Trump Denies Disaster Assistance To Blue States, Including Vermont; Send Money To Red States

Damage in Sutton, Vermont after flooding this July. 
President Donald Trump rejected a disaster declaration
for the Northeast Kingdom, likely over politics.

 We've got some more likely evidence that everything Donald Trump does is transactional. And some of the latest news involves us here in Vermont.  

Here's the news, straight from the Associated Press:

"President Donald Trump approved major disaster declarations for Alaska, Nebraska, North Dakota and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwa late Wednesday, while denying requests from Vermont, Illinois and Maryland and leaving other states still waiting for answers.

The decisions fell mostly along party lines, with Trump touting on social media Wednesday that he had 'won big' in Alaska in the last three presidential elections and that it was his 'honor' to deliver to the 'incredible Patriots' of Missouri, a state he also won three times."

Trump just cannot keep his mouth shut. 

If he hadn't bragged like he always does, he'd have plausible deniability about him picking favorites.  

Trump has approved more disaster declarations than he's thrown away. But he keeps talking about phasing out FEMA, saying he wants states to take the lead in disasters, 

The Vermont piece of this was for July 10 flash flooding in the Northeast Kingdom. State officials waited more than nine weeks for Trump's negative decision. Damages far exceed what some of the affected little towns up there in the NEK can afford, said Eric Forand, the Vermont Emergency Management Director. 

The flood caused more than $1 million just in the town of Sutton, which has a population of only around 200. Across Vermont the July 10 storm caused almost $2 million in damage. The minimum threshold to qualify for federal aid should have been $1.2 million, reports WPTZ.

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott said his administration won't appeal the decision. "When submitting the request we knew that there was a chance it could be denied - and we do not plan to appeal the decision... Moving forward, we'll explore ways to support rural communities with limited resources and what assistance could look like."

Scott is a Republican, but a moderate who, unlike most members of the GOP, has expressed no fealty to Trump and criticizes him at times. Vermont is also known to be among the bluest of blue states. 

In recent public opinion polls, Vermont ranks second behind Hawaii as the least supportive of Trump. Only 24 percent of Vermonters approve of Trump versus 72 percent who oppose him. 

In deciding not to appeal, Scott probably looked at Maryland as an example of what could happen if he did go ahead with asking again. 

Maryland, also a decisively blue state, requested a disaster declaration for two counties in the western part of the state that suffered significant flooding. In July, Maryland requested a disaster declaration, but Trump turned it town. Maryland appealed that decision, because the counties suffered $33.7 million in damage, three times its threshold for federal assistance, reports the AP.

Trump this week turned down that appeal. 

"President Trump and his administration have politicized disaster relief, and our communities are the ones who pay the price," said Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat.

White House officials are trying to portray the denials as heroic efforts to save taxpayers money and mot the partisan attacks that the probably are.

"President Trump provides a more thorough review of disaster declaration requests than any Administration before him," said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson. 

Yeah, right. 

But she went on, saying Trump was "ensuring American tax dollars are uses appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement - not substitute, their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters."

Sure, because the tiny town of Sutton, Vermont  has a million dollars lying around their town offices to fix the flood damage. 

By the way, I can't begrudge anybody who did receive disaster assistance. They need it. Particularly in western Alaska, which was hit earlier this month by a record strong former typhoon that produced a destructive and deadly storm surge. 

But if you live in a blue state, and you're hit with a hurricane, tornado, wildfire, flood or something dramatic like that, remember that Trump wants you to use those experiences to love him, or else.

Like that's going to happen. 

I'll have a separate piece coming up about how the federal government is shortchanging major disaster zones like western North Carolina, which was devastated by Hurricane Helene last year.  

Climate Central Takes Over Billion Dollar Disaster Database That Trump Administration Abandoned.

Climate Central has taken over a data base of
billion dollar disasters in the United States.
The federal government had maintained the
data, but the Trump administration ended
it because they don't want to 
acknowledge climate change. 

Weather and climate science runs on data.

The more data you have, the better information you have, the better judgement you'll have, the better prepared you'll be.  

As I've noted numerous times, the Trump administration has been cutting back on the tools scientists need to keep track of the weather and climate.

One of the things gone is a data base of disasters that cost a billion dollars or more. 

The Trumpsters hate anything that shows climate change is causing trouble, since they insist climate change doesn't exist.

So they decided if climate driven disasters aren't reported, they don't exist. 

Or something like that. 

