Weird Little Storm Creates Problems This Morning, Then Frost?

Snow falling before dawn today atop Mount Washington,
New Hampshire. It's getting to be that season, folks. 

For most of us, the weather early this Saturday morning is pretty benign. There's lots of clouds around and a few showers, especially in central and southern New York and New England.

But a few pockets are having weirdness, mostly because of a strange little compact storm moving through. It's heading southeastward from New York State into southern New England.

The storm, mostly in the upper levels of the atmosphere, is small in area but fairly mighty. There were thunderstorms in parts of New York State near the Great Lakes last night. Snow fell atop Mount Washington, and probably the high peaks of the Adirondacks.

There were reports of severe, damaging thunderstorms in southern Ontario.

It didn't rain at my house in St. Albans, Vermont, unfortunately, but a paltry few hundreds of a inch, barely wetting the ground, hit Burlington, ending a long 18 day stretch of rain-free weather.

The showers and storms were in southern New England this morning, too. One very weird piece was a nearly stationary, strong thunderstorm northeast of Boston, over the Lynn and Salem areas. While most of the showers and storms were moving northeastward, something was causing this storm to stay locked over these North Shore communities.

A flash flood warning and severe thunderstorm warning for the Lynn and Salem areas was in effect early today. The storm was even starting to rotate, a bit like a supercell at one point, although it didn't develop enough to create a tornado threat.

This was an intense storm, with 1.91 inches of rain in just 40 minutes. There were reports of cars stuck in high water as of 6:45 p.m. It's just a small area. Most of southern New England is just fine.

I don't know why the storm was nearly stationary.  And why one intense storm targeted a small area northeast of Boston while the rest of the region was relatively quiet. I'm sure there will be analysis eventually that I'll want to read. It's just odd.

Strong storms over Boston Harbor at dawn today. The storms
caused flash flooding in Lynn and other Massachusetts
communities. Photo by Mark Garfinkel/Picture Boston

This compact storm is bringing in a reenforcing shot of chilly air, and frost is going to be a problem tonight in some areas of New England. Talk about a contrast from the 90 degree heat just two days ago!

Freeze warnings are up for parts of the Adirondacks, the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, parts of northern New Hampshire and parts of western and northern Maine.

Frost advisories cover a much larger area, including much of northern New York, pretty much all of Vermont outside the Champlain Valley, much of New Hampshire, and much of New York away from the lakes and north of the mid-Hudson Valley.

All this is not at all odd for the very end of September, but again, after that extreme, unprecedented heat earlier this week, it's a shock to the system.

If you manage to keep your garden plants alive after tonight, we're going to gradually get into another spell of warmer than normal weather that will last at least through the week. It won't be anything like the past week. No more 90 degree weather for you, thank you.

But most of us by midweek will be up in the 70s which is at least 10 degrees warmer than normal. Several spots will flirt with 80 degrees.  A cold front is due at the end of the week, but there won't be all that much cold air behind the front, so endless summer continues. We just have to get through a weird, then possibly frosty interruption today and tonight.

You Will Never Hear Another Freezing Rain Advisory

The title of this post is correct, but there's a catch: Nobody has banned freezing rain. I guarantee we in the North Country will get some freezing rain this winter.

We will no longer get freezing rain advisories from the
National Weather Service this winter, but don't worry,
Mother Nature will still provide the freezing rain

It's just that the alert you will inevitably hear from the National Weather Service that such nasty weather is coming won't be a freezing rain advisory, but rather a winter weather advisory.

This is all part of an effort by the National Weather Service to simplify the weather alerts we get during the winter.

Among the changes:

Lake effect snow advisories and freezing rain advisories will all go under the umbrella of "winter weather advisory"

Lake effect snow watches and blizzard watches will all go under the header "winter storm watch."

Some areas near the great lakes will no longer get lake effect snow warnings and instead be alerted by a winter storm warning. 

You will still hear of ice storm warnings, blizzard warnings and winter storm warnings as we get into winter. Those won't really change. 

Since the National Weather Service has up until now used 120 or so different alerts, watches and warnings, they want to streamline, to make things less confusing to the public.  

Winter storms and just generally nasty winter weather often involves a wide variety of weather. One storm might contain a combination of freezing rain, freezing drizzle, snow, sleet, lake effect snow, blowing snow and wind chills. 

If you harp on one of the hazards, say through a freezing rain advisory, then the rain changes to snow, so the National Weather Service changes the freezing rain advisory to a winter weather advisory, then the snow becomes limited to near the lakes, so it changes again to a lake effect snow advisory, you can see how the public can get confused. 

So now, the National Weather Service will just issue a plain old winter weather advisory, and in the text of the advisory, they'll tell you specifically what type of miserable weather will greet you.

We'll see how this works. I get the need to simplify messages so people get it. I wonder if the changes will also confuse the public, at least initially. Still, I have to applaud any effort at clearing sending messages to the public when dangers winter weather looms.

 

Now, Back To Your Regularly Scheduled Autumn

A map of temperatures yesterday showing
readings that you don't ever see in
late September, until now. 

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

Early this morning in St. Albans, Vermont, I took the dogs outside and was hit by a cool, refreshing  northwest breeze.

It felt like autumn, which makes sense, because it is.

But that epic heat wave we had was beginning to make me think that normal weather had been revoked.

Now we can sum up the unprecedented heat wave that hit Vermont and the rest of the Northeast and Great Lakes region, along with southeastern Canada, and just marvel.

In Burlington, Vermont, there were four consecutive days in the 90s. These past few days were the latest, second latest, third latest and fourth latest 90 degree readings on record.

This is only the second September in Burlington records that go back to 1884 in which there were four days in the 90s. The other one was in 1945, but those 90 degree readings were near the beginning of the month.

It was also 90 degrees Tuesday in St. Johnsbury, the latest 90 degree reading there on record.

By the way, it was hotter in Vermont the past few days than it was in Phoenix, Arizona.

Elsewhere, it was more of the same. Grand Rapids, Michigan had six days in a row in the 90s. That city has had only two other stretches of 90 degree weather that lasted six days - in July, 2012 and July, 1936. Notice that those spells of Grand Rapids heat were in July and not the end of September.

Chicago has seven straight days of 90 degree heat, the longest stretch since July, 1988. Again note that the 1988 streak was in the middle of summer, not autumn.

Other cities that  had their latest 90s on record were Buffalo, New York (90 degrees); Milwaukee, (95 degrees) and Ottawa, Canada (91 degrees).

Atop normally frigid Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, there were four days in a row in the 60s, and 11 days in September got to 60 or more. That's the most on record for Mount Washington.

I have to say that this is the kind of extremes we can expect more frequently as global warming continues apace.

Back here in Vermont, temperatures might actually be a bit below normal over the next couple of days as cold north winds, and variably cloudy skies keep temperatures down. There could even be a bit of frost in the cold hollows, but most of us have nothing to worry about in the frost and freeze department.

There might be a couple light showers around toward Friday and Friday night,  but don't count on it. Even if it does rain, it will hardly amount to anything.

Which is too bad. We really do need the rain. Burlington, for instance, hasn't had a drop of precipitation since September 9.

Next week looks dry, too and we're going to warm up again as the big heat ridge re-establishes itself. It won't be nearly as hot as it's been in the past few days, but we could get up to 80 degrees by the middle of next week.

The heat ridge might focus on the Great Lakes and upper Plains next week, where more record high temperatures are likely next week.

One More Day Of Incredible Heat, Then Autumn Arrives. We Think

Since we're all wilting in this heat, I've decided to re-run
this snow picture from March

So now, Burlington, Vermont has had its first official heat wave during the autumn.

Tuesday was the third consecutive day of 90 degree heat, as the incredible, unprecedented hot spell continues.

The 90 degrees on Tuesday sets the record for the latest 90 in the season in Burlington, breaking the record which was set Monday, which broke the record set Sunday.

It could reach 90 again today. It will be close.

It also bears repeating that we are now up to seven days this year that reached 90 degrees or more, and none of those days hit during astronomical summer. Two such days were in May, two were in June before the summer solstice and the rest were this week.

Tonight's cold front might set off an isolated strong thunderstorm as it approaches, but boy will you feel the change in the air tomorrow!

For the next several days, we will have several days of seasonable weather - that means highs in the 60s, lows in the 40s and low humidity. In other words, the kind of autumn weather we're used to.

I remain worried about how dry it's getting out there. Tonight, the cold front will bring just spotty showers. Some places will get a little wet, others won't. And the places that do get a shower won't get all that much rain.

Then it turns relentlessly dry again for the next several days, albeit cooler.

There are signs it could turn very, very warm again in early October, and a few more record highs might fall. But that warm spell, if it develops, won't be as intense or as long lasting as the one we're in now.

This truly is a bizarre weather event, obviously one for the record books.

Puerto Rico, Aid, Trump, Heat And Politics #&*%ing Me Off

Desperate message written on a Puerto
Rican intersection after Maria.
The words under the SOS read
"We need water and food."

This is going to be a political kinda weather post, because I'm pissed off today.

Pissed off, because we've just spent three days yelling and screaming about whether NFL players should kneel during the National Anthem, all because Donald Trump forced the issue with his whines.

What those NFL players are protesting is racial injustice. No question, that's very important.

But we have a weather-related crisis going on now. In the United States. Involving Americans who are in very deep shit and so, so need our help.

As we know, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico last week. Some humanitarian aid is flowing in, but the response has been anemic and totally in adequate. Remember, Puerto Rico is part of the United States.

There's no power. No water. More people are going to die in Puerto Rico from the lack of an emergency response than the storm itself. Trump and the rest of the government should be throwing everything they can at Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Instead, Trump complains about kneeling NFL players.

When he finally deigns to bring up Puerto Rico, it's to complain about its bad infrastructure. It's financial mismanagement over the past decade or two.

Forget that, dammit! There are people dying. We should have the island of Puerto Rico ringed with Navy ships, all tossing out food, generators, water, electrical repair crews and everything else.

I hope this isn't because the people of Puerto Rico are too Hispanic-ish for some people's taste.

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yuliz Cruz said this to CBS News:

"Its life or death......People are starting to die already. We need to get our shit together because people are dying. People are really dying. I've put them in ambulances when they're gasping for air."

I suppose that as of today, there are some early signs of Washington getting its shit together, prodded by activists, some Senators who have got Puerto Rico's back and an increasingly hostile press. It shouldn't take that to get aid to the island.

I know, I know, we're already dealing with Harvey in Texas and Irma in Florida, so it's hard to deal with a third major blow. And relief efforts never go without a hitch. But come on, let's get real with Puerto Rico, OK?

Another thing: I'm writing this in late September in far northern Vermont. I can see Canada from my house. Literally.

And the temperature is heading toward 90 for the third day in a row. The temperatures are shattering long-held records. It's oppressively humid. I'm sweating like hell.

This at a time of year that I should be wrapped in fleece and wondering what to do with my frost-bitten tomato plants. This heat wave is unprecedented for Vermont. Much like the 70 degree weather we had in February. And the 70 degree weather we had on Christmas Eve, 2015.

Yes, I get it. The weather always goes off the rails occasionally. And, in terms of Harvey, Irma, and Maria, there have always been big hurricanes and global warming did not "cause" the three huge hurricanes.

But let's get real. I always say it's hard to tease out exactly if and how global warming affected individual weather events, and that's still true.

However, the hurricanes, and the Vermont heat wave, and other strange weather events in recent years have the fingerprints of global warming all over them. The unusually hot ocean water made the hurricanes stronger than they otherwise would have been.

The downpours of Harvey in Texas probably would have been just a bit less intense had there not been more heat in the atmosphere, which can hold more water, which can unleash heavier downpours.

Vermont has always had warm spells in the autumn. But not like this. Perhaps in past decades, it would have been hot today in the Green Mountain State, but not like this.

Yet, we have a U.S. government led by Trump and other people that say global warming is totally imaginary - a conspiracy cooked up by China to ruin our economy, liberals who want to take freedom away from the rest of us, and scientists who want to fleece the government.

If you believe those conspiracies, I've got a hurricane-ravaged island in the Caribbean I can sell you.

The science is settled on this. The politics is not. With the fossil fuel industry and their minions funneling money to the climate deniers in Washington, we're getting no action on this. Just like Puerto Rico is not getting any action in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

I've always been taught that America is a can-do nation. We work incredibly hard. We're amazing innovators. When there's a crisis, we solve it. (My late World War II veteran father was part of the Greatest Generation, and I could see this greatness in him.)

I believe all this remains true about America. We are smart and hard working enough to lead the world out of the threat of global warming through inventiveness, guile, hard work and our culture of freedom and entrepreneurship.

Donald Trump keeps telling us he's going to make America great again. But he and his minions are doing the opposite through inaction in crises from Maria to climate change. I just wish he'd get out of the way and let the rest of us Americans get the jobs that need to get done get done.

Donald Trump wants to divide us for his own personal gain. Millions of Americans want to unite us to make an already great America even better.

Puerto Rico and the rest of the world who are already feeling the effects of climate change are asking: Which will it be?

Strange Autumn Heat Wave Grinds On In The East

North Beach in Burlington is never this busy in late
September, but it was Sunday. Photo by Elizabeth Murray/
Burlington Free Press.

Well, this autumn heat wave is really something.

