. In the 36 years since 1990,  all but 10 Julys had a months low of 50 degrees or more.  

To give you an idea how cool some Julys used to be, we can harken back to 1962, which, to be fair, was the chilliest July on record,. That July, eleven mornings started under 50 degrees. One of those mornings bottomed out at 39 degrees, which is still Burlington's coldest July temperature on record. It was 29 degrees in West Burke, Vermont that morning. 

Nothing like that is coming anytime soon, of course. No covering up those tomato plants for quite awhile yet. And, a warming trend is starting. Here's what's coming up over the next few days. 

TODAY

A nice one, with sunshine, low humidity and a light breeze. A strong but dying storm far up in Quebec was throwing clouds into far northern Vermont this morning, but those should mostly clear out. The sky, especially over the mountains, will probably have some puffy clouds building up this afternoon, but they won't be big enough to produce any raindrops.

SATURDAY

Another winner! The day will start off cool with temperatures in the 50s to near 60 at dawn, but rocket into the 80s by afternoon. It'll be another weekend day fully endorsed by the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing. 

SUNDAY:

Actually kind of a hot one by afternoon. Highs should get well into the 80s with the warmer valleys getting up to around 88 or 89 degrees. It'll be your beach day, probably. Some clouds might arrive during the afternoon, but those clouds won't turn the sky overcast. The sun will likely more out than in. Any showers should hold off until Sunday night at the earliest. 

Humidity levels should stay pretty reasonable, too. 

NEXT WEEK

The first half of the week looks unsettled with risks of showers and storms Monday through Wednesday. It's still too soon to say how many showers and storms, so stay tuned!

United States MAGA Meltdown Over Canadian Wildfire Smoke Is A National Embarrassment

Thick smoke in Chicago last week.
MAGA has been embarrassingly 
whining about the smoke without
offering any real help or 
solutions to the problem. 

Just stop already. 

MAGA is going nuts over the wildfire smoke billowing into theUnited States from Canada, and it has long since become embarrassing. 

Somehow, MAGA thinks Canada can wave a magic wand to stop the fires, or, they're sending the smoke over the border as some sort of deliberate provocation. 

Sigh.

MAGA has spent the past week falling over each attacking Canada for the fires, as if they aren't battling the blazes with everything they have and praying for soaking, widespread rains. 

We have so many, sad disgusting examples. Let's go through a bunch of them, just to wallow in the stupidity. : 

Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio said he is introducing legislation that would require an investigation as to whether the Canadian smoke had harmed U.S. air quality and to sanctions those responsible. Moreno ought to be careful, given the harm the United States has caused Canada.

Moreno's legislation gets worse.

As Daily Beast reports, "The bill reportedly goes so far as to threaten to revoke the visas of those deemed responsible for the 'atrocity.' The legislation also 'expresses a sense' that the Canadian ambassador should be declared persona non grata until the smoke no longer affects the U.S." 

Moreno's legislation would ban U.S. government contracts with Canada and Export-Import Bank assistance and authorize the president to most import restrictions.  

Katie Miller, the wife of the odious White House aide Stephen Miller, posted the wild idea that annexing Canada would have spared the U.S. of the wildfire smoke. "This is why Canada should be the 51st state," she wrote. 

Rep. Lisa McClain, Michigan, had this temper tantrum on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter: "Michiganders shouldn't have to breathe negligence....."YEAR AFTER YEAR the smoke crossed the border while Canada does nothing. Stop exporting your smoke into our skies. Enough is enough!"

Does she expect Canada to erect a wall to block the smoke?

Also on X, Rep. Nick Langworthy, R-NY, whined, "This is no longer a one-time emergency - it's becoming an annual public health crisis. This is unacceptable."

It's not just MAGA Republicans. I found a Democrat who entered the fray. Michigan State Rep. Alabas Farhat  posted on Threads:

"For four straight years, Canada has failed to get these fires under control, and Michigan continues to pay the price." 

He referred the fires as "Canada forest management failures." He also said if Canada "refuses" to stop the fires (as if!) he said "There should be consequences."

This motive for all this whining? Almost all of it is in service to the Orange Lump of a president. We remember all the anti-Canada blather Trump has belched, the demands to make Canada the 51st state. And, after a couple days of all this, on Friday, all this stupidly and predictable whining culminated with Donald Trump saying he would add to the tariffs he's already imposed on Canada.

The Orange Lump said Canada "has refused to engage in basic Forest Management and Debris Removal."  I guess Canada was supposed to rake its forests, just as he insisted California should have done. 

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had a devastatingly low key reaction to the MAGA tantrums: "Climate change is everyone's responsibility, truly everyone's including the United States."

ABOUT THAT CLIMATE CHANGE

There have always been occasional years with Canadian or western United States fires that belch smoke into the United States. It used to be infrequent. 

On May 19, 1790 - way back when - was labeled the "Famous Dark Day" in New England, according to the Vermont Weather Book.  Candles were needed to read, and the air had an eerie, brassy hue. That was probably smoke from the western United States or maybe the northern Great Lakes region.

On September 6, 1881, it was the legendary, "Yellow Day,"  Everything took on a yellow hue, and artificial light was needed to read documents and books during the day. Basically the same thing happened in September, 1908, and September 1950.

So we used to have smoky days, but since those days were a rarity, they became legend. 

Now however, smoke attacks are no longer a rarity, but a regular occurrence. So what changed?

Canada has roughly 1.4 million square miles of forest. Most of it is boreal forest, a broad area representing 30 percent of the global forest area in northern areas of Canada, Russia and Alaska. 

Most of the forests are remote, and impossible to manage like forests in more populated areas in the continental United States.

Fires have gotten worse and widespread in recent years for reasons that mostly have to do with climate change. The snow in the spring melts sooner than it once did, leaving more time for the landscape two dry out than it once did Parts of Canada are warming at twice the rate of the global average, creating heat waves that further dry things out. 

