Attempts At A Little Drought Relief In Vermont, But Some Of It Falls Short

Droughts tend to be self-perpetuating, and we see that in what's going on in Vermont now. 

A nice amount of water in my St. Albans, Vermont rain
gauge this morning from last night's weather front,
but most of Vermont missed out again. The drought
will not go away anytime soon, even where 
there were a few downpours last night. 

A wet weather front approached us Thursday and Thursday night from New York and actually held together enough to give a corner of northwest Vermont a decent soaking.  

It still had enough oomph left to deposit a healthy 1.16 inches of rain in Burlington and a glorious 1.3 inches here in St. Albans. So not bad! Not enough to end the drought, but it did wet us down a bit

As the front moved further eastward into Vermont in continued to run into a buzzsaw of dry air over the dusty Green Mountain State .  The rains quickly evaporated.  

Part of the problem was the front was just running out of gas and the contrast in temperatures in front of and behind it fell apart. That helped reduce the amount of rising air that manufactures rain. Plus, the sun had set, so the instability in the air was waning, which reduced the amount of rainfall. 

If the air had been more humid before last night's weather system got here, the rain might have held together longer and covered more of Vermont.  And had the ground been wetter instead of parched that would have translated a little humidity to the air to help with process of making rain. 

 Most of eastern and southern Vermont, which needed the rain even more than areas west of the Greens, only received a few hundredths of an inch of rain last night.  Not really even enough to get things vaguely wet.

We do have another shot at receiving rain, but it will be no drought buster. 

Before we get there, we have another dry, sunny day to get through. The clouds were clearing this morning. Though the air won't be as arid as it was Thursday, the sunshine and breezes should resume the drying process in northwest Vermont and continue it in the east. 

The forecast has been consisted for a second cold front to drop a decent amount of rain tomorrow. Let's hope that forecast holds up. 

Even better, if the predictions are correct,   this next round of rain tomorrow will hit eastern Vermont the hardest. Still, those areas should receive only a half inch to at most an inch of rain.  Northwest Vermont should receive an additional third to a half inch of rain Saturday. 

Saturday's rains will help somewhat, as it will be a steady soaker,  But you need several of those for the rest of the fall, and so far, that doesn't look like it's in the cards. 

Next week looks dry once again, with only scattered light showers or sprinkles at most. The weather pattern through mid-September and probably well beyond that features a series of big fat, dry, slow moving high pressure systems coming from Canada.  

That means cool outbreaks, then warm ups as the sunny highs with low humidity sit right over us for a few days, sucking away what little moisture we have left. Then, new cold fronts with new outbreaks of chilly, dry air come in, rinse and repeat.

Except there's no rinse. The cold fronts that will introduce each new dry high pressure system will probably be moisture-starved, and provide very little wetting. That's very bad news. 

DROUGHT IN PERSPECTIVE

The gold standard for measuring droughts is the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, which has been in operation since 2000.

According to the Drought Monitor data, our current Vermont drought is the most intense since at least 2000.  I remember a similar drought in the late summer of 1999, but it wasn't as bad as this, and ended abruptly with a very wet September. Which won't happen this year. 

Vermont faced persistent drought in the 1960s, but it was a sort of long lasting, low-key affair in which precipitation was mostly below normal, but it never really entirely shut off, like it did this August. Back then, we had problems with dry wells, and iffy crop yields, but the trees weren't turning brown in the middle of August like they did this year. 

There was also a spring drought way back in 1903, when Burlington got only 1.63 inches of rain in April, and just a trace in May, which is the driest month on record. But the summer of 1903 was wet, so that drought eased. 

It's going to take a lot to get out of this one. Vermont State Climatologist Lesley-Ann Duping-Giroux was quoted by VTDigger than the state needs six to eight inches of rain throughout a month to pull itself out of this drought. And the rain would need to keep coming after that, 

We're going to need a lot of wet nor'easters, stalled weather fronts and other inclement weather later this fall, through the winter and next spring to recover from this.  

Vermont is already feeling the economic effects of this drought. Farmers are running out of water for livestock.  They have to buy expensive feed because they're not growing enough of their own because the drought stunted yields. 

The drought might dull Vermont's famed foliage season, which could cut into the revenue we get from the annual influx of leaf peepers. 

If this keeps up, the ski industry might be in trouble, since resorts use a lot of water to make snow. 

It's hard to pin a drought like this directly to climate change, but it's consistent with it.  With climate change, there's a lot of weather whiplash -  everybody goes from one extreme to another.  The summers of 2023 and 2024 in Vermont were disastrously wet, with extreme flooding and destruction. 

Suddenly this year, the rivers are dry, the lawns are brown and the wells are empty. The only consistent thing between these summers is it was unusually hot. 

The hot weather patterns of 2023 and 2024 were accompanied by high humidity and plenty of storm systems to wring out that excess moisture into flooding rain. The warmth and heat of 2025 has often been dry, and there's been precious few storms to wring out any water in the air to give us rain. 

Suddenly, Vermont Is Having A (Somewhat) Snowy Winter

Traffic cam image taken just after the snow tapered
off along high elevation Route 17 in Buels Gore,
Vermont shows some pretty tall snowbanks 
lining the road after repeated snow falls this year.

 The mid-sized snowstorm Vermont received Saturday night and early Sunday has really done a nice job helping make the state appear it's having an old-fashioned snowy winter for a change. 

Combined with previous modest snowfalls in the past couple weeks, we're actually reasonably deep in powder for a change

Thanks in large part to climate change most of the several winters have been downright tropical by Vermont standards. 

Last winter was by far the warmest on record.  The six warmest winters on record have all occurred since 2001-02. The top four have all happened since 2015-16.

It began to look like we were headed down a similar path earlier this winter.  December featured some strong thaws and paltry snowfall. January was colder, but most of the snow that did fall hit the mountains and missed the valleys. 

Right as January ended and February started, the snows started coming. Forecasts indicate that for awhile anyway, the snows could keep coming. Heck, it snowed a little again overnight and this morning. 

We're really starting to build a pretty decent snow cover through most of Vermont at this point.  

To be sure, in many if not most areas of Vermont, the season's snowfall at this point is still running below normal, but we're beginning to catch up. 

Through Sunday, the seasonal snowfall in Burlington was 42.6 inches, about ten inches below normal for the date. That's still a lot better than the 27.9 inches of snow Burlington had thought February 9 of last year.  

LACK OF THAWS

Because of a lack of major thaws since New Year's Day  snow depths are better this winter than they have been in recent seasons. Most places outside the deeper, warmer valleys have around a foot or more of snow on the ground. 

Some areas are getting semi-buried. As of Sunday, the snow depth in Greensboro and West Topsham was 29 inches. Westfield had 28 inches on the ground and Braintree was up to 27 inches. 

That's nowhere near any kind of record, but it's up there. 

Mountain summits are doing great.  The spine of the Green Mountains always do better than the valleys when it comes to snow.  But this year is even more disproportionate. 

By Sunday, the snow depth near the summit of Mount Mansfield was 81 inches. Normal for this time of year up there is 57 inches. 

MORE SNOW

As noted in previous forecasts, we have several chances for additional snowfalls in the coming couple weeks, and chances are temperatures will stay at or below normal most of the time for the next couple of weeks. 

That makes even deeper snow cover a good possibility. 

The snow showers (some of them kinda heavy) that have been harassing parts of northern and central Vermont his morning should pretty much disappear by this afternoon.   More snow showers and a possible snow squall or two Tuesday afternoon or evening could dump another one to two inches of fluff on at least some parts of the state. One or two spots could have even a little more than that.  

A storm system expected Thursday might drop a few more inches of snow, though forecasters don't yet know exactly how much. And we still don't know whether a little freezing rain or rain will mix in. We'll have more info on this later tomorrow or Wednesday.

Plus, there's a chance - just a chance - of a larger storm next Sunday. 

SNOW GOOD NEWS

All this is mostly good news. Mostly involving money.  The don't call winter snow white gold in Vermont for nothing.  

I don't have stats yet, it's too early, but this decent snow has got to be driving winter sports enthusiasts to Vermont. The skiing and riding have been great.  There's more than enough snow to support cross country ski centers and snowmobile trails, clubs and the businesses that depend on them. 

That's good for the economy, as it's keeping people in tourism-related businesses employed. The fine folks at the Vermont Department of Taxes are probably not complaining about any extra sales tax revenue. 

Plus, this snow feels good, or at least emotionally comforting.  

Let's face it. Many of us do get sick of winter, frustrated by it. But it also feels pretty unsettling to wander your back yard in a light sweater amid 50 degree temperatures and no snow on the ground this time of year. 

We were doing that just a year ago today. On February 10, 2024, the high temperature in Burlington was a record high of 56 degrees. The low was 42 degrees and scattered thunderstorms were reported. In other words, a mid-February day was typical of spring. Definitely weird. 

We don't have the unsettling, snow-free feeling going on this February.  Predicting highs in the 20s today won't feel particularly springlike. 

Winters are of course trending warmer due to climate change, as mentioned.  Actually this winter isn't particularly cold or snowy, but compared to recent ones, it feels old fashioned. Even with climate change, we'll still have the occasional winter that brings us some decent snow. 

BAD NEWS

The only hint of bad news with this snowier regime is springtime.  Chances are we'll go through the usual freeze/thaw cycle this spring and the snow and ice will gradually melt. 

That would be great.

But given how unpredictable things have gotten in this age of climate change, we could see trouble if the snow keeps building up, and then all of a sudden the temperature soars to 60 degrees with downpours. 

That would set us up for another flood. Especially since river ice is thicker and more widespread than in recent winters, thanks to a some cold nights we've managed to see this season. That's a recipe for ice jams. 

But let's not worry about that for now.  We'll just step aside and let the Vermont snow lovers rejoice. 

 

Foliage Season Brought 2.5 Million Visitors To Vermont

Scenes like this in Underhill Vermont on October 17
drew 2.5 million leaf peepers to the not so Green
Mountain State this autumn.

If you live in Vermont and felt kinda crowded during October, there's a great reason why.  

A new report says 2.5 million leaf peepers roamed the state during the foliage season and left behind a cool $500 million in spending on lodging, restaurants, attractions and other related stuff, reports WPTZ

The numbers aren't final either. As of this weekend, there were still some straggling colorful leaves left over to add a little beauty to our increasingly stick season surroundings. That meant there were a few straggling tourists taking in the last of the foliage. 

WPTZ checked in with some individual businesses to see how they did, and their reporters got the same story state tourism officials were telling them. 

"It was the busiest we've ever seen; I mean, you can still see it's busy, and it just kept on going, we have seen record numbers, and it's amazing We love it," Andrew Tascarella, the floor manager at Shaw's General Store in Stowe told WPTZ. 

In the fall foliage mecca of Woodstock, Vermont, the local Chamber of Commerce said they've also had an incredibly busy autumn. 

It appears people were not deterred by the nationwide reports of severe flooding in the Green Mountain State this summer. While people are still certainly suffering in the destructive aftermath, almost all the state was patched up, repaired and ready for tourists.

The weather was certainly gorgeous in September and October, and that helped. It probably didn't influence people who came here from long distances, seeing how they probably made their travel arrangements well before weather forecasts blared the good news about the sunny skies.

Then again, the bright weather to match the bright foliage probably encouraged those tourists to explore and spend money, rather than holing up in their hotel rooms on cold rainy days.

The fantastic weather also probably encouraged spur of the moment day trippers to take a trip up here to Vermont, I imagine. 

The abnormally warm autumn, the nearly daily sunshine and placid weather kept those colorful leaves on the trees later in the season than they would have if we had our typically stormy, windy fall.  That kept the leaf peepers peeping in Vermont longer than in most years.

This is subjective, but I'd give the quality of this year's foliage a B+.  It wasn't the most brilliant display I can remember, as the bright reds were somewhat lacking. But it was still gorgeously colorful and the tourists definitely got their money's worth.  

The big outbreak of snoliage - colorful leaves with snow covered mountains - that hit mid month was certainly a huge bonus. 

We are now getting into the November quiet before ski season arrives. The bulk of the winter sports folks won't be here for a good month or more. They need snow after all. Much of northern Vermont will get teased by some snow showers tonight that could leave a dusting even in many valleys. 

But record high temperatures are forecast Wednesday and Thursday, so those skis and snowboards probably won't get much use quite yet.  

For those who somehow missed the Vermont fall foliage this summer, what follows is a couple videos I took:

A "snoliage" tour around Cambridge and Underhill, Vermont on October 17. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Next, some driving around northwestern Vermont last week yielded these images. Again, click on this link to view or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Miss Lyndonville Diner, Iconic Northeast Kingdom Eatery Latest Victim Of Vermont Floods. Will Other Loved Businesses Go Too?

The Miss Lyndonville Diner, shown here inundated in
this image from the Caledonian Record, will not
reopen after 46 years in business. 

 Weather and climate disasters keep threatening and in some cases taking away some of our iconic business, attractions and buildings. Then latest flood has taken a treasured Vermont diner away from us.  

The Miss Lyndonville Diner, a Northeast Kingdom fixture since 1978, will not re-open after it was damaged in this year's July 10-11 flood. 

It's a sign that weather and climate disasters are having a real impact on the fabric of Vermont life and culture. We risk losing much more as the threats of further floods and severe storms increase in the coming years and decades. 

