King Tides, Big Storms, Giant Floods: El Nino Is Already Taking A Huge Toll, And It Will Get Worse

Flooding in McCaysville, Georgia last week. A string of 
flood disaster over the past month from California to 
Florida is just the beginning of what is shaping up to
be a horrifically destructive Super El Nino winter. 

 The southwest and southeastern parts of the nation are cleaning up from flood disasters in the past couple of weeks caused by nation's first major encounters with the ongoing super El Nino. 

Coastal areas, especially in California, are cleaning up after record sea levels flooded hundreds if not thousands of homes and businesses.  The same problem hit parts of Florida. 

Then, storms caused intense, destructive, sometimes record flooding in both the southwestern U.S. and in Florida. Then later in northern Georgia and southeast Pennsylvania. 

The extreme weather had tapered off by Tuesday, but these are likely the opening salvos in a very rough weather winter. 

 KING TIDES 

King Tides hit yearly, when the moon is a little closer to Earth than usual. That makes the pull of the tides stronger and higher. Climate change has raised sea levels, making flooding from King Tides a problem that now hits a few times of year. 

In California, the King Tides hit atop a Kelvin Wave. .   

A Kelvin Wave, which elevates sea levels, is underway along the California coast, The wave elevates sea levels by six to 12 inches. The King Tide, combined with the Kelvin Wave, caused record flooding.  

Around Loa Angeles and San Diego, tides reached eight feet, shattering records and sending water through neighborhoods and major thoroughfares, like the Pacific Coast Highway. This was the worst of many high tide events around Loa Angeles this year. The city has had 12 coastal flood days in 2026. That has already outpaced any year out of the past 50. And there's two months to go this year. 

This time around, record flooding hit California coastal communities, damaging at least hundreds of homes and businesses. In one spot, the high tide covered the Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach. ,. Video showed makeshift sea walls made of sand bags and plastic, while water entered numerous SoCal homes. 

 Further north, San Francisco endured its highest tide ever seen during the month of October.  A kayaker was spotted along a flooded section of the normally traffic-jammed 101 freeway. 

In Florida, the problem wasn't a Kelvin Wave, but an easterly wind flow that piled water along the coastline just as the King Tides hit. 

Virginia Key, which ia a barrier island near Miami, saw its highest King Tide and the third-highest water level since records started 30 years ago. 

Video showed water flooding streets and lapping against homes and businesses in cities like Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale. The video showed cars driving through the salt water flooding. 

Which is bad. Because TVs, golf cars and scooters are especially susceptible to salt water flooding.  Lithium ion batteries exposed to salt water can start fires days or even weeks after being exposed to salt water. 

After last week's flooding King Tides, the moon phases are changing, reducing the destructive King Tides for now.  King Tides hit when the moon is a little closer to Earth than usual, causing tides to rise to higher levels. 

But as destructive as the coastal flooding was last week, it might only be a foretaste of what's to come. More King Tides are coming, and those might well be accompanied by big storms, which would greatly exacerbate the damage. 

Some of the storms have already hit in the past week or so, carrying intense, record flooding. 

Flash floods extended across most of Arizona, from Flagstaff in the north to Tucson in the south. 

Flagstaff had 3.37 inches of rain on Sunday, the third wettest day on record for the city. Flagstaff has already had its wettest meteorological autumn and there's still three weeks to go. (Meteological autumn runs from September 1 and November 30. Since September 1, Flagstaff has had 13.15 of rain since September 1. 

A a result, water coursed through streets and homes. Unfortunately, the flooding killed two people in the city. 

Elsewhere, on the weekend of October 23, the resort town of Pagosa Springs, Colorado, was inundated and badly damaged by downpours and intense flooding. The San Juan River crested at 15.02, nearly three feet higher than a damaging flood in August. 

But that was only the beginning. The even more ferocious storm this past weekend, pushed the San Juan river to a crest of 16.81 feet, making it the second highest flood crest there, just short of a 1911 flood. 

Luckily, the crest fell short of an expected 22 feet. But between October's flood and this one, the destruction was still extreme. At least one house was seen falling into the river and floating downstream before disintegrating against a bridge. 

People were reported stranded in Durango and other towns.  People were evacuated from several counties in southwest Colorado as creeks and rivers burst their banks. 

Durango is a big tourist town, with plenty of condos and hotels. At one lodging, the Junction Hotel and Hostel, water filled the parking lot and first floor rooms.

FLORIDA

 Next up was southeast and parts of eastern Florida, especially around Brevard County

Two people have been reported dead because of the flooding. 

The flooding was widespread and exceptionally damaging, especially since it hit such a heavily populated area. AccuWeather estimates damage at between $3 billion and $5 billion. 

On Tuesday, in a single day, Melbourne received 11.51 inches of rain. On November 2-3, Palm Bay had 14.19 inches of rain.  2 

Storm totals included a whopping total of 28.93 inches in Malabar and 28.13 oil he's in Palm Bay. The flooding was so bad that there had to be Election Day polling changes in severe Florida counties. 

The terrain is pretty flat, so the water wasn't able to drain well. So it lingered in some neighborhoods for days. 

Most schools in Brevard County were closed for at least three days. Some schools opened on the first day of the downpours, and buses had to somehow return students home later in the day on flooded streets. One viral video showed a student being let off into thigh-deep flood waters in Port St. Lucie. 

In an interview, the teen caught in the flooding said he was frightened by the experience, and his father said the school system should have planned out things better. El Nino is creating new challenges everywhere. 

 TENN/GA FLOODING

Some of the floods we've been seeing have been unexpected. Early Thursday, six to 11 inches of rain fell near the Tennessee and Georgia border. The rain pushed the Ocoee River to a record 18.05 feet. The previous record crest was 17.8 feet in 1990, and the river is around 2.5 feet on a normal day. 

The flooding nearly completely trashed the adjacent small cities of McCaysville, Georgia and Copperhill, Tennessee. Some people were rescued from roofs. A 90 year old woman stood on the kitchen table in her flooded home for gawd knows how long until she was rescued. 

So far,  one person has been killed in this flooding. 

Like so many of these storms lately, this flood was considered a one in one thousand year event. Also like other storms, the area punished by this flood was slammed by an inundation almost as bad just three months ago.

That will make recover that much harder because nobody has money left from the last disaster. 

The storm that hit Georgia and Tennessee ended up going up the East Coast, causing additional flooding Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The New England flooding wasn't nearly as bad as that in Georgia, but streets in Falmouth and nearby communities were under more than a foot of water

MUCH MORE TO COME

El Nino continues to strengthen. The northern hemisphere storms are taking on their winter characteristics, and will continue to become more powerful, as they do in the winter. 

The winter storms will get supercharged by El Nino, so it's clearly going to be a rough weather winter.

King Tides will return later this month and in December. If they're accompanied by one or more of those gigantic Pacific storms that often hit during those months, the destruction might be far beyond what we saw in October.

El Nino years often feature flooding rain storms, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, especially along the Gulf Coast and in Florida. Some of the those powerful storms take a turn northward, up the Eastern Seaboard, causing high winds and heavy rain or snow.

It's impossible to predict when such storms will blow through and exactly how they'll behave. 

Just expect a long winter. 

 

California Surfer Dude Is Unlikely High Quality El Nino Journalist As Pacific Ocean Swamps Coast

Blair Conklin, an unlikely and very good citizen 
journalist, seen here covering record tidal 
flooding Monday in Newport Beach California. 

Sometimes, reliable, related about and well-reported news comes from unlikely sources. Especially these days.  

Meet Blair Conklin, a surfer dude from southern California. He's straight from Central Casting. He's got a big mop of curly blonde, sun-bleached hair. 

What appears to be a perennial tan. He's got that cool dude California vernacular, at least a little bit, when he talks.  Even is first name fits the part. 

Conklin, a native of Laguna Beach, is an accomplished award-winning professional skimboarder and surfer. He's got a very popular YouTube channel called SkidKids, that has 4 million followers and mostly deals with surfing and California beach life. 

Lately, the southern California coast has been swallowed up by El Nino.  The warm water has stirred up numerous hurricanes off the Mexican west coast, sending battering swells long distance into California beaches. 

El Nino has also produced a Kelvin wave, which sharply elevates water levels along the California coast (It brings warm water, which expands compared to cold water.) 

El Nino also is starting to bring storms to southern California. This week, the Kelvin wave combined with unusually high King Tides have caused record flooding. 

And one of the best places to find information about this is Conklin's SkidKids YouTube channel. 

Conklin has been all over this story. 

Lots of media outlets have been covering the wave-battered homes, some of them red-tagged, the crumbling cliffs, the flooded streets and alleys. 

But our surfer Conklin knows his coast, the tidal patterns, how waves behave when they crash onto the coast, how the swells remove sand from the beaches to make the waves that much more destructive. 

The result is some of the best journalism connected to this slowly building California coastal disaster. Right there on his SkidKids channel. He knows the area, and he's good working with a cell phone camera and a drone. 

Conklin shows us how the waves are causing new problems, and worsening old ones. He shows us how abrupt, weird October tropical downpours can flood streets in an instant. He shows how high tide flooding gets around barriers and sand bags.

He even apparently broke some news. Earlier this month, CalTrans shut down one lane of a section of the Pacific Coast Highway in Laguna Beach. It seems the public was at first unsure why. Conklin then posted a video showing a large crack had developed on an embankment supporting part of the highway. 

Battering waves had eroded the base of the embankment. Conklin also followed the story as CalTrans put tarps over the embankment, hoping to prevent heavy rains from making the situation worse. 

The news over the past couple of days has been the record tidal flooding, caused by the Kelvin Wave/King Tide one-two punch. 

Earlier today, Conklin took us the the famed Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, where serious tidal flooding hit despite efforts to building barricades and sandbag walls. It's really a great in-depth video to help us understand what California is facing this fall and winter. 

Not all citizen journalists are that good, of course. They have agendas. They make assumptions. They don't know how to ask good questions. They don't know how to find good, accurate information. But every once in awhile, you get a good one like Conklin. 

I'll be relying on him all winter for weather news from California. Even if I am an old, landlubbing, inland Vermonter who doesn't know the first thing about surfing. 

 

September Was World's Second Hottest. Oceans Set Record For Heat, Portending Wild El Nino Winter

The world was hot again in September, the second
hottest on record. The eastern Pacific Ocean was 
especially hot, thanks to a record-breaking El Nino

The world had its second hottest September on record, continuing the global heat boosted by El Nino, according to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.  

The data follows a trend of recent hot months, as most months this year have been either the warmest or second warmest on record.  

Climate change has a lot to do with it. But a record setting strong El Nino is further boosting worldwide temperatures.

As you'd expect, there were widespread areas of much warmer than normal temperatures around the globe. 

Obviously. the eastern and central Pacific Ocean was roasting, as that area is the epicenter of El Nino. 

Other especially hot areas were the southern and central United States, Mexico, western South America, parts the Arctic, southwestern and northeastern Europe, and large portions of Asia, western Africa, the Indian Ocean, and western and southern Australia.

Even during a month in which the world is practically on fire, you're going to have a few cold spots. Some spots in the Arctic and Antarctica were a little on the cold side. Also, some areas of western north America and southern Africa. Despite the cold spot or two in the Arctic, that region overall still had its hottest September on record. 

The world's oceans were hot. Really hot. 

According to NCEI's report: 

"For a fourth consecutive month, the global ocean surface temperature departure set a new record high, averaging 1.98 degrees F above average for September. This value represents the highest ocean temperature departure for any month on record, edging out the previous all-time record set only last month, August, 2026."

This is ominous. Such huge amounts of heat stored in the oceans, could help the atmosphere really go into overdrive during the next several months at least.  

With all that hot ocean water, tropical cyclone activity was above average. In September, the world saw 10 tropical storms, nine of which reached hurricane status. Or typhoon status, same thing. Six of these storms became major hurricanes. 

The eastern Pacific north of the equator, with its record ocean heat content due to El Nino, was super busy, to say the least. There, eight tropical storms formed in September,  tying a record for most during September. The tie is with 1994, 1997 and 2015. Eight of the storms ended up being  . Five of those were major hurricanes.   

The years 1997 and 2015 were big El Nino years, so that makes sense. 

One of them, Category 5 Hurricane Polo became the second most intense eastern Pacific hurricane on record. Only Hurricane Patricia in 2015 was stronger. 

On the other hand, El Nino causes strong upper level winds over the Atlantic Ocean. Those winds tore apart and tropical systems that tried to form. In September, four tropical storms managed to form - briefly - before being ripped apart. No hurricanes formed. 

This is the first times since satellites started keeping a constant eye on the Atlantic that no hurricanes formed by the first of October.  

UNITED STATES

The Lower 48 had its warmest September on record.
The middle of the U.S. was especially hot. 

The Lower 48 of the United States had its warmest September on record, NCEI reported. It surpassed the previous record set in 1998, which was another big El Nino year. So far this year, four months, March, July, August and September were the warmest on record for their respective months. 

The September heat was concentrated in the southern and central United States. The month was dominated by a heat dome that stayed pretty much put almost over the entire month. 

Eight states- Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas had their hottest September on record. 

A persistent heat dome occupied the southern and middle parts of the U.S. pretty much all month, accounting for the heat. There were corresponding dips in the jet stream in the western and northeastern U.S., so those areas were actually pretty close to normal. 

Oklahoma Center, near the epicenter of the heat dome, had a September that was incredible 11.5 degrees hotter than normal.  Thirteen days reached at least 100 degrees. Only four days during September in OKC failed to reach 90 degrees. 