AsABC News Explains: 

"But in May, the Trump administration announced it was shutting down the website that hosted the dataset. That made it difficult for the public and experts to track the impact of major disasters, as the program used a combination of private and public data, some of which was not available to organizations outside the government."

Obviously, anyone who cares was bummed about the loss of that information. 

However, the data is coming back. Climate Central, a non-profit organization that communicates climate change science, affects and solutions to the public and policy makers. 

A guy named Adam Smith is running and managing the billion dollar disaster data set. He managed the billion dollar list at NOAA, but he was let go by the Trump cutbacks. He is now Climate Central's Senior Climate Impact Scientist. 

ABC continues:

"'The billion dollar disaster analysis is vital in demonstrating the economic impact of extreme weather and climate events, which helps communities understand the real-world consequences of climate change and the increasing impact of these different events," said Smith. 

'I would also say this dataset was simply too important to stop being updated,' Smith added. 'We've seen a widespread demand for its revival from many aspects of society and industry, including the private sector, academia, local community decision makers, even Congress,'"

Climate Central replicated all the data sources for the disaster report, so the information going into it is equivalent to what we used to see on the federal NOAA website.  They'll also use the same peer reviewed methods as the NOAA version did. 

The billion dollar data base isn't the only set of information being rescued from the follies of the Trump administration. 

The Trump administration pretty much got rid of the web site climate.gov, which was the go to place for comprehensive, accurate climate information. The site now directs you to noaa.gov, which has some climate information, but nothing nearly as comprehensive as what was once on the site. 

A non-profit developed an alternative site called climate.us that has much of the information that was removed from climate.gov. 

THIS YEAR'S DISASTERS, COMPARED

According to the revived data compiled by Climate Central, so far this year, the United States has had 14 disasters costing $1 billion or more. (This is all inflation-adjusted).

Mostly because of the incredible wildfires around Los Angeles in January, the cost of this year's disasters are so far is running well above average. The fires alone cost more than $60 billion in damage.

Through June big U.S. disasters have cost $101.4 billion. Most of them involved, tornadoes, severe thunderstorms and flooding. 

This means even if no other big disasters hit this year, 2025 will end well above the average of $67.3 billion. 

However, 2025 won't necessarily be the most costly year on record, despite the strong start. Years with large hurricanes in the U.S. tend to be the most expensive, The year 2017 was the most costly, in large part because of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, with $405.2 in damage.

 Next was 2005, which included hurricanes Katrina and Rita, with $275.5 billion in overall damage. 

It looks like no big hurricanes will hit the U.S. this year. (Forecasters worry Tropical Storm Melissa will turn into a giant hurricane, but most predictions expect that storm to have relatively little effect on the U.S. 

If no other billion dollar disasters happen this year, it looks like 2025 would be the eighth most expensive since 1980, which is the beginning of the data base record.

The disaster total will probably go up for this year. Four other disasters are still being assessed to determine whether they cost at least $1 billion. These include the horrible, deadly July 4 weekend floods in Texas, and three severe weather outbreaks between May and August.  

And gawd knows what the final two months or so of 2025 might bring. 

 

Gloomy Vermont Weather Is The New Gorgeous, As It's Preventing Drought From Getting Worse.

Lingering fall foliage brightened up the surroundings
a little under a dark overcast in St. Albans,
Vermont Thursday. Unlike in recent months,
clouds and showers have lingered after rain
storms, preventing the drought from
getting much worse.

 During our long drought in Vermont, every time we managed to get some rain, the precipitation would zip out as quickly as cat fleeing after falling into a full bath tub. 

The sun would come out immediately, the air would turn more arid that Phoenix in June and the drought would intensify. 

This week's go around was different. And wonderful, if gloomy. Our storm blasted through Monday with some good rains, and the remnants of the storm....lingered.

Even though Monday's storm moved away at a brisk pace, its upper level low lingered nearby. That has kept disturbance swinging through northern New England. Which has meant bursts of showers all week.

When it wasn't raining, skies were cloudy most of the time. The air stayed damp. For once, we didn't immediately begin to dry out again. 

Except for some good downpours in northwest Vermont Wednesday, the rain that fell this week was quite light and probably was not significantly enough to ease the drought. But at least, for a change, it's probably not getting worse. 

Only northwest Vermont improved with the latest U.S. Drought Monitor report yesterday. And the northwest has continued to do better than the rest of the state in terms of precipitation. 

On Thursday, most places in Vermont that did get any rain saw less than a tenth of an inch of it.  

Here in St. Albans, though, I collected another 0.21 inches. Not much, but still good.  As of 9 a.m. this morning, another decent batch of showers were moving into northwest Vermont. 

