As Expected, Tornadoes, Storms Spread Havoc Across The South, Caps An Extraordinary U.S, Tornado Year

Screen grab from Storm Chasing Channel video of
a tornado shredding trees Saturday in Mississippi

 At least two people died and damage is widespread from Texas to the Carolinas as the widely forecast Saturday severe weather outbreak unfortunately materialized.  

As of this morning there were at least 41 reports of tornadoes, mostly across eastern Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

One person died in a tornado south of Houston, and a likely tornado claimed another life in Mississippi. 

Video showed a large tornado near Bude, Mississippi that unroofed several homes. Another video by the Storm Chasing Channel's Scott Peake shows the same tornado crossing a highway and shredding trees around a parked pickup truck. 

A likely tornado hit downtown Athens, Alabama overnight, tearing the roof off a court house and spreading debris through the streets. 

The storms moved into the Carolinas Sunday morning.

Flash flooding hit parts of western North Carolina early today in an area still reeling from the extreme floods from Hurricane Helene in September. This morning's flooding wasn't remotely as bad as that, but this region doesn't need more bad weather news. 

Up to four inches of rain fell in some of the steep terrain in those North Carolina mountains. 

During the busiest travel time of the year, storms were mostly responsible for 15,000 canceled or delayed flights over the weekend, according to FlightAware.  Most of the airports where the delays and cancellation originated were in the path of the southern storms. 

After the severe storms end later today, forecasters say there's little chance of additional widespread severe storms and tornadoes for at least a week and probably more, as colder air floods into much of the United States. 

A cold air funnel begins to form over St. Albans, Vermont
in a non-severe thunderstorm on June 9.  This was a type of
spin that is not associated with tornadic thunderstorms
and these tend not to be dangerous.

This year has been quite a year for tornadoes in the U.S. Through November, no fewer than 1,762 tornadoes were confirmed, which is the highest number since the epic twister year of 2004.  That year, 1,813 tornadoes were reported in the U.S. 

The number of death in tornadoes this year was 52, which is bad, but pretty low considering how many tornadoes spun up, and how many of them were pretty strong. 

For comparison, there were 83 U.S. tornado deaths in 2023, with 1,321 twisters being reported that year. 

Of the 24 weather and climate disasters in the U.S. this year that cost over $1 billion in damage, six were tornado outbreaks and a handful of others included some tornadoes in the mix.

NBC News reports one odd note about 2024 tornadoes, and that's the propensity for strong tornadoes with landfalling hurricanes.

Most hurricanes that make landfall in the U.S. do spin off some twisters, but most of those are relatively weak with top winds of up to 110 mph. Fewer than 1 percent of tornadoes associated with hurricanes have an EF-3 rating, which means destructive winds of 136 mph or more. 

But four of the five hurricanes that made landfall in the U.S. this year produced EF-3 tornadoes. Hurricane Milton, which hit Florida in October, sent a swarm of dozens of tornadoes through the state. 

This year also continued a trend toward more eastern tornadoes. True, the traditional "tornado alley" in states like Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska were hit hard, but there were areas of pretty weird activity in the Northeast. 

New York had 32 tornadoes in 2024, breaking the single-year record for twisters of 25, set in 1992.

Right here in Vermont, there were no confirmed tornadoes in 2024, but some close misses. On June 23, tornado warnings were issued in parts of central Vermont due to rotating thunderstorms and reported wall clouds, but no confirmed twisters touched down in the Green Mountain State.

There was a tornado that day in Dublin, New Hampshire, about ten miles east of the Vermont border. 

On July 10, a tornado dissipated in New York state not far from the Vermont border, and a funnel cloud was spotted over Bridport. 

A tornado struck Lyme, New Hampshire on July 16, and its path started just a couple miles east of the Vermont border.  

Warm Vermont Day Continues 2024 Trend That Could Exceed Last Year As Hottest

Our flowering hibiscus tree along with the tropical
orange trees, calla lilies and agapanthus not pictured
here, continue to thrive in late summer warmth
on our St. Albans, Vermont deck. The year is
on pace so far to be the warmest on record.

 It made it to 81 degrees in Burlington, Vermont Thursday as we enjoyed another blue sky, wall to wall sunshine September day. 

Although that reading wasn't odd for the opening week of September, it did continue a trend. We're having a hot year. 

Thursday was the 77th day this year in Burlington in which the temperature reached at least 80 degrees. The only other years I could find with more such days were all recent - 81 days in the 80s during 2020, 83 days in the 80s in 2018 and 85 days in the 80s in 2016.

Although I kind of doubt we'll break that record for most 80s in a single year back in 2016,  It's still possible.We do have a shot at making it to 80 degrees today. And some forecasts get us that warm toward the middle and end of next week.

Though the chances of any given day making it to 80 will being falling steeply as we head through autumn, such warmth is possible into October. The latest 80 degree day on record was October 25. 1963.  And who knows? With climate change, we will probably one day break that latest 80 record. We came close in 2022 when it was 78 degrees on October 26.

Year to date so far during 2023 in Burlington is also the hottest on record. I don't know whether the entire year will exceed last year as the city's hottest year on record. It all depends on whether if the warm trend of 2024 continues through December. 

Long range forecasts from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, for what they're worth, continue to indicate a warmer than average temperatures more often than not through December.  

Still, there's an excellent chance 2024 will be among the top ten warmest years. Due to ties, there are 13 years in Burlington's top ten warmest. If this year joins the top ten list, that means all of Burlington's warmest years will be since1998.  Which isn't that long ago, considering the temperature records go back to the 1880s. 

Also, the top six warmest years in Burlington have all happened since 2012. 

Colder than normal weather is still always possible.  We'll see the occasional chilly month or season from time to time.

It's the roll of the dice. But the dice are now loaded by climate change, so the odds now always favor warmer weather than the type we had in the 20th century. 

As I always keep saying, this isn't your grandfather's climate. 

United States October: Another Warm One, Especially New England

Pretty much all of the United States except parts of
Montana and the western Dakotas had yet another
warm month in October, according to the latest data.

 Data continues to trickle in on how the world's climate fared this October. 

The latest news is the United States summary from the National Centers for Environmental Information.

Overall, the United States had its 18th warmest October out of the past 129 years. The United States represents only a tiny fraction of the Earth's surface. Evidence continues to come in to confirm October worldwide will be the warmest on record. 

New England, especially Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine were particularly warm relative to average. Maine had its second warmest October on record. Vermont and New Hampshire placed third in the warm rankings. 

Most of the rest of the Northeast, and much of the Southwest were above normal.  The only place that was noticeably cooler than the 20th century average was southeastern Montana. The rest of the nation was fairly close to average. 

It's pretty impressive how widespread the record and near record warmth for the first ten months of the year have been. According to NCEI:

"Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida each ranked warmest on record while Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and Maryland each ranked second warmest for the January-October period. An additional 18 states had a top 10 warmest year-to-date period. No state experienced a top-10 coldest January-October."

Pretty much nobody in the United States experienced a chilly October.  The only places having a cooler than average 2023 so far are just a few isolated spots in the central Rockies. 

If you're looking for something normal, precipitation was pretty close to average in October. Same is true for the nation as a whole for the first ten months of the year. Of course, as usual, some places were way wetter than average, others were much drier.  The extremes canceled each other out.

Global analysis for the month of October should be out within a few days, and I'll provide an update when it's available. 

 

In One Of World's Hottest Years, 2022 In UK Was Off The Charts

United Kingdom had its hottest year on record in 2022.
Other nations might follow suit, and globally, 2022
will be among the top 10 hottest. Where the world
ranks will be known for sure by the middle of this month.

 We won't begin to get great data just yet on how 2022 stacked up in the list of world's hottest years.

So far, the expectation is it certainly won't be the hottest year ever, but still will crack the top 10, probably somewhere between sixth and eighth hottest. Pretty remarkable for a year with a La Nina, which tends to cool the world a bit. 

