A Rare Nice Vermont November Day Was Unfortunately A One-Off

Sorry about the wires marring the photo a bit, but 
for the second evening in a row Thursday, St. Albans,
Vermont was treated to a great sunset after
a nice day.   No more nice days are in the forecast, though.

UPDATE: 6:15 FRIDAY

Not much to update for a change!

Rain has moved into northwestern Vermont this evening right on schedule and will gradually overtake the rest of the state tonight before tapering off by the morning. 

Some upper elevations, especially north, could see some snow at the end. But it won't amount to much. 

There's actually a shot at some places in Vermont seeing some unexpected sun Saturday afternoon, especially in the lower Connecticut River Valley. 

The storm on Wednesday is still a wild card, as I mentioned in the post I wrote this morning, as you can see below. 

The latest American computer model from late this afternoon has the Wednesday system turning into no biggie for us. However, other computer models still blast us with wind, mixed precipitation and rain. Stay tuned! 

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

This has been an especially dark and cloudy and chilly November, so Thursday was quite a treat.

Sunshine dominated for a change, and afternoon temperatures were actually warmer than normal for a change - reaching the 50s.  A few warmer southern Vermont valleys touched 60. 

I hope you liked it, because it's over. Probably for the rest of the month. 

We'll have one last warm day today, but it will be clouding up, getting windy in some spots and rain will arrive by dark, or a little after that east of the Green Mountains. 

Most of us will get at least a quarter inch of rain overnight, with several spots coming in near a half inch. Not a big deal, really. 

But, from tonight on, it's going go be cold, we'll have risks of snow occasionally, and it's actually going to be somewhat stormier than we've dealt with so far this month. It's just been little systems so far.

Going forward, we'll still have little storm systems, but they'll pack a little bigger oomph than the ones earlier this month. And we have probably a much larger storm to deal with heading toward Wednesday and Thanksgiving. 

There's something new coming up every day, but the general theme is kinda wintry. We're late enough into the season now that almost every storm from now into March at least, big or small, will involve some snow or mixed precipitation. 

The details:

Saturday: 

Many places in northern and central Vermont, especially higher elevations, will wake up to a dusting of snow.  It'll get cold enough toward the end of tonight's rain for a switch to snow.  It won't amount to much, but there could be some slick spots on the roads early in the morning. 

It will be chilly and cloudy all day, with a northwest wind to make it feel worse

Sunday

A relatively impressive cold front will mess with us Sunday. 

Light snow with this could start before dawn, and many if not most places in central and northern Vermont could see another dusting on the ground. In the warmer valleys, that dusting might melt during the day as temperatures get a little above freezing.

Mid and high elevations could hold on to the white covering, as showers should be in the form of snow all day up there, so a couple inches could pile up away from the valleys.  

The National Weather Service in South Burlington tells us mountain summits could see as much as three to six inches of snow out of this. 

Monday:

Our best chance of shot at seeing some sun for the next week at least, but it will come with a price. For the first time this season, most of us won't get above freezing. Except maybe the warmer valleys central and south. 

Tuesday

At this point it looks like it will stay cold, with increasing clouds ahead of our next, larger storm. If things work out as expected, it should stay dry.

Wednesday

This day is a wild card, which sucks because many people are traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday. The models have been shifting wildly. For instance, the American computer model last night had a large, strong, windy double-barreled storm affecting the Northeast. Under this scenario, we'd deal with potentially gusty winds and a mix changing to rain, then snow showers after the storm goes by Thursday.

This morning's run of the American model was WAY different. It has a more modest storm passing to our south, giving us much less wind, but a moderate-sized snowfall. So far, the European model is sticking with the windy mix to rain scenario. Stay tuned!

Thanksgiving

Depending how the big storm sugars out, there could be a huge lake effect snowstorm in New York downwind of lakes Erie and Ontario. That would send some lighter snow showers into Vermont, especially the mountains.  It'll be cold again! 

 

Is Climate Change Accelerating? Leading Scientists Clash On The Issue

Famed climate scientist James Hansen worryingly says
climate change is accelerating, but other top
scientists aren't so sure about that. 

Two of the nation's top climate experts are clashing politely on a subject that will deeply affect all of us

Are things bad, or really bad?

More specifically, is climate change accelerating, or is it still a steady, dreadful uphill climb?

Either option is of course sub-optimal  for us, to say the least. 

 If the world keeps warming at the pace it's been for the past several decades, we can expect more and longer deadly heat waves, worse storms, rising sea levels and politically destabilizing climate mass migration.  

If the pace of climate change is increasing, all of the above problems will be that much worse. 

