June Heat Avoiding Vermont This Year, For A Change

Unlike in recent torrid Junes, this more mild June has left
my nice big hosta near my St. Albans, Vermont shed without
any brown leaves from heat scald. 

 When I was a kid growing up in Vermont, I used to love June weather. 

We'd still have spells of cool, springlike weather, mixed with warm, but not super hot summer like days. Oh sure, it would get to 90 degrees in June from time to time, but those hot spells were usually short, and didn't happen every year. 

The real hot weather would usually wait until July and August.

With climate change, the hot weather in recent years moved into June as well. Temperatures in the mid-90s were almost unheard of in Vermont during June. Lately, it's been happening with increasing frequency, sometimes early in the month when it's usually coolest.

For instance, in Burlington, it was 95 degrees on June 11, 2017. In June, 2020, we had a six consecutive days in the 90s, with two of those topping out at 96 degrees. Last year, it was in the mid 90s on June 6 and 7. You get the idea.

The last time we had a June without a 90 degree reading was in 2015.

This year, though, we seem to have - so far at least - reverted back to the June weather of the dinosaur age,  when I was a kid in the 1960s and 1970s. True, we had some record heat in mid-May, but since then, it's been rather temperate. 

So far, temperatures have been pretty close to normal for June.  The hottest day so far this month only made it to 83 degrees. And no real heat wave is in sight. 

It's nice to not to see heat scald on the hosta leaves in my gardens for a change. And I'm not constantly dragging hoses around to rescue parched plants this June.  

That's not to mean there's no heat in the U.S. this June. Record high temperatures have been reported over the past few days in the Southwest. Brutal, record triple-digit heat is forecast from Texas to the Carolinas in the coming days. 

Some of that heat will try to make a run at us here in Vermont later this upcoming week, but the worst of it will probably get cut off at the pass by additional cold fronts. At this point, it looks like we could make it well into the 80s with some relatively high humidity toward Thursday and Friday, but it probably won't be anything extreme. 

Then, the dip in the jet stream will re-assert itself.  Long range forecasts are iffy, but for now, the third week of June, 2022 looks like it could be actually a little cooler than average. 

All this isn't to say we won't have a hot summer. Who knows? Maybe the final days of June this year will once again enter the mid-90s sweepstakes. It's too soon to tell. 

Even if this June turns out to be on the cool side, we could still have a torrid July and August. Long range forecasts issued during the spring called for a hot summer in our neck of the woods. Could still happen.

But for now, I'll enjoy our "old fashioned" June cool.  

This Week In 1816, Vermont Experienced Peak "Year Without A Summer." Offers Troubling Lessons About Current Climate Change

A massive volcanic explosion in 1815 plunged 
global temperatures, creating the 1816 "Year 
Without A Summer."  In Vermont and many other
places around the world, the cold caused
crop losses and suffering.  Image from the New 
England Historical Society. 

 If you want to find one benefit of climate change, here's one: Unless there is a truly massive, massive cataclysmic volcanic eruption or a comet strike to earth, we in Vermont will never experience a frigid June like 1816.   

The bad news the heat of climate change will also be no picnic.

A lot of you have heard of 1816 - the Year Without A Summer. The first eight days of June that year in Vermont were truly extraordinary. And something you're glad you won't experience. 

I was perusing David Ludlum's "Vermont Weather Book" and it certainly is an understatement that week was truly depressing. 

Ludlum quotes North Star editor Ebenezer Eaton of Danville as such:

"Melancholy weather. Some account was given in the last issue of the unparalleled severity of the weather. It continued without any essential amelioration, from the 6th to 10th instant - freezing as hard five nights in succession as it usually does in December.

On the night of the 6th, water froze an inch thick - on the night of the 7th and morning of the 8th, a kind of sleet or exceedingly cold snow fell, attended by high wind, and measured in places where it drifted 18 to 20 inches in depth. 

Saturday morning (the 8th) the weather was more severe than it generally is during the storms of winter. It was indeed a gloomy and tedious period.  The shoots of leaves of forest trees, which were just putting forth, and corn and garden vegetables that were out of the ground were mostly killed."

Ever the optimist, our buddy Ebenezer was in a better mood as the temperatures later warmed: "Since Monday (the 10th) the weather has been tolerably good; the citizens are recovering their spirits and the din of industry is again heard."

Some observations I thought of as I sit here in climate changed Vermont, 2022:

1. Why isn't anyone named Ebenezer anymore? I love that name. 

2. More seriously, even without the the cold, and what took place immediately before this terrible 1816 cold snap, you can tell how much the climate has changed in the two centuries since 1816,

Notice Ebenezer said the forest trees were just putting forth leaves before the freeze hit. That now happens in mid May, not early June. The climate has really warmed. 

