On Upcoming Anniversary Of Vermont Dual Floods: Kinda Stormy, But Not That Scary

Rampaging Winooski River roars through Winooski,
Vermont during the big flood of July, 2023

On this date, July 9, in both 2023 and 2024 I had a sense of dread and alarm for Vermont.

With both occasions, Vermont was about to be slammed by horrific and disheartening, destructive floods. 

Now it's July 9 again, and here in 2025 thunderstorms and locally heavy rains are in the forecast for tomorrow again.

 The big and very important difference is this year, it doesn't look like we're facing disaster. Maybe a little inconvenience in a few spots, but - fingers crossed - nothing more. 

No calamity, no real sorrow, very little loss is in the cards this time. 

On July 9, 2023, I wrote the following: "I'm very worried, frankly. All the ingredients are coming together for a Vermont flood that could well be the worst since Irene in 2011."

I was right to be worried. July, 2023 was tragically pretty much as bad as Irene in 2011.  

Last July 9,  I wrote, "On the one-year anniversary of one of the worst floods in Vermont's history, we're about to see that flood's kid brother."

The "kid brother" packed almost as bad a punch as the flood the year before.

JULY 10, 2025

After what we went through in the past two years, I feel like I want to be a little more cautious than usual talking about our forecast this year. Irrationally, I don't want to jinx it.  Everybody in Vermont,  has at least a touch of flood PTSD.

That includes the very lucky ones like me, who suffered little damage to their homes and properties in the two events. I can only imagine what people who suffered terrible losses in the past two July 10 events feel like when rain is in the forecast. 

A destroyed bridge and culvert system near 
Huntington, Vermont after the floods of July, 2024

Today will be fine, with no problems at all. There could be an isolated shower or storm in far southern and eastern Vermont, but, no biggie

Then we get into tomorrow. Yes, there is a marginal risk of an isolated severe thunderstorm. And a marginal risk of isolated flash floods, too.

You have to look at it as a game of chance, and tomorrow's game of chance looks a lot more favorable to us than in the previous two years.

In 2023, forecasts leading up to the event gave people in Vermont a more than 70 percent chance of seeing flash flooding within 25 miles of their location. 

Last year, the forecasts from NOAA gave us a more than 40 percent chance of seeing flash flooding within 25 miles of where they were standing.

Tomorrow, those chances of seeing a flash flood within a couple dozen miles of where you are is just 5 percent. 

Also, those chances in 2023 and 2024 predicted major damage. This year's marginal risk suggests we might have at most some isolated instances of mostly minor flooding in poor drainage areas. 

THE SETUP

The weather system coming in tomorrow to provide those expected storms tomorrow will be weak, barely discernible on weather maps. This will be nothing like the intense blasts of Atlantic and tropical moisture that slammed us in 2023 and 2024.  

But, the humidity will be back. That'll provide plenty of fuel for showers and storms. Air flow in the atmosphere will be sluggish, too, so thunderstorms will be in no hurry to move from place to place.

That's why there's that low risk of local flooding. If a downpour sits over one spot for too long, you start getting washouts, and high water in small streams and creeks.  If we see any of these stalled downpours, they won't cover a wide area, which is why not many people are at risk of any flooding.

 Most of us will only see a half inch of rain or less. We'll get through the day and just end up with wet gardens and grass, so mowing the lawn tomorrow evening is probably out of the question. It won't be a great day for the beach or boating or hiking.

Again, we're facing minor inconveniences tomorrow, not catastrophe. 

BOTTOM LINE

It probably would have been better for everyone's mental health if the Vermont forecast for tomorrow was for wall to wall sunshine. But at least we don't have the feeling of dread we had at this time last year, and the year before.

But I'm going to ruin your mood now. A warmer, climate changed atmosphere can hold much more water than it could decades ago.  That makes flash floods more likely in very many places, including here in Vermont. 

It's been an exceptionally terrible month already in the U.S. for flash floods.  As of this morning, it appears at least 110 people have died in last weekend's Texas Hill Country flood with as many as 161 people still missing. 

On Sunday, four died in a severe flash flood in central North Carolina. Just yesterday, the worst in a series of flash floods and debris flows from a forest fire scar in Ruidoso, New Mexico killed three people and washed away homes. 

And last night, a stalled thunderstorm dumped more than five inches of rain in just an hour and a half in the western parts of Chicago, causing severe local flash flooding and water rescues from cars. 

Though we seem in Vermont  - again, fingers crossed - from any scary flood drama tomorrow, I still have the feeling that the other shoe will drop eventually. So does anybody involved in Vermont emergency management, weather forecasting and climate science. 

Eventually, something like July 10-11, 2023 and July 10-11, 2024 will happen again. And again and again. 

Vermont has always had terrible floods.  But now we are in an era that these disasters are more frequent.  This new reality is changing the very fabric of the state, and those changes will keep coming at least as fast as the flash floods will.

This isn't your grandfather's Vermont anymore.   

A Quiet Weather January In Vermont Will End Just As Quietly

Snow on Mount Mansfield glows in cold sunshine
Wednesday as viewed from Underhill, Vermont. It
has been a quiet weather month in the region. 

