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! 

Christmas Night Vermont Update: Still Kinda Gnarly Out There

You an see trees being weighed down by ice in the 
background in this screen shot of an AOT traffic cam
along Interstate 91 in Guilford, Vermont.

 Today, as expected, was a disaster for driving and/or walking in Vermont.

Freezing rain was widespread, and that put an end to plenty of Christmas plans, including my own. I had planned to travel from St. Albans to Rutland to visit family, but the roads seemed a bit much.  

There were accidents and slide-offs galore, and some roads actually closed. So it wasn't worth it. 

Among the roads largely shut down was a 40-miles stretch of Interstate 91 in southeastern Vermont, which was closed to all but essential travel for several hours. A number of secondary, hilly rural roads were impassable.

It doesn't take that much freezing rain to do that. Ice accumulation was mostly around a tenth of an inch, in line with forecasts.  But that's more than enough to stop trapping. Icing was a little thicker in southeastern Vermont, where it piled up to close to a quarter inch. It was enough to cause a few minor and brief power outages.

Far northern Vermont escaped the worst of it, but it was still icy.  For instance, Burlington was pretty iced in by mid-morning, but at my place, there was barely any ice until freezing drizzle and fog moved in during the middle of the afternoon.

For those of you planning on making a car trip in or near Vermont this evening, it's not going to get much better. It could actually get a little worse as temperatures drop.

Freezing sprinkles, freezing patchy light freezing rain and freezing drizzle (or as I call it, "frizzle") will continue over night. And possibly be mixed with a bit of snow in spots.   Total precipitation, if you melt it down, will amount to only a few hundreds of an inch, but that's more than enough to keep roads, sidewalks and such icy. 

Also as expected, it got a little bit above freezing in some valleys of western Vermont from Burlington south. But that will all freeze up again this evening, so you won't get a break there, either.

"Frizzle" and patchy snow will continue into Sunday morning, so don't expect perfect driving conditions until later in the day.

Unless my flight is canceled, which seems like a strong possibility given the news, I'm leaving to visit relatives and friends in Maryland and Delaware, so posting on this here blog thingy might be a bit spotty over the next few days, but I'll try my best of course! 

Check for updates, as I'll have 'em! 

Slip, Sliding Away On An Icy Vermont Christmas

Ice accumulation map for today from the National Weather
Service.  Most of us should get about a tenth of an inch
of ice, more than enough to make the roads treacherous.
South

 Seriously, all I want for Christmas is to not break my leg slipping on the ice that's starting to form out there. 

This year will be a promising nominee for worst Christmas weather on record in Vermont, I hate to say.

Sure, other Christmases were lousy, too.  In 1980 it was in the 20s and 30s below. In 1978, there was one to two feet of snow, which made for a VERY white Christmas, but one you couldn't really drive through easily. It was in the mid-60s last Christmas, which was nice, I guess, but not traditional. It would have been more welcome on Easter.

Freezing rain is my least favorite kind of weather and that's what we're stuck with today.  

To pile on the bad news, the timing of the steadiest freezing rain couldn't be worse.  Before dawn, there were just a few snowflakes,a few sprinkles and drizzles of freezing rain. It wasn't that bad, really.

Most people, though, if they need to get to a friend or relative's house, usually drive over say, in the mid morning to early afternoon.  That seems to be when the steadiest freezing rain will happen, and when the roads will be worst. Most of the ice will come between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. today. 

Mind you, this won't be a freezing rain downpour.  But it will be more than enough to make the roads hazardous. I feel especially bad for the guys and gals on the highway road crews who will need to spend Christmas Day driving their salt shaker trucks around. 

Yesterday, I was saying ice won't accumulate enough to cause any real trouble with tree and wire damage. That remains true for most of us. 

I'm beginning to wonder, though, about a few locations in southeastern Vermont. Ice accumulation could get to almost a quarter inch thick.  That starts to be enough to cause scattered issues with too much weight on wires and branches. 

I'm glad we're talking about anything heavier than what we're getting.  A half inch of ice would start to cause serious trouble. If there's a bright side to today's weather, we're not going to that extreme. 

There might be a third or more of an inch of ice in some isolated spots in southern New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts, so they'll need to keep a close eye there. 

Back here in Vermont, there might be a few hour window of above freezing air in the central and southern Champlain Valley and low elevations of southwestern Vermont  this afternoon. But cold ground temperatures will keep untreated surfaces quite icy. 

It still looks like a fair amount of snow will be mixed in up in the Northeast Kingdom, so they could get a couple inches of accumulation. Of snow, not ice.

