Snow Burst This Evening To Interfere With Northern New York And Vermont Commute

Sunny skies earlier have yielded to a more ominous sky in
northwestern Vermont late this afternoon. A burst of briefly
moderate to even heavy snow will mess with this evening's commute

You might have noticed that a bright sunny morning here in Vermont has yielded to a gray, kind of ominous sky.

There's a weak warm front coming, but an interesting little thing has developed along it: There's a narrow band of moderate to heavy snow with this. It'll hit any minute.

As of 4 p.m., this narrow band had gotten into the Adirondacks of New York, and will push steadily into Vermont. Just in time for the evening commute.

We've been blessed the past several days with clear driving conditions, but our luck is about to run out. If you're getting out of work this evening, expect to encounter some snow, low visibilities and slippery roads.

If you live more toward eastern Vermont, chances are you'll get home before the problem arrives.

This is a narrow band, so accumulations won't be all that extreme. Maybe an inch. Two inches are possible in a few spots. The most snow will be in the northern half of Vermont.

It's just that the timing is bad, when a lot of us are trying to get home from work. If you can leave work before the snow arrives, terrific. If not, be careful driving home.

Looking further ahead, Thursday (tomorrow) might be our last above freezing day for awhile. The shift toward a colder pattern for us is already underway. You've noticed the chill the past couple of days.

A strong cold front will come through Thursday night with snow showers and maybe a snow squall or two. Accumulations won't be much. Maybe an inch or two. But the roads won't be all that great Friday morning. Yeah, once again. It's winter. We deal with it.

In the first few days of this colder pattern, at least, the worst of the cold will be well off to our north and west. So it'll be chilly, with highs in the teens Friday and lows a little below zero Friday night.

Going into next week, it'll be a little colder than normal, but again, nothing like we had in early January. There will be some fast moving disturbances zipping through with threats of snow from time to time.

Also, a coastal storm might get going Sunday night and Monday. That one could deposit a few to several inches of snow on us if things work out the way some computer models are indicating. The best chances for a plowable snow is in the eastern and southern half of Vermont.

Stay tuned for  updates on that one.

I've also just told you the cold won't be all that bad next week. There's no guarantees for the following week, though. Long range forecasts can't decide if the middle of the month will be kind of cold, or really, really cold.

We have plenty of time to refine those forecasts.

Did Mardi Gras Beads Contribute (Slightly) To New Orleans Flooding?

Workers remove discarded Mardi Gras beads that had been
clogging a catch basin in New Orleans. Photo by Max
Becherer/New Orleans Advocate 

Mardi Gras is fast approaching and the city of New Orleans is in full party mode. The festivities obviously include all those strings of beads that are being thrown around at parade after parade.

Everything has a dark side and those beads have a small dark side. They contributed, at least in a small way, to a damaging flood in New Orleans last August.

Ten inches of rain doused the low-lying city in early August 2017, which as you would imagine caused that destructive flood. It turns out the flooding was made worse by a drainage system that hadn't been adequately maintained in years.

This prompted an emergency cleaning program of the city's catch basins, which turned out were clogged with debris. This allowed water to accumulate in the torrential downpours more than it otherwise would have.

Workers removed 7.2 million pounds of debris from the catch basins, says The New Orleans Advocate. An admittedly small part of that debris problem was the Mardi Gras beads. About 93.000 pounds of the beads were removed from the catch basins during the cleanup.

Going forward, New Orleans will clean more catch basins annually than in previous years, to keep up with the debris removal. In and near the French Quarter, where most of the Mardi Gras festivities take place, clean up crews will sweep litter after parties and parades to the middle of the street for pickup and disposal.

They used to sweep the debris to the sides of the streets, making it more likely Mardi Gras beads could fall into catch basins.

Other cities, even here in Burlington, Vermont also have Mardi Gras celebrations. (Burlington holds their Mardi Gras celebration on March 10 this year.) Time to check the catch basins in those towns?

Challenging Weather Winter For New Englanders, And Forecasters

Coastal flooding in Highlands, New Jersey this morning. 

As we well know, the weather in New England has been all over the place this winter, with plenty of extremes, and quite a number of surprises. Most of the surprises have been bad.

Examples abound: The storm surge flooding in Massachusetts with the January 4 nor'easter was much more destructive than anticipated. 

The January thaw on the 12th was much warmer and much wetter than many forecasters anticipated. The result was ice jams and flooding that was worse than originally predicted region wide.

Today turned out to be another day of surprises for New England. Not so much here in Vermont: The cloudy, chilly weather that had been forecast for today by the National Weather Service in South Burlington and other Vermont meteorologists is verifying pretty much perfectly.

Not so in southern and eastern New England. Meteorologists knew an offshore storm would brush that region with some light to even locally moderate snow today. Once again, we have an overperforming storm.

As of 10 a.m., it was still snowing in parts of that region, and there are already several reports of six to eight inches of new snow in parts of Rhode Island, southeastern Massachusetts and eastern Connecticut.

It's pretty gusty out there, too, with winds of up to 45 mph on Cape Cod and the Islands.

This is by no means a blockbuster snowstorm by New England standards, but it did surprise morning commuters with more snow than was in the forecast.

Worse, coastal flooding all along the coast from New Jersey north is a little worse than anticipated. We're nearing a full supermoon again, so astronomical tides are even higher than they normally would be. The not-so-impressive storm off the coast was forecast to make the tides a little worse, so some coastal flooding had been anticipated well in advance.

Though by  no means records, some of the coastal flooding is definitely worse than anticpated this morning.

Shoreline flooding has been reported in several communites in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. Social media videos show flooding in Scituate, Mass., along Morrissey Boulevard in Boston, Hampton, New Hampshire and Ogunquit, Maine.

This isn't good. The flooding isn't super destructive, but let's face it. It's an astronomical tide that shouldn't be a big deal. The storm off the coast isn't that big at all. There should be basically no coastal problems.

Yet, we've got this. Sea level rise caused largely by climate change does seem to be making life along the New England coast, along with many other areas, more perilous.

Snowfall Now A Little Below Normal In Vermont. That Could Change

Snow cover in my yard in St. Albans, Vermont, in the northwest
corner of the state, is now remarkably thin for late January.

Up until now, this winter's snowfall as measured at the National Weather Service office in South Burlington, Vermont has been running a little above average. 

Not any more. After a week or two of occasional thaws and storms that favored rain and mixed precipitation, snowfall for the season as of Sunday was 0.7 inches below normal.