3. Ebenezer's account, and that of others in New England, allows you to piece together the weather maps on that terrible week.

There had to be an unusually strong storm for this time of year in Quebec.  That storm had a cold front dangling south from it. Ahead of that front here in Vermont, it was actually the kind of warm, humid day we expect this time of year in 2022 before a cold front passes. It was in the upper 70s to low 80s on June 5, 1816 with muggy showers and thunderstorms along and ahead of that cold front. 

In 2022, an unusually strong cold front this time of year would plunge us into a couple of days with highs in the mid-50s and low 60s. There would be a frost threat in the cold hollows of the Northeast Kingdom. No biggie, really.

This was way different, of course. The cold front really meant business, and plunged Vermont into what is now considered pretty standard March weather. But in June. 

The storm moving eastward through Quebec must have stalled and slowed down in the Canadian Maritimes and stayed strong. It would have rotated troughs, or little cold fronts through us from the northwest for a few days that week in June, 1816

In the winter, this is a classic setup for upslope snow. Northwest winds are forced to rise up the western slopes of the Green Mountains, and the the higher elevations of the Northeast Kingdom resulting in sometimes remarkably heavy snows in these regions.  Vermont ski areas in the 2020s love this weather pattern in the winter. For farmers in June, 1816, not so much. 

Eventually, the storm moved on and cold, Arctic high pressure would have moved in, clearing the skies and resulting in frigid overnight temperatures. Again, that's a common Vermont situation nowadays in March. But not June. 

That ridge of high pressure would have moved to the east of New England after June 10, 1816, which resulted in more seasonable weather. 

This wasn't the end of it, though. Further freezes in July and August kept wrecking crops, resulting in an economic crisis and hunger. Not only in Vermont but in many other places in the world. 

The root cause of this horrible freeze was Mount Tambora, an Indonesian volcano that in 1815 blew up in extreme fashion,  blasting 12 cubic miles of gases and dust and rocks into the atmosphere, as Smithsonian Magazine notes.

This stuff included a lot of sulphur dioxide, which is is quite effective at blocking the sun's heat. This plunged the world into a year or two of low temperatures, crop failure and famine. That is until the sulphur dioxide precipitated out of the atmosphere, restoring the globe into its previous, relatively stable climate. 

The whole 1816 experience offers lessons for 2022 climate change. The Tambora eruption plunged the world into a serious climate disruption, with often fatal results. 

Now, much like 1815, climate change and the emission of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels, is disrupting that kind of steady climate regime the world has more or less experienced for thousands of years.

Instead of the cold of 1816, we're experiencing the heat of fossil fuel driven climate change. We won't have the cold, weird disruptions of 1816. Instead, we're dealing with the hot, weird disruptions of global warming.   We won't entirely know what awful things climate change will bring us down the road, but so far, it hasn't been good. And it will get worse. We just don't know all the details yet. 

The climate crisis of 1816 eased when all that stuff from the Tambora volcano drained out of the atmosphere by 1817.

The current climate crisis won't be over nearly as quickly as in 1815-1817. Even if we quit emitting all those greenhouse gases five minutes from now, those gases will linger in the atmosphere for decades. We've created a new crisis that will only get worse. And more fatal.  

We'd better brace ourselves. It's going to be a rough ride.

 

Wet Vermont Thursday Will Probably Be Chilliest Until September

On a dark, rainy June morning in St. Albans, Vermont,
wisteria begins to bloom.  At least they have enough
water, as we're expecting up to an inch of rain today.

 We in Vermont are experiencing a great indoor day today.  Instead of garden and yard work, or hiking, or playing outside, it's time to maybe straighten up the home office desk. Pay some bills. Tidy up the kitchen. Or just chill with Netflix.  

It's wet and chilly, in case you haven't noticed.

We dealing with a pretty dynamic storm system, at least by June standards.  More often than not, the period from Memorial to Labor Day features hit and miss showers and storms. Some people are winners, others are losers in the rain department. 

This time, everybody is receiving a nice soaking.  Of course some people will have more rain than others. All of us should end the day with at least a half inch of new rain.  Several places, especially in southern Vermont, will see more than an inch of rain.

The heaviest rain will come down this morning and early afternoon.  It won't be enough to cause any real flooding, but there could be some ponding of water on roads, a hydroplaning risk on the Interstates, that sort of thing. 

Even as the rain turns lighter, more showery and spottier this afternoon, clouds will linger.  That'll keep temperatures no higher than the low 60s all day. Except in southern Vermont, where a little evening sun might boost temperatures toward 70 degrees.