Oregon had its 42nd coolest September on record, making it the only state in the nation that was definitely on the cool side. That's out of the past 132 Septembers. Here in Vermont, were also weren't anywhere near any records. NCEI said the Green Mountain State had its 40th warmest September out of the past 132 years. 

A band from the Desert Southwest to central and northern Plains were definitely on the wet side, while the Southeast was dry, the NCEI said in its national summary for September. 

Arizona and New Mexico had their second wettest September record.  Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota and Ohio also had one of their ten wettest Septembers. As an example of how wet the middle to the U.S. was, Omaha, Nebraska had 11.92 inches of rain in September. Normal there is 2.96 inches. 

On the other side. Arkansas was the driest of them all, having its eighth driest September. 

Here in Vermont, we had our 46th driest September out the past 132 years. 

Now that we're almost done with October, it's pretty much a given that this month will end up one of the hottest Octobers on record, if not the hottest. Record heat waves have hit large parts of Asia, Africa, the Mideast and North America in recent weeks. 

We'll see when the next NCEI report is released in mid-November. 

Arizona, Other Sections Of U.S. Reeling From Past Week's Storms. A Harbinger Of A Violent El Nino Winter?

People soak in a pool that was being
threatened by record flooding in
Pagosa Springs, Colorado last week

An early season storm last week prompted Arizona's first tornado warning in 16 years, produced at least three tornadoes, and set off gorilla hailstorms and flooding. 

At least three suspected tornadoes hit Arizona. The worst appears to be in Overgaard, a town of about 3,000 people roughly 140 miles north of Phoenix. 

Roofs of home were torn off and trees crashed through other roofs.  

In Phoenix, there were no tornadoes, but intense thunderstorm winds and large hail caused widespread, severe damage, especially in the northern half of the city. The hail broke countless windows, smashed zillions of car windshields and left vehicles hopelessly dented. Video showed parking lots full of cars destroyed by hail up to the size of baseballs. 

Strong winds also torn apart numerous trees. Phoenix easily suffered many millions of dollars in damage in just one storm. Maybe over $1 billion.  Another Phoenix hailstorm in 2010 caused $2.7 billion in damage. 

In southern California, violent storms also hit. Video captured swirling debris in Victorville, which makes me suspect at least a weak tornado. Other areas in the Los Angeles basin saw hail, flooding downpours and wind damage. 

Severe flooding hit the Four Corners region, the area where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah meet. The flooding began in earnest Wednesday and continued the rest of the week. 

Intense flooding also hit southwest Colorado.

Per CBS:

"Video shared with CBS Colorado shows a Pagosa Springs house inundated with floodwaters. All that can be seen is a small piece of the roof and the chimney."

 Other houses were inundated or being undermined by water. This is the second damaging flood in Pagosa Springs within a  year.  The San Juan river crested ago 15.02 feet Friday, compared to 12.8 feet during last year's flood. 

Hurricane, Utah had its second severe flood since August. One family had just moved back into their house three weeks ago after it was damaged by flooding, only to have it inundated again 

The area is known as a resort with popular hot springs. Almost all the hotels and tourists attractions are on higher ground and suffered little damage.

EL NINO INFLUENCE

It's beginning to look like a wild El Nino all and winter is already have an effect. It's unclear whether the violent weather is related to El Nino, but it is consistent with the pattern that's widely expected this winter. 

As NPR reports: 

"Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, says the severe thunderstorms are ruled by the large amount of moisture in the air. He says the moisture comes from the record-warm waters off parts of the West Coast, which are drive by an ongoing strong El Nino event and a recent marine heat wave (which he attributes largely to human-caused climate change)."

The West Coast and parts of the Southwest - along with most of the rest of the southern United States - is bracing for a terribly stormy winter, courtesy of the record strong El Nino. 

Already, another strong, wet storm looks like it might slam into the southern California coast, and then spread more heavy air into the Southwest in about a week. 

 

NOAA Winter Outlook Gives Vermont, Rest of Northern U.S. A Warm Winter, But Take It With A Grain Of Salt

NOAA's winter forecast has warmer than normal air,
in general across the northern U.S, and a tossup
across the South. 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its winter outlook last week, and it was designed by El Nino.  

In general, El Ninos tend toe provide the northern tier of states with mild winters, while the South is stormy. That's not always the way it works out, it's just a tendency. 

Right now, we have a record breaking super El Nino underway, so NOAA is going with the traditional El Nino game plan for the winter.

NOAA has the best chances of warmer than average temperatures in the Pacific Northwest, the Great Lakes and northern and central New England 

The chances of milder than average temperatures are less certain in the central United States, though NOAA is leaning that way. NOAA is also predicting near average temperatures for Florida and the far Southeast. And it's a coin toss between above and below average temperatures in the Southwest. 

NOAA's winter precipitation forecast has wetter than
normal conditions across the South and maybe the East
and dry spots in the northern Rockies and Great Lakes 

Also staying true to El Nino's blueprint, NOAA calls for a wetter than average winter over the south. Especially in southern and central California and the Southeast. The northern Rockies and parts of the Great Lakes lean drier than normal.

The East Coast is a bit of a wildcard, but NOAA is leaning wet there, too. Some of those southern storms take a turn north along the coast. It's unclear if this means a bunch of rain and mixed precipitation or snow. But if the temperature forecast is right, snowstorms won't linger long on the ground like last winter. 

If the NOAA forecast is right. 

Long range forecasts are notorious. tricky, and are at least sometimes inaccurate. RalphWeatherOBS on Twitter brought receipts. 

For instance, last winter, NOAA forecast the northern Rockies to be on the cold side and southern Rockies. The entire West turned out to be very warm last year, so in that region of the nation. NOAA was half right. 

For 2024-25, NOAA predicted the East Coast would have a warm winter. Instead it was near to slightly cooler than average. 

OLD FARMER'S ALMANAC

For what it's worth, the winter prediction map for the Old' Farmer's Almanac is confusing. They have northern and southeast New England as "mild, dry," while central and parts of western New England are "cold, snowy."  For one small region of the nation, you really can't have both, so I don't know what gives. 

The Old Farmer's Almanac breaks it down this way with a little more detail for the Northeast: 

Temperatures would be above  normal in the north, below normal south. The coldest period would be in early to mid January. Precipitation is expected to be below normal, though snowfall might be above normal south.  

THE FARMER'S ALMANAC

There's another almanac that's been around forever, The Farmer's Almanac that also does winter forecasts. 

This almanac seems to have El Nino in mind, too. They predict a number of coastal storms going up the Eastern Seaboard, much like the supposed "typical" El Nino winter.

Since it will be a generally mild winter, again, presumably due to E Nino, this pattern involves a lot of mixed precipitation and wet snow, according to this Almanac. 

Of course, Almanacs are just fun. They don't accurately predict the weather, no matter what they say.

El Nino is also no guarantee, as we mentioned above. The only thing I'm certain about this coming winter is that there will be surprises. 

