Frost, Freezes In Vermont Tonight. Protect Those Gardens

Tree foliage frozen to death during a destructive 
freeze in May, 2023.  Freeze warnings and frost
advisories are in effect in and around Vermont
tonight. It won't be as bad as 2023, but 
sensitive plants and gardens will 
need protection tonight. 

After a cool, cloudy afternoon in Vermont we're in for a frosty night with freezes, so it's time to cover sensitive plants and protect crops.    

The clouds and light showers north will tend to evaporate as the sun goes down this evening. Temperatures this afternoon were only in the 50s, so readings won't have far to go to get close to the freezing mark. 

Eventually, skies will become clear, which would make it even colder.  

So: A freeze warning is up for all of Vermont except the Northeast Kingdom, the Champlain Valley and the lower Connecticut River Valley south of Springfield. 

In those areas covered by the freeze warning, expect temperatures to fall to between 29 and 32 degrees by dawn. The freeze could damage crops and gardens. 

We'll have to watch apple and strawberry growers and wineries. This won't be as bad a freeze as the one in May, 2023, which cost farmers and other growers roughly $10 million in crop losses.  

The freeze tonight will not feature temperatures as low as on May 18, 2023. Also, that year featured a really premature spring, much more than this year. So plants and blooms were further along than they are this year, which left them more prone to damage. The hard 2023 freeze also covered the entire state, causing damage all across Vermont. 

Still, this one could be expensive, if farmers aren't able to take measures to protect crops, or if it unexpectedly gets colder than forecast. 

The Northeast Kingdom is not under any advisories or warnings because the growing season has not really started yet in that colder corner of Vermont. 

A frost advisory is in effect for all of the rest of Vermont I haven't mentioned yet. Except Grand Isle County. The islands in Lake Champlain should stay safely above freezing due to the comparatively warm lake water that will temper the chill in the air just a little. 

There might be some frost away from Lake Champlain tomorrow night, too. But increasing cloudiness and a warming air mass means it won't be as cold tomorrow night as tonight will be. 

Florida Drought Has Water Supplies Drying Up ,Crops Wilting, Fires Burning

All of Florida is in a drought. The red shading represents
extreme drought. The dry weather is intensifying

We often think of Florida as humid and wet. But the Sunshine State has dry seasons, and this one is dangerously parched. 

Water restrictions are being put in place, farmers are fretting about crops and wildfires are harassing the state.

According to U.S. Drought Monitor, all of Florida is in drought. Northern and southern parts of the sate are in extreme drought while central Florida is in moderate to severe drought. 

The drought trend is worsening. Less than half of Florida was in extreme drought back in mid-February. Now, about three quarters of the state is in extreme drought. The drought is said to be the worst in a quarter century. 

Water conservation measures are ramping up. 

WGCU in southwest Florida reported:  

"The Southwest Florida Water Management District, which covers an eclectic area surrounding Tampa Bay, declared a "Modified Phase II 'Severe' Waters Shortage in January. '

That means lawn watering is down to one day a week in the district and only between midnight to 8 am or 6 p.m. to midnight.  

Then it got worse as rainfall kept falling short. 

Per Newsweek: 

"Critically low waters are "prompting Tampa Bay Water to issue an urgent call for conservation to help stretch supplies through the region's driest months. The utility says water from rivers typically provides more than 40 percent of the area's drinking water but ongoing drought had rendered those sources unusable. 

With temperatures rising and spring vegetation demands increasing, officials warm that without aggressive conservation, including limiting showers to find minutes, deeper restrictions could soon follow."

'We're heading into the driest months of the year when it only will get hotter and drier, so now is the time to save and get to those Florida summer rains, ' Tampa Bay Water public communications manager Brandon Moore told Newsweek."

March through May are usually the driest months of the year in Florida. The storm track moves north of Florida in the spring, so rains from passing fronts are less likely to affect the Sunshine State much. Once we get past Memorial Day or so, almost daily summer thunderstorms can help replenish low water. 

Farmers are struggling with the drought as the spring planting season gets under way. In addition to the drought, winter crops were decimated by repeated freezes. 

Wildfires have been harassing Florida, too. Extremely dry conditions are of course fueling them. But dead vegetation from the winter freezes isn't exactly helping. 

Some rain is headed toward Florida over the next week, but it won't be nearly enough to erase the drought. 

Florida Freezes To Mess Up Your Grocery Bill

Farmers at Southern Hill Farm in Clermont,
Florida tried encasing crops in ice which
counterintuitively protects crops from harsh
freezes. Many farmers do this. But the 
cold was so intense in Florida the icing
did not work in many cases. Photo
from Southern Hill Farm via Facebook

This winter's cold is turning out to be expensive. And I'm not just talking about your heating bill. 

If you like fruits and vegetables, the price is probably going to spike soon, if it hasn't started to do so already thanks to those big Florida freezes. If you're tired of rising grocery prices, this isn't the news you want to hear. 

Some towns and cities hit all-time record lows for the month of February last weekend to kill off whatever didn't die in previous freezes this winter. 

The state was hit by a freeze back on December 30, with more freezes in mid-January before a series of frigid nights began around in the final week of January and intensified in February. 

It takes awhile for freeze damage to crops to become fully apparent. Farmers and agricultural organizations in Florida are just starting to assess the damage. So far, it's not looking good. 

CENTRAL FLORIDA

In central Florida, WFTV reports total losses at central Florida blueberry farms: 

"At H&A Farms, owner Michael Hill says his blueberry crop was wiped out because of the cold snap over the weekend. 'This whole farm is a complete loss,' They have a thousand acres of blueberry plants around the state. He cut into a blueberry to us the inside. "That's all brown. It's supposed to be green. 

Hill says they pack 40 percent of Florida's blueberries, which go to stores like Publix, Aldi and Costco. And because these berries died, Michael says he will no longer need the 2,000 workers to pick them in the fields or the hundreds needed to pack them."

The crop losses will have a ripple effect. Forklift operators, quality control specialists, shipping coordinators, boxers, stackers, packers, all those occupations in Florida blueberry industry vanished in a single night of cold weather. 

At one citrus farm in Plant City, in central Florida east of Tampa, temperatures remained below 28 degrees for more than six hours on both last Friday and Saturday nights. Even with covering trees with ice to protect the crops, damage starts when temperatures fall to 28 degrees or lower for four consecutive hours. 

At least eight to 10 percent of the current citrus crop was destroyed, making this the worst citrus freeze since at least 2010. Future citrus crops might be affected, too. 

"There will be heavy leaf loss from the frost damage and some of the young trees we've planted over the past ew months probably won't make it,' Trevor Murphy, the citrus grower in Plant City told AccuWeather. "The bloom and new flush on the trees will not make it either - we should have our main bloom toward the end of February into the first part of March. It'll be a few days until we start seeing leave and fruit drop. Coldest and longest duration of cold I've had since I've been growing oranges."

Also in Plant City, a farmer named Jonathan Allen, said his 120-acre field of sweet corn was wiped out. When farmers get desperate, they get creative. He tried building a berm and flooding the field to create a warmer microclimate, but the wind was so strong the subzero cold blasted right through the fields.  

"This freeze is the worst that I can remember, probably worse than 1989....Across the board it's devastation, complete devastation."

