How Not To Protest Against Climate Change

Members of Insulate Britain block a major highway. 
Climate change activism is good. Doing it stupidly like
this is not. Mind your PR! 

 British motorists and the general public are incensed over a climate activist group called Insulate Britain and I can see why.  

The basic goals of Insulate Britain are fine. They want the British government to insulate subsidized housing as a way to increase fuel efficiency and cut down on the use of fossil fuels to heat these buildings. Plus, it would save money for the people of modest means living in these buildings.

This won't in itself solve climate change, but it's a noble enough goal. Every little bit helps. 

It's Insulate Britain's tactics that are infuriating and counter productive to say the least. These activists have been marching out onto major highways and blocking and snarling traffic to make their point.

As you can imagine, this has led to dangerous situations, as irate motorists try to drag Insulate Britain members off the highways and onto the curb and out of the way.   Then the activists run back onto the road and block traffic. Rinse and repeat ad nauseam

You just know a road rager will eventually, tragically run over these demonstrators

And for what? Insulate Britain is not winning hearts and minds. They're just getting people angry. They're making people less likely to want to do something about climate change. 

 There is of course a place for civil disobedience in the climate movement.  It's worked well in other activism, with civil rights in the 1960s among the most familiar. 

To put it bluntly,  you need the right PR to gain a sympathetic ear to your campaign and to change the hearts and minds of the public. Rosa Parks' refusal o sit at the back of the bus was technically illegal, under completely unjust Jim Crow "laws."  But her refusal to bow to this racism was both dignified and plainly right, and that was one of many example of how the civil right movement propelled itself forward.

The Insulate Britain clowns appear not to have learned this lesson. 

As the Independent points out, Insulate Britain members think they have no choice other than to block roads to make their case.  Lobbying, voting, leafleting, making speeches and such have not worked for them.  

A spokesperson for Insulate Britain was quoted by the BBC saying, "In 10 years' time when fuel crises are catastrophic, when the food has run out and people are experiencing unsurvivable heatwaves, what would you be wishing you had done now?"

There's a lot of problems with that statement.  Though the effects of climate change are dire and getting worse, all credible science that I've at least read don't paint quite that dystopian a picture in just a decades' time. 

Secondly, Insulate Britain is doing nothing to inspire the general public to take up the fight against climate change.  If things are as hopeless as this group says (Spoiler: They're not) then nobody is is going to sign up for such a lost cause. 

Thirdly, pissing people off is not the best way to get new activists to come on board with their movement. 

By the way, stopping traffic and causing hundreds of cars to idle and spew CO2 into the air needlessly during your hours long protest doesn't exactly do much to slow climate change does it? Just a thought. 

This is one type of climate protest I hope doesn't spread.  

Be an activist for stopping climate change. Get in peoples faces if you have to. But do it intelligently.  Remember, we need as many people as possible to be on board and effect change. The good kind. 

 

Stick Season To Arrive Saturday In Vermont Amid Continued Warmth

Foliage a bit pas peak but still gorgeous Tuesday at the
Spaulding Farm near Fairfield, Vermont. 

 Enjoy the fall foliage while you can here in Vermont, as it'll last just a few more days before the leaves really start to tumble.

Since it's a late foliage season, the leaves do tend to drop fast about now. Driving around rural Franklin County, Vermont yesterday, I sometimes hit blizzards of falling leaves despite light winds.  

Much of the Northeast Kingdom is now past peak, and a good chunk of the rest of Vermont will follow suit, especially Saturday.  

Why Saturday? Because that day will bring us the first substantial storm in two weeks. It looks like we'll have gusty winds and a good dose of rain Saturday, and that will bring down many more leaves. 

On the bright side, it's been dry this month, and we need the rain, so a rainy Saturday might be a good thing. 

Plus, it looks like we'll have another long dry period after Saturday's rain, so we'll take what we can get. 

I don't mean to be so gloomy about the foliage, of course. After Saturday's wind and rain, there still will be plenty of color and beauty in the Champlain and lower Connecticut River valleys and in lower elevations of southwestern Vermont. If you can't leaf peep until Sunday, head to those locations. 

So far this has been a remarkably warm month, too. In Burlington, only two nights have gotten below 50 degrees. This time of year, normal lows are in the low 40s in the Champlain Valley and upper 30s elsewhere. Frost is common this time of year. Usually. Not this year. 

Fall foliage near Fairfield, Vermont Tuesday. Wind and rain
forecast for this Saturday will bring down many
of these leaves, bringing us toward stick season.

Today is also likely to be eighth day in a row where the temperature reached at least 68 degrees. It's very common to get highs in the 50s even the 40s this time of year. 

The summit of Mount Mansfield, the mountain pictured in this post, still has not had a freeze yet. 