 

"Kelvin Wave" The Latest Meteorological Buzz Word: What To Worry About. Spoiler: Very Little For Most Of Us

A schematic showing how a Kevin waves work. In this
case it's a bulge of warm water and and a temporary
sea level rise of at least six inches rise that can 
exacerbate coastal flooding. 

Polar Vortex. Heat Dome. El Nino. Bomb Cyclone.

Lots of weather buzz words have come up in recent years. The terms have become bogeymen in social media, becoming monsters lurking to kill us all at the right moment. Even if all to these aren't exactly the end of the world. 

Now we have another one. Kelvin waves. 

Before we get into it, I'll be honest. A Kelvin wave along the West Coast won't affect you much at all, unless you live or work right along the ocean front.  

Kelvin waves are huge slow-moving pulses of warm subsurface ocean water that travel along the equator until they smack against a coastline.

They form when trade winds slow down or stop. This Kelvin wave in the Pacific is reinforcing the current record breaking El Nino. It moved westward across the Pacific before smacking into the west coast of South America. 

From there, the Kelvin waves moved both north and south. One batch moved southward along the South American coast. The other went north along the Mexican coast and the on to the U.S. West Coast.

The Kelvin wave has moved as far north as around San Francisco so far.  

Kelvin waves are not something anyone can see. They're just a subtle, huge ridge in the water. 

The Associated Press explains further: 

"Kelvin waves are not like tsunamis, and they don't curl over and crash on the beach. A better image is water sloshing in the bathtub or a swimming pool during an earthquake.

In the ocean, they are bulges of water that lift the sea level as they move along the coast. They're common during El Nino event, but this year's El Nino could intensify the impacts, experts say."

The six inch to foot tall surge is moving north along the California coast and will eventually raise water levels somewhat in Oregon and Washington, too.The Kelvin wave now hitting the West Coast has the potential for worsening coastal flooding, There's no real storm this week along the California coast, but there's been some swells from distant hurricanes. 

Last month, while the Kelvin wave was building, , elevated sea levels and waves from offshore Hurricane Marie caused destructive waves along the southern California coast, especially around Long Beach. 

There's nothing especially damaging going on now. So this particular Kelvin wave isn't likely to cause an enormous amount of damage. 

But the risk isn't over.

The current Kelvin wave is the first of what will probably be several such waves between now and about next February. El Ninos typically produce five or six of these, and the one ongoing now is only the first. 

Even before any Kelvin waves hit, the sea level is already elevated due to climate change. The risk is when new Kelvin waves hit when high astronomical "King Tides." and strong storms hit at the same time. 

That kind of triple attack would cause a ton of damage along the California coast.

King Tides are expected on November 24-26, December 23-25 and January 21-22.  

El Ninos have historically unleashed a series of severe storms onto the California coast.  Imagine if, say, over the Christmas holiday, there is a Kelvin wave, a King Tide and a severe storm all hitting at the same time. 

That's what keeps emergency managers up at night. 

El Nino is looming. There's no guarantee California will succumb to severe storms, high, damaging tides and battering waves.  But it's definitely something to prepare for.  

Will This Be The Year Without A Hurricane? Quietest Atlantic Season Since1914. Pacific Buzzing With Hurricanes, Though

Satellite view of Category 5 Hurricane Polo off the
southwest coast of Mexico on Tuesday. While the
Atlantic Ocean is setting records for a lack of hurricanes,
the Pacific Ocean is really busy. The root 
cause of all this is a record strong El Nino

People from Texas to Maine are usually nervous this time of year, as hurricanes are almost always lurking in the Atlantic Ocean this time of year. 

This year, it's practically crickets out there in the Atlantic. That trend is continuing. 

It's the first time since 1914 that there have been no hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean by now. The year 1907 was another occasion in which there'd been no hurricanes by September 22. 

However,  in 1907 and 1914, there might actually have been at least a hurricane or two.  Such a storm might have been way out in the Atlantic Ocean and just totally missed by us humans. There were obviously no satellites to track storms way back then. 

This year, we have had six tropical storms, which have winds between 39 and 73 mph. We almost had our first hurricane Sunday and Monday, but not quite. 

Tropical Storm Fay in the far eastern Atlantic almost got to hurricane status Sunday night and early Monday. Sustained wind reached 70 mph, just 4 mph less than hurricane force. But those El Nino upper level winds blew it apart, and it had weakened to a remnant low by Tuesday. 

El Nino, That's what's preventing the Atlantic hurricanes. El Nino always tends to create strong upper level winds over the Atlantic.  Those winds are kyrptonite to wannabe hurricanes, shearing apart the thunderstorms that are the ingredients for these storms. 

Usually, even in an El Nino year, at least a couple hurricanes sneak into existence somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, finding relatively calm spots amid those strong upper level winds. 

This year, El Nino is at record strength, and it appears it's helping to cause wall--to-wall hostile winds in the atmosphere. 

The remnants of Fay in the central Atlantic Ocean is forecast to briefly restrengthen into a tropical storm, then get blown apart by those winds. Another disturbance just off the west coast of Africa might also develop into a tropical storm before being nuked by those high level winds, too. 

STRONG UPPER WINDS HELP NOR'EASTER?

That's not to say a strong non-tropical storm can't form in the Atlantic.  Regular storms don't wilt when faced with strong high altitude winds. And these storms can gain extra strength from warm waters. A nor'easter is due along or off the coast of the Northeast this weekend. This storm might be pretty strong, with an added boost of energy from those warm offshore waters.

Cold core storms like the expected nor'easter don't fall apart when there's strong wind shear. In fact, wind shear can help intensity them.

Here's why. Hurricanes are warm core. They tend to be symmetrical Their  center is a vertical "chimney" that vents the heat up and out. Strong winds aloft displace the heat above the eye of the storm and tilt the whole structure of the hurricane.  That limits the updrafts that feed the thunderstorms that make up the core of the hurricane. So, with high-speed air up high, a hurricane stands no chance.  

Cold core storms like our pending nor'easter are not symmetric and don't rely on a "chimney" to fuel them. Instead, they gather their energy from a contrast in temperatures across the storm zone. 

Strong upper level winds can actually help a cold-core storm intensify by bending the jet stream in such a way to add a lot of rising air to the system. The rising air creates precipitation and helps streghthen the storm. 

PACIFIC OCEAN

Meanwhile, El Nino helps hurricanes in the Pacific Ocean. And this year, the Pacific is swarming with hurricanes. Hurricane Polo formed last weekend off the coast of southwest Mexico. It exploded from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane within 24 hours, one of the fastest such intensifications on record for a hurricane. 

Hurricane Polo was still a strong hurricane as of today, and should stay just off the western Mexican coast the next few days, throwing rain bands, gusty winds and battering waves at that coast. 

Hurricane Odalys is further off the coast of Mexico, with top winds today at 75 mph. It should eventually weaken as it heads northeastward. 