SOUTH FLORIDA

The more recent cold wave, on the weekend of January 31-February 1 blew all the way through South Florida and beyond. A town in Cuba reached 32 degrees, the first time on record that anyplace in Cuba reached the freezing point. 

Unlike previous cold waves, then, South Florida agriculture was trashed.  

As Axios Miami reports: 

Markon Cooperative, a North American produce supplier, wrote in market update on Wednesday that "recent freezing temperatures across Florida will  have a major impact on current crop production."

So yeah, that's really bad, since so much of our stuff comes from Florida. And I"m unsure how Trump's tariffs affect the price of food coming in from different nations, like Mexico. 

 Axios Miami says Markon Cooperatives affiliated squash growers report more than 50 percent of that crop has been lost. Bell pepper loses are at nearly 50 percent. Tomato growers say their fields have definitely suffered damage, but how much was still being assessed at the end of this week.

 One tomato grower told CBS Miami that a good 20 percent of his crop was probably lost. 

LANDSCAPES AND FIRES

Across most of Florida, plants, palms and some trees are now brown, wilted and battered. Some people, assuming climate change made them safe, planted tropical trees and plants in central Florida that don't tolerate freezes. 

These plants had managed to grow for years in warmer winters, only to be wrecked by this month's freeze. Proving the climate change is uneven. The general warming trend is punctuated by extremes, like the Arctic cold Florida has experienced lately.  

Floridians are being advised to leave their trashed landscaping alone for now. Then, when spring buds and shoots begin to appear, property owner will know what is destroyed and has to be removed or trimmed and which plants will survive.

Lastly, Florida now faces an increased fire risk. The state is often prone to wildfires in late winter and early spring, as the usual warm season thunderstorms are usually absent. And right now, almost all of Florida is experiencing a drought. 

This year, because of the freeze, the landscape isn't as green as it usually is. There's now a lot of dead vegetation that can easily make fires spread quickly.  Several fires were already burning before last weekend's freeze, and this will just make things worse.

No rain is forecast in central and southern Florida for at least the next seven days. Northern Florida is expecting only light rain at best.

At least it's starting to warm up in Florida. Another frost is expected tonight in far northern parts of the Sunshine State. But after that, for the foreseeable future, anyway, further frosts are unlikely for at least a week or two, if not more. 

Vermont Drought: Effects Are Getting Widespread And Severe

The beach at Sandbar State Park in Milton, Vermont is
a LOT bigger than it used to be thanks to a near
record low Lake Champlain. The drought is 
depleting water statewide. 

As anybody can see by just looking around them, Vermont's punishing drought keeps taking a mounting, frustrating toll.  

It's now doing pretty much everything a drought can do. Dry wells, water shortages, fire danger, crop losses, shockingly low rivers and lakes. And there's no end in sight. 

We're witnessing another side of the disastrous extreme climate change is bringing to Vermont. Climate change is hitting everywhere, and we have seen our share of trouble here in the Green Mountain State. 

We had so many floods in recent years that these inundations felt like our "new normal." That turned out to be only part of the story.  Climate change is surely bringing more intense rains and floods. But it also  bringing worse droughts. 

We had a close miss in that regard last fall, when things started getting disconcertingly dry in Vermont. We were on the northern edge of a punishing drought that set forests ablaze from Pennsylvania and New Jersey to Massachusetts and Maine. 

We got lucky because rain and snow returned last winter and spring. We were temporarily rescued from some serious drought effects.

Now, we're not so fortunate.  The drought is consuming so much of our lives now.  Even if our wells are still running well, we look around at wilted plants, brown mountainsides and Vermont's once clear, rushing streams now turned into empty gravel pits. 

There's so many examples of what this drought is doing to us. I have some of the receipts: .

CROPS/LIVESTOCK

The drought is battering crops. It's peak apple season. What apples we have in Vermont are of good quality, but there's just not many of them.  It was super rainy during spring pollination season, so bees didn't have a chance to do their work then, because they don't do their work in stormy weather. 

Then the drought hit. You need lots of water to make big apples. So, they're small this year. Between the wet spring and the drought, some Vermont growers are saying they only have 50 percent of their expected apples. 

Dairy farmers are struggling with a lack of feed and water shortages. Some farmers are being forced to buy feed from elsewhere, which is very expensive.  Since profits - when they come - are extremely slim in dairy farming, this could become a serious crisis for some.  It could even shut down some of Vermont's already dwindling number of farms. 

FORESTS AND FIRES

Most Vermont brush and woodland fires come in the early spring shortly after the snow melts. There's dead vegetation and sunshine dries it out. Green leaves haven't appeared yet.

This spring in Vermont was wet, so we didn't get the usual number of fires. A few months ago, we thought we'd have an easy fire year. I guess we thought wrong.  

Through September 11, Vermont has seen 60 fires which have burned through 52.41 acres.  Expect this number to rise, possibly fairly quickly, until we get some decent, consistent rains. That's more than the total number of fires in some entire years, like 2017 and 2019.

Last year, Vermont had a busy time with fires, with 99 of them scorching a total of 180.6 acres. That was in large part due to a dry autumn which helped spark numerous fires. 

Autumn, 2024 could give us a hint of what we face in the coming month or two. The trouble would really begin in October as leaves fall from trees and dry out, and underbrush succumbs to the increasing chill of the season, turns brown and dies. That will provide more fuel for fires. It could make last autumn's blazes look like a campfire in comparison. 

Some or even many of those trees on thin, rocky soil you saw wilting and turning brown in August might never come back. The drought might well have killed them. We won't know for sure until spring when trees normally leaf out. 

The drought is leaving behind more dry wood to fuel forest fires.  The drought-killed trees, combined with the many more ash trees done in by the emerald ash borer, are combining to leave a lot of dead, dry wood around. 

Areas with a lot of dead trees would burn more easily, and burn hotter in this current drought.  The problem will also last for several years as the deceased trees will be there for years. They'll increase the fire risk during future droughts. 

Meanwhile, the forest fire danger today is high, as it's been for a week or more now. 

WATER SUPPLIES

 Many private wells have gone dry. The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources asks people with low or dry wells to report their issues and to visit its website to find a list of local water haulers and other drought resources. 

Vermont officials are trying to make sure they understand the extent of the problem. If your private well or spring is dry or low, the Department of Environmental Conservation is encouraging people to submit information to their Drought Reporter. 

 Some fire departments are trying to refill wells with their trucks, but not all can do that. Municipalities are running short of water, too, and have to supply the whole town. They can't use the limited amount of water left in reservoirs to refill private wells. 

A glimpse of the near future in Vermont might be comings from Moriah, New York. The town of 4,800 a little west of Port Henry has imposed an emergency water ban that prohibits all non-essential outdoor and indoor water use for at least six days. 

TOURISM

The drought is certainly affecting Vermont's famed foliage season. Despite warm weather, trees are turning color earlier than usual because trees are stressed by the dry weather. 

Worse, the color might well be dull. I've seen some hillsides turning a sad brown because green leaves are wilting for lack of water.  Other areas are mainly still green.  Droughts often dull the vibrancy of autumn foliage, and that might be the case this year.  We won't know for sure until fall foliage season reaches its peak.  

It'll still be pretty, but perhaps not as colorful as most years. We shall see.

I haven't heard much yet about how the drought might affect ski areas. They use a lot of water to make snow, and there's no longer much water available. Ski conditions might suffer, we shall see.