The summer heat also destabilizes the air, creating thunderstorms with relatively little rain but plenty of lightning strikes that set off fires.  Invasive bark beetles kills swaths of foresters, leaving behind tinder dry dead trees. 

So, contrary to MAGA, Canada isn't trying to torture Americans by sending choking wildfire smoke into the United States. They are in large part a victim of climate change. And historically, the United States has always been the #1 or #2 greenhouse gas emitters in the world. 

In the end, climate change has us breathing smoke that makes us sick, and will end up killing some of us. 

MAGA has been yelling outrageous things about the wildfire smoke. But just hint to them climate change might have had something to do with it, the screaming just becomes that much louder. 

THE FIRES

On Saturday, 949 fires were burning across Canada, according to the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System.  The intense fires in Ontario were quieter, thanks to some rain.

But those weren't the only fires burning in North America.  As of Saturday, there were 73 large fires burning across the United States, including 17 new large incidents, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Most of these were in the West and in northern Minnesota. There were also a multitude of smaller fires burning around the nation. 

Fires are also burning in the boreal forests of Siberia. In recent days, a fire in Norway spread from a townhouse and into a forest, where it continued on to destroy about 100 homes. It was the largest such fire in Norway's history. 

TRAGEDY, HELP AND HONOR

It's not as if Canada is just gleefully sending smoke to the U.S.  Smoke has choked much of southern Canada, including large cities like Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. 

The Canadian fires have especially hit the First Nations communities in Ontario. Thousands were evacuated. An unknown number of houses have burned, but the number of destroyed buildings is easily in the hundreds. 

Normally, and in the past, the United States and Canada would help each other with emergencies. Canada is still doing that. 

Sometimes, firefighters give their lives to the effort. About a week ago, Nicholas Dale, 56 of Sooke, British Columbia died in a helicopter crash while responding to a wildfire in not too far north of Telluride. 

Dale's death make the vitriol aimed at Canada over the smoky atmosphere especially galling. 

In a demonstration of how much more decent most Americans are, compared to the noxious MAGA crowd, Wyoming Public Radio described this scene as the sad process of returning Dale's body to Canada began. :

"On Monday morning, a line of firetrucks, ambulances and other emergency response vehicles flashing their lights stretched for nearly a mile as the convoy passed through the little towns and small cities between Gunnison and Grand Junction. 

In Montrose, hundreds somberly lined U.S. Highway 509 holding American flags to honor Dale."

STUPIDITY WORSENS

Meanwhile, he whining from MAGA kept getting louder and even more bizarre gets even worse in some circles  

Right Wing Watch posted on X (formerly Twitter) posted this gem of a clip from MAGA activist Eric Metaxas: 

"Who's telling me how to live my life?  I'm an adult man in a free country, and you're telling me, 'limit your outdoor activity.'' he said, "How dare they say that. Who has the right to tell me or you or anyone anything? It's a free country. I can do whatever I want."

Never mind this was just an advisory, kind of like telling people to drive carefully in a winter storm. But the guy isn't very bright. The comments section was glorious

"He should definitely go outside ad jog for HOURS!

"Fine, Eric. Please go outside and put your mouth over a diesel bus exhaust. It will benefit all of us."

"Eric doesn't understand the difference between a suggestion and an order Poor guy."

"Oh the humanity! This dude is the victim of receiving information! Will the abusive alerts never stop enslaving him?"

"Getting asthma to own the libs."

"Dear Eric - I forbid you from running out in front of traffic on the expressway."

Metaxas is a great example of the low, ignorant, tragicomic  MAGA mentality. They can do anything! They are all powerful!  While the rest of us roll our eyes and laugh at them. 

MAGA seems to think the abuse they've hurled at Canada is a flex, showing how powerful they are. Trump and his minions are actually demonstrating exactly how weak they are. Their pathetic insults and whining is a precise demonstration of how impotent MAGA really is. 

We should all remember that despite their bluster, the rest of us hold most of the power. We ought to use it. 

  

Green Mountains Of Vermont To Often Fade Behind A Smoky Haze For The Rest Of Summer. A Climate Change Story

Smoke obscures the view along Lake Champlain 
last summer, July 26, 2025.

Vermont's first air quality alert of the summer went into effect this past Sunday. Thankfully, the bad air didn't turn out to be quite as bad as feared.  

The wildfire smoke that was approaching the state from southern Quebec dissipated more and sooner than expected, leaving us with relatively safe air, although it was kind of hazy. 

Get used to the haze. It's going to be with us much of the rest of the summer. And probably the first half of autumn. 

I'm sure we will see more air quality alerts before mountains snows in Canada and the West finally snuff out the fires. 

Huge wildfires are burning in the U.S. West. There's an enormous cluster of fires burning west of Hudson Bay, Canada. More fires are raging in northern Canada. All that smoke has to go somewhere. 

Often, that pollution will end up in the eastern United States, including here in Vermont.  That fact is always a bummer for me. 

During June, North American wildfires were not especially extensive. Which left us with plenty of days in which we could gaze out at the Green Mountains of Vermont and they were.....green.  Luscious, rich, elegant, gorgeous green as far as the eyes could see. All this under a deep, pure blue sky flecked with puffy white clouds. You know, the iconic view of a Vermont summer.  

Those days of clear air will now become much fewer and further between for the rest of the summer.  

Until recent years, wildfire smoke in Vermont hadn't been a thing. Back in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, we did had a lot of "Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer," as Nat King Cole sang in a 1963 hit. Especially haze. That was mostly ickiness from auto exhaust and factory smokestacks to Vermont's south and west during mid-20th century heat waves. 

The Clean Air Act removed a lot of the haze. Not all of it, but it was an improvement. Then, in the past decade or so,  wildfires around the world, including in North American started getting worse. The hotter world dries out the forests earlier in the spring than they once did. Those forests keep getting more and more parched as sumner goes on.    

