Saturday Evening Vermont Winter Storm Update: Ominous Ice Storm Forecast For Parts Of Central, Southern Parts Of State

Ice accumulation forecast map from the National Weather
Service in South Burlington. This combines what's already'
happened plus what's going. Areas in dark red, and
especially lavender risk extensive tree and power line
damage between now and Sunday. 

The headline this Saturday evening is that I'm definitely worried about the additional freezing rain coming up tonight and early tomorrow for parts of central and southern Vermont. 

An ice storm warning is now up for most of central and southern Vermont through 8 p.m. Sunday. Expect very difficult travel - and much worse - likely pretty extensive tree and power line damage in some spots. 

There's much more to talk about regarding the ice, but let's set the table with how today went. 

Northern areas got the expected break. Once we got past 9 a.m. it was just light snow and flurries with no additional accumulation.  

The big winner in the accumulation sweepstakes was Fletcher, with 10 inches. Johnson and South Hero had 8.8 inches. Burlington managed to tie today's daily record with 1954 for most snow on March 29 with 7.0 inches. 

People near the Canadian border could actually see brighter skies just to the north late this afternoon.  That does not mean the storm is over by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a break.

Road conditions across the north that were atrocious this morning and pretty good late this afternoon.  They'll get worse again later, but we'll get to that. 

OMINOUS ICE STORM

In parts of central and southern Vermont a few places already have a quarter to nearly a half inch of ice clinging to trees and power lines.

Power outages haven't been too bad - yet.  All day, they've varied from near 100 homes and businesses without power to roughly 1,000.

I do think things will get much worse overnight.  

As of 5:30 p.m. some renewed rain and areas of freezing rain were beginning to move back into far southern Vermont. That will spread northward overnight. 

It's a complex temperature profile, so some places in the ice storm warning zone will only get a little freezing rain. Other spots will get a ton.  And it will be incredibly variable.  One area might be relatively OK, while a spot a couple miles up the road and a couple hundred feet higher or lower in elevation are absolutely slammed.

This is actually very typical of ice storms in mountainous places in Vermont. We saw this kind of thing in the Great Ice Storm of 1998. I remember in that storm driving  up the hill on Interstate 89 between Richmond and Williston. 

Halfway up the hill, it went from no ice on trees, to trees collapsing in a sharp line. Hardly no transition zone. 

Our current ice storm won't be nearly as bad as 1998, but definitely bad enough. 

ICE ACCUMULATION

Ice visible clinging to trees this afternoon in this traffic
cam grab from Hartford, Vermont. Much more ice is possible
tonight and that could cause some serious power
outages and tree damage.

In general, though, expected ice accumulations have gone up dramatically. The biggest worry zone is along and east of the Green Mountains in Rutland and Windsor counties. 

And extending south a little into corners of Windham and Bennington counties and north into some pockets of Addison and Orange counties. 

Between the ice on the trees now and what will hit tonight, everything in some spots by Sunday morning will probably be weighed down by a half inch to as much as an inch of ice in the worst hit areas.

I feel sorry for anybody who has a sugarbush or prized trees in the worst hit areas. If the forecast comes true, the damage will be extensive. 

The power outages might  be hard to fix, too, since there will probably be so much damage. Charge your devices now, those of you living in the ice storm warning zone. 

The precipitation will hit northern Vermont again, too, later tonight and Sunday. It'll likely start off as snow and then go over the freezing rain. There won't be much additional snow, maybe an inch or so. 

Places along and east of the Green Mountains in the northern half of the state will see up to a quarter inch of ice, which would cause some scattered power outages, but nothing like we expect further south.

The Champlain Valley will see a glaze of ice by early Sunday, too, but I don't think it will be enough to cause problems, other than dangerous road conditions. 

As chilly temperatures slowly relax Sunday, any freezing rain will change to a cold rain. But in areas protected from any warming winds will hang on to more icing well into the afternoon. Luckily rainfall rates will decrease noticeably in the afternoon.

MONDAY

This still isn't the biggest deal of this storm, but we're still expecting a brief squirt of very warm, humid for the season air on Monday. Most of us will reach the 50s and 60s. Showers will continue, and as a cold front approaches in the afternoon, heavy showers and even a few thunderstorms look like they'll develop. 

Flooding from melting snow and ice and the warm temperatures and the rain still looks like it will be minor, but we'll have to keep watching this. If rain ends up being heavier than expected, the flood situation could worsen.

I'm not too worried about that now, but it is worth monitoring. 

San Francisco A New Tornado Alley. At Least On Saturday

Storm damage in San Francisco Saturday, after
the city had its first-ever tornado warning.
Meteorologists are now investigating whether
a tornado actually touched down. Photo by
Richard Pena via Mission Local 

UPDATE, NOON SUNDAY

Judging from news from the National Weather Service office in the Bay Area, a tornado did not touch down in San Francisco. It looks like the damage was also caused by intense straight-line winds.

However, they did confirm that tornado in Scotts Valley, just north of Santa Cruz

It was an EF-1 with 90 mph winds. The tornado had a short path length, about a third of a mile. Local media reported six injuries, three of whom were hospitalized and one of those people was critically injured. 

Most of the injuries appear to be occupants of vehicles that were flipped over by the tornado or caught outdoors as pedestrians. 

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Even in December, I would never be all that surprised if a tornado hit somewhere in Oklahoma, or Alabama or Florida.  

But San Francisco?

The first-ever tornado warning that anyone's aware of was issued for San Francisco early this morning. 

As of early this evening, it's still not confirmed whether a tornado actually touched down in the city, but there is wind damage, and radar showed a classic tornado signature. 

The tornado warning was issued at 5:51 a.m. local time and expired about 25 minutes later. 

There's quite a bit of tree damage in Golden Gate Park, where some of the strongest rotation was detected on radar.

Meteorologists with the National Weather Service office in Monterey, which covers San Francisco, plan to investigate the park and perhaps other sections of the city to determine whether it was a tornado or straight line winds that caused the damage. 

Winds reportedly gusted to 83 mph during the storm at San Francisco Airport.

Radar images Saturday morning  also indicated debris being lifted into the air and strong rotation in Davenport, California.  Davenport is along the California coast about 60 miles south of San Francisco.

Video showed either the same apparent tornado or a different one in Scotts Valley, California, about a dozen miles east of Davenport and just north of Santa Cruz, California. 

Although tornadoes have occurred near San Francisco in the past, none are known to have actually passed through the city. 

The possible tornadoes were part of a strong storm that slammed into northern California last night and today. A constellation of flood and coastal flood alerts, wind advisories and winter storm warnings were up for various parts of northern California.

A good two feet of snow was expected in parts of the Sierra Nevada range, and avalanches are likely in the back country.  Traffic was snarled Saturday in highways through the mountains.  

At this point, the storm that hit California today is not expected to become a major system as it crosses the United States 

 

A Few Storm Surprises Again In Vermont Wednesday As We Get Into "Summer Lite"

Leaves on the trees are growing toward full summer
green, while spring blooms continue to keep the 
landscape pretty in Vermont 

 For the second day in a row, a few spots in Vermont defied forecasts of a blah weather day Wednesday and produced some surprises.  

While most of the state just has light showers, if that, the Northeast Kingdom suffered a bit of a deluge, and a flood warning needed to be issues last night for part of that area.

The culprit was the that same stalled weather front that caused the interesting and photogenic storms in northern Vermont on Tuesday.

Yesterday, southern Vermont just had a fairly steady, light dull, rain. 

The front slowly worked its way north during the day. But before it did so, sunshine was able to heat far northern Vermont and destabilize the air. The result was some persistent showers and thunderstorms in the Northeast Kingdom.

They weren't severe, but they had some pretty good downpours that lasted the better part of the afternoon and evening. The result was enough rain to raise flooding fears on small streams and creeks up that way, and along the east branch of the Passumpsic River. 

I don't have any confirmed reports of flooding up that way, but I wouldn't be surprised if a few spots had high water. 

For some reason, far northwest Vermont, which was under pretty much the same weather regime as the Northeast Kingdom, ended up having a nice, rather sunny day for most of Wednesday before clouds covered the sky in the late afternoon. It ended up raining at night, but there wasn't much. Only a trace was registered in Burlington. 

The heavy rain picked up again north of the front in northern New York, where a local flood warning was also issued. 

The moisture from the rains yesterday and last night formed some patchy dense fog overnight. Be careful on the roads early today as there might be some dense patches of murk. Any fog should disappear by mid-morning. 

NO NEW NIGHTMARE

Wednesday's flood warnings do not mark the start of a nightmare flood summer, like last year. At least for now if not the entire summer. 

Any showers that form today should be light, or at least non-threatening.  Not all that much rain is in the forecast through Tuesday. Several of those days might well be rain-free. We're not looking for a parade of deluges.

Extended forecasts through two weeks sort of lean toward above normal rainfall, but that prediction is not cast in stone and so far, there's no signs of deluges. At least not here in Vermont. 

We have entered what I call  "Summer Lite" though. Temperatures the past couple of days have entered summer-like territory, even though it's not full on summer heat. Nights have been especially mild, with the type of overnight lows you'd expect in the summer. 

It will actually get a little warmer over the next few days, with spots reaching the low 80s  Sunday through Wednesday.

That's not to say summer has firmly arrived. There's still time for chilly temperatures and even frost. Saturday, for instance, is the anniversary of that awful, destructive freeze we had last year. (Forecast lows this Saturday morning are in the 50s, so history won't repeat itself). 

Meanwhile, make sure the shorts and t-shirts are ready, you're need them. 

Friday Evening Vermont Storm Update: More Damage Due In Saturday Morning Wind Blast

Expected gusts early Saturday in a map produced by
the National Weather Service office in South Burlington.
Dark read is 60 mph or more. Very dark red is 70 mph or
more. Click on the map to make it bigger
and easier to read.

