Vermont weather geek's hodgepodge of weather and climate news and opinion. Often Vermont focused, but taking a national and global approach, with sometimes an appropriate dash of fun, outrage, cynicism and compassion.
Dennis Bell, right, celebrating Christmas, 1958 in Antarctica. The next month, he died when he fell into a glacier crevasse. His body was not recovered until earlier this year.
Climate change might have had a had in bringing a closure to an Antarctic tragedy that occurred more than six decades ago.
In 1959, Dennis Bell, a 25 year old meteorologist, fell to his death into a glacial crevasse in Antarctica. Early this year, a Polish team found Bell's remains at the end of a melting, receding glacier.
Bell was part of a group that climbed onto Ecology Glacier on King George Island, Antarctica to do some field research.
"The group split into pairs, and Bell and surveyor Jeff Stokes set off before the others. During the ascent, Bell moved ahead of the sledge without his skis to encourage the tiring dogs and disappeared into a crevasse. Bell survived the fall, however, and Stokes threw a rope down to him to pull him back up.
Bell, however, had tied the rope around his belt rather than around himself. When his body reached the top of the crevice, he got stuck, the belt broke, and this time he fell to his death."
Bell's body was to found until this January, when a Polish team found bones near their base. Eventually, more than 200 personal effects were found nearby, including radio equipment, a torch, ski pols, an inscribed Erguel wristwatch, a Swedish Mora knife and an ebonite pipe stem, The Guardian reported.
The remains were eventually taken to London, where DNA tests confirmed the remains belonged to Bell.
The following will seem a little crass, since this involves a tragic death. But, I'll say it anyway. I'm not sure if the discovery of Bell's remains last January was the result of climate change melting the glacier enough to expose the the remains, or whether it was just the natural progression of the glacier that allowed humans to discover it all.
As a memorial, Bell Point on King George Island was named in the honor of that meteorologist who died in 1959.
Pope Francis, who died Monday at the age of 88, was a climate activist who frequently spoke of the dangers it poses to humanity.
Much is obviously being written this week about Pope Francis, who died Monday at the age of 88.
Many aspects of his life and his role as Pope stood out, and one of them was the fact he was a climate activist.
"Over his 12 years as head of the Catholic Church, Francis repeatedly raised the problem of human-caused global heating from burning fossil fuels and he encouraged people - including world leaders - to do something about it."
It wasn't surprising from the very beginning that Pope Francis was an environmentalist. He was the first pontiff to take the name of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and ecology.
It's also no surprise that the MAGA crowd in the United States was no fan of Pope Francis, given how it's a drill, baby drill crowd who thinks climate change is a hoax. Our buddy Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Crazy, Georgiaresponded to the pontiff's death (without naming him directly) by writing on X:
"Today there were major shifts in global leadership. Evil is being defeated by the hand of God."
If Greene detested the pope for his climate activism, she's got plenty of evidence, so I'll give her that much.
"In 2015, Pope Francis issued a papal letter - or encyclical - titled Laudato Si. It recognized climate change as a global problem with significant consequences, especially for the poor. He criticized developed countries like the United States and China, which have contributed the most planet heating pollution. Francis reserved the most severe criticism for the 'wealthier sectors of society, where the habit of wasting and discarding has reached unprecedented levels.'"
Francis had said poorer nations, which contributed the least to climate change, should get more aid from developed counties that had caused a larger share of climate change.
That thought was a key element of the Paris Climate Agreement, which then-President Obama and other world leaders agreed to later in 2015.
NPR notes that the 2015 Pope Francis encyclical inspired a number of Catholic climate activism groups.
In recent years, the Pope stepped up his climate rhetoric and activity.
In 2018,according to the Washington Post, he even gathered oil executives - including leaders from BP and Royal Dutch Shell - at a 16th century villa, urging them to transition from planet-warming fossil fuels to clean energy sources.
In a 2021 BBC broadcast, he listed climate change as among the top crises facing the world, right up there with the then-raging COVID-19 pandemic and deep economic difficulties around the world.
Pope Francis in 2023 released another document that focused almost exclusively on climate change. He wrote, "....with the passage of time, I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point."
The pope's words on climate basically were preaching to the choir. For all his work on climate, 'I'm not sure he moved the needle much on climate attitudes. But the Pope's efforts surely did affect some hearts and minds, and inspired climate activism among certain groups of Catholics who agreed with his stance.
