lt's Flash Flood Season In Much Of the U.S. No Big Threats In Vermont - Yet

Damage from flash flooding near Hinesburg, Vermont
in July, 2024. We're now entering prime flash flood
season, and Vermonters still have some PTSD from
the floods of the last three summers. Very slight 
chance of some local flash floods Wednesday night
in Vermont, but no big threats ---yet

Summer is the season of flash floods in the United States.

Such floods can happen anytime of year, of course. But summer, with its slow moving and/or intense thunderstorms, is the prime season. 

Sunday night, a flash flood emergency was declared in and around Huntsville, Alabama, where people had to be plucked from flooded cars. Water also got into several homes. 

We're already seeing some pretty big flash floods this week.  On Monday, rain fell at a rate of up to four inches per hour around Joplin, Missouri, and some people had to be rescued from inundated cars. Fox Weather reports. Downtown Seneca, Missouri was also flooded out. 

Flash flooding was reported in Texas, too.

Overnight, severe storms prompted flash flood warnings in central Kansas, where up to 5.5 inches of rain fell and another one to two inches was expected. Parts of the southeastern U.S. and Tennessee Valley are at risk for flash floods today.  

For Wednesday night, NOAA's Weather Prediction Center added a marginal risk for flash flooding in northern New York, all but far southern Vermont and northern New Hampshire. 

The agency said very humid air and a weather disturbance cold cause some instances of local flash flooding. 

Local meteorologists and myself are not too worried about flash flooding tomorrow and tomorrow night. We could easily see some gully washer downpours, but serious flooding looks doubtful. 

Most of us will get a half inch or less of rain Wednesday through Thursday. That doesn't scream "flooding."  But, thunderstorms could dump much more than that in small, localized areas.

Still, this is Vermont, and we have a long history of flash flooding. Our steep terrain in many areas encourages water to rush out of the hills during torrential rains. Climate change has raised the stakes, as downpours in a warmer world tend to be more intense. Warmer air can hold more water. That water can get released in the right conditions. 

Those "right conditions" in Vermont led to severe, destructive and deadly summertime flash floods in 2023 and 2024. Less extensive but still severe flash floods hit parts of the Northeast Kingdom last summer.

As a result, we're all gun shy and a little bit PTSD-wracked when it comes to flash flood risks across the Green Mountain State. Tis the season to keep a close eye on weather forecasts around here, especially if it's really humid and threatening to storm. 

 

Vermont's Damp, Chilly Start To May Is No Match For Past May New England Nightmares

Only the briefest breaks in the clouds yesterday as 
clouds billowed up to produce showers. 
Highs were only in the low 50s and chilly 
breezes made it worse. We face daily rain
chances tomorrow through next weekend. 

 We've gotten ourselves into a weather pattern share in New England in which clouds predominant and rain is an almost constant threat. 

But if you're slightly depressed about the weather, it can get a lot worse this time of year. More on that in a minute. 

We're only into the third day of May, and it hasn't been all that bad yet. Sure, yesterday was sort of unpleasant, with clouds, chilly breezes and on and off light showers. 

The next couple of days don't look terrible. But rain is coming back, and after a brief warm up, chilly weather and rain will be back. 

DETAILS

Today:

The only day in the near future I see without a rain threat seems to be today.  Morning clouds should dissolve into at least a partly sunny day. Highs should get into the 50s, which is a little cool for this time of year. 

Monday

A weak warm front tomorrow morning might set off a few light showers, mostly north and west. The rest of the day looks pretty good again under partly sunny skies and highs in the seasonable low 60s. Southwest breezes might occasionally help keep the black flies at bay. They're terrible this year! But I guess the black flies are horrendous every spring. 

Tuesday

A warmer and eventually wetter day.  The southwest breezes should continue and highs should rise into the low 70s. We also having a rising chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. I'm not sure yet whether any of thunderstorms will become strong, but the chances of a lot of severe thunderstorms is looking quite low.

Wednesday 

A slow moving cold front will keep us rainy and much cooler again. Highs should stay in the 50s.  This could change but rainfall totals Tuesday night to Wednesday night look like they might be a decent half inch to an inch. Nothing incredible, but we actually need the rain, so we'll take what we can get. 

Thursday and Beyond

Starting Thursday and continuing for perhaps several days, we're back to annoying weather. We probably won't have much rain Thursday and next weekend. Unless a nor'easter type storm comes closer to Vermont than we now think it will. 

But there will be an ever-present chance of showers, we will probably have a fair amount of clouds and temperatures will definitely be cooler than average for this time of year. 

IT COULD BE WORSE

The unsettled weather pattern has be thinking about past bouts of bad May weather. Just because I like to prove that if you're a little peeved about the weather, it could definitely be worse. 

1917

The coldest May on record. Only two days that month were warmer than 63 degrees. Nowadays, at least, in our climate changed world, normal May highs in Burlington range from 64 degrees on the 1st to 74 degrees on the 31st. 

The coldest it got that month was 32 degrees, which actually isn't that bad for May, but 18 mornings were in the 30s.  On eight days in May, 1917, temperatures in Burlington never got out of the 40s. 

1966

It's a tight battle, but my vote for the worst May on record in the past several decades is 1966. There were  series of bad Mays in the 1960s - cold, frosty, sometime snowy. But 1966 is probably the most miserable. Especially the first half. 

In Burlington, each morning from the May 1 through 15, 1966 were in the 20s and 30s. Eleven of those mornings were below freezing. That includes a low of 24 degrees on May 3, still the coldest temperature on record for May. It was 15 degrees in West Burke, 18 in Bloomfield and Chelsea and 19 in Cavendish, according to the Vermont Weather Book. 

On May 9, Burlington had 3.5 inches of snow, which is still the city's largest May snowstorm on record. Peru, Vermont had 11 inches of snow that day,  Newport had 5.2 inches. 

The second half of May, 1966 was better, with four days actually making it into the low 80s. 

1997

The most depressing May that I can remember clearly was in 1997.  There really weren't any temperature extremes, but we could just not get a warm day.  The temperature never got past 70 degrees until the 28th. May, 1997 is still the 10th coldest on record, 

 I remember the trees not fully leafing out until we got into June that year. Spring, 1997 was especially depressing because April was quite cold, too, 

2013

May, 2013 was actually pretty nice until we got toward the end of the month. Burlington had more than an inch of rain on four consecutive days on May 22-25.  May 21 came close to making it five days with 0.96 inches. I don't think there's any wetter stretch of weather than that on record. A whopping 7.39 inches of rain fell within six days.

The month's total was 8.74 inches, making it the wettest May on record. 

The first part of this wet spell was warm, with torrential thunderstorms. Those storms caused some damaging flash flooding in eastern Chittenden and Lamoille County, Vermont. 

