Still Fascinated, Horrified By Iowa Derecho

 Frankly, I still can't get over the Iowa derecho last Monday. You can tell, right? This is the third post I've done on it. 

During Monday's intense derecho, packing
winds of over 100 mph in some spots, an
airplane wind from somewhere landed on
this Cedar Rapids, Iowa house.

Now that some people are starting to get their power back, they're downloading videos of just how awful it was. And is.  Crops, as mentioned before, are in ruins. Many people don't have electricity back yet. 

 In towns and cities, once beautiful neighborhoods that had tall gorgeous and stately trees are now fields of strewn branches and tree trunks. A few trees still awkwardly stand, shaved of most of their branches. It's sad.

As of yesterday, many streets were impassable because of fallen trees, and people can't get out.

What gets me is the vast area covered by damage.  The damage is mostly equivalent to an EF-1 tornado (winds of 86 to 110 mph) and, in a few spots, an EF-2 tornado (111-135 mph)

Tornadoes are rarely more than a half mile wide and usually only have a track length of a couple dozen miles at most. The worst of the damage in Iowa is very roughly 200 miles long and 70 miles wide by my estimation, so you can what a toll this powerful derecho brought.

There have been many other very destructive derechos in the past in different areas of the United States, but this had to be one of the strongest

So, more videos.  You'll want to click on arrow in the middle of the images, then the YouTube logo on the bottom of each to see them in a bigger screen.  The first video is kind of long, but worth the watch because you get a vision of how the storm just seemed never ending.

In most violent thunderstorms I've experienced, the worst of the wind and damage is over within five minutes. This just went on and on.  Watch:

Here is a more brief video showing how the trees in one neighborhood are quickly dismantled by the wind. 

Notice the radar clocking the wind  speed inside an Iowa State Police cruiser stopped on a highway during the worst of the derecho:

Another view of the storm from inside a house in Marshall County, Iowa.  Wind gusts there were up to 100 mph.  The video cuts out before we learn the fate of that gorgeous tree over the picnic table. I hope it survived! 

Next up, a sad tour of downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa in the immediate aftermath of the derecho. Lots of structural and roof damage, and all those beautiful trees in ruins!

The Heat Goes On: World's Second Hottest July

The way things have been going this year, you will not be surprised by this post: July, on a global scale was the second hottest on record. 

Hard to find many cool spots in the world this past July.
All that red is above normal temperaures.

Each of the six past Julys are now the world's hottest. Nine of the ten hottest Julys on record have happened since 2010.  See a trend here?

All this comes from the monthly update provided by NOAA's Centers for Environmental Information. 

The northern  half of the world had its hottest July on record. We here in Vermont contributed: As previously reported, Burlington, Vermont also had its hottest July on record. 

In its July monthly report, the NCEI demonstrates how widespread the warmth was and how hard it was to find cold spots:

The warmest temperatures relative to average "were present across the North Pacific Ocean, the southwestern and northeastern contiguous United States and across parts of western Asia and eastern Antarctica.  Record warm July temperatures were widespread across the North Indian Ocean, southeastern Asia, and the western Pacific Ocean. Other areas of record warm July temperatures were present across parts of the Caribbean Sea, northern South America, North America and the North Pacific Ocean.  

Cooler than average July temperatures were limited to small portions of northern North America, norther Atlantic Ocean, Scandinavia, eastern China, southern South America and the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean." 

Also, Arctic sea ice extent was at record low levels in July.  Sounds a bit like climate change to me, but of course you skeptics will disagree because it was a relatively chilly July in Oslo, I suppose.

For the year so far, 2020 is in a virtual tie for the warmest year on record, coming in at just 0.07 degrees Celsius cooler than 2016.

Looking ahead, closer to home, the weather pattern is going through a bit of a shift over the United States now. It's rearranging the persistent set up we've had since late May. 

This shift will bring record  heat  to the western third of the nation and a coolish spell in the Midwest.  Here in Vermont for at least the next week or so,  temperatures seem like they will be more or less near normal for mid-August.  Which is a switch from all the heat we've had since June.   