 With sunny skies in all but northwest Vermont this afternoon, it does seem strange that we have that big storm looming.  

But we do!

And boy is in big. In intensity and especially size.

Axios noted that all 50 states had some sort of weather warning in effect as of Friday morning. That included 5.2 million people under a blizzard warning; 167 million under high wind alerts; 28 million dealing with wind chill alerts and 57 million confronting winter storms and heavy snow. 

So yeah, it's a mess out there. 

Overall, here in Vermont I think the impacts of the storm late tonight and Saturday morning will be similar in scope to the storm we had Wednesday. 

I'm pretty sure we'll go over 10,000 Vermont homes and businesses without power once again. 

The dynamics of this storm feature very slightly more tame winds than the last one. But the orientation of the wind direction, the damage left behind from the last storm, and an expected lull in the precipitation just when the potential for higher winds hit make this storm as nasty as the last.

I've still got my eyes on the Rutland area, where the orientation of the wind favors stronger gusts in the city than the last storm.  I can easily see 60 to 65 mph gusts in and near downtown. That's not a guarantee, but it's definitely a good possibility. 

Heavy precipitation can form a bit of an inversion that prevents some strong gusts from mixing down to the surface. The biggest burst of snow will come through in the hours before the strongest winds aloft with this storm are due.  We're talking roughly between  4 and 8 a.m. Saturday.

 So winds could get very strong, especially along the western slopes for two or three hours, just as they did early Wednesday. It doesn't take long for these winds to do their damage.

For us, the forecast has gone through a few small adjustments.

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington expanded the high wind warning to include all of Chittenden County, not just the eastern half of it. High winds there might extend a little further west than first thought.  Especially along and east of Route 2A. 

Elsewhere the high wind warning remains up for north central and western Vermont, except near the shores of northern Lake Champlain. Even in the slightly lower end wind advisory zone in the far northwest, winds could gust locally into the 55 to 60 mph range, enough to tear down trees, branches and power lines. 

We're still expecting three to seven inches of snow along the Green Mountains and the eastern slopes. There could be a little more than that in the southern Greens. That added weight of wet snow will just make power outages worse, just like last time. 

The worst of the snow - and a mix to rain in the Champlain Valley, should arrive after 10 p.m. tonight.

WHAT TO DO

You know the drill by now. 

Charge your devices this evening, and get those LED candles ready to go.

We got REALLY lucky in the last storm as trees crashed through roofs of occupied houses, but didn't injure anyone. We have that risk again coming up, so we'll want to be careful.

Also, I'd say we'll want to stay off the roads, especially in the strongest wind zones, between 11 p.m tonight and 9 a.m. Saturday. 

If you're in a very gust prone area covered by the high wind warning, and you have a lot of trees around your house, you might want to sleep on the ground floor, center of the building, away from windows. 

The worst of the storm should be done by mid to late morning, though gusty winds and scattered rain and snow showers will continue. Winds toward evening could peak at about 35 mph in stronger gusts. That will be a pain in the neck for power crews working to restore power, even if it causes little additional damage

A Welcome Weather Alert: Vermont Now Under A Severe Daffodil Warning

Here's one example of the type of "hazard" that could
develop in Vermont during the upcoming week. 

 It's Easter, I'm feeling whimsical, so I'm going to issue a weather warning not necessarily sanctioned by the National Weather Service office in South Burlington. Or any NWS office, for that matter. 

Still, it needs to be worded like a real National Weather Service warning, so here goes: 

DAFFODIL WARNING NOW IN EFFECT FOR VERMONT

The Matt's Weather Rapport Service in St. Albans, Vermont  has issued a severe daffodil warning for all of Vermont beginning today and lasting through at least this week. 

Isolated daffodils have already bloomed in some cold-protected, sunny corners in Vermont valleys. We also have widespread reports of daffodil flower buds.

This is an extremely welcome warning and you are in a life-improving situation! 

HAZARD TYPE: Daffodils, likely mixed with crocuses and eventually forsythia. Rising temperatures this week in Vermont, which could go as high as the 70s toward the end of the week, will encourage these blooms. 

TIMING: Daffodil blooms will spread across the state during the upcoming week as temperatures warm to above seasonal levels. Warmer valleys will see impacts first, starting mostly on Monday and Tuesday and increasing during the week. Daffodil blooms will gradually spread to higher elevations and the Northeast Kingdom late in the week or next week. 

IMPACTS: Daffodil blooms will cause increased levels of joy and the sense that spring is finally here. Motorists should try not to be distracted by roadside daffodils and perennial gardens brimming with the blooms in front of homes. 

Daffodil warnings will continue at least through this week.

When it's safe to do so, feel free to take photos and selfies with the daffodils. 

If there are many blooms that have accumulated on your own property, it is OK to take some indoors for spring bouquets. 

Considerable amounts of sunshine likely during the warning period are likely to make the beauty of the blooms more intense, so caution is advised. 

