The Year In Lightning, 2025: Florida Unseated As Nation's Lightning Capital

A lightning bolt in Ferrisburgh, Vermont in August, 2023.
AEM, an environmental consulting company, has some
interesting lightning data from 2025. 

The lightning capital of the nation is usually Florida. All summer, thunderstorms bubble up in the humid Florida air, so it seems like lighting is always zapping across the skies in the Sunshine State. Storms during other times of the year add to Florida's total. 

But in 2025, Florida lost its status - at least temporary - as the king of lightning storms.  

According to AEM, an environmental consulting firm, Oklahoma beat out Florida as the state with the highest concentration of lightning. The Sooner State had 73 flashes per square mile in 2025. The most lightning-dense county in America was Kay County, Oklahoma, with 123.4 lighting strikes per square mile.

Kay County is on the border with Kansas, about midway between Oklahoma City and Wichita, Kansas. About 43,700 people live in the county and go to enjoy 2025's lightning displays. 

Oklahoma's next door neighbor to the south, Texas, also had quite a lightning year. The state had 1.3 million more lightning flashes than normal. 

Across the United States in 2025 there were 88.4 million lightning flashes, which is 9.8 percent more  than in 2024. 

Most of those flashes had multiple pulses, in other words, flickers of charge. You'll often see a lightning bolt dim and brighten in split second intervals. Those are pulses. If you count all the pulses of lightning in the U.S. in 2025, you end up with 429.9 million pulses. 

The day with the most lightning strikes was June 15, with 929,016 of them across the nation. 

Lightning peaked on days that featured disasters costing a billion dollars or more. 

June 15 is a good example. That date as the start of a four-day outbreak of severe weather in the north-central and Northeast part of the U.S. The storm consisting of more than 60 tornado report sand 1,400 confirmed damage reports, caused seven deaths and $28 billion in damage, according to Climate Central.

The United States has a TON of thunderstorms each year. But the nearly 430 million flashes is a small percentage of the worldwide total, which is about 1.4 billion annually, according to NASA.

The lightning information AEM released this week was a teaser. Their full report is due on January 12 The report will have state by state information, so I might do a followup on Vermont and New England when the information becomes available.

The full report will have information in which states and counties had the least amount of lightning, which counties besides Kay County had the most lightning, and how lightning affected airports and tourist attractions around the nation  

In Vermont: More Snow, A Little Ice, Eventually The Thaw, Then A Wintry Surprise?

The next little storm is due tonight. Expect another
two or three inches north, with much less south due
to freezing rain and sleet mixing in, especially
near the Massachusetts border. 

 I've got an early appointment today, so I'll just do a quick morning weather situation report as we're in a pretty active weather pattern at the moment. 

I don't have a lot of totals from  yesterday's snow, but it appears some places in northern Vermont overachieved slightly. Burlington came in with 2.9 inches of new snow.

 Here in St. Albans, we had 2.0 inches, perfectly in line with National Weather Service forecasts ahead of the event. 

Those figures were near the upper range of what was expected. It was a really fluffy snow, so it'll be pretty easy to clean up.  Roads might still be a little iffy on the roads this morning, which is partly why I'm getting an early start. 

NEXT STORM

The next storm - still a modest one but enough to cause a little trouble - is hot on the heels of yesterday's light snow. 

Hot is sort of the operative word, even if it is an exaggeration. Temperatures were in the teens and low 20s early this morning, giving us the balmiest morning since December 29. OK, I get that it's not exactly warm, but we'll take what we can get.

After a day that gets us to near 30 degrees, again, the warmest since December 29.

The snow will arrive this evening. For most of us, I think we'll squeeze in the afternoon commute before it starts, as the National Weather Service office is projecting a start time of around 8 or 9 p.m for most of us. It should be over by mid-morning Wednesday.

In Vermont's southernmost two counties, a winter weather advisory is up because those areas are expecting a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain. 

The further north you go in Vermont, the more likely it is that this will be just snow. Amounts will be only two or three inches up there. Because it will be a little warmer, tonight's snow won't be quite as feather-like as the stuff we're cleaning up this morning.

There's no weather alerts in Vermont other than in the far south. For those of us north of Bennington and Windham counties, the National Weather Service in South Burlington stated this morning: "If confidence in freezing rain or heavier snow over a large are increases, weather weather advisories may be issued." 

NEXT STORMS

The weather will quiet down and warm up Wednesday and Thursday  ahead of the next storms. Highs both days should get well into the 30s, so it will be the beginning of our thaw. Not much of a thaw, but whatever.