Up here in Vermont, the temperature in Burlington got all the way up to 91 degrees on Sunday, shattering the old record 84, set in 1961.  

It was also - by far - the latest 90 degree reading on record. Previously, the latest 90 was on September 16, 1939. Pretty incredible.

It goes on. The low temperature this morning in Burlington was the same as the normal high. We're pretty much guaranteed to break another record high today and tomorrow with another 90 not out of the question at all.

This will go on through Wednesday, which is an awfully long time to keep getting daily record high temperatures. This type of thing usually only lasts a couple of days.

Actually, the warmth got under way around September 12 and 13 and the weather has been pretty typical of July ever since. The first 10 days of the month averaged 4.5 degrees below normal, but now, the month as a whole is 3.5 degrees above normal.

And here's a weird factoid the National Weather Service in South Burlington pointed out on Sunday. This year, Burlington has had five days that have gotten to 90 degrees or above. But none of those 90 degree days occured during astronomical summer.

Two of those 90 degree days were in May, another two were in June before the summer solstice and ther was one on Sunday. It never got to 90 in July and August.

I've been harping on Vermont, since that's where I'm based, but the heat has been widespread as well as intense.  Chicago has had five record highs in a row as of Sunday and today could be a sixth, and it's latest in the year they've had five days in a row in the 90s, says the Chicago Tribune. 

In Buffalo, New York, the record high temperature of 90 Sunday was the only day this year where that city reached 90 degrees.  

A hot day at the beach near Toronto, Canada in late
September as the leaves start changing. Photo by Andrew
Francis Wallace/Toronto Star

Toronto, Canada, also had a late season record high of 90 degrees.

Back here in Vermont, it's getting dry again as well. It had gotten too dry by late August, but welcome rains in the first week or so of September pretty much fixed that.

But in Burlington, at least, it hasn't rained at all since September 10. And not much rain is in the forecast.

When the heat breaks Wednesday night or Thursday, a few showers will probably accompany the strong cold front, but it won't amount to all that much.

After that, temperatures will be normal for late September - highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s- but another extended period of dry weather is likely.

Until the heat breaks, take care not to overexert yourself. You think it's September and psychologically you'd think it's not all that bad, but this is midsummer heat wave conditions. Stay hydrated out there folks!

Vermont Autumn Heat Wave Really Off The Rails

Heat alerts in Vermont in late September?
Weather is really off the rails once again. 

Either the National Weather Service office in South Burlington is off the rails or the weather is.

I think it's the weather that's really off the rails, as the NWS is usually pretty sane.

Here's the deal: At this time of year, we're usually getting frost advisories from the National Weather Service.

Heat alerts are fairly rare any time of year, but this is ridiculous. Those meteorologists in South Burlington this morning put out an advisory warning Vermonters of high heat indexes with a few degrees of 90 today through Tuesday.

Never seen that in late September before.

As of 1 p.m. in Burlington, Vermont this Sunday afternoon it was already 85 degrees, with a heat index of 87.

This is turning out to be one of those really unprecedented warm spells that are really extreme. It might not seem like it. After all, it is only going to be in the upper 80s to near 90. We've had that before.

But never this time of year. And never for four days in a row, like what is expected to happen over the next few days.

We've had a whole series of these weird spells in recent months and years. You might remember the day in February when it got up to 72 degrees in Burlington, which was a full ten degrees warmer than it had ever been that time of year.

Or Christmas Eve, 2015, when it was 70 degrees in Vermont, when we're supposed to have those nice powdery white yuletides.

Not every odd spell of weather is global warming. Sometimes, things just get weird. But despite the climate denialists, despite the fact I can't prove this hot spell was influenced by climate change, the fingerprints of global warming all over this stretch of hot weather.

Mega Heat Ridge Toasting Much Of Eastern North America

d

A depiction of the strong heat ridge in the 'eastern
United States now is causing near record
temperatures. 

I'm in Yankton, South Dakota this weekened, and yesterday felt like a blast furnace.

It was an incredible 95 degrees - so hot for southeastern South Dakota, with winds gusting to 38 mph.

It's cooler behind a cold front in Yankton today, but the heat stays on from Iowa and Minnesota all the way to the East Coast.

And it's going to stay summer like in parts of the Northeast and southeastern  Canada for the next several days.

Blame it all on another one of those huge mega ridges. What I mean by mega ridge is an immense northward bulge in the jet stream that brings lots of very warm air north and lets it sit there.

These ridges don't usually last long, but sometimes, they stall, and the heat builds to very high, unseasonable levels and lasts a long time.

These things happen from time to time, but there is evidence in recent years, that these stalled mega ridges are happening more often and lasting longer. Could be a sign of global warming. More on that in a minute.

In this case, the ridge started forming over southeastern Canada around September 10 or so. That created the start of a spell of remarkable warm weather for this time of year across southern Quebec and Ontario, and northern New England, including Vermont.

This big blob of warm air has expanded westward into the Great Lakes and upper Mississippi Valley, eastward into the northwestern Atlantic, and now southward down the United States East Coast.

The strength of the ridge is peaking, too. That explains the tempeatures in the mid-90s in Yankton and places like Chicago on Friday.

In northern New England, temperatures will really get into record territory today through about Tuesday.

Burlington even has a slight chance of reaching it's latest 90 degree reading on record. As of today, the latest in September it has reached 90 in Burlington since they started keeping track of such things was on September 16, 1939. There is a chance temperatures could reach 90 degrees Sunday or Monday.

Record highs are sure to fall. The records highs for Sunday and Monday are 84 and 85 degrees, respectively. The official National Weather Service forecast highs for both days is 88 degrees.

This odd as this heat ridge feels for this time of year, it has protected us Vermonters from some potential trouble. First, it deflected the remnants of Hurricane Irma eastward, so we barely got a few showers out of that, instead of torrential downpours.

Then, the ridge blocked the northward progress of Hurricane Jose, which ended up stalling southeast of New England and giving Cape Cod and the islands a few days of gusty winds, rain and coastal erosion. Now the ridge seems like it also wants to block the northward progress of Hurricane Maria, which appears as it it will stay off the East Coast, and then head northeastward out into the North Atlantic.

These huge mega-heat ridges can cause real damage and even death if they hit at the wrong time of year, however. The notorious one in eastern North America in March, 2012 brought temperatures into the 80s for a week as far north as Quebec.

When the inevitable normal late winter/early spring weather came back in late March and early April, the frost killed billions of dollars worth of fruit crops on trees that bloomed to soon.

In the summer of 2003, a summer long heat ridge in western and central Europe brought temperatures to unprecedented levels for weeks on end, resulting in the heat-related deaths of possibly 35,000 people.

A heat ridge in 2010 caused an unprecedented heat wave that lasted nearly a month in Russia. About 10,000 people died of heat related illnesses and from pollution caused by an outbreak of wildfires caused by the hot, dry weather.