This all started last week when famed former NASA scientist James Hansen said that the pace of climate change has steepened by 50 percent since 2010.  

Hansen, you might recall, first alerted the American public and put climate change front and center in the nation's conversation during dramatic Congressional testimony he provided back in 1988.

Hansen's main argument now is there is more sun energy in the atmosphere after 2010 thanks to efforts to cut pollution. The downside of less pollution are less sooty particles - known as aerosols - to bounce the sun's heat back out to space, so warming increases. 

As the Associated Press reports:

"Hansen's study said from 1970 to 2010, the world warmed at a rate of 0.18 degrees Celsius per decade, but projects that would increase to a rate of at least 0.27 degree Celsius per decade after 2010. NOAA data shows that 0.27 degrees is the rate since September, 2010."

So much goes on in the atmosphere, both via climate change and natural processes, it's easy to get into the weeds. It's hard to parse out what's a temporary thing, what's climate change, what's some other influence. 

There are bursts in which the global climate warming accelerates, and we are in one now. El Nino boosts global temperatures.  A record breaking volcanic eruption in Tonga back in January, 2022 threw an unprecedented amount of water vapor high up into the stratosphere. 

So, climate change, El Nino, and to a much lesser extent Tonga and new sulfur pollution rules are boosting this year's global temperatures  to what will be the hottest on record. 

Michael Mann, one of the world's leading climate
scientists, respects James Hansen but is highly
skeptical of Hansen's assertion that climate
change is accelerating. 

Another very strong El Nino occurred in 2015-16 and that boosted global temperatures to what were then record levels.

 El Nino transitioned to a cooler La Nina in the late 2010s and the first couple years of the 2020s, so the rate of warming temporarily leveled off somewhat during that period. 

After Hansen's study came out  another titan of climate change science, University of Pennsylvania scientist Michael Mann posted a rebuttal to Hansen. While careful to note he has deep respect for Hansen, Mann thinks Hansen's hypothesis is overblown.  

The Washington Post reports:

"Mann argued that the ocean's heat content is growing steadily, but  - in contrast to Hansen and his co-authors - is not accelerating. Mann also cited data showing that there does not appear to be a sudden shift in pollution from aerosols  over the past few years. Other researches have found a decline in aerosol pollution from cleaning up shipping would only shift global temperatures by 0.05 to 0.06 Celsius."

That said, Mann did note, "It has always been risky to ignore (Hansen's) warnings and admonitions." However, Manns also but also said of Hansen's new research: "The standard is high when you're challenging scientific understanding.....And I don't think they've met that standard, by a long shot."

Mann isn't exactly relaxed about the whole business of climate change though. The steady state increase  without an acceleration of the pace "is bad enough," he said. 

Another key difference between Hansen and Mann is that Hansen tiptoed into the realm of policy advocacy in his recent study. That's not typically what scientists do. Scientists will say "this is happening" and leave it to politicians, the public and the world in general to decide what to do about it. 

Hansen suggests some geo-engineering - namely deliberately putting those aerosols back up into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight. 

Mann is still old school. He doesn't believe scientists should put policy recommendations in their peer reviewed studies. Mann also thinks Hansen's geo-engineering ideas are actually dangerous and could backfire on humankind. 

All this must seem like a gossip column about scientists, or some weird click bait that gets views by highlighting conflict.

But the dispute between Hansen and Mann is in an odd way reassuring. It's how science is supposed to work. Scientists do fresh studies, other scientists question those studies. That yields further studies in an attempt to see who's right. All this is done without screaming matches or manufactured outrage. 

It's two respected scientists who respect each other, but disagree on one aspect of their work. That the two are trying to find more answers to climate change is good, even if the subject they're studying is very, very bad. 

 

Want Snow? Go To Anchorage, Alaska. Record Dumps There

A neighborhood in Anchorage, Alaska. Via X (formerly
Twitter by @Tomhewittnews.

 In the Lower 48 of the United States, winter has been reluctant to arrive. Oh, sure it's snowed here and there, including in Vermont where we live. 

But there's been nothing dramatic. Just spits and flurries and bursts of light snow. 

This is a contrast to many years in the past, in which epic blizzards by now in the upper Midwest, and big nor'easters with heavy snow in the interior Northeast. 

This year so far, it's been meh. Just the so-called nuisance snows around here that I've already talked about. 

But if you love winter, one place you should have been this month is Anchorage, Alaska and environs. 

Sure, you'd expect snow in Alaska during November. You know, the Great White North and all that. But they've been hammered far more than you'd expect.

Anchorage has already endured two bouts of huge snow dumps this month. The first came last week. 