A cold front passed and stalled to the east of Vermont, causing heavy snow in the mountains. Three feet of snow covered the summit of Whiteface Mountain in New York. The summit of Mount Mansfield had 13.2 inches, the latest in the season the mountain has gotten a foot of snow.

Nothing extreme like that is in the forecast for now. I guess we're blessed this May looks like it will just turn out mediocre. 

 

The Most Iconic Photos Of U.S. Tornadoes And The Stories Behind The Images

This photo is regarded as the first photo
taken of a tornado. It was in April, 1884 in
Garnett, Kansas. Photo by A.A Adams

Tornado season is ramping up. Every year, we get dramatic photos and videos of the tornadoes that show their power, their terror, sometimes their horrible beauty. You just hope nobody got hurricanes in all the chaos. 

Over the years, some tornadoes create iconic images that last forever and are referenced by experts, whether geeks and others as incredibles bits of history. 

Here are some of the most iconic images of tornadoes over the years. 

FIRST PHOTOGRAPH

There are many candidates vying for the first photograph of a tornado ever taken.  Almost all of those candidates have been proven to be fakes, or so altered that they really don't depict what was going on.

But one widely recognized photo is considered the first one. It shows a long, skinny funnel extending out at an angle from a dark cloud. It looks like a tornado that's "roping out." That means the tornado is beginning to dissipate. It stretches out and gets narrow until it falls apart. 

Unlike other supposed first tornado photos, this one taken by a fruit farmer named. A.A Adams makes sense. The clouds look like they would in a "normal" tornado, not some idealized version of one. The tornado hit Garnett, Kansas on April 26, 1884. It damaged some homes and barns and supposedly carried a man and his wagon through the air, injuring him. 

This doesn't mean the danger is over. Supercell thunderstorms sometimes cycle tornadoes. One dies, and later on, a new one will develop.

I don't know if that's the case with this one. 

Worcester, Massachusetts, June 9, 1953:

The Worcester County, Massachusetts
tornado on June 9, 1953

The statistics on this tornado are incredible: 94 people were killed, 1,288 were inured. At least 4,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. The tornado was up to a mile wide and plowed through 45 miles of central Massachusetts. Debris from the tornado was thrown as far away as Cape Cod. It was easily the worst tornado in New England history. 

This was a Midwest style, highly destructive wedge tornado. It looked very much like the famous 2013 EF-5 in the Oklahoma City area, and not something that could ever happen in New England. But it did. 

The photo is striking because you see that classic Plains wedge shaped twister with an equally classic looking large New England farmhouse in the foreground. The dichotomy between the tornado and the house its incredibly striking

The photo, taken by Henry LaPrade, also shows the classic wall cloud/mesoscale supporting the tornado from above.  

As bad as Worcester tornado was, it was even the whole story.  The day before Worcester was hit, he  same storm system created an F5 tornado that devastated the northern part of Flint, Michigan and the suburb of Beecher, killing 116 people and injuring 844. A photograph of the Flint tornado is eerily similar to the Worcester tornado pictured here. 

1953 was a horrible tornado year. Earlier that spring, on May 11, another powerful tornado swept through Waco, Texas, killing 114 people

Goshen, Indiana, April 11, 1965

The double tornado image taken during the Palm Sunday
Tornado outbreak in 1965. This was in Goshen
Indiana. Photo by Paul Huffman. 

This one is from the Palm Sunday tornado outbreak on April 11, 1965. This double tornado was photographed by Paul Huffman in Goshen, Indiana. 

Huffman worked at the Elkhart Indiana Truth, the local paper. That day, he was driving down Route 33 with his wife when the saw a towering black cloud. At first they thought it was a fire.

They then realized it was a tornado. Huffman never left the house without his camera, so he pulled it out, went outside the car and starting taking pictures. Huffman kept himself steady in the intenser winds by swinging his leg around his car's bumper.

Hid photo, including the famous double tornado image  and others he took that day, are at this link. 

Judging from his other photos, I'm not 100 percent convinced he photographed two tornadoes. Intense tornadoes often have multiple vortices within them. Essentially tornadoes within tornadoes. It looks like the photo captured two intense vortices within the parent tornado. 

Huffman, however, the storm contained two distinct funnels as it went through, so I can't be sure what happened. 

This tornado moved on to blast through a mobile home park. Later that day, a second intense tornado would go through the same mobile home park.  Thirty-three people died in that mobile home park. Huffman also took heartrending photos of rescuers trying to help the injured in the immediate aftermath of the tornado, 

It was part of the large Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1965, one of the worst in modern history. Around 50 tornadoes killed 271 people and injured more than 3,500.  Indiana was hardest hit, and the tornado outbreak is still the worst in Indiana history. 

Topeka, Kansas, June 8, 1966

One of Perry Riddle's photos showing people fleeing
a Topeka, Kansas F5 tornado in 1966.

Up until this time, this was the most expensive tornado on record for the U.S. The F5 twister  cut though the heart of Topeka, damaging much of downtown, including the dome of the State House. More than 800 homes were destroyed and 3,000 damaged. 

The tornado caused more than $200 million in damages, in 1966 dollars. That would be more than $2 billion in 2026 dollars. 

Seventeen people lost their lives in the process. The photo to me is iconic a it shows what appears to be a Midwestern family scrambling for shelter, with the large, black tornado looming behind them. The shadows cast by the clouds and the tornado almost turn the family into silhouettes, making the image all the more foreboding. 

The photo was taken by Perry Riddle as people ran for cover into the Countryside United Methodist Church at 3221 SW Burlingame Road. I was unable to determine whether the tornado hit the church, but the lean of the tornado funnel suggests that it missed that location. 

Riddle took numerous photos of the tornado from that church parking lot, and they are amazingly high quality, especially for 1966.  You can see the other photos in the second half of a YouTube video at this link. 

Xenia, Ohio, April 3, 1974.

Terrifying image of an F5 tornado tearing through
Xenia, Ohio in April, 1974. Image the hour inside
that black maelstrom

The massive tornado here was part of the Super Outbreak of 1974, which was the worst swarm of tornadoes in American history until the next Super Outbreak in April, 2011. 

The outbreak produced 148 tornadoes in the 13 states and Ontario, Canada.  Thirty of them were F4s or F5s, the strongest type. The outbreak caused 335 direct fatalities and injured 6,000 people.

Probably the worst tornado in the outbreak struck Xenia, a city of about 25,000 people in southwest Ohio.  This one reminds me of the Joplin, Missouri tornadoes years later, as both cut through the heart of a small city. In both cases the tornadoes reached maximum strength while cutting through the middle of the communities.  

