MAGA Denial Continues As Wildfires, Boosted By Climate Change, Ravage Northern Hemisphere

Horses flee a wildfire in Biscarrosse, France
recently. There was no time to evacuate them,
so the horses released so they could run away
on their own. Followup stories reported 
the horses were later found and retuirned
to their owners. 

While MAGA was complaining this month about wildfire smoke wafting across the border into the United States, blazes were breaking out all over the Northern Hemisphere in a relentless, climate changed summer. 

MAGA has been complaining about the wrong thing, obviously. Climate change, the problem that most in the MAGA world deny, is driving much of this fire trouble. 

And, while MAGA complains about Canada supposedly not managing its forests and driving smoke south across the border, the Trump administration has cut forest management funds and jobs in the United States.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Wildfires are a risk every summer and fall, with or without climate change. These days, many of the blazes are turbocharged by climate change. 

The warmer world is helping make fires worse. As I noted in a previous blog, Canada and other far northern areas area especially susceptible to climate change. 

The snow melts earlier in the spring than it once did, leaving more time for the vast boreal forests to dry out. Summertime heat waves up north often set record highs. Hot, dry weather dries things out further. 

When weather disturbance finally grace the Great, formerly White North, the heat helps increase atmospheric instability. So you get lightning strikes. That set new fires amid a landscape that doesn't receive adequate wetting from the scattered thunderstorms. 

Europe is burning, too. It's the world's fastest warming continent, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service. 

The extra hot summers Europe has seen in recent summers are certainly killing thousands of people across the continents. That's the biggest problem. But that hot weather is also drying out the continent's woodlands, forests and scrublands, leading to enormous fires, some of which are burning as I write this. 

Here in the United States, the western half of the nation endured a record hot, dry winter and early spring. According to World Weather Attribution, the heat, particularly the hot temperatures in March, would have been virtually impossible without climate change. 

That heat early this year set the stage for the deadly wildfires in places like Utah and Colorado in the late spring and early summer.  A hot, dry spring and summer also contributed to serious wildfires in northern Minnesota. 

The Minnesota fires might have been made more intense because of our MAGA president. As the Washington Post reports:

"Last year, the Trump administration delayed a $10 million grant that was supposed to help Minnesota thin out about 4,000 acres of dense, dry forest at high risk of burning. Most of that work ever got started, according to five people familiar with the situation and a document reviewed by the Washington Post. And now, some of those areas are on fire."

The project would have removed decades of dead trees and undergrowth, creating breaks that would stop advancing fires. The grant would have paid for fire prevention efforts along a key 36-mile gravel road.  One of the two dozen lightning-sparked fires burning since the beginning of the month jumped the road and threatened houses. 

Remember, Trump and MAGA complained that recent big fires were so destructive and smoky in California and Canada because they didn't "rake their forests" or whatever he was trying to say. 

So, Trump & Co. canceled money that would have literally raked Minnesota forests. 

Even worse, many in the West and elsewhere fear that the 6,000 permanent U.S. Forest Service staff lost to layoffs, buyouts and early retirements as the Trump people keep decimating critical government work. The Trumpsters also wants to move the agenda headquarters to Utah and consolidate or close dozens of research centers and regional offices. 

Dave Upthegrove, Washington state's elected public lands commissioner told NPR: "These layoffs at the federal level are presenting risk to our ability respond to major wildfires."

U.S. Forest Service said in June that they have reached or exceeded seasonal hiring goals for woodland firefighting this summer. 

We shall see. It might be hard to tell whether firefighting capability this summer is as robust as it could be, amid the noise of all the wildfires out there. In the United States and elsewhere. 

THE FIRES

As of this past Saturday, 932 wildfires were still burning on Canada.  Those fires were burning in a  huge band from Yukon and the Northwest Territories and through northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan  into most of Ontario and central Quebec. More recently, there's also been a burst of new fires in southern British Columbia. 

The British Columbian fires are extending into the new United States fire hot spot in Washington and Oregon.  

In Washington, the Kaiser Mountain Fire not far north of the Grand Coulee Dam has covered more than 100,000 acres. That one is likely the largest of dozens of fires burning in the state. 

Down in Oregon, 1,200 wildfires were burning on Oregon. Crews were arriving in Oregon fro as far away as New Zealand and Australia to help. 

In Colorado and Utah, monsoon rains have tamped down, but not eliminated the fires. A turn toward drier weather will almost immediately help the wildfires power up again. The monsoon downpours hit areas where wildfires stripped the landscape of trees and vegetation that held the soil together. The fires also cooked the soil, so water runs off instead of soaking in.

These factors have already created huge flash floods and debris flow. One debris flow caused widespread damage in and below Cottonwood Canyon, where a fire burned through earlier this summer. 

Europe

As of Saturday, at least 250,000 people had been evacuated in France and Spain because of the fires. That includes 70,000 people evacuated in central Spain. That was said to be the largest European evacuation since World War II. At least one death was reported in Manises, Spain. 

The fire around Madrid was described as the worst in that city's history. 

The city of Bordeaux, France appeared to be in serious trouble.   The wildfire was described as a "firestorm"  last Friday but had later calmed down somewhat Saturday. Still, the Associated Press description of the wildfire fight sounds like a war battle:

"....fire crews and authorities were digging trenches, using retardants and taking other blaze-blocking steps. French Interior Minister Laurent Nunex said,  predicting a 'long and very difficult' battle."

The final stage of the Tour de France was shortened as thick smoke hit the region, CNN reports. 

Temperatures in western Europe are forecast to climb again this week, heightening the risk of new fires, and possibly making existing fires worse. 

During mid-July a wildfire swept through a section of southern Norway, destroying more than 100 homes. 

Finally, in what should be damp Edinburgh, Scotland, the second wildfire in three months ravaged Arthur's Seat, a landmark extinct volcano that offers sweeping views of the city. The fire came somewhat close to housing for students at Edinburgh University, but no damage to those structures was reported. 

United States MAGA Meltdown Over Canadian Wildfire Smoke Is A National Embarrassment

Thick smoke in Chicago last week.
MAGA has been embarrassingly 
whining about the smoke without
offering any real help or 
solutions to the problem. 

Just stop already. 

MAGA is going nuts over the wildfire smoke billowing into theUnited States from Canada, and it has long since become embarrassing. 

Somehow, MAGA thinks Canada can wave a magic wand to stop the fires, or, they're sending the smoke over the border as some sort of deliberate provocation. 

Sigh.

MAGA has spent the past week falling over each attacking Canada for the fires, as if they aren't battling the blazes with everything they have and praying for soaking, widespread rains. 

We have so many, sad disgusting examples. Let's go through a bunch of them, just to wallow in the stupidity. : 

Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio said he is introducing legislation that would require an investigation as to whether the Canadian smoke had harmed U.S. air quality and to sanctions those responsible. Moreno ought to be careful, given the harm the United States has caused Canada.

Moreno's legislation gets worse.

As Daily Beast reports, "The bill reportedly goes so far as to threaten to revoke the visas of those deemed responsible for the 'atrocity.' The legislation also 'expresses a sense' that the Canadian ambassador should be declared persona non grata until the smoke no longer affects the U.S." 

Moreno's legislation would ban U.S. government contracts with Canada and Export-Import Bank assistance and authorize the president to most import restrictions.  

Katie Miller, the wife of the odious White House aide Stephen Miller, posted the wild idea that annexing Canada would have spared the U.S. of the wildfire smoke. "This is why Canada should be the 51st state," she wrote. 

Rep. Lisa McClain, Michigan, had this temper tantrum on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter: "Michiganders shouldn't have to breathe negligence....."YEAR AFTER YEAR the smoke crossed the border while Canada does nothing. Stop exporting your smoke into our skies. Enough is enough!"

Does she expect Canada to erect a wall to block the smoke?

Also on X, Rep. Nick Langworthy, R-NY, whined, "This is no longer a one-time emergency - it's becoming an annual public health crisis. This is unacceptable."

It's not just MAGA Republicans. I found a Democrat who entered the fray. Michigan State Rep. Alabas Farhat  posted on Threads:

"For four straight years, Canada has failed to get these fires under control, and Michigan continues to pay the price." 

He referred the fires as "Canada forest management failures." He also said if Canada "refuses" to stop the fires (as if!) he said "There should be consequences."

This motive for all this whining? Almost all of it is in service to the Orange Lump of a president. We remember all the anti-Canada blather Trump has belched, the demands to make Canada the 51st state. And, after a couple days of all this, on Friday, all this stupidly and predictable whining culminated with Donald Trump saying he would add to the tariffs he's already imposed on Canada.

The Orange Lump said Canada "has refused to engage in basic Forest Management and Debris Removal."  I guess Canada was supposed to rake its forests, just as he insisted California should have done. 

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had a devastatingly low key reaction to the MAGA tantrums: "Climate change is everyone's responsibility, truly everyone's including the United States."

ABOUT THAT CLIMATE CHANGE

There have always been occasional years with Canadian or western United States fires that belch smoke into the United States. It used to be infrequent. 

On May 19, 1790 - way back when - was labeled the "Famous Dark Day" in New England, according to the Vermont Weather Book.  Candles were needed to read, and the air had an eerie, brassy hue. That was probably smoke from the western United States or maybe the northern Great Lakes region.

On September 6, 1881, it was the legendary, "Yellow Day,"  Everything took on a yellow hue, and artificial light was needed to read documents and books during the day. Basically the same thing happened in September, 1908, and September 1950.

So we used to have smoky days, but since those days were a rarity, they became legend. 

Now however, smoke attacks are no longer a rarity, but a regular occurrence. So what changed?

Canada has roughly 1.4 million square miles of forest. Most of it is boreal forest, a broad area representing 30 percent of the global forest area in northern areas of Canada, Russia and Alaska. 

Most of the forests are remote, and impossible to manage like forests in more populated areas in the continental United States.

Fires have gotten worse and widespread in recent years for reasons that mostly have to do with climate change. The snow in the spring melts sooner than it once did, leaving more time for the landscape two dry out than it once did Parts of Canada are warming at twice the rate of the global average, creating heat waves that further dry things out. 

The summer heat also destabilizes the air, creating thunderstorms with relatively little rain but plenty of lightning strikes that set off fires.  Invasive bark beetles kills swaths of foresters, leaving behind tinder dry dead trees. 

So, contrary to MAGA, Canada isn't trying to torture Americans by sending choking wildfire smoke into the United States. They are in large part a victim of climate change. And historically, the United States has always been the #1 or #2 greenhouse gas emitters in the world. 

In the end, climate change has us breathing smoke that makes us sick, and will end up killing some of us. 

MAGA has been yelling outrageous things about the wildfire smoke. But just hint to them climate change might have had something to do with it, the screaming just becomes that much louder. 

THE FIRES

On Saturday, 949 fires were burning across Canada, according to the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System.  The intense fires in Ontario were quieter, thanks to some rain.

But those weren't the only fires burning in North America.  As of Saturday, there were 73 large fires burning across the United States, including 17 new large incidents, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Most of these were in the West and in northern Minnesota. There were also a multitude of smaller fires burning around the nation. 

Fires are also burning in the boreal forests of Siberia. In recent days, a fire in Norway spread from a townhouse and into a forest, where it continued on to destroy about 100 homes. It was the largest such fire in Norway's history. 

TRAGEDY, HELP AND HONOR

It's not as if Canada is just gleefully sending smoke to the U.S.  Smoke has choked much of southern Canada, including large cities like Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. 

The Canadian fires have especially hit the First Nations communities in Ontario. Thousands were evacuated. An unknown number of houses have burned, but the number of destroyed buildings is easily in the hundreds. 

Normally, and in the past, the United States and Canada would help each other with emergencies. Canada is still doing that. 

Sometimes, firefighters give their lives to the effort. About a week ago, Nicholas Dale, 56 of Sooke, British Columbia died in a helicopter crash while responding to a wildfire in not too far north of Telluride. 

Dale's death make the vitriol aimed at Canada over the smoky atmosphere especially galling. 

In a demonstration of how much more decent most Americans are, compared to the noxious MAGA crowd, Wyoming Public Radio described this scene as the sad process of returning Dale's body to Canada began. :

"On Monday morning, a line of firetrucks, ambulances and other emergency response vehicles flashing their lights stretched for nearly a mile as the convoy passed through the little towns and small cities between Gunnison and Grand Junction. 

In Montrose, hundreds somberly lined U.S. Highway 509 holding American flags to honor Dale."

STUPIDITY WORSENS

Meanwhile, he whining from MAGA kept getting louder and even more bizarre gets even worse in some circles  

Right Wing Watch posted on X (formerly Twitter) posted this gem of a clip from MAGA activist Eric Metaxas: 

"Who's telling me how to live my life?  I'm an adult man in a free country, and you're telling me, 'limit your outdoor activity.'' he said, "How dare they say that. Who has the right to tell me or you or anyone anything? It's a free country. I can do whatever I want."

Never mind this was just an advisory, kind of like telling people to drive carefully in a winter storm. But the guy isn't very bright. The comments section was glorious

"He should definitely go outside ad jog for HOURS!

"Fine, Eric. Please go outside and put your mouth over a diesel bus exhaust. It will benefit all of us."

"Eric doesn't understand the difference between a suggestion and an order Poor guy."

"Oh the humanity! This dude is the victim of receiving information! Will the abusive alerts never stop enslaving him?"

"Getting asthma to own the libs."

"Dear Eric - I forbid you from running out in front of traffic on the expressway."

Metaxas is a great example of the low, ignorant, tragicomic  MAGA mentality. They can do anything! They are all powerful!  While the rest of us roll our eyes and laugh at them. 

MAGA seems to think the abuse they've hurled at Canada is a flex, showing how powerful they are. Trump and his minions are actually demonstrating exactly how weak they are. Their pathetic insults and whining is a precise demonstration of how impotent MAGA really is. 

We should all remember that despite their bluster, the rest of us hold most of the power. We ought to use it. 

  

Green Mountains Of Vermont To Often Fade Behind A Smoky Haze For The Rest Of Summer. A Climate Change Story

Smoke obscures the view along Lake Champlain 
last summer, July 26, 2025.

Vermont's first air quality alert of the summer went into effect this past Sunday. Thankfully, the bad air didn't turn out to be quite as bad as feared.  

The wildfire smoke that was approaching the state from southern Quebec dissipated more and sooner than expected, leaving us with relatively safe air, although it was kind of hazy. 

Get used to the haze. It's going to be with us much of the rest of the summer. And probably the first half of autumn. 

I'm sure we will see more air quality alerts before mountains snows in Canada and the West finally snuff out the fires. 

Huge wildfires are burning in the U.S. West. There's an enormous cluster of fires burning west of Hudson Bay, Canada. More fires are raging in northern Canada. All that smoke has to go somewhere. 

Often, that pollution will end up in the eastern United States, including here in Vermont.  That fact is always a bummer for me. 

During June, North American wildfires were not especially extensive. Which left us with plenty of days in which we could gaze out at the Green Mountains of Vermont and they were.....green.  Luscious, rich, elegant, gorgeous green as far as the eyes could see. All this under a deep, pure blue sky flecked with puffy white clouds. You know, the iconic view of a Vermont summer.  

Those days of clear air will now become much fewer and further between for the rest of the summer.  

Until recent years, wildfire smoke in Vermont hadn't been a thing. Back in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, we did had a lot of "Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer," as Nat King Cole sang in a 1963 hit. Especially haze. That was mostly ickiness from auto exhaust and factory smokestacks to Vermont's south and west during mid-20th century heat waves. 

The Clean Air Act removed a lot of the haze. Not all of it, but it was an improvement. Then, in the past decade or so,  wildfires around the world, including in North American started getting worse. The hotter world dries out the forests earlier in the spring than they once did. Those forests keep getting more and more parched as sumner goes on.    

So, many of the forests went poof.   

Forest fires now burn more than twice as much tree cover as they did two decades ago, according to University of Maryland researchers. 

All those fires spew smoke, obviously. Per-person exposure to wildlife smoke in the United States was four times higher during 2020-24 on average each year, than during 2006-2019, according to Climate Central. 

The haze from these huge fires often ends up engulfing much if not all of the United States, including here in Vermont. 

Summertime air quality alerts in the Green Mountain State used to be a rarity.  But that's changed. Most recent summers have featured many hazy, acrid days. A few days in the summer nowadays are actually dangerously polluted. 

Even if the pollution isn't enough to prompt those alerts in our climate changed world, the smoke spoils the view.  The mountains, especially those in the distance, fade into a bluish, grayish murk. Some days, the smoke is high overhead, so the mountains still looks vivid and green. But the sky overhead is depressing. Instead of a deep blue, it's an almost colorless, weak =pale grey-blue. 

That looks like Vermont's future for the rest of the summer.  

That's not to say every day will feature haze. Air currents can still thread the needle between the wildfires and the smoky areas to deliver delightfully clear, refreshing air. Or, on some days, the smoke will be thin enough to be just an accent, giving the mountains just an added shade of blue mixed with the green. 

At least the sunrises and sunsets will be more spectacular as the smoke brings out the reds and oranges in the clouds. 

As I write this Wednesday morning, the sky overhead is blue enough, but the distant Adirondacks are barely visible through an off-blue haze the color of exhaust from a malfunctioning 1970s-era Buick.  

Climate change isn't only about heat waves and weird weather. It chips away at our health, our atmosphere, our way of life, our well being.  I just wish the Powers That Be would recognize that when they complain about a lousy view of the mountains during their Vermont summer vacations  

Heartwarming Hay Donations After Extreme Nebraska Wildfires. But It Doesn't Solve The Climate Change Problem

One of the huge Nebraska wildfires back on March.
Photo from Nebraska State Patrol 

This spring, Nebraska burned. At least a large part of it did.  

Amid a drought and record breaking high temperatures that further dried out the landscape, high winds fanned wildfires that burned through  820,000 acres of Nebraska rangeland. 

The worst of the fires burned in March. One of the fires blackened 600,000 acres. The blazes left numerous ranchers without feed for their cattle. Damage estimates are at least $10 million. 

This is all bad news, of course. And climate change is a prime suspect again. An insane March heat wave contributed to the conditions that led to the huge fires.  World Weather Attribution reported that the March heat wave would have been virtually impossible without climate change. 

The fires burned through just about all of the 11,000 acre ranch Mike and Kayla Wintz lease in the middle of nowhere - deep in the Sandhills of western Nebraska. With the grass gone, the cattle couldn't graze, as CBS's on the road reporter Steve Hartman noted. 

Suddenly, after the fires. Wintz and other ranchers started getting phone calls. The callers said hay was on the way, and where should we put it. At last report Wintz has received $80,000 worth of hay, all donated. 

Highways in central and western Nebraska became busy with convoys of trucks carrying hay to desperate ranchers. Some of the hay came from as far away as South Carolina. The convoys became almost like celebratory parades, as school kids lined streets to watch the trucks, fully loaded with enormous bales of hay pass by. 

"Empathy, charity and grace," Hartman concludes. 

All true. Hartman is always the feel good reporter we need when we need to see someone acting like good humans should. 

Unfortunately, I'm not as kind hearted as Hartman. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely support and love this Nebraska "hay lift," for lack of a better term. And of course I support helping your neighbor in any way you can. Whether that neighbor is literally next door or half a world away. 

However,  like so much havoc caused by, or more often made worse by climate change, massive hay donations like we've just seen in Nebraska aren't going to solve the problem. 

In the first few months of 2026, major wildfires scorched over a million acres in Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma, Nebraska Public Media notes.

NPM continues:

"The amount of Great Plains land burned by wildfires tripled between 1985-1994 and 2005-2014, according to a 2017 study from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The number of incidents also increased from 33 per year to 117 per year."

 Judging from news reports about Great Plains fires in the past three years at least, that trend  detected nearly a decade ago by UNL researchers has continued.

There's always talk of "adaptation" to extreme conditions wrought by climate change. And people in the Great Plains can adapt to an extent. They can make homes and outbuildings more resisted to fire. Improve warning systems. But if there's a drought, strong winds and hot temperatures, there's little you can do to stop the grass from burning. 