Additionally, crocuses have already developed and will continue to increase through the week. It's also likely forsythia blooms will mix with the daffodils, especially later in the week. While not an immediate threat, hyacinth and tulip blooms could also develop during later parts of the warning period. 

Residents are advised to stay near perennial gardens for further updates and warnings. 

Longer range forecasts indicate the daffodil warning will likely need to be extended beyond this week. There are growing signs that Vermont will also see an increasing risk of lilac blooms later this spring. Now is the time to start preparing for such a hazard. 

Did The Mississippi Tornadoes Friday Night Have To Be So Deadly?

Victims pick through the destruction of a deadly 
tornado in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, Photo via Twitter
by Aaron Rigsby @AaronRigsbyOSC

The death toll from Friday night's tornadoes in Mississippi rose to 26 as more severe weather and possible tornadoes pummeled the South on Sunday. 

I don't seen any reports of additional deaths on Sunday from the severe weather.  But I have to ask myself: Did that many people have to die in Friday's storms? 

This was the worst kind of tornado you could get. It was exceptionally strong, so unless you were in a storm shelter or extreme fortified building, chances of survival weren't great.

The tornado raced forward at 70 mph through the Mississippi darkness.  Before people knew it, it was upon them, despite warnings from the National Weather Service and highly dedicated, professional television meteorologists. 

People have a habit of relying on visual cues when endangered by a tornado. At night you don't have those cues.

With all those factors, it was almost inevitable there would be deaths and injuries. Even so, I'm convinced the toll of deaths and injuries cold have been lower.  

I've seen a lot of accurate commentary that the tornado hit an area with a lot of mobile homes, substandard housing and relative poverty.  Fear of a tornado tragedy like the one that hit towns like Rolling Fork have been a concern for years. 

True, some safe rooms and shelters opened to the public in some parts of Mississippi before Friday's storms. But I don't think there were enough community storm shelters for people in those mobile homes, or an effective system to coax residents out of their unsafe homes and into shelters in the hours before tornadoes touched down. 

Part of that is all the false alarms you get. Sometimes, a tornado watch is issued, but the tornadoes that do form don't seem particularly destructive. Or they are devastating, like on Friday night.  But these storms cover narrow paths. 

Thousands of people were at home just a few miles from the tornado path, blissfully unaware of the horrors nearby. 

Typically a tornado warning is issued anytime between a few minutes and a little less than a half hour before a twister strikes a particular location. That doesn't give much time to flee and drive to a shelter. It's really dangerous to be caught in a car during a tornado.

But forecasts continue to get better ahead of severe weather and tornadoes, with more lead time. Meteorologists are more and more frequently alerting specific target zones an hour or two ahead of time when they suspect a particularly dangerous situation will develop.

Friday night, about an hour and a half before the tornadoes starting raining death and destruction on Mississippi, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center released a statement. It said that thunderstorms that were about to cross the Mississippi River from Louisiana were entering an atmospheric environment that would encourage strengthening storms and tornadoes in Mississippi.

The statement said those atmospheric conditions seemed primed to create strong to intense tornadoes

This NOAA statement was released to the public, as all such short-term storm forecasts are,  but there were few systems in place to act on it. In a perfect world, that statement would have been the cue to quickly get people out of mobile homes in the northern half of Mississippi and into safer shelters for the night. 

NOAA released similar statements in the hour or two before a horrific tornado struck Mayfield, Kentucky in December, 2010.   Tornadoes that night killed 89 people, most of them in and near Mayfield. 

After that tornado, there were complaints that people were not allowed to leave work places or other sites to seek safe shelter in the time between the NOAA statement warning of impending danger and the time the tornado struck.  Similar complaints were made after a tornado warning came to fruition in Illinois that night, killing six people at an Amazon warehouse. 

It would take coordination and a little money to form a chain when these warnings are issued. You'd need shelters ready to open, then someone to help quickly flush people out of unsafe housing and into shelters in time for the tornado's arrival. 

A system like this would be especially helpful in the South, from Arkansas and Louisiana to Georgia. It's a region especially prone to strong, night time tornadoes, with large areas of poverty and substandard housing that's especially dangerous in such storms. 

As forecasting continues to improve in severe weather events, it's time to take that increased meteorological precision and put it to work for some of American's most vulnerable people. 

A new outbreak of severe weather seems likely late this week in the South and Midwest. If the Storm Prediction Center puts out more dire statements an hour or two before a powerful tornado, and people take heed, that will be a win. Hopefully the first of many wins. 

Friday Storm Looks Increasingly Dangerous For Vermont - And Large Swaths Of Nation

If anything, the forecast map for Friday issued
early this morning, gives the expected storm
a more powerful look that previous forecasts.

 All eyes continue to be on that developing Arctic blast and giant storm that will affect most of the United States this week with often very dangerous weather. 

Vermont remains one of many states in the bullseye of this system. 

This will be a pretty memorable storm for much of the nation. This won't be the coldest blast of Arctic air ever. But we still expect some record lows. 