That's not a huge deficit, for sure, but it is a change. And that slight snow deficit will probably grow a little this week as not much snow is in the forecast. At least as it appears now.

One storm that had potential is sliding by too far to our east tonight and tomorrow to give us in Vermont anything of note. There are a few flurries around, and there might be some tomorrow, too, but don't count on any big dumps.

Valley locations across Vermont don't have much snow left at all. I was able to get outside and cut some brush on my property in St. Albans, Vermont yesterday, as there was only an inch or two left on the ground. The official measurement in Burlington yesterday morning was two inches.

There's more in the mountains, of course, so it's not like the ski industry is bereft. It's just that we haven't had any big powder days in awhile.

Thaws have temporarily taken their toll across much of the United States. Just 27.5 percent of the Lower 48 in the United States is now covered in snow, the lowest percentage since 2006.

If you're a snow lover, take heart. There is that well-advertised weather pattern change coming in, which favors colder than normal temperatures in the central and eastern United States.

This upcoming weather pattern also favors storminess in the East and Northeast, though I can't promise anything big. Things have to come together just right to get a decent dump from a nor'easter, and it's not possible to forecast that a week or more ahead.

In the shorter term, there's one more mini-thaw to go through this week - on Thursday. But high temperatures in the 30s to low 40s that day won't do too much to rid us of what scant snow is left on the ground.

A sharp cold front Thursday night will probably dump some snow showers and maybe even snow squalls on us, which could create light accumulations in the valleys and maybe a bit more than that in the mountains.

Something else is coming through next weekend. Right now that system looks like it will only drop light snow on us, but we'll keep an eye on it.

Because of the higher sun angle this time of year, the South is getting a little warmer while the Arctic is still frigid. This kind of increased contrast often helps lead to the biggest snowstorms of the winter across Vermont between mid-February and mid-March.

Half of Burlington, Vermont's Top 20 biggest snowstorms have occured in February and March. You'll remember the big Pi Day snowstorm that dropped three feet of snow on sections of the state last March.

So, if you're sick of snow, you probably will remain sick of it for awhile. If you're a snow lover, there's still hope, just no guaratees.

Western Europe's Weather Is Off The Rails, Too. Especially Paris Flooding

A statue engulfed in Seine River flood water this
week in Paris. 

Many people, including myself,  have always wanted to go the Louve in Paris. If you're in Paris now, you're out of luck. The Louve - at least part of it -  is closed. 

Some of the worst flooding along the Seine River in decades has flooded neighborhoods and streets, and forced evacuations of some neighborhoods. As a precaution, the Louve moved some priceless artworks in lower parts of the complex to upper floors.  

Parts of the Paris Metro are shut down, expressways near the river are also closed, and tourists can't take riverfront cruises.

The flood along the Seine in Paris is peaking today, and the water should slowly recede after that.  The river is peaking at 5.95 meters, just shy of the 6.1 meters in 2016. This would make the Seine flood among the worst in modern records. On the bright side, it's not THE worst.

Initially there were fears the Seine could reach the record level of 8.62 meters, which would have shut down basically the entire city of Paris and would have forced the evacuation of at least a few hundred thousand people, if not more.

This has been Paris' third wettest December-January period on record.

The Seine flood is a symptom of how stormy it's been in western Europe this month. There were two whopping wind storms that caused extensive damage from England to Germany.

Guards on a rooftop for the Davos World Economic Forum
in Switzerland had a tough time of it with deep snow.

You might have also seen the footage out of Davos, Switzerland, where all those worldwide mucky mucks just had their big soiree. It snowed like hell there, making transportation difficult, and - horrors! making the helicopter landing pad temporarily unusable.

Some people in Switzerland were evacuated due to an avalanche danger. A few places in the Alps got ten feet of snow in a week.

In the lower elevations of western Europe, they've been enjoying a very warm winter, if you discount the storms, flooding and wind damage, I guess.  Denmark looks like it's going to have its warmest January on record. On Wednesday, one town in Denmark reached 55 degrees, a national record for warmth in Denmark for January. Other nearby nations will come close to having a record warm January.

As we Americans in the eastern United States shivered in one of the coldest New Year's Eves on record, it was almost t-shirt and shorts weather in Europe. Most of Germany had its warmest New Year's Eve on record, with temperatures as high as 56 degrees.

The Northern Hemisphere's wild winter weather ride has been caused by a unusually wave jet stream pattern, with a big bulges to the north in western North America and western Europe. This  has caused mostly dry, warm conditions in California and the very warm, stormy weather in western Europe.

Big corresponding dips in the jet stream froze out eastern North America earlier this winter, and is persistently freezing eastern Asia. At least the Winter Olympics in South Korea are safe, as it's been unusually cold and snowy there. Seoul, South Korea got down to 0 degrees last week, at least 20 degrees colder than normal.

In Moscow, caught in a persistent storm track, they had what can easily be described as the ultimate gloomy December. That far north, a clear December day in Moscow can still yield seven hours of sunshine. For the entire month of December, the sun was out a total whopping amount of six minutes.

Not hours. Minutes. No wonder Russians have a reputation as being grumpy.

The weather pattern temporarily relaxed in North America in the past couple of weeks, as I've already noted in yesterday's post, but it still looks like it's going to get cold and active again for a good chunk of February.

Frigid in Asia, Siberia, But Don't Get Smug: It's Coming Here To North America

Tokyo just got its biggest snowstorm in four years and its
sharpest cold wave in 40 years. 

It's been kind of on the warm side as a whole in most of the United States and southern Canada for the past couple of weeks.

There's been cold snaps, yes, but it has been nothing extreme.

The world's coldest weather has been on the other side of the globe, and it's been nasty. One town in Siberia got down to 80 below a few days ago.

Tokyo, Japan had nine inches of snow on Monday, the most in four years. It also got down to 25 degrees in Tokyo, which by Vermont standards isn't bad, but it was Tokyo's coldest temperature since 1970. It's forecast to stay cold in Japan through today.

But, the weather pattern is changing. The polar vortex, that normal pool of very cold air that usually stays in or near the Arctic, was positioned in the eastern hemisphere recently. It's about to move to the western hemisphere, and take up a position in northern or even central Canada.

Refresher course: Despite the panic over the polar vortex, which became a buzzword in the winter of 2014, the vortex is perfectly normal, and it's perfectly normal for it to shift positions like I described in the paragraph above. And it has always existed. It's not anything new.

