Vermont Drought: Effects Are Getting Widespread And Severe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CROPS/LIVESTOCK

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

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

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

FORESTS AND FIRES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WATER SUPPLIES

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

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

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

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

TOURISM

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

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

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

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

OUTLOOK

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trump: Make America Polluted Again

The Trump administration's planned rollback of
emissions standards could reintroduce acid rain,
create more smoggy days and cost us money
Make America Polluted Again! 

 Back in the bad old days in the 1970s and 1980s, the rain and snow coming into Vermont was so acidic from pollution that many of those stunted but old evergreen trees on the highest elevations of the Green Mountains were dying.  

Thanks to 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act that limited nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions, the rain became less acidic. It took years but those high elevation evergreens are recovering nicely. 

The problem isn't entirely solved. Our lakes in Vermont are still acidic, and the pH of the rain is still a little on the low side. But things are definitely better. 

Or maybe not. 

In his infinite wisdom, President Donald Trump wants to aggressively roll back pollution controls. 

Per the Guardian:

"The U.S. could be plunged back into an era of toxic acid rain, an environmental problem thought to have been solved decades ago, due to the Donald Trump administration's rollback of pollution protections, the scientist who discovered the existence of acid rain in North America has warned."

That scientist, Gene Likens, first identified acidic rainwater back in the 1960s.

Likens explained:

"I'm very worried that might happen, it's certainly not impossible that it could happen,' Likens, 90, told the Guardian. Likens is still involved in a long-term monitoring project stretching back to 1976, to sample rainwater for acidity but this program has just had its funding cut by the Trump administration."

Well, of course it has.

The 1990 legislation turned the battle against acid rain into a success story. "If the Trump administration  starts releasing controls on emissions we are going to destroy that success story," Likens said. 

The Guardian tells us what's at stake.

"The plan by the EPA to eliminate or weaken 31 regulations, a move called a 'dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion,' by the agency's administrator, Lee Zeldin, risks many thousands of extra deaths and litany of heart, lung and other illnesses, according to the EPA's own estimates of the rules' benefits."

Overall, Trump has tried to stop clean energy develop and resurrect coal, which is the dirtiest of fossil fuels. 

Coal was one of the biggest culprits in causing acid rain. Although Trump wants a lot of coal plants, market forces might not allow Trump's dream of coal burning industries everywhere. 

Much of Trump's agenda is just to make his billionaire friends even richer. But MAGA also has an anti-intellectual mindset that thinks anyone who is quote, unquote "smart" as suspect. 

"There's a viewpoint now that scientists are the bad guys, that the science is corrupt - things that just aren't true"," said Richard Peltier, an environmental scientist at the University of Massachusetts.

AUTO EMISSIONS

A big centerpiece of Trump's anti-environment agenda is to roll back auto emissions standards. Which of course leads to more air pollution. That wouldn't be the only thing we'd suffer. 

Like Trump's tariffs, the emissions standards rollback could well cost you and me even more money, as Fast Company reports. 

Chris Harto, a senior policy analyst at Consumer Reports who focuses on energy efficiency, explains it to Fast Company which wrote: 

"Under Biden the EPA enacted the emissions standard and the Department of Transportation enacted fuel economy standards. Both help clean up combustion vehicles -and both are in Trump's crosshairs, as the standards were created in coordination with each other. Making vehicles more efficient, Harto explains, comes with the 'very fortunate side benefit of making the vehicles cheaper to fuel.'

Those combined rules, a Consumer Reports analysis found, would delivery more than $2 trillion in consumer fuel savings by 2050. 'That's a massive amount of money that's at stake,' Harto says." 

We all want to save money, but we really do need to circle back to air pollution, and perhaps even more importantly, climate change. 

Fast Company again: 

"Speaking to reporters, Trump said that the new auto emissions standards don't 'mean a damn bit of difference for the environment but 'make it impossible for people to build cars.'

Harto contests both claims. The Consumer Reports analysis also found that by 2050, the auto emissions standards would reduce pollution by 12 billion tons. 'It's the single most impactful piece of climate regulation that the U.S, has even put in place,' he said."

 But, of course the Trump team is MAPA: Make American Polluted Again.

 

Hurricane Helene Decimated North Carolina Forests, Too

The forest basically collapsed around this house
in mountainous western North Carolina during
the winds of Hurricane Helene in September.

As we well know, the extreme flooding from Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina is one of the worst and deadliest disasters the United States has seen in years. 

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has recently said the total damage estimate in the state is so far up to $53 billion, very likely the most expensive disaster in the state's history. 

Almost all the damage was obviously due to floods and landslides. 

But I've been struck by the images I've seen of the destruction to forests in western North Carolina.  Heavy rain often extends far inland after a hurricane comes ashore, though this is an extreme example.  But wins from a hurricane usually diminish pretty quickly after a hurricane makes landfall.

The area of western North Carolina is very roughly 400 miles from where Helene made landfall near Perry, Florida.  Still, the wind damage up in the mountains near Asheville was incredible. 