What makes this developing situation such a hazard is the combination of strong winds over a huge area, combined with snow to the west and heavy rain to the east. 

Strong to damaging winds are possible just about everywhere in the United States from the Mississippi River east, and in much of Ontario and Quebec.

As of this morning, some of the ingredients that will lead to this storm blowing up in the middle of the nation are already screwing around with things in Washington State and in British Columbia. 

Snow is causing some big flight delays in Vancouver.  Travel is also hampered by snow in and near Seattle. These problems will only spread as the week goes on.

Wind chill alerts for the upcoming Arctic blast now extend from Montana and Alabama, and those alerts will only expand over the next couple of days. Big swaths of the Midwest are under a winter storm watch, and a blizzard is likely in many of these areas by Thursday. 

National Weather Service meteorologists aren't mincing words with this storm:  In the Minneapolis NWS forecast discussion, they wrote: "This is still looking to develop as a high end, life-threatening event." 

The National Weather Service in Buffalo, New York is also warning of destructive winds, heavy rain and then a blinding lake effect blizzard Friday into the weekend. "This intense storm is forecast to be climatologically 'off the charts'........One could certainly describe this storm system as a once in a generation type of event."

The Chicago NWS office is warning of a blizzard, widespread power outages due to powerful winds, and lakeshore flooding. Ten to 14 food waves from Lake Michigan could slam the shoreline in northwestern Indiana.

So yeah, you get the idea. This storm will screw things up for lots of people. 

VERMONT EFFECTS

Here in Vermont, the hazards include a little freezing rain, a LOT of wind, a flood risk and a flash freeze. 

WIND

Meteorologists at the National Weather Service office in South Burlington, when forecasting, look at what are known as analogs. 

In other words, they look at what the forecast calls for, based on current information, and compare that to similar, real-world storms that occurred in the past.  

Roof and tree damage in Milton, Vermont, October, 2017
after a powerful windstorm. Some forecasts suggest 
the upcoming storm could be as destructive as
the one shown here. 

In their forecast discussion Monday evening, the winds with this expected storm remind National Weather Service meteorologists of either October 30, 2017 or December 10, 2010.

The October, 2017 wind storm was widespread across western Vermont, with damaging downslope winds on the western slopes of the Green Mountains extending all the way to Lake Champlain. 

That storm cut power to more than 150,000 people in Vermont, nearly a quarter of the state's population.  We saw quite a lot of power line, tree, roof and some structural damage in much of the state.

In that storm, winds gusted as high as 63 mph in Burlington and 78 mph in Wells. 

The December, 2010 storm wasn't as widespread but created some wild wind gusts on the western slopes of the Greens. Gusts exceeded 90 mph in some areas. To give you an idea of what December 1, 2010, click on this link for the scenes in Williston, Vermont during that storm. 

One slightly mitigating factor in the upcoming storm, according to the National Weather Service in South Burlington, is that an inversion layer just below summit level might deflect a bit of the wind. But the storm is forecast to be super strong, with near record low barometric pressure. So strong to damaging winds are almost inevitable.

Power outages are likely with this thing, and they might last awhile. We're still recovering from last weekend's storm.  In that case, Green Mountain Power was able to pull in crews from surrounding states to help restore power. Our snowstorm last weekend was fairly localized. It wasn't as if the entire Northeast was buried in snow.

It won't be so easy to get help restoring power from other states with this upcoming storm. They'll have their own problems to deal with. Damaging winds will hit from Minnesota to Maine and from Quebec to the Carolinas. 

FLOODING: 

This powerful storm will bring a slug of warm, wet air with it.  That'll get the snow melting pretty fast on Friday as temperatures rapidly rise to the low 50s. With such a dynamic storm, bursts of heavy rain are also inevitable. Current forecasts give us one to two inches of rain.

The following might change, but forecasts as of Tuesday put the heaviest rain in southern and southeastern Vermont, right where the deepest snow accumulated last weekend.  That could certainly spell flood trouble.

Already, forecasters are eyeing vulnerable waterways like the Mad River and Otter Creek for flooding.  Smaller streams are of course risky, too.  Forecasters will have more concise predictions for flooding as we get closer to the storm. 

FLASH FREEZE

At the onset of the storm, there might be a little freezing rain to slicken the roads for a short time, especially east of the Green Mountains, but that piece won't be a main player in this big show. 

Instead, the rain and warmth will end super abruptly sometimes later Friday, Friday evening or Friday night. A powerful cold front with this big storm will roar through. At this point, forecasts call for temperatures to fall from the low 50s to the mid and upper teens within something like four hours.

That sets up a flash freeze. All the water on the roads and sidewalks and driveways freezes in an instant. You can see how that would mess up travel. We'd also get a big blast of wind after the front from the southwest.

This wind for the most part probably won't be as strong as in the front side of the storm. But it could still be gusty enough to knock down more trees and power lines. 