As Seven Days reports:

"Janet Gray Burnor, who has owned the diner for 46 years, plans to sell the business.

'I'm choosing to rebuild but not reopen,' Burnor, 72, told Seven Days on Friday morning.

Still, the closure of the Northeast Kingdom staple 'feel like a death in the community,' she said, getting choked up. 'We are heartbroken. I completely understand the community's reaction to this loos, and I have tremendous gratitude. They've never let us down.'"

Like most of these situations, the the flood isn't the only reason why the Miss Lyndonville is shutting down. 

The Covid pandemic took a toll on just about every restaurant in the universe. Including the Miss Lyndonville. 

The circumstances that ultimately shut down the restaurant were pretty abrupt, though. On the day of the flood, the Miss Lyndonville was busy with customers and staff when water from the nearby Passumpsic River surged across the street toward the restaurant.

Manager Travis Butts got everybody out safely, then he got stuck in the flooding restaurant while shutting down the restaurant, Seven Days reports. So he made himself a sandwich and headed to the roof, where he awaited either rescue or for the water to go down. 

A foot of water inside the Miss Lyndonville caused a lot of damage. Burnor said she will repair the building, and then put it up for sale. 

These weather and climate related sad moments affect people far and wide. Obviously the Lyndonville community will feel this acutely.

People with even the thinnest ties to Lyndonville feel it, too.   I attended what was then Lyndon State College in the early 1980s, trying (and failing) to obtain a meteorology degree. The Miss Lyndonville was a staple, and we were there a lot. I know hundreds of other people who went to that college will lament the loss of the Miss Lyndonville, too. 

At least we can still hope that this isn't the end of the Miss Lyndonville. It could be just a new chapter.  We're hoping it doesn't change too much if it reopens, and the signs are positive that it might not.

Seven Days reports: 

"When the business sells, Burnor said, she'll offer to run a training class for the new owners' dining room staff to 'to instill the difference between an 'order taker' and someone who cares about the people they're dealing with, she explained."

The Miss Lyndonville isn't the only iconic place we've lost to weather and climate disasters here in Vermont. 

During the July, 2023 flood most of the Inn by the River in Hardwick collapsed into the raging Lamoille River. The inn had been getting increased business which was good for the economically strapped town. The owners opted not to rebuild, and the wreckage of the inn was removed the day before this year's July flooding. 

Whole communities are at risk. 

Downtown Montpelier, badly victimized by the July, 2023, avoided trouble this year. But the business district faces an uncertain future. 

The flood put retailers and others out of business for months. Foot traffic downtown was already lame due to Covid and the introduction of widespread remote work, and that state of affairs continues today. 

The Capital Plaza Hotel, shuttered after the flood, reopened in the spring. Businesses have re-opened in town, and some new businesses appeared. But the success is shaky. It could take just one more inundation to kill or at least badly diminish downtown Montpelier permanently. 

Business owners might look elsewhere to make a living, abandoning beautiful, but flood-prone downtowns like Montpelier. 

VTDigger reported this example back in April:

"Brian Lewis owns the Yellow Mustard sandwich shop and the recently opened Filibuster Cafe in Montpelier. He also owns restaurants in Middlesex and South Burlington.

'I am running $800 per day in labor and bringing in $1,200 a day in sales in Montpelier, but I also have to pay for utilities, rent, food and insurance,' he said. If I am not making money in Montpelier, what is the point of being here? I have other locations and opportunities.'"

Then there's Barre, where downtown, and other large swaths of the city flooded in both July 2023 and 2024.  I think it's too soon after this year's flood to assess its future, and I haven't seen any news regarding that. As I've said in previous posts, I'm deeply worried about the viability of Barre. 

This is repeating in towns throughout Vermont. Plainfield lost housing stock to this year's  flood just a couple months after Goddard College in town announced its permanent closure. The uncertainty of what happens to the Goddard property combined with the trauma of this year's catastrophic flooding definitely has residents wondering what the future will hold, and what Plainfield will look like five or ten years down the road.

Climate change disasters as slowly changing the face of Vermont. Our built-in bias here in the Green Mountain State is to resist change. That's a lot of the reason why the beautiful old architecture of downtowns like Montpelier, St. Albans and Rutland haven't changed all that much in the past century. 

But change we must. There's flood mitigation, buyouts and more that have to be done. That's doubly hard when the wheels of federal bureaucracy turn slowly and hinder the process. 

And maybe, the Miss Lyndonville might eventually revive and thrive, and with it, hopefully the rest of Vermont will somehow do the same, with or without climate change.  

