"Gorilla Hail" Has Been Pounding The U.S. This Year, And It's Likely More Common Than Previously Thought

Giant hail in Wisconsin this past April.

It's been another rough year for hail storms in the United States. There's been lots of them and a few of them have been real standouts. 

Probably the most newsworthy and perhaps most extreme was the one that hit Springfield, Missouri and nearby areas on April 28. 

Baseball to softball sized hail laid wasted to probably thousands of cars. Sadly, an emu died from the hail at Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield. Zoo workers tried their damndest to get all the zoo animals under cover. 

An emu's natural instinct is to lie down and take cover, and this emu, a 21 year old female named Adam, couldn't be coaxed indoors and died when a huge hailstone landed on his head. 

Back on March 10, a supercell that produced a destructive tornado in Kankakee, Illinois also produced immense hail that might have broken the record for the largest hailstone in Illinois history. It measured 6.616 inches in diameter and weighed 1.22 pounds. In other words, it was a little larger than a grapefruit. 

Officials are verifying those measurements before declaring it a record holder. In any event huge hailstones damaged homes in Kankakee that were never touched by the tornado.

The tornado, with maximum winds of 150 people killed three people. 

Even here in Vermont, we managed to see some rare or us golf ball sized hail on April 16 when a supercell thunderstorm crossed west to east across central Vermont. The supercell is the one that ultimately produced a brief tornado in Williamstown. 

GORILLA HAIL

Reed Timmer, one of the more popular and prolific storm chasers out there, coined the term "gorilla hail" to describe especially ferocious hailstorms with especially huge hailstones. 

Gorilla hail is generally defined as hailstones with a diameter of at least two inches, which is about the size of a lime.

Big hailstones are expensive. Replacing a hail-damaged roof can cost $15,000 or more, though homeowners;' insurance usually covers that. (On that note, a spoiler:  Look for an upcoming piece on how State Farm is allegedly doing everything they can to not pay for hail damaged roofs).

Fixing a hail-damaged vehicle can cost several thousand dollars, but if the damage is severe enough, insurers will just total the car.  

Hail costs an estimated $15 billion in damage to homes, buildings, vehicles and crops each year in the U.S. 

Hail-prone cities and their surrounding suburbs continue to expand, providing more targets for potential gorilla hail. That's helping to cause hail costs to spiral upward. 

NOT SO RARE?

It seemed fortunate that "gorilla hail," with stones the size of baseballs, softballs, grapefruit or even worse, was considered relatively rare. But maybe not. 

New research in recent years suggest "gorilla hail" has always been more common than we thought. And super giant hail might be becoming more frequent. 

It was thought that hail stones six inches in diameter or greater were exceedingly rare. But new research suggests maybe those gargantuan icy meteors aren't quite as rare as we thought.  

Per Washington Post:

"'I think six inches plus is happening on a yearly basis,' said Victor Gensini, a professor at Northern Illinois University, in a recent interview. "I think it's a matter of who's finding it, who's looking for it. When you're actually out there looking for it, four-plus-inch hail is maybe not that rare."

Most of these giant hailstones are happening in fairly remote areas, where people aren't around to observe them before they melt. Or, since such large hail is so dangerous, and maybe accompanied by ferocious, damaging winds or even tornadoes, people who would otherwise find them are wisely hunkering down in basements and storm shelters.

Besides, most big hail stones shatter upon impact. To find these hail stones, you need a road that happens to lead where the biggest hail stones landed, Gensini said. Most hail falls over open fields. Good luck finding the biggest stones before they start to melt. 

Thunderstorms that produce gargantuan hail can't actually have too much water in therm. Storms with incredible amounts of rain tend not to produce the biggest hail. Bigger hail also seems to fall when a small storm merges with a large supercell that is already producing hail.

The bad news from all this research is that future storms might produce bigger hail, thanks, once again, to climate change. 

The Washington Post tells us:

"Gensini published a paper in 2024 that suggests less hail will occur overall, ut there will be more instances of giant hail. Why? Warming temperatures in the lower atmosphere will melt some of the small hailstones. Yet big stones fall fast enough through the warmer lower atmosphere that they have little time to melt. And with more thunderstorm fuel overall thanks to a warming world, there could be more of them."

We will probably get more and more new reports of giant hail simply from better technology. At least 90 percent of hailstones shatter or break on impact, and the rest start to melt immediately.  

Researchers are starting to use photogrammetry, a technique that uses trigonometry to estimate the sizeof objects caught on camera. (And you thought there was no use for trigonometry when you were back in high school!)

A hail specialist at Penn State used the technique to estimate the size of a gorilla hailstone that fell on an Argentinian with in 2018.  He found the hailstone to be 7.4 to 9.3 inches in diameter. A woman found a 7.1 inch diameter hailstone just after the storm ended, collaborating the photogrammetry. The woman's hailstone was a bit smaller as it had already started to melt.

Gorilla hail is terrifying and incredibly destructive. You don't want to get caught in any of these storm. Here's hoping you don't experience one of those storms! 

  

 

 

 

 

Top FEMA Official Says He's Been Teleported Several Times. Including To A Waffle House

Gregg Phillips, a top official at FEMA, says he's been
teleported numerous times.  That doesn't add a lot 
of confidence about an agency that's supposed to 
help disaster victims, but has been in disarray
ever since the Trump administration took over. 

A top official at FEMA filling a critical role in disaster recovery, says he is often teleported, and he spreads wild and violent sounding conspiracy theories, we learned from various media sources this month. 

Another case of the inmates running the asylum in Washington, I guess.  And his presence at the Federal Emergency Management Agency probably does not make disaster victims rest any easier. 

The guy's name is Gregg Phillips, and hoo boy, buckle in. 

The piece of his saga that's gotten the most attention is that Phillips blames he was teleported 50 miles to a Waffle House.  Or at least he doesn't remember getting there. Here's his exact quote from a January, 2025 podcast:

"I was with my boys one time and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House. and I ended up at a Waffle House - this was in Georgia and I end up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from where I was."

I dunno, Show me a person who doesn't remember traveling 50 miles to a Waffle House and I'll show you somebody who was really super drunk. Allegedly. Who knows what was going on?

We cam all laugh, but Phillips has an important role in regards to weather and climate disasters. Per CNN:

"FEMA officials have described Phillips' job as among the most consequential in the agency, involving decisions that affect search-and-rescue-operations, emergency aid, infrastructure restoration and ultimately distributing billions of dollars in disaster assistance."

 Weirdness  seems to be a thing in this administration. Trump is a teetotaler, but Secretary of Defense Pete Kegsbreath, Hegseth has a bit of a frat boy party reputation, despite his newfound devotion to his brand of devout Catholicism. 

Then there's FBI director Kash Patel who is suing the Atlantic for $250 million for what looks like a well-researched account of his, ahem, definite taste for alcohol. Allegedly, of course. 

And I don't even want to get into RFK Jr. 

For a change, I see no evidence Phillips actually has a drinking problem, but he does have a lot of  stories of being teleported.  Which is arguably worse than a drinking habit. 