Today's highs in northern Vermont will be ten to 15 degrees cooler than normal, but we won't have any record "low" high temperatures.  (Today's record low high in Burlington is 55 degrees, and they were already a bit warmer than that as of this early morning writing).

Still, there's a good chance this afternoon will be the chilliest until sometime in September.

Tomorrow and Saturday look much better with at least some sun and temperatures poking back up into the seasonable 70s.  We'll probably see a few scattered showers here and there both days, but they will be few and far between. 

The overall weather pattern isn't changing quite yet, though, so another period of weather fronts and such will provide more showers Sunday and Monday. I'm not sure yet how much rain we'll get out of that. 

As I said yesterday, the real hot weather will be suppressed to the southern half of the United States for the foreseeable future. Still, though, by the middle of next week, we have signs that we will turn warmer and drier, but not rain-free. 

That suggests we'll have more summer-like weather starting in about a week, but still, nothing torrid. 

 

Intense Heat Sets Up In The South; We In Vermont To Stay Comfortable

Peonies and irises in my St. Albans, Vermont gardens got
another drink of water from overnight thundershowers.
More rain is in the forecast, and hot weather will be
kept out of the region at least through mid-month. 

 A long spell of intense heat is beginning to build in the Southwest and south central parts of the nation, and record highs are beginning to fall.  

Up here in Vermont, a persistent dip in the jet stream will keep protecting us from the heat at least through mid-month. 

Triple digit temperatures extend this week from California to Texas. As the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang summarizes, Death Valley could easily reach 120 degrees.  It's almost always hot in the Southwest this time of year, but this is up there, even for them.

Las Vegas could see record highs of around 108 or 109 degrees in the coming days. The forecast high for Phoenix on Friday is 113 degrees, which would edge out the record high for the date of 111 degrees.

What makes the heat especially dangerous is the overnight lows, or more accurately the lack thereof. Temperatures will stay above 80 degrees across this region at night. Most people have air conditioning, but a few do not. And some people are homeless. 

The lack of any nighttime breaks from the heat can cause heat related illnesses and deaths. 

The "heat dome" looks like it will eventually shift a bit eastward out of the Desert Southwest and then park itself over the southern Plains for an extended stay. 

That means the Southwest will go from record hot to just hot. But the southern Plains will bake day in and day out in near record heat. Recently, drought conditions in the southern Plains were beginning to get better because of frequent, heavy storms over the past couple of weeks.

But this heat dome will shut off the water in this region and once again, they'll dry out. The heat will probably spread into the Southeast as well, raising the prospect of triple digit temperatures from California to the Carolinas. 

The position of this "heat dome" which is basically just a broad, hot area of high pressure, will keep Vermont out of the heat. 

The jet stream, which generally drives weather systems, will head northeastward in the Rockies and up toward Canada, up and over the central U.S. heat dome, then head southeastward into the Great Lakes and Northeast.

That'll block the hot air in the middle of the nation from reaching us. Repeated cold fronts in that northwest flow over us will keep our temperatures more or less near normal at least into the third week of June.

There will be a few cool days and a few warm, humid-ish ones in there, but I'm not seeing anything extreme. 

With the flow from the northwest, it will be hard for any tropical air to make its way toward us, so these repeated cold fronts mostly won't have huge amounts of rain with them. But we'll have chances of rain pretty much every other day if this pattern holds, keep precipitation near normal.

In the short term, tomorrow looks like the wettest and chilliest day for the foreseeable future as a nor'easter of sorts passes through New England. A June version of a nor'easter is a weaker system than what you see in the winter.  So it'll just be rainy and damp.

After that, we fall into that pattern of average weather. 

One caveat: On the periphery of these heat domes something known as a "ring of fire" sets up.  That ring of fire is frequent, sometimes severe storms on the northwestern, northern and northeastern edges of the heat dome. 

During this spell of weather, it's possible that a cold front could time itself correctly, and have the correct atmospherics, to give us a threat of severe thunderstorms.

So far, there's nothing to suggest we'll see anything like that at least through early next week, and likel beyond. 

Bad Climate News From Hawaii - CO2 At Highest Level In 4 Million Years

The Mauna Loa Baseline Observatory, where precise 
measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide amounts
are taken. To nobody's surprise and everyone's dismay,
concentrations hit a record high this year.
Photo from the Associated Press.

 Near the top of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, they've been measuring the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for decade.  

It goes up every year, and it set a new record this year.  This was expected, but bad news. Carbon dioxide is the famous greenhouse gas, and is largely responsible for the climate crisis the world is experiencing. 