Because the Arctic air behind the storm is not coming at us directly, it won't be nearly as cold in Vermont as it will be points west.  The bitter air will plunge southward into the Midwest and Gulf Coast states, then swing northeastward toward us. 

That'll give the air a chance to modify, and it will only get sort of cold up here in Vermont (Highs in the low to mid 20s, lows near 10 Saturday through Monday).  But if there's widespread power outages because of this storm, that will cause a lot of misery, and frozen pipes.

As always, changes in the forecast between now and Friday are inevitable. This does feel like kind of a gloom and doom post. As we draw nearer to the storm, things will either look as bad as they do now, or maybe less bad, who knows?

I'm going to be out of Vermont when the storm hits. Oddly, I'm a little sad I'm going to miss the excitement. 

In any event, I'll provide updates as I'm able while I'm traveling later this week. 

New Report: Sea Level Rise To Accelerate - A Lot

 A chart from a new NOAA report on sea level rises
over the next 30 years paints a grim picture of the 
future. Click on the image to make it bigger, easier to see.

 We're starting to get accustomed now to reports of "sunny weather" coastal flooding, in which high tides in the absence of a storm still cause a little flooding in low-lying ocean front areas.  

This problem is going to get worse in the next three decades. A lot worse. 

Sea levels along United States coasts have risen by ten to 12 inches on average in the past century. That doesn't seem like a lot, until you consider how many roads, houses, buildings and infrastructure are barely above sea level. 

The new report says sea levels in the next 30 years will rise by as much as they did in the past century going up another ten to 12 inches. 

As the Washington Post reports:

"Kristina Dahl, a principal climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said research she and colleagues have done suggest that 10 to 12 inches of sea level rise by 2050 would put roughly 140,000 homes at risk of 'chronic inundation,' or flooding every other week on average."

Due to more local changes in land and sea interactions, this sea level rise will be uneven, the report indicates.   Along the East Coast, the projected rise is about 10 to 14 inches, according to the report. It'll be worse on the Gulf Coast, with projected rises of between 14 and 18 inches. 

The faster rate of sea level rise along the Gulf Coast is interesting because, fossil fuels are making glaciers melt faster, contributing to sea level rise. And, as NPR points out, oil and gas extraction along the Gulf Coast is making the land sink, contributing to the sea level rise. So that's two ways fossil fuels are contributing to the problem. 

It's not just the visible flooding that's the problem. Subtle rises in sea levels can make corrosive, salty ocean water infiltrate sewers, building sub-basements, and drinking water supplies. 

And all that that says nothing about what happens when a big storm comes along. 

Moderate flooding - usually enough to cause damage - is forecast to happen ten times as frequently in 2050 as it does now, the NOAA report tells us.  Major coastal flooding which is inevitably terribly destructive, will be five times as frequent as it is now, the NOAA report says. 

This latest bit of bad climate news comes courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA.  This federal study is an update of one done in 2017 and takes advantage of cutting edge modeling from a recent United Nations report on climate change and improved ice sheet modeling and more accurate observational data.  NOAA also used readings from tidal gauges and satellite imagery to complete their analysis, according to the Washington Post. 

The sea level rise projected by NOAA over the next three decades is pretty much set in stone even if we waved a magic wand today and eliminated almost all greenhouse gas emissions. 

The NOAA report tells us that depending on how well or poorly we do with limited greenhouse gases, sea level rises might stabilize at about two feet above the historic average or gaining by nearly eight feet. 

Coastal flooding has already gotten a lot more frequent. Another report last year found that coastlines in the United States had twice as much flooding as they did just 20 years ago, the Washington Post notes. 

Climate change is causing sea level rise as a warmer climate melts ice that is not floating on the sea.  Arctic sea ice, if it all melts, won't raise sea levels much because it's already in the water.  It's like if the ice cubes melt in your glass of gin and tonic, the amount of liquid in your glass won't go up.

But, as ice melts from Antarctic, or the Greenland ice cap, or the mountain glaciers around the world, the water ends up in the ocean and levels go up. 

To make matters worse, water expands a bit as it warms up.  A warmer ocean would get "bigger" and contribute to sea level rise.

Those Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are the real wild card in terms of sea level rise. The amount of warming sufficient to cause rapid melting in those two places is a big unknown, the NOAA report acknowledges. 

"....ice sheet instability is difficult to model and there is great variability in current modeling approaches. Efforts are underway to improve our understanding of ice sheet dynamics in order to more precisely project future sea level rise in response to continued emissions and warming," the report states. 

Despite dire reports like this, develop continues at a fast pace along many of the nation's coastlines.  At some point, something's got to give. 

 

Dangerous Eastern United States Storm Hits Today, Vermont Included

Almost any dangerous weather you can imagine is going on with this storm moving into the eastern United States.  

Just one ominous sign of the storm approaching us.
Forecast calls for major flooding along the Otter 
Creek in Rutland County, Vermont. Widespread,
damaging floods are likely today and/or
tomorrow from Pennsylvania to Maine. 