Introducing "Dzuds" An Example Of How Climate Change Can Make Things Colder, More Disastrous

Climate change is a likely cause of some severe,
dangerous and tragic weather in Mongolia. 

 I'm reluctant to blame every single weather event on climate change.

After all, we've always had extremes of heat, cold, rain, snow and other weather calamities. 

It's just that climate change has made most if not all of these events more likely. And sometimes more extreme than before. 

Severe cold and snow are - as you'd expect - are particularly tricky to blame on climate change. If the world is warming, why are you blaming that cold snap, that blizzard on humans belching greenhouse gases into the atmosphere?

However, scientists know that occasionally, climate change can make the jet stream do strange, loopy things, like sending a batch of super chilled Arctic air down into the mid-latitudes. Storms tend to produce heavier precipitation under a climate change regime. It can still be cold enough to snow, so every once in awhile an ultra wet storm can literally snow a region under.

This can happen anywhere, really.  Sooner or later, somebody gets ridiculously hot, ridiculously cold, or snowy or blizzardy or just plain weird. You can find case studies in a lot of places, at least in recent years. 

Which is why I'm bringing up Mongolia. And Dzuds. 

A dzud is a period of extreme cold, heavy snow and powerful winds in Mongolia.  As you'd expect, these things are dangerous 

Yale Environment 360 explains:

"Cold winters are typical in Mongolia. Livestock survive by moving, growing thick coats of fur and pawing through snow and ice to grasses. But this winter, herds are struggling through both a 'white' dzud, in which very deep snow hinders their access to grass, and an 'iron dzud, in which a brief thaw is followed by a rapid, hard freeze, locking pastures in ice."

In the past, a dzud would hit Mongolia about once a decade. But in the past decade, six of 10 years have had them. This is the second year in a row with a severe dzud. 

Yale Environment 360 again:

"As of the last week of February, the number of dead animals reached more than 2.1 million, rising from 600,000 two weeks earlier. Snowstorms have killed at least one people, including one child."

The deceased animals are a matter of life and death for Mongolians. The 65 million or so domesticated animals provide meat, milk and sources of fuel.  Herders sell animal hides, wool and cashmere4 to buy food and pay for their childrens' education. 

This winter's weather has plunged thousands of Mongolians into poverty. 

The reason we're talking about distant Mongolia is to illustrate the point that climate change isn't just about record breaking warmth and huge rainstorms.  The warming atmosphere can really screw up things in surprising, difficult ways, and can affect the population of a whole nation. Or nations.  

Here's how climate change is thought to be contributing to this mess:

The amount of yearly precipitation in Mongolia is about the same as it's always been, but its seasonal distribution has changed.  Summer droughts have become more likely, and those summers have become hotter. All this weakens livestock ahead of winter because they don't eat enough to store reserves for the harsh winters.

Wintertime snowfall has increased. As we mentioned, that makes it harder for animals to graze. The deeper, more persistent snow cover also refrigerates the air, making Mongolia's Arctic winters even more frigid.

Deep snow can make a routine Arctic outbreak anything but routine. For examples, check back here in Vermont. Almost all of our most intense historic winter cold snaps occurred with deep, fresh snow on the ground. 

Nobody knows for sure if this era of frequent dzuds in Mongolia will fade, or worsen.  As always, though, climate change brings added uncertainty to the table. 

 In Mongolia, that fact just brought some tragic results.  

Study: Ski Areas Losing Billions To Climate Change

Screen grab from live cam at Bear Mountain section of
Killington Resort, Vermont, taken March 4, 2024. Note
the unusual lack of snow in the woods in the background
A study indicates climate change is 
costing the ski industry billions of dollars. 

 To put it mildly, this has been a lackluster Vermont ski season, given the record warm winter, frequent thaws with rain thrown in every once in awhile. 

Vermont's experience this year is probably part of an expensive trend ski areas are dealing with. Here's the AP summing it up: 

"U.S. ski areas lost $5 billion from 2000 to 2019 as a result of human-caused climate change and could lose around $1 billion annually in the 2050s depending on how much emissions are reduced, a new study found."

The ski area losses are an example of how climate change is already starting to dent the economy, at least in some sectors.  

The Associated Press continues:  

"'It's a now problem, not a future-looking problem,' said Auden Schendler, senior vice-president of sustainability at Aspen One, a ski and hospitality company that helped fund the study, published in Current Issues in Tourism."

The study looked at 226 U.S, ski resorts and  used 1960-1979 as a baseline. Those years were before climate change had a noticeable effect on ski conditions. 

