Vermont weather geek's hodgepodge of weather and climate news and opinion. Often Vermont focused, but taking a national and global approach, with sometimes an appropriate dash of fun, outrage, cynicism and compassion.
Homes burn in San Juan Capistrano during southern California wildfires that broke out on Friday
Some of you might be surprised to hear of wildfires in southern California. Didn't it just rain there?
Well yes, it did, sort of. But the heaviest rain was well south of Los Angeles. The city itself received just 0.06 on October 12. Most places north of L.A. didn't receive any rain at all..
So when the hot, dry Santa Any winds started blasting through the mountains and canyons of southern California Friday, so did the fires.
"Firefighters are battling blazes in San Clemente, Malibu and Azusa. While forward progress has stopped with the Peak Fire in Azusa, the Norte Fire in Orange County and the Bryson Fire in Malibu have forced evacuations."
The Norte fire destroyed six homes in San Juan Capistrano and forced evacuations there and in nearby San Clemente. Two firefighters were injured.
The area was ripe for fires. The thick underbrush around the area hadn't burned since 1950.
Though hot, dry, windy weather continued on Saturday, this will thankfully be a relatively short-lived bout with those kinds of conditions.
The weather will be calmer and somewhat more humid starting today. Showers are forecast in central and southern California Wednesday and Thursday, including in areas that received no rainfall last week.
Let's hope that's the start of an El Nino rainy season, one that could prematurely and thankfully squelche southern California's autumn fire season.
Hurricane Isaias ripping off the roof of a hotel Saturday evening.
People in the Florida Panhandle and in Alabama have started picking up the mess left by Hurricane Isaias.
So far, at least four people have been reported dead in the storm.
The hurricane came ashore around Destin, Florida at around 8 p.m. with top winds of 105 mph. As of this morning, streets were littered with debris, roofing material, fallen trees and wires. Many of those streets were also flooded..
Winds gusted to 118 mph in Jay, Florida, 117 mph at Oriole Beach, Florida and 116 mph in Santa Rosa Sound and 114 mph in Milton, Florida
Those gusts were caused by a sting jet, which occurred when drier air ran into an abrupt western edge of the hurricane. That dry air caused rapidly sinking evaporated cool air to rush downward from atop the storm down onto these communities.
The storm sure was about five feet, a little short of the six to nine feet forecasters had anticipated. That's good news for sure. Isaias arrived a couple hours before high tide, which helped minimize the surge.
Still, storm surges caused damage in Destin, Fort Walton Beach and other seaside communities.
It could have all been even worse. Strong upper level winds - thanks El Nino - ripped apart the core of Isaias just as it neared the shoreline. This prevented the hurricane from intensifying more before reaching Florida and Alabama.
Isaias was the first Atlantic hurricane of the season. It has been more than 100 years since the Atlantic got its first hurricane this late in the season. Strong upper level winds caused by El Nino has torn apart and destroyed tropical storms that have tried to form so far this year.
The remnants of Isaias were moving into the Appalachian Mountains Sunday afternoon. At least one tornado touched down in South Carolina, and the area was under threat for more twisters.
Gusty winds and flood watches continued in parts of the Southeast, too.
Here in Vermont, rainfall from the remnants of Isaias will range from maybe three quarters of an inch in far southern parts of the state to less than a tenth an inch near the Canadian border. In between, central Vermont should see a quarter to a half inch, give or take. At least that's what forecasts issued Sunday afternoon suggest.
A schematic showing how a Kevin waves work. In this case it's a bulge of warm water and and a temporary sea level rise of at least six inches rise that can exacerbate coastal flooding.
Polar Vortex. Heat Dome. El Nino. Bomb Cyclone.
Lots of weather buzz words have come up in recent years. The terms have become bogeymen in social media, becoming monsters lurking to kill us all at the right moment. Even if all to these aren't exactly the end of the world.
Now we have another one. Kelvin waves.
Before we get into it, I'll be honest. A Kelvin wave along the West Coast won't affect you much at all, unless you live or work right along the ocean front.
Kelvin waves are huge slow-moving pulses of warm subsurface ocean water that travel along the equator until they smack against a coastline.
They form when trade winds slow down or stop. This Kelvin wave in the Pacific is reinforcing the current record breaking El Nino. It moved westward across the Pacific before smacking into the west coast of South America.
From there, the Kelvin waves moved both north and south. One batch moved southward along the South American coast. The other went north along the Mexican coast and the on to the U.S. West Coast.
The Kelvin wave has moved as far north as around San Francisco so far.
Kelvin waves are not something anyone can see. They're just a subtle, huge ridge in the water.
"Kelvin waves are not like tsunamis, and they don't curl over and crash on the beach. A better image is water sloshing in the bathtub or a swimming pool during an earthquake.
In the ocean, they are bulges of water that lift the sea level as they move along the coast. They're common during El Nino event, but this year's El Nino could intensify the impacts, experts say."
The six inch to foot tall surge is moving north along the California coast and will eventually raise water levels somewhat in Oregon and Washington, too.The Kelvin wave now hitting the West Coast has the potential for worsening coastal flooding, There's no real storm this week along the California coast, but there's been some swells from distant hurricanes.
There's nothing especially damaging going on now. So this particular Kelvin wave isn't likely to cause an enormous amount of damage.
But the risk isn't over.
The current Kelvin wave is the first of what will probably be several such waves between now and about next February. El Ninos typically produce five or six of these, and the one ongoing now is only the first.
Even before any Kelvin waves hit, the sea level is already elevated due to climate change. The risk is when new Kelvin waves hit when high astronomical "King Tides." and strong storms hit at the same time.
That kind of triple attack would cause a ton of damage along the California coast.
El Ninos have historically unleashed a series of severe storms onto the California coast. Imagine if, say, over the Christmas holiday, there is a Kelvin wave, a King Tide and a severe storm all hitting at the same time.