Catholicism is essentially a conservative religion, but at least here in America, climate change does not resonate with conservatives at all, be they Catholic or of some other religious persuasion.
"There is little indiction that Francis's activism shifted attitudes among American Catholics, In a 2023 Pew Research Center poll, 44 percent of U.S, Catholics said the Earth was warming because of human activity, compared with 46 percent of all U.S. adults.
There was a sharp political divide. 82 percent of Catholics who identified leaned Democrat called climate change a major problem, compared with 25 percent for Republicans."
Of course, we don't know how the next Pope will deal with climate change, if at all, since we don't know who that will be quite yet.
But Pope Francis's calls to action on climate were one of many indications he was truly a man of the people, not just the elite. That's an increasingly rare trait among world leaders these days.
So far, five people are known to have died in the fire, but unfortunately I fully expect that toll to rise. One person wasfound dead, garden hose in hand, after unsuccessfully trying to save his home.
So much that is familiar to local residents, and to an extent the rest of us are gone. The Reel Inn in Malibu, which had been a seafood restaurant destination for celebrities and visitors was destroyed after four decades in business.
The Palisades Charter High School, which you probably saw in movies like "Freaky Friday" and "Carrie," was also destroyed.
The unique Bunny Museum in Altadena is history, too.
The Getty Villa, home to 40,000 pieces of priceless art, was saved only because of preparation and firefighting. The grounds of the center burned, but crews had a policy of aggressively removing brush as it would try to take over the property. Since there wasn't all that much to burn, firefighters were able to keep flames out of the building.
The Pacific Palisades fire is now described as the most destructive fire in Los Angeles history, Previously the worst fire in Los Angeles County history was the Sayre fire of November, 2008, which wiped out 604 structures in Sylmar.
This one was far, far worse, with 1,000 structures gone so far. That's a preliminary estimate. The actual number is probably quite a bit higher.
Yet another fire broke out Wednesday night in Studio City and the Hollywood Hills last night, which looks like it destroyed a few more homes. Somehow, firefighters, after an intense 90-minute battle, got that fire largely contained before it could attack another large swath of Los Angeles. Most of the evacuation orders with that fire have been lifted for now, fingers crossed.
Somewhat calmer winds today are raising hopes that firefighters can begin containing some of the fires.
Hollywood has for decades cranked out more epic disaster movies and shows than anybody can count. Those movies were an escape. Now, reality is hitting us with real catastrophes that we thought just belonged on the big screen.
When it becomes real like it did this week, it's a a national gut punch.
These huge disasters keep coming, one after another, with more and more extremes and greater frequency.
I know those of us who don't live anywhere near California can't feel sorry for ourselves, given the suffering of thousands of people who have lost their homes.
But it's still distressing to everyone to watch California burn, orNorth Carolina wash away, or Valencia, ,Spain to scour away in unprecedented floods, and on and on it goes. It takes a toll on all of humanity, really.
CLIMATE, MEGA-DISASTERS AND RESOURCES
It's clear that climate-driven disasters like this one in California are overwhelming infrastructure designed for the climate we used to have a few decades ago, not the one we have now.
The remains of a Christmas tree as seen through the window of a burning home in California' this week.
In the old climate, the Los Angeles cataclysm we just saw shouldn't have happened. Yes, there have always been destructive wildfires in the region. And yes, more people are now living in the way of those wildfires, making both fighting and fleeing the fires more difficult.
Still, this fire shouldn't have been so awful. But climate change made probably made it worse.
The two previous winters in Los Angeles were much wetter than average. That created lush growth in the steep brush lands that surround so many neighborhoods. Then, this winter, the rain failed. The lush growth turned to tinder.
The rainy season should have started by now. It didn't. So when the Santa Ana winds howled, fires started and here we are.
Emergency officials knew days in advance a dangerous situation was brewing. In Pacific Palisades, three huge tanks, each with a million gallon capacity, were filled to the brim ahead of the fires. But firefighters used so much water so quickly to fight the flames that the tanks quickly emptied.Water pressure waned. Hydrants became almost useless.
In some cases, they could only stand by and watch neighborhoods burn.
Evacuations were chaotic, to say the least. The death toll could have been much worse as people fleeing got caught up in flames on narrow roads. People fled their cars on foot, and the abandoned cars blocked roads needed by firefighters to access the flames. Bulldozers had to be called in to shove the cars out of the way.