So, many of the forests went poof.   

Forest fires now burn more than twice as much tree cover as they did two decades ago, according to University of Maryland researchers. 

All those fires spew smoke, obviously. Per-person exposure to wildlife smoke in the United States was four times higher during 2020-24 on average each year, than during 2006-2019, according to Climate Central. 

The haze from these huge fires often ends up engulfing much if not all of the United States, including here in Vermont. 

Summertime air quality alerts in the Green Mountain State used to be a rarity.  But that's changed. Most recent summers have featured many hazy, acrid days. A few days in the summer nowadays are actually dangerously polluted. 

Even if the pollution isn't enough to prompt those alerts in our climate changed world, the smoke spoils the view.  The mountains, especially those in the distance, fade into a bluish, grayish murk. Some days, the smoke is high overhead, so the mountains still looks vivid and green. But the sky overhead is depressing. Instead of a deep blue, it's an almost colorless, weak =pale grey-blue. 

That looks like Vermont's future for the rest of the summer.  

That's not to say every day will feature haze. Air currents can still thread the needle between the wildfires and the smoky areas to deliver delightfully clear, refreshing air. Or, on some days, the smoke will be thin enough to be just an accent, giving the mountains just an added shade of blue mixed with the green. 

At least the sunrises and sunsets will be more spectacular as the smoke brings out the reds and oranges in the clouds. 

As I write this Wednesday morning, the sky overhead is blue enough, but the distant Adirondacks are barely visible through an off-blue haze the color of exhaust from a malfunctioning 1970s-era Buick.  

Climate change isn't only about heat waves and weird weather. It chips away at our health, our atmosphere, our way of life, our well being.  I just wish the Powers That Be would recognize that when they complain about a lousy view of the mountains during their Vermont summer vacations  

Vermont June In Vermont Was Wet And Warm, Stormy And Sunny

The highlight of Vermont's warm, wet June was a pair
of tornadoes that hit the state on June 18. This is a
photo of tree damage in Woodstock from 
one of the tornadoes, 

The numbers are in for what the climate was like in June, and as you'd expect, almost all of us experienced  a warm and wet June. 

In Burlington it was both the 15th warmest and 15th wettest June out of the past 135 years or so. The actual mean temperature in Burlington for June was 69.1 degrees.

That came in at only 1.6 degrees above normal, which you'd think wouldn't qualify the month at being 15th warmest.  But, as I remind you practically every month, this is the "new normal." It's based on the average of 1990 to 2020 when climate change had already made things around here warmer than the 20th century average. 

I imagine in several decades, the month we just had would be considered chilly 

The pattern in Burlington was repeated across the state, except the extreme southwest, where average temperatures for June, 2026 were close to average. 

However, most other weather stations that I checked were roughly between one and two degrees warmer than average.

Much of the state was wet, too. Burlington's 5.56 inches was 1.4 inches above average. As we get into the summer months, precipitation around the state gets much more variable. And so it was in June. Montpelier June total was 4.26 inches, just a few hundredths of an inch above normal.

It was both a pleasant month, as we got our fair share of sunny, comfortable days. But it was also stormy.  The highlight were the two tornadoes that hit Vermont on June 18. One was in a remote part of Lincoln, but the other was in a fairly busy spot along Route 4 in Woodstock. Given that the Woodstock tornado had wind speeds up to 100 mph, it's a very pleasant surprise that motorists along Route 4 or in nearby buildings weren't hurt. 

Other events included a supercell that caused damage in northwest and central Rutland County on June 26.

Also, on June 11, some flash flooding with road damage was reported in Hardwick and Wolcott.

For July, we already know it's starting out wicked hot, so it seems chances are it will be a hot July. NOAA is leaning just slightly toward giving us a warmer than normal July here in Vermont. If that's right, maybe soe cool weather late in the month will offset the current terrible heat. It's worth dreaming. 

NOAA also is slightly leaning toward a wetter than average July. We shall see!

Q and A: Everything You Need To Know About This Big Heat Wave

AccuWeather released this map of the expected
maximum heat index temperature in the coming
days. 

Well, it's on. The Big American Heat Wave of 2026 is on in the Midwest and East. Maybe it will be one of several big ones this summer, maybe not. There's already been a bunch of hot weather elsewhere in the U.S. off and on. 

This one is getting a lot of attention across the nation, including here in Vermont. Following are answers to some FAQs about this heat wave. 

We get hot spells every summer. What makes this one so special?

True, there's big hot spells every year. But they are tending to generally get worse over the years as climate change continues. This particular one is getting extra attention because it's affecting so many people. At least 250 million people are under heat warnings or advisories at last check, according to AccuWeather. 

The heat is hitting the major media center in the East, so that captures the attention of news directors much more readily than something that might happen in the Plains or Rocky Mountains. It's also hitting during the Fourth of July weekend, when more people will be out and about, celebrating the holiday. 

Will this be the nation's worst heat wave ever, like the one recently in Europ?.

No, but it will be pretty bad. The European heat wave shattered all-time record highs in numerous cities and several countries in western and central Europe. 

This one in America will set records, but probably few if any all time records. Still, the forecasting heat is impressive. Dozens of daily record highs are threatened from Maine and Vermont south to North Carolina and west to Illinois. New York City is expecting its first 100 degree day in a decade. Highs in the 100s will extend fron New England to the Carolinas and through large swaths of the Midwest,

Many cities including some here in Vermont, might also have record high low temperatures, meaning those without air conditioning get little relief from the heat. 

Fourth Of July and the heat. Tell me why people are worried about that

Many people are out of their air conditioned homes and offices enjoying the holiday celebrations. They're out in the hot sun, not drinking enough liquids, drinking alcohol, generally not paying attention to their bodies. It's a recipe for heat stroke or heat related injuries. Also, when you're overheated, you aren't paying attention as much as you should, leading to the risk of injuries. With fireworks involved, this could mean some missing fingers or worse

OK, But I'm up here in Vermont, shouldn't we be immune from this kind of heat?