This isn't just minor inconvenience stuff. Some areas are in for some serious, maybe life-threatening floods.  Tornadoes threaten North Carolina. Damaging winds will roar from the Carolinas to Maine. 

It started with a full blown blizzard with zero visibility and winds gusting to more than 60 MPH in the northern Plains yesterday. 

Today and tomorrow bring heavy snow, dangerous floods, damaging winds and even tornadoes, depending upon on where  you are. 

As usual with these large storms, I'll get into the big picture first, and tell you what us Vermonters are in for.

That opening storm salvo, the blizzard in the Dakotas and Minnesota, left a trail of highway pileups ad closed roads.  It was so bad that plows and police wouldn't go out onto the roads. Too dangerous.

The storm center that caused the blizzard has moved into Canada, but the storm's strong cold front extends all the way down to the Gulf Coast. A new storm is forming on that front. This is what will cause the chaos today and tomorrow in the eastern United States. 

This frontal system is developing something of what is called a negative tilt. Most cold fronts are aligned northeast to southwest or directly north to south.  This one is becoming aligned northwest to southeast.

That's a sign of a strong system, and one that's able to bring a boatload of subtropical moisture northward. That flow of moisture is being aided and abetted by strong winds aloft, bringing all this weather north. 

With that negative tilt, the cold front will go through Florida and the Carolinas before it gets to New England. 

The strong, veering winds aloft has eastern North Carolina at risk for tornadoes today. The storm already has a history of producing a few tornadoes in Mississippi. With even stronger dynamics, this system is almost guaranteed to produce at least a couple spinups. 

The orientation of this cold front will help massive amounts of moisture come inland over the Mid-Atlantic States and New England.  That means heavy rain. 

Unfortunately, the heaviest rain will fall precisely where the heaviest snow fell last week. This goes from central Pennsylvania, central New York, southern and central New England and on up into New Hampshire and Maine.

This rain will be accompanied by very warm, humid air, especially for this time of year. Snow melts most rapidly in humid air. So it will go fast.  One to three inches of "rain" will come from the snowmelt, combined with one to four inches of rain from the sky. 

This sets the region I mentioned just above for a serious flood threat.  This won't be just nuisance flooding.  It could get quite serious in some of these areas. 

High winds are also a problem, especially in southern New England, parts of New Hampshire and Maine, and the high elevations throughout the Northeast. 

Incredible winds will be howling just off the surface, roughly 5,000 feet above the surface.  Peak gusts on summits like Mount Washington in New Hampshire, Mount Mansfield in Vermont and Mount Marcy in New York are likely to exceed 100 mph. 

There won't be anything that strong in lower elevations where people actually live, but damaging winds gusts are still a possibility. 

All in all, between the tornadoes, floods and winds, it seems like some sad Christmas tragedies are inevitable.  Totally on brand for the year 2020

VERMONT IMPACTS

Southern Vermont is within the larger target zone from serious flooding with this storm.  The snow pack there is deep.  This part of Vermont will also get the most rain from this storm, likely 1.5 to 2 inches, with locally higher amounts. 

That very warm, humid air I mentioned will also envelope all of the state tonight and the first part of Christmas Day. While it rains. Hard. 

I'm definitely concerned that in southern Vermont, at least, this won't be just another, "Oh, look, there's some water in Farmer Smith's field again."

If you're in a flood prone area, especially from Route 4 south, keep an eye out. Small streams and brooks will be first to go nuts later on tonight.  There's definitely a risk of culverts failing, back roads washing out and water collecting rapidly in basements.  

It seems that Vermont has become more flood prone in recent decades. The most recent serious flood we had was on October 31-November 1, 2019.  I think the upcoming flood will be nearly as bad as that, but will hit an entirely different part of the state. The Halloween storm hit northern Vermont. This one will focus on southern Vermont. 

It's very hard to see flooding when driving when it's dark out, so be very careful, or better yet, don't venture out at all tonight and tomorrow. We're supposed to say home because of Covid anyway. 

I think there will also be a lot of street flooding in towns.  Many roads in flood plains will go under water.  Whatever you do, don't drive into flood waters. That's always a very dangerous move. It's especially true now, when the water will be frigid and nail you with hypothermia almost instantly. 

The flood warnings, initially only in effect for far southern Vermont, have been extended north to about Route 2.  There's less snow further north, but there's enough to melt, combined with the heavy rains, to trigger flooding. 

As Christmas Day wears on the flooding small streams and brooks will feed into the larger rivers.  At this point, Otter Creek in Center Rutland is expected to go into major flood stage, at 13.1 feet. Flood stage is 8 feet.  The expected crest would be the highest since the record highs of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011.

The Walloomsac River in Bennington County is also expected to go into major flood stage, while numerous other rivers in Vermont will probably hit at least moderate flood stage. 

Strong winds are a secondary threat with this storm in Vermont.  It won't be as bad as in southern and coastal New England, but we could seem some gusts as high as 50 mph mix down to the surface from those screaming winds aloft. Scattered power outages are a threat.