OUTLOOK

The weather forecast still has not changed much. Some clouds will cover the sky today, but will yield no rain. The humidity will stay low, too. Thursday will bring warm, dry weather. 

A cold front is still likely to come through Thursday night. A couple towns might get a sprinkle, that's it. 

Then, after a couple cool, dry days, it will turn warm and dry again. The next chance of rain still looks like it would come around September 25 and 26. 

However, some early indications are that next storm might slide by to our south, keeping the dry weather going. We don't know that for sure, so keep your fingers crossed!

Forecasts through September 30 keep us dry,  I don't see any big changes in this bad, dry weather pattern. 

The next weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report comes out tomorrow morning. It  hasn't rained in Vermont since September 7, so I'm sure the report will confirm things have gotten even worse.  

Surprising Cause Of Sea Level Rise: We're Pumping Out All The Groundwater

Giant aquifers, like those depicted in this map, are
rapidly being depleted by man, and that 
phenomenon has greatly influenced the
pace of sea level rise. 

When we think of the reasons behind sea level rise and climate change, the images that pop up in our heads are melting glaciers, torrents of water pouring off the Greenland ice sheet in the summer, that kind of thing. 

But one of the biggest drivers of sea level rise is coming from a surprising source: Pumping groundwater to the surface for drinking water, irrigation and industry. 

According to ProPublica:

"So much groundwater is now being pumped that it is filling the oceans as it drains off land, becoming one of the largest drivers of global sea level rise."

The result is vast parts of Earth's land masses are drying out, according to an ambitious new study.  

ProPublica goes on:

"More than anything, Earth is being slowly dehydrated by the unmitigated mining of groundwater, which underlies vast proportions of every continent. Nearly 6 billion people, or three quarters of humanity, live in the 101 countries that the study identified as confronting a net decline in water supply.  - portending enormous challenges for food production and a heightened risk of conflict and instability." 

This comes from a study led by Hrishikesh Chandanpurkar, an earth systems scientist working with Arizona State University. The research was published recently in the journal Science Advances. The study looks at most of the Earth, but excludes the fresh water ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland 

There's even more bad news in the research: The loss of water through groundwater pumping is happening as many areas are growing drier due to climate change. 

The study notes that with climate change, some areas of Earth are getting drier while others are getting wetter. However, drying regions are expanding quickly while places that have been getting wetter are shrinking. 

Deep, high quality aquifers are actually widespread, lying beneath one third of the planet. The aquifers are under about half of Africa, Europe and South Africa. They took millions of years to form and would take thousands of years to refill. 

But with us humans, a significant amount of that water is taken from underground, given over to irrigation or industry, then runs off, eventually finding its way to oceans. 

This loss of water from aquifers has gotten so great, that it is one of the largest causes of sea level rise. "Moisture lost to evaporation and drought, plus runoff from pumped groundwater, now outpaces the melting of glaciers and the ice sheets of either Antarctica or Greenland as the largest contributor of water to the oceans," ProPublica reports. 

The study was done using 22 years of data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE satellites. Images from the satellites measure changes in th mass of the Earth and can be used to estimate its water content. 

As ProPublica reports, study co-author Jay Famiglietti has for two decades used GRACE data to determine where aquifers were declining. 

Chandanpurkar and Famiglietti began to wonder what all this meant regarding all the water available on the continents. So the study, really an inventory of all land-based water contained in glaciers, rivers and aquifers, set out to see how things were changing. 

Spoiler: It's changing fast.

For instance, scientists and water managers were well aware that aquifers in the U.S. Southwest were receding.  Their research also showed a "creeping disaster" of accelerating drying in aquifers spreading out from the Southwest into Texas, and down into Mexico. The same pattern was noted in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Asia.  

So, draining the aquifers looms as a crisis for crops and industry, which would die out with the drying out of aquifers. Even if crops can still grow, shipping them out will be problematic, since the water from the aquifers is raising sea levels. Which floods ports and such. Not to mention important crop-growing regions like the Nile and Mekong deltas.

One the groundwater is lost to the seas, the only ways to get it back are through expensive and inefficient coastal desalination plants. Or waiting hundreds or thousands of years for rain to replenish desiccated aquifers.  

Other research that the climate change is not only warming up the air and the oceans. It's actually starting to extend its tentacles deep underground. The research says ground water is warming up as much as 40 to 50 meters (about 130 to 165 feet) underground. 

That underground warming could increase microbial production and allow chemicals such as arsenic, locked away in cold underground rocks, to get released as warming takes hold far below our feet. The warmer groundwater could also bubble up into lakes, ponds and rivers, allowing more damaging algae blooms and killing some aquatic life, as Grist reports. 

 As climate scientist Peter Gleick notes, drying out aquifers threatens global food production. And food is the foundation for stability. So don't get too smug, America. If you think we have immigration problems, brutal, often unfair and possibly illegal deportations and the political turmoil that comes with all that now, just wait until the groundwater dries up.  

Like or not food and climate refugees might well be stampeding toward our borders in the United States. No matter how many walls we throw up, or how many Executive Orders presidents declare. 

Water and the lack thereof is already contributing to war and violence, ProPublica notes. The Syrian civl war that began in 2011 started as rural unrest stemming from drought and groundwater depletion. Ukrainian wheat support much o the world, so Russia is targeting that nation's water infrastructure. 

There are things we can do to slow or even stop the groundwater depletion, the researchers said. Drip irrigation can cut water use by as much as 50 percent. Arid Israel has used that technique effectively. 

When California farmers reduced their use of Colorado River water in 2023 and 2024, Lake Mead rose by 16 feet. People in arid areas can remove lawns in favor of native plants. Cities can recycle a lot of their water.  

This is a solvable crises. But work has to start now to get this going. 

Four Typhoons Hit Philippines In 10 Days

 If you thought the hurricane season in the United States was bad (it was), the Philippines would like a word. 

Wreckage and flooding after one of four typhoons in
the Philippines within 10 days this month.

Earlier this month, that nation was hit by four typhoons with 10 days, probably their most active stretch of such scary weather on record.   

Typhoons, by the way, are exactly the same thing as hurricanes. That's just the name for them in the western Pacific. 

Overall, typhoon activity in the western Pacific has actually been a little quieter than average this year. But that big flurry of activity has the Philippines begging to differ.

Especially since these weren't exactly wimpy storms. 

The first one hit the northern tip of Luzon island on November 7 with top sustained winds of 150 mph. The next one hit on November 11 a little further south on Luzon with top winds of 80 mph. Just three days later, Luzon was hit again with another typhoon, this one worse with 140 mph to sustained winds.

Finally, within 24 hours after that, the final typhoon hit with 130 mph winds. 

The third in the series appeared to be the worst. Video shows incredible winds smashing through the region in near zero visibility because of the torrential rains. 

Luzon is the Philippines most populated island, which is the one that kept getting hit  The four typhoons combined have killed at least 160 people.

The fourth typhoon just piled onto damage from the previous storms. In total, at least 8,000 homes were destroyed or severely damaged, and 700,000 people had to flee to emergency shelters or relatives' homes. 

Farmland is so badly damaged that the country will probably have to import more rice.   

The spate of typhoons has since ended at least for now, so the Philippines are safe from further damage for awhile yet. 

More Vermont Fire Risk Before Wintry Blast, Hard Freeze, Then Spring

Lots of wannabe lilac blooms on my big lilac
shrub in front of my St. Albans, Vermont house. 
Crossing my fingers they will survive 
Wednesday night's expected hard freeze.

