A Record Strong El Nino Is Underway. What Does That Mean For The Next Year Or So?

This map shows where sea surface temperatures are above or
below normal and by how much. The darker the shading, the
greater the departure from normal. As you can see, El 
Nino has super charged the warmth of the Pacific
ocean off the west coast of South America. 

 The strong El Nino is under way, but the real fun doesn't start until later this autumn or winter. 

 The El Nino is forecast to become the most intense one on record.
 

To set us up, we need to explain El Nino. 

It's a periodic warming of the eastern and central Pacific Ocean. When it happens, it tends to warm the entire planet up. It also causes areas of extra storminess, and other areas of extra dryness around the world.

El Ninos are now happening on top of climate change, so it's a double whammy. Fossil fuel emissions are warming the Earth's atmosphere long term. El Nino is temporarily making it even worse. 

Even more troublesome, since the current El Nino is likely the strongest on record, the extremes will probably get more extreme. .

As ABC News reports, a typical El Nino usually brings warmer than normal temperatures across the northern tier of the United States, but the effect can be less pronounced over the Northeast. 

In the Northeast, there can be an uptick in nor'easters which can interrupt a relative warm winter with harsh winter storms. 

El Nino typically increases the odds of above-average snowfall in the mid-Atlantic and coastal areas of the Northeast as storms often move up the coast. Farther inland, drier-than-average conditions and less snow are more likely.

For Vermont specifically, we have a look back at Vermont El Ninos winters from WCAX-TV meteorologist Gunnar Consol.

The El Nino winter of 1957-58 was cold and snowy in the Green Mountain State, but that was an exception. Most El Ninos give us at least relatively warm winters. 

Very strong El Ninos in 1982-83 and in 1997-98 yielded winters that were slightly warmer than normal with below normal snowfall. However, the 1983 El Nino year gave us a very wet and snowy winter. The 1998 El Nino year brought Vermont's epic historic January ice storm. I'm not saying this El Nino will create another repeat of that ice storm, but it's potential evidence of weird weather here in Vermont. 

Then came a very strong El Nino in 2015-16. Snowfall was well below normal in Vermont that winter. And it was the hottest winter on record. 

Hottest on record, that is, until 2023-24. Another strong El Nino hit, and that became the hottest winter in Vermont, at least as measured in Burlington. 

There's no guarantee we'll have the same result. There could be other factors that give us a cold winter. So we'll just have to wait and see.

ELSEWHERE

The trouble spots during El Ninos are typically in the southern half of the United States. That means southern California in particularly might be in for flooding rains and landslides. Usually the Gulf Coast states endure frequent winter thunderstorms, flooding and tornadoes.  

Globally, since El Nino warms up an already climate-changed hot world, there's a very good chance that 2027 will become Earth's hottest year on record, beating the record set in 2024 during the previous El Nino.

Either drought' or crop-wrecked storms will likely hit some of the most productive food growing parts of the world. Political instability and income inequality are rising, thanks in large part to certain buffoons in the United States government.

The combination of El Nino, climate change food disruptions and political stupidity isn't necessarily the end of the world, despite what you read in some corners of social media. But it could lead to famine in some areas, deadly storms in other spots. People will unfortunately die because of all this. 

There is precedence for this. An El Nino in 1877 was the record holder until this year for the strongest El Nino. Global famines that year from weather disruptions killed 50 million people. 

It looks like the next year or so will not be a pleasant one for humanity. And those problems will in part go on past 2027.  So brace yourself boys and girls, you are in for some unpleasant surprises with the climate, your local weather, your pocketbook and your general sense of ease.  

Did Past Climate Change Cause Medieval Black Death?

Recent research suggests volcanic eruptions in the tropics
around the year 1345 was the spark that eventually 
led to the Black Death in Europe.  It was an 
instance showing that climate change, whether
natural or man made can have 
tragic, unintended effects.

Climate change deniers have one argument that is at least partly right: Climate change has always happened. 

There's the human-induced climate change we're experiencing now. Fossil fuel emissions keep making the planet hotter and hotter.  

As most of us know, many other things can change the climate, sometimes slowly, sometimes at the drop of a hat. Like volcanic eruptions. 

Maybe the most famous instance was in 1815, when the erupting Mount Tambora in present-day Indonesia threw so much gunk into the atmosphere that it created the "Year Without a Summer" in 1816.

Crop failures and other calamities with that cold summer causes suffering world wide. 

There's evidence another volcano caused an even more extreme human disaster - the Black Death in the 14th century.  . 

It was easily among the worst pandemics in human history. It killed probably half of Europe's population. 

So what set it off? Recent research seems to indicate a volcano or volcanoes started the dominoes to topple.  

Researchers digging through historical documents, tree rings, ice core samples from Antarctica and Greenland came up with an explanation for the Black Death. The research was recently published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment. 

According to CNN:

"The study authors believe an eruption occurred around 1345, about two years before the start of the pandemic, from either a single volcano or a cluster of volcanoes of unknown locations, likely in the tropics. The resulting haze from volcanic ash would have partially blocked sunlight across the Mediterranean region over multiple years, causing temperatures to drop and crops to fail." 

The resulting grain shortage threatened to spark civil unrest or even a famine. Italian city-states like Venice and Genoa, resorted to emergency imports from near the Black Sea, and that helped prevent trouble.

At first.

But then there's this, according to CNN:

"However, ships that carried the grain were loaded with a deadly bacterium: Yersinia pestis. The pathogen, originating from wild rodent populations in Central Asia, went on to cause the plague that devastated Europe."

The bacteria can survive for months on grain dust, so it had no trouble making it to Venice and Genoa and places like that. It survived in grain storage, and when the grain was traded elsewhere in Europe. 

The bacterium that was in the grain infects rat fleas, which in turn hits rats and other rodents. The bacterium pretty much killed all the rats once they got to Europe. So, the bacteria had to find some other mammal to attack. Those mammals were human Europeans. 

The bacterium was really effective. Before the Black Death, the world's population was a little under 450 million. Between 1347 and 1351, the Black Death killed more than 25 million people. 

The bottom line: Climate change, in this instance natural, temporary and brief, helped trigger one of the most disruptive and tragic chapters in human history. 

Just to be clear, I'm not at all suggesting climate change had anything to do with the Covid pandemic that started in late 2019 and engulfed the world in 2020. That pandemic and climate change are two completely separate issues.

However, the Black Death study is a reminder that the climate change we're going through now can have scary effects that could take us all by surprise. This blog has for years been telling you about things climate change has caused, and things it might cause. 

But there are other effects of climate change we have no way of predicting. As they say, we don't know what we don't know.  

 

As The Rain Comes Down, The Vermont Drought Worsens

This morning's weekly U.S. Drought 
Monitor now shows extreme drought 
across central Vermont (red shading)
All the rest of Vermont except the 
extreme northwest and a tiny spot
near Brattleboro are in severe drought. 

The weekly U.S. Drought Report, out this morning, shows a definitely worsening trend in Vermont's drought. 

Yes, I know it's raining, but the data in the weekly report only goes through Tuesday, when it was barely starting to rain.  Next week's report will take into account today's rain. 

Despite today's frequent showers, the drought won't go away. We need much more than one rainy day to solve this problem. 

Let's take it piece by piece, starting with today's new drought report

WORSENING TREND

The weekly Drought Report rates droughts with increasing severity on scale going from moderate, severe, extreme to exceptional.

Last week, for the first time in this drought, extreme drought entered the picture in Vermont, covering a tiny sliver of the central Connecticut River Valley.  It covered about just 2 percent of Vermont's land mass

This week, extreme drought has spread across central Vermont, covering about a quarter of the state. 

Severe drought has expanded, too. It now covers virtually all of the state. Only tiny slivers in far northwest Vermont and a small spot near Brattleboro are "merely" in moderate drought. 

Over in New Hampshire, the drought worsened, too. About a quarter of the Granite State was in extreme drought last week. Now it's a third of the state. In Maine, extreme drought expanded in southern parts of the. And for the first time, all of Maine is at least abnormally dry, if not in drought 

In New York, the drought isn't quite as bad as it is in northern New England, but it's bad enough, and has worsened a bit since last week, the Drought Monitor tells us. There are no areas of extreme drought in New York, but severe drought expanded a little in New York's Champlain Valley and parts of the Adirondacks. 

The extreme drought in central Vermont almost touches the New York border in western Rutland County. 

EFFECTS

The effects of this drought are starting to cost us lots of money. Dairy farms are finding stunted corn, alfalfa and hay crops because of the dry weather. 

Houses are without water. Every morning when I turn on my tap I feel blessed that my well is still producing.  

Some people are resorting to hiring people to dig deeper wells, but that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. We are also seeing some businesses close. For instance, the Busy Bee Diner in Glover was closed at last report for lack of water. 

Fall foliage is looking muted. That fact, and the publicity surrounding the somewhat duller colors will cost Vermont a ton of revenue from tourists. To be fair, the foliage will still be gorgeous in many areas, but not as good as the past few years. 

Trees and shrubs are showing signs of drought damage, and some might end up dying. 

Check out the video at the bottom of this post for a look at what the drought is looking like along northern Vermont rivers, and in Lake Champlain. 

RAIN AND FORECAST

Forecasted rain from 8 a.m. today to 8 a.m. Friday
would give about a half inch in additional showers
north and more than an inch south. This is obviously
super welcome, but won't come close to 
ending Vermont's severe drought. 

While I was writing about the sentences about the extreme drought in Vermont that you just read, the rain outside my window briefly turned torrential. 

We'll ignore the fact that downpour stopped shortly after and no rain is falling now.   Still,  today's rain will be a temporary help. 

But it won't come close to erasing the drought. As I keep saying, it will take lots of heavy rain storms to solve this problem. 

Unfortunately, this continues to look like a temporary reprieve.

Through 9 a.m., southeast Vermont so far has the biggest reason to rejoice. It started raining in Springfield Wednesday afternoon, and so far they've received 1.45 inches. Lebanon, New Hampshire had clocked in with 0.67 inches through 9 a.m. 

Elsewhere in Vermont,  a quarter inch or less had fallen in most of central and northern Vermont. Burlington had 0.17 inches through 9 a.m. and St. Johnsbury 0.10.  An exception to the lighter rain in the north has been Franklin County, with those mid-morning downpours.  

The rest of today will be rainy.  The showers will stop at times. Other times, the rain will come down hard. Most of the time it will be light rain. 

For the rest of the day and through tonight, forecasts call for another half inch or so of rain in the north and a little over an inch of additional rain south.  

I have a feeling that this rain will make next week's Drought Monitor show perhaps slight improvement in Vermont, or at least not much worsening of the already bad drought in the Green Mountain State. 

The dry weather is coming back with a vengeance after the rain today, and the expected very light scattered, inconsequential showers forecast for Friday. 

Dry high pressure will establish itself over northern New England starting this weekend. It will stall over us or nearby and get incredibly strong. That means day after day of sunshine and dry air to evaporate what rain we got this week. 

Our next shot at any real rain after today doesn't look like it would arrive until around October 9 or 10. 

Video: 

Low water in Vermont rivers and Lake Champlain. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Hurricane Erin Slightly Weaker But Still Mighty. Also, Ignore The Hype Machine

Satellite view of Hurricane Erin just after dawn this
morning. You can't really see the eye as it's going
through what is known as an eyewall replacement
cycle. The hurricane is reorganizing. 

Monster Hurricane Erin as of this morning continues to behave itself about as well as a powerful hurricane can.  