While people are contemplating wildfires, the Plains might be in for a temporary reprieve. Climate change makes fires more likely, but so does La Nina. That weather pattern tilts conditions toward dry in the central and southern Plains during the early spring. 

Early spring is peak fire season. A potentially strong El Nino is poised to replace the La Nina. An El Nino more often than not tends to turn the southern half of the Plains wetter. 

Still, El Nino will end at some point. And so the fires will come back, possibly even more ferocious than this year's as climate change continues to heat the planet. 

Here is the CBS report. Click on this link to view it, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

April Wildfires Rage In U.S. There's Even A FIre Threat Here In Vermont

Screen grab of a report from WPTZ of a brush fire that
got out of control in Shelburne Wednesday. Much
of the state has a high fire danger today. Elsewhere
in the U.S. much, much worse wildfires have been raging

It's been a terrible wildfire year already in the U.S. and it continued to get worse on Wednesday. 

Fires raged in Georgia, Florida and other states. It's a continuation of a fiery spring in the United States. 

So far this year, through April 17, the nation has seen 20,915 wildfires, the most in recent history and far above the average of 13,597 through that date, the National Interagency Fire Center reported. 

As of April 17, 1,748,490 acres have burned, far above the average of  875,957 through mid-April.  With drought raging in much of the nation, the fires will only get worse as we head into the summer. 

The last few days have made things even worse.

In drought-stricken southern Georgia, at least 50 homes were destroyed by wildfires.  Hundreds of people have been evacuated. Much of Georgia is under mandatory burn bans for the first time in the state's history. The fires are mostly in southern Georgia and northern Florida, where an intense drought is worsening. 

In northern Floria, firefighters battled more than 130 wildfires that burned 39 square miles, NBC News reported. 

Further north, a smoky haze engulfed Atlanta.

In Colorado, a fast moving fire southeast of Colorado Springs prompted evacuation. 

Today, fire alerts run from New Mexico and northwest Texas all the way to eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota.

VERMONT FIRES

Here in Vermont, things are not nearly as dire as they are in Florida, Georgia, Colorado and other places beset with big wildfires.

But April and early May represent peak wildfires season here in the Green Mountain State. Mostly because said Green Mountain State is not that green yet. Last year's dead brush and leaves, exposed to the sun through leafless trees, dry out in a flash. Even a day or two after rain or snow. 

We've already a few dry episodes with fires this spring. This year through yesterday, 28 Vermont fires have burned 143.6 acres, according to data from the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation. 

 Just yesterday in Shelburne, WPTZ reports that somebody called the town's fire department for a burn permit after already setting the field alight. The fire department turned down the request. 

Meanwhile the fire got out of control as winds gusted to as high as 25 to 30 mph. Firefighters from three departments got the fire contained after it burned about a half acre. No word from the report as to whether the property owner was cited. 

Officials are warning of potential fires today, especially in lower valleys. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington has issued a special weather statement warning of fire danger in the Champlain and lower Connecticut River valleys and the valleys of southwest Vermont. 

Very dry air and gusty winds could really spread fires today. Now is not the time to burn your brush pile, or flick a cigarette out your truck window. 

Dry weather will continue through the weekend, which keeps the fire danger going. But winds starting tomorrow will be lighter than the 25 to 30 mph gusts we'll see today. 

GREAT WEATHER!

A daffodil enjoying some early morning sunshine
today in St. Albans, Vermont. We have great
spring weather coming for the next few days
but there is a high fire danger, especially today.

Aside from the fire danger, we have just launched into a spell of great spring weather. Skies should have at least a fair amount of sun daily through Sunday or Monday. April showers bring May flowers, but so does April sunshine. 

Cool weather, especially today and tomorrow will be invigorating for those of you who want to go out and get yard work done. 

Highs today and tomorrow should mostly be in the low and mid 50s

We will have freezes tonight and tomorrow night as readings  fall to between 25 and 30 degrees both nights. This won't be cold enough to endanger spring plants like the sharper, colder spell we had Monday and Tuesday morning. 

At least around my area in northwest Vermont, most of my spring plants survived Tuesday morning's frigid temperatures. They'll do fine this time, too. 

But if you are hardening off more tender plants on your deck or whatever, bring them in tonight, tomorrow night and maybe the night after that, too. 

The weekend will turn a little warmer, with highs near 60, which is about normal for this time of year. It looks like skies will be partly to mostly sunny, so we have a fantastic weekend coming up, fingers crossed. 

The Vermont Maple Festival is this weekend in St. Albans, so it'll be a perfect weekend for that, too! 

Wild Weather Coming To Much Of Nation, But Boring Weather Here In Vermont. Boring Is A Good Thing

Lightning set a grove of palm trees ablaze yesterday
outside of San Diego,  California. It was part of an
opening salvo of volatile weather expected across
much of the U.S. in coming days. Here in
Vermont, the weather will stay blissfully boring

 On Tuesday, two tornadoes appeared in of all places near Fresno, California. 

It was part of some storminess that socked California with bursts of heavy rain, thunderstorms and wind. Lightning strikes set a grove of palm trees on fire not far from San Diego, burning about 100 of the trees in a spectacular if very bizarre fire.  

A tornado and strong thunderstorms in California make me nervous. Especially during severe weather and tornado season. 

Forecasters are already calling for a tornado and storm outbreak in the coming days in  the Plains states. The Fresno tornado makes it seem all the more likely. 

It's all part of a weather pattern that's pretty common this time of year. Strong southwest winds bring dry air into the western Plains and eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Humid southeast winds come into the southern Plains and Midwest from the Gulf of Mexico.  Cool air comes in from the northern Plains. That sets up the volatile weather situation. 

Meanwhile this weather pattern brings a relatively gentle northwest flow of air to New England. The result is relatively cool, and definitely boring weather. More details on Vermont's weather further down in this post, but first, the set-up:

ROUGH WEATHER

The rough weather will begin today with a widespread fire hazard across a huge area of the eastern Rockies and western Plains as those dry southwest winds blow in from the Desert Southwest. The main area of worry today is in northern New Mexico, northwest Texas, eastern Colorado, eastern Wyoming and parts of South Dakota. 

The Southeastern United States has also endured wildfires amidst their drought and that will continue today.   

In terms of severe weather, we've already had at least one rough episode this month. At least 110 tornadoes were reported in the Midwest on April 17,  

The expected severe weather begins modestly today with a few severe storms possible in a narrow corridor in the Central Plains, 

Tomorrow, severe thunderstorms, a few with gorilla hail and a few tornadoes are forecast in the central Plains. Gorilla hail, for the uninitiated, does not involve primates, unless a human is hit with one of those scary hailstones.  Gorilla hail  are really, really, really big hailstones.  On Friday, severe thunderstorms will focus on Arkansas.