Still, this expected shift of the polar vortex to northern Canada means the doors will open for frigid weather in southern Canada and large chunks of the United States. It's a little tough to judge where the worst of the cold air will be in a week or two, but for now it looks like it will be concentrated most in the northern Great Plains.

We on the East Coast look to be fairly near the eastern edge of this cold blob. Again, it's too hard to get into speciics a week or so out, but if this forecast holds, it looks like we'll get cold blasts, but not to the intensity the Great Plains will feel.

This pattern would also favor a lot of storminess in the eastern United States, but again, it's too soon to tease out the details. I do know there's nothing major planned in the storm department in most of New England for the next several days. However, an offshore nor'easter might brush eastern New England with snow around Tuesday.

This pattern change has implications for the Arctic, too, especially in and near Alaska. Alaska had its warmest December on record, and January started off very warm, too. They finally got a blast of deep subzero cold in the past week or so. However, this pattern change is going to warm them right back up again.

That's not good, because sea ice up there is already near record lows, and this warm spell will interfere with the normal expansion and thickening of ice you get in the Arctic this time of year.

"Atmospheric River" To Flood Pacific Northwest In Coming Days

This map shows the atmospheric river potetial
later this weekend in the Pacific Northwest. The blue
and green hues hitting the region in this map
Sunday represent a corridor of moisture from the
tropics headed to British Columbia and Washington

It's inevitable that this would happen, as it occurs almost every winter along the West Coast.

An "atmospheric river" is taking aim at Washington State and neighboring coastal British Columbia later this weekend and maybe on into early next week. That almost always means at least some flooding.

I'll let NOAA define what an atmospheric river is for us:

"Atmospheric rivers are relatively long, narrow regions in the atmosphere - like rivers in the sky - that transport most of the water vapor outside of the tropics. These columns of vapor move with the weather, carrying an amount of water vapor roughly equivalent to the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River. When the atmospheric rivers make landfall, they often release this water vapor in the form of rain or snow."

As you can imagine, there's an absolute huge shitload of water that comes through the lower Mississippi River, so you can imagine that these atmospheric rivers can unleash an incredible amount of rain or snow.

The upcoming atmospheric river in Washington and British Columbia won't be at all extreme, certainly in comparison to some epic ones in the past.

Some of the nation's worst floods both in historic times and in recent years have been caused by atmospheric rivers.

In the winter of 1861-62, probably the worst and most persistent atmospheric rivers struck California. The firehose of water shifted a bit during the winter from southern to northern California and back again, but it just wouldn't quit.

Los Angeles got 66 inches of rain, four times its annual normal. Sacrameto remained submerged in ten feet or more of water for months. Telegraph poles in some areas were completely under water.  Nowadays, California has nearly 40 million people, so you can imagine what a mega-disaster we'd see if 1862 happened again.

Atmospheric rivers don't just hit the West Coast. They've caused immense flooding in Great Britain, for example. The Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean and Atlantic Ocean can trigger mean atmospheric rivers. An extreme Tennessee flood in 2010 was caused mostly by such a set up, for example. A catastrophic South Carolina flood in 2015 was in large part caused largely by at atmospheric river

I don't mean to be alarmist. Most atmospheric rivers aren't as destructive as the ones I just outlined. Not all atmospheric rivers are historic, and the one about to hit Washington State and British Columbia won't be the Worst Ever.

One saving grace is the atmospheric river will move, first hitting British Columbia then sinking south into Washington, so any one place won't have days of torrents.

Still, flooding is very likely in the western half of Washington State. The atmospheric rivers that come into the West Coast do have their origins in the tropics, as most of them do, so snow levels in the Cascades will rise quite a bit.

That means rain will fall at high elevations. There won't be that much snow to capture the water, and the atmospheric river will melt some of the snow in the high elevations. The combination of heavy rains and snowmelt will make the risk of flooding that much worse.

Sometimes, atmospheric rivers, once they're done with the West Coast, help spin up pretty intense storms in the central and eastern United States. This time, the atmospheric river in the Pacific Northwest might end up being one ingredient that could spin up a fairly strong storm in the eastern United States in about a week.

That scenario, though, is still quite uncertain.

Cape Town, South Africa - A Huge City - Is About To Run Out Of Water

Cape Town, South Africa is about to run out of water. It
would be the first major worldwide city to do so.

I'm super worried now about my very close friends Denis and Michael, who live in Cape Town, South Africa.  

That's because the city of roughly 3.7 million people is about to completely run out of water. That's right: They're facing an immediate prospect of  no water for drinking, cooking, bathing, fire protection, you name it.

Right now, "Zero Day" the day the city runs completely dry, is predicted to be April 12 - recently moved up from April 21.

That means no water from faucets, no fire protection to speak of. People will have to go to emergency tanks to get a pittance of water.

According to Business Insider:

"If that happens, the only way Capetonians will be allowed to get water from the city will be through a pre-industrial style network of 200 water distribution points. Thousands of people will line p at those taps around the city to collect their allotted 25 liters of water (per person) each day, then haul it home to shower, clean, flush, and do everything else that requires fresh H2O.

'I personally doubt whether it is possible for the city the size of Cape Town to distribute sufficient water to its residents, using its own resources, one the the undergroud water pipe network has been shut down,' Western Cape Premier Helen Zille wrote Monday in the Daily Maverick."

Consider also the logistics of having people go to these water allocation sits, and how, say, a family of four would need to lug 100 liters of water home. (A hundred liters of water weights 220.46 pounds, plus the weight of the container it's in.)

The Daily Maverick outlines the scenario:

"If every family sends one person to fetch their water allocation, about 5,000 people will congregate at each (water collection station) every day. That creates a logistical nightmare of its own. In addition, it will be impossible for individuals to carry, by hand, 100 liters of water allocated for a family of four every day. So provision will have to be made for transport. The City  has not yet given details of how traffic will be managed."

Several factors - some weather and climate related, some not - has led Cape Town to this crisis. The city with its Mediterranean climate depends upon winter rains, when they normally get three or four inches of rain per month in June, July and August.

The winter rains have failed Cape Town in recent years. On top of that, there's been a long term downward trend in winter rain amounts in this area, likely due to climate change.  Also, the long term trend in Cape Town has been in favor of rising temperatures, also a climate change symptom. Hotter weather increases evaporation and demand for water, which doesn't help Cape Town at all.

As far as I know, this would be the first time a major world city has run out of water. (Sao Paulo, Brazil came close in 2015.)