So as you can see, mega heat ridges don't always smile down on us benignly, like the current one is in Vermont and elsewhere in North America.

Some of these heat ridges are just natural variability - the weather has always gone off the rails from time to time.

However, there seems to be growing scientific evidence that climate change might be slowing down and bending the jet stream more and more. That makes these mega ridges more likely, and more likely to stick around for awhile longer than usual.

It seems like a decreasing temperature contrast between the Arctic and the tropics might be to blame. (The Arctic is warming up much faster than the tropics, which explains the declining contrast.)

So, enjoy the gorgeous, long stretch of weather Vermont and other areas have had are are having lately, but as aways, there's always a black lining around the silver cloud, to screw up a cliche.

Meanwhile, our current mega heat ridge will break down toward the end of the week, and we will return to our regularly scheduled cool autumn weather.

Quick Thursday Update: Maria, Jose, Heat, Storms, Snow. Kitchen Sink, Too?

These palm trees in Puerto Rico were reduced to
sticks by Hurricane Maria

Hurricane Maria was sideswiping the Dominican Republic this morning, hitting it pretty hard with dangerous winds, flooding rains and storm surges.  

Hey, it trashed a bunch of islands already, I guess the hurricane figures it will keep destroying things.

As expected, Puerto Rico is hurting bad. The entire island has no electricity, and it could take up to six months to get it back. Which sounds daunting, depressing and quite possibly deadly.

Imagine trying to run hospitals, emergency services, entire societies with electricity in the 21st century. Oh sure, there will be generators, and electricity will slowly come back on line, but still. It's almost like going back to the stone age.

Especially since so many houses, businesses and other buildings are destroyed. Here's a glimpse of how horrible it was, as related by one witness, as relayed by the Weather Channel and the Miami Herald:

"'What I'm seeing is incredible,' retiree Rosita Galguerra, 66, who was riding out the storm with her husband in the Rio Piedras neighborhood of San Juan, told the Miami Herald. 'The house is trembling - and my house is made of concrete with a concrete roof. The winds are like out of a horror movie and its gusts, gusts, gusts. The island is going to be completely destroyed.'"

I suppose the only bit of good news right now is that most computer forecasting models are still insisting that Maria will stay offshore of the East Coast of the United States. Maria will still produce high tides, dangerous rip currents and such for the next several days, but that's certainly better than a direct hit.

Meanwhile, weird Tropical Storm Jose is still sitting and spinning and slowly winding down southeast of New England. It's track has had a seemingly endless history of stalls, loops and weird turns. That's continuing. Forecasters expect Jose will basically sit in the same spot out there at least through Sunday.

This is just making the weather miserable on Cape Cod and the Islands. The wind has been gusting past 40 mph continuously since just after noon Wednesday on Martha's Vineyard.

Elsewhere, we're still expecting record heat in northern New England - including Vermont, and southeastern Canada this weekend. Here in Vermont, weekend daytime highs are expected to reach the upper 80s, compared to the normal temperatures in the mid to upper 60s this time of year. Burlington has already had six consecutive days with highs in the 80s.

Further west, a stripe in the middle of the country can expect some flooding rains over the weekend due to a stalled weather front. It's hard to pinpoint exactly where the flooding might happen, but some areas could get a half foot of rain in the northern Plains.

And it's still snowing in the Rockies.

It's going to be one of those weekends when the weather is totally off the rails.

This video from CBS Miami is as good as any to show you the totality of the destruction from Maria in Puerto Rico and other islands:

Hurricane Maria Hit Puerto Rico This Morning. It Looks Really Bad

Damage from Hurricane Maria in Martinique, which
wasn't even hit as hard by the hurricane as places
like Dominica, which people really can't get to yet. 

Powerful Hurricane Maria, as expected, plowed into the southeastern corner of Puerto Rico early this morning, and is spending the morning on a terrible northwestward path across the island.

Maximum sustained winds at landfall were 155 mph. Terrifying. True, that's a little less than the 175 mph earlier last night, but the difference is really minimal.

Maria also ran directly over the tiny island of St. Croix, and I'm sure there's terrible devastation there, too.

As you can imagine, I don't yet have many fresh reports coming out of St. Croix and Puerto Rico, as of early this morning as the region was still being crushed by Maria. I am concerned by media reports that not many Puerto Ricans went to emergency shelters in sturdy buildings, choosing to ride out the storm in flimsier structures. That can get deadly.

One big danger in such intense hurricane winds is that debris is flung around violently, and this debris becomes deadly missiles. Not only is there new debris flying around in the terrible winds of Maria, but there was still a lot of fallen trees, branches and detritus from Hurricane Irma a couple weeks ago that is also being blown around.

At this point, it looks like that after Puerto Rico, Maria will become somewhat less danger, but still a big menace. Of course by then, the damage will have been done.

Hurricane Maria is forecast to sideswipe the Dominican Republic and then head northwestward to the east of the Bahamas.  So far, it looks like Maria will stay east, in the Atlantic Ocean offshore of the United States, but there's still no guarantees.

We actually have ex-hurricane Jose to thank for likely causing Maria to probably miss the United States. A strong ridge of high pressure, which is part of a strange weather pattern I'll get to in a minute, is parked over the Northeast and southeastern Canada.

Had it been able to assert itself further east, the high pressure system would have steered Maria toward the East Coast.

However,  Jose caused an area of weakness in the high pressure ridge, and prevented it from spreading out into the ocean waters east of Canada's Maritime provinces. Instead of being blocked by the high and moving westward, Hurricane Maria will be drawn into that "weakness" that is off the U.S. East Coast.

Satellite view of terrifying Hurricane Maria making
landfall in Puerto Rico this morning. 

Still, we have some more tropical strangeness to get through out in the Atlantic. Jose is slowly spinning down, but will stall for days southeast of New England.

Jose caused coastal flooding, and a lot of beach erosion across the Northeast Tuesday, and that will continue, at least for some extent, for the next few days.

There's even the chance of something called the Fujiwhara effect, when two tropical cyclones get too close to each other and start rotating counterclockwise around each other. The Weather Channel says to think of it like the Tilt-a-Whirl at the fair, except we're talking tropical cyclones, not teacup rides at the county fair.

The Fujiwhara effect in this case, if it develops, could fling a weakened Jose westward into New Jersey while slingshotting Maria northeastward out to sea. This is by no means guaranteed, but it is one scenario which could play out. We'll see.

The high pressure system I told you about that is, or is not influencing Hurricane Maria is part of a rather extreme and stuck weather pattern developing across the nation. When things don't move along as they normally do, the weather gets weird, and that's starting now.