The United Kingdom, though, came in with a scorching hot year.  The UK has been keeping track of temperatures since 1659, the longest period of instrumental data in the world.

After all those years, 2022 will be the hottest, according to provisional data from the UK Met Office.  The Met Office is the British equivalent to the National Weather Service in the U.S. 

As the Met Office reports:

"Dr. Mark McCarthy is the head of the Met Office's National Climate Information Centre. He said, '2022 is going to be the warmest year on record for the UK. While many will remember the summer's extreme heat, what has been noteworthy this year has been the relatively consistent heat through the year, with every month except December being warmer than average.'"

Every month of 2022 was warmer than average in the UK, with the exception of December, which looks like it will be a little cooler than average. That's thanks to a cold snap during the first half of the month. 

As the year closed, it was unusually warm in the UK, and as the New Year began, unprecedented winter warmth spread into most of the rest of Europe. 

Several other European nations might have also had their warmest year in 2022.  If the way 2023 is beginning continues, those records won't last all that long.

Data is starting to come in regarding how 2022 ranked globally, and we'll have a very good idea of that ranking by the middle of this month. 

I'll keep you posted. 

 

Warm December Finishes Up Second Warm Year On Record In Vermont

Springlike conditions amid record high temperatures in
the low 60s on December 16 in St. Albans, Vermont. A
warm December contributed to making 2021 tie as
the second warmest year on record. 

If you thought there was a lot of warm weather in Vermont during 2021 you were right.

The year ended with a flourish - a warm December. That helped make Burlington, Vermont create a tie for the second hottest year on record.  That's out of about 140 years of records. 

In Burlington, the average temperature for the year was 49.4 degrees, which ties with last year as being the second warmest year on record. The warmest was 49.9 degrees in 2012.

There's quite a warm year trend going here. 

All but one year in the top ten warmest list in Burlington has been since 2006. The other outlying year, 1998, is still pretty damn recent. Each of the past six years, except 2019, have been in the top seven warmest.  The year 2019 was warmer than average, but missed being in the top 10.

Vermont is in good company with having one of the hottest years on record.  I'm sure I'll discover in the coming days dozens upon dozens of U.S. cities that had their warmest years, if not the warmest. 

In New England, Providence had its warmest year on record (54.0 degrees) beating the old record set just last year. Boston also had its warmest year at 54.4 besting 2012 by 0.2 degrees. Hartford and Worcester had their fifth warmest years. 

Newark, New Jersey had its warmest year on record, too.  New York City scored in the top five. State College, Pennsylvania had its warmest year on record. It goes on and on.  At least nine cities in the eastern United States had their hottest year on record and several dozen scored in the Top 10.

Back here in Vermont December certainly contributed to the year's warmth. The mean temperature came out to 31.8 degrees, which makes it the fourth warmest on record. Montpelier and St. Johnsbury were also well above average

It was another dry month in a relatively dry year. Burlington was almost three quarters of an inch on the dry side in December. Montpelier was about 1.3 inches short. 

For the year, Burlington had 35.15 inches of rain, which was 2.38 inches below normal.

The hottest day of the year was June 7, when it got to 97 degrees. That's unusual, since the hottest day of the year is usually in July or August. 

There were 19 days with thunderstorms, 86 days with snow and 137 with rain, reports the National Weather Service in South Burlington 

I'll have a review of the top Vermont weather events of 2021 in an upcoming post. 

Photos: Vermont Year In Review - Weather And Nature

At the end of every December,  I like to put together a YouTube slide show of some of my favorite weather and nature photographs from the year.  

This year is no exception. Like the year before, I didn't get out quite as much as I would have liked, due to a busy schedule and some restrictions due to Covid. 

Many of the photos were shot right on my St. Albans, Vermont property.

Having a good view and plenty of flower gardens does help. 

Although we had our extremes here in Vermont, mostly on the heat side, the weather year in the Green Mountain State wasn't nearly as off the rails and as dangerous as it was in many parts of the world. 