It is still resolutely on course to avoid direct hits on any land, though of course the storm will continue to cause its share of trouble.  

Hurricane Erin has calmed down ever so slightly from its flashy strengthening on Saturday. You'll remember it was an extreme hurricane - Category 5 with top winds of 160 mph.

Early this morning, Erin was down to a top wind speed of 125 mph, the National Hurricane Center tells us.  That's still wicked dangerous, but it's no longer quite at the top of the scale. 

Last night, Hurricane Erin looks like it is going through  began to go through what is known as an eyewall replacement cycle. You might be familiar with the eye of a hurricane, that small clear center surrounded by the storm's most powerful winds.

That circle of powerful winds around the center of a hurricane is called the eyewall. The eye of a hurricane.  An eyewall replacement cycle is when it sort of collapses and forms a new eyewall, often larger than the original.

When this happens, a hurricane will usually weaken. They can re-strengthen after the cycle is complete. That might happen with Erin, but predicting the strength of a hurricane is even harder than forecasting its path. 

Hurricane Erin continues more or less on its predicted path, says the National Hurricane Center.  Its turn to the north might be a little more gradual than some previous forecasts, but it's happening.

The hurricane is getting larger in size, so islands pretty far from its center will see some rough weather. 

The Turks and Caicos Islands are under a tropical storm warning and the eastern Bahamas are under a tropical storm watch because the outer bands of Hurricane Erin will lash those places as it passes by to the east.  

AVOIDING THE HYPE

Ignore any clickbait you'll see on social media regarding Hurricane Erin. It's not going to hit Florida. And at worse, it's only going to give a glancing blow to North Carolina's Outer Banks. 

There will probably be some big waves and dangerous rip currents from Hurricane Erin on Florida's east coast,  and the rest of the U.S. East Coast for that matter, but that's about it. 

Floridians have some very understandable PTSD when it comes to hurricanes, given the storms they've had in recent years.  Telling everyone online that Florida is going to get hit by Erin is great for clicks and revenue, but pretty cruel and unethical when you know that's not going to happen. 

To be clear, my dear Floridians: Don't worry about Erin unless you plan to go swimming at Daytona Beach or something like that. 

If you want the best, most accurate forecasts about storms like Erin, go to the National Hurricane Center. 

Almost all the information I share about Hurricane Erin, or any tropical storm or hurricane I mention in this here blog thingy comes almost completely from the National Hurricane Center.

That's by far the most reliable source of information and forecasts for any tropical storm. Yes, Trump budget cuts have hurt the National Hurricane Center, but they're still doing fantastic work keeping us safe with their storm forecasts. 

Other great and reliable sources of hurricane information are The Weather Channel and a lot of local meteorologists near where you live. If you're in Florida, especially near Miami, pay attention to John Morales, who is really just about the top hurricane forecaster out there. If you're in Texas, especially the Houston area, rely on Matt Lanza, he's also top of the line. 

Lanza has a tropical weather blog called The Eyewall, which is a must-read for anyone worried about hurricanes and tropical storms. 

Humid, Wet Summer In Vermont Caused Garden Woes, And Mosquito, Lake Dangers

Despite frequent applications of Neem oil and copper fungicide, 
the hot, humid summer encourage pests which took an
unusual toll on this rose mallow plant in St. Albans, Vermont.

Funguses, pests and other ills are diminishing backyard gardens.  Algae blooms have occasionally made parts of Lake Champlain unsafe.  Mosquito-borne dangers like West Nile disease loom. 

Blame all this on one of Vermont's hottest, wettest and definitely the most humid summer on record. Our northern ecosystem isn't used to this weirdly tropical weather. 

By at least one measure, Vermont had its most humid summer on record. At least since the 1940x, anyway. According to meteorologists at WPTZ-TV:

"Burlington has....recorded its most humid summer on record (through Aug. 19, going back to 1948.  There have been over 220 hours (almost 10 full days) of oppressive humidity so far this summer. 'Oppressive' refers to dew points of 70 degrees or higher."