 Unless some big surprises happen in the final eight days of January, Vermont will have had a very quiet first month of 2025, at least in terms of weather. 

So far this month, there's been no big snowstorms, no giant thaws, no horrific windstorms like we had last year. Just a bunch of snow flurries, and some decent but not extraordinary dumps of fluff on the Green Mountains. 

For most of us in Vermont, it has been a really dry month and that looks like it will continue right through to February 1 and possibly beyond. 

 I guess the weather this year decided to join the "Dry January" trend in which humans give up the booze for the month.

Or something like that. 

THE STATS

Burlington has a shot at having one of the top ten driest Januaries on record. They've had 0.53 inches of melted down snow (and rain on January 1).  The driest January on record has 0.42 inches, so we won't break that record. But the tenth driest January had 0.69 inches.  

I'm doubting we will have the 0.16 inches of melted snow or rain by the end of the month to escape the top ten. For reference, normal January precipitation is 2.13 inches. 

It also seems like it's been cold this month, but it really hasn't. Through Wednesday, the mean temperature for the month has very close to normal.   This, remember, is the "new normal" based on the average temperature over the past 30 years, which was warmer than the 20th century average thanks to climate change. 

Had this month so far happened in the mid-20th century, we'd be remarking about how mild it has been. 

This month only seems cold because the last two winter were so much warmer than average. Last winter was the warmest on record. And January, 2023 was the fourth warmest on record.

The range in temperatures his month has been a yawner, too. So far, the warmest it's gotten in Burlington is 44 and the coldest is minus 2.  In past years, it's been as warm as 66 degrees during January in Burlington and as cold as 30 below. 

THE OUTLOOK

It looks like the final eight or nine days of the month will pretty much feature a persistent, fast air flow from the west/northwest, taking weather systems quickly from south central Canada, then just north of the Great Lakes and then through southern Quebec or northern New England.  

That means weak, fast moving disturbances will come through at least every other day. Since there will be no humid flow of air coming up from the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean, each little mini storm will have scant moisture to work with. 

Which means all we'll get is little bits of flurries and scattered light snow every once in awhile. Most of that paltry bit of snow would fall in the northern Green Mountains, which has been the state of affairs all month. 

Since this air flow won't really be able to tap a lot of frigid Arctic air from the North Pole, I'm thinking  our temperatures for the rest of the month will vary from close to normal on some days, and just a little below normal on others.

In the short term, it'll be just a little on the cool side through Saturday, then a little on the mild side Sunday through Tuesday, then somewhat chilly again toward the middle and end of next week. 

But we shouldn't see any big wild January thaws or temperatures insanely below zero, either.  

I suppose there could always be a surprise or two around the bend between now and Ground Hog Day. 

Maybe this quiet January is a good omen. Vermont has had way too many instances of extreme weather over the past two years. Sometimes with tragic results. Maybe this January is signaling a comparatively calm weather year in 2025.

Given how extreme the weather has gotten world wide and locally in this age of climate change, though, I wouldn't count on these placid conditions sticking around in Vermont all year. 

There's always something lurking. 

Report: Helene Dumped The Equivalent Of The Entire Contents Of Lake Tahoe On Southeast U.S.

United States rainfall from September 24 to 29. Click
on the map to make it bigger and easier to see.
That bright purple splotch in western North
Carolina represents about two feet of rain. 

 Hurricane Helene combined with the "predecessor rain event" associated with that storm in the Southeast dumped 40 trillion gallons of water on the region.  

The Associated Press reports:

"That's enough to fill the Dallas Cowboys stadium 51,000 times, or Lake Tahoe just once. If it was concentrated just on the state of North Carolina, that much water would be 3.5 feet deep. It's enough to fill more than 60 million Olympic-size swimming pools."

It would also take 619 days for that amount of water to flow over Niagara Falls, on average.

The rainfall amount was calculated by meteorologist Ryan Maue, a former NOAA chief scientist. 

Other meteorologists checked Maue's work, and said his work looks pretty damn accurate. If anything, Maue might have underestimated the rainfall a little. 

The AP reports: 

"'That's an astronomical amount of precipitation,' said Ed Clark, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. 'I have not seen something in my 25 years of working at the weather service that is this geographically large of an extent and the sheer volume of water that fell from the sky."

The town of Busick in western North Carolina received 31.33 of rain. Other locations not far from Asheville received more than two feet of rain. 

Also, this was the second mega-rainstorm parts of North Carolina within just two weeks. On September 15-16, a stalled storm along the North Carolina coast that tried and failed to turn into a tropical storm still managed to dump 20.81 inches of rain on Carolina Beach and a foot to a foot and a half of rain in southeastern part of that state. 

Obviously with that much rain, extensive flooding was reported in that area. 

We should expect to see more and more of this in the coming decades as climate change continues to intensify. Warmer air can hold more moisture, and under the right conditions, can dump ever heavier amounts of rain. 

This is leading to more frequent and worse flooding in many areas. Us Vermonters know a thing or two about that given the events of the last two summers. 

