Ahhhhh! A Cool Vermont Morning To Be Followed By More Hot Weather

An approaching thunderstorm loomed over Frederick,
Maryland late Saturday afternoon. It dropped the 
temperature there from 102 to 77 within an hour,
Meanwhile, Vermont is enjoying some pleasant
low humidity now that the heat wave is over. 

Sorry for the late morning report. Still in Frederick, Maryland visiting and having a great time, which of course disrupts these reports. Oh well, no biggie.  

Yesterday, I endured my third day in a row of 102 degree temperatures.  No extended periods outside. We just hopped quickly from one air conditioned place to another. 

By yesterday afternoon, all lawns had been scorched brown by the blast furnace heat.  Day lilies had all wilted. Any hostas exposed to any sun burned to a crisp. 

We finally had relief late in the afternoon with a strong thunderstorm that dropped the temperature from 102 to 77 within an  hour. Frederick is expecting a high today of 93 degrees, which is better, I guess.

 So I was jealous when I saw that temperatures across Vermont fell into the 50s early this morning. There were even a few upper 40s in the cold spots.  Dew points, that measure of how humid it is, fell into the low 50s late yesterday and last night for most of us. That's even drier air than we were expecting just a couple days ago.

Also, a lot of that smoke that was expected dissipated over southern Quebec, so the smoke attack Vermont was expecting was something of a nothing burger. There's still hints of smoke and haze in the atmosphere today, but it's not bad at all.

TODAY

In Vermont, the weather is not staying cool for long. But at least it won't be as oppressively humid and hot as it was a few days ago. Under the sunshine today, highs will end up in the 80s.  The steamy air is gone for now, so it's another that should make it illegal to stay indoors. 

MONDAY

Holiday weekend is over, so it's back to work.  A weak but hellish little storm along a stalled cold front is unleashing flash floods on parts of the Mid-Atlantic States today and tomorrow. This thing will bulge moisture northward into Vermont, increasing the clouds and creating a rising risk of showers late in the south. 

TUESDAY

Our aforementioned storm will do its work in Vermont Tuesday, but don't worry: No flash floods. There's some questions over exactly how far this thing will come north. The further north it gets, the more rain everyone receives and the heavier it will be.

For now, it looks like a nice half to three quarter inch soaking in far souther Vermont, maybe a tenth to a quarter inch in central Vermont and sprinkles at best north of Route 2. Again, subject to change. The clouds and showers will hold temperatures down Tuesday: Low to mid 70s south, 77 to 82 north.

WEDNESDAY-THURSDAY

Hotter again, and somewhat more humid. So yup, uncomfortable again. Highs will get into the 80s to near 90.  Showers and thunderstorms should start to creep in later Thursday. 

THURSDAY NIGHT/FRIDAY: 

A cold front should spread showers and thunderstorms our way. It's way too soon to figure out how many showers and storms and whether they wold be.

LONG RANGE:

The weather pattern is shifting so that a persistent heat dome will set up over the West. That suggests that in the second and third weeks of July might well mean that New England will be the coolest place in the Lower 48. 

Not cold, mind you, just not hot. NOAA's forecast out to 14 days has the Northeast with near near normal temperatures while most of the rest of the U.S. trends hot.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trump just cannot keep his mouth shut. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trump this week turned down that appeal. 

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

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

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

Yeah, right. 

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

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

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

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

Like that's going to happen. 

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

Trump Hatred Of Wind Power Comes To New England: He Stopped A Nearly Completed Offshore Wind Project

The Trump administration has unwisely paused
a nearly complete offshore wind project off
the coast of Rhode Island. 

Donald Trump is continuing his war on wind power, doubling down since my August 22 report on the issue.   

An almost completed wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island is almost complete, but Trump pulled the plug on it anyway. 

Per ABC News:

"Danish wind farm developer Orsted says the Revolution Wind project is about 80 percent complete, with 45 out of 65 turbines already installed. 

Despite that progress - and the fact that the project had cleared years of federal and state reviews - the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued the order Friday, saying the federal government needs to review the project and 'address concerns related to the protection of national security interest of the United States.'"

The Trump administration didn't say what those security issues are. My guess is there aren't any, it's just that our Dear Orange Leader just hates wind power, and that makes him feel insecure?

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont decried the stop-work order and will do everything they can to reverse the Trump decision. 

Revolution Wind is evaluating the financial effects of stopping construction. They are also considering legal options, as you would expect. 

Of course, we live in a new, rough era now. Even if judges rule against Trump, as they probably will, Trump will just ignore any rulings. 

Workers who have been building the work farm are perplexed and angry.