The high pressure ridge will likely cause near record high temperatures in southeastern Canada, part of the eastern Great Lakes and northern New England, including here in Vermont over the weekend.

We've already had this type of weather over the past week as the weather patterns have been stuck for awhile now.

Meanwhile, out in the the northern Plains, severe weather is an issue. There were reports of at least four tornadoes in South Dakota yesterday, and there is a chance of severe weather, including the possibility of tornadoes all week, with the biggest chance of dangerous storms Friday in western Minnesota and eastern South Dakota.

What luck! I'm flying into South Dakota Friday.

The slow moving storms out in the Plains could cause flooding problems over the weekend, too.

Meanwhile, the stuck weather pattern will keep the snow piling up in the mountains of Montana, northwestern Wyoming and Alberta, Canada., among other places in the northern Rockies. A few of the highest elevations could get a foot and a half of snow.

Yikes! An early winter.

Category 5 Hurricane Maria Devastates Dominica, Other Islands Targeted

Hurricane Irma bearing down on the Leeward Islands
on Monday. It quickly blew up to a Category 5 storm
with sustained winds of 160 mph. 

Another gorgeous Caribbean Island has just been swallowed up and destroyed by a huge hurricane during this devastating late summer.

It was a worst case scenario for the island nation of Dominica as Category 5 Hurricane Maria hit. 

First of all, they didn't have much time to prepare.  Places like Barbuda and the Virgin Islands at least had about three days to prepare for Hurricane Irma earlier this month.

Hurricane Maria blew up from a tropical storm to a Category 5 monster with 160 mph sustained winds in just 27 hours, all the while bearing down on Dominica, population about 72,000.

Everybody on Dominica was in grave danger. The Prime Minister of Dominca, Roosevelt Skerritt  tweeted during the storm: "My roof is gone. I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane. House is flooding."

He was later rescued, but as the winds began to die down he sent out a heartbreaking message:

Skerritt said in part:

"So far we have lost all what money can buy and replace....My greatest fear for the morning is that we will wake to news of serious physical injury and possible deaths as a result of likely landslides triggered by persistent rains...."

Skerritt said every roof of every house he knows of on the island was blown off. "I am honestly not preoccupied with physical damage at this time, because it is devastating... indeed, mind boggling."

Dominica is just the start of Maria's wrath, most unfortunately. The mountains of Dominic barely dented Maria's strength - it knocked the storm back down ever so slightly to a high end Category 4 hurricane.

But now, Hurricane Maria right back up to a Category 5 monster with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph.

Maria will remain a Category 4 or 5 storm as it plows through the Virgin Islands and then Puerto Rico in the next couple of days.

Puerto Rico is a real nightmare. It has severe infrastructure and economic problems, and the electrical network still isn't really fully up and running after Puerto Rico was sideswiped by Hurricane Irma a couple weeks ago.

There's a lot of concern about Puerto Ricans living in flimsy wooden or tin houses. "You have to evacuate. Otherwise you're going to die. I don't know how to make this any clearer," said Hector Pesquera, the island's public safety commissioner.

As for the mainland United States and Maria, there's still no guarantees. Unlike during Irma, it looks increasingly like Maria will curve north well before reaching Florida, so the Sunshine State will likely be spared, aside from some coastal flooding and battering waves along the state's east coast.

It is possible that dying Hurricane Jose, which will cause tropical storm conditions along the New England coast, will influence Maria in a good way.

Again, no guarantees, but there are suggestions among at least some of the computer forecasting models that Jose, lingering southeast of New England, could help pull Hurricane Maria northeastward, keeping it away from the United States east coast.

Again, it's important to stress that there's still a chance Maria could have impacts in the United States, so we'll have to keep an eye on this one, just in case.

By the way, up here in Vermont, we're going to stay on our extended period of dry, unseasonably warm weather for the next several days. There were a few pop up showers Monday, but not many, and a little rain from Jose will probably creep into southeastern Vermont Wednesday.

Up in Burlington, we tied the record high of 87 for the date on Monday. It was the fourth consecutive day in the 80s. Today might be the fifth.

Hurricanes Jose And Maria Just Keep On Menacing

Visible satellite view of growing Hurricane Maria taken
just after sunrise as the storm bears down on the
Leeward Islands. 

This very busy hurricane season continues to keep pace today, as we now have more specific forecasts of how Hurricane Jose will affect New England. And Hurricane Maria is a terrible threat to a number of Caribbean islands.

Let's take the two big storms one at a time:

HURRICANE JOSE

Coastal New England is now getting ready for Hurricane Jose, which won't hit the region directly, but  will be big enough to make for a very nasty midweek.

A tropical storm watch is now in effect from the Delaware Coast to southeastern Massachusetts. Some computer models bring gusts over 60 mph to some coastal locations as Jose makes its closest pass late Tuesday and Wednesday.

There will almost surely be some trees and wires down in the areas covered by the tropical storm watch.

It's going to rain like hell on the Cape and Islands, too, with maybe three to as much as eight inches of rain expected on outer Long Island, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and the Cape.

Forecasters are watching this closely. Right now it looks like the heaviest rain won't get that far inland, minimizing the chances of widespread flooding. However, if the downpours go just a little further west than expected, places like Boston and New York could see some pretty unpleasant urban flooding.

It looks like coastal flooding, battering waves and rip currents will affect beaches in New England all week, too.

On the bright side, Jose is weakening as it approaches New England, as it's being worn down by strong upper level winds and colder ocean temperatures. (Hurricanes need warm ocean water to survive and grow, if the water gets a little too cool, hurricanes tend to weaken.)

Jose will stay offshore, it looks like, but either it, or its remnants will linger southeast of New England all week into next weekend. There's even a chance it could head south again, find some warm water and begin to rebuild itself. We'll see about that.

Up here in Vermont, the effects from Jose will be minimal. There probably will be some showers from Jose in the southeastern half of the state Wednesday.

DANGEROUS HURRICANE MARIA

Hurricane Maria was rapidly intensifying this morning as it approached the central Leeward Islands. Its top sustained winds were 90 mph early this morning, but Maria is forecast to become a major hurricane - Category 3 or 4 with winds of 125 mph or more.

Maria's track is roughly parallel to the one destructive Hurricane Irma took, but Maria's path is just a little south of Irma's.

The northern Leeward Islands, and the Virgin Islands, completely trashed by Irma, are now going to get raked by Maria. It's just awful, to say the least.

Even worse, with the track further south, the central Leeward Islands, which didn't fare terribly with Irma, will get a horrible blow.

Also, Irma skirted Puerto Rico just to its north, causing massive power failures and some damage on that island, but it didn't devastate the U.S. territory.

At this point, it looks like Hurricane Maria will probably go right over Puerto Rico Wednesday or early Thursday while it is at top strength, so this is a real scary moment for them.