This reminded me of the 2018 fire that destroyed virtually the entire city of Paradise, California, leveling 19,000 homes and other buildings. Eighty-five people died in that blaze, many of them trapped on winding, narrow mountain roads as they tried to flee. Homes in Paradise were in the woods, and not fire resistant.
Those rebuilding in Paradise are keeping those issues in mind, changing roads, building houses out of materials that can ward off flames to an extent. They're keeping vegetation away from homes.
That was an enormous undertaking in just one town. Imagine dealing with this in southern California given the scale of these new, ferocious fires.
It's not just California with fast-moving, out-of-season fires. On December 28, 2021, ferocious winds tore through the Boulder, Colorado area, pushing what becameColorado's worst wildfire in history. Two people died and 1,000 or so homes were destroyed.
It was another case of a strangely intense fire coming at an even stranger time of year, when Boulder is often covered in snow.
It's not just fires. Climate-driven disasters are striking places that "shouldn't" have such extreme trouble. The extraordinary floods in western North Carolina from Hurricane Helene come to mind here. Roads, neighborhoods, everything was overwhelmed by the unprecedented power of the water and floods.
They couldn't handle it. Nobody could have.
We're dealing with this here in Vermont, too. After the big floods of 2023 and 2024, we are thinking long and hard about how to deal with the inevitable next big flood, since storms seem to have gotten more intense.
Do we move people away from river valleys? Who do we move? What types of bridges, culverts and drainage can we build to withstand floods, and can we afford all that? Many of our most treasured cities, towns and villages are in flood plains. Can these communities survive? What if they can't? Will the Vermont we've gotten so used to over generations become unrecognizably different?
That's the type of thing that billions of people around the world are grappling with in the age of climate change. These thoughts, these worries, are punctuated by catastrophes like California this week. These huge disasters give us a sense of urgency, and dread and sadness.
I also hope these disasters also motivate us all into compassion and strength. We need those more than ever.
VIDEOS
Chaotic news clip from the Eaton fire as a reporter watches new fires keep breaking out everywhere around her, amid a cacophony of sirens. Click on this linkto view or if you see the image below click on that:
Palisades Branch Library up in flames. Also in the video what appears to be a church and a school destroyed. Againclick on this linkto view or if you see image below, click on that
Remnants of burning house collapse on camera. Again, click on this link to view or if you see image below, click on that:
Footage of homes burning in one neighborhood, and people trying desperately with buckets and garden hoses trying desperately to save houses that hadn't started burning yet. No fire trucks in sight. Click on this link to view or if you see image below, click on that.
Satellite photo from Saturday shows wildfire smoke blowing into New York City, prompting air quality alerts. Several wildfires are still burning in the Northeast today.
The brush and wildfires in the Northeast are starting to become more western style.
They're now extensive enough to cause air quality problems in some areas. They've come close to mowing down houses. And sadly, a firefighter died in while battling a large wildfire in northern New Jersey.
Some rain might tamp down the fires temporarily on Monday, but the precipitation does not look like a blockbuster.
At least nine fires were burning within the broad New York City metro area. At least two wildfires started in New York City itself over the past couple of days. One of them was in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, the other in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx.
The largest fire affecting New York is the so calledJennings Creek Wildfirein and near West Milford, New Jersey. As of late yesterday, it had covered 2,000 acres and had spread into neighboring Orange County New York.
The Jennings Creek Wildfire resulted in one death, as a tree fell on a firefighter as we was trying to battle the blaze. The fires across the Northeast are burning on land that is so dry that flames are reaching underground into tree roots, making those trees unstable and prone to toppling.
This fire, and to a lesser extent other fires, drove smoke into New York City, prompting air quality alerts in that region on Saturday.
The wind shifted today, and smoke from that Jennings Creek Wildfire could make its way all the way up to us here in Vermont today.
The National Weather Service office in South Burlington says some of the smoke from New Jersey will probably make its way into Vermont today. They don't anticipate any air quality alerts, but you might notice a little haze and a little bit of a smell of smoke, especially in southern and western Vermont.
There have been air quality problems in and around Boston as well from several fires burning in that city's western, northern and southern suburbs.