Then they looked at the seasons between 2000 and 2019, and found those season were shorter by 5.5 to 7.1 days compared to that earlier, golden era.

This despite the fact that snowmaking technology and capability was much better in the 2000s than it was in the 1960s and 1970s, 

Looking to the future, it gets worse:

"Under an optimistic emissions reduction scenario, the future of the U.S. ski industry would see seasons shortened by 14 to 33 days in the 2050s, even with snowmaking. A high-emissions scenario would nearly double the days lost."

Obviously, this trend will be uneven, with winners and losers every year. Vermont ski areas are salivating for just one damn snowflake for gawd's sake. Meanwhile, resorts in the Sierra Nevada have so much snow now they don't know what to do with it. 

Overall, though, the trend on skier days and skier visits will be drifting downward.  Making snow will only get you so far. 

 

Floods, Thaw NOT Good For Vermont/New England Ski Areas And For Tourist Revenue

Flooding in Williston, Vermont Tuesday, part of which
was caused by snowmelt from mountains you see
in the background. Those mountains, and the ski
areas up there, need a return to winter fast, as the 
storm has also damaged prospect for crowds
during the important Christmas week holiday 

 The destructive flooding we had in Vermont was easily the worst aspect of the warm storm we endured this week. 

But there's another potentially substantial problem: We're on the cusp of an important holiday week that typically draws thousands to Vermont for winter sports. The bare ground, news of the flood and forecasts of continued warm weather aren't helping. 

Businesses need the tourist revenue, and Vermont needs the tax revenue.

Before this week, it seemed like the ski season would be off to a good start. 

Those heavy, wet snowstorms in late November and early December that kept causing power outages had a silver lining: They built up a base of snow at ski resorts and other places that host winter activities.

The weather was warmer than normal, but cold enough for resorts to also make snow. 

Then Monday's storm hit.

SKI AREA DAMAGE

The flooding caused a lot of damage, but I haven't heard of any of our major ski areas suffering major physical losses.  So we're lucky in that regard here in Vermont. 

Some New Hampshire and Maine resorts DID suffer damage. That there would be this much New England flood destruction in December is uncharted territory

The road leading up to the Sunday River ski area in Maine was entirely washed out by the storm.  That cut off the resort, and left some people stranded at condos at Sunday River.

A temporary bridge was being brought in to reopen access. But it will be a challenge. The ground floor of some condos at Sunday River reportedly suffered flood damage. 

Sunday River officials said they would reopen as soon as temporary repairs and snow making equipment could be brought up and running again, but they had no timetable. 

In New Hampshire, Loon Mountain, Attitash, Canmore and Wildcat Mountain were all closed on Tuesday due to flooding. They are expected to open soon. 

VERMONT RESORTS

Here in Vermont, Mad River Glen was forced to close temporarily. It sits above the hard-hit Mad River Valley and suffered from water runoff and a loss of snow.  However, Mad River Glen reopened today with freshly groomed trails.  

Jay Peak and Killington, and probably other ski areas in Vermont, closed during the height of the storm Monday due to heavy rains and high wind, but they are now operating normally. 

As temperatures dropped Tuesday, the resorts surely fired up their snow making machines. At least the snow making operations have plentiful supply of water at the moment. 

Resorts are putting the best spin on this: "We are continuing to make snow and groom out our terrain nicely, so we expect conditions to get better and better as we make our way through the week," Killington Resort said on its web site on Wednesday. 

In Stowe, damage to a privately owned culvert reduced Route 108, which leads to the resort, down to one lane.  As of Wednesday, a temporary traffic signal had been installed to deal with the problem.  The resort, like pretty much all of them in Vermont, reported it was making snow and grooming trails to fix damage from the storm.

Slightly below normal temperatures are forecast today and tomorrow, which will favor snow making. It'll warm up over the holiday weekend, but most resorts will still be able to make snow.

The forecast turns problematic toward the middle of next week. As it stands now, it looks like we might see another rain storm. It won't be nearly the scale of what we had Monday, but any rain would dampen skier enthusiasm at the very least. 

Another issue is publicity.  I'm sure the vast majority of avid skiers know that northern New England was hit by a major December storm and flood, so that could discourage people from coming here. 

Meanwhile, cross country ski centers and snowmobile trails surely took a hit. First of all, there's no snow. So no skiing and no snowmobiling. Additionally, the flooding might have caused some damage to snowmobile trails, just after the Vermont  Association of Snow Travelers spend months fixing the trails after the summer floods. 

I haven't heard  how much damage there is to VAST trails, but it's likely not as serious as it was in the summer.