He says he doesn't like the experience.

"Teleporting is no fun.....It's no fun because you don't really know what you're doing. You don't really understand it it's scary, but yet, um, but so real. And you know it's  happening but you can't do anything about it, and so you just go, you just go with the ride. And wow, what just an incredible adventure it all was."

I'm also not sure who or what supposedly teleported Phillips to destinations like a Waffle House, and why that happened. Ah, the mysteries of life. 

Phillips dropped some hints about where all the came from on Truth Social, the social media platform that Trump calls home. The teleportation had something to do with a "spiritual journey" when he was battling cancer, and that the Bible has lots of examples of supernatural events. 

 OK. I just wish he could have teleported those recent tornadoes that struck cities like Union City, Michigan, .Kankakee, Illinois and Enid, Oklahoma.

There are other things about Phillips you might not like.  He doesn't sound especially.....compassionate. Which is kinda what you need in a time of disaster. 

Phillips apparently went to the Steven Miller school of immigration. Here's what he said about migrants coming to the U.S.

"They want you dead.....They've come here to kill you And if anybody believes it any differently, they're wrong. These people are here to fight. They're here to fight us. They're here at war"

Paranoid much?

He also posted crude, typo-ridden insults against other people on social media, but I won't get into it here. 

This is another example of how Trump seems to let nutcases do the serious business of running the government, with most of them being stupid, arrogant, crooked and just weird. 

Phillips, though, believe it or not, seems to be doing a better job that most Trump appointees. That's not saying much, but that's the world we live in. Phillips took on his FEMA position shortly before a series of destructive winter storms swept much of the nation in January and February. 

The nation needed an effective FEMA, which had basically stopped being effective under former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. 

CNN again:

"Multiple FEMA officials speaking candidly to CNN expressed initial concerns about whether Phillips was up to the job. But after a few weeks, several of them told CNN that, to their surprise, Phillips' hands-on involvement during the spate of storms had softened some of their doubts." 

Even so, the Phillips' teleporting claims are keeping FEMA in the midst of upheaval, even as we are now in the heart of tornado and severe storm season. 

We have this epilogue from CNN:

"After CNN first reported on Philipps' teleportation claims, the White House contacted the Department of Homeland Security - FEMA's parent agency - urging officials either to remove Phillips or keep him out of public view, a White House official told CNN"

I just wish whoever it is who does all the teleporting could just move the bozos out of FEMA and replace them with at least semi-competent people to ensure people can recover after the inevitable next spate of weather and climate disasters.

 

It's Not Just Minneapolis: Noem Continues To Botch Her FEMA/Disaster Role, Too

Ice storm damage in Oxford, Mississippi last month.
While understandable ire goes toward Kristi Noem
and her "creative" approach to immigration
enforcement, she's also getting terrible marks
dealing with natural disasters in the U.S;.

Everybody is hating on U.S. Homeland Security Secretary  Kristi "ICE Barbie" Noem. For good reason 

ICE Barbie's oversight of ICE and the U.S Border Patrol is obviously gaining the most headlines, due to what is basically the invasion of Minnesota and exceptionally cruel and unlawful ICE arrests across the U.S. 

The outrage reached a crescendo in late January with ICE Barbie's outrageous remarks ad reponse about two people in Minneapolis who were killed by federal immigration agents. 

Within hours of Alex Pretti's  death, both Noem and the equally odious White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller described him as a domestic terrorist who "wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement."

Never mind that we all saw the video taken by witnesses of Pretti's murder with our own eyes. 

 "Imagine how they lie when there's no evidence to contradict them," Jon Stewart recently said, "And maybe that, more than anything, explains why Alex Pretti really was a threat. Because he was brandishing a weapon: A handheld, aluminum 1080p, 60fps weapon of mass illumination, " referring to Pretti's camera phone. 

I really do think this administration's greatest fear is camera phones. Hard to spin bull all over the place when there's plenty of footage to debunk their lies.

It's pretty clear Noem should not be the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary. But MAGA loves cruelty, incompetence and grift, so here we are.  Noem's incompetence extends to where the cameras aren't: In her offices, dealing -  or in her case not dealing - with disaster assistance. 

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-NC recently had the following to say about Noem's work on disaster relief:

"Another part of the Secretary of Homeland Security job is disaster response and I cannot tell you enough how incompetent she is on that score as well. The data clearly shows that something is seriously wrong here. 

Under Secretary Noem's lack of leadership, FEMA has invented an entirely new set of bureaucracies, the likes of which I've never seen. And I'm in a state that deals with a disaster almost every season. 

Under Noem's leadership, which is supposed to be more efficient, more effective and more responsive to the disaster in western North Carolina and the other states that were affected look like the EKG of someone who's having a heart attack. She needs to get out of the C-suite."

Meanwhile, as Inside Climate News reports, disaster victims from across the United States are pleading with Congress to restore FEMA as an independent agency, one that would be no longer under the politicized leacdership of ICE Barbie.

The disaster victims and advocates say ever since FEMA fell under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, it has become more slower, more restrictive e and less accountable. 

FEMA was formed in 1979 and until 2003 reported directly to the President and Congress, But FEMA wss consolidated under the Department of Homeland Security after the 9/11 terror attack.

The disaster survivor group says FEMA is held hostage inside an agency that's focused on violent immigration enforcement. Disaster relief has at best become an afterthought. 

LATEST DISASTER

ICE Barbie did appear to want to at least pretend she was gearing up for the immense winter storm that hit the U.S. on the weekend of January 24-25. 

She waltzed into the FEMA headquarters just before the storm to give a rah-rah little pep talk. 

"I was shocked she showed up after all the shit we've been put through and what she's said," one FEMA official told CNN, adding that you could hear a pin drop in the center that day."

CNN continues:

"In the case many FEMA insiders were heartened by Noem and her team's sudden show of support, but aren't convinced the heavy-handed overhaul and downsizing are over. 'I doubt that this is permanent. I hope it is, but I doubt it,' one high-ranking official said."

More likely than not, ICE Barbie's appearance at the FEMA headquarters was just window dressing. In all the news stories about the immense ice and snow storm that caused so damage and misery on January 23-26, I hear very little about FEMA involvement in what was truly a huge disaster. 

A FEMA help page did appear last week, and Donald Trump has declared federal disaster areas in Mississippi and Tennessee. And some federal help arrived in some of the hardest hit states

But I didn't really see boots on the ground FEMA help like we saw in other disasters during the Biden administration. Vermont was crawling with FEMA personnel during and after the big summer floods of 2023 and 2024, for instance . 

FEMA in January had been poised to terminate waves of disaster-specific workers in waves, according to the Washington Post. 

However, just before the big winter storm in late January, DHS paused the FEMA firings. Bad PR to get rid of the help when it's really needed, I guess.  

I'm not optimistic about victims of last month's winter storm given the handling of other disasters over the past year. 

FEMA under Ice Barbie have faltered with big disasters like the aftermath of Helene. That storm hit in 2024 and North Carolina has only gotten a fraction of the requested federal aid.ON

Only about one fifth of applicants in Kerr County, Texas,  hardest hit by last July's extreme flooding, have been deemed eligible for financial help so far.

Additional big calamities are almost certainly in the pipeline. Tornado season will ramp up in a month or two. The western U.S is deep in drought, which makes me and a lot of other people worried about the summer fire season. 

Last year, the U.S. got lucky with no hurricane landfalls. Can we do two in a row? Fingers crossed, but it's a long shot. 

Unfortunately, I've said this before and I'll say it again. Anyone who gets nailed by a natural or climate disaster under this administration is on their own. 

 

AI Images For Weather Disasters Now Prevailant, Risks Misinformation And Misrepresenting Victims' Needs

An AI image of Nashville's recent
ice storm. It doesn't look like this
and this image has been used to
"show" what it's like in the ice
storm south. Fake images like
this can foster mistrust in 
disaster news, and potentially
direct aid to the wrong places. 

 Each big disaster has just an iconic image or two, ones that capture the breadth and emotion and tragedy of the event. 

The big Lost Angeles wildfires in January, 2025 has the vintage blue Volkswagen bus gleaming seemingly unscathed in a large, completely leveled, blackened neighborhood. Or the resort towns in western North Carolina wiped out by Hurricane Helene. Or, here in Vermont, downtown Montpelier inundated by the summer floods of 2023. 

Now, we have that horrible ice storm in the south. I've seen so many dramatic photos and videos of collapsed trees, tangled, destroyed electrical systems, damaged houses and highways that resemble miles long skating rinks, 

But the photos that arguably circulating the most on social media do not at all capture the real tragedy, scariness and power of the ice storm. 

The photos I see the most are AI generated. Definitely not the real deal. 

One account on Facebook called Meanwhile in Delco posts a lot of AI generated images of bad weather, and really went to town with the southern Ice Storm. Sometimes images from this account and others get a community note explaining that it's a fake image. 

But most of the time, when I see the AI images the comments are all, "OMG the destruction!" and "Pray for Nashville."

I'm 100 percent in favor of praying for Nashville and anybody else affected by the winter storm. However, I don't think AI helps. 

One person posted this genuinely thoughtful comment under one of Delco's  AI-generated Nashville ice storm images. She wrote: "For those saying this is AI... Does it really matter since this is scary close to what Nashville and the surrounding areas are surviving through the week? 

My answer is a respectful yes. It does matter. 

DANGERS OF AI PICS

Fake images breed distrust.  If it gets hard to tell which images of a disaster are fake and which are real, you start to lose trust in everything. Some people might wonder if the whole ice storm disaster is fake. AI, used incorrectly, can hurt, rather than help recovery efforts after disasters.

I'm picking on Meanwhile in Delco, but that Facebook account holder doesn't' seem intent on causing harm. The text parts of their posts seem accurate when they discuss power outages, recovery efforts or storms elsewhere. So overall, they're probably doing a little more good than harm. Or at least they're not adding much to the chaos. I've seen a LOT worse on Facebook.

But other people on social media can use AI to be misleading. Here's a theoretical: The winter storm was huge and caused misery and danger really from New Mexico to Maine, right?

I can envision efforts to use AI to exaggerate the effects of a particular storm in one area, while saying other areas that were hit hard are fine. For example, somebody could post AI images of New Orleans just obliterated by an ice storm, even though they're fine, while posting AI images of Nashville looking just ducky.  

Imagine this was being done by a crook who wants to use the sympathy of social media viewers to steer donations toward New Orleans (really the crook's pocket) and away from Nashville, which really needs the help. 

I know in the real world under my scenario, Nashville would still be getting help. But a little bit of that potential aid could get diverted from Nashville, or other areas of the South that were blasted by the ice storm. And the crook with the AI account would pocket the money.

My dream is to require all AI images to clearly state they are in fact AI.  I'd like to see that rule in social media terms and conditions. But, their algorithms are so bad that such a rule would probably ban real, unadulterated photos, or legitimate AI art that is not pretending to be news.

So yea, a solution to this isn't easy. 

Don't get me wrong. There's a place for AI on social media and elsewhere. It can be entertaining, even illuminating at times. 

But if there's some weather event or disaster somewhere, I, and I think most people, want to know what really happened. Not just some AI representation that at best is a guess, and at worst, a scam. 

 

Remembering The Most Extreme January: Fatal Snows And Floods, January, 1996

The weather map on January 18, 1996. An intense storm 
centered near Wisconsin was already starting to drawn
record warmth into the eastern United States, By the
time the storm's cold front arrived the next day,
the winter heat and torrential rains immediately
melted deep snow, resulting in one of the
region's worst floods on record. 

Overall, this January so far in Vermont hasn't been that wild. We haven't had any record temperatures. It's been stormy, but not overly so. 

It's quite a contrast to exactly 30 years ago. 

January, 1996 is easily one of the most extreme weather months I can remember, here in Vermont and for pretty much everywhere else in the Northeast.

The month gave us everything. Deep snows, record cold, then record warmth and torrential rains, and widespread tragic flooding. Both in Vermont and throughout the Northeast. 

The month opened cold.  The low temperature in Burlington on January 6, 1996 was 23 below. It hasn't been that cold since. Down in Rutland, it was 29 below. Over in Island Pond, it got as cold as 32 below.

THE BIG SNOW

As those temperatures froze Vermont solid, a storm was lurking further down the East Coast. The storm would ultimately mostly miss the Green Mountain State, but make snowy history from southern New England to North Carolina. 

On January 7-8, a broad area from southwestern Virginia to southern New England were buried beneath 20 to 30 inches of snow. Some parts of eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and West Virginia had more than 30 inches. A couple spots in West Virginia reported 48 inches. 

Philadelphia had 31 inches of new snow, easily its largest snowstorm on record.  Baltimore clocked in with 27 inches. New York's Central Park, had 21 inches. 

High winds whipped the snow into five to eight foot drifts. Travel was impossible in the urban corridor stretching from Washington DC to Boston. The storm contributed to 60 deaths and caused $500 million in insured losses. That's 1996 dollars. In 2026 dollars, it's a little over $1 billion.  

Another smaller, but still substantial storm hit the Mid-Atlantic States on January 12, adding to the deep snowpack. 

Hagerstown, Maryland had 34.7 during the January 7-8, 1996 blizzard with a water content of 2.82 inches. Another snowstorm on January 12 left an additional water content of 0.69 inches. That was a lot of water ready for what would happen next.

Up here in Vermont, though that big blizzard missed. A few inches of snow dusted the far southern end of the state, but that's about it.

Nevertheless, we were pretty much buried in snow, too.  December in the Green Mountain State was among the snowiest on record.  Both Burlington and Montpelier had nearly four feet of snow in the last month of 1995. There were pretty much no thaws between early December, 1995 and mid-January, 1996. Much of the state had more than two feet of snow on the ground by mid-January.

The water content of that snow was quite high. I can remember pine trees and forests sagging dangerously under the weight of the snow in late December and early January that winter. 

Throughout the Northeast, the water locked in the snowpack amounted the equivalent of two to five inches of rain. Here and up and down the ridges in the Northeast. 

Then the weather made a complete and dramatic turnaround, with horrific results. 

HEAT WAVE/FLOOD

An intense storm on January 18 moved up through the central Plains into the western Great Lakes. A major blizzard struck west of the storm track.

In the Plains states, in places like Nebraska, the wind was strong enough to blow out store windows, damage grain bins, snap trees and cut power. On the east side of the storm a broad, deep flow of warm, humid air pulled direct from the Gulf of Mexico. 

Temperatures throughout the northeast rose into the mid 50s to upper 60s. The humidity was around 90 percent. The higher the humidity,, the more rapid the snowmelt.

As AccuWeather describes the event, some Pennsylvania residents went to bed on January 18 with over a foot of snow on the ground and waking up on the 19th to find bare ground.   

Then on the 19th, the storm's strong cold front began moving into the Northeast. It wrung out the moisture in that warm, humid air, dumping 1 to 3 inches of rain, with locally higher amounts. Almost all the rain came within a six-hour period in any given location, so the runoff was intense. 

The Delaware River reached its highest state since Hurricanes Connie and Diane in 1955. The Hudson River reached its highest level since 1977. The Ohio River at Pittsburgh, the Susquehanna River at Wilkes-Barre and the Potomac River at Little Falls, Virginia crested at its highest level since the epic Hurricane Agnes floods of 1972, notes the National Weather Service.

Countless small streams and rivers blasted down slopes in the central and northern Appalachians. 

The Allegheny and Monongahela rivers converge in Pittsburgh to form the Ohio River. Flood crests from the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers reached Pittsburgh at the same time, resulting in one the highest and one of the fastest flood crests in that city's history. 

People who parked their cars on streets well above water in the morning found them submerged in the afternoon.  

The floods claimed 33 lives and caused $1.5 billion in 1996 dollars, which is nearly $3.2 billion in today's dollars

In Pennsylvania's Susquehanna River Basin alone, there were 14 deaths and more than half a million dollars in damage. Ten deaths occurred in New York, mostly in and near the Catskills. . 

 VERMONT FLOOD

Temperatures on January 18 and especially the 19th soared to record levels across Vermont.   Burlington's temperature rose to 65 degrees, which would have been a record for the entire month of January had the record of 66 degrees not been set almost exactly a year earlier.

St. Johnsbury and Rutland reached 60 degrees, St. Albans reached 62 degrees. 

Water in Vermont's rivers were running high and beginning to flood in some areas by early afternoon, January 19.  Snow that had been one to more than 2.5 feet deep was down to a few inches by mid-afternoon of the 19th. .

Then, in the late afternoon and evening, the storm's cold front arrived with torrential downpours. Small streams and brooks became torrential the evening darkness. Roads were blocked as smaller rivers, then the main ones, quickly burst their banks. 

The flood turned to tragedy in Franklin County. According to accounts in the Burlington Free Press, David Ryan, 50 was driving with his two teenage daughters on West Street, a rural dirt road in Fairfield. A raging brook caught the car and sent it more than 500 feet downstream. 

Ryan was trapped inside the car. Both teenagers tried to pull their father from the car, but one of them fell into the water and drowned.  The other teenager was somehow able to escape the water and debris and sought help at a nearby home. Ryan was rescued, but his hypothermia was so severe he died two days later. The surviving teen suffered minor injuries. 

In the end 11 of Vermont's 14 counties were declared disaster areas. 

There's surprisingly little information online about the flood in Vermont,  possibly because it was overshadowed by more dramatic and bigger floods in 1997, 2011, 2023 and 2024.

The weather in Vermont finally settled down toward the end of January after a wild few weeks. Another warm rainstorm hit on January 27. More than an inch of rain fell on Burlington. But with little snow left to melt in Vermont, no real flooding hit in this second rainy episode.

The weather in February, 1996 in Vermont was blessedly unremarkable. 

Winters have certainly turned more variable in Vermont under the effects of climate change. We still get strong cold waves, but also springlike warmups. Snow still quickly accumulates, but dissolves in oddly warm nights. 

Winter storms are dumping deeper snows and heavier rains. 

All this is to say that January, 1996 was as extreme a winter month as we've had. But the bad news is, under the influence of climate change, we could have a repeat of January, 1996. Or something even worse. 

 

Deadly Atmospheric Rivers Swamp West Coast From British Columbian To Oregon, Now Targeting California

As rain began in San Francisco
Saturday it was already chaos
A power blackout meant many
driverless Waymo taxis stalled 
in intersections because they
didn't know what to do with
traffic signals that weren't working. 

After trashing British Columbia, Washington, and eventually Oregon this month, atmospheric rivers continue to harass the West Coast, and now the main target has shifted to California. 

The storms have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage in the Pacific Northwest. The wind energy from these storms has spread further damage from Idaho to New England. 

By the time we're done with these storms after Christmas. the entire area from north of Vancouver, British Columbia to San Diego, California will have been soaked and flooded and blasted. . 

I think this has turned out to be the nation's latest disasters costing $1 billion or more. And the damage will keep adding up. 

Let's take stock of what has already happened, and what we're bracing for, moving north to south. 

BRITISH COLUMBIA

The storms this month have caused a lot of power outages and flooding in British Columbia. Hundred of thousands of people lost electricity as surges of powerful winds blew through on several occasions in mid-December.

Ironically, drought in recent years has made the storms more damaging in British Columbia. Trees are weakened and damaged from the drought, making them more likely to snap and blow over in storms. 

Flooding hit British Columbia's Fraser Valley, damaging hundreds of homes   The Noosack River, which crossed into British Columbia from Washington, caused much of the flooding. 

Chilliwack, British Columbia had about 15 inches of rain between December 9 and 15, causing plenty of flooding and some landslides around the city, which is not far north of the border with Washington State. 

Power has not yet been 100 percent restored in British Columbia and some roads and highways remain closed due to flooding, washouts and mudslides. 

WASHINGTON

The last big atmospheric river surge finished crashing through Washington this past Tuesday into Wednesday with another gush of downpours and an even bigger gush of wind, as we noted the other day. 

Since then, the downpours have mostly devolved into the usual Pacific Northwest drizzles and mountain snows. But the damage is done and new post-storm problems keep popping up. 

Continued light rain, with a few bursts of heavier rain, falling on already super-soaked soil, is seriously increasing the risk of landslides in western Washington State. 

Sharp slopes on coastal bluffs, steep hillsides, road cuts and recently burned wildfire areas are most at risk. There have been several landslides already this weekend, The threat should continue for several days. 

A large marina in Tacoma was badly wrecked by debris and wind. Multitudes of trees were washed into the harbor by flooding rivers. Then, high winds turned those floating trees into battering rams, destroying docks and boats. 

Rainfall has been pretty incredible in some areas right along the Pacific Coast and in higher elevations. Forks, Washington, a little inland from the Pacific Ocean in northwest Washington, has received 22.1 inches of rain so far this month. 

Rain during the atmospheric rivers reached high into the mountains, melting the snow that usually forms a thick blanket way up on those slopes.  The snow levels are now down to normal elevations, and the fluff is finally piling up in the Cascades.

OREGON

In Oregon, one person died when he drove around flood barriers and got caught in swift, deep floodwaters. Elsewhere in Oregon, a family of five was rescued from a pickup truck that got caught in swift water. 

In Tillamook County, five drivers had to be rescued from floodwaters, most of them after they drove around barricades. 

The Clackamas River rose 26 feet, flooding through homes and leaving yards littered with large trees and other debris. 

Landslides closed many roads in Oregon, including several near Mount Hood National Forest; along a section of the Columbia River Highway and in Oregon City.  

The rain in Oregon has tapered off some, but rivers are still flooding, even if they are gradually receding. Forecasts of daily rain coming up through the next week, will slow the Oregon recovery. 

CALIFORNIA

Next on the atmosphere river hit list is California.  

The first blast of atmospheric river downpours is hitting California from roughly the Bay Area north. Flooding is a good bet today and tomorrow in many areas of northern California, but areas near Placerville, Oroville and Paradise, in the Sierra Nevada foothills. These areas could get five to seven inches of rain in the next 24 hours. 

Heavy rain would continue in those same foothill areas tomorrow, making any flooding even worse.

Another surge of deep moisture off the Pacific will renew heavy rains in California, and those downpours will spread south.

By Tuesday night and Christmas Eve, rainfall rates through much of the L.A area, especially higher elevations, could reach to an inch per hour or more. This sets the stage for lots of mudslides and debris flows, especially in areas that saw wildfires in the past couple of years. 

Moisture content in the storm will be near record high levels, according to the National Weather Service office in Los Angeles. The flood watch for northern California is lasting a long time. It starts today, and goes into next Friday. 

 In less than a week, Los Angeles could receive more than five inches of rain. Normal rainfall for the entire month of December in L.A. is 2.3 inches. 

Snow levels will be high in the Sierra Nevada, so some places that usually get snow in the winter will see rain. Rain today is falling at elevations below 8,800 feet, and the snow level should slowly drop to 7,400 feet, give or take, by Tuesday night  

Way, way up there in the high Sierra, accumulations this week will range from four to ten feet, or even more.

It's going to be a long, long, tedious Christmas week for California.   

Acting FEMA Director Who Didn't Know We Had Hurricane Season Leaves To Celebrate Hurricane Season End

David Richardson, the hands-off acting head
of FEMA is leaving the position at the end
of this month. But FEMA is still in 
crisis big time, thanks to the 
Trump administration. 

FEMA's acting director David Richardson, who alleged didn't know the U.S. has a hurricane season, has decided to resign at the end of hurricane season, which hits on November 30. 

Per Washington Post

"Richardson, who spent about six months as the acting head of the nation's response agency, has kept a low profile and is known for often being inaccessible, including during the early hours of the flood disaster in Texas over the Fourth of July weekend. 

In recent months, five current agency employees said Richardson spent little time in daily operations meetings and shrank away from the role - one that typically demands the administrator be easily reachable. The staffers, like others interviewed of this story and previous coverage, spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation."

Other reports also give a damning view of Richardson's alleged leadership style.

Per CNN:

"Some officials describe his leadership as brash and unpredictable, with a penchant for shouting and swearing. On one occasion, he asked staff whether disaster funds cold be steered to Republican areas but not Democratic ones, a FEMA official who heard the comments firsthand said.

At times, Richardson prohibited staff from bringing cell phones and computers into meetings. He often kept his own phone out of sight and rarely used email, leaving senior FEMA leaders struggling to reach him and making even basic communication a constant challenge."

NEXT FOR FEMA

Richardson reflected the Trump administration's disdain for FEMA. As noted, he was pretty much AWOL for at least part of this summer's huge Texas flood disaster. 

Early in his tenure, he also appeared to state that he did not know the United States has a hurricane season. The fact he decided to call it quits at the end of hurricane season is rich. 

FEMA is obviously critical when it comes to disaster response in the United States, deploying responders in the immediate aftermath of a catastrophe to feed, house and literally save survivors. The agency also is supposed to help with long term recovery aid. 

The agency is getting more crucial as weather extremes and disasters increase in the face of climate change. 

Meanwhile, FEMA has long needed an overhaul, as individual victims, municipalities and states often report walls of bureaucracy when attempting to receive aid for rebuilding and adaptation after the immediate crisis is over. 

That might not be the focus, though. Trump during the beginning of his later term at first thought just getting rid of FEMA entirely was a boffo idea. That sort of morphed into keeping FEMA, but slashing staff and resources. And making states responsible for a much greater share of disaster response and recover. 

The trouble with that is most states don't have the money or resources to handle big disasters. So people whose homes are destroyed in a hurricane, flood or wildfire would more likely be out of luck and on their own. 

As it stands now, everybody is now waiting on a review council to come up with recommendations for FEMA. The council, commissioned by Trump and headed by Department of Homeland Security Kristi "ICE Barbie" Noem.

With Noem in charge, what could go wrong?  We'll let you know when the report by the review council is released. 

There's already signs of discord with this review panel. Most of the panel has reportedly concluded FEMA should become more powerful and autonomous, making FEMA a cabinet level agency,

But Noem wants to keep FEMA under the control of her Department of Homeland Security. She also wants to remove FEMA from its direct role in disaster relief, and turning it into more of a grant-making department, according to the Washington Post. 

 Already, FEMA is a mess. FEMA has lost a quarter of its employees. In August, a whole bunch of employees wrote a public letter warning their leadership was substandard and harming FEMA's mission to manage emergencies. 

Also, Noem still has a rule in which she must sign off on each expense over $100,000. Which slows down responses to emergencies.

Meanwhile, FEMA's current chief of staff, Karen Evans will step into Richardson's role. 

In a statement, the department said they appreciated Richardson for his "dedicated service and wish continued success in his return to the private sector." 

Or something like that.   

Meanwhile, as U.S. citizens try to recover from disasters that have hit this year, and brace for the inevitable new calamities, we all know the U.S. government no longer has our backs. 

 

Hurricane Melissa Is the First AI Generated Fake Video Disaster

A screenshot of a fake AI-generated view of Hurricane
Melissa from above. Hurricanes don't even look like
this in real life. Hurricane Melissa inspired a 
lot of fake AI videos, confusing and in some
cases endangering the public. 

 A lot of the dramatic videos you saw of Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean were probably AI fakes. 

True, there are many, many, videos that show the true tragedy of what happened on Jamaica in that terrible storm. Those videos shock us, upset us, make us want to help. And they get ton of views. 

There's also a lot of fake AI Hurricane Melissa videos going around. Some of them really look like the real thing. 

But if you look closely, they were generated by whatever AI service the maker used. The motivation? Make a pile of money out of somebody else's tragedy. 

 Though AI videos have exploited disasters and other big events  for awhile now, Melissa
a is arguably the first calamity to get the full AI treatment on social media. 

Per PBS News:

"Experts noted that Melissa is the first big natural disaster since OpenAI launched the latest version of its video generation tool Sora last month. 

'Now, with the rise of easily accessible and powerful tools like Sora, it has become even easier for bad actors to create and distribute highly convincing synthetic videos,' said Sofia Rubinson, a senior editor at NewsGuard, which analyzes online misinformation. 

I supposed the AI videos of Melissa are less harmful than political deep fakes, ones that make leaders really appear to be something they're not, to sway the public based on big lies, to create a political environment detrimental to everyone except a cadre of billionaires and their brown nosing fans.  

Disaster AI videos are just clickbait. Sure, they're scammy. But they're easy and cheap to produce, and if whoever makes any of these gets lucky, they can get hundreds of thousands or even millions of views. A really lucky strike with a fake disaster AI video can rake in a few thousand dollars.  

These fake AI videos can spread heartache, and interfere with storm recovery.  

As CNET reports;

"In times of crisis, like a dangerous and imminent natural disaster these fake videos can create confusion panic and distraction at a time when accuracy can be life-saving."

One of the AI videos going round depicted the main airport in the Jamaican capitol of Kingston completely destroyed. If taken at face value, that video could have affected or delayed relief supplies.

In fact, the airport in Kingston was only lightly damaged. It opened for both relief and commercial flights last Thursday, October 30, just a couple days after the hurricane. 

"I am in so many WhatsApp groups and I see all of these videos coming. Many them are fake....And so we urge you to please listen to the official channels" said Dana Morris Dixon, Jamaica's Education Minister. 

AI videos can also falsely minimize the severity of a disaster. As Forbes noted, one widely circulated Melissa AI video shows Jamaicans partying, boating and swimming, which made the hurricane appear much less dangerous than it really was.  

It's trickier when you're in a disaster zone and trying to find solid information to keep  you safe. Often people in the middle of a disaster look to social media for guidance. An AI video made by someone who is unfamiliar with the area affected and how to respond to disasters can easily lead storm victims into danger, rather than helping them.  

The AI videos are confusing the public so much that people are writing off legitimate videos as AI. One video shows the dramatic views inside the eye of Hurricane Melissa taken from aboard a hurricane hunter plane. The video is legit, but it's so incredible, people tried to flag it as AI.

But yet another video purportedly taken above the eye of Melissa portrays it as sort of a wormhole, with clouds swirling around the eye, and pouring into the "hole."  If you understand meteorology, you would catch the problem right away. 

A hurricane's eye is the storm's "chimney," and the clouds around it are rising, not sinking. 

Though it's still pretty possible to distinguish a real video from AI nonsense, it's getting harder.  

Per PBS News:

"In the past, people could often identify fakes through telltale signs like unnatural motion, distorted text, or missing fingers. But as these systems improve, many of those flaws are disappearing, making it increasingly difficult for the average viewer to distinguish AI-generated content from authentic footage.'"

It's kind of annoying that nowadays, you have to look at everything with a super critical eye to distinguish fact from fantasy. 

But it's still possible. With AI video, as always, check as best you can to determine whether the video is from a reliable source. Check the account's history on social media. If the past is pretty clickbait-y, you are probably looking at more AI clickbait in the video you're watching. 

You can sometimes see a Sora watermark, which shows it is AI.  Apps can get rid of the watermark, but often smudge is left behind where you'd expect a watermark, so that can act as a clue. 

Although scammers are getting better at producing videos, look for strangely shaped objects or blurred commercial signs in the background.  Sometimes one object in the video has odd lighting, is strangely blurred or doesn't seem to have quite the right shape. 

If you still can't tell whether it's real or fake, welcome to the club. I have a good eye for this type of thing and sometimes I'm still not sure whether what I'm seeing is real or AI. In those cases, let's play it safe and don't share the video on social media. 

Credible sources usually end up verifying legit videos. The one you're fascinated with will either be proven true and debunked. Once that happens, then you can share it if you feel safe about it.

Meanwhile our social media feeds are getting more and more clogged with annoying fake AI videos posing a news. 

It's just another example of how we just can't have nice things. 

 

 

Hurricane Melissa Category 5 This Morning, Jamaica Is In BIG Trouble

Satellite view of Hurricane Melissa this morning
The pinpoint eye is a sure sign of an incredibly'
intense hurricane that will hit Jamaica.

 Hurricane Melissa was upgraded to Category 5 this morning, with top winds of 160 mph had its sights on Jamaica as it crawls across the superheated waters of the Caribbean Sea. 

Those very warm waters are fueling Melissa's strength and the hurricane's strength won't change all that much before the eye reaches Jamaica Tuesday morning. 

The advice from the National Hurricane Center to Jamaicans was harsh:

"Do not venture out of your safe shelter. Catastrophic and life-threatening flash flooding and numerous landslides are likely today through Tuesday. 

Destructive winds, especially in the mountains, will begin this evening, leading to extensive infrastructural damage, long-lasting power and communication outages, and isolated communities. Life-threatening storm surge and damaging waves are expected along the southern coast through Tuesday."

This will be the strongest, worst hurricane on record for Jamaica. Despite its hurricane-prone location in the western Caribbean, Jamaica has never been hit by a Category 4 or 5 hurricane, though several hurricanes have affected the island. 

The worst hurricane in Jamaica until now was Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. That high end Category 3 storm killed 45 people and caused $700 million in damage. 

This hurricane is the third this year to achieve Category 5 in the Atlantic this year. Only 2005 had more such monsters. 

Hurricane Melissa might or might not be Category 5 when it makes landfall in Jamaica. Intense hurricanes usually re-adjust the circle of intense thunderstorms and winds around the eye, and those readjustments can sometimes briefly and slightly weaken a hurricane.

So Melissa could end up being a Category 4 by the time it reaches Jamaica. If that happens, top winds would be 130 to 156 mph, not the 160 mph Melissa carried this morning.  But if Melissa weakens ever so slightly, it won't matter. 

As the National Hurricane Center noted this morning: "Both categories can produce catastrophic wind damage. In addition, winds in the mountains of Jamaica are likely to be higher than the winds at sea level, and are likely to add to the seriousness of the situation."

Tropical storm conditions are hitting Jamaica already. Webcams this morning showed gusty winds and rough surf in Kingston's harbor and in other areas.

They've already had bursts of torrential rain, and that will continue with increasing intensity well into tomorrow.  Flooding is already ongoing, and the landslides and floods will become catastrophic. 

As I noted yesterday, I don't know what will happen to people who are in their safe space, only for a landslide to destroy it. How will they move to another safe place in winds of more than 100 mph with debris flying through the air. 

The worst winds will come within a 30 to 50 mile radius on Jamaica, which is roughly 150 miles wide and 50 miles long.  It looks like the worst effects of Melissa will hit the western and maybe central parts of the island.

So parts of Jamaica will thankfully miss the worst of the winds, at least in low elevations,  but all of Jamaica will suffer through the floods. Up to three and a half feet of rain is likely in some parts of Jamaica. 

The Jamaican coastline, at least parts of it, can expect a storm surge of nine to 13 feet. That's potentially high enough to flood the nation's main airport in the capitol, Kingston. 

AFTER JAMAICA

Part of the destructive force of Hurricane Melissa is the fact that it is moving forward so slowly. That would prolong the destructive force of the rain and winds.

Once Hurricane Melissa gets past Jamaica, it will slowly start to weaken, and pick up forward speed. But it will still be a major hurricane by the time it reaches eastern Cuba early Wednesday, with expected winds of 120 mph.  Melissa will then move on into the southeastern Bahamas later Wednesday or early Thursday. 

By Friday, Melissa will be racing northeastward near Bermuda, then it will finally die in the North Atlantic. 

While Melissa is far out in the Atlantic Ocean,  an unrelated nor'easter will be developing along the East Coast. That nor'easter might siphon deep moisture from Hurricane Melissa and make the rain especially heavy along parts of the East Coast.

It's unclear if that for sure will happen, and if so, where. Up here in Vermont, the nor'easter will very likely bring us some badly needed rain, but so far it looks like the really heavy rain might avoid the Green Mountain State.

Meanwhile, back in the Caribbean, Haiti and the Dominican Republic won't be directly hit by Hurricane Melissa. But it's close enough to have dumped a lot of rain on those countries and will continue to do so. 

Horrific flooding will continue there for the next couple days.  There have already been at least three deaths in Haiti because of the heavy rain and flooding. 

Climate Central Takes Over Billion Dollar Disaster Database That Trump Administration Abandoned.

Climate Central has taken over a data base of
billion dollar disasters in the United States.
The federal government had maintained the
data, but the Trump administration ended
it because they don't want to 
acknowledge climate change. 

Weather and climate science runs on data.

The more data you have, the better information you have, the better judgement you'll have, the better prepared you'll be.  

As I've noted numerous times, the Trump administration has been cutting back on the tools scientists need to keep track of the weather and climate.

One of the things gone is a data base of disasters that cost a billion dollars or more. 

The Trumpsters hate anything that shows climate change is causing trouble, since they insist climate change doesn't exist.

So they decided if climate driven disasters aren't reported, they don't exist. 

Or something like that. 

AsABC News Explains: 

"But in May, the Trump administration announced it was shutting down the website that hosted the dataset. That made it difficult for the public and experts to track the impact of major disasters, as the program used a combination of private and public data, some of which was not available to organizations outside the government."

Obviously, anyone who cares was bummed about the loss of that information. 

However, the data is coming back. Climate Central, a non-profit organization that communicates climate change science, affects and solutions to the public and policy makers. 

A guy named Adam Smith is running and managing the billion dollar disaster data set. He managed the billion dollar list at NOAA, but he was let go by the Trump cutbacks. He is now Climate Central's Senior Climate Impact Scientist. 

ABC continues:

"'The billion dollar disaster analysis is vital in demonstrating the economic impact of extreme weather and climate events, which helps communities understand the real-world consequences of climate change and the increasing impact of these different events," said Smith. 

'I would also say this dataset was simply too important to stop being updated,' Smith added. 'We've seen a widespread demand for its revival from many aspects of society and industry, including the private sector, academia, local community decision makers, even Congress,'"

Climate Central replicated all the data sources for the disaster report, so the information going into it is equivalent to what we used to see on the federal NOAA website.  They'll also use the same peer reviewed methods as the NOAA version did. 

The billion dollar data base isn't the only set of information being rescued from the follies of the Trump administration. 

The Trump administration pretty much got rid of the web site climate.gov, which was the go to place for comprehensive, accurate climate information. The site now directs you to noaa.gov, which has some climate information, but nothing nearly as comprehensive as what was once on the site. 

A non-profit developed an alternative site called climate.us that has much of the information that was removed from climate.gov. 

THIS YEAR'S DISASTERS, COMPARED

According to the revived data compiled by Climate Central, so far this year, the United States has had 14 disasters costing $1 billion or more. (This is all inflation-adjusted).

Mostly because of the incredible wildfires around Los Angeles in January, the cost of this year's disasters are so far is running well above average. The fires alone cost more than $60 billion in damage.

Through June big U.S. disasters have cost $101.4 billion. Most of them involved, tornadoes, severe thunderstorms and flooding. 

This means even if no other big disasters hit this year, 2025 will end well above the average of $67.3 billion. 

However, 2025 won't necessarily be the most costly year on record, despite the strong start. Years with large hurricanes in the U.S. tend to be the most expensive, The year 2017 was the most costly, in large part because of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, with $405.2 in damage.

 Next was 2005, which included hurricanes Katrina and Rita, with $275.5 billion in overall damage. 

It looks like no big hurricanes will hit the U.S. this year. (Forecasters worry Tropical Storm Melissa will turn into a giant hurricane, but most predictions expect that storm to have relatively little effect on the U.S. 

If no other billion dollar disasters happen this year, it looks like 2025 would be the eighth most expensive since 1980, which is the beginning of the data base record.

The disaster total will probably go up for this year. Four other disasters are still being assessed to determine whether they cost at least $1 billion. These include the horrible, deadly July 4 weekend floods in Texas, and three severe weather outbreaks between May and August.  

And gawd knows what the final two months or so of 2025 might bring. 

 

Two More Houses Falls Into Sea In North Carolina. Video Shows Sad Home Destruction, Somber Onlookers

"Skybox," a house on the shore in Rondanthe,
North Carolina that has been teetering
for days, finally collapsed into the waves
Friday evening. Photo via Facebook
Wes Snyder Photography.

On Thursday, I told you seven houses fell into the Atlantic Ocean at Buxton, North Carolina, thanks to big swells created by now-former hurricanes Humberto and Imelda.  

Later on Thursday, an eighth house fell in. Like many of the other homes, this one was widely caught on video. 

One video, by Brett Barley I found to be quite striking.  It really brings home the sense of loss and sadness in the Outer Banks as climate change teams up with a naturally unstable barrier island to create a slow motion disaster. 

I'll link to it on the bottom of this post.

A ninth house known as "Skybox", collapsed in nearby Rodanthe, North Carolina last evening, bringing to 21 the number of houses lost to the rising sea over the past five years. 

Skybox had been teetering for days, and local residents were impressed by it resilience, despite being battered by hurricane swells for days. 

Several other houses look ready to go in the inevitable next hurricane or nor'easter 

The collapses over the past five years are often taking place under clear, balmy skies. Gorgeous weather, except for the falling houses. It's often been distant storms hurling powerful swells into the Outer Banks that have caused the destruction. 

In Barley's video, you can see a large crowd had gathered just behind a big debris field left by the other homes that fell to the waves.  It was a somber crowd, without the kinds of hoots and hollers you get the people watch other dramatic moments. 

Barley explains why in the note below the YouTube video:

"The majority of these homes were built buy locales, they are maintained by locals, the visitors who come and stay in them support the local economy. They are more than 'just someone's rental property.' They are a part of this community regardless of who owns it. 

They have helped put food on the table for may families here over and and over again. They have made memories for those who came and stay.... weddings, birthdays, honeymoons, family vacations, etc. They are part of the memories of those who live here and work/play amongst the beach and neighborhoods they make up."

Much like the case of Skybox, people root for other clearly doomed houses. Part of us always want to deny the inevitable. 

When the house in Barley's video first collapses, it bumps in a large green house next door, which is also being battered by the swells from the two distant hurricanes. You can see the green house is in rough shape, and could go at any time. The porches are askew, and you can detect a slight lean toward the ocean. One of the main pilings is badly cracked. 

Comparison photo showing homes in
Buxton, North Carolina a decade ago
and this week. The erosion has been
incredible. Photo via Facebook, 
Edward Sneed. 

Meanwhile the house that collapsed in the video slowly breaks apart. The first floor was partially crushed in the immediate crash, and the waves take apart the rest of the lower walls. The second floor briefly stays intact, which is what we've seen in previous collapse videos from the Outer Banks. 

The video lingers on how pieces of somebody's life come apart with each wave.  A striped couch and matching chairs suddenly bob in the waves. Then a refrigerator floats out of the house 

As the house is slowly disintegrates, it starts out to the left of the green house, and the waves take it front of that green house, and finally leave the wreckage to the right of the green house. The collapsed house never really hits the green house after the initial bump.

But sure enough, we'll one day, probably soon, see video of the green house collapsing, or the wreckage of it floating in the surf. 

The collapsed houses are an enormous mess, of course. The debris - wood, broken glass, nails, potentially toxic insulation and other materials, spread along for miles of beach.

Crews were moving in fast to remove the wreckage, but the waves are faster. All the Outer Banks collapse videos this week show debris spreading far and wide. 

I've seen a lot of talk about people being dumb to build houses right on the water. But the houses that just collapsed in North Carolina actually used to be at least a block or two inland from the beach. 

One person who commented on Barley's video said they rented the house that collapsed a year ago. They said at the time, the house seemed quite stable, despite a strong storm they experiences while staying there. 

Rising sea levels inevitably change the shape of the seacoast, and this is what you get. 

In North Carolina, a 2024 report stated that 750 of nearly 8,800 oceanfront structures are at risk from erosion. Dealing with this is expensive. Reinforcing the shore with dredged sand or rock is expensive. So is using state or federal funds to buy out the threatened homes and demolish them before the waves do. 

We're going to see more and more of this, not just in North Carolina, but up and down the East Coast as those sea levels rise and storms get more intense with climate change. Meanwhile, people are still flocking to the seacoast. 

This is going to be part of a very costly depressing future. 

VIDEO

Video of a house collapsing into the water Thursday in Buxton, North Carolina and then gradually disintegrating . Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

National Weather Service Still Struggling With Staff Shortages

Despite promises of rehiring, the National Weather
Service remains dangerously low on staff.
Burnout looms large and that could
hurt public safety in the U.S. 

As tropical storms and hurricanes whirl, and wildfires threaten, and winter storms loom sooner than you think, the National Weather Service is still struggling with deep staff shortages, as the Washington Post reported this weekend. 

The stupid staff firings led by the odious Elon Musk last winter and spring, along with resignations and retirements means 600 workers, or about one in every seven, left the National Weather Service. 

Adequate staffing at the National Weather Service is at about 4,500 employees. Right now, they're well south of 4,000. 

According to the Washington Post: 

"Some National Weather Service staffers are working double shifts to keep forecasting offices open. Others are operating under a 'buddy system,' in which adjacent offices help monitor severe weather in understaffed regions. Still others are jettisoning services deemed not absolutely necessary, such as making presentations to schoolchildren."

Somehow, National Weather Service storm monitoring and weather forecasting have gone almost without any interruptions.  

However, just think if two big weather emergencies happened at once.  I don't know whether the NWS would have been able to handle it. Take this week for example,

Hurricane Humberto and soon to be hurricane Imelda have been very close together in the Atlantic Ocean, making forecasting difficult. .But neither storm is a direct threat to the United States, so forecasting for the two tropical systems is being managed OK.

But what if everything was further west. Imagine a scenario in which Hurricane Humberto was about to make landfall in the Carolinas while at the same time Imelda was threatening Houston or New Orleans.

Would the National Weather Service have the bandwidth to manage both crises? Once upon a time, they would. Right now, I'm not so sure. 

CURRENT NWS SITUATION

The Trump administration did a reversal earlier this year and granted the National Weather Service an exemption to a government-wide hiring freeze. But the fresh hiring largely hasn't happened yet. 

The incoming new NOAA director, Neil Jacobs, has pledged to address the staff shortages, but a U.S. Senate Committee just barely advanced his nomination on September 17. 

NOAA staffers, including most everyone at the National Weather Service are working overtime. Their work/life balance is shot to hell. WaPo says managers are picking up forecasting shifts. Some offices are sharing their employees remotely with locations that don't have enough staff. That requires overtime and working weekends. 

Even worse, if the government shuts down this week, NWS meteorologists considered essential employees. So they would be working without pay on top of everything else. At least until Congress and Donald Trump finally decide to get their act together. 

Good luck with that. 

There was a lot of concern this spring and summer that overstretched NWS meteorologists would miss things like rapidly developing tornadoes and flash floods. If that has happened, it's been rare. I haven't come across data showing whether or not forecasts for dangerous weather have degraded under the Trump regime. 

Stay tuned for eventual studies and research on that topic. 

Here's an example of the potential danger. The National Weather Service office in central Texas was able to issue timely flash flood warnings ahead of and during the epic and deadly July 4 weekend Texas Hill Country flash floods. Those floods still claimed more than 130 lives, despite the warnings.   

At the time of the flood, the Austin/San Antonio NWS office which covers the area hit by the flood, was  understaffed by six employees. One of the vacant positions at that NWS office was warning coordinator. 

The warning coordinator is the one who alerts local officials to danger. In the Texas flood, local officials appear not to have responded adequately to the warnings. Early indications are that was not primarily the fault of the National Weather Service. However,  communication between the NWS and local emergency officials is still under investigation, the Texas Standard reports. 

Three months after the flood, the Austin/San Antonio NWS office is now seven employees short of fully staffed. The warning coordinator position is still unfilled.

EXHAUSTED STAFF

Meanwhile, the longer the meteorologists are overworked, the more likely the will start to miss things. 

That could cost lives. 

"They're going to run out of gas," John Sokich, a retired National Weather Service employee told the Washington Post. "They're going to start missing things. You can't sustain that level of effort for much longer."

A NOAA spokesperson blandly said that the NWS "remains equipped to meet its mission of protecting American lives and property through timely forecasts and critical decision support services."

Yeah, only because NWS meteorologists are now practically killing themselves accomplishing that mission.