 You can certainly tell at dawn this morning where the first stirrings of a warming south wind had started and where it was still calm and cold.  

It was in the low 40s in the Champlain Valley where a steady south wind was already blowing, but in the mid-20s elsewhere in Vermont after a clear, calm night. 

Those south winds will increase areawide today, giving us a quick squirt of warm air before winter unfortunately returns for a brief visit. 

The air is still really dry and is expected to stay that way all day. Winds gusting to 30 mph continues the fire danger that started yesterday.  

Yes, it's muddy underfoot still, and there's vernal pools in the woods. But the dead grass and leaves from last autumn have dried out in the sun. That's what can catch fire. Those fires can spread fast in today's winds. 

So, for the second day in a row, the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation has us in a high fire danger for the day. 

WINTER

The kind of respite from this brief period of fire risk is not the kind we want. 

Rain will break out overnight, then change to snow - yes, snow - during the afternoon Wednesday. That's normally the warmest time of day this time of year, when temperatures should be approaching 60 degrees.

Not on Wednesday! Temperatures in the 40s will crash through the 30s in the afternoon.  Snow will accumulate even in many of the valleys. Not much, though. Perhaps a dusting to an inch.  But it's still harsh. 

That's not the real problem this time of year. It's the temperatures. 

These lilac buds died and failed to bloom after
this harsh winter storm and freeze in April, 2021
Not nearly as much snow as that episode is expected
with the upcoming freeze, but temperatures will
fall far into the 20s by Thursday morning.
Coldest hollows will be in the upper teens. 

They'll go below freezing in the late afternoon and evening and stay subfreezing into Thursday morning.

 Skies will quickly clear and winds will die down overnight. That means lows by Thursday morning ranging from around 18 in the cold spots to maybe 30 degrees right next to Lake Champlain.

That puts most of us in the 22 to 27 degree range. 

That's similar to the horribly damaging freeze of last May 18. Thankfully, plants and trees aren't nearly as far along now as they were last May. 

Trees haven't leafed out.  Fruit trees aren't flowering yet. So damage this time will be much less.  Those orchards are budding for sure, but fingers crossed I think most (but perhaps not all) of those buds should make it through this cold snap. 

Vineyards are probably relatively safe, too.

Because it is before the official growing season, there won't be any freeze warnings in Vermont with this. We should be glad this frigid episode isn't happening a couple weeks later than it is.

Still, this might be a disheartening spell for gardeners, like me. If your magnolia tree is blooming and those blooms survived this morning's freeze, enjoy them today. Those blooms will be brown wreckage by Thursday. 

It'll be interesting to see how hardier early plants do. My lilacs have tons of flower buds, more than in most years, so I was looking forward to a huge lilac season.  

I do worry this will be like 2021, when my lilac buds ended up failing to flower after dying in a harsh snowstorm and deep freeze. We shall see, but I'm not super optimistic. 

This is turning out to be yet another spring in which plants outside start to bud and blossom too early because of oddly warm weather. Then a harsh freeze threatens them. It's become a depressing spring pattern. With this frigid spell, it will be the fifth year in a row it's happened, with varying degrees of damage. Mostly relatively minor, except for last year. 

It's the new, changed climate.  It's generally warmer than it used to be, so spring advances earlier than it once did. But the new climate is also more extreme, so we get these brief blasts of winter air to cause potential damage. 

SPRING 

These spring cold blasts are always very brief, and this one will be no exception. Thursday will be cold for the season, with highs in the 40s, and another nasty frost/freeze is likely Thursday night. Though it won't be as cold as the night before.

By Friday afternoon, we'll be well into the 50s, Saturday will see highs passing 60 degrees and we could get into the low 70s by Sunday or Monday.  

Another Very Early Spring Risks Expensive U.S. Freeze Damage Later

A freeze last May 18 wilted the leaves that came out
too early in the season on this Williston, Vermont tree.

 Last spring, I took a chance and decided to plant a magnolia tree in my St. Albans, Vermont backyard.

It's supposed to be a rather freeze resistant variety, but you can only do so much. A freeze can spoil the magnolia flower show I'm hoping for.  

It looks like a freeze will do just that. Our insanely warm winter and early spring has resulted in giant buds already on that poor little magnolia tree. 

 If things go the way they almost certainly will, a hard freeze this week will kill off those potential flowers.

The tree will survive, but it won't be as pretty as I'd hoped.

My magnolia drama is just a tiny, tiny example of what farmers, orchardists, vineyard owners and gardeners throughout the eastern half of the nation are fearing. 

That warmest winter on record has been followed by record hot spells in March. Inevitably, the weather pattern has changed, at least temporarily. Normal March weather is hitting many areas, and that means frosts and freezes.  

That's usually not a problem this time of year, but this year is different. Plants are growing way too soon from the Canadian border to the South.   Freeze watches and warnings are in effect for Monday night and Tuesday morning for a large area across the Southeast U.S.  Temperatures in these areas are forecast to fall well into the 20s. 

Even if this cold snap doesn't do much harm, the risk of harsh freezes will last well into April in the South, and far into May for us northerners. 

This could all cause millions, perhaps billions of dollars in crop losses. 

It's become a pattern in recent years. Warm winters led to harsh spring freezes in 2012, 2017, 2023 and other recent years. Each of those episodes caused billions of dollars in crop losses

From apple growers in Michigan to peach farmers in Georgia, farmers are nervously watching the progress of spring cold fronts. It just takes one frigid night, like we had last May 18 in Vermont, to cause immense crop damage.

The fickle finger of climate change is partly responsible for these awful episodes of spring freezes.   Winter is generally the fastest warming season. The dry air of winter is more susceptible to heating up in a changed climate.  So plants grow too soon, turning  spring into a vulnerable season to say the least.

A hallmark of climate change is increased weather variability, so there you go. 

In some cases, the cold snap now moving into the eastern United States is a bit of a blessing. .There's reason to hope the colder weather won't be frigid enough to kill buds. It'll just keep 'em from growing for awhile. 

Michigan apple orchards are already budding, and a week of cold weather will shut down their growth for awhile. That buys time so that the buds will bloom a bit later, possibly helping them miss spring freezes.  

Here in Vermont, the chill expected to last all of next week will stall garden plants and such, so they don't grow big enough to suffer later spring cold snaps (though I suspect my magnolia is a lost cause)

Even if a frost doesn't kill stuff off, the early start to spring threatens other issues.  Plants that emerge too early might not be pollinated by insects, because it's too early for the insects to do their work. 

Pests like mosquitoes will emerge early and last longer, enabling insect-borne diseases to spread more easily. 

In my own yard, based on the behavior I'm seeing, it appears a robin has already laid eggs in a spruce tree in back of the house. That's too early. I have my doubts if those eggs/chicks will survive.

We have no way of knowing right now, of course, whether we will see more ofthose intense spring freezes. We might coast through the season with nothing much in the way of cold fronts.  

Damaging freezes have always been a threat in the spring. Nowadays, the threat has grown. 

Another Frost Risk In Vermont Tonight, As If We Need It

Water beads cling to a plant in St. Albans, Vermont 
Wednesday evening after a little rain. A frost risk
tonight and very dry weather will continue to
challenge Vermont gardeners and farmers. 