Often, we are. We're right next to Canada, after all, so it's easy for cold fronts to sweep in and keep the extreme heat and humidity in Florida and Louisiana, where it belongs. 

This time, the heat dome setting up in the East is sending Florida air all the way to Vermont. The air in terms of temperature will be as bad or worse than in Miami for at least a couple days.  The heat might taper off a bit toward the weekend and early next week, but not entirely go away. 

 OK, but how do I get used to this particular heat wave?

If you have air conditioning, use it, especially at night, despite the expense. A long heat wave lasting a few to several days can wear you out, leading to heat illnesses and other ailments. If you must work or exercise outdoors, do it at the crack of dawn when it is relatively cooler, compared to the rest of the day. 

Keep your fluid intake going all day.  Drink plenty of water, but not just water. Consume energy drinks, juices, watermelon, cucumbers, anything, "wet"  Have a nice "cold supper" instead of cooking and heating up the house. You know, cold meats, cheeses, vegetables, that sort of thing.  Try to avoid consuming alcohol, it ultimately makes the heat worse, even if it makes you forget about it a little.

What About my family?

Keep a close eye on the kids, so they don't get too hot. If you take the swimming anywhere, keep an eye on them constantly, even if there's lifeguards. Don't scroll on the phone to watch the latest makeover TikTok, please.  

In the car, run the air conditioning. When you stop to get out, even if the kids aren't with you, look in the back seat. That will get you in a habit to always look and get the kids out so they don't roast in the car. Every year we hear tragic stories of kids dying in hot cars. Don't let this be your kid.

Have the kids run around early the morning if they're up. Or later at night. Especially if your house does not have air conditioning, treat the kiddos to an air conditioned movie, museum or other such attraction. They'll love it and it will help their bodies recover from the heat. 

Should I worry about my dog during this heat wave?

Absolutely! Keep them in a cool place as much as you can. If you have air conditioning, encourage them little Roscoe to hang out there. They'll still need to go on walks to do their business and to sniff around. (That sniffing is very important for the health of a dog). Do the walks early in the evening before it gets hot. 

Don't let your dog walk on asphalt, concrete or other hard surface during the day. Those surfaces get wicked hot and can burn paws. 

What about Old Lady McCormick Next Door?

Check on her. A lot. Especially if she has no air conditioning, Heat can really take a toll on the elderly. In those big heat waves in Europe, most of the thousands of people who were killed were elderly. A heat wave similar to the upcoming one killed six elderly or disabled Vermonters. 

This is a stereotype, but I notice a lot of older Vermonters prize their independence and stubbornly refuse help. So lie to them. "I made way too much of this nice cold macaroni salad. I'd hate to see it go to waste."  Or, "I bought this nonrefundable ticket to the movies for tonight, but now my niece can't go. Why don't you go with us so we can use this ticket."

Just be extra nice to the elderly

Man, that neighbor of ours just mowed his lawn in this heat, and he looks awful! Should we do anything about it?

Yes, yes and double yes.

If he's headachy, nauseous, dizzy,  fatigued, weak, more irritable than usual, thirsty with heavy sweating, and his muscles are cramping up, he's probably got heat exhaustion. (Another symptom of heat exhaustion is decreased urine output, but you might not know that. 

Get him indoors to a cool place and encourage him to drink cool liquids (but not the glass of chardonnay you forgot to put down when you noticed Mr. Golf Course Lawn stumbling out there.  Take off his shoes and socks, even if they smell awful, and put cool, wet towels around his neck or elsewhere on his body. 

He also needs to go to the ER or Urgent Care to get checked out if symptoms don't improve within an hour. 

If your mowing buddy is confused, agitated, has slurred speech, nausea and vomiting, flushed skin, rapid breathing and a racing heart, chances are he's got heat stroke. This is a hair on fire emergency. Call 911 now if not sooner. 

Did climate change cause this?

Not really, but climber change probably made it worse than it otherwise would have been. There have always been heat waves and heat domes during the summer. What might have been a couple days near 90 degrees several decades ago has become a horrible excursion into the mid and upper 90s with near record high humidity levels. 

As I noted above, get used to it. Heat waves like this used to be really rare events. Now they're starting to get more common, so we'll be writing this Q and A a lot more in the future. 

Well, this all just sucks. When will it end?

It'll start to get better toward Saturday and Sunday, but "improvement" might be too optimistic a word. Temperatures toward Sunday and early next week will be in the 80s to maybe near 90, but not way up in the 90s. Humidity will still be high, but not as bad as it will be Wednesday to Friday. But still annoying.

As far as a big whoosh of cool, clear Canadian air, I don't see that happening anytime soon

 

"Worst Ever" Heat Wave In Europe Makes Our Impending Muggy Spell Feel Like Sweater Weather.

People in France try to cool off during the recent
deadly, record shattering, climate-driven heat wave

 All kinds of record high temperatures have been afflict9ig Europe as a terrible, deadly heat wave as become entrenched in the region. 

Scientists who track climate and weather events say this is the worst heat wave on record for much of Europe. The hot weather would have been "virtually impossible" just a half century ago, but climate change has altered the equation.

The record highs are far too numerous to list, and it's almost impossible to keep up with them. Records for month of June and all-time record highs are being broken, and then the next day they're broken again. 

At last check, nations that set new all-time record highs were Luxembourg (105.3 degrees); Belgium (102 degrees); Netherlands, (102.9 degrees); Czech Republic (105.4 degrees).

Several other nations, including Slovakia, Poland, Austria, United Kingdom experienced their hottest June weather on record.

EUROPEAN HEAT WAVES DANGEROUS

Extreme heat in Europe is more dangerous than similar temperatures in the United States. There is little air conditioning in most of Europe. 

Only around 20 percent of European homes have air conditioning, compared to nearly 90 percent in the United States. 

Intense, long lasting heat waves are a relatively new thing in Europe, thanks to climate change. The architecture of the buildings are designed to keep heat in during long, cold damp winters. So they turn into ovens when long heat waves arrive. And the heat doesn't dissipate in the homes at night. 

 The architecture makes installing AC difficult. Energy costs in Europe are high, so people are reluctant to install air conditioning. 

Heat waves in recent years have killed thousands of Europe's. The current heat wave is blamed for 1,000 or so deaths in France alone. 

Intense, climate-driven heat waves began to hit Europe in earnest in the early 2000s. In 2003, Europe heat waves are estimated to have caused or contributed to at least 70,000 deaths. The hot summer of 2022 in Europe also led to more than 61,000 excess deaths, according to the journal Nature.    

This doesn't get much publicity, but heat waves are the biggest weather killer. I guess that's not noticed as much as it should because heat waves are not nearly as telegenic as hurricanes, tornadoes and floods. 

ROLE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

It's become widely accepted that these new, more intense and longer lasting European heat waves are being made worse by climate change. 

 According to World Weather Attribution, which assesses how climate change has influenced major storms and weather events, has this to say:

"In 1976, when some of the previous European records were set, the 2026 temperatures would have been virtually impossible to occur in June, while also highly unlikely at any time of the year. In 2003, the first major heat wave of this century, daytime heat like this would still have been very rare, about 10 times less likely that today, while nighttime temperatures such as this June would have bee more than a hundred times less likely in 2003."

World Weather Attribution calculated that a similar European in June to the one currently underway would have been about 3.5 degrees Celsius  (6.3F) during the day and 2 degrees Celsius (3.5F) cooler in 2003. Nighttime temperatures would have been about 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3F cooler at night in 1976 and roughly 1.3 degrees Celsius  (2.3F) cooler in June, 2003.

The organization also had this ominous statement: "This summer shows that at 1.4 C of global warming, extreme heat is already reaching the limits of our societies ability to cope. Our analysis here shows that intense heat is increasing rapidly even in living memory, with such events tens to hundreds of times more likely since only 2003 and virtually impossible just 50 years ago. 

A rapid phase-out of fossil fuels is critical if we are to avoid even higher temperatures and their consequences in the future."

That statement is something that should chill the heart, despite the intense heat outside. Here in the United States, an intense heat wave is about to strike the Midwest and East Coast. But the Powers That Be keep dismissing the danger, so they can remain in good favor with the fossil fuel industry. 

As Politico reports, U.S. Energy Secretary basically told heat-wilted Europeans to stop whining. "Always more people die in the winter than die in the summer, because cold is a vastly. larger killer than heat is," he said. 

It's true that more Europeans die from cold weather than hot weather. But deaths from hot weather are rising fast, but deaths from cold weather are holding steady or falling. In the United States, the annual death toll from heat exceed the of cold weather deaths. 

Overall, then, weather related deaths in Europe are generally rising. 

LOOKING AHEAD

Relief from the heat is now spreading across Europe. The change in the air is creating severe thunderstorms in some areas. The relief from the heat might not last long. Some forecasts move a new heat dome into western Europe starting in a roughly a week. 

 

As El Nino Was Brewing, May Was World's Second Hottest On Record

May, 2026 was the world's second hottest on record.
An El Nino has started, which is expected to work 
with climate change to bring global temperatures
 to new and dangerous heights. 

 We're closing in on the end of June, and I realize I never did do my monthly fever check of the world in May 2026. 

As has been the case for years now under the onslaught of climate change, the world continues to run a very high fever.

May, 2026 was the world's second hottest on record, trailing only 2024, the NOAA's National Centers for Environment Information tells us. If you are under the age of 50, you have never seen a May in which the world was even a little cooler than average. 

Climate change has been with us for half a century, and in the past couple of decades, that has gotten more and more obvious.

The warmest places relative to average were much of the Arctic and Antarctica, central Canada and the northwest United States, western Russian, much of southwestern Asia and parts of the North Pacific.

The Pacific Ocean off the west coasts of Mexico and northwestern South American were very warm. That was a sign that El Nino was building. 

Officials declared this month that El Nino is underway. It's forecast to reach record intensity. Since El Ninos tend to warm the climate, a combination of an extreme El Nino and climate change is bad news for the next several months at least. El Nino is expected to peak this winter. 

More intense and longer heat waves, intense droughts and storms are on the horizon for many parts of Earth. Buckle your seat belts, it's going to be a rough ride. 

As usual, you could find a few cooler spots around the world. Those included centra South amerce, northeast Russia, western Australia, Southern Africa, eastern Antarctica and a portion of the North Atlantic south of Greenland. 

That "cold blob" south of Greenland is ominous, too. It's a sign that fresh water from melting glaciers in Greenland is messing with the currents in the Atlantic Ocean. If the warm currents that keep western Europe mild collapse, there could be sudden and extreme changes to the climate in Europe and elsewhere. Nobody is prepared for these changes. 

So yeah, I'm full of good news with this post.

Let's move on to how the United States has been doing. 

UNITED STATES

May, 2026 was warm out West and a little cooler
but not extremely so in the East. 

May was the 28th warmest, or 105 coolest, if you want to look at it that way, says NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. 

As had been the case all winter and early spring the west was on the warm side while eastern states were somewhat cooler. Three states - Washington, Oregon and Florida, had one of their top ten Mays on record. 

No state had a particularly cool May. The state that came closest to a chilly May was West Virginia, which had the 39th coolest May out of the past 131 years. Here in Vermont, it was the 51st coolest out of the past 131 years. 

The United States had its  55th driest on record, or 78th wettest May on record NCEI says. Idaho, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan had one of their top ten driest Mays on record. On the other hand, top 10 wettest May honors for 2026 go to Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana. 