That's what keeps emergency managers up at night.
El Nino is looming. There's no guarantee California will succumb to severe storms, high, damaging tides and battering waves. But it's definitely something to prepare for.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is recusing himself from a case involving fossil fuel companies, reversing his earlier plans thanks to public pressure.
Public pressure against injustice actually sometimes works. Even when it involves the Supreme Court.
"Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito announced Monday that he will recuse himself from a major climate change-related case the court is set to hear next week, following weeks of pressure from environmental groups that argued he was compromised by his financial holdings in the oil and gas industry."
Alito sent a letter to the court clerk saying he would not participate in the case, but did not explain the reasoning behind his decision.
The case involves Boulder, Colorado and whether it can sue Suncor Energy and ExonMobil for damages caused by climate change. Or whether state laws are pre-empted by federal law and separation of powers principles in the Constitution.
The Supreme Court case will have a big impact on similar legislation on other states, including Vermont.
Even with Alito apparently out of the picture, it's unclear whether the rest of the Supreme Court will side with Boulder. The Supreme Court hasn't really been friendly to environmental initiatives in recent years.
Alito owns stock in ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66, among other energy holdings,CNN reports.
In any event, Alito's turnaround is a bit of surprise. Back in May, a Supreme Court spokesman had said that since Alito doesn't have stock in the oil companies involved in the court case, he needn't recuse himself.
"In May, a coalition of left-leaning watchdog groups urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate Alito's involvement in the dispute, contending that his 'substantial holdings in individual oil and gas companies' among other issues, would 'undermine(e) public confidence in the impartiality of the Court.
They stated that Alito had 'previously recused from considering a petition brought by' the same companies involved in Suncor Energies, 'There is no apparent reason for this change in Justice Alito's recusal practices, and Alison provided no statement justifying his failure to recuse,' the groups wrote."
There's a lot to complain about regarding our current U.S. Supreme Court, but this was at least a small victory in the name of fairness.
The Trump administration is rolling back fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. The Trumpsters say that will save consumers money, but fuel costs will eat up any savings. The climate will suffer, but the oil and gas industry will benefit.
The Trump announced Monday it was rolling back on the nation's fuel economy standards, claiming that will help Americans with affordability when buying cars.Though some experts suggest consumers wouldn't exactly save tons of cash.
"The rules still require fuel efficiency improvements but at a slower pace. Automakers now will need a car-and-truck fleet wide average of 34.9 mpg by the 2031 model year, instead of the stricter, projected 49.3 mpg under the Biden-era rule. Average fuel economy was 27.2 mpg in the 2024 model year, according to a government analysis."
In a social media post, Trump wrote his rolled back standard, "means LOWER PRICES, saving families thousands on a new, beautiful and safe car."
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administrationestimated the new vehicle price would be reduced by $1,289 due to the lower fuel standard. Whether automakers pass the savings on consumers is a very open question.
New cars these days cost about $50,000 on average, so $1,300 is comparatively small potatoes.
Plus, especially if gas prices remain high, that $1,300 in savings would soon evaporate. Consumers might still turn to EVs as an alternative. Especially since high gas prices will quickly erase those supposed $1,300 in savings.
As the Washington Sun reported, the decision to loosen efficiency standards for new cars could add roughly $1,600 in fuel costs for drivers. So much for those savings on new car purchases.
Turns out a lot of people are seeing this cost issue. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI posted on Bluesky: "Another fossil fuel con job. Any savings on the front end get eaten up and spat out by excess costs of fuel, which go to - oh, right - Trump's big corrupt fossil fuel donors. Fuel economy standards have saved drivers hundreds of billons of dollars."
It's all about more cash for billionaires, right?
The main point of better fuel efficiency is to reduce pollution, including the emissions that worsen climate change.
At least we can say Trump is consistent here, which is rare for him. He hates fuel efficiency, mostly because he's in that small and shrinking group who thinks climate change is a "hoax." Trump has already cut the federal tax credit for electric vehicle buyers, delayed federal dollars for a nationwide EV charging program, and striking down federal waivers that let California set its own strict pollution regulations,as NPR notes.
In the long run, Trump's move to weaken fuel efficiency goals in cars might actually hinder the American automotive industry.
"Easing CAFE standards will hinder the industry's realignment toward more fuel-efficient and electric vehicles, said economist Sue Helper, who studies the auto industry at Case Western Reserve University.
'It's very bad in the long term, because it slows progress,' she said. 'Then we make our auto companies less competitive. We give them less practice in making the cars that both Americans will want in the future and the rest of the world will want.'"
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg agreed with Helper. He posted on social media: "Lowering standards will accelerate what her has already been doing: Handing the clean tech future to China and forcing Americans to pay more at the pump."
Trump's Department of Transportation is still aggressively selling the efficiency rollback. As Car and Driver reports, the department claims the alleged savings will save Americans $138 billion over the next five years. The department also claims it will lead shoppers to buy newer vehicles, saving 1,900 lives and preventing more than 300,000 serious injuries.
Although, we don't know whether people would actually buy new cars. The economy is bad enough such that people are holding off on purchasing new vehicles.
I'm sure some people will buy Trump's sales pitch. There's always some gullible people out there. But the relaxed fuel efficiency standards are just a money grab for the oligarchy, and not us.
Our nor'easter this morning looks almost identical to what it looked like yesterday morning except the center of it is just off the Jersey Shore. You can see an eye-like dot of clear skies at the center of the storm.
Our nor'easter continues to cause problems along the East Coast today with strong winds, flooding rains and the risk of more coastal flooding.
Vermont remains on the edges of the storm. More on that below, but first, just a few of the storm headlines.
STORM LOSSES
At least one death and some injuries were attributed to the storm around New York City. A 56 year old man was killedin Brooklyn when a tree fell on him. Elsewhere in Brooklyn, four people, including two children, were injured by a falling tree at a playground.