Union members are hoping to get back to work, somehow. The construction jobs required skilled labor, and payed six figures. Trump killed some really good jobs. 

Per USA Today:

"'A lot of building trades workers, a lot of union workers, voted for Donald Trump and his team. But they didn't vote to have union jobs shut down,' said Patrick Crowley, the president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, which represents the contractors. 'It shouldn't work like this.'"

Not everyone opposes Trump's move against the Revolution Wind Farm. For instance, the fishing industry in Rhode Island is generally against the wind farm, saying it would damage fishing grounds and negatively impact the ocean. 

 The wind farm is fairly far offshore, located about 15 miles south of the Rhode Island shore; 32 miles southeast of Connecticut and 12 miles southwest of Martha's Vineyard. 

This project was going to be Rhode Island and Connecticut's first offshore wind farm, and would be able to power more than 350,000 homes.  

By the way, this affects us here in Vermont, since we're part of the New England electrical grid. 

Per offshorewind.biz:

"Katie Dykes, Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) pointed out that ISO New England, the regional grid operator, said it was counting on that supply to keep the grid stable.

In a statement on August 25, ISO New England said it was expecting the project to come online and that the project was included in its analyses of near-term and future trip reliability. "Delaying the project will increase risks to reliability,' ISO New England stated."

Trump's move against Revolution Wind has other left companies wondering if their in-progress green energy projects will get the axe. Environmental groups are wondering the same thing. USA Today again: 

"'Pulling the plug sends a chilling signal to investors and developers that the U.S. cannot be relied upon to honor it commitments, even when project are 80 percent built  While China outspends us four-to-one one energy and transmission infrastructure to power its AI driven economy, the U.S. is stopping a fully permitted, privately, capitalized project that would strengthen our energy security. That is a dangerous path. Investors, workers, and ratepayers deserve better," the American Council on Renewable Energy said a statement. 

The wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that Trump and this minions are stopping ongoing construction. Or at last trying to get something transactional about it. 

As Axios notes. Earlier this year the Trump Interior Department halted the Empire Wind project off New York's coast, which crews had already 

 Earlier this year, according to Axios, Interior temporarily halted Equinor's Empire Wind project off New York's coast, which had recently begun construction. We don't know what will happen with that, but did say that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signaled to him some willingness to move forward on a gas pipeline project. 

Elsewhere, court documents released about a week ago say that the Trump administration is reconsidering prior approval for the Maryland Offshore Wind Project. That one is a planned $6 billion wind project offshore of Ocean City, Maryland. 

This fight over turbines, as mentioned, is just part of Trump's personal hatred of wind farms. The speculation is he considers wind turbines built off the coast of his Scottish golf course ugly, so as revenge he's going to fightable wind project. 

But who knows?

Here's one of the latest things he's had to say about the, per the Washington Post. 

"'They're ugly, they don't work, they kill your birds,' Trump said. 'They're bad for the environment. And if you look at them from a house, your house is worth less than 50 percent. So I'm trying to have people learn about wind real fast.'"

All of what he said is not true, or, at the very least, exaggerated. Unless you're taking about matters of taste. If you think they're ugly, then to you, they are.  

As for birds, cats kill a staggering 2.4 billion with a "b" birds annually. Glass windows are the demise of almost 600 million birds each year. Collisions with vehicles kill about 214 million birds. And wind turbines kill about 230,000 birds annually. So it's an unfortunate, but small percentage. 

I'm not sure how wind turbines are bad for the environment, at least compared to the fossil fuels that are changing the climate so radically that they could become an existential threat to humanity if we keep burning oil and gas and coal the way we are now. 

 

Tornado-Producing System To Mostly Just Give Us In Vermont Downpours

Its peony season in St. Albans, Vermont. We'll see how 
badly the flowers flop down under pressure from
heavy rain and wind later today. 

 Some of us did manage to get a little needed rain yesterday as a cluster of thunderstorms moved through northwestern Vermont. 

There were other isolated storms, too. But in general, storms had trouble getting their act together. Despite the humidity you probably felt down here on the ground, there were dry layers up above that tested the ability for storms to really get going. 

Most people did not get much rain Wednesday. An exception was an area around Middlebury and Vergennes that received about 1.3 inches of rain from storms early in the day. 

A few spots in Franklin and northern Chittenden County saw up to a half inch of rain. For most of the rest of us, it was anywhere from nothing to a tenth of an inch. 

The storms really did fire up over  into New Hampshire. There, storms fired up much more efficiently. Some of their storms had gusty, locally damaging winds, small hail and two lightning caused home fires. 

MARYLAND TWISTERS

At least we weren't Maryland. Sometimes, a warm front will help create enough veering winds in the atmosphere to spin up rotating supercell thunderstorms and tornadoes.