The photo was taken by Fred Stewart, the public information director at Greene Memorial Hospital. He was also a photography buff. He took the photo through a window on the second floor stairwell at the hospital. The window looked out over the Pinecrest Gardens neighborhood of Xenia

The following information comes from the April 6 1974 edition of the Xenia Daily Gazette. 

"'It looked like it was going to come straight to the hospital,' he said. 'But then it veered off and hit Pinecrest Gardens. The air was filled with debris. I shot four frames before I headed back to the basement.'

 The photo is terrifying as you know just beyond the parking lot, in that black maw of a terrifying tornado, death and ruin is raining down on that neighborhood. 

Makes me sad every time I see the photo. 

 Fridley,  Minnesota, July 18, 1986

Screen shot of a Minnesota tornado filmed from a
traffic helicopter in 1986.

This wasn't exactly the most notable or extreme tornado. But it was the start of a media trend in which video cameras were becoming much more portable, easier to use, and allowed for more daring storm chasing. 

That day, a traffic helicopter with KARE in Minneapolis was able to follow a tornado in Brooklyn Park and Fridley, about 15 miles north of Minneapolis. It is the first known, widely distributed video of a tornado taken from the air. 

The footage was dramatic, with the tornado yanking trees out of the woods and flinging them far outside the twister. It's still one of the more dramatic tornado videos out there. Which is saying something considering we're now in the age of drones and remote videos that can really uncover some amazing tornado image. 

This particular tornado was rated an F2, and damaged a few dozen buildings. 

Andover, Kansas, April 26, 1991

Image is a little fuzzy because it's a screen grab from a 
video, but Duke Evans' video of an EF-5 tornado
in Andover, Kansas was considered the best video
up until its time of a powerful tornado.
The twister passed just behind that row of houses.
The occupants had to be terrified.

Affordable camcorders had become popular in by around 1990, allowing far more people to easily film and share footage of events. That included tornadoes  near tornadoes. 

On April 26, 1991, a tornado outbreak in the central United States produced at least 55 tornadoes, resulting in 21 deaths. The most powerful and destructive of the tornadoes was an F-5, the strongest kind, in Andover, Kansas. 

Duke Evans took out his camcorder and filmed more the six minutes of the Andover tornado's rampage. At the tine it was considered the highest quality tornado footage ever produced. I imagine the film was studies by many tornado experts and in meteorology classrooms everywhere. 

The most terrifying part of the video is when it goes just behind a row of houses. If anyone was in those houses huddling in a closet or basement, the screaming roar of the tornado must have shaken them to their bones. 

Since then, now that we're in the age of everyone having a camera phone, it seems almost every tornado is well documented. But Evans' was the first in a cottage industry: America's Most Terrifying Tornado. 

We'll revisit Andover and another tornado later in this post. 

Jarrell, Texas, May 21, 1997

The Jarrell, Texas tornado as it was developing.
Multiple vortices - mini tornadoes within the main
tornado are visible, giving a dead man walking
looks to the storm, The tornado became extremely
powerful and essentially stalled over a subdivision
killing 17 people 

This was a tragic, weird and largely unexpected F5 tornado that hit the community of Jarrell, Texas. Although some severe thunderstorms were forecast that day, nobody expected a powerhouse twister like this one in the community about 40 miles north of Austin. 

The photo of the tornado is called "Dead Man Walking" and you can see why. The photo was taken while the tornado was rapidly powering up to it F5 status. 

As I mentioned above in the Palm Sunday, 1965 piece, powerful tornadoes often have multiple vortices. Essentially tornadoes spinning within the parent tornado. 

The photo was taken by Scott Beckwith as he stood outside the building housing his employer, Jarrell Farm Supply. 

He caught the beginning stages of the tornado, when it began as a narrow, almost harmless looking rope, to the Dead Man Walking photo that because famous. 

Knowing what happened after the photo was taken, the tornado with its vortices inside it really looks  a sort of grim reaper heading toward a neighborhood to take a lot of lives.

Which is precisely what this tornado did.  It headed slowly southwestward, the opposite direction of most tornadoes. 

A typical tornado's forward speed is about 20 mph and can be 50 mph or more in some instances. The powerful F5 tornado then did the worst thing possible. It essentially stalled over the Double Creek Estates Subdivision. It sat there crawling forward ever so slowly through  the subdivision, with its 260 mph winds, for three minutes. 

The people in the subdivision's houses never stood a chance. 

The winds were so strong, and lasted so long, that every piece of several homes was swept completely away from foundations and ground to small pieces. Some construction material was pulverized down to dust. Asphalt was lifted off the street and blown away. Cars blew half a mile or more away from where they had been parked. 

The destruction was arguably the most extreme of any tornado seen in the United States. 

Tuscaloosa, Alabama, April 27, 2011

The Tuscaloosa, Alabama tornado of April 27, 2011 seemed
to have tentacles coming out of it 

While many years since 1974 had more than the usual number of tornadoes, it seemed the days when tornadoes killed several hundred people in a single year seemed in the past. Then came 2011.  That year, 553 people died in U.S. tornadoes. Only the year 1925 had more tornado deaths.  

Many of these deaths occurred in what I'd call the Super Duper Tornado outbreak of April 25-28. 2011. This one far outdid the famous 1974 Super Outbreak with tragic results. 

According to the Weather Channel:

"An incredible 349 tornadoes were spawned in just 72 hours April 25-28, according to NOAA. While the Deep South - Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee - bore the brunt o fit, tornadoes tore through parts of 21 states from Texas to central New York. 

According to the Iowa Environmental Mesonet, 929 tornado warnings were issued by 44 different National Weather Service offices from April 25-29."

Also, 199 tornadoes occurred on just one day - April 27. The normal amount of tornadoes in the U.S. during the entire month of April is 194. 

The Tuscaloosa, Alabama tornado during this outbreak really stands out. It wasn't the strongest of the outbreak as there were four EF-5 tornadoes and the Tuscaloosa storm was "only" an EF-4 with top winds of ???

This tornado claimed 65 lives along an 80-mile path from Greene County, Alabama, through Tuscaloosa  and into the northern suburbs of Birmingham, the Weather Channel notes. Despite the very high death toll, the fact that this powerful tornado rolled through such high populated areas speaks well to the warnings from the National Weather Service and local television stations.

A fascinating aspect of the visuals on this tornado were the horizontal vortices wrapping around the tornado. You see that sometimes in the most ferocious tornadoes. It always makes me think these tornado are sentient monsters with tentacles trying to pick people off the streets. 

Joplin, Missouri, May 22, 2011

The view out a van window as their occupants were trying
desperately to flee the EF-5 Joplin, Missouri tornado in
2011. If you click on the photo to make it bigger and
if you look closely, you can see the tornado looming
just a very short distance away 

The horrible tornado season of 2011 wasn't done after the Super Duper Outbreak. On May 22, 2011, an EF-5 tornado slammed through Joplin, Missouri, a city of about 50,000 in southwest Missouri. 

