Huge Western Winds Continue; Big Colorado Fire Threat Today

Rangeland fires in Colorado Wednesday amid high
winds. Today, there's a particularly dangerous
fire risk along parts of Colorado's Front Range
as winds could reach 100 mph. 

 More rounds of high winds are hitting the West today after some incredible gusts roared through an enormous part of the western United States. 

In most places, today's gush of wind in the western United States isn't quite as bad as Wednesday's mess. But it will cause added damage in a wide area that has already suffered huge amounts of tree loss, power outages and structural damage.

The scariest place today will be along and just east of the Front Range in Colorado, where an incredible dangerous potential fire situation is unfolding. More on that in a bit. 

Some of the top wind gusts in mountainous areas included 144 mph at Mount Coffin, Wyoming, 142 mph at Goldwater Ridge Washington; 127 mph at Whitewood, South Dakota and 123 mph in Red Canyon.

Down where people live, the gusts were still incredible. Reports include 102 mph in Golden, Colorado, 101 mph in Rapid City, South Dakota, 99 mph in Missoula, Montana and 85 mph in Casper, Wyoming. 

Miraculously, I'm only aware of one death so far. It was a 55 year old man in Idaho who died when a tree crashed through the roof of his house and landed on the bed where he was sleeping. 

COLORADO DANGER

In Colorado, about 25,000 households were still without power Thursday afternoon after Wednesday's storm. That one brought local wind gusts of up to 100 mph. 

On Wednesday, areas around Boulder, Colorado Springs and places like that were worried about wind-driven wildfires. Thankfully, no heavily populated areas had wildfires. But three of them broke out in rural Yuma County. 

The largest of them raced through 12,000 acres and destroyed four structures, all either sheds or abandoned houses. The fire was 90 percent contained as of Thursday afternoon, Colorado Public Radio reported.

Now, a new storm looms today with a new round of winds of up to 100 mph in the immediate foothills of the Front Range again.  The hurricane force gusts are not expected to cover as large an area as Wednesday's storm. 

But, it's even drier than it was Wednesday, and the winds will be widespread. A large area covering an area from Nebraska down through the western half of Texas is at risk for large, wind driven wildfires today. 

A smaller area right along the Front Range from about Boulder and Fort Collins Colorado up through Cheyenne, Wyoming is really scaring people today. 

The strongest winds and lowest humidity in those cities will hit this afternoon through early this evening. A rare "particularly dangerous situation" red flag warning is in effect for areas immediately adjacent to the foothills in and near Boulder, west of Fort Collins and near Cheyenne. 

It's rare to see that kind of wording in a fire risk advisory. It means any fire that can get going could race erratically through trees, rangeland and neighborhoods. You'd expect that if winds gust to as high as 100 mph, as predicted. There's a risk of another firestorm like the one in December 2021 that destroyed around 1,000 homes around Boulder. 

A grass fire in Cheyenne Wednesday forced the evacuation of a neighborhood. The fire was contained, and people are back home, but today's weather forecast is surely freaking people out around there. 

WIND ELSEWHERE

People are still cleaning up from the gales from Washington to South Dakota.

Rapid City, 101 mph gusts were reported, not far from downtown. At the official weather station at the regional airport, the wind gusted to 94 mph, the highest wind gust on record, beating out an 89 mph gusts during a July, 2002 severe thunderstorm. 

A wildfire broke amid strong winds in Rapid City, South Dakota. It burned along Skyline Drive, a posh section of the city. It looks like firefighters contained the fire before it could burn any houses. 

However, around Rapid City, a radio tower collapsed in the winds, buildings lost their roofs and a lot of trees toppled. 

Throughout the huge state of Montana, crews were clearing fallen trees. Big Sky Country often gets big wind, but it's usually not as widespread for as persistent as this. At one point Wednesday, the entire state was under a high wind warning. 

Today, it's only the western half of Montana under a high wind warning, but winds could still reach 80 mph in some mountainous terrain. 

As new storms come off the Pacific, more high wind warnings are in effect for parts of Oregon.  The weather pattern will continue to feature a fast, west to east blast across the U.S. so more windy weather will keep cropping up here and there coast to coast through the Christmas holiday.  

Huge Windstorm Causing Havoc Through Most Of Western U.S.

Wind damage on the campus of the University of
Idaho in Moscow, Idaho. Strong, damaging winds
are hitting a remarkably huge area of the western
and central U.S. 

A widespread windstorm is slamming much of the western United States today as powerful storms and an even more powerful jet stream are roiling the atmosphere. 

Alerts for strong winds extend 1,400 miles from the West Coast in Washington and Oregon to Iowa. This is the second widespread area of strong, destructive winds in a week, and this second one is the worse of the two. 

Washington State has been enduring atmospheric river storms for over a week now. The state suffered its first fatality when a man accidentally drove his truck into a ditch while driving into a flooded road that had been closed. 

Overnight, an immense surge of wind blustered into Washington and Oregon. A gust of 138 mph was measured on Mount Hood in Oregon this morning. In high elevation Washington, gusts reached 112 at Alpental, 99 mph in White Pass and 82 mph at Snoqualmie Pass. 

Where torrential rains fell in the past week in the Olympic and Cascade mountains, blizzard warnings were up today.

As of this morning, the winds had cut power to 500,000 in Washington and Oregon. Across the border in British Columbia, Canada, about 90,000 people had their electricity cut by the gales. 

The winds raced into eastern Washington and Idaho this morning. Lewiston, Idaho gusted to 84 mph and Moscow, Idaho reported 81 mph. Spokane measured a gust to 75 mph. Coeur d'Alene, in northern Idaho, had severe thunderstorms and gusts this morning to 66 mph. 

Another seriously out of season severe thunderstorm packing winds of up to 70 mph was menacing Twin Falls in southern Idaho this morning. Two children were reportedly critically injured in Twin Falls when a tree fell on them as they were waiting for a school bus. 

Remarkably, virtually all of the vast states of Montana and Wyoming are under high wind warnings today, as are most of the Dakotas and Nebraska.  Near the Rocky Mountains in Montana, winds could reach 100 mph.  

It's been oddly warm in western Montana, with heavy rains. The winds will topple more trees than usual for a strong winter storm since the ground is so wet and not frozen like it usually is this time of year. 

The winds in Montana and Wyoming are expected to be strong enough to cut power, sometimes for days, create blinding dust storms and topple tractor trailers. The National Weather Service and officials in both states are discouraging truck traffic because of the impending storm. 

The National Weather Service is comparing the looming Montana storm to the high winds of January, 2021. That storm brought wind gusts of 75 to 80 mph to cities like Great Falls, Helena and Havre. The 2021 storm. also set off some destructive rangeland fires in Montana. The same is possible in central and eastern Montana today, as those areas have not gotten nearly as much snow and rain as areas west of the Continental Divide. 

Similar fears have erupted in Colorado, where intense winds are in the forecast today along the Front Range and the Plains to the east.  The fire risk today actually extends from southeast Wyoming, through central and eastern Colorado down into New Mexico. 

 Memories of the December, 2021 firestorm around Boulder, Colorado are still fresh. Violent downslope winds fanned a wildfire that raced through Boulder-area subdivisions

That fire was the worst and most costly in Colorado history, destroying more than 1,000 homes. The fear is, it could happen again in the upcoming windstorm. 

Winds will be ferocious this time but not as bad as in 2021. Top winds then reached 100 mph. This time, they'll be closer to 80 mph. But that's more than enough for dangerous wildfires. Especially since it has been unusually dry and warm lately.  

The utility Xcel sent a notice to customers Tuesday telling to expect possible power outages.  The utility might shut off power in susceptible areas to avoid the risk of wildfires.  That way, if power lines snap in the wind, they won't start fires because the juice will be off.  

As of early this afternoon, wind worries were spreading. A high wind warning is up for parts of western New York tomorrow. Most of the rest of New York, along with parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont are under wind advisories. 

The stormy regime out west shows no signs of ending. More storms will crash into Washington, Oregon and California several times before New Years Day. 

 

 

The (Extreme) Challenges Of Plowing Snow At The Start Of Summer In Glacier National Park

Most of you probably don't want to think about snow now, and I'm one of them.

Photo from the National Park Service taken on
May 30 shows crews clearing Going-To-The-Sun Road
in Glacier National Park. Looks even worse than
a Vermont winter. 

But still, it's entertaining and interesting to read the efforts that have been going into reopening snow-buried high elevation roads in Glacier National Park for the summer.  

If you do like seeing snow at any time of  year, maybe consider getting hired by the this crew of  snowplow guys and gals working high atop the Continental Divide. 

The local Flathead Beacon had a great descriptive story of how on Memorial Day weekend, there was still vacation homes, attractions and roads still buried in feet of snow in the high passes of this national park. 

You can see how they get the glaciers in Glacier National Park, though even those are dwindling due to climate change. Given the description of this year's snow, I wonder if it's possible the glaciers will get at least a one year reprieve this year.  Perhaps the snow will last all year and help some glaciers grow.

Then again, don't underestimate the extreme summer heat waves that are increasingly blasting the Rocky Mountains.  

Still, as the Flathead Beacon told us over Memorial Day weekend, the snow for now is impressive as crews try to clear out the parking lot of the Glacier Park visitor center, and Going-To-The-Sun road over Logan Pass at the Continental Divide.

"A colossal snowball located just east of Logan Pass, the Big Drift currently towers 80 feet above the roadie at precipitous angles, dwarfing the fleet of plows working to pioneer a route through what a casual observer amounts to an impenetrable wall of white."

And you thought shoveling your driveway after a Vermont February blizzard was challenging.

 As the Flathead Beacon and the snowplow people describe it, the winter wasn't actually all that impressive for snow in Glacier National Park. But then a snowy spring hit.

"'What's interesting about this year is that, when we started in April, we were using a small crew and less equipment but we still made record time to Big Bend,' (Glacier National Park Road Crew Supervisor Brian) Paul said on May 30.  

The task to open that high elevation road is Sisyphean. Between May 13 and Memorial Day, 34 avalanches have smashed onto the Going-To-The-Sun Road, leaving huge piles of snow and debris where crews had already cleared out the roadway. 

A week before Memorial Day weekend, another storm dumped three feet of new snow on and near Logan Pass, also undoing a lot of the work that had been completed. "We had to dig a long way just to get back to our equipment," Paul said.

Snow often falls on and around Logan Pass through the spring, but there's usually thaws in between the storms. This year, not so much. Freezing temperatures preserved most of whatever snow was already on the ground as new storms added to the accumulation. 

There's actually a chance of more snow tonight above elevations of about 5,500 overnight tonight, before a warm week finally begins the spring thaw in earnest. 

Check out the entire article in the Flathead Beacon. It's a great, well-written read.  

Wild, Important Climate Change Court Ruling From Montana, Of All Places

A successful climate lawsuit in Montana has legal experts
expecting more litigation to enforce climate change policies.

 Here's a new one. A good one, actually. From ultra-conservative Montana!

Here's the story, from the Washington Post:  

"In the first ruling of its kind nationwide, a Montana state court decided Monday in favor of young people who alleged the state violated their rights to a 'clean and healthful environment' by promoting the use of fossil fuels.

The court determined that a provision in the Montana Environmental Policy Act has harmed the state's environment and the young plaintiffs by preventing Montana from considering the climate impacts of energy projects. The provision is accordingly unconstitutional, the court said. 

The sweeping win, one of the strongest decisions on climate change ever issued by a court, could energize the environmental movement and usher in a wave of cases aimed at advancing action on climate change, experts say."

The case involved 16 Montanan youths, ages five to 22.  It was the first constitutional and first youth-led climate lawsuit to go to trial, says WaPo. 

Youth-led climate lawsuits have really become a thing around the world, but it's been hard to get one of these off the ground in the United States.  Fourteen such  cases have been dismissed in the U.S., WaPo reports. 

Of course, this isn't the end of the Montana case.   It will be appealed to the state Supreme Court.  A spokesperson for the Montana Attorney General said the ruling was "absurd"  and Montanans can't be blamed for causing climate change. 

It's absolutely true that Montana contributed an exceedingly small share to climate change.  This case alone will not "solve" climate change. But Montana does contribute a tiny bit to our altered climate. After all, Montana is a major coal producer and has a lot of coal in the ground yet that can be mined or otherwise recovered for use as a fossil fuel. 

Rikki Held, whose name is on the lawsuit said, "I know that climate change is a global issue, but Montana has to take responsibility for our part in that."

This case does have a better chance than others because of the Montana Constitution. That constitution has the phrase that the state's residents have a right to that "clean and healthful environment."

Youths who brought the suit hammered at that wording in their litigation and testimony. A 15-year old with asthma described being a prisoner in  her own home home when wildfire smoke blanketed the state. (Does that sound familiar? Seems wildfire smoke has been a problem everywhere these days, including here in "clean" Vermont).

The practical effect of the Montana ruling involves a law that blocks the state from considering emissions and climate change when considering whether to approve energy projects. That type of law applies in a number of conservative oil, gas and coal producing states. 

You'd better believe Montana Republicans and the state's petroleum and coal industry will be fighting hard for an appeal to this court ruling.  An industry spokesperson told the Washington Post that it will be hard to approve coal and oil projects and those approved would be subject to time-consuming and costly litigation. 

 "'If this decision stands, it will cause great economic harm to the state of Montana," said Alan Olson, the executive director of the Montana Petroleum Association.'"

Still, it's definitely possible the Montana Supreme Court will uphold the ruling, despite the appeals and opposition from the fossil fuel industry.

According to the Montana Free Press/Flathead Beacon: 

"Speculating about what the Montana Supreme Court might do on appeal, retired Supreme Court Justice  Jim Nelson called the case a 'slam dunk home run' and said he expects the state's highest court will have a difficult time overturning the decision.

'I think this is one of the most powerful decisions I've ever read on the environment in Montana,' said Nelson, who said on the state Supreme Court for nearly two decades."

Even though other states don't have the "clean and healthful environment" language in their constitutions, the Montana case will probably open the door to other climate lawsuits in other states. Lawyers and activists are surely combing state laws and constitutions nationwide to support their causes. 

This opens yet another front in the battle for real climate change action.  Some of it is coming from just the free market that so many Republicans tout. After all, companies that promote and create means of renewable energy are making money hand over fist, and hiring, in large part because the demand is there. 

Some local and state governments, and to an extent federal agencies are beginning to take climate change more seriously, as voters are increasingly demanding it. At least in some corners of the nation and world. 

And for those that are clinging to the fossil fuel past, expect more litigation like this.  

 

Extreme Local Weather Disasters Most Often Hit In The Summer

Aerial view of the aftermath of a massive flash flood in a
mountainous region of southwestern Virginia a couple
weeks ago. 

 During the autumn, winter and spring, weather disasters usually come in the form of large, strong storm systems that wreak havoc over a pretty large area.  

 Sure, large scale heat waves, wildfires and early season hurricanes can hit in the summer, causing major disruptions and threats to life. 

In the summertime, though, it's the pin prick disasters that will get you. Summertime extremes tend to be, well, more extreme, but hit a much smaller, local area.  Two such events recently caught my attention.

VIRGINIA

Last week, storms stalled over mountainous southwestern Virginia, which is always bad news for anywhere in the Appalachians, from Maine to Georgia. The torrents of rain can send walls of water down steep slopes onto sleepy hamlets in the valleys. 

This happened at night, and people suspected the worst. Were people asleep in their homes, unaware everything was going to wash away? After all, a similar summer flash flood in Tennessee last year killed 21 people. 

Initial reports indicated 40 or so people were missing. But that was mostly due to the fact that cell phone service sucks in that mountainous corner of Virginia. Plus, since roads were washed out, people couldn't just drive to Aunt Martha's house in Buchanan County to check on her. 

It turns out everyone survived, which honestly is a miracle. Aftermath videos and photos show houses washed hundreds of feet from where they once stood, utterly destroyed. 

Terrible to think about, though. You go to bed on a muggy evening and everything's fine. Before the night's over, lives are upended.  And you know it could happen anywhere, even here in little old Vermont. 

I love listening to summer downpours roar down on the roof of my St. Albans, Vermont home in the dark pre-dawn hours. It's always pleasant, but paranoid me thinks, what if this downpour doesn't stop?  I choose not to worry about it though. It's not worth worrying about something that won't happen. Probably. 

MONTANA

Last week, a surprising dust storm in Montana didn't have such a positive result. Six people were reported killed when the blinding storm roared across Interstate 90 near Hardin, Montana. 

I didn't know they can have dust storms in Montana, but after this disastrous one, I can see how it can happen. But Hardin is in a relatively open, semi-arid area east of Billings.  

Aftermath of July 15 dust storm crash near
Hardin, Montana. 

The thunderstorm that caused the disaster wasn't even really over Hardin.  It was basically what is known as an outflow boundary from a thunderstorm many miles away.

The parent storm was at least 30 mph away, but created a rush of wind gusting over 60 mph through the Hardin area, said Nick Vertz, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Billings, Montana. 

"'If they looked up in the sky while they're in Hardin, they probably didn't see much of what you'd think of a thunderstorm cloud, maybe not even much at all," Vertz said. 'It was just a surge of wind that kind of appeared out of nowhere.'"

It has been hot and dry before the storms in that part of Montana, so the surge of rainless wind was able to pick up a lot of dust. It was enough to cause what I would call a brownout - very much like a whiteout in the winter when blowing snow cuts visibility to zero. 

Twenty one vehicles piled up, including tractor trailers, and those crashes killed six people. 

It could have been even worse. Video of the scene shows that many other vehicles were able to stop safely behind the wreck without crashing into each other.  Traffic was backed up for miles. 

I'm sure there have been other local disasters in the United States this summer and there will be more. It's a part of the season. 

VIDEOS:

Inside Edition report on that flood in Buchanan County, Virginia. Click on this link if you don't see the video image, otherwise, watch below: 

Local news report on the Hardin, Montana crash, with brief glimpses of how bad things were during the actual dust storm. Click on this link or watch below:

It's June, So Let's Talk About Snow!

They were skiing at Killington, Vermont right up
through yesterday, when the resort finally 
closed for the season.

 We have a couple little tidbits involving snow, or things that remind us of snow in the news today. It's June, the perfect month to discuss snow, right?  

We'll go distant first, then zoom in on the local

MONTANA SNOW

Way up at 10,000 feet in elevation, near the Montana/Wyoming border, there's a ski area called Beartooth Basin, which often offers summer skiing.  It's rough hewn, basically back country skiing with a lift, but it's a unique situation.

Beartooth Basin decided not to open this summer. There wasn't enough snow to sustain the operation. Then, of course, a massive snowstorm hit on Memorial Day weekend. 

The high elevation Beartooth Highway on the Montana/Wyoming border was closed for days afterward because of six-foot drifts. Crews couldn't really get into clear the snow due to a high avalanche risk, reports Cowboy State Daily.

Beartooth Highway is sort of a mega version of Route 108 through Smugglers Notch. The highway reaches an elevation as high as 10,900 feet. It closes in the fall and usually reopens in late spring, much like Smugglers Notch.

Crews trying to clear high elevation Beartooth Highway
of snow in Montana and Wyoming June 3.

The Montana high elevation road is normally open by Memorial Day, but not this year.  At last report, it still hadn't opened.

Beartooth Basin still doesn't look like it will open this summer, either. Despite all the new snow, it's too late to shift gears and open up.  

KILLINGTON SNOW

 No, I assure you that it didn't not snow in Vermont this weekend. The only powder we had was the huge amounts of pollen in the air that has created a yellow haze and left all of our cars yellow as well.

But, Killington was open and skiing until yesterday. It was the latest in the spring the resort closed since 1997, when it closed on June 22.

The spectacle was a little strange, as skiers zigzagged down a slope with still deep snow against a gorgeous backdrop of a summertime Vermont green landscape. 

The late closing this year had everything to do with Killington's snowmaking prowess and not weather conditions. After all, the winter was not especially cold, despite subzero weather in January. Spring was among the warmest on record. 

The resort managed to pile  up the snow on the trail to a depth of 30 feet before the spring that got underway. 

When Killington stayed open late in 1997, it had been a remarkably cool spring, which helped maintain the snow the resort had made through the winter. 

NOR'EASTERS OF SORTS 

When we think about nor'easters in New England, we think big snowstorm.  And now we have the potential for two storms that will be very much like weak nor'easters.

Don't worry, it isn't going to snow.  And temperatures as these things pass by will only be a little cooler than normal. And it might rain. 

In the summer, we don't see huge temperature contrasts like we do in the winter. Without these huge contrasts, storm systems can't get really strong (unless they're tropical storms, which is a whole other issue)

Without the ability to get strong, two relatively weak low pressure systems will end up running up the New England coast. One on Thursday, one on Sunday. 

Both storms will dump rain somewhere in New England. 

Like wintertime nor'easters, it's still hard to predict how much moisture will work into Vermont, so there's still some questions about how much rain will fall. Right now, it looks like the Green Mountain State will be under the threat of showers both Thursday and Sunday.  But it doesn't look like we'll have any blockbuster rains. 

By the way, technically there might be snow. Way, way, overhead. Often, precipitation starts out as snow many, many thousands of feet overhead even in the summer. That will probably happen with these little storms. But that snow will change to rain on the way down well before it hits even summit levels of the Vermont mountains. 

 

Extreme Winds In Huge Area Of Plains; In Vermont, Wet Weather Coming

Tractor trailer truck blown off the road in South Dakota. 
Photo via Twitter @robibrose

 I'm incredibly impressed with the widespread wind storm affecting the northern and central Plains of the United States and southern Canada.  

I don't think I can recall a single storm causing wind gusts over 70 mph hitting such a wide area.

The places that had such high wind gusts - or are about to - comprise more than half of Montana, the western half of the Dakotas, western Nebraska and Kansas, much of eastern Wyoming,  northeastern Colorado, and parts of southern Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada.

Highest wind gust included 105 mph near  F.E. Warren Air Force Base just outside Cheyenne, Wyoming;  89 mph at the National Weather Service office in Cheyenne; 95 mph in Judith Peak, Montana and 93 mph in Williston, North Dakota.

Record high wind gusts for January were set in Helena, Montana (80 mph); Havre, Montana (78 mph) and Great Falls, Montana (76 mph).

The storm responsible for this is now collecting moisture, meaning a full-blown blizzard is just now being unleashed in the western half of Iowa, southwestern Minnesota and eastern South Dakota.  Travel is essentially banned as snow is being propelled by wind gusts of 60 mph or higher. 

Up in Saskatchewan, people in rural areas who lost power in the high winds last night were told restoration efforts wouldn't start until today because winds were too strong last night.  People in the Regina areas were stranded on snow-blasted highways as it was too rough to send much help. 

The other day, I talked about the large number of storms that cost $1 billion or more in damage.  This one won't cause that much damage, I believe, only because of its location. Most of the area is sparsely populated, with not that many trees to topple. 

Imagine if this same storm struck the congested, forested East Coast.

This same storm or at least incarnation of it, is going to hit Vermont and the rest of New England, but at least we won't have the extreme winds with it. 

At this point, we're still looking at a new low pressure area forming along the parent storm's cold front. That one will move northward over New England. 

Since yesterday, trends have been indicating this new storm will take a more westward track than originally forecast, probably moving northward right over Vermont. 

That means - if the forecast holds - that we will get mostly rain in the Green Mountain State.  Even in the mountains.  

Since temperatures will be marginal, there's still hope the predictions could shift just a bit and bring us more snow, but I wouldn't count on it. 

Rain and melted snow totals will be about a half inch in the north to up to 1.5 inches in favored places in southern Vermont.  This would be enough to make rivers rise some, but not enough to cause any real flooding. 

As noted, we'll escape the strong, damaging winds that hit such a huge area of the Plains and Midwest. There could be strong winds gusting to 50 to 70 mph way up on the tip top of the peaks, but those won't make it down here, to where most of us live. 

We'll have gusty northwest winds amid snow showers on Sunday, but the winds won't be strong enough to cause any notable damage. 

Some snow will come Saturday night and occasionally through the upcoming week.  Accumulations won't amount to much except on the mountain peaks and western slopes, which could pick up a few inches. Temperatures will settle back to near normal readings for Jauary. 

Here's the wind blowing big tanks around near Great Falls, Montana: