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

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

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

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

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

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

Flash flooding was reported in Texas, too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

The Most Iconic Photos Of U.S. Tornadoes And The Stories Behind The Images

This photo is regarded as the first photo
taken of a tornado. It was in April, 1884 in
Garnett, Kansas. Photo by A.A Adams

Tornado season is ramping up. Every year, we get dramatic photos and videos of the tornadoes that show their power, their terror, sometimes their horrible beauty. You just hope nobody got hurricanes in all the chaos. 

Over the years, some tornadoes create iconic images that last forever and are referenced by experts, whether geeks and others as incredibles bits of history. 

Here are some of the most iconic images of tornadoes over the years. 

FIRST PHOTOGRAPH

There are many candidates vying for the first photograph of a tornado ever taken.  Almost all of those candidates have been proven to be fakes, or so altered that they really don't depict what was going on.

But one widely recognized photo is considered the first one. It shows a long, skinny funnel extending out at an angle from a dark cloud. It looks like a tornado that's "roping out." That means the tornado is beginning to dissipate. It stretches out and gets narrow until it falls apart. 

Unlike other supposed first tornado photos, this one taken by a fruit farmer named. A.A Adams makes sense. The clouds look like they would in a "normal" tornado, not some idealized version of one. The tornado hit Garnett, Kansas on April 26, 1884. It damaged some homes and barns and supposedly carried a man and his wagon through the air, injuring him. 

This doesn't mean the danger is over. Supercell thunderstorms sometimes cycle tornadoes. One dies, and later on, a new one will develop.

I don't know if that's the case with this one. 

Worcester, Massachusetts, June 9, 1953:

The Worcester County, Massachusetts
tornado on June 9, 1953

The statistics on this tornado are incredible: 94 people were killed, 1,288 were inured. At least 4,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. The tornado was up to a mile wide and plowed through 45 miles of central Massachusetts. Debris from the tornado was thrown as far away as Cape Cod. It was easily the worst tornado in New England history. 

This was a Midwest style, highly destructive wedge tornado. It looked very much like the famous 2013 EF-5 in the Oklahoma City area, and not something that could ever happen in New England. But it did. 

The photo is striking because you see that classic Plains wedge shaped twister with an equally classic looking large New England farmhouse in the foreground. The dichotomy between the tornado and the house its incredibly striking

The photo, taken by Henry LaPrade, also shows the classic wall cloud/mesoscale supporting the tornado from above.  

As bad as Worcester tornado was, it was even the whole story.  The day before Worcester was hit, he  same storm system created an F5 tornado that devastated the northern part of Flint, Michigan and the suburb of Beecher, killing 116 people and injuring 844. A photograph of the Flint tornado is eerily similar to the Worcester tornado pictured here. 

1953 was a horrible tornado year. Earlier that spring, on May 11, another powerful tornado swept through Waco, Texas, killing 114 people

Goshen, Indiana, April 11, 1965

The double tornado image taken during the Palm Sunday
Tornado outbreak in 1965. This was in Goshen
Indiana. Photo by Paul Huffman. 

This one is from the Palm Sunday tornado outbreak on April 11, 1965. This double tornado was photographed by Paul Huffman in Goshen, Indiana. 

Huffman worked at the Elkhart Indiana Truth, the local paper. That day, he was driving down Route 33 with his wife when the saw a towering black cloud. At first they thought it was a fire.

They then realized it was a tornado. Huffman never left the house without his camera, so he pulled it out, went outside the car and starting taking pictures. Huffman kept himself steady in the intenser winds by swinging his leg around his car's bumper.

Hid photo, including the famous double tornado image  and others he took that day, are at this link. 

Judging from his other photos, I'm not 100 percent convinced he photographed two tornadoes. Intense tornadoes often have multiple vortices within them. Essentially tornadoes within tornadoes. It looks like the photo captured two intense vortices within the parent tornado. 

Huffman, however, the storm contained two distinct funnels as it went through, so I can't be sure what happened. 

This tornado moved on to blast through a mobile home park. Later that day, a second intense tornado would go through the same mobile home park.  Thirty-three people died in that mobile home park. Huffman also took heartrending photos of rescuers trying to help the injured in the immediate aftermath of the tornado, 

It was part of the large Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1965, one of the worst in modern history. Around 50 tornadoes killed 271 people and injured more than 3,500.  Indiana was hardest hit, and the tornado outbreak is still the worst in Indiana history. 

Topeka, Kansas, June 8, 1966

One of Perry Riddle's photos showing people fleeing
a Topeka, Kansas F5 tornado in 1966.

Up until this time, this was the most expensive tornado on record for the U.S. The F5 twister  cut though the heart of Topeka, damaging much of downtown, including the dome of the State House. More than 800 homes were destroyed and 3,000 damaged. 

The tornado caused more than $200 million in damages, in 1966 dollars. That would be more than $2 billion in 2026 dollars. 

Seventeen people lost their lives in the process. The photo to me is iconic a it shows what appears to be a Midwestern family scrambling for shelter, with the large, black tornado looming behind them. The shadows cast by the clouds and the tornado almost turn the family into silhouettes, making the image all the more foreboding. 

The photo was taken by Perry Riddle as people ran for cover into the Countryside United Methodist Church at 3221 SW Burlingame Road. I was unable to determine whether the tornado hit the church, but the lean of the tornado funnel suggests that it missed that location. 

Riddle took numerous photos of the tornado from that church parking lot, and they are amazingly high quality, especially for 1966.  You can see the other photos in the second half of a YouTube video at this link. 

Xenia, Ohio, April 3, 1974.

Terrifying image of an F5 tornado tearing through
Xenia, Ohio in April, 1974. Image the hour inside
that black maelstrom

The massive tornado here was part of the Super Outbreak of 1974, which was the worst swarm of tornadoes in American history until the next Super Outbreak in April, 2011. 