As Fox Weather Reports: 

"The North Carolina Forest Service has completed an aerial damage assessment of forest lands across western North Carolina and the losses are staggering. 

The surveyors estimate 822,000 acres of timberland were damaged or destroyed across more than a dozen counties during Helene, with McDowell County hit particularly hard. All told, the NC Forest Service estimates damage to the state's timber at $214 million."

With all those trees down, there's new hazards that can afflict the mountains of western North Carolina. 

As television station WYFF in Greenville, South Carolina reports: 

"With the loss of such a large portion of the ecosystem in the area, officials said this can cause several negative effects including: The threat of wildfire due to increased fuel levels, loss of vital wildlife habitat, impacts on watershed health and the higher potential for invasive species to thrive."

Plus, you can't just play pick up sticks and remove all the fallen trees. There's too many. It's hard enough just clearing the mess from mountain back roads and remote driveways and hiking trails. 

WHY THE INLAND WIND

 The rapid forward movement of Helene probably helped preserve the storm's strong winds well inland. And the high elevations likely captured the strong winds better than valleys, as a dying hurricane often maintains its high winds aloft better than near the surface. 

The mountains were high enough to be exposed to those upper level winds. While valleys were comparatively calm, the mountains were being blasted by 80 to 100 mph winds. 

Former hurricanes can hang on to their wind energy well inland, especially as these interact with other weather systems. 

And yes, the chances are low, but here in Vermont we can lose much of our forests if the wrong hurricane takes the wrong path. 

It's happened before, in the Great New England hurricane of 1938. The Category 3 hurricane came ashore on Long Island and near New Haven, Connecticut and moved rapidly northwestward from about Brattleboro to Burlington. 

Its fast forward speed, and the fact that its winds were most intense over and east of the center decimated Vermont sugar bushes. Some estimates say half of Vermont's' maple trees blew over or were uprooted.

We even had a mini-instance this past summer of a former hurricane trekking inland and raising havoc with Vermont's trees.  

Hurricane Debby made landfall near Steinhatchee, Florida before dawn on August 5. Its remnants moved northeastward through central New York and clipped the northwest corner of Vermont on August 9. We were just in the correct spot for the Debby remains to transfer its remaining strong winds aloft down to the surface, especially in the  Champlain Valley.

Winds gusted past 60 mph, causing quite a lot of tree, power line and even structural damage. 

NORTH CAROLINA'S SETUP

The North Carolina Forest Service said most of the damage appears to be from what looked like downbursts or microbursts. That might be a symptom of intense upper level winds being "grabbed" by either topography or thunderstorms embedded in the overall wind field.

The topography of mountainous western North Carolina helped contribute to the areas of worst damage. 

Per the Washington Post:

"The same rugged topography that sent floodwaters racing through valleys compounded the wind's destructive power. Ridges acted like walls to a funnel, allowing winds to concentrate and strengthen. As they hit east-facing slopes, they were then pushed uphill, accelerating as they converged at the top of each peak."

Intense hurricane winds are almost unheard of as far inland as the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. So trees there evolved in such a way that they don't tolerate such intense winds. They're not like pine forests near the hurricane-prone coasts, which are rooted in ways to brace their roots so they don't pull up. The pine branches and trunks are flexible so they often bend but not break in hurricane winds. 

The broad deciduous tree leaves in the mountains each act like little sails, pulling the tree in the winds until it topples. Those coastal pine trees have needles that don't catch the wind so much. 

The blasted forests of North Carolina might well be the longest lasting legacy of Helene.  It'll probably take a few years to patch up all the roads, rebuild homes and businesses that can be rebuilt, and for life to return to some semblance of normal.

But it will take decades to regrow the hardest hit forests. Many people living there will never again fully see the forests that had been part of their lives for decades.

 Videos:

First video is an interview of a woman whose family huddled in their high elevation house above Asheville, North Carolina as almost the entire forest around them blew down within an hour and a half. In the video, it's interesting to see that depending on which way the hillsides face, the forest destruction was either  complete or minor.

 In this video, it looks like wind got momentum going downhill,  kind of like the damaging downslope winds we sometimes see in Vermont on the western slopes of the Green Mountains. 

Very luckily, the trees fell in such a way that the house miraculously suffered only minor damage. Click on this link to watch and hear the wild story, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Drone footage by Aaron Rigsby via AccuWeather shows areas of terrible forest destruction in North Carolina next to areas of beautiful autumn foliage. The video taken on October 22 shows the capriciousness of the timber damage in the western Carolina mountains. Again, click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

More excellent aerial shots by Aaron Rigsby. Click on this link or if you see the image below, click on that. 

 

The Ultimate Perfect Vermont Spring Saturday Leading Toward A Near Perfect Spring Week

Brilliant blue skies, new leaves on the trees. It was 
impossible to not absolutely love the spring 
weather in Vermont on Saturday. 

 In my 60-year life so far in Vermont I'm hard pressed to recall a spring day as perfect and quintessential as Saturday.   

All the boxes were checked.  The sky was a brilliant blue.  The temperature was perfect, rising into the low 70s. 

 A nice breeze came up, helping to keep the black flies at bay and making the hundreds of daffodils around my house dance in the sunshine. 

We are also in what I regard as peak foliage season.  Most people gawk in awe at our autumn foliage. Me included. 

But my favorite Vermont foliage season comes in May, when the forests are erupting with new green leaves. There are too many subtle shades of green in these newly blossoming leaves to count. The way the new leaves glisten in the sun is almost too much to bear.

Let's just say yesterday's weather put me in a really, really really good mood. 

Nothing in life is perfect, but yesterday, and the coming week will be almost as close as you can get. I did note some clouds blocking the sun in parts of southern Vermont and the Adirondacks yesterday, but it was still nice. 

A St. Albans, Vermont garden glistens in the warm sun
on Saturday, May 6. 

Starting today and going through the week, it won't necessarily be crystal clear out there all the time, but the weather will remain absolutely stunning. And peak foliage will continue, augmented by apple, crab apple and lilac blooms that are starting to burst forth. 

We'll see some clouds creep in this Sunday afternoon, but it will still be a spectacular day. Highs will be about as warm as they were yesterday, near 70. A breeze will develop again, so that will be nice. 

Tonight, a weather disturbance might drop a few light showers across southern Vermont but they won't amount to much. 

Then we'll get hit by a weak "back door" cold front.  It's called that because these come at us from the northeast, instead of the west or northwest like normal cold fronts. Back door cold fronts are most common in the spring. 

Late afternoon sun mixed with speckled shade in a
St. Albans, Vermont garden Saturday. 

I think it's because the North Atlantic is near its coldest point this time of year, so it can cool the atmosphere and send cold fronts our way. 

We'll see almost no rain with it, but you'll definitely notice a cool down. 

Nothing dramatic or scary, but we should barely make it to 60 degrees for highs tomorrow and Tuesday. 

Monday night and Tuesday night will get down into the 30s. So if  you prematurely put out sensitive plants, you might want to think about protecting them.

The sunshine and breezes will continue on Monday through at least Wednesday. 

The next shot at any rain comes Thursday and Friday, but even then, the weather at this point looks as if it will stay mostly beautiful. 

Another Vermont Drought Bummer: Very Hungry Caterpillars Defoliating Forests

A large patch of defoliated trees on a hill near my 
house in St Albans, Vermont. Gypsy moth caterpillars
are laying waste to stretches of forest in the state
this year. Dry weather is partly to blame for 'the
resurgence of this pest.

 Especially if you're in the Champlain Valley, you've probably noticed it.

Big patches of normally green hillsides are brown and leafless. Or, if you're particularly unlucky, the trees in your yard are getting devoured and caterpillars are pooping all over you if you step outside.  

They're gypsy moth caterpillars, and they're causing the biggest defoliation in Vermont since 1991.

The dry weather this year is largely to blame. So yeah, another problem created by drought or near-drought. 

A happy fungus took hold in Vermont in the early 1990s that goes after gypsy moth caterpillars, keeping them in check. If you have a succession of soggy springs and early summers, you still get those little hungry buggers, but they are reduced and number and the trees and forests stay more or less intact. 

Recent springs have been dry,  especially last year and this year, so the very hungry caterpillars have come roaring back.  

Sure, it rained early this week, which is nice, but that's far too late and too little to do much to encourage that wonderful caterpillar-killing fungus.  (The quarter inch of rain that fell on St. Albans yesterday was less than in other parts of Vermont, helping cement my town as part of the Great Champlain Valley desert).

Even worse, now that the caterpillars are back with a vengeance, they might stick around for a few years. Lots of wet weather this summer and especially next spring and the spring after that would help a lot. 

I know we like bright, sunny spring weather, but I hope spring, 2022 is just one long slog of foggy, drizzly days. 

I've got selfish reasons for that. There's a big patch of defoliated trees on the hill above my house, and it's creeping closer to my property. 

The trees around my house give me a great deal of privacy in the summer, which I love. Plus, some of the trees aren't the healthiest.

Most healthier trees can survive a season or two of defoliation, but ones that already have pre-existing issues often do not. Newly planted trees are also in danger. 

We sure picked the wrong summer to spend lots and lots of cash to plant a nice big river birch in our St Albans yard to replace the willow that blew over in a storm a couple years ago.  Despite lots of watering, it's suffering from the dry weather, and gypsy moth caterpillars love munching on river birch. Sigh. 

The gypsy moth caterpillars will wrap up their destruction  later this summer, but who knows how many years this problem will last before that wonderful fungus can gain the upper hand?

It's not just us having this problem, by the way. Parts of Ontario, Quebec, Wisconsin and New York, among other places, are having a battle royale with the caterpillars. 

If you have some prized trees, there are only a few things you can do about the problem. You can wrap burlap around the base of trees so egg masses are laid there instead of in the tree.  Then later on, you can remove the burlap and destroy the egg masses. Putting caterpillars and their egg masses into soapy water kills them. 

Experts say the Great Vermont Gypsy Moth Caterpillar Munchathon will continue for about another month before it wanes.  Those buggers will turn into moths, then regroup to torture us next year.