After Maria is done with Puerto Rico, it will head toward the northwest, kind of on a path toward the U.S. East Coast. But for the mainland, it's not time to panic yet, for sure. While it's possible Maria could hit, the massive hurricane could turn out to sea as well.

Nobody knows for sure, so we'll just have to keep watching.

Heat, Jose, Lee And Maria Keeping Us Busy

Satellite view Sumday morning shows Hurricane Jose southeast of
the Carolinas, soon to be Hurricane Maria in the center menacing
the Leeward Islands, and weak Tropical Storm Lee to the right. 

Quick Sunday update as the weather gets active again, though not so active here in Vermont.

The record high for today's date in Burlington, Vermont is 86 degrees, set in the hot September of 2015. That record could be challenged today as our long warm spell peaks.

Don't worry about any sharp cold fronts, though. Temperatures will slowly ease back downward over the next several days, but still remain warmer than normal. Little if any rain will come, either.

But the tropics sure are busy again! We have Hurricane Jose, still tormenting forecasters off the East Coast, new Tropical Storm Lee, which probably won't amount to much, and soon to be Hurricane Maria, which has a lot of people, including me, deeply worried.

HURRICANE JOSE

Hurricane Jose is still trudging northward, well off the East Coast. Many computer forecasting models predict Jose to steer directly toward New England, then take a hard right turn before it gets here, thereby making New England miss the worst effects of the storm.

Note that I said many computer models. That's because a few still take Jose into or at least very close to eastern New England during the middle of the week. The bottom line is that the Northeast Coast is guaranteed to have rip currents, battering waves, some coastal flooding and breezy conditions. There's still a chance it could get even worse than that so stay tuned.

Here in Vermont, we still expect minimal effects from Jose.

TROPICAL STORM LEE

This one developed in the far eastern Atlantic Ocean yesterday. It is moving to the west or northwest. Strong upper level winds above Tropical Storm Lee indicate the system won't be able to develop much and could just dissipate in a few days. It doesn't look like much of a threat to anybody at this point.

TROPICAL STORM MARIA

Maria is the scary one. It quickly developed into a tropical storm yesterday as it organized itself remarkably fast. It's expected to become a hurricane today and a major one within a couple of days.

Soon-to-be Hurricane Maria is heading toward the central and northern Leeward Islands, and will probably be a major hurricane by the time it gets there. This, of course, is extremely bad because many of these islands were devastated by Hurricane Irma.

Maria is also a threat to the badly Irma damaged Virgin Islands as well. This hurricane is also a definite threat to Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola.

It's too soon to speculate on what kind of threat Maria could pose to the United States. But Maria is the one to watch and the one to be worried about.

The Last Summer Weekend, And Hurricane Jose

A very hazy view from a hill in St. Albans, Vermont Friday.

Up here in Vermont, it's the last weekend of astronomical summer, and in the weather department, it's going to be the last weekend of summer, too.

This is typical August, not September. Sunshine, haze, a fair amount of humidity, and temperatures in the 80s will greet us both today and Sunday. This is quite a switch from the first 10 days or so of September, which was quite a bit cooler than normal.  

If you like summer weather, enjoy it. It's probably the last time you'll see such weather until next year. Having said that, part of next week will be warm, too, but maybe not quite as toasty as this weekend.

I have to say, air quality isn't great. You probably noticed the haze yesterday and that will continue today and Sunday. A large part of it is the wildfires in the western United States and Canada, which produced a large cloud of smoke that has been obscuring the skies over much of North America for the past month.

Another reason why it's kind of polluted out there is because the high pressure system causing our warm weather is also stagnant. Just sitting there. With no good winds to push pollutants away. So our cars and other stuff emit pollutants into the air and it doesn't blow away.

The air will eventually, gradually get better. A fair amount of snow fell on the mountains of Montana and Alberta Friday, which will go a long way to suppressing some of the fires out there. That means less smoke and haze will work it's way eastward toward us.

Also, the stagnant ridge of high pressure will weaken with time during the upcoming week, and the air will get stirred up by Hurricane Jose.

Don't worry. I still don't think Vermont is going to get huge effects from Jose, but coastal New England might. I'll get to that in a second.

The weakening high pressure system and the northern extent of Jose will create an east wind over the North Country next week. That means the air will come from a less polluted source: The atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean.

HURRICANE JOSE

Of course, as I said, Hurricane Jose is creating the aforementioned east wind, and the storm is definitely going to pose some problems along the East Coast.

It's northeast of the Bahamas, still, and about to head north. It will slowly crawl toward New England over the next few days. It will probably - but not definitely - remain offshore.

It's not the most powerful hurricane ever. Maximum sustained winds are around 80 mph, and Jose could weaken to a tropical storm once it's off the Northeast Coast.

Satellite view of Hurricane Jose spinning northeast
of the Bahamas on Friday. 

However, Jose is getting to be huge in size and is moving slowly. That means that even if the center of Jose stays well offshore, coastal areas from North Carolina on up to the Northeast can expect nasty rip currents, beach erosion, some coastal flooding and other hazards like that.

Tropical storm conditions could easily come up to Cape Cod and the islands by Wednesday, though that is not cast in stone yet.

Many - but not all - computer models have Jose making a right turn away from the coast, but it's unclear if that veer to the east would come before Jose gets to New England. It could come once Jose is in southern New England. Too soon to tell.

At this point here in Vermont, Jose could drop some rain on us around Wednesday especially over the southeastern half of the state. But even that's not sure because we don't know the exact track of the storm.

Erratic Jose Still Raising Questions For New England

After weakening this week, Jose is showing signs of
restrengthening this morning northeast of the Bahamas
Could be a New England threat next week.

Maybe I was too quick the  other day to dismiss the chances of Tropical Storm or Hurricane Jose affecting New England.

Jose, now a tropical storm after being a hurricane for quite a long time, is expected to restrengthen to hurricane status soon. I talked yesterday about how erratic the path of Jose is, and that's still the case.

It's now sort of getting its act together in terms of where it's going, and that direction is basically north.

Factoring in a blocking high pressure system to the north, computer models have been nudging Jose's future northward journey westward. Kind of like Hurricane Irma's northward turn into Florida last week.

Nobody yet knows for sure if Jose will affect New England, and if so, to what extent. We do know that the Atlantic beaches are in for rough surf and rip currents from now on forward.

Eastern New England, especially, could be in for wind and rain from Jose during the middle of next week. How much depends on whether Jose comes close to or even over Cape Cod, or does it stay further east.

Some computer forecast models bring Jose ashore in southeastern New England. Many others do not. And there's wide disagreement on how strong Jose would be as it nears New England.

Here in Vermont, the effects, if they happen, will probably be less. Jose could bring us some rain. If it does, it's more likely to hit toward the east.

Lots of questions about Jose now, so sit tight and stay tuned.

Until we see what happens with Jose, Vermont will continue to get some nice late summer weather. The remnants of Irma brought in some rather high humidity, clouds and a few scattered showers and storms on Thursday.

Irma could squeeze out a couple more showers this afternoon. It will stay warm, with largely sunny days through early next week around here.

Meanwhile, a new tropical depression is forming way out in the eastern Atlantic. It'll be Tropical Storm Lee soon. It's also too early to determine where wannabe Lee will go and if it will affect any land.

Weird Hurricane Jose Path Joins Long List Of Other Weird Paths

The weird track of Hurricane Ginger in 1971.

Hurricanes are rarely straight forward. They intensify or weaken unexpectedly, veer off course, and especially just do weird loops, reversals and other odd things as they make their way across warm tropical waters.

Hurricane Jose is doing some oddball loops out in the Atlantic Ocean and is expected to continue meandering unpredictably out there.

In August, Hurricane Harvey tragically stalled over Texas, unleashing those unprecedented floods there. On its way through Atlantic islands on its way to the United States, Hurricane Irma took a brief  detour southwestward for awhile.

The path of hurricanes and typhoons re controlled and guided by the flow of upper level winds. In the tropics in the northern hemisphere, the winds generally go east to west, which explains why hurricanes often approach the United States from the east.

Troughs of low pressure often pick up hurricanes, guiding them northward.

But sometimes, these upper level steering currents are weak or non-existent. Which leaves hurricanes or typhoons with no guidance, so to speak. They become lost and meander aimlessly out there in the Atlantic. Or Pacific. Wherever they happen to be

There's been some classic oddballs in the past, so Jose is not that unusual.

In 1971 Hurricane Ginger formed northeast of the Bahamas, moved northeast into the central Atlantic Ocean, then abruptly reversed course and headed toward the southwest, then performed a tight loop, then continued southwestward and ended up near where it started northeast of the Bahamas. Then Ginger moved northwestward, hit North Carolina, then went southeastward out to sea and dies.

Phew!

The paths of all the Atlantic tropical cyclones in the
super busy year of 2005 show how erratic they usually are.

Hurricane Kyle in 2002 changed directions half a dozen times in its trek across the Atlantic.

In fact, most hurricanes have an erratic path. Just check out the map in this post of the supremely busy 2005 hurricane season. The path of all 28 storms that year in the Atlantic superimposed upon one another look like a big messy bowl of spaghetti.

The bottom line: Expect the unexpected with any tropical cyclone.

Irma Records, And Seemingly Endless Vermont Sunshine

Sister Margaret Ann in West Kendall, Florida
became an social media sensation when
she was spotted chainsawing like a pro
to clear trees felled by Irma that were
blocking a road. 

I have to say that while we've been watching Hurricane Irma, we here in Vermont have entered a stretch of truly gorgeous late summer/early autumn weather.

Sunny, warm days and clear, cool nights have settled in starting this past Sunday, and it's due to continue all week.

There are very few flaws to this weather if you like these types of conditions. There is still smoke in the air high above us, from all those fires in the western United States and Canada. That's giving the sky an off-color, not that bright robins egg blue we like to see.

Chances are the smoke will clear a bit, we'll see. That's partly due to a dramatic shift in the weather coming up for Montana, which has really had a big problem with wildfires this summer.

Today, in the western Montana mountains, the threat of wildfires and dense smoke continues amid unusully warm conditions.

By Thursday night, the temperatures in those same mountains will plummet by up to 50 degrees and it will start to snow. The first winter storm watch of the season is in effect for some of the Montana mountains, believe it or not.

Back here in Vermont, no snow, but there might be a few isolated to scattered showers and thunderstorms around Thursday and Friday afternoons to briefly interrupt our sunny stretch. That's because a little moisture from the dead remnants of Hurricane Irma sneak into our sunny world.

High pressure, however looks like it will continue to hang tough over us through the weekend, giving us continued warm afternoons and clear nights.

While I say nights will be clear, this time of year there is almost always patches of dense fog, especially in river valleys and near lakes and ponds.  So you'll have to watch out for that if your driving early any morning for the next week. Any fog each day will burn off quickly after the sun comes up.

Recapping Irma, she did set some records for an intense Atlantic hurricane.  Philip Klotzbach, a meteorologist at Colorado State University who specializes in hurricanes compiled a long list. Some highlights.

Irma was tied with the 1935 Florida Keys storm, Gilbert in 1988 and Wilma in 2005 as having the second strongest winds on record for any Atlantic hurricane, at 185 mph. (Hurricane Allen maxed out at 190 mph in 1980.)

The 185 mph Irma winds were the strongest of any Atlantic Ocean hurricane outside the Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico.

Those 185 Irma winds lasted 37 hours, the longest period of time  such strong winds persisted for any tropical cyclone anywhere in the world.

Irma was a Category 5 storm for a little over three days, tying the record for the longest life of a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic. The tie was with a hurricane that hit Cuba in 1932.

Another interesting coincidence: The last major hurricane to hit Florida was Wilma in 2005, which made landfall on Marco Island. This year, Irma made landfall in Florida, you guessed it -- on Marco Island.

By the way, the other hurricane spinning out in the Atlantic - Jose - is looking more and more likely to completely miss the United States, which is great news.

Irma Is Finally Dead; Some Parting Thoughts

A blown apart home in Naples, Florida after Irma.
Photo by Bryan Woolston/Reuters.

There's still some flooding going on in parts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina this morning and millions of people are still without power, but what was once Hurricane Irma is dissipating over the northern Georgia and Alabama this morning.

It's interesting how the far southern and far northern parts of Irma's route though Florida and the Southeast seem to have had the worst effects of the storm.

That makes sense in the Florida Keys. After all, that's where Irma first came ashore in the United States.

But the storm had such a wide girth that it caused that record storm surge flood in Jacksonville, Florida and close to it in Charleston, South Carolina.

Some areas won't get electricity back for weeks. That's especially troublesome in Florida. Imagine enduring Florida's humidity for weeks with air conditioning. (The heat index in Miami yesterday, after the hurricane, was 103 degrees.)

I also hope there are some post-scripts. There were reports that a few employers were demanding employees either stay and not evacuate before the storm, or get right back to work or get in Big Trouble.

The manager at Jacksonville Pizza Hut told employees they had to work and could not evacuate until less than 24 hours before the storm. This despite the fact that everyone from Florida Gov. Rick Scott on down were telling people to evacuate early to avoid traffic jams, gas shortages and the storm itself.

We hope the manager at that Pizza Hut gets fired. (Pizza Hut corporate said the Jacksonville restaurant was not following company guidelines.)