It's late summer in Cape Town now - the dry season. It won't rain anytime soon. Normally it starts to rain in May or so as South Africa enters winter, but it's anyone's guess whether this winter will be dry or wet.

They're trying to save water in Cape Town, but so far, it's not enough.

Of course, if Day Zero arrives and Cape Town runs out of water, you have to worry about civil unrest. According to Business Insider:

"Premier Zille has asked President Jacob Zuma top declare a national disaster for the city, since Cape Town may need more police and military personnel if Day Zero arrives to 'defend storage facilities' ad deal with disease outbreaks as sanitation worsens. She also said officials hope to store some emergency water at military bases 'for safety'

Cape Town officials say efforts to get people to cut back on their water usage haven't been working. The city has been urging every resident to consume less than 50 liters of municipal water a day, and to collect what they use when showering and han washing and re-use the 'grey water' to flush toilets and water plants."

So Cape Town really is careering toward a disaster.

I can imagine the staggering economic effects this would have on Cape Town, and to a just slightly lesser extent the whole of South Africa.

Cape Town is South Africa's second largest city so imagine how commerce would grind to a halt with no water. Factories can't run. Offices would be crippled. And people would waste so much time standing in line for water that they wouldn't have time to work.

Cape Town is also a premier tourist destination. It's a beautiful coastal city with a wonderful climate. (Except for the obvious fact that the winter rains seems to have stopped.)

The Daily Maverick put the economic effects in this perspective:

"The province's economy is supported by two major water intensive sectors: touristm and agriculture.  Between them, they employ about 600,000 people who (at a conservative estimate of four persons per household) support almost three million people. One of our major priorities has been to keep them employed. The crisis associatd with large-scale job losses and hunger would greatly exacerbate the catastrophe of dry taps."

Weather and climate crises can also create unpredictable civil unrest.  Some studies suggest the devastating Syrian civil war, which pretty much destabilized the whole planet, had some of its roots in climate change. (There were obviously many other factors causing this as well.)

Farmers flocked to cities as unprecedented drought struck Syria, and that helped create unrest, which grew into that civil war.

There's already sign of gloom and panic in and around Cape Town. South Africa's national weather service can't promise the winter rains will come this year either.

Long range forecasts are tricky: Note that in California, few predicted the epic drought breaking rains last winter, and fewer still thought southern California would be so incredibly bone dry so far this winter.  Last year, the South African weather service said the area would have a wet winter during the June to August time frame in 2017. That surely didn't happen. 

Moreover, people who can afford it are already buying up industrial-size water jugs to store when what looks like the deep, inevitable water crisis hits.

Cape Town officials are frantically drilling more wells for groundwater and trying to rapidly build desalinization plants, but not many people think all these will be ready by the time the water runs out.

Also, some winter rains are almost inevitable in the next few months, so the period Cape Town is out of water might be relatively short lived. But if the winter rains are lame again, the water won't last long at all. They'll be in this situation again by late this year unless it really rains.

Of course, nobody knows where all this will lead. But to my good friends Denis and Michael in Cape Town, I hope the weather is "miserable"where you live this winter.  By miserable, of course I mean very, very rainy.

WIld Video Ice Jam Breaks, Forces River To Surge Backwards

The ice jam shown in the video at the bottom of this post
flooded a tavern in Avoca, Pennsylvania. Photo by Aimee
Pinger, Times Leader, Wilkes Barre, PA.

For the past couple of weeks, the Northeast has been plagued by numerous ice jams, which  have caused serious flooding problems in several states, including Vermont.  

As the often do, some of the ice jams have shifted, or broken up, then re-formed downstream.

One such incident unfolded in Avoca, Pennsylvania, yielding a wild video taken by the Avoca Fire Department.

The video is at the bottom of this post.

It shows water and ice rushing down a river, contained on both sides by concrete or some other barriers. The ice apparently jammed up again downstream, causing the water to violent back up. The river, with its ice chunks, suddenly flows backwards in a wave, which is impressive to see.

This new wave of flooding damaged six homes and a tavern in the area. This river caused flooding during the very serious Northeast midwinter heavy rains, thaw and ice jams in 1996. A $5.7 million flood control project was built along this river as a result of that 1996 disaster, but this new inundation happened anyway, reports the Times Leader of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.

This is one of many dramatic videos ice jams in the Northeast recently. Perhaps the most famous was shared by the National Weather Service in South Burlington, Vermont, and showed a time lapse of an ice jam rapidly forming along the Ausable River in northern New York.

Here's the wild video out out of Avoca, Pennsylvania.

Frigid To Normal To Frigid Again?

A warm sun broke out late Tuesday afternoon in St. Albans,
Vermont after another day long, rainy thaw. Warm weather
over the past couple of weeks has made January's temperatures
near normal so far, despite a deeply frigid first week. 

Here's how topsy-turvy the weather has been in the eastern United States, including here in Vermont.

When the first week of January ended, after a long spell of record and near-record cold, it looked like January would end up being among the coldest months in recent decades.

Now, not so much.

The first week of January in Burlington, Vermont was a full 16 degrees colder than normal. It would be awfully hard to make up for that temperature deficit for the other three weeks of the month, right?

Nah.

As of yesterday, January in Burlington was averaging exactly normal. Of course, we don't know if the month will ultimately be a little warmer, or a little cooler than normal. During the next week, we will get spells of Arctic chill interspersed with more thaws, so where we'll stand at the very end of the month is anybody's guess.

But January will average close to normal, even if few individual days during the month were anywhere near normal.

Cities further south along the Atlantic Seaboard are still recording Januaries that are at this point a couple degrees cooler than normal, weighed down by that frigid first week. But the relative warmth is expected to remain a bit more consistent from New York City south for the rest of the month, so temperatures in those cities will probably end up close to normal for January, too.

You'd better not be thinking winter is over. It's not.  Not by a long shot. I usually don't put too much weight on long range forecasts, but the current long range forecasts for the month of February are remarkably consistent. Most models indicate a weather pattern that is at least similar to that which froze our butts off in late December and early January.

It's too soon to get into specifics, but we might end up having another long, frigid spell of well below normal temperatures after the first week of February, possibly continuing into March.

We'll see how that works out. But hey, even if it gets really cold, the days are getting longer, so that's a plus.

Back here in Vermont, it's been a relatively stormy month, too. At Burlington, snowfall is a bit behind normal so far for the month, but overall preciptation is running an inch ahead of normal at this point. (We've had a lot of storms with rain and mixed precipitation, which cut down on the snow.)