Vermont isn't immune from the fires either. A largeforest fire was burning in West Brattleboroover the weekend. The fire had spread across ten acres as of late Friday night and its as not contained, despite the efforts of numerous fire departments.
A downed power line is believed to have started that fire.
Today, thefire danger is regarded as very high in most of Vermont, and "merely" high in the Champlain Valley and Northeast Kingdom. Any brush fire that starts anywhere in Vermont today would spread quickly and be hard to contain.
Forecasted rainfall, as mentioned, doesn't look all that impressive, with maybe a quarter to as much as a half inch in some areas of the Northeast this week. To extinguish the fires once and for all, the region needs a steady, long lasting, soaking rain that can get deep into the ground and moisten the earth far below the surface.
"Kerker..... had last been seen July 9 at the Inn at Long Trail in Killington. He had subsequently been spotted that night at the Stony Brook Shelter, just east of the inn on the Appalachian Trail"
The witness who saw Kerker near Stony Brook promoted police to search that area.
"The witness said severe rain and flooding that struck Vermont starting July 10 had elevated water levels on the Stony Brook and made the trail's crossing of the stream dangerous...Mr. Kerker is not known to have been seen again following that encounter." said Vermont State Police.
Police last Friday found Kerker's body near Stony Brook, about 1.5 miles downstream from where the Appalachian Trail crosses it.
His family said Kerker was overdue for a check in and was supposed to book himself into the Norwich Inn in Norwich on July 14, but never did.
Kerker was an experienced hiker who was known on the Appalachian Trail as "Steady Eddie."
Another death from the flood was reported shortly after the water receded in mid-July. A 63-year-old man drowned in the flooded basement of his Barre home.
A third death associated with high water in the wake of the flood probably won't be regarded as a disaster-related death,VTDigger reported.
A 25-year old Burlington woman slipped and fell into the Huntington River at Huntington Gorge in Richmond on July 14. The river was swollen from the effects of the July 10-11 flood and renewed heavy rain on July 13.
As terrible as these deaths are, the toll is still smaller than the fatalities from the similarly destructive floods from Tropical Storm Irene, whichclaimed seven Vermont lives.
The only other weather disaster in Vermont that I'm aware of in recent years that killed more than one person was a July, 2018 heat wave that caused four fatalities in the Green Mountain State. That same heat wave killed dozens of people in Quebec.
For a change, sunny skies in Vermont today, but as you can see in the photo, the haze from Canadian wildfire smoke also returned.
The weather this Monday has been much calmer, albeit smoky in Vermont. Quite a change from exactly a seek ago, with the cataclysmic torrents and chaos we experienced.
So it's a good chance to hit on a few things that have been interesting with our Flood Summer Of Discontent.
By the way, we're under yet ANOTHER flood watch, which is just unbelievable. More details on Tuesday's risks further down in this post.
ANOTHER VERMONT FLOOD DEATH
I don't know if this qualifies as a second death caused by Vermont's flood, but no matter how you look at it, this is really tragic.
She apparently slipped on rocks and fell in sometime Friday. Her body was recovered Saturday. The river was running quite high on Friday, both from Monday's historic flood and torrential thunderstorms on Thursday evening that reinforced the power of the river's water.
Not that it matters all that much, but Hartnett's passing might or might not be declared a disaster-related death. Much depends on the result of an autopsy and how FEMA defines the time period of the flood disaster,says VTDigger.
The popular Huntington Gorge is infamous for its treacherous currents. No fewer than 26 people have died there since 1950.
The other Vermont Summer Flood of '23 death was a 63 year old man who drowned in his Barre home.
AN AWESOME FACEBOOK FLOOD HELP PAGE
Lots of people want to help with Vermont's flood recovery. Volunteers have been showing up in droves to help. It's heartwarming to see.
However, well-intentioned people sometimes don't have the experience to help in the way they want, and can just innocently get in the way. Or they donate stuff that's not needed. Or the stuff is needed, but not in the location where people want to donate. Or somebody in some remote town or back road needs tons of help but nobody knows about the need.
The beauty of this new and now huge resource is it allows people to specifically target how and where help is needed. People can go on the page and ask for help. Such as "Hey, I live on such and such back road and need the mud dug out of my basement. Can anyone help?"
It's also great for people who have specific ways to help. "Hey, I have three dehumidifiers lying around my house in X Town. Anyone down the road want to borrow them? If so, contact me."