Things will freeze back up late this afternoon and tonight, or remain frozen.  Initially it seemed precipitation might change back to snow tonight, but many of us could well be stuck with a bit of freezing drizzle overnight and early Sunday morning. Ugh! We can't escape it, huh?

For you fans of freezing rain out there --- anyone? Just one? No? - there's a chance we could be dealing with the same issue again midweek. That's an uncertain forecast for sure, but it's worth watching. 

Still Looking Like Icky Vermont Weather Christmas Day

It's going to feel like you're on Winters Lane no matter 
where you're driving in and near Vermont Christmas Day.
Freezing rain and some snow is unfortunately 
in the forecast, so travel will be iffy. 

 UPDATE 5 p.m FRIDAY

Unfortunately, so far, little change in the yucky ucky forecast for Christmas Day in Vermont.

The timing is bad. The snow and freezing rain starts early, before dawn for most of us, and doesn't end to late Christmas night.

The Champlain Valley and the warmest valleys of southwestern Vermont still look like they might go over to plain rain for a little while. 

But pavement temperatures are low, so even if the temperature is say, between 33 and 35 degrees, the rain might still freeze on roads.

Especially if they are untreated. More on this first thing tomorrow morning

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

It doesn't take much of the wrong kind of precipitation to mess up your day, and that's still looking like our fate here in Vermont on Christmas Day.  

Roadways will be hazardous due to light snow, quickly transitioning to freezing rain in much of Vermont.   

The fact that precipitation will be light, and could be plain rain in spots actually makes driving all the more hazardous.

It leads to overconfidence. It's barely sprinkling, that can't be a problem! The temperature gauge on the dash board says it's 33 degrees, there can't be ice on the roads! 

Um, no. You're cruising along on wet pavement, your speed has increased to 50 mph. Then suddenly you have to brake, just as you've hit an iced-over area. Not good.

So if you're like me and have to travel around Vermont tomorrow, don't get full of yourself. Just assume everything you're driving or walking on is ice-covered. 

It's still a tricky Christmas Day forecast. As the National Weather Service in South Burlington notes in their forecast discussion, temperatures will be near 32 degrees through a pretty thick layer of the atmosphere. 

That means almost anything can be coming down at any given time.  The latest thinking - still subject to change - is that snow will quickly go over to freezing rain south and west of Interstate 89 tomorrow morning.  Areas north and east of I-89 have a shot at staying all snow most if not all of the day. 

Warmer places like the Champlain Valley from Burlington south and some of the Route 7 corridor in Rutland and Bennington counties might go over to plain rain for a time late in the morning and the afternoon.

This isn't just Vermont under a winter weather advisory.  The eastern two thirds of New York, most of southern New England and the southern half of New Hampshire are under similar alerts for icy roads and such on Christmas Day. 

As the weak storm causing this mess heads east Christmas night, mixed precipitation will change to light snow overnight here in Vermont. It'll taper off Sunday morning, lingering longest in the mountains. 

Still, the "snowiest" places will only probably see one to three inches out of this. 

Since the precipitation will be light, we won't have to worry about trees and power lines caving in under the weight of ice. There just won't be that much of it. 

Snowfall looks meager, too. Even in places in the Northeast Kingdom that manage to avoid any freezing rain.  

Climate Change Is Decreasing Chances Of White Christmas In Most Of U.S.

Snow falls from trees on a white Christmas, December 25,
2017 in West Rutland, Vermont. White Christmases are
getting less likely in most of the nation due
to climate change. 

The mid-sized snowstorm that swept through Vermont last weekend really upped the chances that Christmas 2021 - coming up Saturday, is going to be a white one.

This despite a forecast of mixed precipitation. 

A white Christmas would be a marked contrast to last year, when record high temperatures in the 60s put an end to the idea of a white Christmas. (At one point on Christmas morning last year, Burlington, Vermont was bizarrely the hottest spot in the Lower 48).

This year, it looks like Vermont might be the exception to the rule for a white Christmas in the nation. It's been a very warm month pretty much coast to coast this month Much if not most of the U.S. should have unseasonably warm weather through Christmas Day. Parts of the South and Southeast will likely have record high temperatures.

That will put the kibosh on any Christmas snowball fights in much of the nation. 

The lack of a white Christmas this year for a larger swath of the United States than usual is part of a longterm trend, very, very likely brought on by climate change. 

The Washington Post recently did a white Christmas review of 25 major cities, comparing climate averages from 1981 to 2010 with data from 1991 through 2020.

Here's how they summarized these results: 

"Eight of the 25 cities saw their chance of a white Christmas decrease. Denver and Columbus saw the largest drops (six percentage points) D.C's odds of a white Christmas plummeted from eight percent to just a little over four percent. 