Ahead of the cold front in the rain Christmas morning, it will be strangely balmy and, as I said, humid. Lots of us will be in the upper 50s, which is getting close to record highs.  After the cold front passes in the afternoon, the rain will mercifully shut off as temperatures fall through the 40s and 30s. 

The storm will be over by then, and we'll be left once again, fixing damaged roads, culverts, bridges and likely some homes and businesses. 

Not a good forecast, for sure.  It's worth repeating: Totally on brand for 2020. 

So Let's See How All That Weird Weather Is Going

Night time aerial view of the wildfire near Irvine, California
with heavily populated areas visible just to the left of the'fire
Photo is from ABC7 

Yesterday, I talked about how extremely wild and weird the weather is across the United States.

It's worth a check on how things are working out with this, so here's the update:  

CALIFORNIA FIRES

The good news, I supposed, Monday was bad in California, but not as bad as it could have been.

The worst news from the blazes was that two firefighters were critically burned battling a fast moving wildfire near Irvine, California.  That blaze forced the hasty evacuation of 60,000 people from the Irvine area. Another blaze a little to the north forced 5,000 people out of their houses in Yorba Linda. 

It's unclear at this point how many of those homes have burned, but it's clear that firefighters saved a lot of them, for sure. 

Northern California so far has dodge a bullet. The worst weather conditions for wildfires there was over the weekend.  Firefighters managed to suppress new fire starts remarkably well, given the conditions they were facing. 

It ain't over yet. Today, in both northern and southern California, continued strong, gusty winds and incredibly low humidity levels continue the risk of rapidly spreading fires.  Winds subsided overnight in southern California, but were picking up again early this morning.  Those fires near Irvine and Yorba Linda are also nowhere near under control, so those might cause more havoc.

WINTER STORM

The snow and ice in the southern Plains has worked out pretty much as expected. In other words, unprecedented. Winter storm warnings continue as far south as Midland-Odessa, Texas, where snow and freezing rain continue to fall.

Ice accumulating on still leafed-out trees is causing a lot
of damage in Oklahoma. 

The normal high temperature in Midland, Texas today is 74 degrees. The forecast high is just 32 degrees amid continued freezing rain. 

This mess, as expected, extends up through Oklahoma.  In the winter storm zone with all this freezing rain, the leaves are still mostly on the trees. The weight of the ice has those trees crashing down, and that will continue today. 

Television station KOCO reported at least 90,000 homes and businesses in Oklahoma without power.  One couple in Yukon, Oklahoma was resorting to using two by fours to prop up the sagging branches of their prized pecan tree. 

The scope of the cold air remains incredibly impressive. Up in Laramie, Wyoming, it got down to a whopping 26 below zero this morning. That's not wind chill. It's actual temperature. It's obviously the coldest on record for Laramie for October, and it's also the colder than the lowest temperature on record for the entire month of November. This is really something!

Further south, normally temperate Albuquerque, New Mexico endured a record low of 19 degrees, 2.9 inches of snow and winds gusting to 58 mph on Monday. 

I'll have more in a near-future blog post as to how oddly unfrozen water near Siberia and elsewhere in the Arctic might have contributed to this weeks winter weirdness in the Rockies and Plains. 

TROUBLE FROM ZETA

Once and likely future Hurricane Zeta is still a big threat to the U.S. Gulf Coast.  Zeta made landfall as  a hurricane last night in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. It was the third time that region has been hit by a hurricane this year. 

Because of its interaction with land, Zeta at last check was a tropical storm with top winds of 70 mph. It is expected to strengthen into a hurricane again today in the warm waters of the southern Gulf of Mexico. 

Zeta will come ashore sometime tomorrow afternoon or evening somewhere near New Orleans, packing winds of up to 85 mph and storm surges of two to six feet.  Any storm surge is dangerous in Louisiana given the wide areas that are barely above sea level. 

This will be a record fifth time Louisiana has been hit by a hurricane or tropical storm this year. On the bright side of sorts, Lake Charles, Louisiana, battered by two destructive hurricanes this year, will only see rather minor effects from Zeta

FLOODS, THEN NORTHEAST SNOW?

Once inland, future Hurricane Zeta will merge with the storm responsible for the wild winter weather in the Plains. Parts of the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic States could see some flooding from this.

Cold high pressure will be pushing into this storm systems, so rain will probably turn to snow with this thing Thursday night in parts of the Northeast.

It's still unclear where the snow will focus, but it looks like the higher risk areas are upstate New York and central New England.  I'm not sure how much snow will fall.

Here in Vermont, the forecast is tricky, to say the least. The storm has a lot of moist air with it, but that cold high pressure system coming in from the northwest is super dry.  Vermont will be in the battle zone between those two systems. That means we'll probably see a big gradient between next to nothing in the far north to maybe a few inches of snow in the high elevations south. 

Of course, a slight jog to the north with this storm would put more areas of Vermont in play for snow. Or if there's a minor shift to the south, this will be a whiff for Vermont.