The tornado killed 161 people, making if the deadliest tornado since 1953 and the nations seventh deadliest on record. 

The tornado also showed what a monster tornado can look like, and how it can give people who are used to big storms a false sense of security. 

The tornado was wrapped in rain, and just looked like a big ugly black cloud approaching. It seemed to be a nasty storm looming, for sure, but not the cataclysm it turned out to be.

There's a haunting must-see YouTube video taken from inside a van with several knowledgeable storm chasers inside. They know that black mass looming behind the buildings they are passing is a highly dangerous tornado. The van load of storm chasers know they have to get out of the way very quickly or they will be hit and quite possibly killed by the twister.

Their escape is hindered by people keeping to routines as if death was not looming in that black cloud. 

The notes on the YouTube video say:

"It is interesting to note that many drivers on the road were completely oblivious to the sirens, and were driving and texting on their cellphones instead of observing the approaching tornado and trying to get out of its path. Most of us felt sick afterwards, but it actually sank in a few hours/days later as we really had no idea what was actually happening in Joplin."

Part of the reason the video is so haunting is because many of the buildings that the van drove past were reduced to ruins moments later. Subsequent videos of the aftermath proved that.  

 The people in the van are increasingly panicked as the tornado closes in,  but they manage to get onto Interstate 44 and speed away from the twister in the nick of time. 

That photo of the black mawing mass looming over Joplin still gives me chills.  

Andover, Kansas, April 29, 2022

An incredible still from a wild video taken via drone
and produced by famed storm chaser Reed Timmer

Just three days after the 31st anniversary of the immense tornado of 1991, Andover, Kansas was struck again. And like the earlier tornado, new technology offered a stunning fresh look at the power of a twister. 

This one was an EF-3 when destroyed several homes and damaged other buildings. The tornado was on he ground for 21 minutes and tracked 12.8 miles. 

But the dry stats on this tornado don't give nearly the amazing vision of what tornadoes can do. Prominent tornado chaser Reed Timmer incredibly captured the tornado ripping up houses from a drone he launched nearby. 

The resulting video from Timmer is absolutely jaw dropping. The best footage is at the beginning as the well-lit tornado pulls roofs from a series of houses in the neighborhood. At one moment, the roofs of three adjacent houses lift off simultaneously. A white snow of insulation fills the air, as does a maelstrom of boards, roofing material and other debris. 

Just incredible what a tornado can do, especially when viewed from the air 

 Crystal Lake/Gary, South Dakota, June 28, 2025

The "Dancing Tornado" in Gary, South Dakota last year

This one is called the dancing tornadoes. Tornadoes come in all kinds of shapes and sizes: Funnels, wedges, stovepipes, ropes, drill bits, you get the picture. Individual tornadoes also change their shapes during their lifetime.  

This one in South Dakota last year was a real shapeshifter.  It starts out with a classic stovepipe shape. Then in quickly turned into a rope, which is usually a sign a tornado is about to dissipate. 

But this time, the rope thicken again. And for the lack of a better description, the ropey tornado danced. Sort of wiggled as it moved across the countryside.

Click this link to view the dancing tornado.

As cool and interesting as this tornado was, it wasn't all fun and games. It was an EF-3 twister, with wind speeds of 155 to 165 mph. It traveled nearly ten miles, damage several properties. A farm house, garage, two machine sheds, a barn and grain bins were completely destroyed. A half ton pickup truck was hurled 300 yards.

South Dakota gets plenty of tornadoes but not many are as strong as the "dancing tornado." Statistics show South Dakota had 1,931 twisters between 1950 and 2024 but only 75 of those were EF-3 or greater. 

We're not getting into the heart of tornado season. There's already been plenty of horrifying and wild photos and videos of tornadoes and their aftermaths this year. And unfortunately for the victims of these storms, there's more tornado pictures coming over the next several weeks 

 

Montpelier, Vermont Has Systems To Prevent Ice Jams

The ice jam that caused the devastating flood in downtown
Montpelier in 1992 The city has now created measures
to prevent this from happening again

Ice jams are cropping up in Vermont and surrounding areas of the North Country, threatening abrupt floods as the ice dams up rivers swollen by melting snow. 

Montpelier, Vermont has a rough history with ice jams. In 1992, an ice jam formed along the Winooski River, which runs through the city. Water backed up and flooded virtually all of downtown Montpelier causing millions of dollars in damage.

This is easily one of the most dangerous ice jam seasons in years. A particularly cold winter allowed ice to form thick, strong sheets over the rivers. 

An abrupt and strong March thaw is rapidly melting the snow. That in turn is swelling the rivers and breaking up the ice.  A slower, more gradual thaw would have weakened the river ice, reducing the chances big chunks would pile up against obstacles to form dams.

But here we are. Montpelier, though, has a bunch of ice jam prevention plans and gizmos set up to avoid a repeat of 1992. Or a repeat of the summer of 2023 for that matter, when another flood trashed downtown Montpelier.

This all started in January, as it has every year since 2013 in Montpelier. Since the beginning of the year, the city has discharged treated wastewater into the Winooski River at three locations. That water is around 42 degrees, so it weakens ice in the river and creates channels where water a freely flow, as WPTZ reports. 

=The city has deployed a long-reach excavator to help move ice downstream if it starts jamming up in Montpelier, said Kurt Motyka, the city's public works director. 

So far, there are no reports of ice jam trouble in or near Montpelier during this warm spell. Other areas as of early this afternoon still have ice jams. I was up in Enosburg late this afternoon and, if anything, the ice jam near Boston Post Road is getting a little worse. 

A lot more ice chunks were coming down from upstream and adding to the jam. The jam started moving while I was there, but then stalled again after moving about 100 yards downstream. These things are unpredictable and things change near ice jams in an instant. 

Which is why Montpelier has invested so much in battling ice jams. 

New York Mayor Gets High Marks For Handling Snowstorm; Politicians In History, Not So Much

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, right
seen shoveling snow during this week's winter
storm. Many mayors have gotten in trouble
through inept handling of such storms, but
Mamdani got high marks in how he managed
his first big winter storm as mayor. 

 New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani hasn't been in office for quite a month yet. And he's already faced down a problem that has quickly ended or at least trashed the careers of many big city mayors: A winter storm. 

John Lindsay, Michael Bloomberg, and Bill DeBlasio all caught heat, so to speak, for their handling of New York City snowstorms. Mayors of other cities have flailed in the snow, too.     

This weekend's storm dumped nearly a foot of snow and sleet on the Big Apple 

It looks like the brand new mayor of the Big Apple survived his first test. 

Mamdani is a master of communication, judging for a video he released to social media on Saturday, the day before the storm. 

There he was in a sanitation department garage, with all the garbage trucks all retrofitted to become snow trucks. The video was professional produced, complete with optimistic background music, and skillful editing. 

The city deployed 2,000 workers on 12 hours shifts. The city sent out 700 salt spreaders and over 2,000 plows 

Mamdani also made sure he was seen in public monitoring the storm, even helping people shovel out on occasion. He held press conferences to provide updates. He made sure he was the public face of the New York storm, and messaged that he was on top of it. 

Stateandcityny.com tells us

"From the early hours of Sunday morning to well into the evening, Mamdani traversed the city, shoveling snow, greeting and thanking sanitation workers, posing for photo ops, providing updates via television interviews and hosting a news conference."

The New York Times headline was "Mamdani Clears Early Hurdles as Storm Bears Down On New York."

Even Republicans admitted Mamdami did a good job. "The city did well. There was an abnormal amount of snow and the markets opened up the trains are running, ad the DSNY is rocking and rolling," former Republic City Council Member Joe Borelli said. 

It wasn't perfect. The storm was even colder than most that hit New York City. Temperatures were in the teens to around 20 during the storm, with gusty winds. That made things especially dangerous, especially for people who are unhoused. 

About 170 people were taken off the streets and into shelter prior to and during the storm. However, seven people in New York City died, some of whom had been in homeless shelters in the past. However, it wasn't immediately clear whether the deaths were caused by the cold weather. 

Another less serious issue that had some New Yorkers disliking Mamdani's actions during the storm. They were school children. Instead of canceling school on Monday, the mayor said there would be remote learning from home. 

He said kids could throw snowballs at him if they wanted. 

Another criticism Mamdani received: He was not wearing a hat like he should have in such weather.

So no playing in the snow. But, then again, the snow is still on the ground and will be for quite awhile, as more frigid weather is in the New York City forecast. 

MAYORS SINK IN SNOW

Other mayors saw their careers set back or even destroyed by how they dealt with a winter storm. 

John Lindsay dealt with a February, 1969 storm that was supposed to be mostly rain, but turned into 15 inches of snow. An unprepared and disorganized Lindsay administration couldn't even get major highways open, the subways running and schools open for two days. The storm killed 42 New Yorkers. 

Lindsay lost the next Republican mayoral primary, but ran as a third party candidate and barely won. 

In 2010 Mayor Michael Bloomberg got in trouble for being in Bermuda during a big New York blizzard.  He also blithely said, "This city is going on. It's a day lie every other day," and suggested people go out and shop or enjoy a broadway show. 

This as highways were blocked, subways barely worked and more than 20 inches of snow piled into drifts several feet tall. 

Bloomberg did better with subsequent storms, though. And he wasn't the only politician who got in trouble for going to warming climes when the Arctic invaded the United States.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is still getting ribbed for fleeing to Cancun when a deadly winter storm and freeze hit Texas in 2021. During the storm last weekend, Cruz was seen on a flight bound for Laguna Beach. Cruz said it was a work trip and he's be back in time for the storm. No word if that can to pass. Cruz was also away in Greece when horrific floods hit Texas last July. 

Anyway, back to mayors. 

Sometimes, they can't win. A record deep snowstorm was predicted for New York in January, 2015. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city was bracing for a snowstorm "the likes of which we have never seen before." 

Instead the deep snow stayed on Long Island, and New York City got a measly six inches of new snow, and de Blasio was criticized for hyping things up too much.  He responded by humorously reading aloud for reporters a mocking Onion story with the headline "NYC Mayor: Reconcile Yourselves With Your Good, For All Will Perish In The Tempest."

Other cities have certainly seen mayors lose to snowstorms too. In January, 1979, Chicago Mayor Michael Bilandic botched the effort to clear streets after a 20-inch blizzard. Because of that, he later that month lost the Democratic primary election for mayor to Jane Byrne, who went to to become the first female mayor of major American city. 

Last winter, St. Louis officials came under fierce criticism after a January 5 snow and ice storm left the city's streets resembling skating rinks through the month. City leaders got some redemption with their competent handling of the aftermath of a large, deadly tornado that cut right through St. Louis. 

After this week's far-ranging snowstorm, some mayors are taking the kind of heat they wish could melt the snow instead. Residents of Providence, Rhode Island, Paterson, New Jersey and even to some extent Buffalo, New York are complaining about a slow cleanup.  

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.  

 

Yes, The Vermont Cold Is Awful But It's Been Worse

This little comic work for this month, that's for
sure. But other Decembers in Vermont have
been even worse. 

 I was among many Vermonters last week grumbling over the coldest beginning of December in 36 years.

 It's cold again this Monday morning, and it'll stay cold until a brief, snow and perhaps brief rainy interlude Wednesday. 

Then, we go back into an extended period of cold. 

It's true that this is so far turning out to be the chilliest December in many years. It's disheartening to go outside and have your face hurt, it's so cold. 

Here in St. Albans, it's been days since Henry the Weather Dog, a native of balmy South Texas, has gone exploring and hunting outside like he enjoys. Instead, it's been quick trips outdoors, then a frantic dash back indoors. 

I can't blame the little guy. 

I guess one way to endure the this cold early winter is to understand it could be worse. It has been worse. And I've got plenty of receipts to prove it. 

As usual, I can point to even worse weather in the past. What follow is a fairly exhaustive list of December cold spells that will have you reaching for yet another thick blanket to huddle under. 

Christmas, 1872    

This was perhaps the most brutal Christmas Day Vermont has seen.  As children opened their presents early that morning, it was 40 below in Randolph, 43 b below in Lunenberg, and minus 41.5 degrees in Woodstock.  

December, 1917

The early part of the month was cold, as temperatures went below freezing on the second and failed to get above 32 again until the 19th. After some relatively  mild weather over the Christmas holiday, the bottom really dropped out of the temperature in the days leading up to New Yoears' 

The high temperature in Burlington on December 29 was 16 below, at 12:01 a.m. From there temperatures kept dropping down to as low as 23 below. Next morning, it was 25 below, and rose all the way to 13 below on the afternoon of the 30th.  It stayed well below zero until New Year's Dauy

Over in St. Johnsbury, the cold was even more insane during December, 2017. The "appetizer" cold waves earlier in the month were bad enough. It was 12 below that year on December 12; then 26 below on December 12 and a frigid 29 below on December 16. 

But the cold on the final days of the month in St. Johnsbury were beyond ridiculous. It was 43 below on December 30. By New Year's Eve, it had warmed up to a balmy 40 below. 

December, 1933

Nobody thought it could get colder in Vermont than Christmas week, 1917, but they were proven wrong in December, 1933.

The month as a whole was quite chilly, but not as bad as 1917. But the final days of December, 1933 made up for that relative lack of early month cold. 

Most famously, this cold wave brought Vermont its coldest temperature on record. It got down to 50 below in Bloomfield, in the Northeast Kingdom.  In St. Johnsbury, it was 42 below on December 30, 1933, almost as bad as 1917. 

The northern Champlain Valley was impressively cold, too. St. Albans reached a remarkable 36 below on December 30. Down in Burlington, it was 29 below December 29 and 30. 

 December 1940

This month wasn't particular cold, but got off to a very rough start.  Most record lows around the Champlain Valley in early December are in the single numbers below zero. But on December 3 the temperature reached 15 below in Burlington. The next day, it was 17 below. 

There are no record lows colder than that in Burlington until you get to December 20, just two years after this cold spell. In 1942, it got to 20 below.,  

On December 4 and 5, other Vermont record lows include 34 in Enosburg Falls; 31 below in Chelsea; 31 below in Bloomfield. St. Johnsbury reached 27 below on December 4, and 16 below in Rutland. 

Christmas, 1980

This was a very similar holiday to the cruelly frigid Christmas of 1872, that I described above. A sharp cold front passed through on Christmas Eve, depositing three to six inches of snow in most places, ensuring a white Christmas.

But that cold front was a powerhouse. By 12:01 a.m. Christmas Day it was 5 below in Burlington. That would be the high temperature that day. The temperature reached 20 below at 7 a.m., and then rose only to minus 14 between 3 and 4 p.m. It got down to 25 below at midnight to set the record for the coldest Christmas on record. It was 26 below on December 26.

Stiff north winds kept wind chills Christmas Day in the minus 30s and 40s.  

Other actual temperatures in Vermont included 38 below on top of Mount Mansfield, 35 below in West Burke, minus 31 in St. Johnsbury and  minus 28 in Newport; 

 December, 1989

By the late 1980s, were were just starting to really feel the effects of climate change. Winters were getting warmer and less consistent. But 1989 proved you can still get brutally cold months, even with an overall warmer world. 

The month's average temperature was 7.5 degrees, breaking the previous 1917 coldest December record by 4.7 degrees. That's an incredibly large margin by which to break a monthly temperature. It was the sixth coldest of any month in Burlington, and the first time one of the top 10 coldest months was in December. 

The cold in December 1989 was not as intense as it was in 1917 or 1933, as the coldest temperature for the month in Burlington was an unspectacular 18 below. 

But the cold in 1989 was incredibly consistent. Nineteen days in Burlington featured subzero temperatures. Every day from December 1 through 30 was at least 11 degrees below normal. Every 25 daytime high between December 8 and 30 was 25 degrees or under that. 

Funny personal anecdote:  I badly broke my ankle in late November that year. During the middle of that frigid December, I was in downtown Burlington. We had just gotten nearly a foot of snow in a mid-month storm. It was freezing cold that day, of course! 

Back then, you had to put quarters and such in parking meters.I couldn't climb the snowbank on crutches, so I gave an expensively dressed, middle aged woman a quarter to put in the meter for me. She took the quarter and walked away triumphantly as if I gifted her a diamond tiara. 

I hope she spent that quarter well! 

 COLD DECEMBER, COLD WINTER?

The records are mixed on whether a cold December means the rest of the winter will be frigid. 

The cold December of 1917 introduced a frigid winter. To this day, the winter of 1917-18 is the coldest on record in Burlington

The winter of 1933-34 was also unusually cold. February, 1934 is still the coldest on record, at le4ast as measured in Burlington.  

After December, 1980, January of 1981 is the seventh coldest on record, But February, 1981 is the warmest on record.

As for the cold December, 1989, things turned around immediately in January.  January, 1990 is the second warmest on record. February that year was on the warm side, too. 

Bottom line, I have no idea what the rest of the winter will be like. 

November In Vermont Was Cold, Gloomy, But Historically, It Was Actually Kinda Average

A gloomy sky over St. Albans, Vermont on November 6.
The month was chilly by modern standards, but kind
of middle of the road by 20th century comparisons. 

 The final climate totals are in for the Vermont November, 2025 and it paints a chilly picture. But it was only chilly compared to recent years, not the pre-climate change 20th century average. 

The average temperature in Burlington for November was 37.3 degrees, or three degrees chillier than what is considered normal.

 Remember, this is the new, warmer normal, influenced by climate change. Had the same November weather occurred a generation or two ago, it wouldn't have been considered all that cold. 

Out of the past 134 years, this November was pretty much right in the middle of the pack in terms of temperatures. 

Seventy Novembers were as chillier or chillier than 2025 and 64 of them were warmer.  From a historical perspective, and from the perspective of your parents or grandparents, it was actually a pretty normal November. 

Other weather stations in Vermont were also about a degree or two colder than the average of the past 30 years, but more or less in line with historical averages. 

Precipitation was close to normal, too. Burlington had 2.87 inches of rain in November, just 0.17 inches above normal. That made it the 53rd wettest out of the past 134 years. Nothing extreme there. 

Elsewhere in Vermont, rain and melted snow came out more or less average, trending slightly on wet side west, and a little drier east. 

Temperatures were strangely consistent in November. The month can feature almost summer like warmth near 70 in the early part of the month, and then hitting bitterly cols, wintry lows near the end. 

There are some wacky extremes in the history of November. In 1938 the highest temperature for the month in Burlington was 74 and the low as 3 below. In November, 1996, temperatures ranged from 74 to 9. As recently as 2022, we had a November with a high of 76, an all-time record for the month, with a low of 15 toward the end of that month. 

November, 2025 in Burlington ranged between 58 and 21. I've seen a few individual days with that kind of range, never mind a whole month.  Digging further, I've found that only six Novembers had a low as warm or warmer than 21 degrees. Usually, the low for the month is in the upper single numbers and teens. 

On the opposite end, only 25 Novembers, have had highs as cool or cooler than this year. Additionally, if you love statistical quirks, the lowest high temperature this month was 34 degrees. Only 11 Novembers had a "lowest high" that warm or warmer. 

Snowfall, by the way, was heavy, at least in the north. Burlington's snowfall was only 2.1 inches above normal, and St Johnsbury's was 2.9 inches on the heavy side. 

As the month closed, there was still a healthy 10 inches of snow on the ground in Westfield and eight inches in Montgomery. Most towns in Vermont had no snow cover or just a few inches. 

But the Green Mountains killed it in terms of snow, especially the central and northern mountains. 

Jay Peak reported an incredible 119 inches of snow during November, obviously their snowiest on record.  On a few days during November, Mount Mansfield set records for the deepest snow for the date. On the final day of the month, there was 40 inches on the ground near the top of Mount Mansfield, the second highest for the date.

LOOKING AHEAD

Incredibly, each of the past four years in Burlington were among the top ten warmest on record. It looks like 2025 might finally break that streak. 

If December temperatures this year come out around the "new normal" of 28.2 degrees, 2025 would  once again be in the top 10 list of warmest years. 

But early indications are this December has a better than even chance of being solidly on the cold side. No guarantees of course. Long range forecasts are notoriously tricky.  But we are entrenched in a shivery weather pattern that shows little sign of breaking. 

We have a decent chance of seeing the coldest December in a quarter century, but that would be nowhere near the coldest on record. That honor goes to December, 1989, that awful month that featured an average temperature of 7.5 degrees which was 20.7 degrees colder than our current "new normal." December, 1989 also featured 19 days in Burlington that got below zero.

I'm quite sure that December, 1989 cold record is safe, despite this year's chilly forecast. 

Not A White Thanksgiving In Vermont, Which Is Fine, But December Could Be Snowy (Results May Vary)

Latest snow forecast for the next couple of days. National
Weather Service has backed off a little on how much
snow wil fall in the Green Mountains. That heavier
snow you see in New York is lake effect 

The other day I brought up that silly children's song about going over the river and through the woods to grandmothers house. 

The premise of the song is that everyone was going to have a Thanksgiving feast at grandmother's house - who once again was stuck with all the work of cooking, hosting, cleaning etc. 

Some of the lyrics in that song go, "The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh/through the white and drifted snow."

Which begs the question, what snow?

We all know it can snow around Thanksgiving, but is this holiday that snowy?  

The ever-helpful National Weather Service in South Burlington has the answer, which is: Not really.

They looked back over the past 70 Thanksgivings and found that at least in Burlington, in 44 out of those 70 Thanksgivings, there was no snow on the ground and none fell from the sky. Five Thanksgivings started the day with no snow, but at least a little fell from the sky that day. Eighteen Thanksgivings had one to three inches on the ground and only three had a snow depth of more than three inches.

So most of the time, that sleigh would have been worthless on Thanksgiving, at least around Burlington. Other parts of Vermont, of course, might have more snow on this holiday. 

Plus, I'm being geographically narcissistic. Putting on my Captain Obvious hat, the setting for "Over The Hill And Through The Woods" could be anywhere it snows, not just here in Vermont.

There are places in the U.S. that could use a sleigh today. There's still plenty of snow on the ground in much of Minnesota, thanks to a storm a couple days ago. Blizzard conditions swept the Upper Peninsula of Michigan yesterday.  Lake affects snows are burying some shoreline communities around the Great Lakes today.

VERMONT FORECAST

At least in Burlington, this is going to be another one of those Thanksgivings with no snow.  It'll be partly sunny, and blustery, and there might be a few cold, light rain showers blowing by. 

Tonight, it will be cold enough for snow showers, so we have a shot at being the sixth Thanksgiving with no snow, but maybe some in the air. We'll see.

The snow showers will hit the northern and central Green Mountains tonight and tomorrow. Forecasters have backed off a little on accumulations. Still, the ski areas could pick up a few inches of snow, which is nice. Valleys should get just a dusting to an inch or two. 

We're still looking at another modest storm on Sunday which will probably send a little more rain through Vermont, with maybe some snow way up high.  

The weather pattern is still leaning somewhat toward cold, and stormy in December, at least according to NOAA. Although long range forecasts are notoriously sketchy, which means I can't promise anything. 

So no promises yet on whether we'll see a white Christmas or not.  

Vermont Thanksgiving Weather Looking Pretty Safe. Elsewhere, And In Past Years, Not So Much

It'll be a blustery, but otherwise pretty tame Thanksgiving
in Vermont.  But between Thursday night and Saturday
morning, most of us will see at least a little snow. 
Northern Vermont ski areas could get a good half
a foot of snow. 

It's steady as she goes with the forecast for today's pre-Thanksgiving travel, and the big day tomorrow. The forecast hasn't changed much since yesterday. 

Vermont is solidly in the warm air ahead of a cold front today.  After a showery, rather balmy overnight., it's more of the same today. 

It could rain at any time today, but it'll be off and on.  We'll have intervals of dry-ish weather in between the raindrops. Highs will be up in the 50s, which will be the warmest day in quite awhile. 

Behind the cold front on Thanksgiving, it still looks like it will be blustery. A slot of dry air behind the front will give us some sunshine and fairly mild temperatures through roughly midday, as it looks now.

As the afternoon wears on, clouds should fill in and we'll start getting into some valley rain and mountain snow showers. 

The tricky part of the Thanksgiving travel weekend starts tomorrow night. Snow showers will take over. It'll be a combination of the tail end of lake effects snow off Lake Ontario, some weak weather disturbances in the strong, cold west and northwest winds, and those winds going up and over the Green Mountains to trigger more snow showers. 

Almost all of us except some people in the lower Connecticut River Valley will get at least a little snow.  In most places, snowfall between Thanksgiving night and Saturday morning will come out to a dusting to three inches. 

The three inches will be mostly in northern Vermont. 

Some of the ski areas in central and northern Vermont could get four to as much as eight inches of snow out of this. That'll replace some of the snow that will have melted today. 

The weather will be decidedly less tame over in New York State, near the lakes. Lake effect snows blasting off the lakes could dump 10 to 20 inches of snow in the general area near Watertown and south of Buffalo. 

Winds will be more fierce that in Vermont out that way. Over here in the Green Mountain States, the highest wind gusts will probably top out at around 35 mph. Near the Great Lakes, they could reach as high as 55 mph. 

Lake Erie is also expected to experience something called a seiche. That's when west winds are so strong that it tilts the lake. Water levels will go down on the west end of the lake near ?   but increase near Buffalo, where a lake flood advisory is in effect. 

Later in the weekend, toward Sunday, another storm is scheduled to arrive. There's still some questions as to whether it will be mostly rain, mostly snow or some schmutzy combination. 

WILD WEATHER THANKSGIVINGS

The weather is going pretty easy on us here in Vermont this Thanksgiving, but we've seen some tremendous extremes in past Thanksgiving weekends.

Some examples: 

Frigid Thanksgiving 1938

Thanksgiving fell on November 24 that year. That was the start of some of the most wintry weather on record for November. A storm that dropped a few inches of snow was departing on Thanksgiving. Within two days, it was 3 below in Burlington, which is still the coldest temperature on record for November. 

It was even colder elsewhere. Rutland got down to 10 below. St. Johnsbury was 13 below. 

Snowy Thanksgiving, 1943

Snow was deep on November 25, 1943 across much of Vermont, as a storm on November 22-23 left an impressive layer of winter. Burlington had 11 inches of snow, which is pretty good, but nothing compared to the Northeast Kingdom. 

As the Vermont Weather Book tells us, Bloomfield had 31.5 inches, Newport 29.5 inches, and Northfield, 22.4 inches. 

Great Storm of 1950

The most dramatic Thanksgiving weekend weather in Vermont came in 1950. 

Thanksgiving, 1950 (November 23) was quiet and cold, but Vermont, and the entire eastern third of the U.S. was gearing up for one of the most ferocious and widespread storms on record.

The Great Storm of 1950 killed 353 people in 22 states as the storm created an extreme blizzard in Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania, and record-setting winds in the Northeast. The storm caused $66.7 million in damage, which is right around $900 million in 2025 dollars. 

The storm deposited the storm 57 inches of snow in West Virginia and 44 inches in Ohio. 

Here in Vermont and New England, it was the wind. Gusts reached 72 mph in Burlington. The wind was especially destructive in Addison County.  At the time, the Addison Independent said 70 percent of houses between Pittsford and Vergennes had at least some roof damage, with some houses losing almost their entire roofds.

Damage to Addison County farms amounted to $840,000, which is $11.6 million in 2025 dollars, Damage to Middlebury College amounted to $150,000, which is $2 million in today's dollars.

Thanksgiving Snowstorm, 1971

The snowiest actual Thanksgiving Day came on November 25 that year. Twenty inches of snow fell on Mount Mansfield, Waitsfield and Montpelier. Burlington managed 8.6 inches. 

Record Cold Thanksgiving, 2018

Thanksgiving, 2018 was the coldest on record. Burlimgton only got up to 14 degrees that day, November 21. Montpelier only got up to 9 above. 

The next morning, it was minus 1 in Burlington, the earliest subzero temperature on record. That's particularly impressive since climate change was taking hold by then. It's much harder to achieve record lows than it once was.

I hope your Thanksgiving is memorable. And be thankful the holiday this year won't be memorable because of the weather. 

 

Antarctic Glacier Yields Body Of Long-Missing Meteorologist

Dennis Bell, right, celebrating Christmas, 1958 in
Antarctica. The next month, he died when he
fell into a glacier crevasse. His body was not
recovered  until earlier this year. 

 Climate change might have had a had in bringing a closure to an Antarctic tragedy that occurred more than six decades ago.  

In 1959, Dennis Bell, a 25 year old meteorologist, fell to his death into a glacial crevasse in Antarctica. Early this year, a Polish team found Bell's remains at the end of a melting, receding glacier. 

Bell was part of a group that climbed onto Ecology Glacier on King George Island, Antarctica to do some field research. 

Gizmodo picks up the story:

"The group split into pairs, and Bell and surveyor Jeff Stokes set off before the others. During the ascent, Bell moved ahead of the sledge without his skis to encourage the tiring dogs and disappeared into a crevasse. Bell survived the fall, however, and Stokes threw a rope down to him to pull him back up. 

Bell, however, had tied the rope around his belt rather than around himself. When his body reached the top of the crevice, he got stuck, the belt broke, and this time he fell to his death."

Bell's body was to found until this January, when a Polish team found bones near their base. Eventually, more than 200 personal effects were found nearby, including radio equipment, a torch, ski pols, an inscribed Erguel wristwatch, a Swedish Mora knife and an ebonite pipe stem, The Guardian reported. 

The remains were eventually taken to London, where DNA tests confirmed the remains belonged to Bell. 

The following will seem a little crass, since this involves a tragic death. But, I'll say it anyway. I'm not sure if the discovery of Bell's remains last January was the result of climate change melting the glacier enough to expose the the remains, or whether it was just the natural progression of the glacier that allowed humans to discover it all. 

As a memorial, Bell Point on King George Island was named in the honor of that meteorologist who died in 1959.   

Farmer's Almanac To Shutter After 207 Years Of Publication

This year's edition of the Farmer's
Almanac will be its last. It had 
been published yearly since 1818,

 The Farmers' Almanac, a yearly publication that's been around since 1818 is going away. 

The recently released 2026 edition will be its last.

"It is with heavy heart that we share the end of what has not only been an annual tradition in millions of homes and hearths for hundreds of years, but also a way of life, an inspiration for many who realize the wisdom of generations past is the key to the generations of the future," said Editor Sandi Duncan.

In a statement on the Farmers' Almanac website, today's "chaotic media environment" were blamed for the decision to close. 

"Though the Almanac will no longer be available in print or online, its spirit will live on in the values it championed: simplicity sustainability and connection to nature," the message on the publication's website said. 

The Farmers' Almanac was started in 1818 by David Young, a 37-year-old poet and astronomer.  That initial 36-page copy in 1818 contained "Lunations, Conjunctions, Eclipses, Judgement of the Weather and the "Rising and Setting of the Planets." 

And other nuggets of wisdom, of course. 

According to the Washington Post, by some accounts, Abraham Lincoln, used the Farmers'Almanac to help a client avoid a murder conviction. A witness said there was a full moon at 11 p.m. on the night of the murder. But that night, the moon was in its first quarter, and set at 11:57 p.m.

The Farmers' Almanac reached its peak from the Depression era of the mid-1930s to around the mid 1990s. 

Raymond Geiger, whose company, the Geiger Brothers, took over the Almanac in 1934. Its circulation was 86,000 at the time Geiger took over. By the time Geiger died in 1994, the circulation had increased to 4 million. 

The Almanac claimed its weather forecasts for the year, which it said is 85 percent accurate. Most scientists give publications like the Farmers' Almanac about a 50 percent accuracy rate, but that's another story.  

For the record, the Farmers' Almanac's final weather prediction says that New England is in for a "cold, snow-filled" winter season.

Fans of the Farmers' Almanac are crushed by the news. 

"Please don't go. I've grown up with you and want to keep growing older together," one reader wrote. Another said. "I have had FA in may home every year since I was 19 years old. I am now in my 70s. The wit, wisdom and weather have been like a wonderful old friend to me."

The Farmers' Almanac is not to be confused with the Old Farmer's Almanac, that familiar one with the yellow cover. That one is going full steam ahead. The Old Farmers Almanac has been existence since 1792, longer than the soon to be defunct Farmer's Almanac. 

"Rest assured, as sure as the Sun will rise, The Old Farmer's Almanac- with our familiar yellow cover.......will be around for generations to come," the Old Farmer's Almanac said in a Facebook post.  

Meanwhile, the final edition of the Farmer's Almanac can be purchased on Amazon or in numerous retail stores. Its online presence will go dark in December. 

The editors' final statement was poignant. "So go ahead - plant your peas when the daffodils bloom. Watch for a red sky at night. Tell your kids how grandad always swore by the Almanac....That's how our story stays alive"