Long range forecasts call for up to an inch of additional rain or melted precipitation before January closes.

That Ice Has Really Been Nasty Across New England The Past 24 Hours

A school bus slides down an icy hill in Massachusetts
 this morning. Icy roads greeted drivers last night and this
morning across New England. 

I had a lousy trip home from work between Burlington and St. Albans, Vermont last evening.

It was timed perfect. Just when it was time for me to leave work, a nice burst of fairly heavy sleet and freezing rain moved in.

What a slow commute! The roads were quite bad. Luckily, about 99 percent of my fellow motorists took this ice seriously, so there were no major incidents on my trip

Now, it's above freezing as of noon Tuesday in much of Vermont, though there's still freezing rain in parts of New Hampshire and Maine.  Check out the school bus video from this morning at the bottom of this post to understand how icy it was in Massachusetts this morning.

It'a a real messy Tuesday in January. The rain is heavy enough to make people watch those existing ice jams still there from the January 12 and 13 storm in New York and New England. This rain and thawing could be enough to shift the ice, or back up more water behind the jams.

This is especially true in southern and eastern New England, where the rain is heavier.

If you like ice, you're in luck. The rain will taper off later today and tonight. But, as advertised, there's another cold front on the way. The water from today's rain is going to re-freeze tonight and tomorrow. As has been the case most of this winter so far, it's going to be dicey and icy underfoot.

Frankly, it's a wonder I haven't smashed my head or broken my leg, I've been negotiating icy sidewalks and driveways so much.  With the temperatures swings and frequent mixed storms, this is one of the iciest winters I can remember. At least so far.

And guess what? More mixed precipitation seems a good bet toward this coming Sunday, and again toward the middle or end of next week.

Here's that video view from a window in Sutton, Massachusetts taken by Cherly Kearney Katz this morning as a school bus with kids inside didn't do well on a very skating rink-ish street there. Nobody was hurt, so that's good. The bus even continued on to school after the crash.

Get Ready For More Big Temperature Yo-Yo's And Weather Whiplash

The weather this month has, and will continue to, remind
you of this as temperatures keep yo-yoing from one
extreme to another. Coming up: Another big thaw,
and then a harsh freeze right after.

This has been a terrible month in Vermont and surrounding regions if you like consistency in your weather.

It's gone from one extreme to another. You remember the record low of 20 below in Burlington, Vermont on January 7, followed by the record high of 61 degrees just five days later, followed by subzero readings again just two days later.

Temperatures and weather conditions have somewhat stabilized for the past few days, but we're in for weather whiplash again.

Here's the deal: That powerful storm in the middle of the nation is sending a warm front our way initially. That means mixed precipitation (read icy roads) overnight tonight and early Tuesday, especially east of the Green Mountains and in New York's St. Lawrence Valley.

Once the warm front is through, it'll be warm and rainy Tuesday, with highs well up into the 40s. The rain - probably more than a half inch of it - and the warmth is still forecast to maybe shift existing ice jams around, or dam up more water behind them, so look for some more local flooding.

This won't be as bad as the January 12-13 episode because it won't be as warm, there's less snow to melt and it won't rain as hard. But it's still something to watch.

Then the cold front comes through Tuesday night and temperatures will crash early Wednesday. Around midnight Tuesday night, it still might be in the 30s in some locations, but by Wednesday afternoon, it'll probably be in the low teens with a subzero wind chill.  It looks like there will be some snow showers around, too, but accumulations won't be all that great.

Thursday stays cold, with morning lows near zero and highs in the teens. Then, the rolling coaster keeps going with temperatures warming back up into the 40s next weekend.

It's exhausting!

It also looks like this yo-yo trend might continue beyond next weekend, too. The odd thing is it's beginning to look like the overall mean temperature for January will come up somewhere fairly close to normal. It's just that almost none of the individual days will be near normal.

By the way, the storm in the middle of the country has, as expected, created its own batch of weather extremes. There were a couple of tornadoes in Texas and Missouri, and blizzard conditions are ongoing in parts of the central and northern Plains. An active weather pattern indeed!

Strong, Textbook Middle Of The Nation Storm Takes Shape

Already lots of weather alerts on the National Weather
Service map. That broad area of red, pink and blue
are blizzard and winter storm warnings, and various
other winter watches and advisories. Pink and orange
around Texas are wind and fire alerts. 

I hesitate to use the word "textbook" and "typical" to describe the storm taking shape now in the middle of the country, given how nasty and locally extreme the weather is going to get in some places.  

Maybe "classic" is the term for this, because of the types and locations of the rough weather this storm is about to cause.

Also, us weather geeks are going to love the satellite and other images of this storm as it develops. I bet this will be a great storm to use as perfect example in future meteorology classes.

To the north of the storm's expected path, from eastern Colorado, northwestern Kansas, much of Nebraska, southern and eastern South Dakota, northwest Iowa and southern Minnesota, blizzard warnings are up. 

Most of this area can expect around a foot of snow, with strong north to northeast winds. Travel is NOT recommended in this broad area today and tomorrow.

To the south of the storm - again this is a classic spot for this type of storm - severe weather is likely in parts of northeast Texas, Arkansas and northwest Louisiana. It looks like forecasters don't think this will be the most extensive, most severe outbreak ever.

But there is a definitely a risk in this area of strong, damaging winds and maybe a tornado or two. The fun part about this is the same area under the warm, humid storm risk zone just had record cold and some snow a few days ago. Definitely some weather whiplash going on there.

Speaking of severe weather, here's a positive factoid for once after a year of weather disasters. The nation has gone 249 consecutive days without anybody dying in a tornado. That's the longest stretch of no tornado fatalities on record. Let's hope that if any tornadoes touch down today, they don't hurt anybody.

To the southwest of the storm system - again this is typical with this type of storm - strong, dry winds will develop today in the western half of Texas, eastern New Mexico and parts of Oklahoma.

It hasn't rained or snowed much at all in this area so it's really dry. There's a critical risk of rangeland wildfires today in the area I've outlined. I'm glad most of this area is relatively sparsely populated, because I think this wildfire risk is the most dangerous of all the hazards being created by this storm  - including the blizzard and the severe weather I've already outlined.

This storm will inevitably affect us here in Vermont. Expect mixed precipitation Monday night, so the roads will get nasty overnight, especially in eastern Vermont, northern New Hampshire and the St. Lawrence Valley of New York.