The clouds will more or less continue over Vermont for the next few days. Especially in the north and mountains. We'll tend to see some more breaks of sun between the clouds starting tomorrow and going into next week. Tuesday and Wednesday should have the most sun.  

Any showers or mountain snow flurries today and over the weekend won't amount to much. But at least we won't get blasted by near record warmth and wall to wall sunshine.  The final week of 10 days of October last year featured bouts of record high temperatures and sunny days. That would have been a disaster this year.

Toward the end of next week, it looks like some sort of coastal storm might want to come up toward New England.   It's way too soon to tell whether that storm will give us another good dose of rain or just some light stuff.

But indications are that the storm a week from now might linger for several days near or over us, just as we saw this week. That would give us more cloudy, damp, showery, somewhat unpleasant weather. 

With the drought still ongoing, for Vermont, unpleasant weather is the new gorgeous. 

 

Forecasters Worred Tropical Storm Melissa Could Turn Into Catastrophic Caribbean Hurricane

Satellite view of Tropical Storm Melissa starting
to get its act together over the Caribbean today. 

When we last checked in on Tropical Storm Melissa in the central Caribbean Sea two days ago, it was a fairly weak and disorganized mess with a highly uncertain future. 

Today, Melissa is still a weak system, still in the central Caribbean, still rather disorganized and still facing an uncertain future. In fact, winds with Melissa were just 45 mph, a bit less than they were on Tuesday. 

So no news, right?

Oh, but there is news, and it's ominous. 

Here's the deal:

Strong winds aloft have been keeping Melissa in check, blowing apart the thunderstorms Melissa needs to sustain itself and grow. 

Those winds are weakening, and as of late morning, Melissa was showing signs of the monster it might well become.

Thunderstorms started erupting on the storm's west side, not just to the east. Also, some of Melissa's clouds were showing curved, banded shapes. These are signs those strong upper level winds are starting to subside.  Meteorologists believe those upper level winds will continue to die down. 

Tropical Storm Melissa is sitting over record warm Caribbean Sea waters. That makes Melissa a ticking time bomb, ready to go off.  

The question is, where will the bomb go off? 

The official forecast as Melissa slowly growing stronger later today into early Saturday, then really going off to the races to become a major hurricane. A few computer models have it going to Category 5, which would mean top sustained winds of at least 160 mph. 

For now, the National Hurricane Center isn't going that far. But they do have official forecast has Melissa with top sustained winds at 130 by Sunday.

Where Melissa will go is still super hard to figure out. Much harder than usual for a hurricane. There's a complex dance of other weather systems far to its north that will control where it goes. 

This time of year, almost every time a storm goes by to the north, it will try to "pick up" a tropical storm and fling it northward through the Atlantic.  Not every storm can "reach" a Caribbean hurricane. In those cases, the hurricane stays well to the south. 

A sort of storm, a weak thing near the Bahamas is trying to tug on Melissa, which is why it's ever so slowly crawling northward. It'll keep doing that through about Friday, the National Hurricane Center thinks, at a pace that this 63 year old writer could easily outrun -really outwalk -  it if Melissa were a person. 

The disturbance near the Bahamas will zip away, and forecasters think this will make Melissa make a sharp left turn and intensify. When it makes its left turn - if it does - will have a huge effect on how bad things get in Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic,and maybe Cuba.

At this point, Jamaica looks like it might really be in jeopardy. Melissa is already coming close enough to Hispaniola and Jamaica to raise the threat of flooding and mudslides. If a powerful Hurricane Melissa hits Jamaica, that would be absolutely catastrophic. 

The forecast is really complicated, so Melissa can, and probably will pulls some surprises. It could keep heading north to blast Haiti or maybe eastern Cuba. It could turn toward the north or northeast near or just west of Jamaica, putting western Cuba and the Bahamas in the crosshairs. 

There's a chance it could hit Florida, but for now, most computer models have Melissa missing the United States. There's also a chance Melissa could keep plowing west toward Central America.

One of the few certainties about Melissa is that it will continue to move incredibly slowly. So it's going to be a problem for maybe a week or more.  

This looks like a really dangerous one for somebody. 

Mexican Flood Another Disaster That Did Not Get Enough Attention

Destruction in Mexico after deadly flooding this month.

 A huge flood and a series of mudslides last week in Mexico killed at least 76 people and caused widespread damage across huge swaths of the country. 

At last report, more than three dozen people were still missing. 