Major coastal flooding inundated many homes and businesses along the Jersey Shore. Some homes had at least a foot of water inside. The inside of Surf City Marina on Long Beach Island, New Jersey was flooded for the first time since Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
Winds from the nor'easter were more damaging than usual right along the coastlines because leaves are still on the trees. The leaves act like little sails, pulling the tree laterally wind strong winds blow. Only about 2 percent of all nor'easters hit in September. The vast majority of them occur in the winter, when trees are leafless.
Nor'easters are usually large in area than most hurricanes, so this type of storm can often spread its damage over a wider area.
Today, the coastal flooding won't be as bad as Saturday's as the storm makes landfall in New Jersey a weakens. But heavy rain is still falling along the East Coast, so flooding from sources other than the ocean could be a big problem for the rest of the day.
VERMONT EFFECTS
As expected, it was rainy and gloomy in southeast Vermont Saturday, though not all that much rain fell down that way. Things improved as you headed northwestward. By the time you hit the northern Champlain Valley it was quite a nice day with breaks of sun and highs in the low 70s.
Today
Today, the rain bands from the nor'easter are making it as far north as the Quebec border. Rain today will be showery and pretty light in general, except in southeastern Vermont, where rain will be heavier.
It won't rain all the time today, but we'll have an ever-present risk of at least light showers. You'll have dry breaks in between, so you can sneak outside and do a little fall cleanup between the raindrops. North of Route 2, today's rain will amount to less than a tenth an inch, with a few places just getting just trace.
Southern Vermont looks like it will be wetter than the north, consistent with previous forecasts. They should see mostly a quarter to a half inch of rain by this evening with maybe a little more in the southern Green Mountains and maybe a little less up toward Rutland.
It will be cooler than yesterday in the north today under the clouds with highs in the 60s - still not bad for this time of year. Southeastern Vermont might hold in the upper 50s under thicker clouds and perhaps more persistent rain.
There have been some gusty winds along the western slopes of the southern Green Mountains, as expected. Overnight, there were a handful of power outages down that way. Those winds should diminish as we go through the day.
Monday
A little rainier in central and northern parts of the state than it's been, but this won't be super soaker up north, either.
The now much weaker nor'easter will move northeast through New England, sending more showers our way. Once again, the showers will be pretty light, especially north. Most of the northern half of the state should see maybe a tenth to a quarter inch of rain. There will probably be a little more than that south.
Except in far southern Vermont, this definitely won't be the soaker we really, really need.
Under the clouds, temperatures will hold between 57 and 65 degrees during the day.
Tuesday
The remnants of the nor'easter should be heading off into Canada, leaving quite a few clouds over us here in Vermont during the day. We should have little or no rain, with highs in the 60s again
Wednesday-Thursday
A nice spell of warm weather, with highs reaching the low or even mid 70s both days under at least partly sunny skies.
Friday-Weekend
Much cooler behind a cold front which will unfortunately deposit little or no rain. Behind the front, sunshine will return, but it will be much cooler. We'll have to watch for frost again or places that haven't received it yet.
Goofy Computer Models
To give you an idea how outlandishly wrong computer models get in extended forecasts out more than a week, we present this morning's run of the American computer model. That model gives us in Vermont what looks like a snowstorm on October 9. Snowstorms are theoretically possible that early in the season, but I pretty much guarantee that won't happen in this instance.
A drought is deepening across eastern New England and Vermont is on the western fringe of that drought. Below normal rainfall is forecast for at least the next week in northern New England.
Drought conditions and dry soil conditions remained the same in Vermont over the past seven days, according to the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor.
Moderate drought still covered nearly a quarter of the state east of the Green Mountains and north of about Bradford.
Abnormally dry conditions extended across the rest of northern Vermont east of the western foothills of the Green Mountains, according to the report, which was released Thursday morning.
Vermont remains on the eastern edge of deepening drought in northeastern New England. Drought expanded a little in New Hampshire in the past week.All of Maine is in at least moderate drought, up from 75 percent of the state. Nearly 20 percent of Maine is in severe drought. And for the first time this drought cycle, a small area of the central Maine coastis in extreme drought.
The outlook isn't good. We've fallen into a weather pattern that soaks southern New England and leaves the north high and dry.
Here in Vermont, the southern third of the state expect a half inch to an inch of rain between now and Sunday morning. Pretty decent. That tapers off to less than a quarter inch of rain north of Route 2. In Maine, up to a half inch of rain is forecast along the coast in the next day or so, but it won't be enough to really dent the drought. Up in northern Maine, little rain is forecast.
Another problem: When there's a big El Nino, autumn tend to be dry in northern New England. Especially in September and October. Not every time, but often. And sometimes that dry weather extends into the early winter.
The drought could become worse. On top of that, all that greenery out there is going to turn brown and dry. Autumn leaves will fall, and become crunchy tinder underfoot, ready to start a new fire.
They dug a containment line around it, but it was burning underground. That's how dry it is. Even the half inch of rain that fell Saturday night did little to stop it. The blaze was likely an improperly extinguished recreational fire, according to the Bristol Fire Department.
Just another reason to be vigilant about fire as the North Country dries out.
Donald Trump, shown here windblown and exhausted after blocking all Atlantic Ocean hurricane this year so far. Allegedly.
Halliluja! President Trump is singlehandedly preventing hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean!
Want proof? Just turn to the social media account called Rapid Response 47. It calls itself "The office White House Rapid Response account. Supporting President Trump's America First agenda and holding the Fake News accountable. MAGA!"
As you can imagine, you'll get some wild comments from that account.
On the social media site X, this all started from apost by meteorologist Chris Martz. He wrote, "History has been made! No hurricanes have formed in the North Atlantic Ocean so far this year. This is the FIRST time on record in the satellite era (since 1966)."