Iowa Derecho Likely Worst Weather Disaster This Year

The derecho that swept through the Midwest, especially Iowa, seems like it will easily go down as the worst and most costly weather disaster in the United States this year.  

You can see the lighter color inside the yellow
lines in this visible satellite photo of Iowa. That
lighter color is corn leveled by this week's
destructive derecho.

But then, this is 2020. Things always get worse.  I"m afraid a hurricane or wildfire or something later this year will be even worse.

The derecho was bad enough, though. An estimated 10 million acres of crop fields, mostly corn, was destroyed or badly damage. That 10 million acres represents about a third of Iowa's crop land. ' The damage to corn is so severe you can see it in visible satellite images. 

Farms suffered severe structural damage too, with destroyed grain bins, unroofed barns and storage facilities and even wrecked homes. Overall, some estimates put the storm damage at around $3.4 billion.

The aftermath of the storm, as is often the case, was in some ways more dangerous than the storm itself.   The Gazette of Cedar Rapids reports that the hospital in that city has seen nearly 250 emergency room visits related to the storm. Most of the visits are due to injuries suffered in the cleanup.  The stress of the disaster has also brought people with underlying medical conditions to the hospital for ailments like chest pains or lung problems. 

Hundreds of thousands of people remained without power in Iowa and surrounding states Thursday morning. You can imagine the spoiled food, the lack of communication due to failed cell towers and dead batteries, and worse, medical devices that aren't working without power.  People who have been local utilities for decades say this is the worst damage they've ever seen.

This storm is probably getting less media attention than a similar storm would have near the coasts, where most major media companies are located. 

Without a deep dive, I think most Americans probably assume that the Iowa storm was much like a severe thunderstorm commonly seen in the summer, like the Tuesday storm that felled numerous trees here in Vermont, in and around Burlington.

The Iowa derecho, though, was much worse, as the damage swaths covered hundreds of miles, essentially swallowing Iowa and large chunks of Illinois and Indiana. This will probably have effects nationwide in the form of increased food prices and such. 

Things are already bad enough with the pandemic.  We did not need this Iowa disaster. 

More videos:

A family is caught out on the road as the derecho hits, and they know they are in danger. Spoiler: They drive to a Bomgaars store to take shelter and ended up safe.  Watch:

Lots of F bombs and other swear words for understandable reasons in this video from Newton, Iowa

A Weather Channel Report on farm losses.  Pretty extreme and heartbreaking:

Believe It Or Not, Wet Start To August Parts Of Vermont, But Dry Times Returning

Burlington, Vermont got socked with quite a thunderstorm last evening, which contributed to what is a surprisingly wet start to August.  

The thunderstorm that passed through St. Albans, Vermont
last evening glows in the post-sunset dusk as it continued
to move east toward the Northeast Kingdom.

It appears a microburst rolled through Winooski, a good chunk of Burlington and through South Burlington last evening, downing trees and power lines and causing a kind of havoc-strewn evening around there. 

A huge tree fell on Burlington's Intervale Avenue, and a gust of 51 mph was recorded at the National Weather Service office in South Burlington.

Microbursts tend to produce really big gushes of rain, and this storm was no exception. It dumped 1.15 inches of rain at the NWS office.

The result of this, Tropical Storm Isaias last week and another strong thunderstorm a couple days before that very wet beginning of August, at least in Burlington. So far this month, 5.25 inches of rain has fallen on Burlington. 

Even if not one more drop of rain comes down this month, Burlington will end August with rainfall of 1.3 inches more than average.

Elsewhere in Vermont it hasn't been as wet.  Up here in St. Albans, we had more of a garden variety thunderstorm last evening.  It produced about two thirds of an inch of rain, and winds gusted to perhaps 30 mph during the height of the storm. 

Also, rainfall from Isaias wasn't as heavy in eastern Vermont as it was west of the Green Mountains. 

The weather is about to take a decided turn toward much drier weather, possibly lasting a couple weeks, so I don't think we're going to set any rainfall records this month. There will be more rain, but I doubt it will be as intense as the first half of the month has been.

A cold front is suppressing moisture well to our south.  But that moisture is pooling in the Mid-Atlantic States today. That's bringing a big flash flood risk, especially in a roughly 100-mile diameter circle centered around Washington DC.