 Frost advisories are flying for all of Vermont except the Champlain Valley for tonight as another blast of late season Canadian air is now entrenched in the Northeast for another day. 

The National Weather Service in South Burlington is awaiting more data today to decide whether or not to expand the advisory into the Champlain Valley, so most of us are at risk. 

This is not what we need, given the apparent extensive damage from last week's frost. 

I'll have much more on that issue in a separate post later this morning. That upcoming post will explain why I suspect at least parts of Vermont will be declared a disaster area because of the freeze damage.

The cold tonight won't be as bad as last week's record setting chill. But with many fruit crops already damaged, this isn't great news. I don't think additional damage will be that severe, at least I hope, as most places should stay above about 30 degrees. 

But remember: It doesn't have to officially get down to 32 degrees for frost to damage sensitive plants. Temperatures are typically measured five feet or so off the ground. On clear, calm nights like we anticipate tonight, it can be much colder around our toes than it is around our head and chest. It could be 35 degrees where your arms are checking the thermometer and 32 degrees down where your tomato starts are freezing. 

The sun re-appears Wednesday evening in St. Albans, 
Vermont after a cold front dropped about a quarter
inch of rain, which isn't much. Next up: A frost
risk in Vermont tonight and more dry weather. 

For most of us, this will very likely be the last frost and freeze of the season, except in the normally coldest hollows. Which will probably have a frost tomorrow night, too. But the rest of us will be safe.

If you get through tonight's frost risk, everything will be fine in your garden or on your farm, except for more looming dry weather. 

The rain that came with yesterday's cold front wasn't all that impressive. Most of us got a quarter inch or less. It amounted to a small sip, but not the drenching we need. I even noticed last evening the soil was still dry under the thickest foliage in my garden. 

Things will continue to dry out rather ominously.  Absolutely no rain is in the forecast through next Tuesday, and probably beyond. 

We are also set to start a strong warming trend.  By Sunday, temperatures should top 80 degrees, and by Tuesday or Wednesday, we could see some upper 80s. 

The sun will stay out through this time (except at night, of course) and humidity will stay pretty low, which maximizes drying. It's going to be pretty dusty around here by the early and middle parts of next week. 

I still think we might be headed for a drought. We're not there yet, but we'd better have some nice soakers as we get into June. 

Rare Asperitas Clouds Announce Frigid Vermont Cold Front, Freeze Warnings Coming For Tonight

Relatively rare Undulatus Asperitas clouds over 
St. Albans, Vermont Tuesday. These preceded a 
cold front that will give us a nasty spring
freeze tonight. 

 Our big cold front that came through yesterday did manage to give us weather nerds a treat. 

Rather rare Undulatus Asperitas clouds appeared overhead, just ahead of the cold front. 

This is a "new" cloud in that they've only gotten their own meteorological classification in 2015, when the World Meteorological Organization agreed to classify this previously poorly documented cloud.

Us weather geeks get pretty wound up when we see these clouds because they're pretty rare, and nobody agrees on how they form, unlike most other cloud types. 

You need unstable air to create these clouds, but the air is often unstable. In most cases, those clouds don't form. For some reason on Tuesday, they appeared.

As the British Met Office tells us, many scientists think they are associated with thunderstorms. However, the  Asperitas clouds   have been spotted often enough when no thunderstorms were nearby.  Yesterday in Vermont  was an example. No thunderstorms were nearby when they appeared. 

The clouds are often associated with rain, and a few light showers came through not long after they appeared. Video of these clouds from Tuesday is at the bottom of this post. 

THE COLD FRONT

That cold front meant business yesterday, Temperatures in some parts of Vermont crashed by 20 degrees in an hour. Ahead of the front, temperatures were near 70. A little behind it, readings were in the mid and upper 40s. 

Temperatures continued to drift down overnight and by this morning, some people were near freezing. I noticed a bit of ice on my truck in St. Albans, Vermont early today. 

It will not warm up much today, with highs in the 45 to 52 degree range with gusty north winds. 

There's still a wildfire hazard today. The cold front deposited very little rain, and some places didn't get any at all. An overcast over northern Vermont early this morning should break up later. In the meantime, I wouldn't be at all surprised if a few places are seeing a snow flurry or two this morning. But that won't amount to anything. Thank goodness for that. We don't want a snowstorm. However, rain would be nice, and it's not in the cards. 

Very dry air and those gusty winds will ensure the underbrush out there remains pretty parched. Any fires that start could spread really fast, so be aware and be careful with any flames. 

The Vermont Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation rates today's fire danger as very high, which is a pretty rare designation covering the entire state. 

THE FREEZE

If anything, forecasts for tonight's subfreezing temperatures have gotten a little worse. Above freezing temperatures will probably be limited to the immediate shores of Lake Champlain. By the time you read this, the National Weather Service in South Burlington will have issued a freeze warning for the entire state except the Northeast Kingdom.

The NEK is not in the warning because the growing season is not considered to have started yet out there. 

If you haven't done so already, bring your sensitive plants inside. I do worry that in some colder areas that already have leafed out trees, those leaves will get damaged. That would leave things looking pretty ugly into June, as we'll have to wait until blackened and wilted leaves are replaced by new ones,

This won't be a widespread problem, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a few spots have this issue.

Temperatures also now look marginal for fruit crops in the Champlain Valley.  As I said yesterday, blooms on apple trees can hang in there if the temperature stays above 29 degrees. Other fruit crops can survive temperatures down to about 30. It will be close in some areas. 

Thankfully, it will rapidly warm up during the day Thursday, with temperatures bumping up into the 60s. 

We can hope for some rain this weekend, but unfortunately, it doesn't look like much.  There's another chance of frost early next week, but that still looks less widespread or as intense as tonight's freeze.

VIDEO:

Here's a video I shot of the asperitas clouds over St. Albans, Vermont on Tuesday. Part of the video even features a guided tour of the clouds courtesy of a hawk.  End of the video shows cold wind gusts that dropped the temperature from about 70 to 50 in a little over an hour. If you don't see an image below, click on this link to view the video. Otherwise, click on image below to watch: 

Vermont Frost/Freeze Update: The Forecast And How To Survive If You're A Gardener

Things won't get nearly as bad as this severely frozen
daffodil clump endured back in April, 2020, but
the upcoming freeze Wednesday night has the 
potential to damage some garden plants. 

Although it's mild and still dry across Vermont early this morning, that nasty cold front is poised a little north of the Canadian border.  

It's set to sweep through this afternoon. The forecast has been consistent. This will be a brief, but real interruption to spring. 

A band of showers will sweep southward to southeastward through northern Vermont very late this morning and this afternoon.  Northern areas could get a light 0.1 to 0.2 inches of rain. It's not much, but it's badly needed.  However, the showers will fall apart as they  head south, so by the time you get to Route 4 and south, very little will fall. 

That has implications for a frigid May Wednesday in Vermont.  The northern rains should tamp down the fire danger a little bit. Not so in the south.  With dry conditions and strong, gusty north winds, any forest that start could spread quickly.  Very dry air won't help.  Relative humidities will drop into the teens during the afternoon, which is quite arid for Vermont. 

By the way, note that I said strong, gusty north winds. The temperature will crash tonight, and be down into the mid-30s by dawn.  Winds could gust to 25 mph at the time, putting our wind chills into the low to mid 20s! 