Forecasters are especially worried about areas around Oklahoma and Kansas. It's not possible to be sure this far in advance, but there could be a very nasty tornado outbreak over the weekend. Especially on Sunday. Stay tuned.

VERMONT FORECAST

All that rough weather in the Plains is not going to bother us here.  This type of weather pattern either shears apart and destroys those storm systems as they try to approach us. Or they shunt them down to our south.  

So our weather gets boring. In this case, boring is very good. No drama like we've had in recent days. No tornadoes. No hail. No snow. No hard freezes. No heavy rain. Just cool, quiet spring weather 

It'll be cool today through Friday, with highs within a few degrees of 50 today and in the low 50s tomorrow and Friday. We should be in the upper 50s this time of year. So, a bit chilly, but nothing unreasonable like we had earlier this week. 

The only thing we really have to worry about in the next few days is brush fires. It still hasn't really greened up out there. All that dried up grass and weeds and last autumn's' leaves dry up fast this time of year. Relatively stiff breezes, especially tomorrow, raise the risk of brush fires.  Now is not the time to play with matches. Well, it's never a good time to play with matches, but especially now.

The first in a series of storms from the Plains will wash out on approach to us this weekend. There's a slight chance some light showers will hang in there and give us some brief dampness Saturday or Sunday, but don't count on it. 

It'll turn slightly warmer, too with highs within a few degrees either side of 60 Saturday and Sunday. 

The next chance of rain still looks to be on April 29. But even then, that storm looks like it might be weakening as it approaches us, so we might not get much out for that one either. 

 

"Impossible" Extreme U.S. March Heat Made Possible By Climate Change

Map depicting where record highs were set last Friday.
Pink dots were where all-time high temperatures records
for March were broken. Climatologist are very hard
pressed to recall when, if ever, all time monthly
highs were established over such a large area. 

Climatologists are absolutely stunned. 

The temperature over the past few days in the western and central U.S have been beyond insanely high the past few days. Worried scientists say this would not have been possible without climate change. 

The heat has frightened millions of non-scientists in the West, too. . This could be a harbinger of never before imagine heat in the future. 

It's only March.! Read through the following reports of record heat and tell me if these temperatures  even seem possible this time of year. 

RECORD HIGHS OBLITERATED

On Thursday, the national record for hottest March day was broken when it reached 110 degrees not far from Yuma, Arizona. That beat the old national record by two degrees 

Then Friday not one but four weather stations not far from Yuma, Arizona reached 112 degrees, breaking the national record for hottest March day that was set the day before. 

The record was only one degree from the national record for hottest April day.  The old record was set the day before.

The 112 degree readings were on both sides of the Colorado River, so California and Arizona set new statewide records for hottest March day on record.  

A total of thirteen states from California to South Dakota had their hottest March day ever. To be clear, these aren't just individual cities, these are statewide records. 

Theses include places that are often wintry this time of year. Vermillion, South Dakota reached 97 degrees. Three locations in Wyoming got up to 90 degrees. Luverne, Minnesota was at 88 degrees.

After a record warm winter and now this March heat wave, a few spots in Montana, a few plants are showing signs of new leaves, - 30 days ahead of schedule. Parts of South Dakota and Wyoming are also running nearly a month ahead of schedule. 

Northern Mexico is also experiencing record March heat, too. Hermosillo, Mexico reached 108.5 degrees, setting a new national record for hottest March day. The old record was 105.6 degrees. 

Back in the United States, in higher elevation Flagstaff, in northern Arizona, the hottest ever March temperature there was 73 degrees, set on March 17, 2007. Then this month came along. Last Tuesday, Flagstaff tied that record. On Wednesday, it beat that record by three degrees. Then on Thursday, the temperature in Flagstaff reached 84 degrees. 

That broke the 2007 March record high by 11 degrees. It also broke the all time April record by four degrees. 

In the infrequent case in which a weather station breaks an all-time record for a given month, it seldom break the record by more than a degree or two. On very rare occasions, a new high might exceed the old mark by three or four degrees. But 11 degrees? And breaking the following, warmer month's record by four degrees?

Flagstaff wasn't the hottest place in this heat wave, but it was probably the scariest. 

PHOENIX

Meanwhile down in the desert in Phoenix, the record books were rewritten in a similarly frightening fashion. But it's dangerously hot there. 

Prior to this year, the hottest it had ever been during March in Phoenix was 100 degrees.

Daily highs on March 18 through yesterday were 102, 105, 105,105 and 102 degrees, all obviously record highs The next six days in Phoenix are all forecast to be somewhere between 98 and 102, and each would be record highs. That's 11 consecutive record highs, which is insane, a word I keep using. 

Phoenix seems to have entered a new era of extreme heat under climate change's spell. 

Eleven consecutive record highs are almost unheard of, but not quite. An American city had 21 consecutive days with record highs in September and October, 2024. That city was Phoenix, and that stretch set a record for most consecutive record highs in any U.S. city ever .

The all-time record highs for September and October were also set in 2024 .

All but one of the 10 hottest years in Phoenix have been since 2012, and the top five hottest have all been since 2014. The two hottest years in Phoenix were last year and the year before.  This year is off to a start that would break that record for hottest year once again. 

EFFECTS

World Weather Attribution has already examined the ongoing heat wave and has concluded it would have been virtually impossible without climate change. 

The winter was also record warm in the western half of the United States. This is the second consecutive month in which an all-time record high was established for an entire month for the entire nation. That new record was 106 degrees in Falcon Dam, Texas. 

The record warmth in the West resulted in a paltry snow pack in the mountains. Now, this heat wave is melting what little was left.This summer, water shortages could affect the 40 million people who rely on the Colorado River. 

Wildfires are already burning way ahead of the normal season in the western U.S. Unless there's a long and sustained change to a wetter weather pattern, the fire season in the summer of 2026 could also get very scary, very fast.

We here in Vermont are not participating in this particular, record smashing heat wave. Back in 2012, we were enveloped in another March heat wave that shattered records in the eastern two-thirds of the United States. More than 7,000 record highs were established in the U.S. during that mid-month spell.

Here in Vermont, Burlington had five consecutive daily record high temperatures, including an unprecedented three consecutive days that reached at least 80 degrees.

At the time, the March, 2012 heat wave was considered almost a once in a lifetime experience. We'd never see more widespread hotter March temperatures than that.

And here we are, easily outpacing 2012. 

It's an ominous sign for us and the rest of the world. 

 

Florida Drought Has Water Supplies Drying Up ,Crops Wilting, Fires Burning

All of Florida is in a drought. The red shading represents
extreme drought. The dry weather is intensifying

We often think of Florida as humid and wet. But the Sunshine State has dry seasons, and this one is dangerously parched. 

Water restrictions are being put in place, farmers are fretting about crops and wildfires are harassing the state.