Maue and others point out there were mega-floods well inland from coastal areas associated with both tropical and non-tropical systems well before climate change was a thing. 

That is true. Western North Carolina had a highly destructive flood like Helene back in 1916, though that one wasn't quite at the level of the one they just experience. 

In August, 1969, Hurricane Camille smashed ashore in Mississippi as a deadly Category 5 storm. It was one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the United States. The remnants of Camille moved on to the mountains of western Virginia, where it dumped up to 27 inches of rain. That unleashed flooding that killed at least 150 people.   

Even here in Vermont, an offshore former tropical storm fed deep moisture into the state, creating the Great Flood of 1927.

So yes, big floods have always occurred. But it's happening more often and these things are getting wilder.

Associated Press again:

"Before 2017's Hurricane Harvey, 'I said to our colleagues, you know, I never thought in my career that we would measure rainfall in feet,' Clark said. 'And after Harvey, Florence, the more isolated events in eastern Kentucky, portions of South Dakota. We're seeing events year in and year out where we are measuring rainfall in feet."

For now, the nation is getting a brief break. Forecasts for the Lower 48 over the next two or three days show the least flood threat overall in months. However, southern and central Florida could see torrential rains and flooding starting early next week from a potential weak but slow-moving tropical system that's forecast to be in that area.  

 

Something Weird And Warm Is Going On With Vermont Septembers

A little hard to see in there, but a bumblebee is seem
here enjoying a white rose on a warm September
Sunday morning in St. Albans, Vermont. Recent
Septembers in Vermont have grown sharply warmer. 

 As we all know, we are in the midst of a long spell of oddly warm, dry September weather in Vermont. 

Sunday was the third day in a row of 80 degree temperatures, with at least four more in a row coming.  

It hasn't rained in Burlington since a sprinkle on September 9, and there's a chance it won't rain again for another 10 days.

 That depends on whether a weird little possibly subtropical storm expected to hit the Carolinas Monday can throw enough moisture our way to set off a few sprinkles toward the middle of this week. 

Spells of September weather like this used to be rare in Vermont, but in recent years, it's gotten far more common.

Thanks climate change, the top 10 lists of warmest months throughout the calendar has a number of recent years clustered in those lists, at least as measure in Burlington.  It's just warmer than it used to be, so we're more likely to have near record warm months thrown in. 

But September is ridiculous.  The ninth month of the year has taken a sharp turn toward becoming an extension of summer, especially in the last decade or so.

The top five warmest Septembers have all occurred since 2015. Until recent years, the warmest September in Burlington had an average of 65.4 degrees, set in 1961. Now, the warmest year is 67.4 degrees, set in 2015.

Even the recent Septembers that didn't make the top ten warmest list have been balmy.

Septembers with an average temperature of under 60 degrees used to be the usual. Only 40 out of the 100 Septembers between 1900 and 1999 had an average temperature of over 60 degrees, as measured in Burlington. 

Then it changed. All Septembers since 2010 have had an average temperature of over 60 degrees, and only one September since 2000 has fallen short of a 60 degree average.

Recent Septembers have also featured very long dry spells, longer and hotter than the one we're having now. The warm to hot, and rainless spell in September, 2017 was as extreme as they get. That month featured 20 consecutive days with absolutely no rain at Burlington. 

That dry spell culminated in a seriously whacked out heat wave. Until 2017, the latest 90 degree temperature of the season was on September 16, 1939. But on September 24-27, 2017, Burlington saw four consecutive days in the 90s. 

The 2017 autumn heat extended through October, which became by far the warmest on record in Burlington. 

In 2015, each of the first nine days of September were over 80 degrees, and three of those got above 90 degrees. In 2018, there were five consecutive days of temperatures of 85 or more from the fourteenth through the 18th. 

Our current warm, dry September - as toasty as it is - will probably not be the warmest on record. I question whether it will even make it into the list of top ten warmest.  But once again, this September is not your grandfather's early autumn month. 

Two Extreme And Dramatic Weather Events Prove Fatal In Alaska, Arizona

Extreme flash flooding in the Havasu Creek and Falls
area of the Grand Canyon last week killed one person
and forced helicopter rescues for dozens of others. 

 I've been a bit fascinated and horrified in the past week of two big local weather-related events in two very different, scenic spots. One was a landslide in Ketchikan, Alaska and the other an epic flash flood in northern Arizona. 

I often cite local disasters like this as evidence of the harm created by climate change. 

Both of these disasters might have been related to climate change, but I don't know for sure and can't prove it either way. But still, they're pretty intense. 

NORTHERN ARIZONA

Havasu Creek and Havasu Canyon in northern Arizona - part of the Grand Canyon are an incredibly scenic spot in northern Arizona, popular with hikers and vacationers. It features Havasu Falls, a gorgeous blue-green feature that attracts thousands of tourists annually and is a main attraction to the Grand Canyon 

Hundreds of hikers were in the canyon and along the creek last Thursday when disaster struck. It's monsoon season in Arizona, when moisture from both the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico find their way to the Desert Southwest. 