As WPTZ meteorologist Tyler Jankowski noted on Twitter, this will be by far the latest first autumn freeze on record for Mount Mansfield.

The previous record for latest first freeze on the summit was October 6, 2011.  It's now October 13 and the coldest it's been on Mount Mansfield this fall is 37 degrees.

The summit might finally see a freeze Sunday or Monday.  Maybe.

This warmth will last until Saturday. Especially at night. Lows in the Champlain Valley through Friday night will be close to 60 degrees, which is close to normal July nights.  Daytimes will come close to 70 again through Friday. 

Even after the approaching cold front goes by Saturday night, it won't get that cold in Vermont. At least  October standards.

Highs Sunday through Tuesday will be in the 50s, which is pretty close to normal.  Chances are most areas will continue to avoid frost at least through next Tuesday. 

If the last half of October remains relatively warm, we'll have another month among several this year that will score among the top ten warmest.  We'll see! 

September Nationally Was Warm Month, Confirming Previous Reports; Disaster Mounting Too

Flooding from ex-Hurricane Ida in Manville, New 
Jersey in September. Ida will go down in history as
among the five most expensive hurricanes in 
U.S. history, says NOAA.

As the eastern two thirds of the United States enjoys a very balmy October so far, more official data has come in confirming September was a hot one for the nation as well.  

NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information says September was the fifth hottest for the lower 48 out of the 127 years in its data base.

The climatologists there also added some more disasters to their data base of billion dollar disasters, adjusted for inflation for 2021. More on that in a moment. 

The warmth in September brings the nation to its tenth warmest year on record, at least for the part going from January through September. 

In September, the western third of the nation, the northern Plains and New England were the warmest, relative to average. Eight states in the Northeast and West had one of their five warmest Septembers on record. Here in Vermont, we had our sixth warmest September on record.

February featured an intense Arctic outbreak that lowered average temperatures for that month, which in turn lowered the year's averages slightly. So this won't be one of the top five national hot years unless for the United States unless there is extraordinary warmth for the rest of the year. 

Precipitation for the nation in September averaged out to be pretty close to average, with a wet East and dry central part of the United States 

NCEI says that through the end of September, the United States had endured 18 disasters this year with estimated costs exceeding $1 billion.  The record for most such disasters in a single year - inflation adjusted - was just last year in 2020.  We unfortunately have a shot at tying or breaking that record if the rest of the year is super extreme. 

This year's disasters have been more costly than  last year.  So far, through the end of September, disaster costs have amounted to $104.8 billion, more than the $100.2 billion for all of 2020.  Disasters this year have caused twice as many fatalities as in 2020.

Hurricane Ida plus the subsequent floods the remains of that storm caused in the Northeast will cost more than $60 billion.  Costs from that storm are still being tallied, so that figure will go up.  Ida will be one of the top 5 most expensive hurricanes since at least 1980.

Due to some technical difficulties, the NCEI was not able to put all of its data into its September report, and will try to update it by sometime tomorrow. If warranted, I will update this post with the new data. Within about a week or so, NCEI will issue their latest monthly report on how the entire globe fared with September climate data.

That data is expected to show September to be among the hottest on record on a global basis, in addition to just the United States.

Later Foliage Seasons And Polly's Pancake Parlor

A very pretty view from Williams Hill in Richmond, 
Vermont Sunday still shows some late season green
mixed with the fall foliage. Autumn colors are 
generally coming later than they uses to due to
climate change. 

 By my estimation, this is another later than average fall foliage season in Vermont.

At least, its late compared to what I can remember decades ago.  Most foliage seasons in recent years are later than they were in, say the 1960s and 1970s.  

I know that's subjective, but there you go. Scientists looking at this agree with me, and have the receipts. And those scientists have Polly's Pancake Parlor to thank for giving them a good bit of data to go on. 

Polly's Pancake Parlor in scenic Sugar Hill, New Hampshire has been there since 1938. It's an extremely popular place, and the restaurant is understandably slammed  this time of year as tourists flock to the White Mountains to check out the fall foliage. 

As the Washington Post describes it, so many visitors asked the owners of Polly's Pancake Parlor when peak foliage normally hits, they started keeping records in 1975.  They keep those daily recors to this day. Polly's staff eyeballs the landscape, noting when the leaves were mostly red, orange and yellow instead of green outside the restaurant. 

According to the Washington Post:

"Environmental scientist Stephanie Spera was thrilled when she saw the observations, which are posted on the restaurant's website. She said this is the 'longest record of fall foliage that she has found."

Satellite records of fall foliage only go back to 2000, so they're not nearly as much help.  Spera is also using tourists' photos of Acadia National Park and Mount Desert Island in Maine to compare foliage seasons dating back decades.  

Spera and others have concluded that New England's fall foliage season is now happening a full week later than it was in the 1950s.

Here's the Washington Post again:

"The delay is partly linked to warmer temperatures, particularly at night, (Spera) said. During the day, leaves use the sunlight to produce sugars. Cooler nights help trap the sugars in the leaf. The sugars lead to the production of pigments, such as anthrocyanins, which produce the brilliant red seen in maple leaves."

I can tell you we've certainly have had warm nights this year, as a for instance. The coldest it's been so far in Burlington, Vermont this fall is 45 degrees.  Nine of the first eleven days of October have failed to drop below 50 degrees. 

Burlington's normal low this time of year is in the lower 40s and we've usually had our first frost of the season by now.  Not this year. This is the latest in the season the temperature has stayed above 40 degrees since at least 1948, according to the National Weather Service office in South Burlington.

As of this morning, peak foliage is occurring in most of Vermont, with areas of the Champlain and Connecticut River Valleys still relatively green. Only the coldest areas of the Northeast Kingdom and high elevations are past peak. A few decades ago, most of Vermont would be past peak by now.

From what I've seen anecdotally, the colors in Vermont this year are gorgeous. As always, a few pockets are a little dull and subdued, while other larger areas are almost vibrant enough to make your eyes hurt.

Long term, in the coming decade, this fall warming trend isn't great for New England fall foliage watchers.

First off, extreme weather can dull the colors. If the summer is too wet, a fungus can take over and make leaves just turn brown and drop.  The general trend with climate change in New England is wetter summers, the droughts of 2020 and the early part of summer 2021 notwithstanding.

Even longer term, it will become too warm for some of the trees that create the most brilliance, like sugar maples.  Species from further south, like poplar and oak will start to replace maples. Poplar and oak don't have the same brilliant fall colors as current native trees do. 

This year, though tardy, seems to be brilliant though. So get out there and enjoy.  The great weather forecast I mentioned yesterday hasn't changed. The rest of the week should be gorgeous

Quick Vermont Foliage Forecast For Rest Of Holiday Weekend/Week

I haven't had the chance yet to get much leaf peeping 
photography in yet this year, but luckily the forecast is in
our favor today and most of the rest of the week. This
is a quick meh snapshot I took near Bakersfield, 
Vermont late Saturday afternoon.

 We're in the midst of the big weekend for fall foliage tourism here in Vermont and so far, things are spectacular.  

I'll have more on fall foliage, climate change and other leaf peeping topics this coming week, but a quick forecast now to get you through the weekend:

The first piece of advice has little to do with the weather, really. 

But here's a little secret for those in those jammed up tourist towns like Stowe, Manchester and Woodstock.

If you really want to enjoy the fall foliage in peace, and really find some especially beautiful areas, don't be afraid to explore. 

 I take random roads in very rural areas, just to see what I find.  These roads usually end up coming out somewhere familiar, even if you get lost briefly.  Just stay away from big towns that draw a lot of tourists. 

Of course, you want a reliable vehicle that won't break down in the middle of nowhere without cell service. You also don't want to be stupid and forge ahead on a road or trail that is not designed for a car. And stay off property that has "no trespassing" signs, please.

Do all that, and it's a lot better than what people dealt with in the big tourist draws on Saturday. I'm told there was a half mile line of cars on Interstate 89 queued up to get off at the  Stowe/Waterbury Exit, and Route 100 from Waterbury to Stowe was almost a  parking lot.

The weather has been great for fall foliage due to a lack of storminess this year that would tend to strip leaves off the trees. It did get somewhat breezier and remains so today, so a few places that have been at peak foliage for a good week already might have lost some luster.

But most areas in Vermont are just coming into peak foliage, so the breezes have not had much of an effect on the foliage in the vast majority of the state.  The leaves just aren't quite ready to come down yet. 

The foliage season, like many recent seasons, is running a little late this year due to a warm autumn, so the tourists and locals should stay happy for the next several days.

It's rather cloudy this morning, and the type of clouds out there don't really enhance the foliage. The clouds are kind of dull and featureless and not the kind of contrasty dark clouds that can make some dramatic photos.

But cheer up.  It looks like more sunshine should break through this afternoon to help make the colors pop.

Tomorrow looks awesome for fall foliage viewing.  The sun will be out most of the time and it will be warm. 

Tuesday to me looks like the best day of all to leaf peep.  The day will probably start out with patchy dense fog. That means you should try to get out early. As the sun breaks up the morning fog and the sun appears, the eye candy is amazing. 

The rest of the day will be unseasonably warm with highs well into the 70s. You might want to wear shorts and bring the sunscreen for any outdoor excursions. The foliage viewing should remain great through the rest of the week.

There is a chance of increasing wind and rain by Saturday, which could dull the colors. But the Champlain and lower Connecticut River valleys are not even at peak color yet as of this writing, so there's plenty of leaf peeping to do if you miss out this week.

National Weather Pattern Now Getting Wilder But Vermont To Stay Calm For Quite Awhile

Sign of a weather pattern turning active in much of the nation
Snow sticking to the highway this morning in Loveland
Pass, Colorado

Aside from some fairly serious flooding in the Southeast, the weather pattern in the United States has been pretty calm so far this month.

That's about to end. 

Fires, wind, severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, floods and snow are all going to be in the news for the next several days.  

Spoiler: We here in Vermont are going to be bystanders to all this, as we continue to enjoy mostly fair, and warmer than normal temperatures for at least a week, quite possibly more. 

The jet stream is getting more amplified.  What that means is instead of a more or less west to east flow in the atmosphere, there are now bigger southward dips and northward bulges developing. When this happens, the weather almost always gets more interesting.

In this case, the big southward dip in the jet stream will be pretty much centered in the Rocky Mountains while the big northward bulge has set up over eastern North America. 

This pattern sets up a series of problems, one of which is unique to this time of year. 

California is just to the west of that big dip in the jet stream.  That sets up central and northern California in particular for very dry, strong northeast winds.  It's the type of set up that makes for the most dangerous fire weather they can get.  Some of the worst California fire disasters in recent years happened amid this type of pattern.

The winter rains haven't really hit yet, so it's still really dry amid their drought. And this is the first real autumn wind storm of the season.  This will be an occasional problem until soaking rains arrive - hopefully - later this fall. 

I'm not saying California is in for another extreme fire disaster, but there is a risk Monday and Tuesday.  Fire weather watches and high wind watches are already in effect for this scenario.

The area between the dip and the bulge in the jet stream is where stormy weather develops, and the Great Plains and parts of the Midwest are looking pretty nasty in the upcoming week. 

Meanwhile, in my St. Albans, Vermont backyard, beautiful
and peaceful and warm autumn weather continues.

An initial outbreak of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes is expected tomorrow in Oklahoma and parts of Eastern Texas, and probably around the Great Lakes Monday.

Another round of severe weather looks likely Tuesday in the southern Plains as this weather pattern holds firm.  The Plains storminess will also lead to heavy rains, especially in North Dakota. That's actually a good thing since that state has been in a punishing drought all  year.

In the colder Rockies, the first widespread snows of the season will be coming in now through next week. 

While all this is going on, we in Vermont will be literally sitting pretty amid the fall foliage. The weather pattern will hold firm for at least a week, so we won't have any really exciting weather to talk about.

When those storms from the Midwest try to barge in on the big ridge of high pressure over the Northeast, they weaken rapidly in the dry air. By the time those storms get here, we have nothing more than clouds and perhaps light showers to speak for them. 

Temperatures through next Friday will range from somewhat above normal to well above normal.  At this point, Tuesday looks like it might be the warmest day. If there's enough sun, a few places in the Green Mountain State might see their last 80 degree reading of the year. 

Fun With Fog: Calm Weather Fills Vermont Valleys With Morning Murk

Fog filling the valleys of New England Thursday morning.

 As I think I've mentioned previously, this is peak season for morning fog in Vermont. Yeah, two peak seasons going on here, with the much more popular fall foliage gloriously underway. 

It was fun to watch the fog yesterday as it filled valleys across the region.   With the lowering sun angle, it's sometimes hard to dislodge the fog.  

That was the case yesterday, when parts of the Champlain and Connecticut River valleys, along with some other spots, stayed socked in until late morning. 

Those of us perched up on hills, like me in St. Albans, saw the sun rise and the sky stay blue form dawn to dusk. You can see the fog in the valleys, though.

The satellite photo in this post shows how the fog filled pretty much every river valley in and near Vermont. Often the Champlain Valley stays clear, as it's such a broad valley that little hints of breezes keep up all night, dispersing the fog.

Amid otherwise clear skies, fog persisted over Lake Champlain
until near noon, as viewed from a hill in St. Albans, Vermont.
Photo was taken at 11:15 a.m. Thursday.

But it was so calm yesterday that the fog formed, and persisted over the lake most of the morning. 

I have seen some instances this time of year when the fog doesn't really dissipate until late afternoon.  

Later this season, when we get into November, the even weaker sun will mean we'll have many days in which it won't necessarily be foggy, but a low overcast will keep the gloom going for days on end. 

We won't worry about that quite yet. There's almost as much fog out there this morning as there was yesterday, and things will play out almost exactly as they did on Thursday. Everybody will be in the sunshine by late morning.

A little more wind the next few nights might limit the fog a bit, but I suspect it will return amid calm, warm conditions early next week.