The previous record was 200 hours in 1994.

All this has had its effects. I told you the other day that the type of summer we had will probably contribute to extra bouts of fog this autumn. 

But there are worse issues going around than fog. 

Water in Lake Champlain reached record high temperature of around 80 degrees in early to mid August. Meanwhile, this summer's floods discharged mud, pollution, phosphorus and other yucks into Lake Champlain, hindering water quality goals, as VTDigger points out. 

These flood discharges, working in concert with warm lake water temperatures, contribute to cyanobacteria, a blue-green algae that looks like thick pea soup or a paint spill, according to at least one lake biologist.

While much of this algae is relatively harmless, if incredibly yucky, some of it can turn toxic, making people ill who swim in it. It's also known to kill dogs who venture into it.  Satellite images revealed a large outbreak of this algae across the northern end of Lake Champlain in early August. 

Mosquitoes have had a field day this summer, what with all the rain we've had, and the humidity, and the heat. Illnesses such as West Nile and eastern equine encephalitis, or EEE have been detected in Vermont mosquitoes this summer.

This type of thing happens almost every summer, but this year's weather has made the problem all the more likely. 

West Nile has been detected in at least one mosquito pool up in Alburgh, and EEE has been found in mosquitoes in northwestern Vermont. 

Home gardeners like me have seen issues in shrubs and in both perennial and vegetable gardens. Fungus, powdery mildew and an influx of insects have dimmed the glory of many gardens, or have at least frustrated gardeners.

Finally, the hot, wet summer could have an effect on this fall's foliage season.  It's too soon to tell, but sometimes, the fungi that frustrate gardens can infiltrate leaves in our forests. While these fungi ultimately don't hurt the trees, they can make leaves turn a dull brown and fall off prematurely. Which is a bummer if you're hoping for a brilliant foliage season.  

Now It's Official: El Nino Is Here

Schematic map of North America showing the 
typical effects of an El Nino.  Canada, 
unfortunately gets warmer and drier, while the
southern United States gets wetter and stormier.

I've been advertising for weeks now in this blog that the El Nino global weather pattern and its extremes was on its way. 

Now, it's officially here. 

Which means there's a good chance the world could see its hottest on record year this year, or more likely in 2024.

El Nino tends to make the world a hotter place.  The hottest year on record so far, 2016, was during the last El Nino.

The opposite of El Nino, known as La Nina, tends to cool the world a bit.  Until now, we've been in a La Nina for more than three years. Even though it's suppose to be cooler, the past three years have been among the warmest, but not the warmest on record on a global basis.  

Already, global sea surface temperatures on average are the hottest on record. Hotter oceans can release some of their heat to the atmosphere, so we might be on our way already to new global record high temperatures. 

Most of the time, but not always, El Nino brings warmer, drier weather to Canada and the northern United States. That's kind of bad news for us in Vermont, since it's already dry. 

It's really bad news for Canada, much of which is suffering from drought and a ton of forest fires. They really need some cool, wet weather up there in the Great (no longer so) White North. 

El Nino usually makes the southern United States wetter, which increases the risk of floods. But it does reduce the amount of hurricanes. The question, as noted in a past post here, is whether super warm waters in the Atlantic Ocean will overrule El Nino and produce a lot of hurricanes anyway.   

These trends aren't guarantees. There could always be other factors at play in the atmosphere that could make this El Nino not play by the "rules."

How strong this El Nino becomes also matters. A stronger one could make the extremes associated with the phenomenon even more pronounced. Many of the long range computer models suggest this El Nino will be on the strong side.  It already seems to have a lot of momentum as it develops.

There's no telling how long this El Nino will last. Most of them that start in the spring or summer, like this one, last at least through the following winter.  Which could disappoint Vermont snow lovers, as El Ninos more often than not suppress our cold season snowfall. 

However, in general, El Nino doesn't have quite as predictable effect on Vermont's weather and climate than in some other areas of the world. True to form, here in Vermont, weather and storms will always try to surprise us. 

 

Massive Tonga Volcanic Eruption Also Has Meteorological, And Possibly Global Climate Effects

Satellite view of massive volcanic eruption in 
Tonga today. Depending on how much ash and
other material the eruption put in the stratosphere,
this could have some slight, temporary cooling 
effect on the global climate 

 If you hadn't heard, there's a lot of breaking news this morning about an incredible volcanic eruption in Tonga. 

Tonga is a chain of island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. There, an underwater volcano has been erupting. There was a large eruption Friday, then Saturday, an immense one.  This is surely the most powerful explosion the world has seen in decades, possibly centuries. 

It immediately produced an immense cloud of ash, a shock wave that traveled thousands of miles and tsunamis that are in one form or another affecting the the entire Pacific Ocean basin, all the way to the United States and Canadian west coasts. 

That's impressive, given that Tonga is about 8,600 miles from Los Angeles. Any tsunami activity on the West Coast will be relatively minor. No big waves smashing into buildings, but it is too dangerous this morning to be hanging out on the water or right on the beach. Tsunami waves as high as 2.7 feet have already been reported in Hawaii. 

Relatively small tsunamis then hit the United States west coast, causing some damage in California mostly to boats and cars parked at marinas. 

More destructive tsunamis have hit islands in and near Tonga.

So far, I've discussed geology and oceanography, not meteorology and climate, which is the point of this blog. But the eruption has had or might have effect on both those sciences.

The explosion was so huge it sent shock waves through the atmosphere far and wide. People in New Zealand, about 1,500 miles from the eruption, heard booms and rumbles from atmospheric shock waves generated by the explosive volcano. Barometric pressure in New Zealand wiggled up and down. This morning, barometers registered tiny, but abrupt changes in air pressure that moved west to east across the nation.

Those barometric wiggles were noticed here in Vermont shortly before 11 a.m. today. 

To give you an idea of the scale of this, had the Tonga explosion occurred in Miami, we would have heard the boom and rumbles from it here in Vermont. 

There's a chance this eruption could cause a bit of global cooling.  We probably won't know for weeks what effect the eruption will have on the global climate, if any. 

We do know the explosion was big enough to loft ash, sulfur and other stuff into the stratosphere, which is the layer of the atmosphere above where most weather occurs.

From there, the gunk from Tonga would be swept across nearly the entirety of the stratosphere above Earth.  If there's enough stuff up there, it could cause temporary global cooling.  

A tsunami washes over a Tonga island after a massive
volcanic eruption in the southwestern Pacific Ocean today

A huge eruption of the volcano Pinatubo in the Philippines back in 1991 cooled the world by about 1 degree Fahrenheit for a year or two, and temporarily putting the brakes on global warming.

An even worse volcanic explosion in 1815 spewed so much stuff into the atmosphere that the Earth cooled dramatically.  It caused the infamous Year Without A Summer in 1816 in North America and Europe. (There were hard freezes every summer month in Vermont that year, and snow drifted up to 20 inches deep in Danville during early June).

So far, there's no indication that things will get this dire worldwide from the Tonga eruption. One thing that might have helped is the eruption was partly under the sea, which might have contained some of the ash and sulfur.

How much this eruption cools the world, if at all, will also be the amount and combination of ash and sulfur there is.  If it's mostly ash up there, that will rain out of the atmosphere pretty quickly and not have much of an effect. If there's a lot of sulfur, that would have at least a one to two year cooling effect.

Another question is if this volcano has a series of similar explosions like today's a whole bunch more gunk will end up in the stratosphere, which would have a more pronounced effect on the global climate.

Regardless of what happens, this doesn't cancel climate change. It's possible it could slow or even stall climate change temporarily. Then climate change would come roaring back and quickly rise to levels the atmospheric warming would have had without the volcano