Fact check: Martz is completely correct. All the hurricane experts are pretty gobsmacked by this lack of Atlantic hurricanes so far this year.
That's right. The Trump team says Trump has somehow stopped Atlantic hurricanes this year. I haven't seen any indication of how Trump has stopped the hurricanes.
But everyone on the coastline form Brownsville, Texas to Eastport, Maine must be thanking the Glorious Orange One for protecting their homes and properties and beaches.
But wait a minute. Is Trump really preventing those hurricanes or is something else afoot?
It's probably no accident that Rapid Response 47 tagged Martz. Martz is a MAGA-friendly climate skeptic, one that the Trump sycophants probably feel safe with.
But in a post today, Martz posted something else. Not in response to the Trump people, just science. And once again, Martz was completely accurate. Turns out maybe it isn't Trump who is preventing the hurricanes.
Martz explained that we aren't getting hurricanes in the Atlantic due to shear, which is changes in wind speed and direction with height. The strong winds aloft are tearing apart wannabe tropical storms. Plumes of dust from the Sahara Desert are also working against tropical systems.
He didn't get into why there is so much shear. It's because El Nino is currently super strong, and it continues to cause that shear over the Atlantic Ocean.
Responses to the claim that Trump is stopping hurricanes have been predictably brutal.
Some examples:
"Can't believe Trump can control weather but not the debt."
"Holy crap. You're thanking him for the weather? This is some messed up North Korea shit going on."
"Dumbfuck cult members think their Flatulent Fuhrer controls the weather."
"All he had to do was to threaten to change the name to the American Ocean, and the hurricanes are cowering in fear.!"
This isn't the first time Trump has been praised for his alleged ability to control weather. Last year, no hurricanes made landfall in the United States, which was a welcomed break from years of destructive storms.
Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, during a televised cabinet meeting, said, "Sire, you made it through a hurricane season without a hurricane.....Even you kept the hurricanes away. We appreciate that."
Sigh.
The Atlantic hurricane season ends on November 30, so there is plenty of time for such a storm to form.
The National Hurricane Center says a tropical system could form in the central subtropical Atlantic Ocean later this week.
This morning's weekly U.S. Drought Monitor shows drought expanding across northern and eastern Vermont
The latest weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, released this morning, shows drought slowly spreading in northern Vermont.
Last week, drought covered only 13 percent of the state, up in the Northeast Kingdom.
That moderate drought has now spread southward through most of Orange County, as far south as around Bradford. It covers almost a quarter of Vermont. It extends to the eastern slopes of the Green Mountains.
The area deemed "abnormally dry," a precursor to drought, also expanded, so that the area that's abnormally dry or in drought covers the northeastern half of Vermont.
The dry area extends to the western slopes of the Green Mountains in the northern half of the state.
A tiny corner of far southeastern Vermont is also abnormally dry, as it has since July. Before July a slightly larger portion of far southern parts of the state had that abnormally dry status.
That rain doesn't count toward the data in this week'sDrought Report. Any effects would appear in next week's data. However the rain probably wasn't enough to change the drought all that much. Also, very little rain fell in far southeast Vermont, so the dry conditions there could certainly deepen
Looking ahead, we are going to get some rain, but probably nothing too torrential. At least over the next week. Probably beyond.
It's actually a little hard to know how much rain we will actually see. As noted in my post earlier this morning, the weather pattern over us involves a speedy west to east upper air flow.
Usually, that means that any rain we see comes in short, light amounts. But this weather pattern features very hot, humid air trapped in the southern half of the nation. If a front stalls nearby, we could see some beneficial, heavier rain. So far, that doesn't appear to be in the cards, but you can only help.
Vermont seems to be on the western edge of a drought that has stubbornly hung on all year, and has recently strengthened.
Although the Atlantic Ocean is quiet, hurricanes are spinning up frequently in the very warm Pacific Ocean. from left to right, Hurricane Lowell south of Hawaii, Hurricane Karina in the middle and Hurricane Marie off the west coast of Mexico
It might have not been the strongest tropical system ever, but it showed remarkable staying power as it moved inland. Tropical storms tend to fall apart quickly once they move inland. Edouard did not.
Nearly 24 hours after making landfall, it still kept its general shape. Wind advisories for gusts up to 40 mph were in effect two days after landfall.
The real problem, though, was the flooding. The storm dumped 18 to 24 inches on some areasof East Texas. In one town, 27.53 inches of rain fell. This all forced dozens of rescues from flooded cars, homes, even an assisted living facility.
So it was a destructive mess, but at least it wasn't as bad as a full hurricane.
ATLANTIC OCEAN
Edouard was a persistent little devil. But this is the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. You'd expect full-blown hurricanes this time of year, but nothing. We've had five tropical storms this year in the Atlantic, and none made it to hurricane status.
Three of the storms - Arthur, Bertha and Edouard - affected the western Gulf Coast.
The United States is enjoying a very quiet hurricane season so far thanks to the big giant El Nino that has developed eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. El Ninos affect weather patterns around the world.
In the Atlantic Ocean, El Nino creates strong upper level winds. Tropical storms start out as clumps of thunderstorms over the tropical oceans. The strong upper level winds rips those storms apart. Or, if a tropical storm or hurricane has formed and then encounters those strong winds way high up, the thunderstorms in the tropical system either get ripped apart or get tugged away from the storm's center, causing a weakening trend.
Unless things change dramatically in the Atlantic Ocean soon, this could easily be among the quietest hurricane seasons on record. Which is a nice switch from the slew of busy, destructive seasons we've had in recent years.
The East Coast of the United States is being spared a bad hurricane season, but we're not out of the woods. We could always have a late season hurricane. And El Nino could well create extreme late autumn and winter storms that would cause their own damage.
PACIFIC OCEAN
On the other hand, Pacific Ocean hurricanes love El Ninos.
The ocean is oddly warm during El Ninos, and upper level winds are light. Perfect conditions for incubating hurricanes.