It still looks like we'll have two in quick succession. The first, on Friday, is the core of our brief January thaw. It'll rain and get up into the 40s, with a couple places maybe threatening 50 degrees. At this point, the rain looks like it will probably not be heavy enough, and the snow melt not extensive enough to set off any real flooding. 

There's new questions about the second, stronger system on Saturday. Earlier we thought the second storm would consist of more rain. Now, we're not so sure. Some computer models still keep the storm mostly rain, at least until the tail end of it.

Other models shift the storm a little further east, bringing in the chilly air earlier. That could set the stage for some freezing rain and snow 

As always, we'll know more as we get closer to the event. 

Wildfire Smoke From Canada In 2023 Significantly Worsened Vermont Childhood Asthma

Smoke shrouds Interstate 89 near Georgia, Vermont on
June 25, 2023 as wildfires raged in nearby Quebec.
Recent UVM research indicates the smoky summer
worsened asthma among Vermont children,

Asthma symptoms worsened among children in Vermont and northern New York in the summer of 2023 as clouds of wildfire smoke billowed into the region from huge Canadian blazes, new research confirms. 

We've always known that bad air quality can make asthma sufferers more miserable and put them in danger. But it's interesting and useful to learn to what extent wildfire smoke is a problem. 

Research on the effects of wildfire smoke in populations far from the actual blazes is rather scant as Vermont Public notes. Most science focuses on people near wildfires or those exposed to the smoke for long periods of time. 

The new research from the University of Vermont is useful for those of us occasionally breathing smoke from hundreds or even thousands of miles away. The UVM study is the first to consider the impacts of wildfire smoke on asthma patients in the Northeast. 

"This shows that even these small levels of changes in air quality due to wildfire smoke have the same impact of negatively impacting children's health," said Anna Maassel, the study's lead author and a doctoral student at UVM's Rubenstein School of Environment of Natural Resources. 

That's a big deal because roughly 7 percent of Vermont's children have asthma. 

Here's how this worked, as Vermont Public reports:

"Researchers studied electronic health records for more than 900 people, aged 3-21, being treated for asthma within the University of Vermont Health Network over three summers, from 2022 to 2024. They then compared this with estimated smoke exposure within zip codes, based on air quality data.

They found that children's asthma in Vermont and New York was markedly less well-controlled in 2023, when Quebec experienced a record-breaking wildfire season, compared to 2022. But researchers didn't find that asthma symptoms noticeably improved between 2023 and 2024, even though air quality got better."

The UVM researchers looked at particular matter that was smaller than 2.5 millionth of a letter, or PM 2.5. "That can be especially challenging to dispel from lungs, and especially irritating to those airways....There is research that shows that exposure to wildfire smoke can have much longer-term impacts, including development of asthma, especially for early exposure as a child," Maassel told Grist. 

Children with asthma usually have fewer attacks in the summer because they're not in school where they're constantly exposed to respiratory viruses and indoor triggers. 

Since wildfire smoke is usually a summer thing, children with asthma might not get the break they historically did if this smoke becomes a regular occurrence. Climate change is making Canadian springs and summers hotter and in some cases drier, creating the conditions for wildfires. The western U.S. is getting more prone to larger wildfires, too. 

So it looks like we need to start getting used to smoky summers almost everywhere in the United States.

On top of that, Grist notes, climate change is making growing seasons longer, means plants can produce more pollen. That pollen can exacerbate asthma and other chronic respiratory diseases. More bad news for asthma sufferers.

Wildfire smoke isn't just all about particles. As smoke travels long distanced, it produces ozone, which can irritate the lung and worsen asthma. Other icky things, like formaldehyde can evolve in traveling wildfire smoke, too. 

Like most research, the UVM wildfire smoke research begets more questions and more studies. 

Per Vermont Public:

"Maassel said more research is needed to understand why children's asthma wasn't better controlled in 2024. It's possible, she said, that the wildfire exposures of 2023 had a lingering impact.

The researcher said she's also interested in studying who is most impacted by smoke pollution - and what practical solutions public health officials can offer people to help protect them. Often, health officials tell vulnerable people to go inside and turn on their central air when air quality goes down. But few Vermonters have that option."

This goes well beyond Vermont, of course, The smoke attacks from Canada in 2023 and the western United States in other recent years, affected most of the population of the U.S.  As wildfires grow every year, will it contribute to a general decline in the nation's health? 