Precipitation will change over to rain Tuesday. Forecasters are still watching the numerous ice jams in the region. The rain and thawing could shift these ice jams, or add water to the rivers to make flooding behind the ice jams worse. It's sometbing to pay attention to, that's for sure.

Big Ocean Waves Shock And Awe The Pacific Northwest; Storminess Spreading Across U.S.

Crashing coastal waves in Oregon sent this big log
through a motel window. At least one person died
when he got too close to the big waves this past week. 

I've always wanted to take a vacation to the coastline in the Pacific Northwest during the winter.

People say I'm crazy for saying that. After all, the Pacific Northwest is a dark, rainy, stormy place for most of the winter.

Which is why I'd like to go there this time of year.  The immense waves from giant Pacific Storms that crash onto the rocks and sea stacks are a sight to behold. And, I imagine, a photographer's dream.

This week, the Pacific Northwest got a little more than they bargained for, as the waves were even more intense than they usually are. The crashing waves yesterday were bigger than locals have seen in many years.

While fascinated to watch, you've got to be careful, as these waves can get even bigger than you'd imagine. Tragically, a man was swept out to sea in Oregon by a wave yesterday and is presumed dead.

Elsewhere along coast, the high tides and waves were enough to flood shoreline roads and buildings. A seafood restaurant and a couple of motels in Lincoln City, Oregon had windows blown out and other damage, says OregonLive.com Waves also crashed into the ground floor of a condominium, sending a woman flying across a room.

Other people had close calls, too. A woman was injured when she was knocked over by a wave a Lincoln City, Beach. She was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Another man and his dog were swept off a beach by a sneaker wave but the man and his dog were able to claw their way back onto shore.

In Cannon Beach,Oregon a popular go to place in winter storms for weather and photography enthusiasts like me, sea water pushed into town.

There's video of this at the bottom of this post. Also some of the storminess from the Pacific Northwest is consolidating into a storm that will cause problems in much of the United States. And it will affect us here in Vermont, too.

My in-laws in Yankton, South Dakota yesterday enjoyed a mid-winter heat wave that set temperatures all the way up to 61 degrees as warm air bathed the central Plains. I hope they enjoyed it, because Yankton and a large section of the Plains is now in the path of a new winter storm.

Winter storm warnings as of this morning extended through the central Rockies into most of Nebraska and parts of South Dakota. Winter storm watches extended from South Dakota into Minneasota. Looks like there will be quite a bit of snow and wind in this band Sunday and Monday.

Since this storm will go by to the west of New England, we Vermonters are in for another spell of mixed precipitation and rain. It'll start as snow and a mix Monday night. It looks at this point like it'll be mostly rain Tuesday, before colder air comes in at night to create some snow showers Tuesday night and Wednesday.

It won't be nearly as warm, and it won't rain nearly as hard as it did a week ago Friday, when we had flooding and ice jams. This storm probably won't cause new problems in that regard, but ice jams remain in Vermont and other sections of the Northeast.

The thawing and rain could aggravate those situations and maybe cause new flooding or ice movements, so keep an eye on that one, will ya?

Now the Pacific Northwest videos

Here's an aerial view of the tides coming up onto a road in Ocean Park, Washington, forcing motorists to scramble to get out of the way:

Wild European Storm Has People, Objects Blowing Away In The Wind

People struggled with the winds in The Hague,
Netherlands this week as the worst storm in years swept through.

A severe storm battered much of Europe over the past couple of days, killing at least eight people amid hurricane-force wind gusts across the Netherlands, Germany and other nations in the region.

The storm was said to be the worst to strike Germany in 11 years. Train service was badly disrupted by trees falling on rail lines.

In the Netherlands, winds clocked as high as 90 mph sheared roofs from buildings, knocked over trucks on highways, pushed over stacks of containers at the port of Rotterdam and flung pedestrians across plazas in that city.

Insurers are already estimating about $110 million in damage in just the Netherlands from the storm.

Dramatic videos are below:

The first one is labeled "funny video" but I'm not sure it's funny that people were blown across this Netherlands plaza. (reports are the people weren't hurt, though.)



More storm footage:



Here's a German  news report of the storm. You likely don't understand German, but I'm sure you get the gist:



First half of this video shows a hair-raising plane landing during the storm at Dusseldorf's airport

Lights Come On At Post-Maria Puerto Rico School, Glorious Pandemonium Results

The image is blurry but the joy is ot: A teacher rings a bell
in a Puerto Rican school that erupted into gleeful pandemonium
 this weekwhen electricity was finally restored, four months
after Hurricane Mariet

One of our biggest national shames is the response the United States has had to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

Large swaths of the island still have no electricity, about four months after the hurricane blasted Puerto Rico.

At last report, at least 17 percent of the island still had no power because of the storm. If the U.S. allowed a mainland state to go that long after a disaster without electricity, there'd be rioting in the streets.

There's plenty of blame to go around for the slow response in Puerto Rico.

In any event, a viral video that surfaced this week both enrages me and fills me with absolute joy. Enrages, because it shows the power coming back on after nearly four months. What the hell took so long?

Absolute joy, because this happened in a school. The teachers and students were in there, doing the best they could without electricity, and then what seemed impossible happened: The lights flickered back on.

The pandemonium in the school that resulted is a wonder to behold. Watch and enjoy:

A Supposedly "Colder" 2017 Turned Out To Be Globally Near Record Hot

Both NOAA and NASA made it official today.

Red planet? Global temperature map shows for 2017
almost the entire planet was warm. (pink and red depicts
warm. Blue is cool, grey is no data.)

Depending upon how you measure it, the year 2017 was either the second or third hottest year on record for Planet Earth.

I wouldn't quibble too much on whether it was actually second or third hottest. The difference in measurement comes out to a tiny, tiny fraction of a fraction of a degree, and the data from both agencies is in strong agreement.

Both NASA and NOAA agree that Earth's five warmest years have all taken place since 2010. That's pretty damn recent history.

According to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, 2017 ended up being the third hottest on record, behind 2016 and 2015.

What's most notable about the 2017 data is there was no El Nino last year. El Ninos tend to warm up the Earth's atmosphere. The combination of El Nino and human-caused global warming were the two biggest drivers making 2015 and 2016 the hottest.

The inference to this is that 2017 should have cooled down more than it did.

By the way, if you are under 41 years old, you've never seen a year globally that was at least a tiny bit cooler than the the 20th century average. Starting in 1978, each year has been warmer than normal.

Despite the chill in our tiny little corner of the globe here in the Northeast U.S. December, 2017 on a global basis was the fourth warmest on record, says NOAA.