Four cities' chances were unchanged (Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Dallas)

Three saw their chances increase, but only by one or two percentage points (New York, Philadelphia and Raleigh)."

The Washington Post cites the Associated Press in more not-so-white Christmas data:

"The Associated Press, using an analysis from the University of Arizona, also described a marked falloff in Christmas snow between the 1980s and 2010s. In the 1980s, 47 percent of the country had snow on the ground on December 25, with an average depth of 3.5 inches. But, by the 2010s, the snow cover extend was just 38 percent, with an average depth of 2.7 inches."

For the record, it looks like less than 38 percent of the nation will be snow covered this Christmas.  

Back here in Vermont, we're getting a white Christmas this year, and chances in general remain good that we'll have many white Christmases in the future.

But it's not as set in stone as it once was. The chances of white Christmases in Vermont is declining with climate change.  Last year, some of my daffodils around my home in northwestern Vermont were starting to come up in the record warmth.  That probably won't be the last time I see something weird like that. 

A New Vermont Weather Problem For Christmas Day?

Well, this isn't good.  Forecasts now include freezing rain
in Vermont on Christmas Day, which could lead to
some real travel trouble. Ugh! 

 Things are bad and unsettled enough right now as Christmas Day looms.  The omicron Covid variant is spreading fast, test kits are in short supply, bringing a lot of uncertainty on how people are going to deal with holiday gatherings. 

Unfortunately, here in Vermont, there seems to be new mischief being added to the brew that will lead to more questions.

Suddenly, freezing rain and sleet are on the table for Christmas Day, and likely not just part of the day. 

Until now, forecasts had been sort of flip flopping between a steady light snow on Christmas or just scattered  light snow showers. 

Now, a lot of the forecasts are adding freezing rain and sleet to the Christmas Day outlook, which would of course cause lots of travel issues in and near Vermont.

Any precipitation that does fall won't be super heavy, so we're not looking at trees and power lines breaking under the weight of ice.  But, as I say, a little dab will do ya, and just a little freezing rain will make things nasty for getting anywhere. 

The Christmas Day forecast still has a lot of real question marks with it. Warm air will be trying to stream in aloft, while cold high pressure in Quebec will want to push cold air down on us, closer to the surface. 

That's the recipe for freezing rain and sleet. 

If the Canadian high pushes in stronger than expected, it could keep precipitation as light snow, or even push it south of at least parts of the Green Mountain State.

If the high is weaker, warm air would flood in more readily, changing ice to plain rain. Not pleasant for Christmas, but at least it's not ice. 

I imagine forecasters will have a somewhat better handle on this by tomorrow.  If you're worried about icy Vermont roads on Christmas Day - as I am - I'd hold off on changing travel plans until tomorrow. By then, there should be some decent but not perfect forecast updates.  

Even tomorrow's forecasts for Christmas won't have a complete handle on this, but those forecasts will pin down a little better where ice might be the worse, what time of day the freezing rain would be more prevalent and what not.

And maybe there will be a Christmas miracle and the ice will somehow avoid us. We can only dream, right?  

Alex Jones Gets Weather Wacky Again, Says Biden Unleashed Kentucky Tornadoes

Totally not crazy Alex Jones thinks Joe Biden unleashed
can control weather and unleashed deadly tornadoes
on Kentucky earlier this month. 

Crazy conspiracy theorist Alex Jones would be both pathetic and hysterical if he didn't try so hard to hurt people with his wackadoodle musings. 

I dislike him intensely, as many people do, but his latest weather-related rant is sort of entertaining, in a skewed-brain sort of way. 

As Media Matters notes,  Jones informs us the government weather weapons were developed in the 1950s.  Biden is apparently using them in nasty ways, such as cutting the power to Texas during that horrible cold snap last February, and unleashing those tornadoes earlier this month down in Kentucky.

To be fair, he doesn't come right out and say Biden ordered the tornadoes, but Jones uses that go-to canard that "It is a legitimate question to ask."

 In that spirit, I'll ask a question of Jones: Are you freaking nuts?

I'll answer that! Yes.  

I'm not quite sure why Biden would order a tornado strike on Kentucky. And you'd think if Biden was powerful enough to create gigantic tornadoes, he would have cowed Joe Manchin into agreeing to the president's Build Back Better legislation. 

Somehow, though, I think Biden's too nice a guy to unleash tornadoes on innocent Kentuckians. Even if most of them didn't vote for Biden.  

What's next, Alex? What weather disaster are you going to blame on some vast, weird government conspiracy? I'm sure the Illuminati has got something up their sleeves, right?