I knew I shouldn't have put away my winter coat for the summer the other day.  Dress your kids accordingly getting ready for school.   You might even see a little coating of snow on the mountain tops tomorrow. 

The whole day will be blustery and cold. Many of us won't get out of the upper 40s, when upper 60s is the normal high for this time of year. 

Then the freeze hits. By dawn Thursday, everybody in Vermont should be at or below freezing, except those of you right near Lake Champlain and within some bigger urban centers, like Burlington or perhaps downtown Rutland. (That's even iffy.)

I still worry about crop losses, but I think most of the apple orchards in the  Champlain Valley at least should do sort of OK.  Apple blossoms tend to get killed when the temperature drops to 29 degrees. Lows in most of the Champlain Valley should be in the 30 to 33 degree range, at least according to current forecasts.  It'll even be a little warmer than that in the Lake Champlain Islands. 

Of course, any bloom that freezes will never give us an apple later this year. 

Strawberry blooms freeze at 30 degrees. If you have some blooming, you night try turning a sprinkler on over them Wednesday night. Even if the water ices over the strawberries, it just might protect them. 

Especially in the banana belt of western Vermont, lots of us gardeners have hostas that are sprouting along with peonies and irises that are almost ready to bloom.

I think most of them will be OK if the temperature stays at or above 30 degrees or so.  Much lower than that and you might lose out on peony and iris blooms this year, but the plants themselves will survive for another year. 

After the frost, carefully cut away any leaves or stems that died in the frost.  For hostas, cut away completely dead leaves. Leaves that are mostly green but a little iffy around the edges should be left alone so that the hostas can use photosynthesis to recover. 

If you put your tomatoes in the garden already, most of you are screwed. Try covering them and hope for the best. If you're hardening out your tomatoes and peppers and such out on the back deck, drag 'em back inside today and leave them there until it warms up on Thursday. 

Many annual flowers you bought at the nursery are also sensitive to frost damage.  I'm glad I procrastinated and don't have mine out yet.  But the hibiscus that lives out on our sunny warm deck from May to September is certainly coming indoors tonight! And staying there until late Thursday morning. 

Thursday morning's temperatures will be near record lows in some parts of the state. The National Weather Service is forecasting a low of 27 in Montpelier Thursday. The record low for the date is 28 degrees.

In Burlington, the record low Thursday is 29 and forecasters don't think it will get quite that nippy.  The coldest hollows of the Adirondacks and Northeast Kingdom could reach the upper teens! 

Freezes like the one that is coming have become less and less common in the age of climate change. But as we well know, they can still happen. 

And this is far from unprecedented. 

It could be worse. For instance, an even later freeze than this one on May 31, 1961 dropped temperatures down to as low as 25 degrees in Burlington and 19 degrees in West Burke. That year, Vermont's apple crop was pretty much wiped out. 

Hopefully it won't get that bad. 

We also might not be done with this yet. Another frost and freeze still seems like it's in the cards for early next week, but it probably won't be as intense as the one that's about to hit. 

Midweek Vermont Freeze/Frost To Threaten Crops, Gardens

Areas of frost in Vermont this morning, but a nastier, 
potentially damaging freeze and frost are
in the forecast for the middle of the week. 

 We had a bit of a practice run this morning for what will be a brief, but nasty May cold snap later this week.  

Quite a few places in and around Vermont had a frost with near freezing temperatures this morning. The chill wasn't enough to mess with gardens, unless you left really sensitive plants outdoors overnight. 

The Champlain Valley avoided any frost, from what I can tell. The coldest hollow, like Island Pond and Gallup Mills in the Northeast Kingdom, got down to at least 28 degrees. The perennial cold spot Saran Lake, New York reached at least 26.

If you thought this was nippy for May, wait until the middle of this week.  I'm getting more and more worried about an unseasonable blast from Canada that might damage crops and gardens around here.

The upcoming cold snap has the strength of something you'd see in March, not May. Temperatures early Thursday morning could be near record lows in some spots, 

Today will be nice.  It'll warm up quickly from this morning's lows and approach 70 degrees. The brilliant sunshine we had over the weekend will be dimmed some by more smoke from those fires in Alberta, Canada and some high clouds moving in this afternoon.

After a mild night tonight, the nasty cold front will crash the spring party starting tomorrow afternoon. As it comes in, it'll create quite a temperature contrast in Vermont for a time. Near the Canadian border, temperatures mid to late afternoon will be crashing downward through the 50s.  Southern Vermont will still be well up into the 70s.

There's not a lot of moisture with this cold front, so we only expect some fairly light showers. As the cold rushes in Tuesday night, lingering showers could turn to flurries in the mountains, 

But the frigid air is dry, so that atmosphere will limit accumulations on the mountaintops. 

Most of us won't have a freeze Tuesday night, but it will be close. Start protecting sensitive plants or bring them indoors Tuesday evening and leave them indoors until Thursday. 

Wednesday will be blustery and very cold for May.  The "warm" spots will top out in the low 50s, while many of us stay in the 40s.  For comparison, normal highs this time of year are in the 65 to 70 degree range. 

Another thing to watch out for during the day Wednesday is the risk of fires.  If the showers under-perform on Tuesday and skies stay generally clear Wednesday, very dry air would mix down from aloft. The super dry air and gusty winds would really spread any brush or forest fires quickly.   

Worth keeping an eye out.

The main problem is Wednesday night and early Thursday morning. If there's any clouds left, they'll clear out in the evening. The gusty north winds will diminish to calm as the night goes on.

This is a perfect set up for a late season freeze.  At this point, it looks like it will get down to freezing everywhere except right near Lake Champlain. 

Burlington until now was on track to have one of, or THE earliest last freeze of the spring. The last time it got to 32 degrees there was on April 10.

Now, it appears Burlington will have one of its latest freezes in recent years. For the record, the latest spring freeze there was on May 31, 1965.

Fruit crops like apples and strawberries are blooming much earlier than average because of what has until now been a warm spring. I do worry there could be some damage to those crops. 

Gardeners are going to be dismayed, too, as some early blooming perennials and such might get nipped. Depends on how cold it gets. 

This forecast will be fine-tuned as we get closer to the event.  It's still possible that the freeze threat is overblown, and it won't be as bad as we think now. On the other hand, it could still end up even worse than I'm outlining here. 

I'll post updates.

On Thursday, temperatures will rise rapidly and the frost and freeze will be over.  However, there are some iffy signs that another frost and freeze could strike about a week from now. 

Feeling The Season Way Ahead Of Schedule Agaiin

Really early for this. Yesterday, March 23, I got to work 
expanding a perennial bed while daffodil shoots 
were poking up nearby. Springs in general do seem
to come a lot earlier than they used to.

 This is anecdotal, but honestly, spring keeps coming so much earlier than I remember as a kid in Vermont. 

The setbacks to the season seem harsher as a result, but there's no denying spring ain't what it used to be  - like in my childhood memories of spring in Vermont during the 1960s and 1970s. 

I was out in my yard in St. Albans, Vermont yesterday. What I was seeing was probably what right about April 10 looked like a few decades ago. It certainly didn't seem like March 23. 

Lots of early perennials were poking up, some already two inches or so tall.  The yard was completely free of snow and the grass in protected corners seemed to have a new sheen of green.  Robins were engaging in ongoing turf wars. The ooze from mud season was just starting to ease a bit. I was actually able to begin work on expanding one of my flower beds. 