There's always hope for the rest of the winter sports season, of course. It could turn gloriously snowy in January and February for all we know, and that could make the overall winter of 2023-24 not so bad after all.  

Some long range forecasts call for winter to finally arrive at or just after the New Year, but I'll believe it when I see it. 

 

 

Will Vermonters Join The Ranks Of 3.2 Million "Climate Refugees"?

Homes damaged by flooding back in July in Cambridge,
Vermont being flooded again on Tuesday.  How many
floods like this can people take before they give up?

Just in the past week, a report came out showing that 3.2 million Americans have fled "climate abandonment" areas - places where an increased risk of more and more severe flooding has forced them to move.   

Given the serious flooding we had this week, I have to wonder if some Vermonters will soon join the ranks of those climate refugees.  Monday's flood was an agonizing setback. 

As climate-related disasters swirled around the United States and the world, Vermont felt at least temporarily safe from all that.

 We seemed to blissfully escape the scary, dangerous stuff as the decade of the 2020s opened.

Maybe after the disastrous flood and windstorm of Halloween, 2019, we'd be safe for awhile. 

Sure, we had our extremes. Record heat, some droughts, some wind storms hit in 2020, 2021 and for most of 2022. But it wasn't anything to get too worked up about. We felt safe.

But I had a feeling the other shoe would drop. And it definitely has in the past 12 months. 

A storm on December 23, 2022 brought historic wind gusts that caused extensive damage through wide swaths of Vermont. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington recorded a wind gust of 70 mph, its second highest gust on record. Power was cut to more than 70,000 homes and businesses. 

Flooding also closed roads and damaged property. Then a flash freeze and mini-blizzard halted travel on Vermont roads that evening. 

On May 18 of this year, after what had been a remarkably warm spring that prematurely allowed crops and blossoms to sprout, a hard freeze hit.  The one-night frost decimated much of Vermont's apple and strawberry crops, and caused extensive damage in the vineyards of the state's burgeoning wine industry.

Those two events weren't primarily flood disasters, but they were unsettling.  

Then the summer floods hit. As we know, the worst of it hit on July 10 and 11 with communities from Ludlow to Barre and Montpelier to Johnson suffering devastating blows.

This wasn't a one shot deal either, Repeated localized flash floods from the end of June into mid-Augusts expanded the destruction. 

Each of these events resulted in disaster declarations for different parts of Vermont. I have a feeling this latest storm will also put the Green Mountain State under a disaster declaration. 

SO NOW WHAT?

Although the storms have varied, flooding is the biggest risk here in Vermont.  One has to wonder how much more people can take,  Some homeowner and business owners have now suffered damage twice in five months. 

Monday night's flood crest of 17.58 feet on the Lamoille River in Johnson means half of the top 10 worst floods there have occurred just since 2011. 

Who would want to deal with that?

We are already seeing signs that the repeated floods are eroding the sense of community as much as they eroded riverbanks and streets. After being inundated several times,  owners of the grocery store in Johnson opted not to reopen the business, which had five or six feet of water inside it on July 10-11. (At last report, another brave business person might open a store in that location, we'll see).

WPTZ-TV last night aired an interview with two women whose house in Cambridge was trashed in the July flood. They were almost done fixing things when the latest flood damaged their home again. They looked tired. The two said they are staying in Cambridge. But will all their neighbors do the same?

I also wonder how residents and businesses owners in communities like Ludlow, Barre, Montpelier and Waterbury will keep sticking it out with the threat of more and more frequent, destructive floods.

If people abandon these communities, it would be part of a national, and probably worldwide trend, judging from that report about 3.2 million Americans moving to new locations due to climate disasters.  

As CBS News reports:

"Many of those areas are in parts of the country that also have seen a surge of migration during the past two decades, including Sun Belt states such as Florida and Texas. Such communities risk an economic downward spiral as population loss causes a decline in property values and local services, the group found."

 Vermont is regarded as sort of a "climate refuge," but as I wrote in July during our flood siege, that might be a bit of an illusion.  

Many of our nicest, most cohesive towns and small cities are in flood plains. Which makes the risk of people abandoning Vermont town centers even more fraught than in other areas. That downward economic spiral CBS mentioned could hit all of our wallets here in the Green Mountain State.

One of Vermont's signature images is its tight knit towns and relative lack of commercial sprawl.   It's one of the main reason lots of tourists are drawn to the state.

Unfortunately, many of these beautiful old towns and small cities were built in flood plains. When they were built, their location was one of necessity, as the rivers helped supply power and served as commercial routes. 