This makes me worried about flood-prone Ellicott City, Maryland, which has suffered two extreme flash floods in the past few years. 

Already, early this morning, there were some swift water rescues ongoing in northern Virginia with people trapped in cars on a flooded thoroughfare.

Back up here in Vermont, high pressure that will linger in southern Quebec will probably keep us dry and warm through the upcoming weekend.  But the humidity will be much lower, and it won't be torrid by any stretch of the imagination.

Daytimes will be in the low 80s for the most part and nights will be relatively comfortable for sleeping through the end of the week 

Derecho Wreaks Havoc In Midwest; This One Was Even Worse Than Usual

As you might have seen on the news, a huge derecho swept across the Midwest Monday, creating a wide trail of damage extending over almost 800 miles. 

Derecho damage in Des Moines, Iowa. 

A derecho is defined as a long lasting, particularly destructive line of thunderstorms that can cover 1,000 miles in just a day.  

Since they cover such a huge area of real estate, they often cause more damage than big tornadoes.  Luckily, derechos only happen a couple times a year in the United States. 

Monday's derecho was especially powerful and destructive. It started before dawn in southeastern South Dakota and rapidly strengthened as it roared across Iowa. It maintained its destructive force through Illinois and Indiana before finally weakening toward the end of the day in Ohio.

Derechos often have a few embedded tornadoes within them and Monday's probably did, too. But the real power of a derecho is the wide areas of damaging winds, with pockets of super strong straight line winds. I saw one commentator say it was basically like a Category 2 strength hurricane making  "landfall" in Iowa. 

Monday's storms had some incredible wind reports. The town of Midway, Iowa was battered by a gust of 112 mph (!!).  It wasn't just rural, relatively unpopulated areas that got nailed. Davenport, Iowa reported a gust to 86 mph.  Moline, Illinois reported 79 mph.

Winds in some neighborhoods in Chicago surely topped 70 mph, and a tornado went through one neighborhood in the city's north side. 

The saddest outcome of this derecho was in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where the winds rolled a mobile home.  Rescuers found a woman holding a child beneath her under the debris. She protected the child, who had minor injuries, but the woman died. 

More than a million people lost electricity.   

Midwest derecho damage in the Midwest Monday.

Another consequence of the derecho is the flattened corn fields across much of Iowa.  Huge fields of corn were blown down, probably causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.  Commodity prices might go up because of this 

Because of the widespread damage, I would not at all be surprised if total damages exceed $1 billion. There might actually be more damage than from last week's Hurricane Isaias on the East Coast.

The weather front that helped trigger the derecho is now approaching us here in Vermont. But to emphasis, NOTHING like what happened in the Midwest will occur here. 

It is hot today, with heat advisories in many of the valleys in and around Vermont. A few scattered storms might get going later today, and a few might be strong or even severe. But any severe weather will be limited to just a very few isolated spots. Certainly nothing widespread like yesterday in the Midwest. 

Videos: 

Click on the YouTube logos on each to get a better view.

The derecho blasts by one Iowa office building in this video:

Meteorologist Nick Stewart took this view of the derecho amid Iowa's corn fields.

Andrew Pritchard filmed these scenes in northern Illinois:

Nature Alerts Us To Seasons Changing

I've always been the type that loves to spend a lot of time outdoors.  And I've done so my whole life so far in Vermont. 

Some flowers remain around my St. Albans,
Vermont shed on a gloomy August Sunday evening

As we well know, the seasons change big time over the course of the year around here. Some of the joys of watching that is seeing how nature drops subtle hints about what's coming.  

Unless you spend years outdoors, almost every day, you can miss those subtle clues. It's a shame if you do miss them. Let me tell you, sitting outside in silence and feeling the seasons ever so slowly unfold is an experience everyone should have. And have often. 

It's August, and summer's days are starting to get numbered. Before the days of satellites, weather forecasts, Super Duper Doppler Radar and all the gizmos the meteorologists throw at us, it was nature that told us to watch the clock, if we cared about the changing seasons. Back in the day, our lives depended on that skill. 