There's still a La Nina going on, which tends to cool the Earth's atmosphere on the whole a little bit. So we'll see if 2018 continues a subtle global "cooling" trend, such as it is, or not.

After Rain And Flash Freeze, We Can Relate To This Guy

A coupel stills from a Virginia man's epic slip and slide

For the past week, this video has been making the rounds, truly a viral one.

The security camera footage shows a guy setting off to go to work in the morning. Looks like he's headed toward his vehicle to start the daily commute.

But it's been chilly, and there's been a bit of freezing rain. Enough, apparently, to make the start of his day unhappy.

The man's wife, Kelly Bonser Besecker, spotted the video on their home security camera system in Virginia, and just had to post it on Facebook. The rest, as they say, is viral video history.

As of last Friday, the Facebook video had been viewed 52 million times with 1.2 million shares.

Besecker reports her husband, Tim Besecker, is uninjured, at least physically. He told the Washington Post that this is not his first spill, but it was, apparently, his most dramatic.

He also told the Washington Post that, with another spell of cold, possibly icy weather in the forecast, he's going to be more generous when he spreads the rock salt. Here's the video:

This Year's Southern Winter Kind Of Like A Northern One

Look closely and you can see snow dusting the roofs in
the New Orleans French Quarter as dawn broke this morning. 

Boy, the southern United States is having a rough winter!

True, a rough southern winter is not nearly as bad as a so-so northern winter, the kind we experience here in Vermont. But we're tough and can handle it.  

They're not used to it down there.

And it's quite a mess today from Texas to North Carolina. This is the third time this winter the Deep South has shivered in a frigid winter storm.

The storm that dumped snow, freezing rain and sleet across Texas and Louisiana yesterday kept moving east and eventuallty north, leaving record cold temperatures in its wake. The storm is leaving most of the roads in the South impassable, too.

From Shreveport to Jackson, to Birmingham to Atlanta, on up to Raleigh, nobody's on the roads. Well, almost nobody. The few that ventured definitely risked life and limb. In Austin, Texas, a man died when his vehicle plunged 30 feet off of an icy overpass.

If you cherry pick the examples of what's going on down there, it's pretty incredible in spots.

The Pensacola, Florida Bay Bridge was completely iced over, something you rarely see in northern Florida: Even rarer: There was Arctic sea smoke on Pensacola Beach. That's something you see much further north, like in New England. It's basically steam created by the difference between the relatively warm water and the frigid air.

We also had the spectacle of seeing snow dust the roofs in New Orleans this morning. New Orleans had its coldest morning today since 1996 at 20 degrees. Houston reported the same - with a low of 19 degrees.

Atlanta looked pretty frozen and white
from the air this morning 

The storm is moving north, as noted, and could dump up to 10 inches of powder on parts of North Carolina before the end of today.

As forecasters had expected, the snow extends north into New England today, where we can handle of snowstorm of two to 10 inches.

(Northwestern Vermont is being spared, with just light snow and flurries, though patchy dense freezing fog is causing black ice and poor visibility in parts of Vermont's Champlain Valley.)  

If you wanted warm weather, you would have done well to head to central Alaska. In Fairbanks, where low temperatures in the 20s and 30s  below zero are quite common this time of year, it was above freezing, with a very rare rain coming down earlier today.

It still looks like the weather pattern is about to switch to one that is less topsy turvy. It's going to be in the 60s across the winter storm zone in the South by this weekend. Meanwhile, in Fairbanks and other places in Alaska, the temperature will go well below zero by this weekend.

In other words, all will be right with the world. At least the weather world.

Wide Ranging Storm Putting The Brakes On Much Of The United States

Shreveport, Lousiana woke up to a snow whitened city
this morning, which doesn't happen all that often down there. 

Most of the southern and eastern United States is suffering through a winter storm that on paper would not seem like that big a deal, yet it is.  

That's mostly because the storm is affecting a lot of people who have little experience with winter weather. Plus the storm, though not particularly strong, is affecting a wide area where lots of people live.

Winter storm warnings, watches and winter weather advisories this morning extended from Texas to Maine. Impressive, considering no area other than parts of New England are expecting more than six inches of snow.

A huge area of the South is being affected by this, though, and there is a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. These are areas that don't get a lot of winter weather.

Except this year, of course. This is the third time this winter that snow and mixed precipitation has gummed up the South. Some cities, like Houston, have now had measurable snow twice this winter, the first time snow has happened twice in the same winter since 1987.

A couple inches of snow was all it took to shut down some Interstate highways in Louisiana on Monday.  The governor or Alabama declared a state of emergency - all because of the one to three inches of snow expected there.

I know, I know, one to three inches of snow up here in Vermont is considered a great big yawner, but to Alabama, without snow clearing trucks and such, it's awful.

Actually, this storm in the Deep South will drop less snow on the region than the one that hit down there on December 8. But this one will be worse because it's colder down there than it was in December. Snow back then hit road pavement and melted. This time, the snow is hitting the pavement, then freezing.

Snow with this system extended into the Midwest,
conttibutting to this wreck in Indiana. 

This storm is going to consolidate into a nor'easter off the East Coast. It's still not going to be the Storm Of The Century, not be a long shot, but southern and central New England in particular will get a fairly decent dose of snow out of this.

This decent snowfall will get southern Vermont, too. Which is good for them, because they largely missed out on the snow that northern sections of the state received this past Sunday.

During the day Wednesday, most of Massachusetts, far southern Vermont and New Hampshire and parts of Connecticut can expect four to eight inches of new powder from this storm. Not a huge deal, but enough to disrupt travel a bit. And give the ski areas a bit of a boost.

As you keep going further north here in Vermont the snowfall totals will diminish. Expect maybe four inches or so Wednesday around Rutland, maybe two inches or so near Burlington, and as little as an inch by the time you get up toward St. Albans and Plattsburgh, New York.

I noted yesterday and cold air is ending for us and won't come back anytime soon. In fact, the chilly air pretty much everywhere east of the Rockies is about to ease as the pattern shifts for a while into one that favors warm air in much of the nation. Warm for this time of year, anyway.

People in the South who aren't so enthused about the snow and sleet today can look forward to temperatures in the 60s by the weekend. Up in the northern Plains, which has been under siege with wind chills in the minus 40s for the past few days, are getting a break, too.

Frigid Grand Forks, North Dakota, for instance, which was 17 below with a wind chill of minus 32 this morning, can expect a high of 37 degrees above zero by Friday.