The Response and Recovery Mutual Aid Facebook page already had 7,300 members (including me!) as of mid-afternoon Monday. What a great idea this is!
AIR QUALITY
The air in Vermont has been getting steadily worse all day and I can see out my windows in St. Albans, Vermont the smoke and haze .
The air quality index was in the 90s around noon, which is considered "moderate" and just under the threshold of "unhealthy for sensitive people"
By 1:30 pm. it was firmly in the 120s and indeed unhealthy for those sensitive folks. It kind of leveled off from there.
This smoke will probably last well into Tuesday. Luckily, it won't get nearly as bad as the June 25-26 smoke attack in Vermont. That one brought the air quality index to around 200, which is quite unhealthy for everyone and arguably the worst pollution in Vermont history.
THE BURLINGTON RAIN HOLE
There appears to be just one place in Vermont that's gotten an unremarkable amount of rain so far this month That's Burlington.
Through Sunday, Burlington had received 3.69 inches of rain so far this month. For this point in the month, that's still less than an inch above normal. Judging by maps I saw total, I would say at the very least 95 percent of Vermont has seen four or more inches of rain so far this month.
Click on map to make it bigger and easier to see. Yellow on map depicts four inches or less of rain so far this month. Only the Burlington, Vermont area is in that category. Pink dots are areas with a whopping 10 inches or more of rain so far this month.
Burlington received 0.97 inches of rain Sunday. Williston, just one town over, reported 2.42 inches. As a torrential thunderstorm approached Chittenden County last night, the National Weather Service in South Burlington promptly issued a flood warning for the area, including Burlington.
They knew this storm would be trouble. They were right. Except the trouble came everywhere except where they measure rainfall at the Burlington International Airport.
The airport only got 0.23 inches out of that storm. Meanwhile, less than two miles away, Shelburne Road in South Burlington was swamped by flooding. And pretty serious flash flooding hit places like Richmond and Bolton from that evening storm.
Compare Burlington to Montpelier: The Capital city has been drowned under 9.85 inches of rain so far this month, compared to the 2.22 inches they should have gotten by this point in July.
There's actually a very small but real chance that Burlington will come in below its normal July precipitation total of 4.06 inches.
I don't have a great explanation as to why that happened. Although very humid air smacking into the Green Mountains is forced to go up and over the mountains, which wrings out extra moisture and heavier rain.
UGH! NEW FLOOD WATCH!
The rain returns Tuesday. So does the risk of at least a few pockets of flash floods. A new flood watch is in effect for all of Vermont, going from early Tuesday afternoon through late night.
Expected rainfall rates could reach one inch per hour. That's a helluva lot, but less than the two inch per hour rates we saw in parts of Chittenden County Sunday evening.
Still, one inch per hour can cause a lot of havoc when the ground is so saturated it can't absorb any more rain. Any rain we get Tuesday and Tuesday evening will just run off.
We also do have a possibility of some severe storms Tuesday as well. They won't be as widespread as they were Thursday. However some towns could experience damaging winds and some hail. Not everyone will get nailed, but a handful of people might.
It's way too soon to figure out who gets the potential severe weather and who doesn't. It's just like the potential flooding. The luck of the draw, basically.
Much like Sunday, it looks like some downpours could come through Vermont between 1 a.m and a little after dawn Tuesday. Those early rains will only cause at most very isolated flood trouble. Then we get a break, only to see more scattered downpours break out in the late afternoon and lasting well into the evening.
Those late day storms are the ones we have to watch for localized flash floods. Computer models have trended a little upward since this morning regarding the amount of rain in the forecast.
There are some actual glimmers of hope in the forecast beyond tomorrow night.
One forecast I saw had something I have seen in ages: Two consecutive days in Vermont without rain. If that holds, and that's a big if, the dry period would come Wednesday and Thursday, before we run into the risk of heavy rain Friday.
There could be another dry period Sunday or Monday. It's a long way off, so don't count on it. Still, nice to see!
Another happy thing: We might, maybe, could be in for a bit of a break in the constant humidity. Wednesday won't be too bad, humidity wise. But i'll still get up into the low 80s. That's still warm-ish.
We have a shot at a brief period of near or even slightly below normal temperatures over the weekend. Highs in many areas could stay below 80, and the humidity looks manageable then, too.
Burlington has a chance of dipping below 60 degrees for the first time since June 23. We've had 245 consecutive days in which it's constantly been above 60 degrees.
That's 24 day stretch isn't the longest on record, but it's probably in the top 10 longest streak.
Long range forecast suggest that any coolish period will be brief, and it will then turn very warm and probably humid again. Those long range forecasts still call for some above normal rainfall, but those same forecasts are less bullish on those rain chances than they have been lately.
A thunderstorm dumped a huge gush of torrential rain on a section of Lake Champlain as Thursday afternoon' as the latest round of storms began.
Just as expected, a line of severe thunderstorms Thursday added to the damage and misery in Vermont, while residents gear up for the risk of more flooding.
And there was added bad news from Barre. Thefirst Vermont flood fatality has been reported. A 63-year old man drowned in his flooded house, the Vermont Health Department reported.
The damage from Thursday's storms was of course much less than what we dealt with early in the week. But, between the local flash flooding, the wind damage and the power outages- plus the interruptions to cleanup the storms caused - it wasn't something we needed.
All but the somehow charmed northwest corner of Vermont were hit by the storms. (I don't know what it is about Franklin, Grand Isle and northwestern Chittenden County, but that area is the only one almost untouched by our summer of horrible storms).
THURSDAY'S STORMS:
The most intense storm was an apparent supercell that entered Vermont from New York roughly at the Rutland/Addison county line and moved northeast into central parts of the state, apparently making it as far as Braintree and Vershire in eastern Vermont.
Rotation in the storm prompted a tornado warning for northern Rutland and southern Addison County. Social media contained reports of funnel clouds and in that area, and there was a particular concentration of trees and power lines down in areas like Hubbarton, Sudbury and Whiting, Ripton, Chittenden and Waitsfield.
A funnel cloud with noticeable rotation was also reported in Waitsfield.
I haven't heard whether there's enough evidence for the National Weather Service in South Burlington to send investigators to determine whether a tornado touched down. Stay tuned on that.
Our neighbors to the northtangled with tornadoes and severe storms. A tornado in an Ottawa suburb damaged 125 homes. Another tornado touched down near the Montreal region's Mirabel airport. Montreal itself suffered a lot of wind damage and flash floods.
Bask in Vermont, at the peak of the storms, 18,000 or so homes and businesses were without power. By 6:30 a.m. today, that number had dropped to about 4,000, mostly in Rutland County.
The storms created new flash flooding in Orwell, Castleton, Belmont and South Lincoln, among other places. Water was over Route 30 near Lake Bomoseen, and over Routes 73 and 22A around Orwell, where 2.1 inches of rain fell in just an hour and 15 minutes.
In any other year, this would have been the worst summer storm of the year. Not this time.
And it ain't over yet.
TODAY
The weather front that caused Thursday's mayhem in Vermont has gotten hung up in central New England.
Low visibility on Interstate 89 in Waterbury Thursday evening as a torrential thunderstorm passed through.
The front's proximity means showers and thunderstorms will blossom again today. They could happen anywhere in Vermont, but will be most concentrated over the southern half of the state.
There was already a batch of renewed rain passing through far southern Vermont early this morning.
The storms could easily generate renewed flash flooding over southern Vermont today.
Any new flash flooding would be more harassment than anything widespread. Just enough to add to the damage tally, and maybe undo some of the repairs on mountainous back roads in Windham and Bennington counties.
As always, take any flash flooding seriously, and don't try to drive over flooded roads.
I think northern Vermont is basically in the clear for flooding today, despite some scattered downpours and thunderstorms around.
SATURDAY
A pretty low risk day, all things considered. Thunderstorms will be few and far between. There's a quite low but not zero chance that a slow moving storm could cause one or two local problems, but overall, Saturday will be a bit of a breather.
SUNDAY
Another risky day. We're expecting yet another surge of deep moisture feeding into New England, including Vermont. There's definitely a risk of more flooding, and it could be on the fairly extensive side.
It won't be as bad as Monday and Tuesday but it is something to watch. We're at risk for at least a little more flood damage on Sunday.
"I know this is hard news for many. And folks will want to think this is over as soon as the weather breaks on Saturday," Vermont Gov. Phil Scott said. "But it's critical that Vermonters understand that we need to remain vigilant and prepared. Do not be complacent."
It's hard to say where the heaviest rain might set up. Early indications point to southern and eastern Vermont, and especially New Hampshire and parts of Massachusetts. I'll have more updates on this for sure as we get closer.
NEXT WEEK:
We're still not entirely out of the woods. At least spotty heavy rain is possible Tuesday, and maybe toward the end of the week. It's too soon to say how heavy and exactly where. But since soil conditions will still be quite wet, it won't take much to set off new trouble.
The storms caused damage even more widespread than the tornadoes that afflicted Mississippi last week.
Nine or more deaths is of course terrible news, but the fact that it wasn't worse is a blessing.
One factor that probably reduced the death toll was the dire tone of the alerts and warnings issued on Friday. A rare "high risk" alert for tornadoes was issued in parts of the South and Midwest. As the tornadoes developed, it became clear that some of them, as forecast were quite strong and long lasting.
Warnings for the tornadoes carried "particularly dangerous situation" alerts which tends to wake up people to the danger even more.
Another, probably somewhat lesser factor in the could-have-been-worse death toll is many of the tornadoes happened during the day. Even though we're told not to wait for visual cues when a tornado warning is issued, humans are humans. We instinctive need that jolt to take cover when we see that menacing funnel bearing down on us.
It appears some of theworst damage was around Little Rock Arkansas and points north and east of there. The report of 600 injured around Little Rock that I saw turned out to be an exaggeration, but dozens of people were sent to hospitals with tornado injuries in the Little Rock metro area.
The same supercell thunderstorm that unleashed the tornado in the Little Rock area dropped another powerful twister well to the northeast on the city of Wynne, Arkansas.Two deaths were reported there, along with extensive damage to the community.
Several tornadoes later roamed the area around Memphis, Tennessee, causing more widespread damage. The twisters avoided the center of Memphis, and instead struck its northern and southern suburbs.
In Iowa, several large tornadoes roared across the flat landscape. One of the tornadoes caused a lot of damage in Coralville, Iowa,according to the Des Moines Register.
Luckily, though, many of the largest tornadoes threaded the needle and just missed larger Iowa cities such as Ottawa, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Marshalltown and Waterloo.
Overall, there were 65 preliminary reports of tornadoesin the U.S. on Friday. The number will change as National Weather Service investigators probe the damage swaths.
Today, the tornado threat is less, but a few twisters could pop up in the Northeast, especially around New Jersey, Delaware and eastern Pennsylvania.
Signs are pointing toward another possible big tornado and severe weather outbreak early next week in the Midwest and South.
After that, the weather pattern seems to want to calm down, at least temporarily, so there might be a week or so starting about Wednesday or Thursday in which there won't be many tornadoes, hailstorms or severe thunderstorms. This being April, though, you never know.
Prominent lawyer and former 9/11 Commission member Dana Hyde, 55, died aboard a business jet over New England last Friday due to severe turbulence. Climate change might be worsening such turbulence.
Last Friday, a business jet took off from an airport in Keene, New Hampshire bound for Leesburg, Virginia.
The jet quickly hit very severe turbulence, forcing it to divert and make an emergency landing near Hartford, Connecticut. A person on the jet, Dana Hyde, 55, a prominent attorney who once served on the 9/11 commission,died in the incident.
It's unclear whether the passenger was wearing a seat belt, and it's still unknown how much damage the aircraft sustained.
However, deaths due to turbulence are quite rare.
This incident is part of a spate of recent reports of dangerous turbulence hitting aircraft.
A Lufthansa flight from Texas to Germany on March 1encountered severe turbulence over Tennessee, the Associated Press reported. The flight was diverted to Virginia's Washington Dulles International Airport. Seven people aboard were injured.
Turbulence is a serious concern for aviation expert, and the general public who take airline trips. As the Washington Post reports:
"Turbulence accounted for 37.6 percent of all accidents on large commercial airlines from 2009 through 2018 according to a 2021 National Transportation Safety Board report. The FAA reported 122 serious injuries as a result of turbulence over the same period."
Air turbulence has always been a hazard to air travelers. Anecdotes like this don't prove much, but it turns out there is some truth behind the recent headlines about increased turbulence.
Turbulence associated with storms can often observed and forecasted, and pilots routinely detour around the worst expected air bumps.
However, turbulence can happen in clear air away from storms. In those cases, nobody knows about the problem until a plane or commercial airliner runs into it. Usually, it's just those annoying bumps you feel on a airline flight. It's kind of feels like driving over the frost heaves on a rural Vermont road in March.