Last evening was such a moment, but maybe a casual observer would miss it. After all, here in northwestern Vermont, the weather Sunday evening was humid and it was warm.  At first glance no change from what we've had for a couple months now. You know, summer. 

However, every year, sometimes around the second or third week in August you get a tell-tale evening like we had on Sunday.  It's a regular thing that happens every year, but I don't think about it until it happens. You get many days each year that tell you the seasons will change soon, and this was one of them. 

The sky turned gloomy during the evening.  It wasn't the sharp, heavy pre-thunderstorm darkness you get sometimes at the peak of summer, but rather a dim, almost sad grayness, a precursor of what you might experience in November.  A cloudier season is coming.  

Looking around, the green leaves on the trees, shrubs and weeds seemed tired all of a sudden, as if exhausted by all the photosynthesis they've been doing since May. The once neat garden rows in the raised bed were now in the messy chaos of harvest season 

Out by the road, a sugar maple, sick from years of road salt, had a bit of fall foliage to it. There were actually a couple of fallen autumn leaves on the lawn. 

On a gloomy August Sunday evening in St.
Albans, Vermont, hints of autumn color
on salt-damaged sugar maples

That rich, wonderful organic aroma to the air you sense on damp summer evenings has changed, too.  It's a little less sweet now, even more earthy than it was a month or two back. 

The outdoor soundtrack is different, too. Now, we get the steady hum of zillions of crickets in the weeds, with a couple of loudmouths among them punctuating the white noise with an exclamatory "zzz-zzz-ZZZIT!"

I'm not announcing summer is over, and neither was ma nature last evening. It was sort of a "you've got one month to go" warning. 

Today is humid and warm, tomorrow is forecast to be hot and oppressive. The rest of the week will bring us more true summer weather. It's not autumn, that's for sure. 

However, last evening was one of those many wonderful nights we get at all times of the year, in which it's just sublime to sit outdoors, quietly, and listen to ma nature and the seasons tell those same tales they give us every year. 

Those stories never get old. 

Here We Go Again: Another Hot Spell

We've got at least one more hot spell to go this summer here in Vermont and it's coming over the next couple of days.  

Thunderstorms erupt in the distance as 
viewed from St. Albans, Vermont on a 
very humid evening last week. Similar
weather is coming again in the
next few days. 

It has been warm around my area in the Champlain Valley but at least we've had a break from the heat and humidity. At least sort of.

The dew point, a measure of how much moisture is in the air, is also a good indication of how stuffy it feels out there. 

The dew point has been in the upper 50s to around 60 the past three days, which is a level that most people would find comfortable, though perhaps not entirely refreshing. But good enough.

Those dew points are creeping up again. They'll rise through the 60s today, so there will be a humid feel to the air by this afternoon. Monday and Tuesday will be pretty icky. Dew points will be near 70, which by Vermont standards is pretty awful. 

Temperatures will rise, too, especially by Tuesday.  It'll be around 80 today, and n the 80s Monday.  On Tuesday, traditionally warmer places, like the Champlain Valley have a good chance of reaching 90 degrees once again 

If it gets to 90 degrees in Burlington, it would be the 19th such day this year. The record for one year is 26 days, so we're relatively close. We're well into August, so I don't think we'll break that record. We're running out of time for potential hot days. But you never know. 

Nights for the first half of the week will be bad for sleeping too. 

Since we're back in the weather pattern we've been in all summer after a brief break, we have the same precipitation outlook we've had for months. 

That means just hit and miss showers and storms this afternoon and Tuesday, with a lesser chance on Monday. A few towns will get bullseyed by heavy rain, but in most places the ground will keep drying out again because of only light rains.

We did get a nice soaking out of Tropical Storm Isaias last Tuesday, which is turning out to be a great help. If we hadn't gotten that storm, a drought that had been building would be getting worse now. 

Even so, it looks like it's back to watering the gardens again 

That might be especially true from Wednesday on through the end of the upcoming week. By then, high pressure from Canada will keep us dry. 

Usually when we hear "high pressure from Canada" we expect a refreshing cool spell. Not this time.  The weather system of fair weather came across southern Canada, so it will stay warm, but at least not hot. Expect 80s for highs at the end of the week again. 

Enjoy what seems like the never ending summer!