This year, hurricanes have been forming one after another in the eastern Pacific Ocean and then heading west.
Hurricane Lowell is currently the most concerning of the bunch. It was spinning several hundred miles south of Hawaii. It's was a major hurricane with winds of 140 mph. Meteorologists think it will turn a sharp turn north and eventually pass perilously close to the western Hawaiian islands. However, that forecast is still really uncertain, so stay tuned.
As of Thursday morning, Hurricane Karinawas churned well east of the Hawaii with top winds of 115 mph..
.Hurricane Mariewas several hundred miles southwest of the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula. It had winds of 90 mph and was strengthening as it headed northwestward away from Mexico
Another tropical storm could form off the southwest coast of Mexico in the coming days.
The tragic aftermath of the epic Nepal flood last week. We're not 100 percent sure yet whether climate change was a contributing factor to this calamity. However scientists say a warming world increases the odds something like this will happen again in Nepal, or anywhere else with tall mountains and glaciers.
You've probably seen those horrific images by now of that impossibly enormous flash flood that blasted down a Nepalese river valley this week.
The news on the aftermath keeps getting more and more tragic and horrifying.
As of early Sunday, the death toll from the wild flood stood at 794, according to the BBC. Another 2,502 people are missing.
The flood occurred on the Nepal-Tibet border, but many foreigners were in the disaster zone. India reports 320 missing people. China has nearly 100 nationals missing. Ninety people from the United States are also missing. So are dozens of people from Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia, the UK and other countries.
There were some bright spots of survival. A school headmaster made a snap decision to evacuate 900 studentsin the building after hearing reports something was wrong upstream. He also got word to another 800 students who were on the way to school to stay uphill and away from the school.
All the students ran up a hill and survived. The headmaster said that had he waited another 10 minutes, himself and all the students would have died. He could have made another decision. The school was a fair distance above the river and normally would not have been threatened by floods. This time was different.
The Nepalese calamity was shocking, beyond tragic, and scary as hell. And something like this could happen again as climate change warms the planet and thaws ice and permafrost on tall mountains around the world.
WHAT HAPPENED
We don't yet know whether climate change had a hand in causing the tragedy in Nepal. It could have been a freak occurrence. More research on the disaster needs to be completed before we can draw firm conclusions. A full understanding of what happened will take months.
"High-resolution images taken by satellite monitoring company Planet Labs show the site of the apparent landslide high in the Himalayas, close to the Nepal-China border." (Editor's note: China claims Tibet, but Tibetan exiles dispute that. The China in that quote is actually Tibet). ....."In the 'before' image a glacier can be seen looming some 4,000 feet above a narrow valley, emptying into the meandering Lhende River.
Afterward, the glacier appears smaller by about 2 million square feet - equal to the area of about 25 professional soccer fields. The valley is strewn with ice and mud. And the river is swollen beyond its banks, submerging the surrounding vegetation beneath murky brown floodwater."
When the glacier and rocks collapsed into the valley, seismographs detected it. At first geologist thought there had been an earthquake measuring 5.2 on he Richter scale, but the vibrations detected were the actual glacial collapse,not an earthquake.
Friction of the rocks and avalanche debris as it fell 1200 meters (nearly 4,000 feet) melted some of the ice. By the time the whole thing reached the valley it was a slurry, like wet cement. The New York Times was able toobtain and verify a videoof huge chunks of ice falling from the Langtang Lirung mountain and crashing to the valley floor below.
The debris briefly blocked the river on the valley floor and water piled up behind all those rocks and ice. But this wasn't a classic glacial lake outburst.
Those outbursts are caused by meltwater trapped behind glacial ice. It finally breaks through, and a rush of water flows downstream.
This was much worse. Water behind that enormous pile of unstable debris finally collapsed it, and the huge volume of slurry raced downstream. As it roared downstream, the mass of water and debris absorbed more trees, rocks and other debris, making the onrushing tidal wave larger and more powerful.
Nobody in the valley below knew what was about to hit them. It hadn't rained much in the days prior to the huge flood. It was rather sunny and nice that day. For many, the first warning was the roar of the onrushing debris, mud and water. It was too late to escape.
CLIMATE CHANGE?
As I mentioned above, we don't yet know if climate change had anything to do with the calamity in Nepal.
However, those rising temperatures across the globe thaws permafrost in high cold mountains. That permafrost is sometimes the "glue" that holds rock and ice together atop steep mountain slopes. Melt the permafrost and everything falls apart.
Scientists are saying that fact makes disasters like this one more likely in the coming years. Not only in Himalayan mountains, but any high mountain range in the world with glaciers clinging to their upper slopes.
As the Washington Post notes, we have seen several glacial collapse disasters in recent years, either through the actual collapse or the floods they often cause. Glacial collapses buried a village in Switzerland in May, 2025.
Investigators want more information on exactly what happened in that Himalayan mountain valley. And in the rocks and glacier above.
The fear is this type of thing will happen more frequently. "Glaciers are going to shrink and melt. Permafrost....will be warming and weakening and degrading over time. You'll get landslides and debris flows.....You take all that together and you can say climate change is going to have a destabilizing effect on these high mountain regions,"said Simon Cook, a University of Dundee glaciologist, who is part of a team reviewing satellite images that show where the disaster began.
The planet's tectonics might have worked in concert with climate change to cause the calamity.
The glacier involved in the disaster is way up high on a Himalayan mountain called Langtang Lirung, with an elevation of 23,734 feet. At least right now.
Langtang Lirung, like the rest of the Himalayas are slowly rising due to the collision of tectonic platesdating back tens of millions of years. The Himalayan mountains continue to grow in elevation at roughly the rate of 0.3 inches per year. Over millennia, that's thousands of feet.
Glaciers have been on these mountains for millennia, too. As the mountains grow taller, they ever so slowly get steeper. Over thousands of years, the steep slopes become too much for the glaciers, and pieces of them break off.
Now, with the permafrost melting, making the rocks and the ice become more and more unglued, the chances of those steep slope glacier collapses happening prematurely have increased exponentially.
Early warning systems in the region where this disaster happened weren't great. Let's hope governments upgrade these systems in Nepal, and near other risky mountains, including some in the United States.
Videos:
The giant, sudden flood overwhelms and destroys a hydroelectric dam that was under construction. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.
This one has been all over social media, but it's still incredible dramatic and scary. A family is trapped on the upper floors of a house amid the raging torrent of the Nepal flood. Somehow the house remained standing and the family survived.Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.
This is a good video with several clips that give you an idea of the breadth and power of the extreme Nepal deluge. Click on this link to view,or if you see the image below, click on that.
One video, taken from one location, shows how quickly the disaster escalated and how fast it engulfed surprisingly large areas, including some that at first you would have thought were safely above flood level. Click on this link to view,or if you see the image below, click on that:
It turns out two tornadoes hit in and around Wilton, a community between Saratoga and Glens Falls, New York, less than 30 mies from the Vermont border.
The main tornado was a high-end EF-1, with top winds of 110 mph, According to a report from the National Weather Service office in Albans. An EF-2 twister has winds of 111 to 135 mph.
I'm impressed that the tornado caused no deaths or injuries, especially since it went through a residential area and crossed the busy Northway, otherwise known as Interstate 87.
A second, weaker tornado touched down nearby. The brief tornado touched down near Ganesvoort, New York. It had top winds of 85 mph, and was only on the ground for less than a quarter mile.
Trees crashed through the roofs of some homes. Streets were littered with trees, and cleanup crews spent the day trying to remove the debris.
The thunderstorm that produced the tornadoes eventually moved into Bennington County, Vermont. However, by the time it reached the Green Mountain State, the storm had weakened. I didn't find any reports of damage in southwest Vermont.
The world tied the record for the hottest July, according to NOAA. If anything, August might be even further above normal as El Nino takes hold
As I noted in a previous post, El Nino is building on climate change to bring the world's temperatures to new heights.
While we're heading into the last days of August, we see the July data is fully available.
Data released about a week ago indicated July, 2026 tied with 2024 as the hottest on record. This is according to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. Since July is normally the world's hottest month of the year, so 2026 and 2024 are the world's hottest month on record.
The Julys of 2023, 2024 and 2026 were the only Julys that were 1 degree or more Celsius above the pre-industrial average.
Climate change has been going on for quiet awhile now, it's just accelerating lately. For instance, the last time the world had a July that was at least a little bit cooler than average was in 1971.
Land areas in the Northern Hemisphere were easily the hottest on record, breaking the previous 2024 record by 0.12 degrees Celsius, or 0.22 degrees Fahrenheit.
Hot Oceans
Even more ominously, global ocean temperatures reached a record high for July. About 70 percent of the world is covered by oceans. Heat is released into the atmosphere, where it causes mischief in the form of record heat, droughts, and unusually vicious storms.
Overall, on average, world ocean temperatures peak in the spring, then declines until June, then rise to a secondary peak in early August, then slowly begins to decline again,
This year, the global average ocean temperature rose rapidly since July, reaching an all time record of 21.1 degrees C as of August 21. This odd late season increase has almost everything to do with the burgeoning El Nino. But since ocean temperatures were already elevated by climate change, it was easy for the oceans breaking records.
Relative to average, the warmest places were most of North America, Greenland and Iceland, western Europe, Central Africa, northwest Asia, parts of Russia and Siberia.
As usual in this climate-changed world, there were few areas that were on the cold side, and most of the "cold" areas were just barely, compared to the 20th century averages. The cool areas were Alaska, the persistent cold blob in the Atlantic south of Iceland, parts of Antarctica, and, marginally, parts of northern and central Europe.
UNITED STATES
The Lower 48 of the United States had its hottest month on record in July. All states were warmer than average.
In the United States, we had the hottest month on record in the Lower 48. Not just hottest July, ,though the month is usually the hottest of the year.
Every state in the Lower 48 was warmer than normal, which is an extreme rarity. Even when the Lower 48 has an overall warm month, a few states are at least a little cooler than normal.
While everyplace was warm, the hottest relative to average were in the central and northern Rockies and in the northern Plains.
When you add up all the states that were way warmer than normal and sort of warmer than normal, we end up with the hottest month on record for the Lower 48.
Wyoming had its hottest July on record. Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and North Dakota had their second hottest July on record. A total of 18 states had one of their top ten warmest Julys on record. Vermont had its 31st hottest July on record.
Despite the dry theme, there were intense local floods, including in the Texas Hill Country and in the Northeast.
New England had some of the most extreme disparities in precipitation. Southern New England was wet, with Rhode Island seeing its sixth wettest July on record. By contrast, Maine had its fourth driest July on record.
Vermont had its 47 driest July out of the past 132 years.
Meanwhile, August around the world has been running super hot. It's widely expected to be the hottest on record. We'll have updates, of course, when complete data for August becomes available.
Dolly Parton, who died Tuesday at the age of 80, was a generous philanthropist who gave away millions of dollars. That included money to victims of weather and climate disasters.
We're all reeling from the passing of Dolly Parton, that bundle of energy and joy, who, with her thoughtful songwriting, her exuberant public image and her philanthropy, made her an absolute national treasure.
Her generosity has been widely reported. The most cited example is her Imagination Library, which has provided more than 300 million books to children in the United States and other nations.
Parton stepped up when weather and climate disasters hit, too. Especially when they affected the area where she was born and raised.
On November 28, 2016, a raging wildfire swept into Gatlinburg, Tennessee and surrounding areas of Sevier County, Tennessee. It caused 14 deaths, 130 injuries, burned 1,684 structures and forced, 14,000 people to evacuate from the East Tennessee mountain tourist destination.