Which of course is great, and I hope our luck continues in 2022. 

Weather off the rails can make for some great photographs. The snow in spring photos in my slide show are a small example of that. 

That said, I'm not exactly into death and destruction weather, so here's hoping my photos for the upcoming new year feature mostly pretty clouds, flowers and trees as they did this year. 

As always, mobile uses might not be able to see the video on this screen, so click on this hyperlink to view.

Or if you see the video image below, click on the arrow and the the YouTube logo for best viewing 

Here ya go! 

Global 2020 Temperatures Essentially Tied As Hottest On Record

The new red planet? Almost the whole world was warmer
than average in 2020, making it essentially tied as'the
warmest year on record.

 NOAA came through last Thursday with their analysis of global temperatures for 2020, and as expected, the news wasn't good.  

The just past year was essentially tied with 2016 as the hottest year on record.  To be precise, 2020 was almost imperceptibly a skosh cooler than 2016.

The year 2020 knocked down 2019 to third place in the hottest list. 

While NOAA's analysis puts 2020 at Number Two on the hot list, other scientific organizations call it a tie with 2016.  Says NOAA:

"NASA scientists, who conducted a separate but similar analysis, have determined that 2020 ties 2016 as the warmest year on record, sharing the first-place spot. 

Scientists from Copernicus also have 2020 tying with 2016 as the warmest year on record, while the United Kingdom Met Office ranked 2020 as the second-warmest year on record"

In the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter whether 2020 tied with 2016 or was a teensy bit cooler.  You have to look at the multi-year trend, which isn't good. From BuzzFeed news:

"'The past seven years have been the warmest seven years on record,' said Lesley Ott, a NASA researcher. So regardless of where individual years fall, 'the consistency of the most recent ears being the warmest is very, very clear' she said. "

LA NINA/OTHER FACTORS

 By all rights, 2020 shouldn't have been that warm. Much of the year was dominated by a La Nina ocean and air pattern in the eastern Pacific Ocean.  That tends to cool the globe a little bit, climate change notwithstanding. 

Despite the El Nina, 2020 was near a record high.

This El Nina is forecast to continue well into 2021.  Since the effects of a La Nina on the global climate tend to lag, it's highly unlikely 2021 will end up setting yet another record as the hottest on record. Still, scientists are virtually certain it will end up in the Top 10 hottest. 

You can see that minuscule cooling trend starting in the December, 2020.  The month was only the eight hottest on record. That one month probably prevented 2020 from being the warmest on record. 

One thing that might have worked a teeny, tiny bit in favor of making 2020 warmer was, believe it or not, the pandemic.  It caused, among a zillion other things, fewer cars and trucks on the roads globally. That meant less auto exhaust, which meant fewer tiny aerosols in the atmosphere from that pollution.

Those aerosols reflect sunlight a little bit, so with less global auto traffic, the sun was able to heat the atmosphere a smidge.

By the way, this isn't revisionist anti global warming stuff.  The aerosols from the cars fall out of the atmosphere pretty quickly. All that carbon dioxide from the cars, which contributes to global warming, stays in the atmosphere much longer. 

The 2020 temperature analysis is yet another screaming indicator of climate change. As BuzzFeed quoted:

"'This is a clear indication that the global signal from human-induced climate change is now as powerful as the force of nature,' Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, said in a statement."

At least there's going to be a renewed effort to do something about it.  Soon to be ex-president Trump backed out of the Paris Climate Accord. 

However, Joe Biden, whose first day at work as U.S. President is tomorrow, says he will move to rejoin that accord within hours of being sworn in. 

Biden is also reported to be poised to cancel the Keystone oil pipeline, which has been a lightning rod for climate activists in the United States.  That pipeline would, if completed, bring 830,000 barrels of crude oil each day from Alberta, Canada to the U.S., eventually making it to refineries along the Gulf Coast. 

 Canceling the pipeline won't do much to mute climate change, but it is a symbolic gesture toward combating the problem.