The monsoons create intense thunderstorms, famous for creating abrupt flash floods in the deserts, low water crossings, creeks, canyons and back country of Arizona. 

Last Thursday, an especially intense monsoon struck in and around Havasu Canyon.  The resulting flash flood was epic, stranding at least 100 hikers and sweeping away a woman, who was later found dead. 

Reports News 12 in Arizona:

"Chenoa Nickerson, 33, was hiking with her husband near Havasu Creek on Thursday when the  couple was swept away by the flash flood. Her husband was able to be rescued by rafters, but Nickerson went missing in the Colorado River."

Her body was eventually found 20 miles downriver. Nickerson's family is raising money for the National Park Service Search and Rescue in her honor. Family members said the search and rescue team is historically underfunded, and they believe this is a great way to honor Nickerson's memory. 

I couldn't agree more. 

The death toll could well have been higher, but Havasupai tribal members who live in the area recognized the flash flood situation developing and warned hikers to seek high ground immediately.  

The Havasupai Tribe's reservation is perhaps the most remote in the nation. You can only get to it on foot, mule or via helicopter. 

Havasu Falls and surrounding trails are now off limits to visitors for the foreseeable future. The tribe is working with FEMA on coordinating repairs.  Although monsoon flash flooding is common in this area, the one that struck last week was much worse than usual.  

Dramatic video of the flash flood are here and here. 

KETCHIKAN, ALASKA

Ketchikan, Alaska, on the state's panhandle south of Juneau,  is normally very wet - one of the wettest cities on Earth. Its normal annual rainfall is about 150 inches. (That compares to roughly 40 inches a year here in Vermont).  

Aerial view of the big landslide
in Ketchikan, Alaska.

Recently, however, the tain was too much even for soggy Ketchikan. A tragic landslide last Sunday buried part of a city neighborhood, killing one person and injuring three others. Numerous homes were destroyed in a dense neighborhood not far from downtown, reports Alaska Public Media.

The person killed was Sean Griffin, a senior maintenance technician for Ketchikan who was off duty but volunteering to clear clogged storm drains when the landslide hit. 

A number of factors could have contributed to the slide. Around 2.5 inches of rain fell on Ketchikan that day That's unusually heavy for a single day there, but not record-breaking.  

 Fatal landslides have been increasing in southeast Alaska, with four such slides in the past decade. It's possible climate change has had a hand in this, as increases in temperature, precipitation and wind associated with climate change might be making the steep landscape less stable. 

Gabriel Woken of the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys said he suspect climate change might be playing a role, but the causes of the landslides are so complex that it's hard to know for sure.  

"Heat Dome" That's Been Baking Mexico Spreads To U.S.; Could Impact Rest Of Nation Over The Summer

A schematic of a heat dome over the middle of the
United States. In a heat dome, high pressure
causing sinking air, which ensures strong sun
trapping hot air in place. 

What is known as a "heat dome" - a persistent, torrid high pressure system, has been baking Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, has been expanding in recent days and weeks to affect the United States.   

Heat domes are fairly common mostly over continents in the summer. But they've been getting more intense with climate change. 

The latest heat dome has been killing people, causing droughts and fires, and also triggering intense storms,  especially along its edges.

Mexico City residents are rationing water as drought dries up supplies. The city could run out of water as early as June 26, even as the region's hoped for rainy season starts about then, according to Axios.

The Mexican heat has been brutal on wildlife, too. Mexico's famous howler monkeys have been dying in the heat. As of Sunday, 157 of the monkeys had succumbed in southern Mexico. An endangered salamander looks like it might go extinct because of the heat. 

All time record high temperatures have been set in parts of Mexico, Belize and other Central American and Caribbean nations. 

 The heat has been making inroads into Florida and Texas in recent days. 

Del Rio, Texas reached 109 degrees last week, setting an all time record high for the month of May. 

As of Sunday, four of Houston's 20 hottest May days since the late 1880s happened this month. 

There's been little relief from the heat at night. Kingsville, Texas recently had an overnight "low" of 84 degrees, the highest low temperature on record in May for anywhere in Texas. 

The heat index in Miami was 112 degrees on both May 18 and 19.  That's only happened once before, in  August of last year. But it's only May, so that episode was especially bizarre.

SUMMER DANGER

All this adds a potentially ominous tone for the summer in the United States. It's inevitable that the heat dome will expand into the  Lower 48 and perhaps southern Canada as we move through June, July and August. 

Most likely, it will persist for a few days over a certain region, then shift to somewhere else and back again.  Given the intensity of the heat dome and climate change, this could lead to dangerous all time record highs at the height of summer. 

An intense heat dome in the Pacific Northwest and southwestern Canada in 2021 led to the all-time record high for  Canada of 121 degrees in Lytton, British Columbia. That town burned down the next day in a wildfire that was greatly accelerated by the heat and drought. 

The 2021 heat wave killed 619 Canadians and dozens of people in the U.S. Pacific Northwest as temperatures climbed into the 110s in many locations. 

We risk a similar disaster this summer, but of course we don't know where yet. 

The summer heat dome could also pretty much park itself over one location for much of the summer, like it did in Mexico this spring. That would cause weeks of record high temperatures, deaths from heat and flash droughts.   