Meanwhile, Hawaii, already side swept earlier this year by two hurricanes that each caused a lot of damage, is  under the gun again. 

A tropical depression has formed well south of the islands. It's expected to move north toward the islands while it strengthens into a major hurricane. It is forecast to make a hard left turn before reaching the islands,  but it could easily come close enough to cause another huge headache. 

Given the weather pattern, there will almost surely be more hurricanes in the Pacific before the tropical season ends in November. 

Drought Monitor: Vermont Dry Conditions Unchanged Since Last Week

A drought is deepening across eastern New England and
Vermont is on the western fringe of that drought. 
Below normal rainfall is forecast for at least the
next week in northern New England. 

Drought conditions and dry soil conditions remained the same in Vermont over the past seven days, according to the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor.    

 Moderate drought still covered nearly a quarter of the state east of the Green Mountains and north of about Bradford. 

Abnormally dry conditions extended across the rest of northern Vermont east of the western foothills of the Green Mountains, according to the report, which was released Thursday morning. 

Vermont remains on the eastern edge of deepening drought in northeastern New England. Drought expanded a little in New Hampshire in the past week. All of Maine is in at least moderate drought, up from 75 percent of the state. Nearly 20 percent of Maine is in severe drought. And for the first time this drought cycle, a small area of the central Maine coast is in extreme drought.

The outlook isn't good. We've fallen into a weather pattern that soaks southern New England and leaves the north high and dry. 

Here in Vermont, the southern third of the state expect a half inch to an inch of rain between now and Sunday morning. Pretty decent. That tapers off to less than a quarter inch of rain north of Route 2. In Maine, up to a half inch of rain is forecast along the coast in the next day or so, but it won't be enough to really dent the drought. Up in northern Maine, little rain is forecast. 

Another problem: When there's a big El Nino, autumn tend to be dry in northern New England. Especially in September and October.  Not every time, but often. And sometimes that dry weather extends into the early winter. 

The drought could become worse. On top of that, all that greenery out there is going to turn brown and dry. Autumn leaves will fall, and become crunchy tinder underfoot, ready to start a new fire.

Already, there's been a recent forest fire in Vermont. A small, but difficult forest fire is burning on Hogback Mountain, near Bristol. Crews on Saturday had to haul water in backpacks and climb over ledges to get to the half-acre fire.

They dug a containment line around it, but it was burning underground. That's how dry it is. Even the half inch of rain that fell Saturday night did little to stop it. The blaze was likely an improperly extinguished recreational fire, according to the Bristol Fire Department. 

Just another reason to be vigilant about fire as the North Country dries out. 

 

Trump Preventing Atlantic Hurricane This Year, Says His Sycophant.

Donald Trump, shown here windblown and 
exhausted after blocking all Atlantic Ocean
hurricane this year so far. Allegedly. 

Halliluja! President Trump is singlehandedly preventing hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean!  

Want proof? Just turn to the social media account called Rapid Response 47. It calls itself "The office White House Rapid Response account. Supporting President Trump's America First agenda and holding the Fake News accountable. MAGA!"

As you can imagine, you'll get some wild comments from that account. 

On the social media site X, this all started from a post by meteorologist Chris Martz.  He wrote, "History has been made! No hurricanes have formed in the North Atlantic Ocean so far this year. This is the FIRST time on record in the satellite era (since 1966)."

Fact check: Martz is completely correct. All the hurricane experts are pretty gobsmacked by this lack of Atlantic hurricanes so far this year. 

But then Rapid Response 47 page tagged Martz's post with the message, "Thank you President Trump!"

That's right. The Trump team says Trump has somehow stopped Atlantic hurricanes this year. I haven't seen any indication of how Trump has stopped the hurricanes. 

But everyone on the coastline form Brownsville, Texas to Eastport, Maine must be thanking the Glorious Orange One for protecting their homes and properties and beaches.

But wait a minute. Is Trump really preventing those hurricanes or is something else afoot?

It's probably no accident that Rapid Response 47 tagged Martz.  Martz is a MAGA-friendly climate skeptic, one that the Trump sycophants probably feel safe with. 

But in a post today, Martz posted something else. Not in response to the Trump people, just science. And once again, Martz was completely accurate. Turns out maybe it isn't Trump who is preventing the hurricanes. 

Martz explained that we aren't getting hurricanes in the Atlantic due to shear, which is changes in wind speed and direction with height. The strong winds aloft are tearing apart wannabe tropical storms. Plumes of dust from the Sahara Desert are also working against tropical systems. 

He didn't get into why there is so much shear. It's because El Nino is currently super strong, and it continues to cause that shear over the Atlantic Ocean. 

Responses to the claim that Trump is stopping hurricanes have been predictably brutal.

Some examples:

"Can't believe Trump can control weather but not the debt."

"Holy crap. You're thanking him for the weather? This is some messed up North Korea shit going on."

"Dumbfuck cult members think their Flatulent Fuhrer controls the weather."

"All he had to do was to threaten to change the name to the American Ocean, and the hurricanes are cowering in fear.!"

Even Ted Cruz cryptically posted on X: 

"Since I'm told that he's responsible for everything, I blame Trump."

I have to ask why Trump hasn't stopped the hurricanes in the Pacific Ocean. Two of them have sideswiped Hawaii, and caused a lot of damage there. Another Pacific hurricane stayed offshore, but sent enormous waves crashing into the southern California coast, causing quite a bit of damage there. 

This isn't the first time Trump has been praised for his alleged ability to control weather. Last year, no hurricanes made landfall in the United States, which was a welcomed break from years of destructive storms. 

Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, during a televised cabinet meeting, said, "Sire, you made it through a hurricane season without a hurricane.....Even you kept the hurricanes away. We appreciate that."

Sigh.  

The Atlantic hurricane season ends on November 30, so there is plenty of time for such a storm to form. 

The National Hurricane Center says a tropical system could form in the central subtropical Atlantic Ocean later this week. 

August Was World's Hottest On Record As El Nino Grows; U.S. Had Hottest Summer

The world had its  hottest August on record. Only
tiny areas on the map are blue, which is a little on the 
cool side of normal. All the orange is warmer than
normal. Dark orange is a record hot month. 

New data released this week show that the world endured its August on record, beating out a tie between 2023 and 2024.  

The hot August was a big contributor to what turned out to be the world's hottest summer on record. Global oceans, taken as a whole, were also at record warmth. 

The United States also had its hottest August, and hottest summer on record. 

HOT WORLD

This all comes from NOAA's National Centers for Environment Information. Every month, NCEI is among a handful of meteorological agencies that take detailed temperatures of the world. Copernicus, the European climatological agency, also deemed August, 2026 the hottest on record. 

August, 2026 broke the record for hottest by 0.14 degrees F., according to NOAA's assessment. That doesn't sound like much, but it's a pretty wide margin if you add up all the thousands of weather stations that measure temperatures daily.