According to U.S. Drought Monitor, all of Florida is in drought. Northern and southern parts of the sate are in extreme drought while central Florida is in moderate to severe drought. 

The drought trend is worsening. Less than half of Florida was in extreme drought back in mid-February. Now, about three quarters of the state is in extreme drought. The drought is said to be the worst in a quarter century. 

Water conservation measures are ramping up. 

WGCU in southwest Florida reported:  

"The Southwest Florida Water Management District, which covers an eclectic area surrounding Tampa Bay, declared a "Modified Phase II 'Severe' Waters Shortage in January. '

That means lawn watering is down to one day a week in the district and only between midnight to 8 am or 6 p.m. to midnight.  

Then it got worse as rainfall kept falling short. 

Per Newsweek: 

"Critically low waters are "prompting Tampa Bay Water to issue an urgent call for conservation to help stretch supplies through the region's driest months. The utility says water from rivers typically provides more than 40 percent of the area's drinking water but ongoing drought had rendered those sources unusable. 

With temperatures rising and spring vegetation demands increasing, officials warm that without aggressive conservation, including limiting showers to find minutes, deeper restrictions could soon follow."

'We're heading into the driest months of the year when it only will get hotter and drier, so now is the time to save and get to those Florida summer rains, ' Tampa Bay Water public communications manager Brandon Moore told Newsweek."

March through May are usually the driest months of the year in Florida. The storm track moves north of Florida in the spring, so rains from passing fronts are less likely to affect the Sunshine State much. Once we get past Memorial Day or so, almost daily summer thunderstorms can help replenish low water. 

Farmers are struggling with the drought as the spring planting season gets under way. In addition to the drought, winter crops were decimated by repeated freezes. 

Wildfires have been harassing Florida, too. Extremely dry conditions are of course fueling them. But dead vegetation from the winter freezes isn't exactly helping. 

Some rain is headed toward Florida over the next week, but it won't be nearly enough to erase the drought. 

Wild Weather Videos: Wildfires In Plains, Incredible Sierra Nevada Snows

A huge wildfire in Oklahoma earlier this month. It was
one of many extreme weather events so far this month. 

Before this week's big blizzard hit the Northeast, other dramatic weather hit the U.S. raged. We had Plains wildfires, and incredible snows in the Sierra Nevadas. 

Everybody has cameras these days, so we have video of all these goings on. We have some examples here. I'll have Blizzard of '26 videos in a separate post. 

Here's a video of a wildfire blowing into Woodword, Oklahoma on February 17. It gets pretty dramatic with fires whirls toward the end. As always click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that

To say it snowed in California's Sierra Nevada mountains last week is definitely an understatement. To give us an idea of how it looks, Live Storms Media provided us with the scenery in Soda Springs, California. Looks like a good three feet of snow fell there within the first day and a half of the storm, as you can see in the video. I believe they eventually had about eight feet of snow. 

Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

I have no idea why anyone would drive their Prius over California's infamous Donner Pass in a blizzard ,but here we are. Next video is people struggling in their vehicles amid heavy snow, shortly before authorities finally had the sense to shut down the heavily traveled highway. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

It isn't just the United States. Dramatic video shows an avalanche hitting a train in the Swiss Alps.  Nobody was injured in this one, and rescue services got everybody off the train within two hours. An avalanche his another train in Switzerland, derailing it and injuring five people. 

Here's the video of the train getting hit, along with some updates on other avalanches in the region. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

 Next, a cool aerial view of the ice in Pennsylvania's. Susquehanna River beginning to break up and jam in thawing weather recently. Rivers in the state had been heavily iced over by intense early February cold. The thawing lately has contributed to ice jams. Click on this link to view, or as usual if you see the image below click there. 

Other States Having Bad Weather Too: Florida Fire And Ice, Hawaii Flood, California Whiplash

Aerial view of one of the brush fires burning
in Florida. Drought, freeze damage, dry air
and gusty winds are causing several
wildfires around Florida. 

While all eyes are on the Blizzard of '26 ripping through the Northeast today, a few other areas of the United States are having their share of troubles, too. Florida is burning, and freezing again. Hawaii is flooding. Some of that deep snow California just got is about to wash away. 

Let's take a look, 

FLORIDA

After some record heat as relief from the freezes earlier this month, that New England nor'easter is pushing another shot of cold, dry air down into Florida. 

Freeze warnings once again cover most of Florida, extending as far down as southwest Florida below Naples. The freezes will hit areas already devastated by record cold in the opening week of February. 

Crops had just been replanted and had been growing in consistently warmer weather over the past two weeks. This will add to the destruction. One example is a tree farm in Indiantown consists mostly of just brown trees gutted and wilted by freezes earlier this month.

Worse, Florida is in a severe drought and the nor'easter is bringing gusty, very dry winds into the state today. Florida has had numerous wild lands fires this month already. The fire danger is almost off the charts today. 

One large fire blasted through 500 acres in Osceola County, Florida over the weekend.  Another brush fire earlier this month spread to a company that makes plastic pots and other equipment for plant nurseries. That fire sent thick clouds of black smoke billowing into the air.

It will turn warmer again in Florida later this week and it appears the frost danger will be over after Tuesday morning. However, not enough rain is expected to ease the drought, so the fire danger will probably last well into the spring. 

HAWAII

Torrential rains struck the island of Oahu in Hawaii over the weekend, causing some serious flash flooding. One town had 1.3 inches of rain in just a few minutes as the downpours passed through. 

Drone footage showed several homes flooded in Wailalua, as residents were evacuated by local officials.  Several roads were closed as water swept over them. The city and county on Honolulu have set up an online for for Oahu resident to report flood damage. 

Other video showed a stormwater easement that has never caused trouble gushing upward and pushing water into at least two homes. 

Moanalua Stream reached a record flood stage at 10.76 feet. KHON news showed video of many streets underwater, and torrents of muddy water pouring down steep hillsides. W driveways. ater lapped at doorsteps and flooded

The Honolulu Zoo also closed due to the heavy rain.

You can't directly blame a storm like this on climate change, but the Hawaiian storm is consistent with climate change's ability to make rain events more intense. 

Flood watches remained in effect until later today for large parts of the Hawaiian islands

The flooding was the second destructive storm in Hawaii this month. High winds on February 7 and 8 caused widespread damage in Hawaii on February 7-8.

CALIFORNIA

Last week, the higher elevations had a TON of snow last week. Snow fell at elevations as low as 2,000 feet. Higher elevations above 7,000 or 8,000 feet had 7 to 11 feet of snow 

Rain will fall tomorrow at elevations of up to 9.500 feet in California as the weather system is coming from the tropics. There is a flood risk, but on the bright side, the rainfall won't be super heavy. The flooding might occur on lower elevations that got some unusual snow last week. The melting snow and rain could raise river levels.