The torrential rains came last week from the remains of Hurricane Priscilla and Tropical Storm Raymond, which sent moisture streaming across central and eastern Mexico. 

Reports Mexiconewsdaily.com:

"The government announced a relief plan of 10 billion pesos (US $543.2 million) to cover damages in Veracruz, Hidalgo, Puebla, Queretaro and San Luis Potosi, pledging rapid reconstruction along with a new cell phone alert for floods and storms."

The storms and flooding damaged 70,445 home. Of those, 43,578 were in Veracruz state. In some areas of Veracruz, two feet of rain fell within four days. 

In some places the devastation was catastrophic. The entire village of Chapula, population 400, was wiped off the map by a wall of water and mud. 

In one incident, a floating seafood restaurant in Tuxpan, in the state of Veracruz was swept free of its moorings along the raging Tuxpan River and and was launched into the Gulf of Mexico. 

In the Gulf, the restaurant broke into two parts, one of which traveled in the Gulf southward a total of about 350 miles. 

It's hard to say whether this had anything to do with climate change. It's consistent with a warming world. Rainfall can get more intense than they otherwise would be. So perhaps the rain wouldn't have been as intense had the world not warmed up so much. 

This was one of those disasters that were really huge, but didn't get much media attention. Maybe it's all too much to cover. Or, nobody is interested. Or the media outlets that should cover it don't want to. Not enough clicks on line? Too expensive to cover?  Or maybe we, me, haven't been paying enough attention.

In any event,  I've barely heard about it. There is some coverage from outlets like NBC, like you'll see below. 

Video:

NBC News report from when the confirmed death toll was 60. It gives you a sense of the breadth of this flooding. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

 

Drought Update Still Grim, But Wednesday Rain Over-Performed In Parts Of Vermont, Rain Turns Light

Drought conditions improved just slightly in 
northwestern Vermont, but stayed the same
elsewhere despite Monday's rain
Moderate drought is light orange, severe
drought is dark orange and extreme
drought is depicted in red. 

I'm not surprised, but in the past week, the drought in Vermont has barely improved, despite some heavy rain earlier this week. 

The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report comes out every Thursday, and it's hot off the presses as I write this. 

As expected, rain fell Wednesday in Vermont, but that wasn't considered in the drought report. It used data through Tuesday. If Wednesday's rain had any effect, we'll see it in next week's report.  

This morning's new Drought Monitor shows northwestern Vermont improving somewhat, but little change elsewhere in the Green Mountain State. That makes sense, given that some of the heaviest rain on Monday fell on the central and northern Champlain Valley. 

Western Chittenden and Franklin counties improved from severe drought and are now considered to be in moderate drought. That's good, I guess.

Eastern parts of those counties, along with western Lamoille County "improved" from extreme drought to a mere severe drought. 

Elsewhere in Vermont, there was no change in drought conditions from the previous week. 

Bottom line: Things are still really, really bad.  It's good that things improved a little in parts of Vermont, but this morning's report confirms that we really, really need a bunch of super wet storms to get out of this mess. 

I guess we can count Vermont as lucky. For the Northeast region as a whole, drought conditions worsened and expanded a bit since last week. 

In New Hampshire, the drought was exactly as bad this week as it was the prior week. In Maine, the drought intensified, especially up in the northern part of that state. In New York, drought more or less held steady. 

WEDNESDAY RAIN

Storm clouds looming over lingering fall foliage 
Wednesday in St. Albans, Vermont. Heavy 
downpours once again blessed northwest
Vermont, but rain was lighter elsewhere in the state,

Wednesday's rain probably helped with the drought, at least in northwest Vermont, which as noted has already improved a little. Especially in the Champlain Valley, the rain really over-performed, dumping much more precipitation than expected. 

That was due to a band of heavy showers, followed by another band of thunderstorms that moved northward up the Champlain Valley. 

These storms had some oomph to them. Pea sized hail accompanied some of them. In Jericho and a few other places, the hail was heavy, piling up on decks and lawns. 

More importantly, the rainfall was notably heavy. 

Here in St. Albans, 1.1 inches of rain poured down on Wednesday. We've had four inches of rain within three days, a bit more than what normally falls in the entire month of October. I took Henry the Weather Dog to the dog park after the rain yesterday, and he was very unimpressed and annoyed by how swampy the park was. 

Us humans, on the other hand, rejoiced in the dent all this rain put in the drought. 

Burlington had 0.79 inches of rain Wednesday, far more than the third of an inch or so that had been forecast. Total rainfall this month in Burlington is 4.13 inches, actually a bit above normal for the entire month of October.