If you want a long, depressing trend, I've got one for you. This is the 48th consecutive year the world has seen an August warmer than the 20th century average, The top ten hottest Augusts have all happened since 2016.

The hot August comes from an amalgamation of data from throughout the world. Some were sort of hot, some were very hot, some were record hot, and a very, very few were a little on the chilly side. Taken together, we have confirmation of our record hot global August

Regions that experienced a record hot August included large swaths of Greenland, northern and central Africa, southern and western Europe, northwest Asia and much of the western United States. Reflecting the El Nino conditions, a huge area of the eastern and central tropical Pacific also had record warmth. 

Even in the warmest months, you can find pockets of relatively cool weather. Parts of the Arctic, eastern Russia and Antarctica had an August that was a tad cooler than the 20th century average. But not by much. 

The world had its warmest June-August period on record as well. That's meteorological summer in the northern hemisphere and meteorological winter in the southern hemisphere. The records for all of the above go back 177 years

 UNITED STATES

All of the continental United States had a warm month
North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Indiana were only
slightly warmer than normal. California, Nevada,
Colorado and New Mexico had the hottest August.

August was also the hottest on record in the United States, as was the summer as a whole. The average temperature across all of the Lower 48, if you aggregate all the established weather stations, was 75.6 degrees. Daytime maximums set an all time record to averaging 88.6 degrees across the continental U.S.   

The records go back 132 years

California, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado had their hottest August on record. Seventeen other states had one of their top 10 warmest Augusts.

Nobody in the United States had a cooler than average August North Dakota came closest, having its 58th warmest August on record. 

Here in Vermont, we had our 23rd hottest August, so I guess we escaped the worst of a torrid month. 

It was both stuffy warm nights and torrid afternoons that gave us the hot August. While there were plenty of daily record highs set across the U.S. in August, there wasn't the all-time highs you often see in super warm months. 

August also lacked any real cool spells anywhere in the Lower 48.

Another factor in creating such a hot month were those nights. This happened everywhere in the continental United States. But it was especially noticeable in the lower Great Lakes. That region was along a sort of borderline between especially hot weather to the south, with somewhat more moderate air to the north. 

The cloudy, humid weather in Indiana that cooled afternoons and made nights stuffy gave the state its 44th coolest average maximum temperatures on record. But it also gave Indiana the 28th warmest average minimum temperatures. Add it all up and it was Indiana's 49th hottest August out of the past 132 years.

Indiana was in the epicenter of bad weather in the United States. Indiana and neighborhood Ohio had their wettest August on record. A band extending west to east from Utah to New Jersey, with dry conditions north and south of that band.

Summer and Looking Ahead

Summer in the United States was also the hottest on record. June was warmer than normal. July was the hottest on record in the Lower 48. And, as noted above, August was hottest on record.  The previous record hot summers were a tie between 2021 and 1936

That Dust Bowl summer of 1936 is still regarded by many as the benchmark for hot summers, despite what happened in 2021 and now 2026.

The summer of 1936 certainly had its extreme hot spells, hotter than anything we saw in 2026.  

The summer of 1936 still holds the record for the hottest temperatures on record in eight states. However, it wasn't hot everywhere. The 1936 heat was focused on the Plains States. The Pacific Northwest and New England actually had a cool summer in 1936,.

During August, 2026, the heat wasn't as extreme, but it was far more widespread. There were 1.541 record highs set or tied at weather stations across the Lower 48 compared to kist 87 record low temperatures. That's about as big an imbalance as I've ever seen. 

The summer heat has become a trend this decade in the United States, as climate change worsens. Four of the five hottest summers in the United States have occurred in the past five years, according to NOAA data. 

AUTUMN

 When El Nino takes hold, autumn in the United States are often unusually warm. Especially with climate change holding court. 

The first 10 days of September have featured torrid, often record-breaking hot weather across the southern third of the United States. The rest of the United States have so far mostly lacked the usual cool spells that often spill across the border from Canada we usually see this time of year. 

NOAA predicted a warm September for most of the nation, except in the Pacific Northwest and possibly New England. Overall, autumn is predicted to be warm across most of the Lower 48, especially in the northern Rockies. 

A Record El Nino Has Ramped Up, So Expect A Wild Weather Ride Over The Next Year Or So

An image from August shows far warmer than normal
ocean waters in the eastern Pacific off the west coast
of South America as El Nino takes hold. Since 
August, that water has gotten even hotter. 

Climate change has made the world's weather more extreme: Worse storms, worse floods, worse droughts, weirder weather days.  

Now El Nino is starting to make everything worse. 

El Nino is now in full force,. Expect things to become especially wild for at least several months, well into next year.  Since this is uncharted territory with a record El Nino atop climate change, who knows how this will sugar off?

A statement released last week by the World Meteorological Organization  statement seems ominous: 

"'El Nino is being supersized before our eyes. The science leaves no room for doubt: The planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up. Sea surface temperatures are rising, temperatures keep climbing, and the world is in the danger zone of extreme weather. The race now is between rising risks and our commitment to take climate action and protect people. We must win that race,' said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres."

The WMO added: 

"El Nino is firmly established and will intensify into a very strong event in the coning months, with big impacts on rainfall and temperature patterns and associated risks of floods, drought and extreme heat, according to a new update."

But where? And how bad?

We don't know, exactly

It won't be armageddon, as some on social media breathlessly tell us.  Many of us will be fine, just marveling at the weird, sometimes scary weather. I don't want to minimize the fact that it will be tragic for some of us. 

And it will be expensive. Likely for all of us. Exactly what we end up with is still an open question, though we can forecast some of the broad brush effects. 

WHAT EL NINO IS DOING

At first, it might seem like El Nino is doing some of us a favor. As mentioned in a previous post, the Atlantic hurricane season so far is as lame as can be. El Nino is creating strong upper level winds over the tropical Atlantic, killing off any nascent tropical storms that want to form. 

A tropical storm or hurricane could still form between now and November, but we won't have many such storms. 

The eastern Pacific ocean is another story. The eastern Pacific Ocean is alive with hurricanes. One of them, Lowell, sideswiped Hawaii earlier this week, causing extensive damage. It's the second time a hurricane had trashed parts of Hawaii.  

El Nino pushes the warmest Pacific waters moved away from Asia and toward South America. The water becomes relatively cooler near Asia and Australia. Cooler water means less evaporation. And fewer showers and thunderstorms. Droughts result in southeast Asia and Australia. Destructive wildfires tend to break out in Indonesia and Australia. 

It also tends to get dry in southern Africa, sub-Sahara Africa and Brazil during El Ninos. Wet areas are a little less certain, although the southern United States tend to get pretty wet and stormy, even including tornado outbreaks  during the winter months of an El Nino.

NOAA is also telling us it will be a warmer than average winter along the northern tier of the United States, from the Pacific Northwest to New England, which is typical of an El Nino.

 There's a bunch of wildcards, though. Other factors could bend the winter jet stream, at times defying the will of El Nino

"A strong El Nino can tilt the odds toward certain temperature and precipitation patterns across different parts of the U.S., but it doesn't determine exactly how every storm, or even the entire winter, will play out," said Crystal Egger, a meteorologist and president of Monarch Weather Consulting.

That uncertainty applies to most other places in the world. 

COSTS/EFFECTS OF EL NINO

Whatever happens, the extreme weather with an El Nino can be expensive. 

The Super El Nino could lead to immediate global financial losses of nearly $1 trillion dollars in 2027. and up to $7.2 trillion over the ensuing six years, according to a September 8 report from Oxford Economics    As reported in supplychaiinbrai.com:

"Following extreme weather disruptions, both public and private sector funds are diverted toward reparations," Oxford Economics explain."While necessary, this expenditure restores lost production capacity rather than expanding it, which can crowed out investment in infrastructure upgrades, technology, education, R&D and so on."

The cost comes from everywhere, not just the physical damage. As supplychainbrain.com notes, these weather and climate disasters make it harder and more expensive to borrow money. Homeowners and businesses fall behind on loans. Damaged or devalued property becomes poorer collateral. 

Insurance covers some losses, but those disaster make premiums more expensive and make coverage harder to find. 

It's always difficult to calculate the cost of an event that hasn't really happened yet. So take the above figures with a grain of salt. Just know that every El Nina is expensive. This one will probably be more expensive than all the others. 

Given all the unknowns, it's hard to prepare for El Nino, but people - and governments are trying anyway.

In Great Britain, residents have been urged to have enough food and water stored at home to survive a few days without power or water services

British Environmental Secretary Angela Eagle said El Nino could create ever more extreme storms than the already big storms the UK has seen in recent years. 

"If you've got a store of a bit of food that can keep you going for awhile before the emergency services can get to you,  you're going to be a lot better off than if you haven't. So some of it is that kind of preparation for just being a little more resilient," Eagle said.

Beyond that, we're not sure what will happen. There's a lot of hysterics about this El Nino. Some of it is justified.  To be blunt, people will die, crops will fail, people will go hungry. 

Until now, the strongest El Nino known to have occurred hit in 1877. Washington Post picks up the story: 

"The (1877 El Nino) fueled conditions that led to a global famine which killed more than 50 million people across India, China, Brazil and elsewhere. That's 3 to 4 percent of the estimated global population at the time, equal to at least 250 million people if it happened today."

Could it happen again?

The world is much warmer than it was in 1877, thanks to climate change. So the effects of the 2026-27 El Nino would be more extreme than the world saw 150 years. 

On the other hand, unlike in 1877, we know El Nino is coming. We have ways to prepare for droughts and extreme storms. Drought-prone areas can switch to dry tolerant crops. Resourced can be re-directed in advance to combat wildfires.  Residents of the American South can gird for flooding and severe storms this winter.

We won't be able to tie every big storm, flood or dry spell that we'll see in the coming months directly to El Nino. The only thing we can expect is a wild weather ride ov er the winter. 

Buckle your seat belts! 

Quiet Vermont Weather Week During What Is Usually Quietest Weather Month Of Year. On Bright Side, No Hurricanes, As In Past Septembers

Damage in Brattleboro, Vermont after the Great 
New England Hurricane of 1938. This year is an
incredibly quiet Atlantic hurricane season, thanks to
El Nino. However, in the past, Septembers have
brought destructive tropical storms to Vermont.

The weather in and around Vermont is quiet, and will mostly remain on the quiet side for the next week. It's a nice contrast to the record heat and destructive storms elsewhere in United States lately.  

This is the time of year when large high pressure systems drift into New England from southern Canada. It's true this year, even with a stuck weather pattern that has kept the south central U.S. broiling since July, and has kept the severe weather in the Great Lakes/Mid-Atlantic states for the past several weeks.

It seems like the almost the only extreme weather Vermont sees in September is dying hurricanes, which can cause severe flooding and a lot of wind damage.

Not this year, of course. Incredibly, the National Hurricane Center sees no signs of tropical storms forming in the Atlantic Ocean for the next seven days. That's an absolutely wild thing to say at the peak of hurricane season.  El Nino is really doing its job at suppressing Atlantic hurricanes. 

In the past, of course, hurricanes and tropical storms have really tormented Vermont in past Septembers.

Great New England Hurricane

The biggest one, of course, was the Great New England Hurricane in 1938, killing nearly 700 people After coming ashore on Long Island and Connecticut, the 1938 hurricane quickly reached Brattleboro then curved northwestward toward Burlington. 

Especially along and east of that track, winds leveled forest across Vermont. Here's one example from the Vermont Weather Book: The hurricane destroyed 2,400 of 3,500 trees in a sugarbush in Cabot. And as we all know, it takes a long time to grow new trees, so this storm was incredibly devastating. 

The western side of a hurricane is especially rainy. We had a lot of rain in the days leading up to the hurricane, so the torrential rains  from the storm caused extensive flooding, some of the worst on record in Vermont. 

It was a rough stretch for floods in Vermont. Our worst flood on record hit in 1927, as most Vermonters know. A terrible destructive flood hit in 1936, then we had the great hurricane of 1938. Three mega-floods within 11 years.

We've had more recent tropical storms, of course. I"m omitting storms like Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, because that one hit in August. I'm only discussing September storms here.

David/Frederick, 1979

In 1979, two ex-tropical storms pestered Vermont in September. Ex-Hurricane David, having killed 2,000 in the Caribbean, swept up the East Coast from Florida to New England. The center of the now-former hurricane crossed Vermont on roughly a Danby to Thetford path. 

The storm brought heavy rain, damaging winds and a possible tornado that took part of the roof off a new supermarket in West Rutland 

A week later, ex-hurricane Frederick, which had devastated parts of the Gulf Coast, crossed northwest Vermont with more wind and rain statewide. A possible a collapsed a covered bridge between South Newbury, Vermont and Haverhill, New Hampshire. 

Floyd, 1999

We were damn lucky Vermont was having a serious drought in the weeks leading up to ex-hurricane Floyd in 1999. It slammed into North Carolina and at the time became the most expensive hurricane in that state's history. 

The weakening hurricane continued on up the East Coast, coming across Vermont on September 16-17. Three to seven inches of rain fell, with locally higher amounts. This would have caused severe flooding, except that severe drought meant water levels were extremely low before the storm. .

Still, flooding hit. The Tunbridge World's Fair had to be canceled due to high water A section of Route 5 in Weathersfield was washed away, One person died when high winds blew a tree down on them 

Next Few Days

We're definitely not going to have a tropical storm in the next few days. All in all, it will be a nice Labor Day weekend 

Today: Partly cloudy, a chance of widely scattered light showers Highs in the 70s

Sunday/Monday: Sunshine, with daytime highs in the 70s. The only major clouds would be patchy dense fog in the river valleys both mornings. That'll burn off by mid-morning 

The next chance of rain will come along probably on Wednesday and Thursday. So far, rainfall amounts with this thing don't' look like they'll be that impressive.  