HEAT DOMES, CLIMATE CHANGE AND US 

Heat domes have always been a thing. The intense heat and dust bowl droughts of the 1930s were in large part caused by heat domes. 

Climate change is helping to intensify heat domes, here in North America and in Europe and Asia, where heat waves have killed tens of thousands in recent years. Heat waves are not photogenic like most disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes. But heat is the deadliest type of disaster, so they should be taken more seriously than they are. 

We obviously don't know whether or how much any heat domes will affect us here in Vermont. 

Even in this cool, temperate corner of the world, heat can be dangerous in Vermont. An intense July, 2018 heat wave caused six deaths in Vermont and dozens up in Quebec, for instance. 

Again, because of climate change, I think the all time record high temperature in the Green Mountain State - 105 degrees in Vernon, in July, 1911 - might well be broken within the next decade. I imagine Burlington's all-time high of 101 will be challenged, too.

I'm not saying that will happen this year. I imagine it could, but it's all the roll of the dice. 

Long range forecast call for a hot summer in the United States, with the best chance of persistent heat in the western United States and in New England. 

It's been one of the warmest Mays on record in Vermont. Who knows whether that trend will last through the summer. But I'd bet on at least some brutal heat in the coming months. 

As We Deal With A Spring Snowstorm In Vermont/New England, Heat Blasts On Much Of Planet

 Sure, winter has just given us (hopefully!) a last big blast here in Vermont. 

A tropical feel to the atmosphere on Burlington, Vermont's
waterfront during a record heat wave in July, 2018.
We're far from any heat records here in Vermont this
week, but many all time heat records have been
broken in the past couple weeks in
many parts of the world. 

Meanwhile, much of the rest of the world is hot, hot, hot. March closed with all time monthly highs in large parts of Europe, Asia and central America, just to name a few hot spots. 

Most of the following information comes from weather historian and climatologist Maximiliano Herrera, who runs the Extreme Temperatures Around the World (@extremetemps) on X, formerly Twitter. 

Eight eastern European nations logged records for their hottest March day on record, says the Washington Post. Numerous cities in Russia, Ukraine, Greece and Turkey also set record highs. 

Tokyo and other parts of Japan was actually kind of on the cool side during March, but that all changed at the end of the month. Tokyo got up to 82.6 degrees, easily its hottest March day on record. several other cities in Japan also had all time record highs for the month. 

In the last week of March, Hong Kong also had its hottest March day on the 24th with a reading of 88.7 degrees.  On March 27, Phuket, Thailand reached 102.6 degrees, its hottest temperatures record in any month.  

Cities in Taiwan, southern China, Myanmar and the Philippines also broke heat records by large margins in late March. Record highs have been reported somewhere in Thailand every day so far this year. 

Parts of Mongolia also reported record high temperatures for March. This follows an intense spell of frigid temperatures and snow in February that killed millions of livestock. 

April seems to be picking up where March left off, with heat records falling in a whole bunch of disparate places around the world - except here in Vermont, apparently. 

Kayes, in the western African nation of Mali, reached a terrible 119 degrees on Wednesday. That was the hottest temperature on record for any date for the entire nation of Mali. It was also the hottest April day on the entire African continent. It was also the hottest temperatures on record anywhere on Earth for early April. 

Central America also got into the act as April opened. 

On Tuesday, Guatemala reached 95 degrees for a new national record for the month of April. Costa Rica also hit an April record with 104 degrees. Not to be outdone, Belize City reached 100 degrees, its hottest day on record for any time of year. 

This is only some of the hot records noted around the world in recent days. And more record heat is due over the next week in several other parts of the world. 

But not here in Vermont. 

Sure, it will warm up to seasonable temperatures for April by Monday. But no record heat is in the cards for at least two weeks, probably longer. 

However, with all the heat waves hitting in rapid succession around the world, it's only a matter of time before Vermont starts breaking record highs again, like we did in February and early March.  

Let's just hope they're all time record highs in the middle of summer. 

I can't blame the heat waves 100 percent o climate change, but it's certainly having an influence. is 

 

NOAA Confirms: U.S. February, And Whole Winter, Was Insanely Warm

Winter in the United States was the warmest on record.
States shown in dark red with the number 129 had their
warmest winter on record. Dark orange states were
much warmer than average and light orange states
were moderately warm, compared to average.

We certainly weren't the only ones here in Vermont who had the warmest winter on record.  

We recently got confirmation - as if we needed it - that the U.S. winter was toastiest on record. 

FEBRUARY DATA

The year without a U.S. winter was driven in large part by an absolutely insane February in large sections of the nation. 

February was the nation's third warmest on record out of the past 130 years. Combined with a somewhat warm January and a superheated December, the United States ended up having what was easily the warmest winter on record, says NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. 

Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin had their warmest February on record. Eighteen other states, including Vermont, had one of their top five warmest Februaries on record. 

February for most of the nation was dry.  Most areas away from the flooded and snowed under West Coast and Rocky Mountains had a break from the storminess of December and January. 

No states had their driest February but several came very close. Five states - Illinois, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine - had their second driest February out of the past 130 years of record. 

So much for February. What about winter as a whole?

HOT WINTER

The winter of 2023-24 averaged 37.6 degrees for the Lower 48.  That was 0.82 degrees above the previous record  for the hottest winter set in 2015-16. That doesn't sound like a wide margin. But if you take in all those states, all those weather stations over those 91 days of meteorological winter, that margin is enormous. 

It turns out it was the biggest margin from one year to next warmest year in the entire 129 year database of winter temperatures. 

The individual states that reported the warmest winter on record are usually known for their winter chill. The states that enjoy or endured their warmest winter on record were North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. 

It looks like 29 additional states had one of their top ten warmest winters on record.

It won't be just the United States that had the warmest winter on record. The world as a whole will almost certainly turn out to have had the toastiest winter in memory.  Complete information was just coming out on Thursday, and I'll have an update on that soon. 

Meanwhile, back here in the United States, The first half of March has been warm in most states.  This won't be the hottest March on record. That honor for most of the Lower 48 goes to the insane month of March, 2012.

But despite some incursions of chilly air expected from Canada in different parts of the United States, meteorological spring is off to a rather toasty start, too. 

 

Joe's Pond Ice Out Contest Underway In Vermont. Maybe Bet Early?

It was 70 degrees on April 15 last year and the block that
indicates when the Joe's Pond ice hadn't fallen through.
The official ice out came on April 17, 2023. Photo
from the Joe's Pond Association. 

 I'm not a gambling man, but I'm willing to give a little advice on the subject anyway.  

If you're entering the annual Vermont Joe's Pond Ice Out Contest, bet on an early date. 

Joe's Pond is a beautiful, rather high elevation body of water in West Danville, Vermont, up in the Northeast Kingdom. 

Every spring, it's the subject of a popular guessing game and gamble: When will the ice break on the pond?  Thousands of dollars are at stake. 

The ice out contest started in 1987 as friends wanted to bet on when the ice would dissolve on the pond. To make the bet work, they had to device an exacting system to tell when the ice broke.

We'll let the folks at Joe's Pond take the explanation from here:

"After considerable discussion, they settled on a simple, low-tech control system: They places a well-used electric clock on Homer Fitt's deck and tethered it to a cinder block wired to a wooden pallet placed 100 feet out on the ice. That was it. 

The clock was checked twice daily in the morning and evening. When the block went down the clock was disconnected stopping at the 'official' ice-out time. Whoever guessed closest to the date a time the clock stopped won the contest."

That old electric clock has since been replaced by a weather proof timepiece  the location where the block is placed on the ice has changed a little. But everything else has remained the same with the contest since its inception. 

The contest has gotten huge. In 1990, about 1,500 people entered. Nowadays, a good 12,000 people buy ice out tickets, which cost $1 apiece. Half the proceeds go to the winner and the other half goes to the Joe's Pond Association. The Association uses the money for water quality programs and for events around the pond. 

Meanwhile, the winner will take home about $5,000.

 As I've extensively documented, this has been a remarkably toasty winter, and has an excellent shot at becoming the warmest winter on record. Which means the ice has not gotten thick on Joe's Pond. Plus, we haven't had a huge amount of snow. 

Deep snow atop Joe's Pond ice would insulate it from the warming rays of the late winter and early spring sun. 

The earliest ice outs on Joe's Pond don't necessarily follow the very warmest winters.  Before this year, the warmest winter on record was 2015-16. The ice broke that spring at 5:04 p.m. April 12, 2016. That was definitely an earlier than average ice out, but not THE earliest.

Those honors go to 2010, when the ice broke at 2:46 p.m on April 5.  

The winter of 2010 was a rather mild winter. But what really broke the ice was weather in early spring and especially the opening few days of April.

At St. Johnsbury - the nearest major weather station to Joe's Pond - mid-March featured a week of consecutive days in the 50s and 60s, which got the spring thaw going in earnest. 

Then, on April 2-4, a record early season heat wave hit, with daily highs those days in St. Johnsbury at 77, 84 and 83.  

The second earliest ice out was on April 8, 2012. Again it was a warm winter, but what really made the ice go out early was a week long, unprecedented record heat wave from March 18 through 23 that brought temperatures into the upper 70s and low 80s. 

I think we can see some tell-tale signs of climate change in Joe's Pond ice out dates, even though records only go back to 1988.

In the past 23 years, since 2000, the ice has only broken up on or after May 1 just three times, the most recent being in 2018. In the dozen years before 2000, the ice waited until on or after May 1 to break up on five occasions - nearly half the time. 

The latest ice break up on Joe's Pond was at 1:19 p.m. May 6, 1992.

As noted, this year, I expect an early ice out on Joe's Pond.  Not only have we experienced a warm winter, but now the end of February and the early part of March look very torchy in Vermont .In other words, aside for a couple cold days thrown in, it appears at least part of March will bring near record temperatures and melting ice. 

There's no telling what happens later in March and whatever part of April the ice holds on Joe's Pond. But I virtually guarantee we won't wait until May to see ice out. 

Beyond telling you the ice out will be early, I'm going to shut up about the rest of my Joe's Pond theories for 2024. After all, I purchased Joe's Pond Ice Out tickets, too, and I don't want to share my strategy.   

Much Of Vermont Remained Frost-Free Last Night, Continuing Odd Lack Of Cold

 It appears most reporting stations in Vermont did not have a freeze last night or this morning. 

Gorgeous sunrise today in St. Albans, Vermont. The clouds
that caused the pretty skies also prevented many Vermont
towns from having their first freeze of the season. 

There were plenty of reports of fog, and I'm sure there was patchy frost as many places got into the 33 to 35 degree range. 

This ensures that records for latest freeze will be established in many cities.

Montpelier got down to 33 degrees. There was likely some frost in the area, but for official records, they avoided a freeze. At  least since 1970,,the latest freeze on record in Montpelier was on October 31, 1975. 

The forecast calls for continued above freezing temperatures in Montpelier at least through Monday, October 30, and quite possibly beyond, so the record for latest first freeze is in jeopardy.

Same is true at the official National Weather Service measuring site at the Burlington International Airport. The overnight low there was 35 degrees. 

I made a slight error in a post the other day. I claimed the record for latest first freeze of the autumn at the airport was on October 26, 2018.  But I just can't keep up with this onslaught of warm autumn in recent years. 

Last year, in 2022, the first freeze at the airport didn't hit until October 28, and that's the record to beat. 

The record to beat, that is, unless you want to include data prior to 1941.  Weather data shifted to the airport in 1941. The airport is further inland from Lake Champlain than prior measurements. That inland location has less influence from the warming effects of the lake than when measurements were take right in the city of Burlington proper.

So, in that sense, the record to beat is November 1, 1920.

Bottom line: The October 28 record at the airport will surely be broken. It's dicey for the November 1 record. If the Weather Channel's 10-day forecast is to be believed, the expected low temperature on November 1 is 33 degrees, which is a close shave.

Most of us would have had a freeze this morning had skies remained relatively clear and winds light. This morning's low temperatures hit around 2 a.m. today.  Usually temperatures keep heading downward until dawn.

But clouds and winds arrived in the pre-dawn hours, so temperatures actually began to slowly rise after 3 a.m. 

THE OUTLOOK

An unexpected patch of light showers moved through central Vermont this morning, but that will clear out soon if it hasn't already. We're still looking at a warm, but partly to mostly cloudy week. 

Some overnight lows during the second half of the week will be warmer than normal highs for this time of year. Those high temperatures will also flirt with 70 degrees, compared to average highs in the mid 50s.

The extended forecast is uncertain, but it looks like we will gradually step down in temperature this weekend and actually be chillier than average in about a week from now. 

To give you another idea just how warm this autumn has been, September in Burlington tied for the fourth warmest on record.  Given the forecast, this October is almost guaranteed to be among the top five warmest, and has a slight chance of besting the record for the warmest October. 

This year is also likely to yet another in the top ten warmest in Burlington. Already each of the top five warmest  years have happened since 2012.  Climate change, anyone?

Parts Of Quebec Reeling From Deadly Flooding

A capture from a video by David Cloudier shows an 
RV swept away by flood waters on Monday crashing
into a bridge northeast of Quebec City. 

The same storm that caused some pretty bad flooding in New Jersey, the New York City area and in New Hampshire and Maine also slammed parts of Quebec especially bad. 

The Charlevoix region, a little northeast of Quebec City, was especially hard hit. Two firefighters died during rescue attempts. Numerous homes and buildings were damaged. Video from the region shows RVs being swept away by a raging river and then being crushed into a bridge.  

Several hundred people have been evacuated from homes and dozens of roads are closed by high water or washouts. Video shows some gaps in flood damaged roads to be as much as ten feet deep. 

Two day care centers were abruptly evacuated Monday, and children were rushed to an arena on higher ground. Parents were later able to retrieve their kids there. None of them were injured. 

Rivers were already running near flood stage in the area from spring snow melt. Then the heavy rain hit. 

The heavy rain is over, but lighter showers are slowing the pace of receding water along some Quebec rivers. The same region was hit by severe spring flooding in 2017 and 2019.  Quebec officials said three so-called 100 year floods within seven years is a sign of climate change. 

On entirely the opposite side of Canada, on the west coast, a number of homes have been evacuated and more might be A warm spell abruptly melted a lot of snow in the mountains, and flood waters have rushed down the slopes. 

Officials there hope a spell of somewhat cooler weather moving in will calm things down. 

Strangely High Humidity For Late October In Vermont

Somewhat dramatic clouds over St. Albans, Vermont
late Tuesday afternoon were one indication of the
oddly humid air over the state for this
late in the season. 

 If you felt rather sweaty and sticky yesterday, chances are you're not running a fever.

Tuesday and today in Vermont are surprisingly humid for this late in the season. 

A good way to judge the level of humidity is to check the dew point.  The dew point is far the temperature would need to go to completely saturate the air. 

If the dew point is at or above 60 degrees, it starts to feel kind of sticky for most people.  Dew points since yesterday in Vermont have been in the low 60s, though they did dip ever so slightly into the upper 50s at night. 

Dew points at this high a level are very common in the summer but quite rare this far into autumn. 

It's this humid because there's been a persistent flow of air from the south off the Atlantic Ocean. 

High dew points this time of year really prevent overnight lows from dropping.  Yes, it was warm yesterday afternoon, reaching 75 degrees, but that was still five degrees shy of a record. However, Tuesday's low temperature in Burlington was 59 degrees, which set a record for the warmest low temperature for the date. 

Montpelier also set a record warm minimum temperature for the date on Tuesday, only bottoming out at 57 degrees.The normal low temperature in Montpelier this week is around 33 degrees.

The low temperature this morning in Burlington was also 59 degrees. If it stays at 59 or higher until midnight tonight, we'll set another record for warmest low temperature. The normal low temperature in Burlington this time of year, by the way, is 39 degrees.

You might have even noticed the sky had a vaguely summertime appearance. Through the breaks in the overcast, you could see some of the clouds bubbling up into convective shower clouds, like you'd get in the warm season. 

With climate change, we'll increasingly see these out of season humid spells.  That makes me nervous. The more humid the air, the more moisture it can hold. Given the right conditions, that super wet air can unleash dangerous downpours.

In the summer, when it's supposed to be humid, there are no big storm systems around.  Humidity can contribute to torrential thunderstorms, but those are local events that tend not to last very long. At least most of the time. 

In the autumn, winter or spring, you have larger storm systems. These storms, if they tap into out of season, humid air, can cause longer lasting torrential rains and floods. Oddly humid air contributed to serious flooding in Vermont in April, 2011 and on October 31-November 1, 2019.

This time, fortunately, the atmosphere and weather patterns aren't setting up to provide a risk of flooding rains, at least not here. Still, some of the scattered showers around could be briefly heavy in a handful of spots ahead of a cold front coming in from the west. For most of us, though, rainfall totals today and tonight will be nothing to write home about. 

I noticed a slug of pretty heavy rain was moving northward up the Connecticut River Valley this morning. Also, flood watches have been issued for coastal New Hampshire and eastern Maine. 

That approaching cold front will usher in cooler and much, much drier air for tomorrow and on into the weekend. We'll go back to the regular late October programming of frosty nights and bright, chilly afternoons.

More Tornadoes? Record December For Twisters And More Possible Today, And Later This Month

Tornado damage in Minnesota after the unprecedented
severe weather outbreak on December 15. Minnesota
had never seen tornadoes in December until this
year, contributing to a record tornado count in'
the United States this month. 

 December is usually a pretty slow month for tornadoes in the United States, but anyone who's glanced at the news knows there's surely been a lot of them this month. 

There have been at minimum 130 tornadoes so far this month in the United States, which is the most on record for December since at least 1950.

Today, more tornadoes are possible in Florida.

A storm coming off the Gulf of Mexico today will cross roughly west to east through the Florida peninsula. There's a good deal of spin and instability in the atmosphere with this thing. That has prompted NOAA's Storm Prediction Center to say there's a chance of tornadoes today in central and southern Florida. 

The biggest threat from the severe thunderstorms expected today in Florida will contain damaging straight line winds. But expected supercells could spin up a tornado or two.  A tornado watch was already in effect before dawn in southwestern Florida. 

Florida does get tornadoes from time to time, most often during the winter. 

As a side note, the storm causing the rough weather in Florida will rocket northward well off the East Coast, and cause a snowstorm with some ice Wednesday night and Thursday morning in Maine and the maritime provinces of Canada. The storm will have little or no effects here in Vermont).

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service in LaCrosse, Wisconsin says they were able to document 18 tornadoes in the weird Upper Midwest tornado outbreak on Dec. 15. Four of them were in Wisconsin, five of them were in Iowa and nine were found in Minnesota.

Note that until this month, the total number of tornadoes ever recorded in Minnesota was zero.  Most of the December 15 tornadoes were rather weak, being rated at EF-0 or EF-1. There were three EF-2s in Wisconsin.

After today, we still might not be done with tornadoes this month in the United States. Another wave of near record breaking warmth, and unusually high humidity is expected to engulf the southeastern United States from now probably through the week after Christmas.  This could even last into the first few days of 2022.

Meanwhile, very cold air will lurk in the northwestern United States.  It's possible this set up could create more volatile weather in the South during this time, including the risk of more tornadoes. It's very, very questionable exactly how this will play out. Maybe we'll get lucky and the ingredients won't come together for any severe weather. 

Then again, maybe it will. It's something to watch.

Hate to say it, but climate change might have influence the number of tornadoes the United States experienced this month.

Warm, humid air is one of the key ingredients for tornadoes. If the air is warmer and more humid than it otherwise would be, that adds more energy to the atmosphere, making tornadoes more likely.

That's not to say every December going forward will have a lot of tornadoes. You need the right weather patterns to draw the heat and humidity into the U.S., And you need strong storm systems taking paths that would encourage severe weather. That, of course, doesn't always happen.