According to Alaska Public Media: 

"Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson declared a snow emergency Thursday evening, freeing additional resources to clear local roads. In a statement, he said that street maintenance crews had responded to 40 downed trees during a 15-hour period."

Then, another storm hit Monday, with at around nine inches to a  foot of new snow in and around Anchorage. By Monday evening, the city had gotten 38.1 inches of snow so far this month. That's just a few tenths of an inch away from the all-time snowiest November on record up there. So they have half a month to break the record. I can't imagine they'll fall short 

Sadly, homelessness has become an increasingly serious issue in pretty much every city in the United States, including Anchorage. It's been decided by the Powers That Be, that it isn't worth trying to deal with the homeless crisis, or drug addiction, mental illness or inadequate wages for that matter.  

Thank you for letting me stand on my soapbox there. 

Anyway, the two feet of snow that plastered Anchorage helped lead to the deaths of four homeless people in the past week, says the Associated Press.

The brings the total number of homeless people who have died in Anchorage this year to 49. It's only the beginning of winter.  I wonder how many houseless people will die of the cold in Anchorage or elsewhere?

For motorists, the snow and ice has gotten so bad they've had to call out road graders to chop up the icy ruts caused by traffic in the storms. 

It's all going to get worse in Anchorage. An ugly rain and wet snow mixture is in the forecast there through Thursday morning. Then the mix is forecast to change to all snow before tapering off Friday afternoon. What a mess! 

On the bright side, it the snow won't be nearly as heavy as it has been the past few days. But it will get quite cold by the weekend, even by Anchorage standards. 

 

United States October: Another Warm One, Especially New England

Pretty much all of the United States except parts of
Montana and the western Dakotas had yet another
warm month in October, according to the latest data.

 Data continues to trickle in on how the world's climate fared this October. 

The latest news is the United States summary from the National Centers for Environmental Information.

Overall, the United States had its 18th warmest October out of the past 129 years. The United States represents only a tiny fraction of the Earth's surface. Evidence continues to come in to confirm October worldwide will be the warmest on record. 

New England, especially Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine were particularly warm relative to average. Maine had its second warmest October on record. Vermont and New Hampshire placed third in the warm rankings. 

Most of the rest of the Northeast, and much of the Southwest were above normal.  The only place that was noticeably cooler than the 20th century average was southeastern Montana. The rest of the nation was fairly close to average. 

It's pretty impressive how widespread the record and near record warmth for the first ten months of the year have been. According to NCEI:

"Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida each ranked warmest on record while Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and Maryland each ranked second warmest for the January-October period. An additional 18 states had a top 10 warmest year-to-date period. No state experienced a top-10 coldest January-October."

Pretty much nobody in the United States experienced a chilly October.  The only places having a cooler than average 2023 so far are just a few isolated spots in the central Rockies. 

If you're looking for something normal, precipitation was pretty close to average in October. Same is true for the nation as a whole for the first ten months of the year. Of course, as usual, some places were way wetter than average, others were much drier.  The extremes canceled each other out.

Global analysis for the month of October should be out within a few days, and I'll provide an update when it's available. 

 

Nuisance November Snow Continues To Pester Vermont

Snow started accumulating on our northwestern Vermont
property Monday afternoon, putting an end to what had
been a chilly but productive couple of hours of
outdoor work ahead of winter. 

The National Weather Service in South Burlington issues a special weather statement early this morning, saying some roads especially at mid and high elevations, were getting snow covered a slippery from moderate snow showers roaming around the state. 

Even by mid-morning, I'm sure there's a couple slick spots out there. Nothing extreme, but definitely worth slowing down for. 

The snow showers should taper off by this afternoon, but it's another case of November nuisance snow we've seen this month. 

Maybe nuisance is too strong a word. Because it has led to some pretty scenes around the region, especially earlier this month when it accumulated on late season fall colors  - we call it snoliage. 

It started snowing again yesterday when I was trying to complete some late season chores out in my St. Albans, Vermont yard. I expected flurries, I instead got a solid few hours of steady snow, see video at the bottom of this post. It didn't amount to much, but it was enough to get in the way. 

I know it was just typical November weather, but I always seem to want to expect more than is reasonable. 

Today is also another one of those dark, dreary November days we've been talking about and enduring. It's even kind of foggy out there in a lot of spots to add to the gloom. It won't get any better as the day wears on. Most of us will stay in the 30s, though a few "lucky" spots get to 40 for a time this afternoon. 

It also seems like we've got a brief reprieve coming up for the rest of the week.  It'll warm into the 50s by Thursday, which is actually somewhat warmer than average for a change.  There could even be some periods of sun Wednesday and Thursday. No guarantees, but the chance is there.

 A cold front comes in Friday or Friday night with some rain, then it's back to the sad gray overcast and chances of more flurries. 

Not sure on this one yet, but next Monday could be the coldest of the season so far. Early indications are some towns won't even make it above freezing that day.  Winter is rushing toward us, and the light snows of November we keep having are a sure sign of it.

Video:

Another light November snow interrupts an outdoor day of chores in St Albans, Vermont. Pretty, though. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that:

Cloudy Autumn: Vermont Is Not The Place To Be For Sunshine

The sun finally broke through in Shelburne, Vermont,
leading to this dramatic scene of bright sunlight
and dark clouds. 

On paper, it looked like Vermont would finally break out into the sun this past weekend. A strong high pressure system was moving in. That meant sinking air that would finally eat up the clouds to yield blue skies.  

But this is Vermont. In November. You are really hard pressed to see sunshine this time of year. 

Many weather forecasts were optimistic. Some sun was supposed to break out Saturday afternoon. It would clear up Saturday night and Sunday would be a very bright, albeit chilly day.

Cue the game show "Wrong Answer" buzzer.

As is so often the case in November and December, the clouds won. A relatively thin layer of moisture got caught a few thousand feet overhead.  If we had a steeper sun angle, some of the sun's heat would have gotten through, causing some updrafts that would  have broken up the clouds. 

But the sun is feeble this time of year. We're only five weeks out from the winter solstice, after all.  The high pressure system was pretty much overhead, meaning there was no wind in the atmosphere to effectively push the overcast out. 

The clouds hung tough, leaving many meteorologists with egg on their faces. And our sunglasses sitting uselessly in the center console of our vehicles. 

It's very hard to get sunshine this time of year anyway. The storm track is active, so one disturbance after the other come through with their batches of clouds. The Great Lakes and most of the lakes in southern Canada haven't frozen yet.  Cold air flowing across them creates a lot of clouds over New England and southeastern Canada that are hard to disperse. 

Further north in St. Albans, Vermont, the sun didn't break 
through until right at sunset.

Some areas in southern Vermont did manage to have a partly sunny weekend. 

And the clouds broke up in parts of the Champlain Valley Sunday afternoon, leading to dramatic scenes of bright sunshine agains dark clouds to the east and north. 

It cleared out overnight statewide except of the Northeast Kingdom.  That lead to a calm, clear night that brought the lowest temperatures of the season. 

Many places were in the teens at dawn. Except in the Northeast Kingdom, where the clouds kept temperatures in many places up there in the 20s to near 30.

NEXT UP: MORE CLOUDS. AND SNOW! 

You'll see some sun for awhile after dawn today but don't get used to it. The next small storm is coming through with a batch of snow and rain showers. Those should move in this afternoon and linger off and on overnight and into Tuesday morning. 

It'll be light, but by the time you get up in the morning, even most valleys should see a dusting of new snow on the ground. A couple inches could pile up at ski area elevations, with four or five inches possible at the summits.

The little storm will be departing Tuesday, but we won't see any clearing to speak of. Again, November. 

Warmer south wind will bring temperatures up to at least normal, or even a little above average for the second half of the week. Enough wind in the atmosphere could also bring in breaks of sun, which would be a nice change of pace.

Another, milder system will bring mostly rain showers to our area Friday night, followed by what looks to me to be another overcast weekend coming up. 

It's been a really cloudy autumn anyway.  All but the first week of October was unusually cloudy. WCAX-TV meteorologists crunched the November numbers so far and determined the sky over Burlington was 82 percent cloud covered for the first 10 days of this month. 

 Last year was much, much sunnier. It included a record breaking, sunny heat wave that left us with just 38 percent cloud cover for the opening ten days of November.

Those of you with solar panels on your roofs have surely had a disappointing autumn.  Let's hope for a brighter winter.  

Paradise Lost And Found? Struggles Five Years Since Deadly Fire Wiped Out California Town

Five years after a deadly wildfire destroyed the town of
Paradise, California, the town is still rebuilding, but is
facing financial and insurance headwinds. 

 Hard to believe but it's been five years this week since one of the worst wildfires in U.S. history destroyed the town of Paradise, California, claiming 85 lives.  

In just a day or so, the fire leveled almost every house and business in town.- about 18,000 of them.  You still might remember horrifying videos from that day of people desperately trying to drive through flames and zero-visibility smoke to escape the conflagration. 

So how's the town doing now?

It is bouncing back, but it's also a grim reminder of how long it takes to recover from a mega-disaster like this. That fact has resonance here in Vermont, as we continue to recover from the dramatic, highly destructive floods we had this summer. 

In the age of climate change, these weather disasters are coming at us much more frequently than ever before.  We'll have a lot of balls in the air trying to recover from just one disaster. Now imagine how stretched thin emergency managers, insurers, planners, builders, homeowners and business people are. 

In Paradise, California right now, KCRA says 21 percent of the homes have been rebuilt, and another 1,000 or so are under construction. 

Paradise has technically been the fastest growing municipality in California for the past two years. But that's starting from almost zero, and they've reached the peak of the rebuilding effort.

As you can imagine, it's been incredibly expensive. KCRA said the Fire Victim Trust, created in July, 2020, has issued determination notices on 98 percent of claims and has paid $10.7 billion to victims so far. 

The Fire Victim Trust was created by the electric utility PG&E as part of a legal settlement. The utility was blamed for the fire because one of its power lines is believe to have snapped, sparking the blaze on that windy, super dry November 8, 2018.

Many victims are saying the settlements are inadequate and have not allowed them to even partially recover financially from the blaze. 

Even worse, homeowners insurance in Paradise is unaffordable.  This is an increasing problem in disaster-prone areas like Florida. Insurers say they can't keep taking the losses from this increasing onslaught of disasters.  I think any disaster-prone region of the nation is now prone to newly sky high insurance rates, so be forewarned. 

In Paradise, the Associated Press said some homeowners who used to face roughly $1,500 in annual insurance premiums now have $10,000 annual fees. People can't afford that, so they're not rebuilding. Or, if they don't have a mortgage, they're taking their chances and not acquiring homeowners' insurance, which is a really risky move. 

The higher insurance rates are happening despite stringent new building codes to help prevent future disasters. 

A DIFFERENT PARADISE

By necessity, Paradise is shaping up to look a lot different than it did before the fire. 

The town's newspaper, The Paradise Post, announced sweeping building code changes enacted by the Town Council in May, 2022:

"The first change would require that only non-combustible material be allowed within five feet of any building or structure. It would also outlaw any vegetation within five feet of the structure, including the overhang. The ordinance calls for removing any overhanging limbs or branches within five feet of the structure.  It would also regulate all exterior walls to have six inches of noncombustible vertical clearance from grade."

These extensive regulations would also outlaw any vegetation or the storage of combustible material beneath decks and porches. Mesh covering vents in roofs and walls must have openings of an eighth inch or less to prevent embers from slipping into attics. Combustible fencing material must also not come within five feet of a home or building. 

 Paradise officials also are installing 21 warning sirens around town that would serve much like tornado warning sirens in the Midwest, reports Fire Engineering.  Except these sirens will sound a warning, and then be followed by evacuation instructions. That's a quick way to get people heading quickly in the right direction away from danger. 

Fire Engineering compares the new siren system to the chaotic day in 2018 when the wildfire blasted through town. : 

"Many residents said they received no warning on their cellphones or landlines as the fire quickly spread their way. They jumped in their vehicles to escape only after seeing smoke and flames, or after relatives or neighbors knocked on their doors.

'If that fire would have happened just a few hours earlier than it did, we would have had hundreds of people die from that because they'd been in Bed,' (Paradise Mayor Greg ) Bolin said."

Of course, officials have to decide to activate the sirens. During Maui's deadly fires this summer, people report that sirens did not go off.

The long list of fire prevention rules and ordinances in Paradise are starting to be emulated by other wildfire-prone communities. Climate change does seem to be making wildfires, well, wilder. They spread faster, burn hotter, last long and display extreme behavior.  

Like it or not, communities through the United States - throughout the world, really - are all trying to adapt to climate change. We see it again and again.

Few experts think humans can completely adapt ourselves out of the consequences of climate change. There's just too much going on at once. And what's going on is often too extreme to adapt to. Sure, you can enact fire codes that help protect lives and property in big wildfires. But the wildfires are too big for those measures to keep people completely safe. 

We can buy out homes and properties, enlarge culverts and build stronger bridges in places like here in Vermont that are particularly susceptible to floods, but these extreme floods have a tendency to find new victims as the storms get worse and worse. 

It's a race between human engineering and climate change disasters. One that will continue for the foreseeable future. 

Back in Paradise, California, they held a series of events this week to mark the five year anniversary of the firestorm. That included 85 seconds of silence for the 85 victims of the blaze. 

Mercifully, the start of the rainy season has already provided the forests around Paradise a bit of rain. A moderately heavy rain storm is the forecast for the region for this upcoming week. There's no fires burning and the risk of one starting is on the low side. 

It's another reprieve for Paradise. But the town will be tested again with future fires. We hope they'll get through those fine.