Vermont, as you might remember, was also on the damp side. The Green Mountain State had its 19 wettest May out of the past 131 years. 

It won't be long until we have our June summary to see how the start of El Nino is affecting us and the rest o the world. That report should come out in mid-July.

TWO Tornadoes Struck Vermont On Thursday. The National Weather Service Gives Us The Details

Items scattered after yesterday's tornado
in Woodstock, Vermont. Two tornadoes
touched down in the state Thursday. 

The National Weather Service in South Burlington broke some news this afternoon: There were actually two tornadoes in Vermont Thursday. 

We already knew about the one that hit the western part of Woodstock, Vermont. But it turns out another tornado hit an area near and along York Hill Road in the Addison County town of Lincoln. 

The Addison County tornado doesn't come as a complete surprise. Meteorologists tracked a rotating thunderstorm that felled trees in the Middlebury are, though those winds are not believed to be tornadic. The rotation seemed to intensity near Bristol which is very close to Lincoln, so it's not entirely surprising there was a tornado there. 

WOODSTOCK

The tornado in Woodstock was a high end EF-1 tornado with top winds of 100 mph, according to the National Weather Service office in South Burlington. I traveled 1.34 miles along Route 4, mostly in the valley. It had a maximum width of 550 yards and was on the ground for just three minutes.

As we've seen in photographs and video, the tornado felled or snapped a large number of trees and caused roof damage and damage to solar panels. 

LINCOLN

The Lincoln tornado was actually a little stronger than the one in Woodstock with top winds of 105 mph. Again, that's a high-end EF-1 tornado

But the Lincoln tornado had a much shorter path and a shorter life. It only traveled 0.31 miles and had a path 200 yards wide. This tornado blew through an area of forest before sputtering out in a ravine. 

I suppose it's possible other tornadoes touched down in Vermont Thursday but I'm not aware of any investigations or areas that seem like they were obviously hit by a twister. There was a lot of wind damage, especially in southeast Vermont. 

We know it's unusual to have a tornado in Vermont. It's really odd to have two on the same day, or even the same year. There was another tornado in Williamstown on April 16, so we're up to the three in a year,

That doesn't break any records for the most Vermont twisters in a single year.

  The year 1962 seems to be the biggest twister year in Vermont. Three  tornadoes touched down across northern Vermont on May 20 that year. 

Two unusual morning tornadoes hit Windsor County on July 9, 1962. more tornadoes touched down on July 9, 1962. One of them traveled 16 miles between Chester and Weathersfield, according to the Vermont Weather Book. Another traveled five miles near Springfield, Vermont, then it crossed into New Hampshire and traveled three more miles. 

That said, there is a tendency for tornadoes to be moving east and north out of the Great Plains tornado alley, likely due to climate change. The Northeast has seen an increased number of twisters in recent years and Vermont might be seeing a piece of that. 

Of course, another factor is that some Vermont tornadoes in the past might have been missed. Everybody has smart phones. Everybody is on social media. New of weird storm damage spreads fast nowadays. Some of those reports result in investigations and confirmed tornadoes. 

The National Weather Service will likely release a much more detailed analysis of the tornadoes and the other instances of severe weather Vermont saw on Thursday. That analysis should be out within a few weeks. 

 

lt's Flash Flood Season In Much Of the U.S. No Big Threats In Vermont - Yet

Damage from flash flooding near Hinesburg, Vermont
in July, 2024. We're now entering prime flash flood
season, and Vermonters still have some PTSD from
the floods of the last three summers. Very slight 
chance of some local flash floods Wednesday night
in Vermont, but no big threats ---yet

Summer is the season of flash floods in the United States.

Such floods can happen anytime of year, of course. But summer, with its slow moving and/or intense thunderstorms, is the prime season. 

Sunday night, a flash flood emergency was declared in and around Huntsville, Alabama, where people had to be plucked from flooded cars. Water also got into several homes. 

We're already seeing some pretty big flash floods this week.  On Monday, rain fell at a rate of up to four inches per hour around Joplin, Missouri, and some people had to be rescued from inundated cars. Fox Weather reports. Downtown Seneca, Missouri was also flooded out. 

Flash flooding was reported in Texas, too.

Overnight, severe storms prompted flash flood warnings in central Kansas, where up to 5.5 inches of rain fell and another one to two inches was expected. Parts of the southeastern U.S. and Tennessee Valley are at risk for flash floods today.  

For Wednesday night, NOAA's Weather Prediction Center added a marginal risk for flash flooding in northern New York, all but far southern Vermont and northern New Hampshire. 

The agency said very humid air and a weather disturbance cold cause some instances of local flash flooding. 

Local meteorologists and myself are not too worried about flash flooding tomorrow and tomorrow night. We could easily see some gully washer downpours, but serious flooding looks doubtful. 

Most of us will get a half inch or less of rain Wednesday through Thursday. That doesn't scream "flooding."  But, thunderstorms could dump much more than that in small, localized areas.

Still, this is Vermont, and we have a long history of flash flooding. Our steep terrain in many areas encourages water to rush out of the hills during torrential rains. Climate change has raised the stakes, as downpours in a warmer world tend to be more intense. Warmer air can hold more water. That water can get released in the right conditions. 

Those "right conditions" in Vermont led to severe, destructive and deadly summertime flash floods in 2023 and 2024. Less extensive but still severe flash floods hit parts of the Northeast Kingdom last summer.

As a result, we're all gun shy and a little bit PTSD-wracked when it comes to flash flood risks across the Green Mountain State. Tis the season to keep a close eye on weather forecasts around here, especially if it's really humid and threatening to storm. 

 

June Heat Waves In Vermont Never Used To Be Much Of A Thing. Then Climate Change Came Along

A time/temperature sign in St. Albans, Vermont during
 a record breaking heat wave last June 23 

 With the potential of 90 degree weather coming toward the end of the week, depending on how numerous the showers and storms become, I started looking at June heat waves in Vermont. 