Aftermath of severe turbulence aboard a Lufthansa flight from Texas to Germany last Friday. The plane was diverted to Dulles airport in Virginia after the incident.
However, the turbulence can get extreme, which is where you get your injuries in flight.
Weather patterns that cause air turbulence seems like it might be getting worse. .And like so many ills, climate change might be to blame.
Reports the Washington Post, quoting Paul Williams, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom:
"'Around the world, it has been clear that atmosphere dynamics have changed significantly since scientists first observed them via satellite data in the late 1970s," he said.
A property known as wind shear, the degree to which wind speeds vary at different altitudes, has increased by 15 percent since 1979, the research concluded.
Those differing winds create atmospheric disturbances like rippling or waves in the air. That forces a plane that encounters those conditions to jump up and down and sometimes sideways.
What might be happening, according to at least some scientists, is the speed of the jet stream is overall declining in the lower atmosphere but maintaining its strength higher up. That creates wind shear and turbulencein the transition zone between the slow winds and the stronger winds higher up.
That said, statistics on injuries caused by turbulence do not show a clear trend, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Many of the injuries caused by turbulence are among flight attendants. Often, they are helping passengers and not belted into their seats when an airliner encounters turbulence. If you're belted into your seat, you have a much lower chance of getting hurt during turbulence.
Fred la marmotte, seen here in 2018 was Quebec's answer to the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil. Fred was found dead Thursday morning before he could make his prediction, so what does that mean?
Yes, yes, I know, the silly traditional Groundhog Day we had today is not scientific.
Supposedly, if the groundhog sees his shadow, we'll need to endure six more weeks of winter. The most famous one, Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania, saw his shadow on Thursday, supposedly meaning spring is a far away dream.
I don't entire trust these long range forecasts. A lot can go wrong. However, I'm quite sure the scientists at NOAA are much better at weather forecasting than some random rodent. Sorry Phil!
But Yikes! What kind of prediction to you get when a groundhog is found dead? Sounds like the apocalypse.
Death seems drastic, after all. Will the next six weeks be worse than just cold, or hazy, hot and humid, like summer? Does this mean unprecedented storms? Thirty feet of snow in a week? Something like the Great Quebec ice storm of 1998? Locusts? Noah's flood?
We don't know the cause of Fred's death, but it appears to be from natural causes. Maybe Fred was just depressed because his meteorological knowledge was not as great as, you know, real meteorologists.
Event organizers in Quebec figured Fred would have wanted a child to take his place if he had died So a child was selected from the crowd on Thursday. For the record, that child, wearing a groundhog hat, predicted six more weeks of winter.
The kid was probably just hoping for more snow days that would close schools. So he could go to the sledding hill behind the school instead of hitting the books.
The pressure to forecast the weather accurately was too great for Milltown Mel, a groundhog cousin to Punxsutawney Phil who was to have forecasted spring in New Jersey, died Tuesday on the eve of his big day. Photo by Patti Sapone via NJ.com
You've heard me whine about Groundhog Day before and I'm going to do it again.
I don't want to deny anybody their fun, however weird it is, but I just don't understand the hype of today, Groundhog Day.
A few people disagree with me, but I insist on relying upon outfits like NOAA's Climate Prediction Centerto make long range forecasts for how late winter and early spring will go. Nothing against rodents but they are NOT expert meteorologists.
Besides, do we really want to put all this pressure on groundhogs to make all these weather forecasts. Case in point: NJ.com reports the sad news that Milltown Mel, a groundhog who yearly makes predictions from his perch in Millville, New Jersey died Tuesday, on the eve of Groundhog Day.
Though not as famous as the usual go-to groundhog, Punxsutawney Philin Pennsylvania, Milltown Mel was a weather forecasting staple in southern New Jersey for year. His death came too late to find a sub to forecast the spring weather so that part of the nation will have to go without this year.
They'll try to find an, um, qualified groundhog this year.
For the record, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning, which means he's predicting six more weeks of winter. As Fox Weather points out, though, Phil is wrong 61 percent of the time.
This isn't the first time the pressures of long range forecasting proved fatal to a groundhog. NJ.comtells us that Stonewall Jackson,a groundhog who did annual February 2 forecasting in Sussex County, New Jersey, died on Groundhog Day Eve 2016.