Most meteorologists didn't expect too much to develop around Maryland and had just a low chance of severe storms. Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci being an exception. He noted a potential risk a good 12 hours before they happen4d. 

A supercell ended up producing tornadoes in Darnestown, Poolesville, Gaithersburg, Olney, Columbia and Baltimore, Maryland, according to the Washington Post. At least five people were hurt and several houses suffered substantial damage. It was the most extensive Maryland tornado outbreak in years.

Other tornadoes with this system were reported in Michigan and West Virginia

WHAT ABOUT US?

The warm front that helped create the Maryland tornadoes kept heading north and will end up somewhere in central or southern New England today. However, it appears it's mostly lost its ability to contribute to tornado weather. 

A cold front is coming in from the west, and humid air has streamed into our area.  The end result in Vermont will be definite rain sometimes today. Some of us will see some pretty heavy downpours, and maybe one or two of us will end up with a strong thunderstorm. 

Radar images showed some rain trying to move toward Vermont from New York early this morning but that rain band is kind of unimpressive and won't amount to much, really.

The chances of rain will rise through the early afternoon and by late afternoon we'll start to see some heavier downpours and that will continue into the evening. While we're waiting for the rain, we'll endure a muggy, cloudy day. The clouds will keep temperatures lower than the past few days, but it will still feel kind of icky out there with the humidity, 

There's a marginal, low level risk of a severe storm just to our west, but I don't think it will be anything widespread locally. You can always get surprises, but so far I'm not too worried about that. I'll provide an update if anything changes. 

The National Weather Service still includes Vermont in a region listed as having a marginal risk for flash flooding later today. But because it's been dry recently, and the storms and downpours don't really look like they'll stall around here, I'm optimistic there won't really be much trouble in that regard.

Still, it's worth it to stay tuned for surprises. It's always possible some local area could get caught in a train of downpours. If that were to happen, there probably would be some high water in a couple spots. Just like with the severe storm risk, I'll do an update if there's any big time changes in the rain forecast. 

The bottom line is we could use the rain, so I still think this system will do us much more good than harm. 

BEYOND TONIGHT

An upper level low that is the parent of this wet cold front will park itself nearby Friday through probably at least Monday. That means a good chance of showers daily. It won't rain all the time, and the rain that does come shouldn't be particularly heavy.  We're just in for a sort of cool, and definitely damp stretch. 

This cool stretch isn't all that cool. Overall, daytime temperatures over the weekend will just be a little cooler than norma, (mid and upper 60s) and nights will be close to average (50s).

There's already signs summer warmth will return next week, but the jury is still way out on just how warm it will get and how long that warmth might last.   

National Weather Off The Rails Again; Record Heat, Big PAC NW Winter Storms, Fires And More.

Photo looks a bit like April in Vermont, but it was a 
springlike Frederick, Maryland on Sunday, where
temperatures were in the upper 50s under bright
blue skies. Maryland was on the edge of 
some record heat engulfing the southern U.S 

 In the grand scheme of things, the weather in Vermont this week is kind of boring.  The Christmas Day ice notwithstanding, the rest of this week will feature temperatures not incredibly far from normal, and any oncoming bits of snow or rain or mix  don't look too far off into bizarro world.  

Vermont's "boring" weather this week is a big exception to a national rule. I'm writing this from my temporary perch, for today in Frederick, Maryland.

Yesterday, Boxing Day was a gorgeous spring day here in Maryland.. Plenty of sunshine, temperatures well up into the 50s, the day after it was in the 60s. In Frederick, I saw a bush on one street here with lovely new pink blossoms, buzzing with bees.

Normally this time of year, it's barely 40 degrees during the day.

Frederick, Maryland was not even close to the most extreme weather the nation has been seeing the past few days. 

Hot, frigid, stormy, fiery, windy, snowy, icy, you name it. It's there. We have some huge contrasts going on in the nation as we close out the year 2021.

Let's start with heat, since it covers such a big chunk of the nation. 

On Christmas Eve, Wichita Falls, in northern Texas reached 91 degrees, that city's hottest December reading on record. 

Video from Live Storm Media showed strong winds causing minor structural damage and filling the air with thick dust around Amarillo, Texas. Winds there gusted to at least 56 mph on Christmas Eve.

Record highs continued in Texas on Christmas Day and yesterday. This heat was punctuated by a new round of odd winter wildfires that extended on up into eastern Colorado.  Most of Colorado should be a chilly snowscape this time of year.  At least Colorado's mountains and ski areas managed to get some snow Sunday. 

On Christmas Day, record high temperatures were spread far and wide. Records included 86 degrees in Abilene, Texas, 67 in Cincinnati, 74 in Paducah, Kentucky, and 72 in Evansville, Indiana.

In Rio Grande Village, Texas on Christmas Day, it was reportedly 96 degrees. If that reading is verified, it will be the record for the hottest Christmas Day on record anywhere in the Lower 48. 

Down in Houston, it's been in the 80s thirteen times so far this month, and each of the closing days of this month should also reach 80 degrees there. This will easily be that city's hottest December on record. Normal highs in Houston this time of year are in the low to mid 60s.

It's not just Houston. After four record December heat waves in the Midwest and South, many cities in the United States look assured of having their warmest December on record.

This is in huge contrast to the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, which are in the grips of a pretty intense - at least for them - spell of winter weather.

In a rare moment for the region. the field had to be cleared for a Seattle Seahawks Sunday to prepare for a game with the Chicago Bears. At least the Bears should have been ready for winter conditions. They did manage to squeak out a 25-24 win over the Seahawks. 

In California, snowfall in recent days measured in feet, not inches.  Many roads through the Sierra Nevada range, including Interstate 80, had to close due to the deep snow.  Donner Pass has had 119 inches of snow so far this month. The record for December there is 179 inches.  It's supposed to keep snowing there for the next couple of days, so that record could be challenged.

The Sierra snow is mostly good news, though, because until mid-month, snow cover was well below normal there. Now, it's a little above normal, which could help dent California's drought. 

Those winter storms and cold are extending as far east as Lake Superior in the northern tier of states. Blizzard warnings are up for North Dakota today.  Though temperatures are well below normal from Washington to Minnesota, there aren't that many record low temperature records being set. Not nearly as many as the heat records further south and east, anyway.

Some of this cold air in the Northwest will be on the move to the east, which could easily cause another round of dangerous weather in the South. 

The unseasonable, record heat in the South, combined with rising humidity, risks causing another outbreak of severe storms and tornadoes in the upcoming week. The cold air approaching might well be the spark that sets off those storms on Wednesday.  Another round of severe storms seems possible New Years Day before the cold air finally takes over. 

This in a December that has already broken the record for the most tornadoes for the month.

The weirdness extends up into Alaska.  At one point Sunday Tanana, in normally frigid central Alaska reported freezing rain with a temperature of 8 degrees. I don't think I've ever seen rain fall at such a low temperature.

For us Vermonters, the Green Mountain State seems to be escaping most if not all of the nation's weather drama.  Several small disturbances will zip on by this week. 

As the warm weather pattern in the South and Southeast breaks down this weekend and early next week, that might spin up a fairly substantial storm that could give Vermont a pretty good dose of snow rain or schmutz by Sunday and Monday.  

A "Yoda Storm" Viewed From Maryland

A giant, distant "Yoda Cloud" looms over Interstate
70 near Frederick, Maryland last Friday. 
Photo by Laura Stark 

 Summer skies tend to be more interesting in the summer than in the winter, which is why watching the clouds go by is such a iconic seasonal activity. 

The most relaxing way to do that is to lay down in a field and watch the clouds go by, and decide which cloud looks like what person, place, or thing. 

But doing anything else in the summer can yield fun results too, if you think to look at the sky from time to time. 

Which yields, at least for me, this excellent and entertaining photo by dear friend Laura Stark. The pic was taken last Friday evening along Interstate 70 near Frederick, Maryland.  It's the Yoda cloud. 

For the three people in the world who have no idea who Yoda is, well. Yoda is of course from Star Wars, small in stature but incredibly wise and powerful.  

To be honest, though the cloud resembles Yoda, I'm not sure how much it has in common with the Star Wars character. 

The cloud is a a cumulonimbus. It's an isolated thunderstorm off in the distance. They can be seen from long distances away.  This one is likely 60 or more miles away.

It's hard to tell from the photo, but the uppermost part of it might be an overshooting top.  The Yoda cloud's "ears" are probably the anvil top of the thunderstorm, and the top of its head could be an overshooting top, a powerful updraft that pushed above what had earlier been the uppermost ceiling for the thunderstorm to grow up to.

Thunderstorms with overshooting tops are very often severe, so this one might have been. I can't figure out exactly where it was located at the time Laura snapped the photo. Severe thunderstorm reports came in that evening from northern West Virginia and southeastern Pennsylvania, so this "Yoda" storm might have been one of those. 

I don't know if the Yoda thunderstorm was wise or not, but it was almost certainly powerful.

If you have photos of fun and/or interesting clouds, send them my way.  If you want a dose of deep weather geekdom, let me know if you want me to analyze them, like I did for the now-famous Great Frederick, Maryland Distant Yoda Storm of '21.