That's great to see.

Elsewhere in Vermont, rainfall Wednesday wasn't nearly as heavy. But many places got a little bit more than forecast. Montpelier, St. Johnsbury and Rutland, for instance, each received right around 0.4 inches. 

Not huge, but not bad. 

OUTLOOK

The rain machine is largely shutting off now, but things won't dry out quickly like they did right after what ever rains we did manage to see in August, September and early October. 

Today will be the "wettest" day of the forecast period. Showers will be pretty frequent, especially north and mountains and especially this afternoon. Unlike yesterday, there's no atmospheric energy to promote downpours. Instead, we expect basically irksome, light, chilly showers. 

Rainfall totals today will be around a tenth of an inch or less, except maybe a little more in the central and northern Green Mountains. 

Over the next several days, we can expect typical late October/early November weather. That means partly to mostly cloudy skies in general, cool temperatures and a frequent chance of inconsequential sprinkles. 

Those will be mostly in the mountains. Higher up, those sprinkles will take the form of snowflakes. 

A parade of super dry, huge high pressure systems that have been stalling near us since August to intensity the drought. That's happening again, but this time, it's setting up a little further north in Quebec than previous dry highs, so at least we'll get a few clouds and sprinkles as a result. 

We still desperately need a series of very wet storms. In the near future, nothing's coming. The next shot we have at a decent rain would possibly be around Halloween. 

Us Vermonters generally dread a gloomy, soggy November, but this year, I'm all in. 

Mosquitoes In Iceland? Climate Change Adds Bugs To "Cold" Nation

Thanks to a warming planet, mosquitoes have been
found for the first time in Iceland. The bugs, and
the diseases they carry, have been heading into 
colder areas largely because of climate change. 

 Mosquitoes have invaded Iceland. 

The cold island in the North Atlantic was considered too nippy for mosquitoes to take hold. 

But thanks to climate change, it's toasty enough in Iceland for those nasty little buggers. 

Per ABC News:

"The disease-carrying insects twas first spotted by insect enthusiast Bjorn Hjalstason, who posed to Facebook group 'insects in Iceland' about a 'strange fly' he spotted on Oct. 16."

Since then, three mosquitoes, two females, one male, have been caught in Iceland. 

ABC News again: 

"The mosquitoes are Culiseta annulata, a cold-tolerant species that live in the Palearctic region, which includes northern Africa, Europe and Asia north of the Himalayas, according to the National Institutes of Health."

It's the most common mosquito in the UK, and has been found in Canada and the northern United States. 

Until recently, Iceland was too cold for mosquitoes. They breed in warm, stagnant water, like in buckets, drainage ditches, flower pots and discarded tires. 

In the good old days, standing water in Iceland was too cold for mosquitoes. But thanks to climate change, not anymore. A mosquito "dumb" enough to find itself in Iceland is no longer guaranteed an immediate, frigid death. 

Or at least its offspring might survive. They'll survive in basements and barns and other protected places around Iceland. 

Pretty much the whole world is warming due to climate change. Iceland is warming at a rate four times faster than the rest of the northern hemisphere.

This year, Iceland had a long, hot summer, at least by their standards. It started early, with a May heat wave bringing Icelandic temperatures to as high as 80 degrees, which was by far unprecedented for that time of year. 

The early start of this year's Iceland summer might have helped mosquitoes gain a foothold. 

MOSQUITO DISEASES HEAD NORTH

Meanwhile, places that already have mosquitoes are finding that diseases spread by these bugs are also spreading north, thanks to climate change.  For the first time, mosquitoes in the UK had the West Nile virus, which in rare cases can cause severe illness or even death in humans. 

Experts also said mosquito-borne disease like dengue and chikungunya could become endemic in Europe soon as the continent warms. 

A type of insect called the tiger mosquito is moving north into Europe as the area becomes toasty enough to allow the mosquito to survive.  Dengue outbreaks have already hit Italy, Croatia, France and Spain. 

Here in the United States, the tiger mosquito (the one that spreads dengue) is on the move north in tune with climate change. They've been spotted as far north as southern New England.

As they move north, subsequent generations of this mosquito evolve to survive slightly lower temperatures. 

That makes them more likely to stick around. 

Because of climate change here in Vermont, we're getting warmer and wetter, the drought this summer and autumn notwithstanding. The hotter and soggier it gets, the more mosquitoes thrive. So if those bugs bother you every summer, they're going to bother you even more, and for a greater portion of the year as time goes by.