Impressive Lake Champlain Effect Snowstorm In Small Area Sunday, More Active Weather Area-Wide This Week

National Weather Service snow prediction map taking us
through a small 1 to 3 inch snowfall later today combined
with a slightly larger but not huge storm Tuesday night.
Some mix is possible toward the end of the
second storm late Tuesday night and early Wednesday. 
Click on the map to make it bigger and easier to read.

A surprise snowstorm blanketed a small area near the southern end of Lake Champlain Sunday. 

It was one of the most impressive lake effect snowfalls off of Lake Champlain I've ever seen.

Most of the snow fell on the New York side of the lake, but some of it clipped the immediate lakeshore on the Vermont side.

Snowfall totals included 9 inches in Port Henry, New York, 7 inches in Willsboro and Crown Point, and 6 inches in Mineville and Moriah Center, New York and Chimney Point in West Addison, Vermont. 

Light winds, just east of due north, flowed down the length of Lake Champlain all day. The direction of the wind aimed the snow at the southern end of the lake on the New York side, but also clipped the point of land that juts into the lake at West Addison, Vermont.

Since the winds weren't very strong, they had plenty of time to gather moisture off unfrozen sections of the lake.  The lake narrows as you head south and hills on either side of the lake become closer together. That, and some light west winds coming over the Adirondacks, helped the air flow converge, or squeeze together. 

When that happens, the air has nowhere to go but up. Rising air cools, and that makes the moisture in the air condense. That condensed moisture fell as snow.  It was a fluffy stuff, so it was able to accumulate pretty deeply. 

WHAT'S NEXT

The big picture is all of us, not just a small piece of the southern Champlain Valley are going to get some snow this week. The bad news is we're going to get some other stuff, too. We have three or four quick storms to talk about. None of them are huge, but each will affect your life to some degree. 

Storm #1

After a morning that brought us temperatures near or below for, it's clouding up pretty fast. A tiny storm is going to go right over the top of us this afternoon and night. Since the system is so small, this will be a quickie. It'll start snowing by around mid afternoon and finish up before midnight.  I'm calling this "Storm #1 but that's being generous. It's a minor thing. 

Most of us should get between 1.5 and 2.5 inches of snow, with maybe a little less in the Northeast Kingdom, where the air might be a little drier. It'll stay cold with this little event. High temperatures much like yesterday, will stay in the teens. 

Today's snow, although not amounting to much, should be enough to make the drive home from work this afternoon and evening a little slick and annoying. Plan on taking it slow. 

Tomorrow, ahead of the next storm, will feel like a glorious heat wave. Highs should soar all the way to near 30, which is close to normal for this time of year. 

The next storm hits tomorrow night. It will be a little bigger than today's squirt of snow, but it won't be enormous. 

It'll come out of the southeastern Great Lakes tomorrow evening and head toward northern Vermont, where it will begin to fade. A new storm will form near Maine and become the predominate one. 

How and when this little transfer of power from the original storm to the new one in Maine will determine how much of this will be snow and how much will be a mix.

As it stands now, the transfer will keep us in Vermont with mostly snow. Especially north. Current projections have us getting two to six inches of snow, with some mixed precipitation toward the end of the storm late Tuesday night and early Wednesday. 

Southern Vermont should get less snow, maybe one to two inches out of this storm, and more freezing rain and sleet than the north. This will mess up the roads, but be not nearly enough to wreck trees and power lines like the last bout of freezing rain on December 29 did.

#Storms #3 and #4

For some of us, our well advertised January thaw wills start marginally on Wednesday, as highs get into the mid 30s. Thursday will be mild and quiet, with highs in the 35 to 42 degree range. 

Then we get the next system. I'm calling this batch Storm #3 and Storm #4 because current projections have it coming in two waves. At least some computer models have one storm going by to our west Friday and another close on its heels Saturday. 

Since both storms will go by to our west, these storms will be almost exclusively rain. At this point, I don't think either of these systems will produce enough rain and thawing to create a flood concern. But we'll keep an eye on these as they get closer nevertheless. 

Starting next Sunday night and Monday , we will get back to our regularly scheduled winter. At first, the  the cold won't be too intense. It'll basically be about average early next week. But signs point to gradually deepening cold as we head further into the month.  

Odd Winter Heat Raising Winter Fire Dangers In Texas, Colorado, Elsewhere

Flames in the Sabine National Forest in eastern Texas.
Numerous wildfires have broken out in eastern Texas
because of oddly dry, warm winter weather. 

Since it's been oddly warm and dry in the southern United States so far this winter, out of season wildfires are breaking out in places from Louisiana to Colorado. 

There's already been a few high fire danger days in Colorado in December. This afternoon, parts of Colorado, along with areas of New Mexico, are seeing a high fire danger due to strong winds, low humidity and drought. 

The fire danger is expected to spread and intensify tomorrow. The Texas panhandle is the highest risk area on Monday. Nearby sections of southeast Colorado, eastern New Mexico and Oklahoma are at risk, too. 

Eastern Texas and parts of Louisiana are also dealing with fires after a winter so far of light precipitation and record high temperatures. 

In just one Texas County, one fire department got 50 calls for outdoor blazes. More calls came in the next day. This despite the fact that many East Texas and western Louisiana counties and parishes are under burn bans. 

East Texas saw about 70 wildfires in the week leading up to New Years Eve.

Wildfires also swept through areas of Oklahoma in December. Fires got so dangerous in Kansas last month that the governor declared a state of emergency. 

It's been dry in Florida, as well. It's usually driest in Florida in April and May, and the state does occasionally get spring wildfires. But so far winter has been pretty arid in the sunshine state, raising fears of winter fires, and ever-more ferocious wildfires in the spring. 

Things could get worse across Texas in the coming days. Dry, warm, windy weather is due most of this week. Some rain might finally arrive in New Mexico and west Texas around Thursday. Record high temperatures and dry weather are expected until Friday, when a little rain might sneak into eastern Texas and Louisiana.  

But that rain doesn't look like much, and it'll stay dry and relatively warm for winter. Up in eastern Colorado and Wyoming, there might be a bit of precipitation late this week, but they'll also revert to dry, warm weather by the weekend. 

Ominously, snow cover in the Colorado Rockies is far below normal, which could set the stage for widespread wildfires this summer. 

CLIMATE CHANGE INFLUENCE 

Winter wildfires have really become more of a thing in recent years. Climate change has brought warmer winter weather. That has allowed some areas of the nation to dry out more. 

Last January brought us the catastrophic Los Angeles area wildfires that caused 30 direct deaths and possibly as many as 440 indirect fatalities. 

So far this winter, California is relatively safe from wildfires due to some storms that blew through in November and December. 

Another devastating winter wildfire hit the area around Boulder, Colorado toward the end of December, 2001, destroying about 1,000 homes. 

There's essentially no longer a "fire season." With the help of climate change, fire season in the United States starts on January 1 and goes through December 31. 

 

Vermont Still Struggles With 2023 Montpelier Flood Damage To State Buildings.

The Pavilion Building in Montpelier in the
immediate aftermath of the July, 2023 flood.
The pipes were for moisture and mold
remediation. The building still needs
a lot of work bringing the HVAC
and electrical systems out of the basement.

In yet another instance that proves it can take forever to recover from a catastrophic disaster, Vermont is still struggling to finish financing and repairs to state buildings from flooding two and a half years ago. 

Extreme flooding hit Vermont on July 10-11, 2023.  In that flood, downtown Montpelier was inundated. That flood affected 17 state office buildings in Montpelier, which is the state's capitol. 

According to Vermont Public, Gov Phil Scott's administration is asking for more time to determine how much it will cost to fully upgrade the state buildings affected by the flood. 

There's a deadline coming up in a few days (January 10) to accept a fixed cost for the work. But the state is going to ask FEMA for six more months to come up with a cost. 

FEMA has already given the state $30 million to clean up the mess left by the floods and to install temporary infrastructure to keep the buildings running. 

Chief Recover Officer Douglas Farnham told Vermont Public the total cost of the project will probably go over $200 million. FEMA would cover as much as 90 percent of those costs.

A main reason for the expense is some of this work is going to be expensive. The five-story Pavilion Building's heating, cooling and electrical systems are all in the basement. Turns out that's a bad place for that stuff when Montpelier floods. They're going to move all that equipment out of the basement, which is a great idea, but it will be a complex and expensive job. 

As Vermont Public reports, three buildings at 132, 134 and 136 State Street are still unoccupied. A fourth flood-damaged building at 144 State Street will probably be torn down. Unlike most of the other buildings involved,  The one-story building at 144 State is not considered a historic structure. so nobody will have to go through hoops to get rid of that building.

Even if the FEMA money comes through after the requested six month delay with that federal agency, it's going to take a long time to get Vermont state buildings up to snuff before the next flood. You need design plans, permits, equipment purchases. Then you have to install and construct everything. 

Another building, at 87 State Street in Montpelier, was flooded and never reoccupied. It's owned by the federal government. Officials this past summer announced the feds are putting that building up for sale. the Vermont state government has expressed interest in buying the building. 

The whole epic is just another example of how long it takes for state governments to fix all the infrastructure taken away by climate related disasters. This is going to keep happening. Perhaps over and over in the same states.

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT

That has already been the case here in Vermont. We've been through this before.  During Hurricane Irene in 2011, the State Office Complex in Waterbury was trashed by flooding. Some buildings had as much as eight feet of water in them. 

Twenty buildings had to be torn down due to the damage and the fact they were especially prone to additional floods. All the rest had to go through extensive repair. And a new, 86.000 square foot, more flood resilient building was added.  The renovated buildings and the new one were raised to above the 500-year flood level. 

Getting the whole 100-acre back together - and more flood proof - cost $130 million, which was up until now the largest state building project in Vermont  history, reports WCAX. 

Vermont taxpayers paid for most of that renovation. FEMA contributed $36 million and the state's insurance company paid roughly $15 million.

Some of that Waterbury reconstruction went toward projects that didn't have much to do with the flooding, but was still worthwhile. For instance, single-paned glass were replaced by weather-efficient windows. 

The grand re-opening after all this work didn't hit until December, 2015, more than four years after the flood. Between the 2011 flood and the late 2015 reopening, about 1,500 employees had been displaced, dealing with a big blow to the town of Waterbury's economy. 

I imagine this type of saga could happen in Vermont again. And in other states, As the federal government keeps reducing aid to states, it'll be harder and harder for some states to even function if a major disaster hits a state Capitol.  

Vermont/Northern New England Probably Having Coldest Winter In Lower 48

A cold winter sky over Vermont on Friday. Unlike
most of the rest of the nation, we're having a 
relatively chilly winter. Despite a modest upcoming
thaw, it doesn't look like that pattern will change
much as we go through January. 

As winters go, most of the United States, with the very notable exception of Alaska, is having a pretty easy winter. 

At least as far as temperatures go. 

There have been some horrible storms this winter, but it's been mild for most of the Lower 48. 

Except for us. Here in Vermont, it's been a chilly winter. We're in a zone stretching from  the northern Great Lakes to New England that can't seem to find the warm spells very often. 

Sure, there's been cold waves all over the United States east of the Rockies. New Year's Eve was chilly in Florida, for instance. But the dominate weather outside of New England and the northern Great Lakes has been balmy.

During the week around Christmas, the Lower 48 had around 4,700 record highs (daytime highs and record high overnight lows). During tha period, there were only 55 cold records.

As a whole, Christmas Day in the Lower 48 by a wide margin. New England was the exception. Burlington, Vermont was 5.5 degrees cooler than normal that day.

Most of the western United States had a record warm December, with temperatures running an incredible eight to 10 degrees above normal in many cities. Here in Vermont, December was about 5  degrees on the cold side. 

Today and over the past couple of days, an Arctic weather front has been draped more or less from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to southern New England. 

North of that front, the frigid weather has held firm. South of that front, temperatures are running near normal. 

THE FORECAST

For those who like cold weather in New England, this general pattern looks like it will continue. 

Oh, sure, we're still about to get a January thaw later this week and next weekend. But at least so far, the amount of warming in the forecasts look pretty unimpressive. 

Today and tomorrow will continue the cold spell we've been under for the last several days. Highs both days will be in the teens. If it manages to stay clear tonight, lows will get well below zero. A weak disturbance will probably throw a dusting of snow our way tomorrow afternoon and evening. 

Another slightly stronger but still relatively insignificant storm will come through Tuesday night and Wednesday, spreading a little snow, sleet and freezing rain our way. It could be messy Wednesday  morning on the way to work. 

At this point, it looks like Wednesday and Thursday around Vermont will barely get above freezing for the start of our January "thaw." 

It still looks like a storm will go by to our west Friday and Saturday, which would boost temperatures into the low 40s for some bonafide thawing. Unless that forecasts shifts, though, the real warm air will stay suppressed to our south. 

The thaw will be brief as colder weather returns in about a week. It probably won't be as cold as it has been the past few days, but still chilly. After temperatures go back below freezing next Sunday, we'll probably go back to the same weather pattern we've been in.

That means much of the U.S. will have either normal or warmer than normal temperatures as we head into the second half of January. Here in Vermont and New England, just more winter.