I have no illusions it will just be flowers and butterflies and warm breezes through the rest of the season.  Brief excursions back into winter are inevitable, and are in the forecast. (Mondays lows should be in the low teens, highs in the 20s. Brrr!) 

Some springs are, and will always be warmer or colder, earlier or later than others. We'll even have a daily record low temperature here and there, though those are, and will be more rare than record highs. 

Spring, in general, is warmer and earlier than it once was.

I might eat my words, but we'll probably never again have an April like 1972, when only five nights in Burlington stayed above freezing and it got as low as 2 above, still the coldest reading for April on record.. (For comparison, so far this March, nine nights remained above freezing in Burlington).

We also, thankfully, probably will never have a May like 1966, when 11 of the first 14 days of the month saw subfreezing temperatures. 

I wonder, though, what the next weirdly warm spring month will look like.  Will we outdo March, 2012, when we had a week of temperatures in the 70s and low 80s? 

Will we someday have some of the first leaves on the trees in early April?  When I was a kid, the first trees to turn green didn't do so until early May. Now, that usually happens around the third week of April, at least in the banana belt Champlain Valley. 

Sometimes, global warming is referred to as "global weirding."  The extremes get, well, more extreme, or at least more odd.  We've certainly seen that in recent Vermont springs.

In late February, 2017, we saw temperatures in western Vermont reach the low 70s, far higher than anyone had seen so early in the season.  Then, two weeks later, the Pi Day Blizzard dumped close to three feet of snow on those same "mild" towns. 

On April 9, 2019, I saw trees around my  yard sag under the weight of freezing rain. In 2020, another warm spring was interrupted by a snowy Mother's Day.

Last year, spring was way early, with flowers blooming all around my yard on April 20.  By April 21 and 22, five inches of snow had smushed the flowers into the ground and blinding snow squalls swirled around my house.  Two days later, it was warm, snow-free, as if nothing wintry ever happened.

All these changes of course have far broader implications than me just saying "Gee whiz'" to myself in the gardens. 

This is another screwed up maple sugaring season. It started early, but I'm not sure all sugarmakers were ready for it in February.  Then a long warm spell last week probably at least deteriorated the quality of the season, at least for some producers.

Early springs lead to premature blooming of apple trees and grape vines and such. Those crops end up vulnerable to late frosts, which still regularly interrupt these milder springs. 

I've always been particularly in tune with nature, the change of seasons, how the landscape changes day to day.   At the risk of having my Vermont card revoked, winter isn't necessarily my favorite season. The honors go to spring.

The weird springs give me mixed emotions, but most of those emotions are tinged with misgivings. Sure, who doesn't love hints of greenery in a Vermont garden in mid-March?  But then you worry the flowers are coming up too soon, and will get wrecked, like my too-early lilacs did during last April's brief snow and cold.

Flowers around my house are the least of anyone's worries, including mine. Climate change is now affecting everyone.  It will hit is harder in the years to come. How hard is too hard?

 

A Wild Daffodil Destroyer Storm Today/Tonight Northern New York/Northern New England

Green grass and an abundance of daffodils surrounded my
garden shed in St. Albans, Vermont Tuesday. Incoming
daffodil-destroying storm will unfortunately 
change this scene for the worse over the next 24 hours.

I picked some daffodils from my gardens in St. Albans, Vermont last evening for an indoor flower arrangement. 

I did so because I suspect the dozens and dozens of daffodils blooming outside my house will be dead by tomorrow morning, I'm afraid.  

A daffodil destroying winter storm is set to pounce. 

Here in Vermont, we can expect some accumulating snow today and tonight, accompanied by a harsh freeze overnight and Thursday morning. Light snow had already started here in St. Albans as of 6 a.m. 

So much for spring. 

I'll get more into Vermont's wintry outlook in just a bit. But I have to say how chillingly impressed I am by the wintry weather extending across most of the nation east of the Rockies. The early spring this area has had so far has come to a screeching halt. 

 A swath of snow yesterday extended from Oklahoma through the Midwest and Mid-South.  Kansas City, Missouri collected 3.5 inches of snow Tuesday. Flurries dusted parts of Oklahoma. Paducah, Kentucky and Evansville, Indiana had their latest snowfalls on record Tuesday, though there might have been earlier snows before records started being kept there in the 1930s.

Freeze warnings continue to extend across a vast part of the country from most of the southern and central Plains all the way east to places like North Carolina and New Jersey. Snow will continue in parts of the Midwest, New York, northern New England and a good chunk of Ontario and Quebec. 

The dynamic storm and cold front are causing quite a contrast in conditions in the Northeast today. While northern and western Vermont and northern New York deal with snow, temperatures ahead of the storm's cold front will climb to near 70 in southeastern New England. 

The strength of the storm and this temperature contrast will help trigger some severe thunderstorms this afternoon from coastal Virginia to western Massachusetts.  A marginal risk of severe storms even extends as far north as the southern third of Vermont and the southern half of New Hampshire.  

VERMONT IMPACTS

As noted, rain and snow had already developed across much of Vermont and eastern New York early this morning. Winter weather advisories (sigh) are up for much of northern New York and northern Vermont north of Route 15 and away from Lake Champlain. 

However, many parts of Vermont outside the winter weather advisory will see accumulating, flower stomping snow and cold with this storm.  

The dreaded National Weather Service/South Burlington
snow forecast map is back today. Areas in dark blue
can expect at least three inches of new snow by
tomorrow. Yellow areas should see more like
six inches or more.

It'll snow most of the day in the Adirondacks.  In Vermont, it will be warm enough for a mix of rain and snow for this morning,  with all rain of course in southern parts of the state.

This afternoon and evening, the storm's powerful cold front will come in with a burst of heavier snow, especially in northern Vermont. 

It'll likely snow hard enough, even in the Champlain Valley, to perhaps mess with the roads for your late afternoon and evening commute.

If you already took your snow tires off, it sucks for you. Be careful on those roads later today and tonight. 

It looks like one to four inches of snow will accumulate in northern and central Vermont valleys through tonight.  This includes the Champlain Valley, especially north of Burlington. 

Places in the winter weather advisory in Vermont can expect three to six inches of new snow, says the National Weather Service in South Burlington. 

Higher mountains, where last Friday's snow hasn't entirely melted yet, can easily expect six inches to perhaps a foot of new snow through Thursday, especially along the peaks from about Killington north.

Temperatures by Thursday morning will be between 25 and 30 degrees with the snow and strong winds.  A few places will be even colder than that. 

It'll be interesting to see what early outdoor plants survive and which won't. The snow will crush the daffodils, no doubt, which is why I'm calling this storm the destroyer.  A few might survive, so I'll just have to assess, at least in my yard, once it warms up.

Lilacs, with flowers already budding, might not survive either in the anticipated cold, which is really sad. Brilliant white blooming magnolia trees will be a brown mess by tomorrow. 

In most of the area, apple trees in and around Vermont are budding, but mostly not yet blooming, so the apple crop might just hang in there, fingers crossed. Will the early green leaves on some trees survive, or just turn to black, wilted wreckage?  I guess we'll find out tomorrow. 

The snow will go over to snow showers later tonight, and continue all day Thursday under harsh northwest winds.  Temperatures will stay under 40 degrees in most valleys with winds gusting to 35 mph, so wind chills will be an issue. 