Higher up, the rain will just soak into the 7 to 10 feet of snow from last week. In a way, this is good, because it will increase the water content in the snow.

The rain will probably ruin what many in California said was some of the best powder days of their lives at resorts like Kirkwood. If you want to vicariously live through such a day in the California Sierras, click here for a Tahoe Mountain Life video showing the joy of eight feet of new powder on a bluebird winter day.

Dramatic, Deadly Weather Has Returned To Much Of U.S. Blizzards, Wildfires And More

Wildfire entering neighborhoods in
Woodward, Oklahoma on Tuesday.
Wildfires and dust storms have
plagued the central and southern 
Plains since yesterday. 

We're entering the season in which storms and wind combine to create an enormous smorgasbord of dangerous weather. 

And that wild weather season is off with a big bang with a variety of scary weather going on around the nation. 

That weather action beganwith extreme wildfires in the central and southern Plains, dust storms, and drought-denting snow in the Rockies, feet of snow in the Sierra and a West Coast that has abruptly turned soggy after a month and half of uncharacteristic wintertime dry and warm weather

The new weather pattern is at least easing the harshest winter weather the eastern United States has seen in years or even decades. But the cost of this is dangerous storms that will eventually extend nearly  coast to coast.  

 WILDFIRES/DUST STORMS

 Wildfires raced through parts of northern Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas on Tuesday. One of the fires forced nearly 4,000 people to evacuate their Woodward, Oklahoma. Four firefighters have been injured so far. 

The Woodward County fire demolished three structures, including two a U.S. Department of Agriculture facility. 

One fire started in the Oklahoma panhandle and spread into Kansas, consuming 155,000 acres.  Video showed large fire whirls moving rapidly across the dry landscape and thick towers of smoke looming overhead. 

The storminess out west has helped produce strong, dry southwest and westerly winds across the Great Plains, which are already in drought. 

The winds died down slightly today, but not all that much, The fire threat hasn't gone away. A broad zone from eastern New Mexico to South Dakota and on to Iowa and Illinois are under a fire risk today.  To give you a sense of how chaotic the weather is in the Plains, southern South Dakota is under a fire alert today, while the northern part of the state, less than 100 miles away, is under a blizzard warning 

Wildfires are raging in Florida, too. A combination of drought, sunny, breezy weather and freezes earlier this month have turned the state into a powder keg. One fire in Vero Beach, Florida started from an illegal burn and threatened several homes.

Back in the Great Plains, dust storms also raged on Tuesday, especially in Texas, eastern Colorado and western Kansas and Nebraska.

 A dust storm on Tuesday along Interstate 25 near Pueblo, Colorado cut visibility and caused a 30-vehicle pileup. The crash killed four people and injured 29 others. 

Winds gusted to 68 mph in Amarillo, Texas and the relative humidity dropped to 13 percent. 

WESTERN STORMS

The storms shut down in California around the first of January, and pretty much no precipitation fell until this week. 

These new storms are easing fears that the lack of rain and snow might allow drought to start creeping back into California. 

The Sierra Nevada mountains are part way through a series of dumps that will leave several feet of new snow behind.  Some areas of the Sierra Nevada area had three feet of snow within 24 hours.Blizzards shut down all highways crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains, including heavily traveled Interstate 80. 

Nine back country skiers are missing and six were rescued following an avalanche near Lake Tahoe. 

 Video from Soda Springs, California, showed near zero visibility in heavy snow and blowing snow, The snow looked like it was accumulating very fast. Fox Weather had a chaotic report from the Heavenly Ski Resort in the Sierra amid almost zero visibility and a mess of stuck vehicles. 

There's an excellent YouTube channel called Tahoe Mountain Life that gives you just what the title says. Today's video on that channel gives you a great idea how things are like in this mountain blizzard. 

The UC Berkeley Snow Lab in the Sierra Nevada reported 29.3 inches of new snow in 24 hours and 57.5 inches within two days. Another two to three feet of snow is expected there by Friday. 

The snow level has dropped to 2,000 above sea level, which is quite a bit lower than it usually is. That
means more roads are either closed or dangerous for inexperienced winter drivers. 

A couple more feet of snow might fall up there by Thursday night.  It should stop snowing temporarily Friday, but more mountain snows should arrive Saturday and continue into the middle of next week. 

The heavy snow has been pushing eastward along the Canadian border through North Dakota, northern Minnesota and northern Michigan. Heavy snow with thunder and lightning over Duluth, Minnesota. 

SEVERE WEATHER

As if all this wasn't enough, a flash of severe weather is likely tomorrow in Indiana and parts of Illinois, Ohio and Kentucky.  There could even be a tornado or two. That's pretty far north to have a tornado this time of year. 

 

Florida Freezes To Mess Up Your Grocery Bill

Farmers at Southern Hill Farm in Clermont,
Florida tried encasing crops in ice which
counterintuitively protects crops from harsh
freezes. Many farmers do this. But the 
cold was so intense in Florida the icing
did not work in many cases. Photo
from Southern Hill Farm via Facebook

This winter's cold is turning out to be expensive. And I'm not just talking about your heating bill. 

If you like fruits and vegetables, the price is probably going to spike soon, if it hasn't started to do so already thanks to those big Florida freezes. If you're tired of rising grocery prices, this isn't the news you want to hear. 

Some towns and cities hit all-time record lows for the month of February last weekend to kill off whatever didn't die in previous freezes this winter. 

The state was hit by a freeze back on December 30, with more freezes in mid-January before a series of frigid nights began around in the final week of January and intensified in February. 

It takes awhile for freeze damage to crops to become fully apparent. Farmers and agricultural organizations in Florida are just starting to assess the damage. So far, it's not looking good. 

CENTRAL FLORIDA

In central Florida, WFTV reports total losses at central Florida blueberry farms: 

"At H&A Farms, owner Michael Hill says his blueberry crop was wiped out because of the cold snap over the weekend. 'This whole farm is a complete loss,' They have a thousand acres of blueberry plants around the state. He cut into a blueberry to us the inside. "That's all brown. It's supposed to be green. 

Hill says they pack 40 percent of Florida's blueberries, which go to stores like Publix, Aldi and Costco. And because these berries died, Michael says he will no longer need the 2,000 workers to pick them in the fields or the hundreds needed to pack them."

The crop losses will have a ripple effect. Forklift operators, quality control specialists, shipping coordinators, boxers, stackers, packers, all those occupations in Florida blueberry industry vanished in a single night of cold weather. 

At one citrus farm in Plant City, in central Florida east of Tampa, temperatures remained below 28 degrees for more than six hours on both last Friday and Saturday nights. Even with covering trees with ice to protect the crops, damage starts when temperatures fall to 28 degrees or lower for four consecutive hours. 

At least eight to 10 percent of the current citrus crop was destroyed, making this the worst citrus freeze since at least 2010. Future citrus crops might be affected, too. 

"There will be heavy leaf loss from the frost damage and some of the young trees we've planted over the past ew months probably won't make it,' Trevor Murphy, the citrus grower in Plant City told AccuWeather. "The bloom and new flush on the trees will not make it either - we should have our main bloom toward the end of February into the first part of March. It'll be a few days until we start seeing leave and fruit drop. Coldest and longest duration of cold I've had since I've been growing oranges."

Also in Plant City, a farmer named Jonathan Allen, said his 120-acre field of sweet corn was wiped out. When farmers get desperate, they get creative. He tried building a berm and flooding the field to create a warmer microclimate, but the wind was so strong the subzero cold blasted right through the fields.  

"This freeze is the worst that I can remember, probably worse than 1989....Across the board it's devastation, complete devastation."

SOUTH FLORIDA

The more recent cold wave, on the weekend of January 31-February 1 blew all the way through South Florida and beyond. A town in Cuba reached 32 degrees, the first time on record that anyplace in Cuba reached the freezing point. 

Unlike previous cold waves, then, South Florida agriculture was trashed.  

As Axios Miami reports: 

Markon Cooperative, a North American produce supplier, wrote in market update on Wednesday that "recent freezing temperatures across Florida will  have a major impact on current crop production."

So yeah, that's really bad, since so much of our stuff comes from Florida. And I"m unsure how Trump's tariffs affect the price of food coming in from different nations, like Mexico. 

 Axios Miami says Markon Cooperatives affiliated squash growers report more than 50 percent of that crop has been lost. Bell pepper loses are at nearly 50 percent. Tomato growers say their fields have definitely suffered damage, but how much was still being assessed at the end of this week.

 One tomato grower told CBS Miami that a good 20 percent of his crop was probably lost. 

LANDSCAPES AND FIRES

Across most of Florida, plants, palms and some trees are now brown, wilted and battered. Some people, assuming climate change made them safe, planted tropical trees and plants in central Florida that don't tolerate freezes. 

These plants had managed to grow for years in warmer winters, only to be wrecked by this month's freeze. Proving the climate change is uneven. The general warming trend is punctuated by extremes, like the Arctic cold Florida has experienced lately.  

Floridians are being advised to leave their trashed landscaping alone for now. Then, when spring buds and shoots begin to appear, property owner will know what is destroyed and has to be removed or trimmed and which plants will survive.

Lastly, Florida now faces an increased fire risk. The state is often prone to wildfires in late winter and early spring, as the usual warm season thunderstorms are usually absent. And right now, almost all of Florida is experiencing a drought. 

This year, because of the freeze, the landscape isn't as green as it usually is. There's now a lot of dead vegetation that can easily make fires spread quickly.  Several fires were already burning before last weekend's freeze, and this will just make things worse.

No rain is forecast in central and southern Florida for at least the next seven days. Northern Florida is expecting only light rain at best.

At least it's starting to warm up in Florida. Another frost is expected tonight in far northern parts of the Sunshine State. But after that, for the foreseeable future, anyway, further frosts are unlikely for at least a week or two, if not more. 

Wildfire Smoke From Canada In 2023 Significantly Worsened Vermont Childhood Asthma

Smoke shrouds Interstate 89 near Georgia, Vermont on
June 25, 2023 as wildfires raged in nearby Quebec.
Recent UVM research indicates the smoky summer
worsened asthma among Vermont children,

Asthma symptoms worsened among children in Vermont and northern New York in the summer of 2023 as clouds of wildfire smoke billowed into the region from huge Canadian blazes, new research confirms. 

We've always known that bad air quality can make asthma sufferers more miserable and put them in danger. But it's interesting and useful to learn to what extent wildfire smoke is a problem. 

Research on the effects of wildfire smoke in populations far from the actual blazes is rather scant as Vermont Public notes. Most science focuses on people near wildfires or those exposed to the smoke for long periods of time. 

The new research from the University of Vermont is useful for those of us occasionally breathing smoke from hundreds or even thousands of miles away. The UVM study is the first to consider the impacts of wildfire smoke on asthma patients in the Northeast. 

"This shows that even these small levels of changes in air quality due to wildfire smoke have the same impact of negatively impacting children's health," said Anna Maassel, the study's lead author and a doctoral student at UVM's Rubenstein School of Environment of Natural Resources. 

That's a big deal because roughly 7 percent of Vermont's children have asthma. 

Here's how this worked, as Vermont Public reports:

"Researchers studied electronic health records for more than 900 people, aged 3-21, being treated for asthma within the University of Vermont Health Network over three summers, from 2022 to 2024. They then compared this with estimated smoke exposure within zip codes, based on air quality data.

They found that children's asthma in Vermont and New York was markedly less well-controlled in 2023, when Quebec experienced a record-breaking wildfire season, compared to 2022. But researchers didn't find that asthma symptoms noticeably improved between 2023 and 2024, even though air quality got better."

The UVM researchers looked at particular matter that was smaller than 2.5 millionth of a letter, or PM 2.5. "That can be especially challenging to dispel from lungs, and especially irritating to those airways....There is research that shows that exposure to wildfire smoke can have much longer-term impacts, including development of asthma, especially for early exposure as a child," Maassel told Grist. 

Children with asthma usually have fewer attacks in the summer because they're not in school where they're constantly exposed to respiratory viruses and indoor triggers. 

Since wildfire smoke is usually a summer thing, children with asthma might not get the break they historically did if this smoke becomes a regular occurrence. Climate change is making Canadian springs and summers hotter and in some cases drier, creating the conditions for wildfires. The western U.S. is getting more prone to larger wildfires, too. 

So it looks like we need to start getting used to smoky summers almost everywhere in the United States.

On top of that, Grist notes, climate change is making growing seasons longer, means plants can produce more pollen. That pollen can exacerbate asthma and other chronic respiratory diseases. More bad news for asthma sufferers.

Wildfire smoke isn't just all about particles. As smoke travels long distanced, it produces ozone, which can irritate the lung and worsen asthma. Other icky things, like formaldehyde can evolve in traveling wildfire smoke, too. 

Like most research, the UVM wildfire smoke research begets more questions and more studies. 

Per Vermont Public:

"Maassel said more research is needed to understand why children's asthma wasn't better controlled in 2024. It's possible, she said, that the wildfire exposures of 2023 had a lingering impact.

The researcher said she's also interested in studying who is most impacted by smoke pollution - and what practical solutions public health officials can offer people to help protect them. Often, health officials tell vulnerable people to go inside and turn on their central air when air quality goes down. But few Vermonters have that option."

This goes well beyond Vermont, of course, The smoke attacks from Canada in 2023 and the western United States in other recent years, affected most of the population of the U.S.  As wildfires grow every year, will it contribute to a general decline in the nation's health?