Parton was on tour when the fires hit, and she called right after the wildfires and asked what can we do and bow quickly can we do it, said David Dotson, CEO of Dollywood Foundationin a 2018 interview.
"The My People's fund (part of Parton's philanthropy) gave $1,000 per month to about 900 families impacted by the fire - regardless of income - for six months. But the Dollywood Foundation received so many donations they increased the amount to $5,000 a month. They also opened an additional organization called Mountain Tough to help families on a case-by-case basis and clean up homesites."
In total, $12.5 million dollars went to the people of Sevier County from the foundation."
In September, 2024, the devastating floods from Hurricane Helene spilled over into far eastern Tennessee's the waters raged through neighboring North Carolina. The day of the floods, she announced $1 million donation, matched buy her Dollywood companies and their partners.
Oddly enough, the next hurricane on the list of this year's Atlantic storms will be named Dolly. That wasn't a decision made upon her death. The hurricane names were planned out years ago. There is currently a weather disturbance in east-central tropical Atlantic Ocean that might or might not develop into Tropical Storm Dolly.
Forecasters are unsure whether that storm will form, and if it does, how strong it might get and where it might go.
North Carolina Emergency Management said in a Facebook statement that if a Hurricane Dolly, or any other storm threatens your care, maybe we can help a neighbor, a friend, or a loved one prepare for the storm. Maybe we can buy stuff for someone's disaster preparedness kit, all in the spirit of Dolly Parton's generosity.
The following Dolly Parton quote can be applied to a storm or any other situation: "We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails."
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.
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 spotsduring 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.
Just one example of the big flooding in the Midwest. This image is from the Indianapolis areas. Source: Indianpolis Fire Department.
While we here in Vermont enjoy tranquil weather, conditions are anything but elsewhere in the United States.
Extreme flooding and intense thunderstorms have raked the Midwest. A rare hurricane blasted the Big Island of Hawaii.
MIDWEST FLOOD
At least six people have been reported deadfrom the flooding so far that has swept from Iowa to West Virginia. Indiana and parts of Ohio have been especially hard hit. This will easily become a disaster with damages exceeding $1 billion
Some areas of Indiana and Ohio have received at least 11 inches of rain in the past week.
Unprecedented flooding occurred along the Whitewater River in Dearborn County, Indiana and adjacent Hamilton County, Ohio, which is near Cincinnati. Another waterway, the White River in Anderson, Indiana, rose to a record 24.9 feet, exceeding a flood mark that had stood since 1913.
Near Indianapolis, the White River though town was expected to crest Saturday at 21.4 feet, though officials cautioned that continued downpours could make that crest higher. The mayor of Indianapolis said this was the worst flooding the city has seen in decade. The Indianapolis Fire Department completed 50 water rescues, evacuating 91 people an 45 pets.
The storms produced no fewer than 38 tornadoes between August 9 and 14, mostly in a band from Nebraska to Ohio
A derecho swept across Illinois, Indiana and Ohio on Tuesday, August 11, causing widespread destruction. Hundreds of thousands of people lost power. Roofs were torn from houses and countless trees fell. Winds gusted to 99 mph in Gary, Indiana.
The derecho was only one of many waves of torrential storms that swept the region. They kept coming, one after another guided by that stuck heat dome to the south. Muncie, Indiana had six inches of rain in just a day, with more than 11 inches so far this month.
A weather phenomenon called the Ring of Fire is at the root of this flood and thunderstorm disaster
Here's how a Ring of Fire works: A strong hot high pressure system - a heat dome - has been parked over the south central United States for at least the past week or two. Typically, thunderstorms and heavy rain rides along the northern edges of the heat dome.
These storms are often severe, but since heat domes often shift around, the dangerous weather doesn't usually stay in one place for long, so particular locations usually escape the storms within a couple days.
The storms produced no fewer than 38 tornadoes between August 9 and 14, mostly in a band from Nebraska to Ohio
A derecho swept across Illinois, Indiana and Ohio on Tuesday, August 11, causing widespread destruction. Hundreds of thousands of people lost power. Roofs were torn from houses and countless trees fell. Winds gusted to 99 mph in Gary, Indiana.
The derecho was only one of many waves of torrential storms that swept the region. They kept coming, one after another guided by that stuck heat dome to the south. Muncie, Indiana had six inches of rain in just a day, with more than 11 inches so far this month.
This was a once in a thousand year flood, but that might not mean much any more. Our climate is different now, for short term and long term reasons. A super El Nino, now building to become the strongest on record, is not energizing and warming the atmosphere, helping to intensify storms. It's hard to directly link El Nino and the Midwest floods, but the two don't seem entirely coincidental.
Climate change might also have played a role. The Ring of Fire weather pattern made flooding inevitable. but climate change can help make rainstorms ever more intense. It's possible the storm would have turned already intense rains even worse.
"Footage on social media showed floodwaters rising, overtaking roadways and bridges as Lala dumped rain on Hawaii's Big Island. Howling winds whipped the top of palm trees and waterways swelled with fast-moving runoff from relentless rain that blew nearly sideways."
The storms' winds slammed into Hawaii's tall mountains, including the giant Mauna Kea volcano. The high speed air was forced to rise as it hit the mountains. That lift increased the already torrential rains. More than two feet of rain was forecast in some spots.
The storm, now a strong tropical storm, was moving generally westward, slamming the rest of the Hawaiian islands with strong winds and flooding.
Lifeguards made 59 rescues Saturday in Honolulu, where officials urged people not to get into the water this weekend.
The National Hurricane Center predicted eight to 12 inches of rain across Maui, and four to six inches across low elevations across lower elevations of the islands.
Hurricanes usually fade away on approach to Hawaii. Water in the central Pacific Ocean is relatively cool, and cool-ish water takes the power away from hurricanes.