Once upon a time, June heat wasn't really a thing. Sure, it happened once in awhile, but we usually had to wait until July and August to feel the big strong blasts of summer heat. 

Not any more. Climate change apparently has something to say about when we Vermonters experience summer heat. 

The year 1988 seemed to be the beginning of a turning point for June heat in Vermont, at least as measured in Burlington.  On June 15, 1988, it reached 97 degrees in Burlington, breaking what was then the record for the  hottest June temperature on record. 

On June 16, 1994, that record was tied. Then on June 19, 1995, the temperature in Burlington soared to 100 degrees, shattering the June record.

The number of 90+ days in Burlington's June record books changed during that time period. Ninety degree June heat was relatively rare in the  first four decades of the 20th century. Ninety in June happened only 12 times in the 41 years ending in 1941. 

Between 1942 and 1993, 90 degree June heat became more frequent, occurring in 34 out of those 51 years.  Now, the heat hits in almost all Junes. In the 31 years since 1994, we only missed out on 90 degrees in eight Junes.

Another bit of stats, although I know this is already number heavy: In the 87 years ending in 1987, it had only reached 95 degrees three times in June. In a little less than four decades since 1988, it's been 95 degrees 13 times.  

In the 2000s, extreme June heat almost became the norm.   It's been 96 degrees or hotter in all but one of the past five Junes.  Sometimes June heat started in May.   On May 27, 2000, the temperature reached 95 degrees, the hottest May day on record, breaking the old mark by two degrees 

On June 6, 2021, it reached 95 degrees, and on June 7 that year it was 96 which was, at the time the hottest for so early in the season 

I say "at the time," because on June 1, 2023 it reached 96 degrees. 

All this June heat culminated in a heat wave last June. Depending on what part of New England you were in, either June 23 or June 24, 2025 was the hottest June day on record in all six New England states. Each New England state reached at least 100 degrees.

In North Springfield, Vermont, it was 103 degrees, breaking the previous statewide record for June, which had been 101 degrees. Burlington reached 99 degrees on June 23 last year, barely missing the record for the month by one degree. Plattsburgh, New York, at 101 degrees, was among numerous cities in the Northeast that set all-time June records. 

THIS WEEK

If it gets to 90 degrees this week, I doubt we'll see record highs, but of course you never know. You need lots of sinking, hot air to create the clear skies that produce record heat. Instead, this warm spell will be muddled by embedded weather disturbances. Those disturbances will likely create clouds and scattered showers and thunderstorms which could keep the heat down. But not the humidity, of course.

The details: 

Today: Nice! Near 80 degrees, sunny low humidity

Tuesday: Nice! Sunny, with highs in the 80s. Humidity will at least be reasonably.

Wednesday Not so nice. Showers, maybe a rumble of thunder. Cloudy, turning more humid. Highs in the 70s to around 80

Thursday/Friday: Partly cloudy, humid, risk of showers/storms. Highs in the 80s to near 90.

Beyond Friday, the weather models are still arguing among themselves as to what's going to happen. I'll let them fight it out, and provide updates as we get closer to next weekend. It's only Monday, after all. 

I don't know whether we will have extreme heat later this month or not, But climate change has loaded the dice. These are no longer your grandfather's cool, comfortable Vermont summers. 

 

Flash Heat Wave Monday, Questions About Heat And Storms Today, Then Sharply Cooler Late Week

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center still extends their
slight risk of severe thunderstorms into Vermont.
(Everything in yellow is a slight risk).

That was a wild weather ride on Monday! 

Northern Vermont in particular endured the day's weather whiplash. As I noted in yesterday morning's post, the day began stormy and cold with fitful downpours, local gusty winds and even a rumble or two of thunder. 

Burlington reached 90 degrees by late afternoon, after a rainy early morning low of 51 degrees. By afternoon, we were sweating in a brief May heat wave that is already over-performing. 

I saw somewhere on social media where somebody in Vermont said they ran their furnace in the morning and air conditioner in the afternoon.

I'd call it a flash heat wave. Like a sudden flash flood, only hot air, not water. 

The day featured a rare temperature stat: Burlington had its first 80 degree temperature of the season Sunday. And only a day later, the first 90 of the season hit.  The same thing happened in April, 2002, but I wonder if this week and 2002 were the only times something like that happened. 

There has always been the occasional May in Burlington in which the temperature hit 90. But probably at least in part due to climate change, 90 degree May days are getting more common. In the 109 years in Burlington ending in 2009, we had 14 Mays that reached at least 90 degrees.

But in the 16 years since 2010, there have already been eight such days in May.  

Elsewhere in Vermont, the high in Bennington Monday was 89 degrees. Montpelier reached 86 degrees after a morning low of 46.  A temperature change of 40 degrees in just one day is pretty wild. 

The heat isn't only a Vermont thing, of course. Philadelphia reached 96 degrees Monday, a record for the date. It was also the second hottest May temperature on record.  In New York City, a high of 95 is expected today, followed by an incredibly stuffy overnight low tonight of 77. It should hit 90 degrees in the Big Apple again tomorrow. 

Heat advisories are in effect for much of southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. Hartford, Connecticut had its second day in a row of 90 degree temperatures Monday. Today's forecast high there is a whopping 96 degrees. The forecast high in Springfield today is 97.

VERMONT FORECAST

Back here in Vermont, the degree of heat today will depend on the level of cloud cover.  Severe thunderstorms are also possible, but there might be factors that allow us to luck out and avoid the worst of the storms. Maybe. 

We're certainly off to a very warm, muggy start. It looks like the low temperature this morning in Burlington was 71 degrees, so if you didn't sleep well in the Champlain Valley, that's why. If that low temperature holds through midnight, it'll break the record for warmest low temperature for the date. (The current record holder is 67 degrees way back in 1903.  