I also want an update on management of a West Palm Beach apartment complex to not allow residents to board up windows ahead of the storm, despite the fact the complex had a bunch of storm shutters in storage.

The apartment complex management would not talk to media, but here's my theory: It was an insurance scam: My conspiracy mind says the apartment management wanted severe damage to the structure, then they would get an insurance write-off, then rebuild nicer so they could charge higher rents to subsequent tenants.

I hope someone finds out what was really going on.

These are all small aspects of a big story, a big storm. I guess there's so many moving parts, you've got to look at the trees, not the whole forest.

On another subject, forecasters are still watching Hurricane Jose out in the Atlantic. It's performing all these weird loop de loops out there. It seems like the majority of forecasts eventually take Jose out to sea and away from the United States, but a few computer models place it along the East Coast in about a week.

I'm not terribly alarmed about Jose at this point, but it's worth keeping our eyes on.

Here are some videos. The first shows the flooding in Charleston, South Carolina:



Here's a video from the Associated Press of the relentless storm surge coming into Jacksonville, Florida;



StormChasingVideo was out on the Florida Keys when Irma landfall and they came back with this video:


Finally, watch the first half of this video: Seth Meyers says everything about the hurricane that I wanted to. (The second half of the video is all politics, go ahead and watch if you want, but in the first half, Meyers nails it on Irma:

Irma Damage Is Incredibly Widely Distributed

A big mess to clean up in Miami Beach. Photo
by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Hurricane Irma was continuing to torture Florida early this morning, as it moved through the northern part of the state and on into Georgia.

The storm has fallen to tropical storm status  this morning as sustained winds fell below 75 mph.

So far two U.S. deaths have been reported with Irma, but that could still rise.

I'm sure the damage from Irma in the United States will go well into the billions of dollars yet again.

It's not as if any one town or city, or any one county was devastated. There is no place that I know of in Florida that's completely leveled.

But the area Irma covered is so vast that serious damage is distributed over an unusually wide area for a hurricane.

Pretty much all of Florida except the extreme northwest corner got a big blow. Close to 5 million Floridians had no electricity this morning.

In some places - like Naples and Tampa-St Pete, there was storm surge damage but it was less than many feared.  However, with strong west winds south of the center of Irma this morning, there could be new storm surges along Florida's west coast today.

Preliminary reports indicate severe damage is hit and miss. The city of Naples is largely intact, but Everglade City, a little to the south, is reporting serious damage. There was a lot of storm surge flooding on Marco Island, too.
Reports from the hard-hit Florida Keys are sparse, with no phone service and no way yet to get access to the islands. We'll see what happens there.



Irma was and is so wide that is sent storm surges into Miami and on up the east coast to Georgia. This morning, Jacksonville, Florida, which was nowhere close to the center of the storm's eye, had a record high storm surge off the Atlantic Ocean. Water rescues were ongoing and the city was under a flash flood emergency.

A weather station in Jacksonville this morning also recorded sustained winds of 68 mph, gusting to 87 mph.   The storm's reach is so long that Atlanta, Georgia was under its first-ever tropical storm warning this morning.

Storm surges will continue on into coastal Georgia and South Carolina today.

When Irma made a landfall at Marco Island, the wind gusted to 130 mph.

As of this writing, it's hard to say how extensive the damage is in Florida. It was too stormy to go out last night for a look-see in most of the state. So the evaluations are starting this morning, especially in the southern part of the state, where the storm was winding down first.

On Sunday, I noticed a lot of people were glued to the television, watching all the live updates. And I guess that was the appeal: It was live TV, and unlike the mostly scripted things we see on the boob tube, we didn't know what the eventual outcome would be.

I'm not saying this was disaster as entertainment, but you have to admit, Irma held our interest, that's for sure.

There will be plenty more news about Irma in the coming days and weeks, but lets hope we can continue to get some of those "not as bad as feared" dispatches.

Worst Part Of Irma Is The Storm Surge

Irma smashing Cuba on Saturday. The biggest threat
from Irma today is violent, dangerous storm surges
along Florida coastlines. 

Hurricane Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys this morning and will continue staggering up the Florida west coast today and tonight, as has been expected.

You're probably seeing on social media lots of dramatic photos and videos of strong winds in the Florida Keys.

The wind will cause a lot of damage, to be sure. Irma's maximum sustained winds were 130 mph this morning, and hurricane force winds will extend through much of Florida over the next 24 hours.

But the real damage, the real trouble, still comes from the storm surge. I told you yesterday how vulnerable Tampa can be, but the storm surge is really going to be a problem all up and down Florida's coast.

If you want an illustration of how fast and scary and violent storm surges often are, watch the video at the bottom of this post of a storm surge coming into Gulfport, Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The film makers helpfully time stamped each scene so you know how fast it's going.

You won't see as many videos of that, since storm surges are so dangerous to be in. But I'm sure you'll see a few examples.  As I've said before storm surges cause most of the deaths and most of the destruction in most hurricanes. I doubt Irma will be an exception.

The storm surge had already started in Key West early this morning as the eye of Irma passed very close by. As winds gusted to 94 mph in Key West, low tide had barely ended and the storm surge was overwhelming what normally would have been somewhat low water. The storm surge was pushing right through buildings all around the Keys.

Expect the same within the next 24 hours in Florida cities and resorts such as Naples, Marco Island, Fort Myers, Clearwater, Tampa and St. Petersburg.

The storm surge along the Florida west coast is expected to be five to eight feet above normal water levels, and that will flood and batter thousands of buildings.

One dangerous thing to note is around Naples and Fort Myers this morning, strong offshore winds were pulling water away from the beaches. The water looked drained. This might entice people to come down to the beach to watch the spectacle.

But then the water would come back fast and furious when the storm surge comes along. People could be trapped. There were forceful messages on social media this morning for people to stay far away from the beaches until the hurricane is well past Florida.

On the east side of Florida, the storm surge around very low lying Miami Beach is forecast to run three to five feet, so that's a grave problem there, too.  Video was already emerging of storm surge flooding in Miami Beach.

Irma will finally weaken for good as it makes landfall in Florida and heads up into Georgia. Even there, tropical storm warnings extend all the way north of Atlanta. Flood watches and warnings extend that far north, too.

Meanwhile Hurricane Jose largely missed the northern Leeward Islands that were devastated by Irma.

But the news is, at least potentially, not all good with Jose. It was originally expected to be picked up and move north, where it would die in the North Atlantic. But it didn't get picked up and it's left to meander in the central Atlantic for a few days.

There's a chance, not an enormous chance, but a chance, that Jose could start moving west again and eventually pose a threat to the U.S. east coast.

That's not cast in stone, to be sure, but it's something to keep an eye on, more than a week from now.

We've still got our hands full with Irma

Here's that video of the Gulfport storm surge in 2005.