The outbreak produced 148 tornadoes in the 13 states and Ontario, Canada.  Thirty of them were F4s or F5s, the strongest type. The outbreak caused 335 direct fatalities and injured 6,000 people.

Probably the worst tornado in the outbreak struck Xenia, a city of about 25,000 people in southwest Ohio.  This one reminds me of the Joplin, Missouri tornadoes years later, as both cut through the heart of a small city. In both cases the tornadoes reached maximum strength while cutting through the middle of the communities.  

The photo was taken by Fred Stewart, the public information director at Greene Memorial Hospital. He was also a photography buff. He took the photo through a window on the second floor stairwell at the hospital. The window looked out over the Pinecrest Gardens neighborhood of Xenia

The following information comes from the April 6 1974 edition of the Xenia Daily Gazette. 

"'It looked like it was going to come straight to the hospital,' he said. 'But then it veered off and hit Pinecrest Gardens. The air was filled with debris. I shot four frames before I headed back to the basement.'

 The photo is terrifying as you know just beyond the parking lot, in that black maw of a terrifying tornado, death and ruin is raining down on that neighborhood. 

Makes me sad every time I see the photo. 

 Fridley,  Minnesota, July 18, 1986

Screen shot of a Minnesota tornado filmed from a
traffic helicopter in 1986.

This wasn't exactly the most notable or extreme tornado. But it was the start of a media trend in which video cameras were becoming much more portable, easier to use, and allowed for more daring storm chasing. 

That day, a traffic helicopter with KARE in Minneapolis was able to follow a tornado in Brooklyn Park and Fridley, about 15 miles north of Minneapolis. It is the first known, widely distributed video of a tornado taken from the air. 

The footage was dramatic, with the tornado yanking trees out of the woods and flinging them far outside the twister. It's still one of the more dramatic tornado videos out there. Which is saying something considering we're now in the age of drones and remote videos that can really uncover some amazing tornado image. 

This particular tornado was rated an F2, and damaged a few dozen buildings. 

Andover, Kansas, April 26, 1991

Image is a little fuzzy because it's a screen grab from a 
video, but Duke Evans' video of an EF-5 tornado
in Andover, Kansas was considered the best video
up until its time of a powerful tornado.
The twister passed just behind that row of houses.
The occupants had to be terrified.

Affordable camcorders had become popular in by around 1990, allowing far more people to easily film and share footage of events. That included tornadoes  near tornadoes. 

On April 26, 1991, a tornado outbreak in the central United States produced at least 55 tornadoes, resulting in 21 deaths. The most powerful and destructive of the tornadoes was an F-5, the strongest kind, in Andover, Kansas. 

Duke Evans took out his camcorder and filmed more the six minutes of the Andover tornado's rampage. At the tine it was considered the highest quality tornado footage ever produced. I imagine the film was studies by many tornado experts and in meteorology classrooms everywhere. 

The most terrifying part of the video is when it goes just behind a row of houses. If anyone was in those houses huddling in a closet or basement, the screaming roar of the tornado must have shaken them to their bones. 

Since then, now that we're in the age of everyone having a camera phone, it seems almost every tornado is well documented. But Evans' was the first in a cottage industry: America's Most Terrifying Tornado. 

We'll revisit Andover and another tornado later in this post. 

Jarrell, Texas, May 21, 1997

The Jarrell, Texas tornado as it was developing.
Multiple vortices - mini tornadoes within the main
tornado are visible, giving a dead man walking
looks to the storm, The tornado became extremely
powerful and essentially stalled over a subdivision
killing 17 people 

This was a tragic, weird and largely unexpected F5 tornado that hit the community of Jarrell, Texas. Although some severe thunderstorms were forecast that day, nobody expected a powerhouse twister like this one in the community about 40 miles north of Austin. 

The photo of the tornado is called "Dead Man Walking" and you can see why. The photo was taken while the tornado was rapidly powering up to it F5 status. 

As I mentioned above in the Palm Sunday, 1965 piece, powerful tornadoes often have multiple vortices. Essentially tornadoes spinning within the parent tornado. 

The photo was taken by Scott Beckwith as he stood outside the building housing his employer, Jarrell Farm Supply. 

He caught the beginning stages of the tornado, when it began as a narrow, almost harmless looking rope, to the Dead Man Walking photo that because famous. 

Knowing what happened after the photo was taken, the tornado with its vortices inside it really looks  a sort of grim reaper heading toward a neighborhood to take a lot of lives.

Which is precisely what this tornado did.  It headed slowly southwestward, the opposite direction of most tornadoes. 

A typical tornado's forward speed is about 20 mph and can be 50 mph or more in some instances. The powerful F5 tornado then did the worst thing possible. It essentially stalled over the Double Creek Estates Subdivision. It sat there crawling forward ever so slowly through  the subdivision, with its 260 mph winds, for three minutes. 

The people in the subdivision's houses never stood a chance. 

The winds were so strong, and lasted so long, that every piece of several homes was swept completely away from foundations and ground to small pieces. Some construction material was pulverized down to dust. Asphalt was lifted off the street and blown away. Cars blew half a mile or more away from where they had been parked. 

The destruction was arguably the most extreme of any tornado seen in the United States. 

Tuscaloosa, Alabama, April 27, 2011

The Tuscaloosa, Alabama tornado of April 27, 2011 seemed
to have tentacles coming out of it 

While many years since 1974 had more than the usual number of tornadoes, it seemed the days when tornadoes killed several hundred people in a single year seemed in the past. Then came 2011.  That year, 553 people died in U.S. tornadoes. Only the year 1925 had more tornado deaths.  

Many of these deaths occurred in what I'd call the Super Duper Tornado outbreak of April 25-28. 2011. This one far outdid the famous 1974 Super Outbreak with tragic results. 

According to the Weather Channel:

"An incredible 349 tornadoes were spawned in just 72 hours April 25-28, according to NOAA. While the Deep South - Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee - bore the brunt o fit, tornadoes tore through parts of 21 states from Texas to central New York. 

According to the Iowa Environmental Mesonet, 929 tornado warnings were issued by 44 different National Weather Service offices from April 25-29."

Also, 199 tornadoes occurred on just one day - April 27. The normal amount of tornadoes in the U.S. during the entire month of April is 194. 

The Tuscaloosa, Alabama tornado during this outbreak really stands out. It wasn't the strongest of the outbreak as there were four EF-5 tornadoes and the Tuscaloosa storm was "only" an EF-4 with top winds of ???

This tornado claimed 65 lives along an 80-mile path from Greene County, Alabama, through Tuscaloosa  and into the northern suburbs of Birmingham, the Weather Channel notes. Despite the very high death toll, the fact that this powerful tornado rolled through such high populated areas speaks well to the warnings from the National Weather Service and local television stations.

A fascinating aspect of the visuals on this tornado were the horizontal vortices wrapping around the tornado. You see that sometimes in the most ferocious tornadoes. It always makes me think these tornado are sentient monsters with tentacles trying to pick people off the streets. 

Joplin, Missouri, May 22, 2011

The view out a van window as their occupants were trying
desperately to flee the EF-5 Joplin, Missouri tornado in
2011. If you click on the photo to make it bigger and
if you look closely, you can see the tornado looming
just a very short distance away 

The horrible tornado season of 2011 wasn't done after the Super Duper Outbreak. On May 22, 2011, an EF-5 tornado slammed through Joplin, Missouri, a city of about 50,000 in southwest Missouri. 

The tornado killed 161 people, making if the deadliest tornado since 1953 and the nations seventh deadliest on record. 

The tornado also showed what a monster tornado can look like, and how it can give people who are used to big storms a false sense of security. 

The tornado was wrapped in rain, and just looked like a big ugly black cloud approaching. It seemed to be a nasty storm looming, for sure, but not the cataclysm it turned out to be.

There's a haunting must-see YouTube video taken from inside a van with several knowledgeable storm chasers inside. They know that black mass looming behind the buildings they are passing is a highly dangerous tornado. The van load of storm chasers know they have to get out of the way very quickly or they will be hit and quite possibly killed by the twister.

Their escape is hindered by people keeping to routines as if death was not looming in that black cloud. 

The notes on the YouTube video say:

"It is interesting to note that many drivers on the road were completely oblivious to the sirens, and were driving and texting on their cellphones instead of observing the approaching tornado and trying to get out of its path. Most of us felt sick afterwards, but it actually sank in a few hours/days later as we really had no idea what was actually happening in Joplin."

Part of the reason the video is so haunting is because many of the buildings that the van drove past were reduced to ruins moments later. Subsequent videos of the aftermath proved that.  

 The people in the van are increasingly panicked as the tornado closes in,  but they manage to get onto Interstate 44 and speed away from the twister in the nick of time. 

That photo of the black mawing mass looming over Joplin still gives me chills.  

Andover, Kansas, April 29, 2022

An incredible still from a wild video taken via drone
and produced by famed storm chaser Reed Timmer

Just three days after the 31st anniversary of the immense tornado of 1991, Andover, Kansas was struck again. And like the earlier tornado, new technology offered a stunning fresh look at the power of a twister. 

This one was an EF-3 when destroyed several homes and damaged other buildings. The tornado was on he ground for 21 minutes and tracked 12.8 miles. 

But the dry stats on this tornado don't give nearly the amazing vision of what tornadoes can do. Prominent tornado chaser Reed Timmer incredibly captured the tornado ripping up houses from a drone he launched nearby. 

The resulting video from Timmer is absolutely jaw dropping. The best footage is at the beginning as the well-lit tornado pulls roofs from a series of houses in the neighborhood. At one moment, the roofs of three adjacent houses lift off simultaneously. A white snow of insulation fills the air, as does a maelstrom of boards, roofing material and other debris. 

Just incredible what a tornado can do, especially when viewed from the air 

 Crystal Lake/Gary, South Dakota, June 28, 2025

The "Dancing Tornado" in Gary, South Dakota last year

This one is called the dancing tornadoes. Tornadoes come in all kinds of shapes and sizes: Funnels, wedges, stovepipes, ropes, drill bits, you get the picture. Individual tornadoes also change their shapes during their lifetime.  

This one in South Dakota last year was a real shapeshifter.  It starts out with a classic stovepipe shape. Then in quickly turned into a rope, which is usually a sign a tornado is about to dissipate. 

But this time, the rope thicken again. And for the lack of a better description, the ropey tornado danced. Sort of wiggled as it moved across the countryside.

Click this link to view the dancing tornado.

As cool and interesting as this tornado was, it wasn't all fun and games. It was an EF-3 twister, with wind speeds of 155 to 165 mph. It traveled nearly ten miles, damage several properties. A farm house, garage, two machine sheds, a barn and grain bins were completely destroyed. A half ton pickup truck was hurled 300 yards.

South Dakota gets plenty of tornadoes but not many are as strong as the "dancing tornado." Statistics show South Dakota had 1,931 twisters between 1950 and 2024 but only 75 of those were EF-3 or greater. 

We're not getting into the heart of tornado season. There's already been plenty of horrifying and wild photos and videos of tornadoes and their aftermaths this year. And unfortunately for the victims of these storms, there's more tornado pictures coming over the next several weeks 

 

Missouri Sunflower Man Battles City For Years For Inexplicable Reasons

The city of St. Peters, Missouri has been battling for
four years to force homeowner Chris Bank to get
rid of the annual sunflower display in his yard.

OK, I admit this post is only tangentially related to climate and weather, but it is about nature, so close enough.   

It's also one of the most inexplicable, infuriating legal battles I've ever seen.

Chris Bank of St. Peters, Missouri has grown a whole bunch of sunflowers in his yard since 2020.  And why not? They're pretty, pollinators love them, birds probably do, too, and it's a nice alternative from a boring lawn. 

The city of St. Peters doesn't feel the same way. All this hysteria against Bank and his sunflowers originated in 2021 as complaints from a homeowner's association. 

(Pro tip: NEVER buy a house in a neighborhood with an HOA.)

St. Peters officials enthusiastically joined the fray on the side of the HOA. Bank keeps finding loopholes that allow him to keep the sunflowers. The city also keeps changing the rules to coerce Bank into getting rid of all this sunny blooms,  but he won't budge.

I don't blame him. I don't know about you, but a sunflower always puts me in a better mood. The more sunflowers, the better the mood. 

The first year of the battle was in 2022.  St. Peters officials said he violated a rule in which the property need to have at least 50 percent grass coverage. But the property did have that much grass. It was just that sunflowers were also growing up through the grass.

Talk about micromanaging! A city telling people exactly how much lawn they should have?  Do they dictate which flowers, trees must be planted? What color car is parked in the garage? Where does it end? 

In 2023, Bank said the city revised the ordinance to allow enforcement via interpretation rather than measurement. A municipal judge find him. Bank appeared and the case was going to go to a jury in St. Charles County, Missouri. 

The city then withdrew its charges, probably because no sane jury would object to Bank's sunflowers, though St. Peters officials said they withdrew because the sunflowers had been removed. By the time they got around to the jury trial, it was November, so the sunflowers were gone for the season. 

Last year, a miserable woman trespassed and cut down at least 600 of the sunflowers in Bank's yard. She was caught on surveillance tape. He contacted police but prosecutors refused to take action, even though the identity of the vandal is known. She got away with it scot free. 

Because I'm sure some cranks in town thought the woman was a hero not the villain she was. 

This year, the city tried again by classifying sunflowers as a crop and limiting them to 10 percent of a  front yard. He's refused to remove his plants and is scheduled for another court appearance in September.  

Bank is the kind of rebel I can really get behind. He told Fox 2 in St. Louis that he won't give up, no matter how many times the city of St. Peters tries to change the ordinances. "I'm not going to quit this fight until this gets settled - at least settled the correct way," he said. 

 

Weather Mayhem In Midwest, South, East: More Than Two Dozen Dead In Tornadoes, Other Extreme Weather

Aerial view shows a row of damaged
homes in St. Louis after a tornado
passed through the city on Friday

Friday was a classic, tragic weather mayhem day in the nation 

Millions of people had to keep on their toes dodging tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, high winds, temperature extremes. Even dust storms in unlikely places.  

The worst of it was the tornadoes. So far 28 have been confirmed on Friday, with the count expected to go higher as damage is assessed. That's on top of the tornado tally for Thursday, which so far stands at 24. 

Worse, the death toll from the tornadoes had risen to 29 as of this morning. 

At least 23 people died in and near London, in southeastern Kentucky after a powerful tornado swept through that community. 

Video from London, Kentucky shows numerous houses completely leveled. Some were swept clean away, leaving behind a floor and nothing else, 

 Five of the storm-related deaths so far were in St. Louis, where at least one tornado swept through the city. One of those people died when a church collapsed.

As many as 5,000 homes in St. Louis were affected by the storm. Dozens of buildings in St. Louis lost roofs or walls.  Streets were littered and blocked with debris,f allen power lines and poles and wrecked cars.    

A brew pub in St. Louis collapsed with 20 people inside, but they all escaped with minor or no injuries. 

The Mid-Atlantic States didn't escape nature's wrath either. Several severe storms hit. At least one tornado touched down in New Jersey. Baltimore, Maryland  and southern Delaware were under tornado warnings at various points yesterday. 

The roof of the Merritt Athletic Club in Baltimore blew off, wrecking the building and damaging some surrounding structures. A possible tornado damaged several homes and buildings in Dundalk, Maryland, southeast of Baltimore. 

DUST STORM

Strong winds behind the storm's cold front stirred up winds gusting to 60 mph or more. These swept over newly plowed farm fields in Illinois. This created a wall of dust along a 100 mile line that eventually swept into Chicago.  

Approaching dust storm in Illinois Friday. Chicago was under
a first-ever dust storm warning on Friday.

So yes, Chicago had the first-ever experience of being under a dust storm warning Friday evening. 

 During the height of the dust storm, Chicago's Midway airport reported gusts to 59 mph and a quarter mile visibility in blowing dust. 

The poor visibility led to several traffic crashes in Illinois. Sections of Interstates 74 and 55 were shut down by the dust near Bloomington, in central Illinois.

Big dust storms have been usually common this spring in vast areas of the Plains States,

TEMPERATURE EXTREMES

The Northern Plains have certainly been on a wild temperature roller coaster. 

One example in Minot, North Dakota. On May 10-12 they had daily highs of  94, 99 and 95 degrees. On Friday, the high temperature there was just 41 degrees and there was a freeze warning in effect this morning. 

Overall, the northern tier of states will have cool conditions for the next several days at least, Summer is still not here yet! 

OUTLOOK

The bad weather isn't over yet. More tornadoes and severe storms are likely in and around Texas today. Other severe storms might be scattered over northern New York and New England, including here in Vermont.

A new tornado outbreak is possible in the central Plains Sunday and Monday and in the Southeast Tuesday, 

 

Midwest Tornado Outbreak To Get Even Worse Today; Here In Vermont, More Rain, Slight Flood, Severe Weather Threat

Another day of severe weather and tornadoes today in
large portions of the U.S. Most at risk for strong tornadoes
is in the orange and especially red areas of the map. 

 As expected, several tornadoes touched down Thursday, mostly in Minnesota and Wisconsin with Round 1 of a severe weather outbreak.  That outbreak will move south and get even worse today and tonight. 

Meanwhile, here in Vermont, the weather won't get especially dangerous, but big changes are on the way and there are still some minor threats from possible flooding and strong storms.

I'll get into Vermont details in a moment, but first a national update

STORM OUTBREAK

At least 14 tornadoes touched down in the Upper Midwest Thursday and that number might rise as damage is assessed. 

Even some places that didn't have a tornado got nailed by severe weather. Storm winds gusted to 79 mph in Gardner, Illinois, 74 mph in Bonfield, Illinois and 73 mph in Thief River Falls, up in northern Minnesota.

Even places that didn't have severe weather were hit be strong winds. The strong low pressure system that spawned the tornadoes created wind gusts as high as 64 mph in Pierre, South Dakota. 

A big Beyonce concert at Chicago's Soldier Field was delayed for hours after storms swept the area with strong winds and torrential rains. 

So far, there's been no reports of deaths or serious injuries from the Upper Midwest storms. 

However, today looks even worse than Thursday. 

An area centered on the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers is set up for some bad stuff today. That includes Kentucky, southeast Missouri, and southern Illinois and Indiana. This includes the cities of St. Louis, Cincinnati, Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky and Evansville, Indiana. 

Those areas are under a moderate risk of tornadoes with is a level 4 out of 5 alert level. Forecasters are worried the area later today and tonight will be raked by numerous tornadoes and otherwise damaging thunderstorms.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center wrote,  "Several strong tornadoes are expected, and a long-track high-end tornado will be possible." 

High end, long-tracked tornadoes are relatively rare, and are responsible for the most destruction and potential highest death toll of any twister.

Beyond that, daily risks of severe storms and tornadoes in various parts of the U.S, will continue Saturday through Tuesday. Monday looks especially dangerous in and around Oklahoma, 

VERMONT EFFECTS

The warm weather this week has really gotten my large
lilac bushes to bloom around my St. Albans, Vermont
house.  Smells great out there in the breeze.

The weather here in Vermont over the next few days will be interesting, but not violent. 

The Green Mountain State has one more day of summer today before an extended chilly spell hits. Burlington had its fourth day in a row in the 80s Thursday and today will probably make it five. 

Today will be a mixed bag, with sunshine, and scattered showers and storms. Some places will get nailed by heavy, slow moving rainers while other areas will barely be touched. 

We had a foretaste of what is to come Thursday. While most of us had a partly sunny, warm  summer day,  slow-moving thunderstorms that dropped heavy rain , mostly in sections of southern Vermont.

In far southern Vermont, in the mountains east of Bennington around Searsburg and Woodford State Park, a flood advisory was briefly issued Thursday evening as storms there dumped at least two inches of rain in a short period of time.

A special weather statement was also issued in Rutland County for slow moving storms that had the potential to cause minor flooding.

Today, the storms will be more widespread than they were yesterday.  Any storms that do form will move slowly like they did yesterday, leaving open the opportunity for isolated instances of flash flooding. NOAA' Weather Prediction Center has Vermont in a marginal risk for flash flooding today, a level one out of four alert levels. 

Hard to say in advance who gets bullseyed by storms and who avoids the worst of it.  It's a roll of the dice

Saturday

Yes, Saturday will definitely be the eighth one in a row with rain. It won't rain all day, but there will be frequent enough showers and possibly thunderstorms. 

The wild card is Saturday afternoon.  If it stays cloudy all day the round of showers coming in during the afternoon won't have much instability to work with, so we'd just get downpours, and no strong thunderstorms. 

However, we get an interval of sunshine in the late morning and early afternoon, that would prime the pump for a few scattered strong to severe storms.  If it happens it won't be anything widespread but it's something to keep in mind. 

NOAA has Vermont in both a low level risk of severe storms and a marginal risk of flash flooding for Saturday.  Whatever happens will be fairly isolated, and not another full scale disaster like we've seen in recent years.

Beyond Saturday

Hope you liked summer this week because it's over. We're in for a long period of chilly, unsettle weather that should last at least a week, maybe more.  

The rain should continue Saturday night and into Sunday.  Rainfall totals between now and Sunday evening should be more than inch across most of Vermont. Places that really get hit hard by repeated downpours could get two or more inches of rain.

Starting Monday and continuing through next week, it's hard to tease out exactly when and how much rain will fall. But we know temperatures will be below normal, it'll be more cloudy than sunny and daily temperatures should stay mostly in the 50s and low 60s. 

I'm not sure when summer weather will return, but it'll be a long wait.    

 

Severe Weather Once Again Evades Vermont, Many Others Aren't So Lucky

Storm damage near Pittsburgh, PA on Tuesday.
Severe storms caused lots of damage from Texas
to New York, but spared us in Vermont. 

 Tuesday was another wild day for weather across much of the United States.

Sure enough, as expected, destructive weather struck in a broad band from Texas to New York.  

Vermont once again escaped the rough storms, but the weather nonetheless got a little interesting in the Green Mountain state. 

More on that in a bit.

NATIONAL STORMS

It seemed like the bad weather had plenty of targets on Tuesday. 

Tornadoes and straight line winds of up to 100 mph, mixed with baseball sized hail in parts of central Texas, That must have been fun.

 Winds were almost as strong near Springfield and Branson, Missouri with  straight line winds of 91 mph, along with embedded tornadoes. 

Lots of property damaged there, too. 

A particularly intense band of storms originated in eastern Indiana, crossed southern Ohio and then through western and central Pennsylvania, causing all sorts of damage, with trees into homes and buildings, on cars and across roads and power lines. 

The storm was particularly intense around Pittsburgh, with two storm-related deaths reported in the region. Winds gusted to 71.3 mph at the Pittsburgh airport, the third strongest wind gust on record there. 

Roofs were torn off some Pittsburgh businesses and dozens of homes suffered damage when trees fell on them. 

The storms blustered all the way into central and northern New York. Winds gusted to 77 mph in Rome, New York. Severe thunderstorm warnings blared as far north as Massena, in the northwest tip of the state.

Today, it looks like north Texas, including Dallas-Fort Worth, and parts of Oklahoma are at risk for tornadoes, severe storms and huge hailstones today. 

Though severe storms and possible tornadoes are expected over the next few days over scattered parts of the U.S., any kind of immense new outbreak of tornadoes will likely wait until at least next week.

However, serious flooding, which has been a scourge since winter in parts of the Midwest, seems to be making a comeback this week. 

Flooding has been hitting Oklahoma for days, and that will continue through today and at least tomorrow. At least two people have died in recent days in the flooding. A section of a major interstate highway in Oklahoma City was closed by flooding.  Flash flood warnings were flashing through much of the state this morning. 

Oklahoma City has had 11 inches of rain this month, compared to a normal of 3.5 inches. 

Neighboring Arkansas, which has had severe floods this spring, is bracing for more. 

VERMONT EFFECTS

The sky looked volatile as showers and thunderstorms
approached St. Albans, Vermont Tuesday evening,
but the storms were not severe. 

The weather played out in Vermont just as expected Tuesday, except many spots ended up a little warmer than forecast. We had our first true taste of summer. 

Burlington got to 83 degrees, just two degrees shy of the record for the date. 

It was the first 80 degree reading of the year and the warmest it's been since September 18, 2024.  Montpelier reached 82 degrees and Springfield, Vermont got to a toasty 86 degree. 

As expected, the storms that eventually arrived from New York and into Vermont last evening weakened, though a few managed to stay fairly strong in northern Vermont, which again, was predicted.

A gusty storm with a torrential downpour blasted through St. Albans shortly after 10 p.m.  The National Weather Service had warned that this storm could contain 50 mph winds. I don't see any reports of damage, though, so this wasn't severe. 

The storms are over, skies are clearing and are temporary summer is definitely over. At least for awhile. 

Today will feel completely different than Tuesday.  The air will be fresh and cool, maybe even downright chilly in spots.  A steady north wind will make it feel nippier, too.

The growing season has started in the Champlain Valley, so a frost advisory is up overnight and early Thursday in the Champlain Valley. Elsewhere in Vermont, it will be even colder than the Champlain Valley, with lows in the 20s in many spots far north. But the growing season isn't officially underway there, so no advisories. 

The next storm system comes along Friday and, of course, Saturday. It's actually two storms. Neither will be that strong, but will spread showers our way. 

The first one will arrive Thursday night and Friday.  Friday will be warm and a bit humid, which means a couple thunderstorms might get thrown in. But they won't be severe. 

It looks like a cold front will come through later Friday and a second storm will form along it and move northward for Saturday, which would give us our seventh rainy Saturday in a row.  It's a little early to figure out exactly how Saturday will turn out, but the rain then looks more likely the further south and east you go in Vermont. 

A potentially drier weather pattern could start next week. But that will be complicated by a stalled weather pattern.   This stuck weather pattern looks like it will keep a storm spinning off the New England coast. It's unclear how close it will get to us.   

Depending on what happens, next week could prove mild and sunny, or cool and showery. So that's no help. Stay tuned, I guess!

Massive Storm Has Caused Huge Wildfire, Wind And Tornado Damage Already; Could Get Even Worse Today

A home burns in Stillwater, Oklahoma Friday amid 
wildfires that roared through the region. Photo by
Nick Oxford via Facebook. 

After much of the nation endured a day and night of weather chaos Friday, we have more of the same on tap today.  

All thanks to one of the most massive March U.S. storms in memory. 

It started with intense winds, dust storms and wildfires. CBS reports three deaths in Texas involving motorist blinded by dust storms on highways. 

Many highways, including parts of Interstate 35 and 40 were closed in Oklahoma due to crashes, high winds and dust storms.  

At least 50 weather stations in Oklahoma reported winds gusting to  more than 58 mph.  Some gusted past 70 mph.  Amarillo had a peak gust of 83 mph. 

These weren't thunderstorm winds, they were just the power of the parent, intense storm. 

WILDFIRES

The wildfires, sadly, were California style. In other words, tragically destructive. 

No fewer than 150 wildfires were reported in Oklahoma.  One large complex of fires near Stillwater, Oklahoma forced evacuations of numerous homes, some hotels and a Walmart.  At least some homes burned around Stillwater, but we're still waiting on assessment of how bad this one is. "Multiple structures have been impacted," reports News9.com. 

The Stillwater News Press reported multiple homes destroyed in one southwest Stillwater neighborhood.

The fires  were burning houses and other structures elsewhere in Oklahoma, too. About 50 structures burned down around Guthrie, Oklahoma. 

Parts of the Oklahoma City suburb of Norman were briefly evacuated due to another fire on Friday. A wildfire within Oklahoma City limits destroyed two homes. 

In Texas, another wildfire grew to encompass 12.5 square miles.

TORNADOES

 Severe thunderstorms developed near the Mississippi River late Friday afternoon and the sped east, spinning off tornadoes and severe wind gusts that left a trail of damage. 

Tornado damage in Rolla, Missouri last night. Photo
by Joshua Rogers via Facebook.

We've already had 25 reports of tornadoes and 315 instances of thunderstorm-related wind damage as of early this morning.  

That wind damage doesn't include destruction from the intense winds and dust storms in the Plains yesterday that were nowhere near any thunderstorms. 

Reports are still sketchy and spotty as to how bad the damage was and whether there were any casualties from the overnight tornadoes.

They hit in darkness, so we'll be better able to tell how bad things got after dawn. 

We know there was a lot of tornado damage in towns like Rolla, and Villa Ridge Missouri and Cave City, Arkansas and Elliott, Mississippi. Photos on social media showed a large tornado lit up by lightning late last night near Belzoni, Mississippi. A traffic camera near Campbell Station, Arkansas spotted two simultaneous tornadoes nearby. 

TODAY

The tornado situation is actually going to worsen today.

As the day started, tornado watches were already in effect from southwest Ohio down to Mississippi and Alabama.

In the South, this early round of severe weather is just a foretaste of what's to come. 

Alabama and Mississippi are in a  rare high risk zone for tornadoes this afternoon and evening. That's the first time in four years this tornado-prone region has been designated a high risk for twisters.

Forecasters fear the region will be hit be a series of violent, long-lasting tornadoes. This looks like it could get off to an oddly early start today and last all day.  Already, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center is contemplating issuing a new tornado watch for much of Louisiana and northwest Mississippi as this new, dangerous round of intense storms begins to develop

The risk of this happening is almost as high as well in parts of Georgia, Tennessee and eastern Louisiana. 

On top of everything else a large area in Tennessee and surrounding states are under the gun today for widespread, life-threatening flash floods.  Some areas could see six inches or more of rain, with rainfall rates of up to two inches per hour. 

VERMONT EFFECTS

Here in Vermont, the main risk from this storm continues to be flooding. At least minor flooding looks inevitable. The most likely time frame for this would be from late Sunday afternoon through most of Monday.

We'll prime the pump as it were today with warm temperatures in the 60s in many areas of Vermont. That will get rivers starting to rise, but the main show won't happen until later Sunday. 

By Sunday evening, the remaining snow will have been melting fast amid oddly warm, humid air. A band of showers and possible thunderstorms should come through Sunday night, adding another half inch to an inch of rain to all that snowmelt runoff.

We're starting to get the first flood forecast outlooks for specific rivers in Vermont. Though subject to change, these forecasts call for minor to at times moderate flooding. For instance, the forecasts have the Mad River at Moretown at the cusp of moderate flood stage Sunday night. Forecasts also have the Missisquoi River at North Troy approaching moderate flood state Sunday night. 

Even though the thawing today and Saturday could weaken ice in spots, the risk of more ice jam flooding is definitely there on some rivers. I'm especially watching the WInooski, Lamoille and especially the Missisquoi for that possibility. 

STORM IN PERSPECTIVE

Given the breadth of this almost nationwide storm, the destruction that's already occurred and the inevitable severe damage we'll see today, this will be yet another mega storm that costs more than $1 billion in damage.

Large, multifaceted storms are pretty common this time of year, but this storm is an especially extreme case. It's hitting an even wider area than most early spring storms, and its effects are even more intense than the usual March storms that bluster through the Midwest and East. 

I can't specifically blame climate change for this storm's intensity because I don't yet have enough information about the dynamics of this system. However, it's consistent with climate change in that storms tend to be more intense, windier and in many cases wetter than they would otherwise be had the world not been warming. 

This storm has already taken lives, and I'm afraid it will take quite a few more before it's over. Meanwhile, with foolish cutbacks in staffing and services from NOAA, the National Weather Service and FEMA, there might well be some unnecessary deaths with this storm, and almost certainly some unnecessary suffering. 

Latest Batch Of Tornadoes Kill Six; Welcome Break From Severe Weather Coming

Spring flowers on a tree bloom in front of a sad site of
tornado destruction in Glenallen, Missouri, where five people
died early Wednesday. Photo via Twitter from 
Amelia Mugaver  

In one of my posts yesterday, I tried to be optimistic that some expected overnight tornadoes late Tuesday and early Wednesday perhaps didn't end up amounting to much.  

Of course, I turned out to be wrong. 

Another six people have died in the latest spate of tornadoes.  Five of the deaths happened in the tiny Missouri village of Glenallen, where a strong tornado roared through at around 3:30 Wednesday morning.

The timing of the tornado is of course as bad as it gets.  People were probably sound asleep and weren't aware of the tornado warnings. 

Another death was reported in Kentucky from a likely tornado, Fox Weather reports. 

A few more severe thunderstorms were in the forecast today for  parts of the Mid-Atlantic states today, but this won't be a big tornado swarm or anything like that. As of 5 p.m., there was only a handful of severe weather reports from that area. 

The big threat of tornadoes and other severe weather is now going to take a welcome break starting today. That isn't to say there will be no tornadoes or damaging winds in the U.S. for the next week or two. It just means that they will be few and far between, and won't consist of they type of major outbreaks we've seen lately. 

Of course, even the worst tornado seasons have lulls, so this is to be expected. Whether or not things get really bad again as the severe weather season peaks in May is to be announced.

There's still the pesky problem of Gulf of Mexico water temperatures at or near record highs for this time of year. That would continue to provide extra heat and humidity to supply tornadoes with a needed ingredient for them to get going.

But you'll also need strong low pressure systems, punches of arid air from the Desert Southwest and intrusions of chilly air from Canada to stir the pot and create conditions for tornadoes. You just can't predict that sort of thing more than several days in advance. 

So, for now, it's fingers crossed. 

 

Six Months After Huge Tornado, Mayfield, KY A Blank Slate. Where Will It Go?

Screen grab from video showing Mayfield, Kentucky
six months after a tornado decimated the city. Lots of 
depressing empty lots in the community's downtown now.

 It has already been about six months since one of the nation's most destructive tornadoes in over a decade decimated the small city of Mayfield, Kentucky.     

The December 10 storm wiped out much of the city, including virtually all of its historic downtown. 

As you can see by the video below, most of the debris has been hauled away since December.  

Now is the most depressing part of Mayfield's saga. There's just blank concrete slabs where buildings once stood. Empty lot after empty lot is all that's left of where homes, businesses and other enterprises once hummed along nicely.

We still don't know what the fate of this city will be. There are certainly signs of life.  As governing.com points out, a barbecue restaurant called The Barn is about to reopen in a new building on the main drag through town. That's a nice early sign of a rebirth. 

A few houses are being rebuilt, too, but they are still few and far between. The future is, of course, uncertain. Other towns famously destroyed by tornadoes have bounced back, which is a hopeful sign. 

The small city of Greensburg, Kansas has half the population it had before a 2007 tornado completely leveled the community. But most of the people who stayed or moved back to Greensburg are younger. The town has also become a showcase for renewable building and energy use from renewables. There's still some sense of vibrancy there.

The city of Joplin, Missouri is thriving 11 years after an immense tornado destroyed much of the community.  Joplin's population is now actually larger than it was before the tornado, with more businesses and educational opportunities than pre-tornado times. And the rebuilt houses are designed to be more storm resistant. 

So. there's still hope for Mayfield. To residents there, the road back is still an unknown quantity.  The emptiness is no doubt haunting. But we can hope that Mayfield can be a solid city again. 

Here's the video of the city, six months after. Click on this link if you don't see the image of the video on your device.

A Decade Since Joplin, MO Tornado. It Still Leaves An Impression

Ten years ago this weekend, one of the deadliest and THE
most costly tornado in United States history 
struck Joplin, Missouri. 

 For weather geeks like me, particular extreme, if distant,  weather events leave a lasting impression and one that still haunts me is the huge Joplin, Missouri tornado of 2011.  

Yesterday, May 22 was the 10th anniversary of that monster storm - an EF-5 tornado that pretty much leveled most of the southern third of Joplin.  

The storm killed at least 158 people, making it the nation's seventh deadliest tornado on record.   The tornado injured more than 1,000 people and destroyed 7,000 buildings. 

Damage amounted to more than $3 billion dollars, making this the costliest tornado in U.S history. 

The tornado did all this in just the 38 minutes it was on the ground, from 5:34 to 6:12 .p.m. local time.  The twister was as strong as one can get with winds of over 200 mph. The damage was amplified even further because the tornado's forward motion was only 20 mph. That's slow for a tornado and kept the winds grinding over the same spots far longer than usual for a tornado.

The videos of the tornado are still haunting.  As it approached Joplin, the tornado was a mile wide and wrapped in rain.  It was so big it didn't look like a tornado, just a wall of black smashing into town. Once it passed, everything was scattered, flattened. 

The destruction was so extreme that the first people arriving into Joplin moments after the tornado departed were overwhelmed and helpless. The Weather Channel's Mike Bettes, who had been chasing the tornado, arrived in Joplin on the storm's heels. He understandably  broke down and wept on air at what he saw.

The scene in the hours after the tornado was beyond unreal. People swarmed over the wreckage looking for injured under the glow of a setting sun, dark, lightning streaked clouds overhead and continued pelting rain. 

Joplin recovered strongly after the tornado.  Some communities devastated by tornadoes never fully recover and lose population.  Now, more people live in Joplin than before the tornado. The city has a population of about 51,000.

Since Joplin, the National Weather Service and emergency managers are still struggling with making warnings effective an accurate.

The tornado warnings for Joplin that day were confusing. Initially, a tornado warning was issued for a separate storm north of the city.  When the new tornado that would wreck Joplin formed, people wrongly assumed the warning was for the twister that would miss Joplin to the north. 

As the Washington Post reports, some tornadoes still go unwarned.  One twister struck southwest of Dodge City, Kansas earlier this year and residents never received a warning.  Another tornado around Memphis clearly showed its signature on radar. People following the storm on Twitter noticed the tornado and contacted the local National Weather Service, and they were still late on warning the storm.

Lead times between the time a warning is issued and the time tornadoes struck has actually declined since the Joplin tornado, says Mike Smith in a Washington Post opinion piece.

In part because of the Joplin tornado, the National Weather Service has changed the language in its severe weather warnings.  There was concern that the language used in tornado warnings like the one issued 17 minutes before the Joplin tornado was confusing.

 Now tornado warnings, and warnings for other hazards like hurricanes and big flash floods - especially for particularly dangerous ones headed for populated areas, - use language like "You are in a life-threatening situation," and "Flying debris may be deadly to those caught without shelter."

Though we've seen devastating tornadoes since, the United States has so far not seen anything as extreme as Joplin since that storm hit a decade ago.  We've been exceedingly lucky with these strongest tornadoes. 

There has not been an EF-5 in the United States since a deadly one in Newcastle and Moore, Oklahoma in 2013.

Which is good. We do not need any more Joplin-scale tornado disasters.  

Thank goodness, we'll never see a tornado of the scale of the Joplin disaster in Vermont.Still, we're prone to other extreme weather disasters. We had our own mega-disaster just three months after the Joplin tornado when the huge floods of Tropical Storm Irene ripped parts of Vermont apart. 

You never know where the next mega-disaster will hit. Just keep praying it's not you.

like the Great Floods of 192