Tropical Storm Eduoard Drowns Part Of Texas; ; But Storms Lacking In Atlantic; Pacific Ocean Is Wild, Though

Although the Atlantic Ocean is quiet, hurricanes are
spinning up frequently in the very warm Pacific Ocean.
from left to right, Hurricane Lowell south of Hawaii,
Hurricane Karina in the middle and Hurricane Marie
off the west coast of Mexico

Tropical Storm Edouard made landfall as a 60 mph tropical storm just east of the mouth of the Sabine River in far southwestern Louisiana Tuesday afternoon.  

It might have not been the strongest tropical system ever, but it showed remarkable staying power as it moved inland. Tropical storms tend to fall apart quickly once they move inland. Edouard did not.

Nearly 24 hours after making landfall, it still kept its general shape. Wind advisories for gusts up to 40 mph were in effect two days after landfall. 

The real problem, though, was the flooding. The storm dumped 18 to 24 inches on some areas of East Texas. In one town, 27.53 inches of rain fell. This all forced  dozens of rescues from flooded cars, homes, even an assisted living facility. 

So it was a destructive mess, but at least it wasn't as bad as a full hurricane.

ATLANTIC OCEAN

Edouard was a persistent little devil. But this is the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. You'd expect full-blown hurricanes this time of year, but nothing. We've had five tropical storms this year in the Atlantic, and none made it to hurricane status. 

Three of the storms - Arthur, Bertha and Edouard - affected the western Gulf Coast. 

The United States is enjoying a very quiet hurricane season so far thanks to the big giant El Nino that has developed eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. El Ninos affect weather patterns around the world.

In the Atlantic Ocean, El Nino creates strong upper level winds. Tropical storms start out as clumps of thunderstorms over the tropical oceans.  The strong upper level winds rips those storms apart. Or, if a tropical storm or hurricane has formed and then encounters those strong winds way high up, the thunderstorms in the tropical system either get ripped apart or get tugged away from the storm's center, causing a weakening trend.

Unless things change dramatically in the Atlantic Ocean soon, this could easily be among the quietest hurricane seasons on record. Which is a nice switch from the slew of busy, destructive seasons we've had in recent years. 

The East Coast of the United States is being spared a bad hurricane season, but we're not out of the woods. We could always have a late season hurricane. And El Nino could well create extreme late autumn and winter storms that would cause their own damage. 

PACIFIC OCEAN

On the other hand, Pacific Ocean hurricanes love El Ninos. 

The ocean is oddly warm during El Ninos, and upper level winds are light. Perfect conditions for incubating hurricanes. 

This year, hurricanes have been forming one after another in the eastern Pacific Ocean and then heading west.

Hurricane Lowell is currently the most concerning of the bunch. It was spinning several hundred miles south of Hawaii. It's was a major hurricane with winds of 140 mph. Meteorologists think it will turn a sharp turn north and eventually pass perilously close to the western Hawaiian islands. However, that forecast is still really uncertain, so stay tuned. 

As of Thursday morning, Hurricane Karina was churned well east of the Hawaii with top winds of 115 mph..

.Hurricane Marie was several hundred miles southwest of the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula. It had winds of 90 mph and was strengthening as it headed northwestward away from Mexico

Another tropical storm could form off the southwest coast of Mexico in the coming days.  

As El Nino Builds, July Tied For World's Hottest On Record, August Running Super Hot, Too

The world tied the record for the hottest July, according
to NOAA. If anything, August might be even 
further above normal as El Nino takes hold

As I noted in a previous post, El Nino is building on climate change to bring the world's temperatures to new heights. 

While we're heading into the last days of August, we see the July data is fully available. 

Data released about a week ago indicated July, 2026 tied with 2024 as the hottest on record. This is according to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.  Since July is normally the world's hottest month of the year, so 2026 and 2024 are the world's hottest month on record. 

The Julys of 2023, 2024 and 2026 were the only Julys that were 1 degree or more Celsius above the pre-industrial average. 

Climate change has been going on for quiet awhile now, it's just accelerating lately.  For instance, the last time the world had a July that was at least a little bit cooler than average was in 1971.  

Land areas in the Northern Hemisphere were easily the hottest on record, breaking the previous 2024 record by 0.12 degrees Celsius, or 0.22 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Hot Oceans

Even more ominously, global ocean temperatures reached a record high for July. About 70 percent of the world is covered by oceans. Heat is released into the atmosphere, where it causes mischief in the form of record heat, droughts, and unusually vicious storms.

Overall, on average, world ocean temperatures peak in the spring, then declines until June, then rise to a secondary peak in early August, then slowly begins to decline again, 

This year, the global average ocean temperature rose rapidly since July, reaching an all time record of 21.1 degrees C as of August 21.  This odd late season increase has almost everything to do with the burgeoning El Nino. But since ocean temperatures were already elevated by climate change, it was easy for the oceans breaking records. 

Relative to average, the warmest places were most of North America, Greenland and Iceland, western Europe, Central Africa, northwest Asia, parts of Russia and Siberia. 

As usual in this climate-changed world, there were few areas that were on the cold side, and most of the "cold" areas were just barely, compared to the 20th century averages. The cool areas were Alaska, the persistent cold blob in the Atlantic south of Iceland, parts of Antarctica, and, marginally, parts of northern and central Europe. 

UNITED STATES

The Lower 48 of the United States had its 
hottest month on record in July. All states
were warmer than average.

In the United States, we had the hottest month on record in the Lower 48. Not just hottest July, ,though the month is usually the hottest of the year.   

Every state in the Lower 48 was warmer than normal, which is an extreme rarity. Even when the Lower 48 has an overall warm month, a few states are at least a little cooler than normal. 

While everyplace was warm, the hottest relative to average were in the central and northern Rockies and in the northern Plains. 

When you add up all the states that were way warmer than normal and sort of warmer than normal, we end up with the hottest month on record for the Lower 48. 

Wyoming had its hottest July on record. Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and North Dakota had their second hottest July on record. A total of 18 states had one of their top ten warmest Julys on record. Vermont had its 31st hottest July on record. 

Overall, the Lower 48 was drier than normal. Typical of summer the wet areas and dry areas were pretest spotty and random. 

Despite the dry theme, there were intense local floods, including in the Texas Hill Country and in the Northeast. 

New England had some of the most extreme disparities in precipitation. Southern New England was wet, with Rhode Island seeing its sixth wettest July on record. By contrast, Maine had its fourth driest July on record. 

Vermont had its 47 driest July out of the past 132 years. 

Meanwhile, August around the world has been running super hot. It's widely expected to be the hottest on record. We'll have updates, of course, when complete data for August becomes available.