El Nino is currently boosting water temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific to record warmth, allowing wannabe hurricanes to maintain themselves.
Several hurricanes and tropical storms have passed very close to Hawaii in recent years, possibly reflecting warmer water created by climate change. A tropical storm in 2018 was the first one on record to strike4 Maui, but it caused only light damage.
By far the worst hurricane in memory was Iniki, which struck the island of Kauai in 1992. It is the only major hurricane to have hit the islands,
Devastating scene in Spokane, Washington after the fires. An arsonist set the fire. The alleged suspect has quite a history of crime, arson and mental illness.
Aaron Farinacci, the man arrested and charged with the worst of the devastating Spokane wildfires, allegedly has a history of setting fires around the city. This one just happened to be by far the worst.
The more information that comes out, the more court hearings we have, the more we learn that Farinacci appears to be a dangerous and deeply troubled man.
He is charged with setting the largest and most destructive wildfire in Spokane. But court records indicate he has a history of setting fires. He giant Spokane fire was just by far the worst one he set. I
"On Saturday, Paul Child, 64, was driving with his grandson along some railroad tracks in his rural neighborhood northwest of Spokane. He saw a man standing and looking toward nearby trees. About 10 minutes later, as they were returning home, the man was still there.
'He was bent over in the brush, acting nervous,' Child told the Associated Press on Tuesday, 'You get the feeling this guy's up to something.'
"No longer than 10 minutes after I got home, my daughter says, 'There's a fire,'" Child called. My first words were 'That SOB started a fire!," it was the exact spot where he was standing.'"
As noted in a previous blog post, a responding sheriff's deputies found the man matching the description Child offered walking more than a mile away from the fire's ignition point. Child arrived and basically said, "That's the guy."
Farinacci was wearing a green t-shirt that read, 'Who needs luck I have charm," In his backpack and fanny pack, he had cigarettes, waterproof matches and a butane lighter.
He told deputies when he was arrested he didn't set the fire and was not anywhere near where the blaze started. The deputies were unaware of Farinacci's past suspicious activity with fires, and they were busy coordinating evacuations, so they let him go.
By Monday, August 3, investigators knew the fire was deliberately set, and the arrest was made.
Farinacci haas quite a history anyway. He served about a decade in prison for killing his father 16 years ago in Arizona. He was 21 years old at the time, and the shooting stemmed from an argument with his father over doing the dishes.
As KREM reports, Farninacci shot his father once in the face as he entered his room, the again in the back as the father turned to leave. He later died at a hospital.
Farinacci ran from the house and shot himself in the chest with the same gun he used on his father. Farinacci later told police the shooting was an accident and told them he "deserved to be sentenced to prison as he took someone's life."
KREM continues:"He was convicted of manslaughter and aggravated assault in 2012. He was released from prison in 2020, and records show that he was discharged from probation in 2024 while living with a girlfriend in Washington State."
Farinacci, 37, is suspected of setting several fires, each of which only covered areas about the size of buses. Another fire last August that he might have started blazed through a state park prompting evacuations, though no houses burned,according to the Associated Press.
During a court hearing Thursday, Angust 6, Judge Jeremy Schmidt found probable cause to charge Farinacci with four additional counts of arson for fires the suspect told a detective he's set since last summer.
If detectives, prosecutors and court papers are accurate, Farinacci is a scary dude with potentially serious mental issues. Even if you don't include the time he shot his father
As KREM reports:"He told detectives his son was born in May, 2025 and he was 'having trouble dealing with life issues.' A detective who interviews Farinacci wrote, "He feels fire is powerful, beautiful, and that things that go through fire experience a kind of rebirth."
Detectives said Farinacci admitted to starting 25 fires since last July. He's only been charged with four of them because detectives couldn't corroborate that information. One of the fires he's suspected of starting was on in July, 2025 which burned more than 1,200 and threatened some homes.
Investigators said Farinacci that "'Who needs luck I have charm" t-shirt when he set a fire on August 11, 2025.
Six days before the big conflagration, on July 24, Farinacci said what he started what is known as the Indian Bluff Fire, which ultimately harmed no homes.
By July 31 Spokane and the rest of eastern Washington was under a particularly dangerous red flag warning, meaning the risk of wildfires the next day would be extremely
Farinacci was paying attention to the weather forecasts. He'd waited at least a couple weeks for a day with high winds, hot temperatures and low humidity. He also said he researched other arsonists and ways to create time delay devices for setting wildfires, KREM reported.
If that's true, he weaponized weather warnings meant to protect the public. This raises another issue. There's absolutely no evidence Farinacci was involved in weather betting.
On-line prediction markets like Polymarket allow people to bet on the outcome events, like elections, sports and other occurrences.
"It's not just easy to start a fire - now there's a potential financial incentive," said Kaitlyn Trudeau, a California-based climate scientist with Climate Central.
For example, as High Country News points out Polymarket list nearly 20 questions to be on during the January 2025 Los Angeles area wildfire calamity.
The questions included "How many acres will the Palisades Fire burn by Friday? Will the Palisades Fire reach Santa Monica by Sunday? When will the Palisads fire be 50% contained?"
You can see the logical next betting question is, "How big will the next wildfire get during the next red flag warning." And you can see how somebody might start a fire so they can win big with the online gambling.
In any event, on that dry, windy August 1, the alleged arsonist said the picked the spot where he set the big fire because he knew it would be bad, though he didn't intend for the blaze to get as big as it did. He placed a time delay device in the dry grass.
Those hundreds of Spokane area homes were now doomed. Residents will be picking up the pieces for a long time.
The Associated Press said that the other two major fires around Spokane on August 1 were started by humans, but officials didn't say whether the fires were intentional or accidental.
Meanwhile, while most other fires across the West were started by lightning or human accidents, some are being investigated as arson. One horrible very mentally ill people can wreck the lives of so many others.