We're going to get another thaw here in Vermont, too. Bad news for winter sports people, but good news for people who want a break, and are sick of spending a zillion dollars per second heating their homes.

This next warm spell doesn't look as intense as last Friday's. I doubt we'll get into the 60s, that's for sure. But this one will last longer. It'll get into the 30 by Friday, and likely 40s in many places around the North Country Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

After that, it will probably turn cooler, but not frigid. In fact, many forecasts indicate we've got not more Arctic air to talk about in Vermont through the end of January.

However, I will not make any promises about February.

Somewhat Wintry, But At Least The Extreme Weather Is Gone, For Now

Just a small section of an enormous ice jam along the
Missisquoi River in Swanton, Vermont Sunday. Only
light snowfalls and moderating temperatures this week
mean the situation at least probably won't get much worse,
but rain early next week could complicate things. 

Here in Vermont and the rest of New England, we can look forward to a week that, at least, won't have super extreme weather.

Oh sure, it will be wintry, and some areas might get a moderate snowstorm, but that's par for the course for January.

The bar is set low. If we can get through a few days without something bizarre happening in the weather, we can take that as a plus.

You probably noticed you woke up to another cold morning. Most of the North Country was below zero this morning, with Saranac Lake clocking in at 24 below as of 5 a.m.

This isn't as cold as the weather we had at the beginning of the month, so take heart in that. Also, this morning is the chilliest weather you'll see in more than a week, at least, so that's good too.

An Alberta clipper type storm is heading in from the west. It's destined to cause a widespread area of snow, with ice and sleet to the south, covering an area from the Great Lakes to Texas to New England.

Few places in this vast area will get enormous accumulations, but in the South it doesn't take much to create real headaches. Winter storm watches and warnings are up for parts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama because of this.

The clipper will weaken as it heads east, transferring its energy to a nor'easter that will develop off the Northeast Coast.

"Nor'easter" strikes fear into the hearts of some, but don't worry, this one isn't going to be the epically big "bomb cyclone" or whatever you want to call the huge type of storm that hit back on January 4.

This one will be more benign. Winter storm watches are up for far southern Vermont and much of Massachusetts because of this one late Tuesday and Wednesday and those watches might be expanded elsewhere in eastern New England.

But this will be a low-end winter storm. Right now, the most affected areas will probably get on the order of four to eight inches of powder. No big deal.

Elsewhere in Vermont, the southern and eastern half of the state could pick up a few inches of snow from this, while the northwest only gets light accumulations.

You'll notice a definite warming trend this week, too. While it's snowing off and on Tuesday and Wednesday, daytime highs will get into the comfortable mid and upper 20s, while nights only get down into the so-so teens.

It'll keep warming up, and it looks like another thaw will be here by next weekend. It won't be 60 degrees again like it was Friday. At least for Saturday and Sunday, there will be little precipitation, too, so that's good for the ice jams that are still plaguing the area.

However, forecasters are watching a storm that could hit Sunday  night and next Monday, which could bring rain. That, in turn, might aggravate any of the ice jam problems that are still lingering across the region.

It's too early to guess how much rain or other precipitation we might get, but it's something to watch out for.

Another note: While the weather won't go off the rails around here, there are some extremes of note elsewhere. One thing that caught my eye happened in Alaska Sunday. They're having a remarkably warm (for them) winter. On Sunday, a weather station in Metlakatia, Alaska, recorded a temperature of 66 degrees (above zero!) marking the hottest January temperature on record anywhere in Alaska.

The town of Sitka, Alaska, reached 62 degrees Sunday, its hottest January temperature on record. These readings were in southern Alaska. While there was no record heat in northern Alaska, the tippy top northern part of the state was still nearly 20 degrees warmer than average and toastier than Vermont was on Sunday.

Clear And Cold, But Ice Jam Flooding Vermont, Northeast Still Big Problem

The Missisquoi River in Swanton, Vermont was re-freezing
Sunday afternoon, adding more ice to an already huge and
destructive ice jam. 

Today has been one of the glorious bluebird winter days here in Vermont and much of the rest of the Northeast.  

Granted, it's pretty cold, with high temperatures in my area in northern Vermont only in the single digits. But there's fresh white powder on the ground, the sky is a deep winter blue. Winds are light, all in all, a very nice winter day.

But for some in Vermont and elsewhere in the Northeast, and in parts of Atlantic Canada, is another day of continuing disaster.

Those ice jams that formed with the mega thaw on Friday, are still there, and in some cases getting worse as rivers re-freeze and new ice adds to the jam.

Here in Vermont, the worst of it continues to be around the towns of Johnson and Swanton, where people are still evacuated. New evacuations are possible around Swanton, as the situation, if anything grows worse along the Missisquoi River there.

Route 78 in Swanton, a major truck route between Vermont and New York just south of the Canadian border, remains closed.  Several houses are still evacuated, and nobody has been able to get in to evaluate the extent of the damage.

A huge ice jam along the Missisquoi River in Swanton, Vermont
was diverting water into this building Sunday afternoon.

I was in Swanton this afternoon, and it appears things might be getting worse. The ice jam is stuck in place.

I'm guessing it's in part because the Missisquoi drains into Lake Champlain. Normally, the ice chunks would flow into the lake, but that part of Lake Champlain is frozen. There's nowhere for the ice to go.

Meanwhile, as noted, it's cold. I could see near downtown Swanton new ice forming on the river, floating down stream then becoming stuck in an ever expanding field of ice.

Granted, this new ice isn't thick or strong like some of the big chunks stuck in the main jam, but this new ice is clearly not helping.

Sunday, the new ice was helping to back up water along Foundry Street in Swanton, and some houses there might need to be evacuated.

Johnson, Vermont is still dealing with ice jam and flooding damage, too. Several buildings were damaged. Water inside the local supermarket was at least knee deep.

In addition to Vermont, ice jams and flooding prompted evacuations this weekend in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

The storm that caused the heavy rain, record warmth and flooding in New England before the Arctic blast arrived Saturday moved into Atlantic Canada.

They had the same problems up there, perhaps even worse than in the states. Heavy rain, record high temperatures and rapid melting of a deep snow pack caused destructive flooding in New Brunswick and Newfoundland.

For most of the region, there's no big huge storms in the near future. That's the way it looks now. Something still might get going later this week. If it does, it would affect eastern New England and, again, the Atlantic Provinces of Canada.

Light snow might affect Vermont, but after the wild weather of the past week, it won't be such a big deal.