As the day goes on the valleys of southern Vermont have the best chance of reaching 90 degrees today, as they'll have the most sun.  The National Weather Service forecast for Springfield, for instance is 92 degrees.

I think clouds might prevent another 90 degree day in Burlington today, we'll see about that. There was already a batch of clouds and light showers in central and western New York early this morning. Those clouds might not clear out fast enough to allow another 90 degree day. Though we're starting out pretty warm, so it's still possible. 

The next question is severe thunderstorms. 

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center still has a slight risk - level 2 alert on a scale of 5 - for the northwest half of Vermont and a level one marginal risk for the southeast. 

The amount of instability in the atmosphere over us isn't huge over us today, which is a limiting factor for storms. But there is a subtle disturbance in the atmosphere due by early afternoon. That, combined with rising air near mountains could trigger some storms.

Also, cool air coming off of Lake Champlain sometimes creates these teeny tiny miniature cold fronts which are boundaries between the cool lake air and the warmer inland air. Those could be triggering spots for storms. After that, cool winds blasting out of thunderstorms could set up additionally teeny tiny little cold fronts elsewhere, which would trigger more storms. 

Bottom line: Some of us will see showers or storms, some of us will stay dry.  A small number of us could experience strong, even damaging winds from storms. This won't be a widespread severe storm event. 

We don't know who, if anybody will get those rambunctious storms. Pay attention to the skies if you're outdoors, and have a way to receive severe storm warnings, just in case. 

TONIGHT/TOMORROW

After another stuffy night coming up, Wednesday will bring another big change. A cold front will stumble through, in the morning north, afternoon south and east. The timing of it means the north will probably just see some scattered showers in the morning, with clearing skies and highs in the 70s during the afternoon. 

Southeast Vermont could see some thunderstorms but severe ones seem unlikely, at least for now. Highs in the south look like they want to get up into the 80s

THURSDAY/FRIDAY

More big changes in a roller coaster of a weather week. We'll wake up to sharply colder temperatures Thursday morning with lows in the 38 to 45 degrees. Under at least partly sunny if not clear skies, temperatures should only get into the mid and upper 50s north,  and some 60s south. 

Since it will be so cool, there might be some frost Thursday night and early Friday in areas of Vermont away from the Champlain Valley.

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

A toss up on how the holiday weekend will turn out. The American weather model keeps showers at bay Saturday and Sunday, leaving us with partly sunny skies and cool highs in the 60s.  The European model brings showers into our area Saturday and Sunday. Both models give us some showers on Monday, Memorial Day. 

Heartwarming Hay Donations After Extreme Nebraska Wildfires. But It Doesn't Solve The Climate Change Problem

One of the huge Nebraska wildfires back on March.
Photo from Nebraska State Patrol 

This spring, Nebraska burned. At least a large part of it did.  

Amid a drought and record breaking high temperatures that further dried out the landscape, high winds fanned wildfires that burned through  820,000 acres of Nebraska rangeland. 

The worst of the fires burned in March. One of the fires blackened 600,000 acres. The blazes left numerous ranchers without feed for their cattle. Damage estimates are at least $10 million. 

This is all bad news, of course. And climate change is a prime suspect again. An insane March heat wave contributed to the conditions that led to the huge fires.  World Weather Attribution reported that the March heat wave would have been virtually impossible without climate change. 

The fires burned through just about all of the 11,000 acre ranch Mike and Kayla Wintz lease in the middle of nowhere - deep in the Sandhills of western Nebraska. With the grass gone, the cattle couldn't graze, as CBS's on the road reporter Steve Hartman noted. 

Suddenly, after the fires. Wintz and other ranchers started getting phone calls. The callers said hay was on the way, and where should we put it. At last report Wintz has received $80,000 worth of hay, all donated. 

Highways in central and western Nebraska became busy with convoys of trucks carrying hay to desperate ranchers. Some of the hay came from as far away as South Carolina. The convoys became almost like celebratory parades, as school kids lined streets to watch the trucks, fully loaded with enormous bales of hay pass by. 

"Empathy, charity and grace," Hartman concludes. 

All true. Hartman is always the feel good reporter we need when we need to see someone acting like good humans should. 

Unfortunately, I'm not as kind hearted as Hartman. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely support and love this Nebraska "hay lift," for lack of a better term. And of course I support helping your neighbor in any way you can. Whether that neighbor is literally next door or half a world away. 

However,  like so much havoc caused by, or more often made worse by climate change, massive hay donations like we've just seen in Nebraska aren't going to solve the problem. 

In the first few months of 2026, major wildfires scorched over a million acres in Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma, Nebraska Public Media notes.

NPM continues:

"The amount of Great Plains land burned by wildfires tripled between 1985-1994 and 2005-2014, according to a 2017 study from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The number of incidents also increased from 33 per year to 117 per year."

 Judging from news reports about Great Plains fires in the past three years at least, that trend  detected nearly a decade ago by UNL researchers has continued.

There's always talk of "adaptation" to extreme conditions wrought by climate change. And people in the Great Plains can adapt to an extent. They can make homes and outbuildings more resisted to fire. Improve warning systems. But if there's a drought, strong winds and hot temperatures, there's little you can do to stop the grass from burning. 

While people are contemplating wildfires, the Plains might be in for a temporary reprieve. Climate change makes fires more likely, but so does La Nina. That weather pattern tilts conditions toward dry in the central and southern Plains during the early spring. 

Early spring is peak fire season. A potentially strong El Nino is poised to replace the La Nina. An El Nino more often than not tends to turn the southern half of the Plains wetter. 

Still, El Nino will end at some point. And so the fires will come back, possibly even more ferocious than this year's as climate change continues to heat the planet. 

Here is the CBS report. Click on this link to view it, or if you see the image below, click on that.