Climate Change Is Contributing To "Weather Whiplash" And Helping To Create Big Disasters

Winter, 2025. Super dry weather and extreme winds
caused mass destruction from wildfires in 
southern California. 

The California firestorms are highlighting one of many big problems climate change brings to our world: 

It's what scientists are calling hydrological variability or hydroclimate volatility.

Those are fancy words for weather whiplash involving extremes in rain and snow. With climate change. many parts of the world are increasingly whipsawing from super wet to super dry and back again. 

The current wildfire crisis in California is a classic example of this violent see-sawing related to climate.

The story really starts last winter, and the winter before that.  Winter is the wet season in southern California. Or at least it's supposed to be. The winters of 2023 and 2024 were really, really wet around Los Angeles.  

For instance, in just a single storm in early February, 2024, Los Angeles had five to seven inches of rain, nearly half their annual average total.  Climate change tends to make storms more intense, so this unusually heavy rain kinda makes sense in this age in which the world is warming. 

Then the rain stopped. Southern California went through its normal rain-free summer, and waited for the late autumn and winter rains to return. So far they haven't. The storms are still out there in the Pacific Ocean, and those storms are still very wet. 

But a stubborn weather pattern is keeping those storms away from southern California. Again, this could be, at least maybe, another climate change issue. Some scientists say weather patterns are more likely to get "stuck" so conditions on the ground don't change like they are supposed to. 

All that brush that grew thick and lush in those rainy winters dried out more and more, until, by the beginning of a rainless January, they were tinder. 

Winter, 2024: Extreme rains brought destructive
mudslides to southern California. Two photos
are an example of an increasing trend 
toward weather whiplash

All they needed was a spark, and the arid, gusty winds that sometimes blow in from the interior desert to cause the calamity. 

The rest is sad history. 

Southern California is far from the only place that has been enduring this kind of whiplash. 

We've seen this weather whiplash play out here in Vermont. We went from devastating floods in July. Those catastrophic floods extended into Connecticut and Long Island in August.

But by October and November, the whole Northeast, including Vermont and Connecticut had entered a drought.  

It can also consist of sharp variations in precipitation over relatively small geographic distances. The southern third of California has been extremely dry this winter. The northern third, at least up until recently, has been exceptionally wet.  

This whiplash is increasingly a worldwide problem. Per KQED:

"'I see the last decade as a preview of what we should expect to see more of,' said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources and UCLA. Except that 'the wettest wets and the driest dries we've seen recently are not the wettest wets and the driest dried we will see in the coming decades.'"

 There's two main drivers to this flood and drought/fire cycle. A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, which means storm can gather more water and dump it as more torrential rains.

However, it storms are avoiding a particular area, a warmer atmosphere can pull more moisture from plants and soil, so droughts take hold more quickly, and potential fuel for fires becomes super dry. 

On paper, many areas won't see any major shifts in average precipitation. There will probably be an increase in extremes, but average those extremes out, and that average might be roughly the same as they are now, said John Abatzoglou a climatologist at UC Merced, reports KQED.

California - and presumably other places - should plan on more extremes in the future rather than just basic changes in precipitation totals.  

The Arctic Cold Gathers, Then Weather Whiplash In Vermont

Latest wind chill forecast map from the National Weather
Service office in South Burlington, valid 7 a.m. Saturday.
Most of us are in the upper 30s to mid 40s below
on the wind chill scale. 

We got our first taste of true winter cold this morning, with much of Vermont going below zero.

Burlington got to minus 2.  This was the fourth latest first zero of any winter I'm aware of.  Meanwhile, Island Pond, Vermont and Saranac Lake, New York dipped to 20 below. Lake Eden, Vermont was close behind at 18 below.  

We'll see a warmup of sorts today and tomorrow ahead of the long-anticipated Arctic blast, but it won't be all that balmy. Today will get into the low to mid 20s.

Thursday could hit the low 30s in warmer valleys. But gusty south winds will make it feel colder. Then we get into the nastiness: 

Thursday Night: During the first half of the night, the cold front arrives, probably accompanied by a band of snow squalls. Those will create quick drops in visibility and danger on the roads amid brief heavy snow and blowing snow. 

Overall accumulations won't amount to much, perhaps an inch or two, but that's not the real story, of course Temperatures will rapidly crash, and probably be below zero by dawn across much of Vermont, central and north. 

Wind chills will have drop into the 30s below overnight and before dawn. We do have that wind chill watch for all of Vermont and surrounding areas from late night Thursday through Saturday. 

Friday: A real ugly day for sure. If you greet the dawn Friday at below zero, there's a good chance actual temperatures won't get above zero all day.  The warmest anyone in Vermont will get will be close to 10 in the "warmest" southern Vermont valleys.

North winds will continue blasting all day at around 20 mph with higher gusts. Wind chills will be in the upper 30s and 40s below all day. This is truly dangerous weather, especially since we're not accustomed to it. 

If you must go out, be sure to keep skin covered. Make sure your car is ready with a good battery and a full tank of gas. And keep some extra blankets and other warm clothes in the car in case you get stuck out there. Also, how's the fuel tank in your house? Full enough? Check it now. 

Lake Champlain will look interesting amid the frigid temperatures and strong winds. It's still largely ice-free, thanks to the warm winter we've had until now. You'll see lots of wind blown steam, and perhaps some whirls or funnel clouds out there.  Lake effect snow will probably fall southeast of the lake, but accumulations will be light. 

Friday night: That, of course, is when we bottom out as Arctic high pressure noses, aided by the Polar Vortex, which by then will have swooped into eastern Quebec and touching the northern tip of Maine. 

Although winds will diminish, they won't entirely die out, which means two things. On the bad side, wind chills will still be in the basement, staying in the 30s and 40s below. On the good side, the winds will keep the air mixed in some locations, so the actual temperature won't go as low as it could if everyone had calm winds. 

That's not saying much. Temperatures through most of Vermont will pretty uniformly be within a few degrees of 20 below.  Probably mid and upper teens below in the Champlain Valley and warmer valleys of southern Vermont, and mid 20s below in the colder spots. Deeper northern valleys could be protected from the wind. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find some 30s below actual temperatures in Vermont by Saturday morning. 

Climatology Comparison:  It certainly is possible for even Burlington reach 20 below. If it does, it will be the first time it's gotten that cold since January 7, 2018

This will also probably be the coldest February temperature since February 24, 2015, when it was 19 below in Burlington. In the off chance it gets to 20 below in Burlington, it will be the first time it's gotten that cold in February since an especially intense cold wave on February 7, 1993 brought Burlington down to 27 below.

As intense as this Arctic blast is, it certainly won't be the coldest February readings on record. In Burlington, that honor goes to a 30 below temperature on February 12, 1979.  Statewide, the coldest on record in February is 46 below in East Barnet in 1943

Saturday: After that horrifically cold start, temperatures will only slowly warm under a fair amount of sunshine. North winds will continue to make for a terrible wind chill. Most places in northern Vermont won't even get above zero. But at least winds will temporarily diminish in the afternoon. 

Saturday night: Here's where weather whiplash starts to get us. I told you this would be a brief Arctic smash. Temperatures wills start to crash at and just after sunset, especially east of the Green Mountains. But before they get too cold, they'll level off as the core of the cold air zips off to the northeast. Plus, south winds will start to blow. 

Here's something to warm your heart. After our Arctic
blast Friday and Saturday, long range forecasts call
for warmer than normal weather in the eastern U.S.,
including in Vermont, next week. 

Temperatures will bottom out during the first half of the night in the teens below zero in much of eastern Vermont and single digits below west.

Temperatures in many places, especially the Champlain Valley, will rise overnight and during the wee hours of the morning. It'll actually get pretty windy in the Champlain Valley overnight, so blowing snow will become a problem. 

Sunday: Weather whiplash continues. We're dealing with a strong warm front and a strong cold front. Neither will have much moisture with them. .But what they lack in moisture they'll make up for with winds. 

The Champlain Valley will "warm up cold" as I like to say. Temperatures will rocket upward, but the stiff winds will make it feel colder. Pretty much everyone in Vermont will see some pretty good south breezes. By late afternoon expect highs to actually be at or a wee bit above normal.  That means highs in the 27 to 35 degree range. 

Sunday night: The one trouble with the approaching cold front will be the risk of more snow squalls Sunday evening, so we'll have to keep an eye on that. The "cold" air coming in behind the cold front won't be cold at all, so we should expect a normal winter on Monday. Highs in the 20s to near 30.

Beyond that, it could be 40 degrees by Tuesday.