These towns generally have stopped needing rivers for these purposes long ago. So is the repeated floods brought on by climate change worth the risk? 

Likely channeling all of us, Gov. Phil Scott during his press conferences about the latest flood used words like "gut punch" and "heartbreaking."   How many gut punches can people endure before they give up on their downtown/flood plain businesses and homes?

We're going to find out in the coming years and decades, and the end result might not be pretty. As these floods keep coming, Vermont will become a much less familiar place. 

To me, anyway, as a lifelong Vermonter, that would be a tragedy. 

If You Love Our Current Inflation Woes, You'll Love The Record Low Mississippi River Levels

The Mississippi River is so low that people can walk to 
this island in the river south of St. Louis, which is 
extremely rare. Normally, it's only accessible via boat.

 The following news actually surprised me this past week:

Large stretches of the Mississippi River are at record low levels. 

I knew that drought has afflicted swaths of the Mississippi River watershed this year, but I didn't think the droughts were the worst on record. They probably weren't, but the location of the droughts, the widespread areas affected by the droughts and their persistence really pushed the mighty Mississippi to a point that for now isn't so mighty anymore. 

The Mississippi River usually reaches its low point about this time annually, but this year the low is really low.

Says the Washington Post in an October 12 article: 

"Repeatedly over the past week, water levels have become too low for barges to float, requiring the corps to halt maritime traffic on the river and dredge channels deep enough even for barges carrying lighter than normal loads Days after a queue of stalled river traffic grew to more than 1,700 barges during emergency dredging near Vicksburg, Miss., a separate 24-hour dredging closure began Tuesday near Memphis. More dredging, which routinely costs billions of dollars a year, could be needed if barges continue to run aground."

This dredging has to continue to allow barges to pass, but still, things are way more gummed up than they ought to be, due to the low water.

This disrupts supply chains. As we've heard so much on the news lately, screwed up supply chains are one reason inflation is so nasty right now.  The low water on the Mississippi can only make this situation worse.

The river carries 60 percent of our corn and soybean exports, so you can see how this can affect food prices. Especially since agricultural exports from Ukraine are severely limited due to Russia's invasion and war crimes in that nation.  

At Memphis, the water level hit minus 10.79 feet, breaking a low water record established in 1988, another big drought year. 

For complicated reasons, river levels can be at minus levels. One instance as to how this can happen is a long standing river gauge could have established a zero level water mark decades ago.  Currents might have deepened the channel at that point, so during drought, water is still there, but is running below the zero level of the gauge. 

This low water might last awhile, too.  Forecasters expect to river level at Memphis to remain near minus 11 feet until at least November 1.  If that river doesn't rise markedly in November, it'll be too late. The northern reaches of the river, say up by Minnesota and Iowa, will freeze, so barge traffic from the farms up that way will have to stop.

The winter could lock away moisture from the river until the spring thaw. In that case the Mississippi would stay low until then. Then, because everything will be behind, the supply chains for the 2023 harvest could also be disrupted. 

Much further downstream, in Plaquemines  Parish, Louisiana, residents were warned earlier this autumn that the drinking water drawn from the Mississippi River now has elevated levels of sodium and chloride, the Washington Post reported.   This can be dangerous for people on dialysis or low sodium diets. 

The problem is that the southward river flow has weakened so much due to the low water that salt water from the Gulf of Mexico is creeping northward, forming a wedge at the bottom of the river because salt water is heavier that fresh water. 

A little rain is in the forecast for parts of the Mississippi River basin over the next week, but it will be much less than needed to add substantial runoff into the river. 

Plus, you'd need a lot of widespread rain to have a noticeable effect on the Mississippi River. You have to consider the Mississippi has big tributaries like the Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas and Illinois rivers. 

Which basically means we need a lot of heavy rain from Montana to Pennsylvania and from northern Minnesota to Louisiana.

 For people who live near the Mississippi River, the low water is quite a novelty. There's a really cool island in the river called Tower Rock. It's basically an oval shaped cliff topped with trees. Normally, you can only get there by boat.

But the river is so low, people can just walk to it without even getting their feet wet, says CNN.

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a man walking along the river spotted what appeared to be an old shipwreck.  Archaeologists think it might be the Brookhill Ferry, which carried people and horse-drawn wagons from one side of the river to the other. Newspaper archives say the ship sank during a bad storm in 1915, the Associated Press reports. 

 The novelty of walking to an island is nice, as is finding centuries old shipwrecks. But for a practical and economics standpoint, we'd better hope the Mississippi River regains its might - and fast!