Carbon dioxide, as measure atop that Hawaiian mountain, peaks every year in May.  This year's peak brought the atmospheric concentration of CO2 to 421 parts per million in the atmosphere.

That doesn't sound like much and it isn't. But scientists have long known that a little bit of carbon dioxide goes a long way toward wrecking what was once a fairly stable global climate.

CO2 concentrations are now about 50 percent higher than they were before the Industrial Revolution. For about 6,000 years before the start of the Industrial Revolution, carbon concentrations held steady at around 280 parts per million, notes the Honolulu Star Advertiser. 

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been rising every since we started in earnest digging up fossil fuels like coal and oil and burning it, releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.   

Scientists think the last time carbon dioxide concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere were this high was about four million years ago. Kinda before my time. 

The Star Advertiser had some gloomy assessments from scientists who reacted to the latest carbon dioxide measurement from Mauna Loa. they asked hey sought out for comment.

"It's depressing that we've lacked the collective willpower to slow the relentless rise in CO2," said Ralph Keeling, a renowned geochemistry professor who runs the Scripps program at Mauna Loa. '"Fossil fuel use may no longer be accelerating, but we are still racing at top speeds toward a global catastrophe."

Pieter Tans, a senior scientist with the Global Monitoring Laboratory, told the Star Advertiser the higher levels of CO2 recently measured aren't exactly breaking news, but still frustrating. "We have known about this for half a century and have failed to do anything meaningful about it... 'What's it going to take for us to wake up?"

Readers of this here blog thingy have seen so many posts about strange, dangerous and deadly weather in the past few years. With the latest science news from Hawaii, you will unfortunately see many more posts about extreme, climate driven, deadly weather. 

Today's weather news is "good" in that I'm not aware of an event today killing scores of people. But that has become an exception. We do have brutal heat waves to report today in parts of Europe, India, Pakistan and the United States Southwest.

It also looks like the U.S. heat wave will expand and intensify across much of the South in the coming days, which of course is bad.

Here in Vermont, for now, we are blissfully safe. We'll have a windy day today and probably a fair number of showers tonight, Thursday and over the weekend.  Nothing scary. But it's only a matter of time before another climate driven storm or heat wave will screw things up here in the Green Mountain State. Just like in the rest of the world. 

Cheerful post today, huh?

 

It's June, So Let's Talk About Snow!

They were skiing at Killington, Vermont right up
through yesterday, when the resort finally 
closed for the season.

 We have a couple little tidbits involving snow, or things that remind us of snow in the news today. It's June, the perfect month to discuss snow, right?  

We'll go distant first, then zoom in on the local

MONTANA SNOW

Way up at 10,000 feet in elevation, near the Montana/Wyoming border, there's a ski area called Beartooth Basin, which often offers summer skiing.  It's rough hewn, basically back country skiing with a lift, but it's a unique situation.

Beartooth Basin decided not to open this summer. There wasn't enough snow to sustain the operation. Then, of course, a massive snowstorm hit on Memorial Day weekend. 

The high elevation Beartooth Highway on the Montana/Wyoming border was closed for days afterward because of six-foot drifts. Crews couldn't really get into clear the snow due to a high avalanche risk, reports Cowboy State Daily.

Beartooth Highway is sort of a mega version of Route 108 through Smugglers Notch. The highway reaches an elevation as high as 10,900 feet. It closes in the fall and usually reopens in late spring, much like Smugglers Notch.

Crews trying to clear high elevation Beartooth Highway
of snow in Montana and Wyoming June 3.

The Montana high elevation road is normally open by Memorial Day, but not this year.  At last report, it still hadn't opened.

Beartooth Basin still doesn't look like it will open this summer, either. Despite all the new snow, it's too late to shift gears and open up.  

KILLINGTON SNOW

 No, I assure you that it didn't not snow in Vermont this weekend. The only powder we had was the huge amounts of pollen in the air that has created a yellow haze and left all of our cars yellow as well.

But, Killington was open and skiing until yesterday. It was the latest in the spring the resort closed since 1997, when it closed on June 22.

The spectacle was a little strange, as skiers zigzagged down a slope with still deep snow against a gorgeous backdrop of a summertime Vermont green landscape. 

The late closing this year had everything to do with Killington's snowmaking prowess and not weather conditions. After all, the winter was not especially cold, despite subzero weather in January. Spring was among the warmest on record. 

The resort managed to pile  up the snow on the trail to a depth of 30 feet before the spring that got underway. 

When Killington stayed open late in 1997, it had been a remarkably cool spring, which helped maintain the snow the resort had made through the winter. 

NOR'EASTERS OF SORTS 

When we think about nor'easters in New England, we think big snowstorm.  And now we have the potential for two storms that will be very much like weak nor'easters.

Don't worry, it isn't going to snow.  And temperatures as these things pass by will only be a little cooler than normal. And it might rain. 

In the summer, we don't see huge temperature contrasts like we do in the winter. Without these huge contrasts, storm systems can't get really strong (unless they're tropical storms, which is a whole other issue)

Without the ability to get strong, two relatively weak low pressure systems will end up running up the New England coast. One on Thursday, one on Sunday. 

Both storms will dump rain somewhere in New England. 

Like wintertime nor'easters, it's still hard to predict how much moisture will work into Vermont, so there's still some questions about how much rain will fall. Right now, it looks like the Green Mountain State will be under the threat of showers both Thursday and Sunday.  But it doesn't look like we'll have any blockbuster rains. 

By the way, technically there might be snow. Way, way, overhead. Often, precipitation starts out as snow many, many thousands of feet overhead even in the summer. That will probably happen with these little storms. But that snow will change to rain on the way down well before it hits even summit levels of the Vermont mountains. 

 

Vermont "Pollen Storm" As Alex Becomes Tropical Storm AFTER Doing Its Damage

A breezy late Saturday afternoon yesterday in St. Albans, 
Vermont. That slight haze you see is almost surely
a "pollen storm" of sorts that bothered allergy sufferers.

No question Saturday was a beautiful day, aside from scattered showers and thunderstorms north of Route 2 and east of the Champlain Valley. 

It was bright, largely sunny and breezy. What's not to love?

Allergy sufferers would like a word. 

The wind and dry air had the pollen swirling in the breezes. You could actually see a slight greyish or yellowish haze in the air, especially as northwest winds picked up in the afternoon.  Saturday was a BIG pollen day in Vermont. 

I'm not usually a big allergy sufferer, but I was coughing and sneezing, and my nose was basically Niagara Falls. Especially when I ventured outside into my gardens in the late afternoon.

Interestingly, nipping at a couple beers while in the garden seemed to alleviate the allergy symptoms. A disclaimer here, though:.Do NOT take medical advice from me. Harpoon UFO White is NOT a cure for allergies, despite my good experiences with it last evening.  See your doctor if allergies are bothering you. 

Locust tree over the weekend fully in bloom, St. Albans,
Vermont. These trees probably contributed to what I'm
calling a "pollen storm" in Vermont Saturday.

Today is less breezy, so things outside might be a little better. But it's still dry, so pollen can easily float in the air. It's that time of year. I think a lot of it is coming from pine trees. I also have flowering locust trees around my house, and they reached peak bloom Friday.  Yesterday, the pollen and flower petals were blowing off those trees like crazy.

Rain expected later Tuesday will at least tamp down the "pollen storm" in Vermont a little bit. 

The slight pollen haze that was noticeable yesterday prompted an interesting discussion on Twitter about summer haze. The always extremely helpful folks at the National Weather Service in South Burlington explained the more traditional bluish haze we often see during the summer. 

As NWS Burlington explains, that common blue haze we often see in the summer is to a large extent made up of tree isoprene. It's a natural chemical compound trees release to manage heat stress.  The Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains are in the hot, humid Southeast and that isoprene release down there is probably how those mountain ranges got their names. 

The National Weather Service agreed that any hazy noticeable in Vermont Saturday was likely pollen or dust, since it wasn't particularly hot out. 

TROPICAL STORM ALEX

Wannabe tropical storm Alex finally turned into official Tropical Storm Alex, ironically after doing most of its damage.

As the storm drenched South Florida with up to 13 inches of rain on Saturday, it didn't have a well defined center. It was just a big blob of torrential thunderstorms. 

Satellite view of Tropical Storm Alex northeast
of Florida this morning. 

Overnight, these storms largely left Florida and hit the warm Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean, northeast of Florida.  

The Gulf Stream is even warmer than normal right now, and the thunderstorms took advantage of that heat to organize into roughly a circular wind field. That was enough to make it an official tropical storm. Alex is here.

Not for long, though. It had max winds of 50 mph this morning, and might gain a bit more steam today. 

Then it will begin to weaken, once again falling victim to strong upper level winds.  A tropical storm warning is up for Bermuda for Monday, but I think that island will weather this weak tropical storm fairly well.

Flooding was extensive in South Florida from what was then just a potential tropical storm. But a foot of rain can put a lot of streets and highways under water in a short period of time. Dozens of cars stalled in the water in downtown Miami, and in surrounding communities. 

Floor warnings have since been lifted in Florida.