With lighter snow showers, possibly mixed with rain drops, valleys won't see any additional snow accumulation to speak of.  Northern mountains will be in the snow all day and will keep piling it up. 

At least the cold snap won't last all that long.  It'll be cold, but not quite as cold Thursday night and Friday morning, so I don't anticipate additional damage to spring greenery.  Friday will be blustery, but at least we have a shot at breaking 50 degrees in the afternoon.

Saturday actually looks pleasant before the next storm comes along Sunday.  Earlier this week, I had feared a cold shot Sunday night and Monday even worse than the one that's just starting.

Happily, I was wrong! It does look damp and rainy and chilly Sunday, but it won't snow.  It'll be cooler than normal Sunday night and Monday, but nothing horrific, with either a very light freeze or more likely no freeze at all at night. 

Signs point to warmer weather next week.  Not only for us, but most of the rest of the shivering nation as well. 

Endless Summer? Northern Hemispheric Summers Are Getting Longer

A hot summer day in Burlingon, Vermont a couple years
ago. Recent studies say climate change is making summers
 longer than they used to be in the Northern Hemisphere 

We can't exactly say summer is here in Vermont quite yet. For us, it's still early spring. Even so, some of that warm weather in late March had us wondering. 

Itt turns out, though, that summer in general is getting longer not just here, but across most of the Northern Hemisphere. 

That's not just the perception of yours truly, who is of that opinion that those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer are increasing in number here in Vermont. 

Scientists who look at this sort of thing have come to the same conclusion. A study on the subject recently came out. 

According to The Hill/Changing America:

"Published in the journal of Geophysical Research and letters, the study looks at climate and seasonal data spanning 1952 to 2011 in the Northern Hemisphere. Collecting temperatures data over these years helped scientists track when each of the four seasons began on average.

The results indicate that the average duration of summer increased from an average of 78 days to 95, while spring, winter, and fall all saw decreases in length ranging from three on nine days. 

Extrapolating this data, scientists found that if this trend continues at the current rate, summer could last nearly six months by 2100."

Of course, I guess it all depends on how you define summer.  Eighty degrees in the South is early spring.  Seventy degrees here qualifies for some around here as summer. In any event, whether it's 70 or 80 or 90, those types of days are coming earlier. 

In any event, this earlier summer news is regarded as mostly bad, as does most things that have to do with climate change

Places that already have long, hot summers will get even hotter for longer periods of time, exposing more people to heat related illnesses and deaths. Mosquitoes could invade more northern climates. Malaria could head north into places where it isn't a problem now. 

Sounds lovely, huh?

Also, the seasons are getting more fickle, with more out-of-season warm spells that can screw around with crops, especially if a seasonable freeze follows. 

A classic, destructive example of this is going on in western and central Europe right now. Many areas there had their hottest temperatures on record for the month of March.  Everything's blooming, including fruit trees and other crops. 

Now, a record cold Arctic blast is sweeping into Europe this week with snowstorms and temperatures plunging into the low and mid teens Fahrenheit in some areas.  Widespread crop, fruit tree and garden damage is happening now across western Europe. 

This heat to freeze scenario has been happening in the United States as well. 

A prime example is a long-lasting March, 2012 heat wave in the eastern two thirds of the United States and southeastern Canada (including here in Vermont).

The spell of summer-like weather caused plants and trees to sprout, only to have them freeze when the normal frosts of April arrived. This caused huge amounts of fruit tree damage from Michigan to Georgia

In the United States, a similar but somewhat less intense March warm spell this year than in 2012 has probably already created the same situation this year.  Widespread freeze warnings went up across most of the southeastern United States late last week amid a cold spell. Fruit trees were certainly damaged in some areas.

Much less importantly, but a real-world example came for me in my own St. Albans, Vermont gardens.  Some of my daffodils were almost ready to bloom, when the late snow and cold spell made in.  

The situation made for pretty snow on flower photos, but the cold might have killed some of the flower bulbs. (They might survive because I frantically covered them with thick layers of mulch, we'll see).

The cold snap was not abnormal for this time of year. But the March warmth that prompted the garden flower plants surely was.

A few back yard daffodils in Vermont aren't the most important thing in the world. But food crops are. 

Scientists are studying how these shifting seasons are affecting crops.  As NBC points out, climate change affects not just where particular crops grow, but how well they do in any given place. 

It's all in the timing. Flowers and pollinators have evolved to have a schedule such that they work well together. Mess with the timing of the seasons, and you mess with this flower/pollinator coordination.

Scott Sheridan, a climate scientist at Kent State University, told NBC the "never-ending summer" study illustrate how humans, other animals, plants and the environment are interconnected. "Shifting seasons can wreak a lot more havoc than you think when you realize all the systems that are tuned to the timing of the seasons," he said.

 

Derecho Wreaks Havoc In Midwest; This One Was Even Worse Than Usual

As you might have seen on the news, a huge derecho swept across the Midwest Monday, creating a wide trail of damage extending over almost 800 miles. 

Derecho damage in Des Moines, Iowa. 

A derecho is defined as a long lasting, particularly destructive line of thunderstorms that can cover 1,000 miles in just a day.  

Since they cover such a huge area of real estate, they often cause more damage than big tornadoes.  Luckily, derechos only happen a couple times a year in the United States. 

Monday's derecho was especially powerful and destructive. It started before dawn in southeastern South Dakota and rapidly strengthened as it roared across Iowa. It maintained its destructive force through Illinois and Indiana before finally weakening toward the end of the day in Ohio.

Derechos often have a few embedded tornadoes within them and Monday's probably did, too. But the real power of a derecho is the wide areas of damaging winds, with pockets of super strong straight line winds. I saw one commentator say it was basically like a Category 2 strength hurricane making  "landfall" in Iowa. 

Monday's storms had some incredible wind reports. The town of Midway, Iowa was battered by a gust of 112 mph (!!).  It wasn't just rural, relatively unpopulated areas that got nailed. Davenport, Iowa reported a gust to 86 mph.  Moline, Illinois reported 79 mph.

Winds in some neighborhoods in Chicago surely topped 70 mph, and a tornado went through one neighborhood in the city's north side. 

The saddest outcome of this derecho was in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where the winds rolled a mobile home.  Rescuers found a woman holding a child beneath her under the debris. She protected the child, who had minor injuries, but the woman died. 

More than a million people lost electricity.   

Midwest derecho damage in the Midwest Monday.

Another consequence of the derecho is the flattened corn fields across much of Iowa.  Huge fields of corn were blown down, probably causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.  Commodity prices might go up because of this 

Because of the widespread damage, I would not at all be surprised if total damages exceed $1 billion. There might actually be more damage than from last week's Hurricane Isaias on the East Coast.

The weather front that helped trigger the derecho is now approaching us here in Vermont. But to emphasis, NOTHING like what happened in the Midwest will occur here. 

It is hot today, with heat advisories in many of the valleys in and around Vermont. A few scattered storms might get going later today, and a few might be strong or even severe. But any severe weather will be limited to just a very few isolated spots. Certainly nothing widespread like yesterday in the Midwest. 

Videos: 

Click on the YouTube logos on each to get a better view.

The derecho blasts by one Iowa office building in this video:

Meteorologist Nick Stewart took this view of the derecho amid Iowa's corn fields.

Andrew Pritchard filmed these scenes in northern Illinois: