Matt's Weather Rapport is written by Vermont-based journalist and weather reporter Matt Sutkoski. This blog has a nationwide and worldwide focus, with particular interest in Vermont and the Northeast. Look to Matt's Weather Rapport for expert analysis of weather events, news, the latest on climate change science, fun stuff, and wild photos and videos of big weather events. Also check for my frequent quick weather updates on Twitter, @mattalltradesb
Image from a terrifying body cam video of people
trying to escape the Paradise, California wildfire earlier this month.
I was terrified just watching the video at the bottom of this post and you will be, too.
The video is body cam footage from Butte County Sheriff's Deputy Aaron Parmlet as he searched for four nurses he needed to help evacuate from Feather River Hospital as this month's deadly wildfire overtook Paradise, California.
The wildfire is now the deadliest in the United States in decades, claiming at least 88 lives.
The fire killed his patrol car and he was forced to go on foot. He and other evacuees can barely be seen in the thick smoke. Fire burned everywhere and great gusts of embers engulfed people. With the choking smoke and heat, I don't know how any of the people in the video lived.
Happy spoiler alert: They did survive. Eventually a tractor emerged from the smoke. Parmlet got the attention of the driver with his flashlight and they used the tractor to get out of what was certainly hell on Earth.
A foot of cement like snow crushing a lilac bush and other
trees around my St. Albans, Vermont house this morning.
At least the power lines stayed up!
The snow had mostly stopped falling across northern Vermont as of 10 a.m. Thursday after a two-day battle with heavy, wet snow.
I call it wet cement snow, and my sore back can attest to why I call it that after a couple days of shoveling this mess. And bonus! I've got plenty more shoveling to do today!
I shouldn't complain. Some people in Vermont have been without electricity for up to two days because of the storm's damage to power lines. Countless branches and trees have snapped under the weight of the snow, and many power lines fell with them.
As of 10 a.m. Thursday, more than 20,000 homes and businesses across Vermont were still without electricity, according to Vermont Outage Map. It will take days for everyone to get their power back.
The power stayed on at my St. Albans, house, but the trees are not doing so well. My Korean lilac is flattened. I hope it recovers. While I was shoveling snow yesterday, I could hear branches snapping in the woods, and occasionally in my yard. A few snaps sounded like pretty big branches. It's just warming up as of mid-morning, so the snow is starting to fall off the trees, thank goodness.
There's a brief video at the bottom of this post that shows how crushed and burdened the trees looked around my house this morning.
Storm totals included 24.1 inches in Rochester, Vemront, 17.7 inches in Greensboro and 16.5 inches in Westfield.
Snow depths on the ground are also pretty impressive in parts of Vermont for so early in the season. Rochester has 29 inches on the ground, and Westfield has 24 inches.
Trees sag under the weight of heavy, wet snow in my St. Albans, Vermont
yard this morning. Somewhere under that snow a Korean lilac is
being crushed by the weight. I hope it survives!
Yeah, like I keep saying, winter is early.
After a couple days break, we have another storm to contend with on Saturday night and Sunday. It'll be another sloppy mix of snow, sleet, ice and rain, going completely over to a cold rain for most of us by Sunday afternoon.
Yuck.
Normally, with all this snow on the ground and the prospect of rain, I'd worry a bit about flooding.
At this point, it doesn't look like it will rain hard enough to cause that kind of problem, though I'm sure we'll have nuisance water problems from snow-clogged drains and the like.
For you winter sports enthusiasts, the rain might be a bit of a bummer, but the warmth won't last long and not all the snow will melt. Especially in the mountains. Think of this upcoming unpleasantness as base-building.
It will turn chillier again starting next Monday. It's hard to say how much or when or even if it will snow next week, but knock on wood, I don't see any more blockbuster snowstorms for a little while. But that's uncertain, and things could change!
ROUGH WEATHER ELSEWHERE
It's not just Vermont that's having weather trouble this week. The same storm that got us here in the Green Mountain State is raising havoc in Nova Scotia, Canada. At last check 245,000 people there were without power due to high winds and wet snow.
The next tempest that will get us on Sunday - and other storms are causing problems across much on the United States. Winter storm watches extend in an arc through Montana, northeastern Wyoming and on into parts of Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and southern Minnesota as this storm gets cranking.
Those areas can expect snow, blowing snow, high winds and in some areas, ice.
Very welcome rain is falling on California, all the way into southern portions of the state. The only drawback to that is there's a risk of debris flows in places that had all those fires. There's nothing left to hold in the soil.
Ah, yes. Deal with it. Winter is definitely the season of stormy weather.
Here's the video of the snow trying to crush the trees around my St. Albans, Vermont house:
You can tell by this plowed pile of snow in a Burlington, Vermont
parking lot that the snow has a dangerous consistency of wet cement.
It's still snowing early this morning across much of northern Vermont and that state of affairs will continue for the rest of the day. So keep shoveling, folks.
The fallling snow still has a wet and sticky consistency, so power failures are still widespread, despite the best efforts of repair crews. As of 5 a.m., more than 33,000 Vermont homes and businesses didn't have power.
It's been awhile since I've seen such extensive power failures last that long. And as wet snow continues to fall across northern Vermont today - albeit lightly in most areas - it's going to be very challenging to get the juice flowing.
The Rutland Herald reportedthat repair crews have to be slow and methodical to avoid being injured by other trees falling around them. In some places, the constant bombardment of falling branches and trees forces repair crews to temporarily retreat. It will take days to get the power flowing in some areas. Some roads this morning continued to be blocked by fallen trees, wires and branches.
Around Burlington, Vermont, the snow mixed at times with rain early this morning, so the trees weren't too laden with the snow. But just a little north around my place in St. Albans, Vermont, trees were sagging dangerously as cement-like wet snow continued to pile up. I could hear branches breaking in the woods.
A lot of us will have another challenging trip to work and school this morning. I noticed while driving yesterday it was particularly slippery out there. Wet snow is worse than powder to drive on.
So far the deepest reported accumulationshave been 18 inches in Rochester, 15 inches in Ludlow, 14.9 inches in Greensboro ad 12.2 inches in East Barre.
The snow will come down pretty hard on the western slopes of the Green Mountains today, so I still expect some new reports of some pretty high totals. In valley locations in northern Vermont, expect another one to five inches of new snow through tonight. Southern Vermont valleys will just get a dusting, at best.
Expected snowfall today in Vermont. Parts of the northern Adirondacks
and Green Mountains of Vermont could see six more inches.
If you think winter is off to a harsh start, even though it's not winter yet, you're absolutely right. Just take the stats from Burlington, Vermont.
As of midnight last night, the month was averaging 5.3 degrees colder than normal. Not a record, but still nippy. The city had 17.5 inches of snow so far this month, which would make it the seventh snowiest November. Plus, remember it kept snowing past midnight and will snow off and on today.
Also as of midnight, 5.07 inches of rain and melted snow has fallen on Burlington so far this month, creating a tie so far for the fifth wettest November.
The index rates the winter up to a given point as mild, moderate, average, severe or extreme.
As you might guess, all of New England is in the severe category. If misery loves company, there's plenty of it. The Accumulated Winter Severity Index is also in the extreme category in much of the Plains and Midwest.
Of course, this could reverse itself. If the rest of the winter is mild, then the ratins will back off the severe category.
The next big storm after this one is done comes along Saturday night and Sunday. It looks messy, with mixed precipitation at the start, especially away from the Champlain Valley.
Then it will go to rain, and all this wet snow will partly melt and get slushier in the rain. We'll also have to be on the lookout for a little flooding if it rains hard and the snow melts too quickly. The forecast for the storm will become more detailed and more accurate as we draw closer to the weekend, so stay tuned.
Nearly 7 inches of new, heavy, wet snow weighs down trees in my St. Albans, Vermont yard this afternoon.
Boy, this storm in Vermont really has been overperforming, especially in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.
The current snowstorm has unexpectedly taken over a the Green Mountain State's worst snowstorm so far this young season.
It's also probably one of the worst storms of any stripe in 2018 here in Vermont.
The problem has been the wet, heavy quality of the snow. We're accustomed to snow with a powdery consistency this far inland from the coast, but every once in awhile, we get hit the the face with slush.
But as the snow continues to fall, they fix one problem, and then three more trees or branches fall and take out more power lines. This will only slowly get better as snow tapers off in southern Vermont, and starts to fall at a slower pace in most of northern Vermont. Plus, it will get a little cooler tonight, so the snow won't be as wet and heavy.
It will take a long time for everything to get fixed, probably days in some areas. It got so bad on Route 100 between Killington and Pittsfield that they had to close the road today. Trees were falling across the road faster than anybody could clean them up. Other Vermont roads were close off and on or the same reason - trees and power lines blocked them.
The town of Randolph has opened a warming shelter for those whose homes are cold and dark from the extended power outages that are expected to continue. More shelters might open, depending upon how fast electricity is restored.
Even in the Champlain Valley, enough wet snow has fallen to cause power problems. At my house in St. Albans, we had 6.7 inches of wet snow as of 1:30 p.m. and it's still coming down. This is much more than expected. Trees are sagging dangerously. There's lots of power failures in Chittenden County, too.
I have a quibble with the usually excellent National Weather Service in South Burlington, Vermont. As it became apparent that the storm would be worse in the Champlain Valley than expected after dawn today, there still held fast to not issuing any winter weather advisories or storm warnings for that area. (Winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories were correctly in effect for other parts of the state.)
Snow totals are impressive, and they will become more impressive in some parts of Vermont, especially in the north as the storm will focus there from now on. There's 13 inches of new snow in Wilmington and Woodford, in far southern Vermont. A foot of new snow was reported in Woodstock with 10 inches in Rochester and Reading.
There will be even more impressive totals to report by tomorrow and Thursday in the mid and high elevations in the northern half of Vermont, particularly along the western slopes of the Greens.
The snowfall is gradually becoming more oriented toward falling on the mountains. Even as snowfall rate continue to decline in the Champlain Valley, it'll keep cranking in the mountains, especially between Jay Peak and Killington.
I will not be surprised to see new snow totals near two feet in some locations.
For those commuting home this evening, expect a slushy, slippery trip. Southern Vermont is getting better, but at least light snow will still be coming down in the northern half of Vermont as darkness falls.
PREVIOUS DISCUSSION
Kind of a Currier and Ives scene in Burlington Vermont's Intervale
this morning as yet another early season snowstorm hit.
Skiers and riders are probably rejoicing because the current snowfall in northern New England is expected to keep cranking through Wednesday in northern New England - at least in the mountains.
The storm as of the pre-dawn hours is working out about as forecast, with quite a bit of snow in the mountains, with rain and a mix in many of the warmer valleys of Vermont.
Snow accumulation reports were sparse as of 7 a.m., but we'll get more in. The heaviest snow accumulation is in southern Vermont, though northern Vermont will get much more snow than the south from now through Wednesday night.
So far, 10 inches of new snow have been reported from Windsor, Reading and Wilmington, Vermont. To the north, high elevation East Barre has collected 5.4 inches so far.
It's a heavy, wet snow in most areas, and that spells big trouble. Vermont's power grid as of early Tuesday morning has been hit hard, especially in southern, eastern and eastern sections of the Green Mountain State. The wet snow is bringing down trees and power lines.
Web cam images out of central and southern Vermont show trees heavily laden down with snow.
Where it's snowing, which by now is pretty much everywhere, Wet snow compacts under car tires to form an especially slick ice, so take it slow on the way to work or school today. As usual, the storm timing in the busy Champlain Valley is terrible.
A slushy commute into work this morning as wet snow
fell and clung to trees. Wet snow is more slick that powdery
snow on roads.
Rain transitioned to a heavy, wet snow just before the rush hour began. Conditions deteriorated rapidly as I made my way down Interstate 89 from St. Albans to Burlington at around 6:30 a.m.
If possible, don't even go to work today. Do your stuff from home. As for schools, a lot of them are closed anyway. .
The storm along the New England coast is taking over, and will move northward into Maine, then sort of stall and gradually weaken. As it does, the snow will keep going in northern Vermont and parts of New Hampshire and Maine, plus areas of southern Quebec and northern New York through Wednesday.
Which to some people (Read: Me) is a real nuisance because you have to repeatedly shovel the snow away over the course of two or three days.
The valleys of southern Vermont won't get much more snow. In the Champlain Valley, temperatures will be close to or just above freezing this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon, which would limit the snow accumulation.
There might be another inch or two in parts of the Champlain Valley today, another couple of inches tonight, and maybe an inch or so on Wednesday, for a total of maybe two to five inches by Wednedsay night.
Move just a little up in elevation, though, and the snow gets much deeper. Go up into the western slopes and peaks of the Green Mountains, and I wouldn't be surprised if another foot of snow comes down in some areas by Wednesday night. This is on top of what already fell overnight.
Drive the short distance from Burlington, Vermont to say, Underhill in the shadow of Mount Mansfield tomorrow, and you'll go from a slushy meh snow cover to a deep, heart-attack snow.
Much of western Maine and parts of northern New Hampshire can expect another foot of snow, too,
Since there was already a pretty good snow cover in the higher elevations before this storm, things are getting pretty incredible for early season winter sports types.
Parts of the Northeast Kingdom will get a fair amount of new snow, too. Most of that area has so far missed out on the heaviest snow, because the White Mountains of New Hampshire blocked a lot of the moisture being carried into the region on east winds.
Things will calm down temporarily toward the end of the week, but it looks like a new storm is brewing for late Saturday or Sunday. It's too early to tell how much and what type of precipitation we'll get out of that one.
The National Weather Service in South Burlington, Vermont has this
best early guess for snowfall from the storm tonight and Tuesday
Areas shaded in yellow and orange, mostly in the higher
elevations, can expect more than six inches of new snow.
12:30 PM UPDATE:
The onset of the precipitation is a little quicker than first thought. If it's not raining or snowing where you are as of early this afternoon, it will any minute now.
There are still no winter weather advisories or warnings in the Champlain Valley as of noon, because for now, forecasts are sticking with three inches or less.
Here's a BIG however, however.
There are some indications that a band of heavier precipitation might set up over or near the Champlain Valley Tuesday morning.
If that happens, the air will cool further and there could be a period of fairly heavy snow.
This is a maybe, maybe not scenario. It's hard to tell at this point if it will actually happen, so don't count on it. But since it's a possibility, I wanted to mention it.
If you live in the Champlain Valley, get up earlier than usual and peek out the window and check for updated forecasts. If we do get a snowy surprise, you'll want to leave earlier for school or work. If there's no unexpected extra snow, you can kick back and have an extra cup of coffee.
PREVIOUS DISCUSSION
The way this month has been going, yesterday was an absolutely gorgeous beach day here in Vermont.
Yes, it was overcast, wet and damp, and temperatures stayed chilly-ish, hovering a few degrees either side of 40.
But it was the first warmer-than-average day, at least in Burlington, Vermont since November 8. That's 16 consecutive days of below normal readings, which I think is the longest stretch this year.
I hope you enjoyed it, because it's back to winter tonight and tomorrow. It won't get particularly cold, but it will get snowy. Only somewhat snowy in the warmest valleys, but wicked snowy up in the mountains.
Here's the deal: A storm which unleashed thefirst November blizzard since 1959 on parts of Kansas, Iowa and Illinois is headed toward the area around Buffalo, New York by this evening. A new storm will get going somewhere near New York City then head up along the New England coast tonight. The storm near Buffalo will begin to fade, and the new coastal storm will take over as the main player.
Rain will break out across the region this afternoon. Any snow that falls at first will only come down on the tippy top of the mountains. But as the night wears on, the snow will advance downward in elevation, so that by dawn Tuesday, even the valleys will probably be getting snow.
This is a tricky forecast because the timing of when a particular spot goes from rain to snow tonight will determine how much accumulation results.
The scenario is subject to change, but right now it looks like the Adirondacks and central and southern Green Mountains will turn out to be the big winners. This area is under a winter storm warning, with accumulations of four to eight inches by Tuesday evening. The deepest snow will be at elevations of over 1,000 feet.
Northern Vermont away from the Champlain Valley looks like they're in for three to six inches of snow. The Champlain Valley will get anywhere from a slushy dusting to three inches of snow, with the most being up north near St. Albans.
With all this wet snow and wind, power failures will be a good bet. Be ready tonight and tomorrow morning for such an event, especially in those areas that are going to be especially snowy and windy.
The storm's upper level support will sit and spin over us or at least nearby during the middle of the week, which will keep the snow showers going. The valleys could get another couple or few inches of wet snow out of this setup.
The mountains will be the big winners, with the Adirondacks and Green Mountains picking up a good foot or two of snow between now and Thursday.
Paradise gone" This neighborhood in Paradise, California was wiped
out along with most of the rest of the town by the Camp Fire.
California firefighters have finally getting the upper hands on the wildfires plaguing the state, including the now-famous Camp Fire in northern California, which has become the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history.
Plus, it's been raining the past couple of days That's great news, and greatly contributed to the fact the fire was declare 100 percent contained today.
But the rain has its own share of risks. More on that in a bit.
Now that the fires have abated, this gives us a chance to take stock and take a deep dive into this disaster. There has been some misinformation, confusion and doubts about the fires. It's always good to try and get the facts, because lessons need to be learned. What follows is not perfect, and reasonable people might disagree with me. But we really should have the discussion.
WORST CASE SCENARIO, FOR NOW
Just when people thought things couldn't possibly get any worse than the Tubbs Fire last year, which killed 22 people and destroyed 5,643 structures, we had this year's so-called Camp Fire.
This illustration is of the Peshtigo, Wisconsin wildfire of 1871 that killed
at least 1,200 people. It shows some people trying take refuge in
a nearby river. It's the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history.
Are deadly wildfires making a comeback?
As of this writing, the Camp Fire has killed a confirmed 85 people, the most deadly wildfire in California history and the nation's deadliest in more than a century.
They're still looking for hundreds of missing people. We don't know how many of those are just lost in the shuffle after the chaos of the evacuation, and how many were lost to the flames.
The fire destroyed some 13,000 buildings, including virtually the entire town of Paradise, California, with a pre-fire population of about 27,000.
This was America's worst wildfire in a century. Back in the 1800s and early 1900s, there was a spate of even deadlier fires in the United States. An 1871 wildfire around Peshtigo, Wisconsin killed some 1,200 people in 1871. A 1918 wildfire in Minnesota killed roughly 1,000 people. Another Minnesota fire in 1894 claimed at least 418 lives, notes Jeff Masters in the Category 6 blog.
While the United States has always had wildfires, blazes that would kill scores or hundreds of people became rare in the 20th century.
Now, these horrible death fires seem to be on a comeback. I'm aware of just four wildfires that each killed 15 or more people in the era between 1930 and 1990.
There was an uptick in such fires beginning in the 1990s, and now they're even more frequent. Category 6 blog lists five fires that have killed at least 13 people just since 2003. (This includes the Camp Fire.)
Something seems to be going on. Too many people moving to forest lands? That's only a small part of the story. Poor forest management? We'll get into that in this post, but that's not the whole picture either. What about climate change?
CLIMATE CHANGE DIDN'T "CAUSE" THIS FIRE
In the late summer and autumn, central and northern California are often plagued by something called Diablo winds.
Air circulates up from the deserts further south, so this air is very dry. The wind hits the eastern slopes of the mountains in northern California then heads westward, up and over these ridges.
Once over the tops of the mountains, the winds continue westward, gaining momentum as they head down hill. The gusts get stronger and stronger. As the air races downhill, it actually gets even drier.
A small spark can start a nasty wildfire under these conditions There are reports there was a problem with a PG&E high tension line near Paradise that might have sparked the fire. If that's the case, the Diablo winds took advantage of this situation and the conflagration was borne.
Once the fires have started though, a lot of them have become much more extreme than in the past 100 years. That finally brings us to climate change.
CLIMATE CHANGE VERY LIKELY MADE THE FIRE MUCH WORSE.
Northern California was tinder dry (brown shades) on the days leading
up to and on the day of the Camp Fire
Even though climate change did not cause the Camp Fire, it probably took what would have been a relatively ugly but manageable local situation and turned it into a calamity.
UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain tweeted:
"If Northern California had received anywhere near the typical amount of autumn precipitation this year (around 4-5 in. of rain near #CampFire point of origin). explosive fire behavior & stunning tragedy in #Paradise would almost certainly not have occurred."
Swain then went on in his very helpful Twitter thread:
"Rainy season has started late this year in California...again. While autumn precipitation isn't usually (a) huge fraction of overall annual average, it's hugely important to ecosystems & bringing fire season-ending moisture. This yr., autumn precip was <20-30% of avg."
Swain added on Twitter: "Objective indicators of vegetation dryness and potential fire intensity were are record high levels for the date this week in the vicinityh of #CampFire -- and would have been very high even for peak summer levels -- at a time of year when the rainy season is usually ramping up."
Droughts and late starts to rainy seasons happen, with or without global warming. But climate change seems to have made these conditions more likely in the western United States, which would make this type of fire more likely.
Strong downslope winds propelled the Camp Fire, but those winds often happen this time of year. Had moisture been close to normal the winds wouldn't have been a big deal in a damp forest.
"Unusually dry conditions have prevailed in the Santa Monicas during recent years. Based on rainfall totals since 1877, 11 out of the last 15 years have seen below average rains. During the 2006-2007 season, only 3.21 inches of rain fell, the lowest ever recorded."
Climate change tends to make things hotter and drier in areas like California. Scientists are also increasingly embracing one effect that climate change seems to be having: That of a "stuck" jet stream
I'vementioned this idea in this blog before,but to review: The jet stream, which is a river of high speed air, steers weather systems, mostly west to east across the Northern Hemisphere. A healthy jet stream thrives on a very cold Arctic contrasting with hot tropics.
The Arctic is warming up much faster than the rest of the world, so that contrast is diminishing. The result seems to be a slower and wavier jet stream that is more likely to get "stuck" in position.
Abnormally strong northward bulges in the jet stream, like California had most of this year and New England and eastern Canada had this summer, create long lasting heat waves and often, droughts. Abnormally deep southward dips bring repeated shots of cold air southward, keeping areas strangely frigid, kind of like we in the Northeast have been going through in recent weeks.
Even a weak dip in the jet stream can cause havoc if it get's stuck too long. This summer. such a weak, stuck dip contributed to record rains in the Mid-Atlantic states. Bottom line: Stuck jet streams are bad, and could become even more likely as the planet warms. That could contribute to more and worse wildfires in some areas, epic floods in others.
TRUMP WAS (MOSTLY) WRONG WHEN HE BLAMED FOREST MANAGEMENT
Donald Trump surveying the fire destruction in Paradise, California.
He is mostly wrong when he attributes poor forest
management to the disaster.
OK, I'll give Donald Trump a little credit here before I start criticizing. In some areas, there's been a buildup of small saplings, brush and other things on the forest floor that can make fires more intense and more likely.
That's why there's been an increase in "controlled burns" which are intentionally set and watched when there's little danger of them becoming catastrophes.
Trump's Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, blamed the wildfires out west on lefty environmentalists:
He said: "Every year we watch our forests burn, and every year there is a call for action. Yet, when action comes, and we try to thin forests of dead and dying timber, or we try to sustainably harvest timber from dense and fire-prone areas, we are attacked with frivolous litigation from radical environmentalists who would rather see forests and communities burn than see a logger in the woods."
First of all, that's insulting. I can't imagine even the most radical environmentalists experiencing any joy or satisfaction about the extreme loss of life and destruction from the recent wildfires.
Zinke is also on shaky factual ground. As the New York Times points out, Zinke is right that there are a lot of dead and dying trees in California. Drought and heat contributed to that. So did an influx of devastating insects that survive better in hotter climates. However, it's not the dead and dying trees that catch fire so easily. At least initially.
They're too big. When you start your fireplace, you don't hold a match to a big log and expect it burn. You start with small stuff, kindling, and work your way up. Forest fires work that way, too.
Besides, when you thin a forest, you risk creating an explosion of highly flammable weeds and shrubs on the forest floor. Fewer trees mean less shade, and these kinds of plants can thrive.
As the New York Times notes, thinning of forests in California leads to the growth of something called cheatgrass, which is highly flammable when it dries out.
On the edge of Paradise, California, which was destroyed in the wildfire, forest thinning happened about a decade ago. When the fires started earlier this month, there was plenty of cheatgrass there to burn.
The poor forest management argument really falls apart when we're talking about southern California.
The fires in southern California burned through chaparral, brush, grass and whatnot. There are no forests to speak of to burn around Malibu and Thousand Oaks. You can't mismanage a non-existent forest.
This lack of grace and knowledge by the President certainly ticked some people off
"Mr. President, with all due respect, you are wrong. the fires in So. Cal are urban interface fires and have NOTHING to do with forest management. Come to SoCal and learn the facts & help the victims Scott Austin, Pres IAFF 809."
Brush fires have always been a real risk in southern California during the autumn. The stuff that grew during the previous winter and early spring rain season has always dried out by autumm. You've heard the song "It Never Rains In Southern California." The song is right, at least until usually December of so.
COUGHING IN THE SMOKE, OR WORSE
Air quality was dangerously bad during the Camp Fire as smoke spread
through the San Francisco bay area and much of northern and
central California. Photo by Eric Rosberg/AP
There are plenty of victims dealing with the Camp Fire whose homes were untouched and who live dozens or even hundreds of miles from the wildfire zone.
This air pollution is yet another example of how fires, likely made worse by climate change, can affect so many unsuspecting people.
The smoke is regarded as "particulate" pollution. The smoke consists of tiny particles that can embed themselves in people's lungs, causing current health problems in people exposed to the smoke. This mostly effects the elderly, children and people with existing respiratory ailments. People will continue to get sick a couple weeks after the smoke clears, but these immediate effects will wane.
However, the long term health effects of breathing all this thick smoke are not entirely known, says NBC News:
"Longer-term impacts of such exposure, meanwhile, are little understood. Few studies have been conducted to track the helath of people months, and years, after they have been exposed to high concentrations of 'particulate' pollution. The emissions are similar to toxic particles released with the burning of fossil fuels. But fire fumes could pose an additional risk, because they include chemicals released when homes and cars - and their attendant insulation, plastic and metal - burn."
Of course, the vast majority of the smoke consists of burned grass, trees and brush, not human-created chemicals, so that's vaguely a good thing, I suppose.
We do know that long term exposure from smoke from things like wildfires increased the rates of chronic bronchitis, reduced lung function, lung cancer and heart disease, but I don't exactly know how you define "long-term."
I'm guessing a few days of such pollution isn't all that bad in the long term, but if this kind of thing keeps happening, and people are repeatedly exposed to weeks of wildfire smoke, we might start to see some real long term effects. It won't be as bad as somebody who has smoked a pack of cigarettes each day for decades, but it still won't be great.
WHY COULDN'T PEOPLE ESCAPE?
Desperate people fled on foot after cars became stuck on
congestion roads during the chaotic evacuation from the
Camp Fire in Paradise, California.
Photo by Randy Vazquez/Bay Area News Group.
As KQED reported, the town of Paradise had a detailed evacuation plan in case of a wildfire. In 2008, two wildfires burned right up to the edge of the community.
That prompted the municipal government to draft an evacutation plan. Some neighborhood residents fleeing a fire would drive down certain roads, others would drive out of danger using different routes.
The community even held a mock evacuation during the morning rush hour, to mimic crowded roads in the middle of an emergency.
In this case, the best laid plans failed to work. People who were trying to flee got stuck on gridlocked roads. Panicked people got out of their cars and tried to flee on foot. Most of those made it. Some didn't. A number of people burned to death in their cars.
You'd think a good plan in a fire-conscious community like Paradise would go better than this. The problem was, all 27,000 residents tried to flee at once. The fire came on so strong, so fast, so extensively, that everybody had to leave at once. It wasn't what was planned, what normally happens.
One neighborhood is threatened, so people there flee. The fire moves on, threatening another housing development, so those people go.
"I think their plan would have worked for the 97th percentile fire," Bill Stewart, co-directorof the Berkel Forests Program at UC Berkeleu told the Los Angeles Times. "It would have worked if they had six hours to move, instead of two."
Nobody planned on fires being this quick, this explosive, this fast-moving. It just wasn't within the realm of imagination. That had tragic results. This, perhaps is related to the climate change problem I discussed earlier.
Climate change is the present and future. But what happened in Paradise is also a legacy of history. The roads in the area were laid out by gold miners and railroads decades or a century or more ago. The roads were designed to weave their way through canyons, hills and ridges to access minerals, not evacuate lots of people in an emergency.
That said, there were plenty of heroes.
PEOPLE COME THROUGH, BIG TIME
Nurse Allyn Pierce drove through Paradise, California wildfires
repeatedly to evacuate people. The truck (left) was scorched and
melted after the fire. Toyota Motor Company heard about
Pierce's bravery and gave him a new truck (right).
As always in these mega disasters, real heroes emerged. There's too many to cite here, but I'll offer some examples. There's the bus driver who somehow got 20 kids about of a Paradise elementary school and drove through the flames to get them out.
The kids were choking on the smoke, so he too, off his t-shirt. He and teachers aboard the bus tore the shirt into little pieces, soaked them in water and put the wet pieces of cloth over the kids' mouths to protect them from the smoke.
The Toyota Motor Company got wind of this and will give Pierce a new truck, gratis. Small gesture in the grand scheme of the tragedy, but it makes me and everybody else feel good, so it's exactly what was needed.
People far from the fire zone stepped up, too, sometimes in surprising ways.
The other day,Peter Sagal (Host of "Wait, Wait! Don't Tell Me! on NPR) tweeted, "People are strange, sometimes in delightful ways."
Sagal was referring to the actor James Woods. Woods had basically turned himself in recent years into a particularly annoyingpro-Trump Twitter troll.
Then the California fires flared up this month. Woods turned his Twitter account into this unending emergency response and relief effort. Woods tweeted day and night, forwarding pleas for help from fire victims and sending those who wanted to help in the right direction to the right people.
I was impressed. As were many others. As is I guess human nature during catastrophes, Woods rightly abandoned political ideology and just reached out to help. One of the people he helped was the actressAlyssa Milano.
Milano had been evacuated from her southern California home by the wildfires, but she needed help getting her horses out of harm's way.
Woods and Milano are polar opposites, politically, and I'm sure they've had negative things to say to one another. But the two cooperated, the horses are safe and everybody's that much happier.
THEN THERE ARE THE IDIOTS
Of course, there are a few idiots that always make things worse. We got into it a little bit with Trump and his minions. But of course there are worse people.
Again, there are too many to do an exhaustive review, but on the bright side there seems to be far fewer villians than heroes.
One example would be Dave Johnson, the GOP chair of Columbiana County, Ohio. Earlier this month, he posted to social media images of the fire with the message "God's Punishment to Liberal California." Another message on the photo said: "Hell on Earth, brought to you by the liberals in California."
Frankly, as a gay guy, I'm a bit relieved by this. The "religious" right, if you can call them that, have long blamed the gays for every single disaster that has ever befallen the world. As if somebody like me had that much power.
Now, they've broaden the blame out, so it's anybody who's liberal who's to blame. Funny, I don't see any footage of Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezrampaging through California as evil arsonists, but what do I know?
Johnson deleted his posts after a public outcry.
NOW THE RAINS COME
The rain started in northern California this past week. As of today, one to two inches of rain has fallen on the fire area, and a lot more is on the way. The rain has cleared nuch of the smoke, tamped own remaining fire and is preventing new ones from starting.
With steep hillsides stripped bare by the fires and even underground tree roots incinerated, there's not much to hold the soil in place. We're at the start of the California rainy season, so for the next several months we'll have to worry about more devastation from mudslides and debris flows in areas where the fires burned over.
Especially in northern California, where it's cooler, little or no new vegetation will start growing until next spring. It's going to be a dangerous winter.
Now, some videos.
Here's a video tour of the Paradise area. Notice how hit and miss things were:
This is an intense video of a father and sons trying to get out of Paradise after the fire. They're trying to hold it together as they think they're out of danger, then they're back in danger, then out, then in.
You can hear the extreme relief at the end when they begin to emerge from the darkness
and see blue sky up ahead, meaning they were finally safe:
Here's an absolutely heartbreaking CBS Morning News report of a woman, a nurse at the local hospital, who didn't think she'd make it out alive, but somehow did. However, her father's house
is just ashes now, and that father is missing.
A dangerously icy staircase. Watch out overnight and
Sunday for ice underfoot as freezing rain and
then a thaw will make things slick underfoot
That just-ending cold wave here in Vermont and the rest of the Northeast keeps getting more impressive, in terms of new records set.
The record low in Burlington, Vermont of 1 below on Friday was the earliest subzero reading in the record books, which date back at least to the 1880s. The previous earliest subzero reading was on November 25, 1938.
That is quite a record to set given the overall climate is a little warmer than it was decades ago.
Plattsburgh, New York had a record low of 5 below and Saranac Lake, NY chilled our hearts with 20 below.
Temperatures are still expected to get to near or above freezing this afternoon, to the record cold is over. Although we'll have chilly spells, there's no sign of bitter Arctic air returning at least through early December.
The price we'll have to pay for this warmup is ice. Rain will start spreading into northern New York late this afternoon and into Vermont this evening and continue overnight. Temperatures will be within a few degrees either side of 32 degrees overnight statewide, so that means freezing rain will be a problem.
Ice accumulation on trees and such won't be enough to bring down branches and power lines, but will be more than enough to create dangerous driving conditions overnight.
Air temperatures will probably stay a little above freezing overnight in the Champlain Valley, which is why there's no weather alerts. But it's been so cold lately that rain will freeze on untreated surfaces even with "balmy" air. Pavement, sidewalks and such have been chilled to below freezing and it will take awhile for all that to warm up.
We're not even completely out of the woods Sunday afternoon. It will be thawing, and light rain will be drawing to a close. But hard-packed snow on driveways and walkways tends to turn into an especially slick type of ice under these conditions, so if you like falls and broken bones, I guess it will be your day. Be careful!
Another stronger storm that will cause a winter snowstorm from Nebraska through Iowa and on up into Michigan will affect us in New England Monday. It'll be mostly a cold rain here, with some snow mixed in, especially in the higher elevations and in the Northeast Kingdom, on up into northern New Hampshire and northern Maine.
The remains of the storm will linger into midweek, with lots of snow showers around then, mixed with cold raindrops in the valleys. That's actually pretty typical weather for the close of November
Lots of steam billows from the McNeil Woodfired Electric generating plant
in Burlington, Vermont as temperatures sank to record lows this morning.
Boy, this Thanksgiving cold wave really is one for the record books here in New England.
I have to go back to, I think, to late November and early December 1989 to find a cold snap of this early season intensity.
Lots of record lows were set. Particularly record low daily "high" temperatures for the date. Burlington, Vermont only reached a so-called high temperature of 14 degrees on Thanksgiving. The previous record low high for the date was 22 degrees, so we shattered that record.
Other record low "highs" were 14 in Plattsburgh and an astonishingly chilly 8 degrees in Montpelier. Back in Burlington, it was the coldest Thanksgiving Day on record, too. The previous record was 19 on November 24, 1938.
Morning record lows on Thanksgiving in southern New England included 7 in Worcester, Massachusetts, 9 in Hartford, Connecticut and Providence was 15 degrees.
Worcester, with a maximum reading Thursday of 16 degrees and Hartford, at 21 degrees, set all time records for the coldest maximum temperature of any November day on record. Portland, Maine also had it's coldest November high temperature on record.
More record lows are being set this morning. Overnight it was 19 below in Saranac Lake, New York. Burlington, Vermont has so far gotten to 1 above, exceeding the record low for the date, which had been 2 above.
Also this morning, Albany, New York had a new record low of 4 above, Glens Falls had a record low of 3 and Poughkeepsie had a record low of 6.
It will warm up to seasonable levels over the weekend. Today will still be super cold, but not as bad as yesterday.
We do have to be careful with this warmup later Saturday and Saturday night. Rain is expected to move in to northern New England, but the ground got so cold during this bitter snap that rain might freeze to pavement and other surfaces even if the air temperature is a bit above freezing. I suspect the National Weather Service might issue winter weather advisories for parts of the region Saturday night.
We will get our thaw, amid periodic rain Sunday and Monday, so some or even much of the snow in the valleys will melt.
But it's back to "Snovember" Tuesday and Wednesday as snow and snow showers move in. At least during next week, it won't be nearly as cold as it's been in the past couple days.
WARM ELSEWHERE
Yearly temperature departure from normal of Octobers on
Planet Earth since 1880. Blue is cooler than normal, red is
warmer than normal. Notice a trend?
New England yesterday was the coldest place on the planet, if you are looking at how far everyone's temperature was below or above normal. In fact, most of the world was warmer than normal yesterday.
New England has been pretty much trapped in generally cooler than normal conditions since the second half of October, but that certainly hasn't been the case for most of Planet Earth.
October overall was the second warmest on record for the world, according to NOAA's Centers for Environmental Information. Only 2015 was warmer. The only places that were chilly were central and eastern Canada, parts of the northern United States, and to a lesser extent, China.
The hottest places in October, relative to average, were Siberia and Alaska. Go figure.
So far, January through October, 2018 is the fourth hottest year on record. The previous three years, 2015-2017 were the only years that were toastier for the Earth as a whole.
Yes, it's cold this week in eastern North America (blue shading) But it's warm in much of the rest of the world (orange). Donald Trunp would have you scoff that the northeastern U.S. cold disproves climate change. Don't believe it He's either dumb, lying or gaslighting.
Yes, I'm partisan, but I just have to comment on yet another Donald Trump tweet.
Last night he said on Twitter: "Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS - Whatever happened to Global Warming?"
I'm not sure why Trump is obsessed with improperly placed capital letters but I'll leave the argument for another day, or just call the grammar police.
He's done this kind of false climate tweet before but it still irks me.
For the record: Yes, anybody who steps outside this morning and the rest of today anywhere in the Northeast knows it's friggin' cold outside. Awful. Some record low temperatures for the date will be set, if they haven't been set already.
I'm in Rutland, Vermont this morning and the temperature as I write this is 1 below zero. Being originally from Rutland, I don't remember the last time it was below zero this early in the season.
So yes, it's quite a cold wave. But no. ALL RECORDS, as Trump put it, won't be shattered. There have certainly been worse cold spells than today's. This is not an extended "Cold Blast." It started yesterday evening and will be over with by Friday night. That's a pretty brief cold spell, all things considered.
Most importantly, and we have to say this over and over again: A cold spell in one corner of the world tells us absolutely nothing about global warming, one way or another. I think even the most ardent ciimate change skeptics would tell you that. So would so-called climate change alarmists.
The immediate cause of this cold snap is a well placed, sharp southward dip in the jet stream. Most often, cold waves come down from Canada across the northern Great Plains then move eastward. The air warms up a little bit by the time it gets to the Northeast. That means places like here in Vermont get cold, but not unreasonably so.
This time, the jet stream aligned so that we got a straight shot of Arctic air coming down from near the North Pole, then across snow- covered Quebec and Ontario and down on us. There wasn't really time for the air to modify on its trip south.
The air had even less time to get warmer than it otherwise would because strong winds between high pressure in Ontario and western Quebec and low pressure in eastern Quebec propelled the bitter air quickly down on New England.
As for why the jet stream and other weather systems aligned themselves this way to give us this cold shot, who knows? I suppose one could make an argument that climate change is making the jet stream screwy, creating extreme weather events like this cold wave. But I have no way of knowing that.
Likely, this cold wave is just a random, chance event. A fluke. Climate change doesn't cancel out a lot of the natural variability of weather. Remember, weather is akin to a person's mood. Climate is like a guy or gal's personality.
A mood, and weather is transitory. Climate, and personality are a long term thing.
If this cold wave is a sign that there's an absense of global warming, as Trump suggests, how do you explain the record heat that gripped the Northeast this past July? Again, a heat wave in one corner of the world does not tell you much about climate change.
But by Trump's logic, there must have been intense global warming last summer, but a new ice age now in November. See? He's making absolutely no sense.
By the way, as we shiver here in the northeastern United States and eastern Canada, much of the world is pretty warm this week. As the map above in this post shows, forecasts for the current week we're in does show some pretty cold air over the eastern half of Canada and the northeastern United States.
It also shows it to be vaguely chilly in central South America and in a few areas of Europe. But look at all the orange, which signifies above normal temperatures. The majority of places are quite warm, including western North America, most of Africa and Asia, Antarctica and the Arctic, particularly Greenland.
One week in one year of the world's weather doesn't prove or disprove climate change either. But at least by taking the whole globe into account, it shows that what happens in the Northeastern United States doesn't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things.
I suspect Trump knows all this. He's gaslighting us again, because that's what he does. He sows doubt and division and makes us question reality by inventing "alternative realities"
We really just need to keep relying on the experts and let them inform us. Question the experts, yes. Challenge them. Ask for evidence. Don't take them at their word. But if there's a convincing argument, like there is from the scientists on climate change, we need to pay attention.
The world might depend on it. Meanwhile, somebody really needs to hide Donald Trump's phone.
Don't be these people. A snow squall caused this pileup in Pennsylvania last year. One person died and several were injured. If snow squalls threaten, be very careful on the highways, or better yet postpone travel until after thd squall passes.
Some of what you're reading here today is similar what you saw yesterday, but it bears repeating: Watch out for those snow squalls today!
I get nervous when snow squalls are coming in, especially on a busy travel day like this, the day before Thanksgiving. They are a recipe for highway pileups.
As I've said before, when a snow squall arrives things instantly on the highway go from dry and clear to no visibility in blinding snow and suddenly icy roads.
All those cars and trucks screaming down the highway at top speed tend to smash into each other when then encounter snow squalls and the result is those big awful and often tragic multi-vehicle pileups you often read about in the winter.
The National Weather Service in South Burlington already has aspecial weather statement out alerting us to the possibilit of snow squalls today. Some lighter snow showers had already worked into northern New York and far northwestern Vermont by 7:30 a.m. this morning.
The NWS office will likely issue snow squall warnings for specific areas during the course of today. If you hear such a warning for your area, try to delay travel until the squall passes. You don't want to be caught out in those things.
If you're already on the road, do what I plan to do. If you see a squall coming at you or you get a warning, pull off the highway into a safe place. Much like summer thunderstorms, snow squalls are intense, but almost never last long. Let it blow over, then carefully get back on the roads.
Those roads will be icy, but at least visibility will have improved once the squall passes. And what I call the Salt Shakers, those state highway trucks, usually appear right after squalls to plow and put down grit to make the roads safer.
Just as in summer thunderstorms, not everyone will get a snow squall today. But they will be numerous enough to be a concern. Since squalls don't last long, most places will only get one to three inches of snow today.
Generally speaking, the snow squalls today are most likely late this morning across northern New York and from noon to perhaps 4 p.m or a little after in Vermont. The rest of New England can expect scattered snow squalls into this evening.
As today's National Weather Service snow accumulation forecast map shows, most of us will only get 1-3 inches of snow today, but most of that will come down in short, very heavy bursts during snow squalls.
Still, that continues the trend of this year's "Snovember." While not breaking any records to speak of, it's been much snowier than average.
Burlington, Vermont, for one example, has had 10.6 inches of snow so far this month. That puts us. 8.2 inches above normal for the month and 7.9 inches higher than average for so far in this young winter season. We're off to a good start in the snow department.
We're still expecting that intense, near record cold to come in tonight and Thanksgiving Day behind those snow squalls. As a reminder, Burlington's coldest Thankgiving had a high temperature of 19 degrees.
The current forecast has temperatures in Burlington fallling to around 16 degrees by midnight tonight and staying at or under that level until at least noon on Friday, so we have an excellent shot of experiencing our most frigid Thankgiving. Oh joy!
It's going to be pretty breezy tonight and tomorrow, too, so wind chills will be painful - certainly below zero. If you're brave enough to participate in one of those "Turkey Trots" the famous five or 10K local running races we have scattered about, either bundle up or blow it off. It's a bit dangerous
It's still looking somewhat warmer, but wetter going into the weekend and into the first part of next week. It'll be warm enough so that much of the precipitation will come down as rain in Vermont's valleys. At least that's the way it looks now. Stay tuned!
ABC News gives us this forecast for wind chills on
Thanksgiving Day. Ugh.
People might associate the words "cold turkey" with quitting smoking.
But this Thanksgiving, all you will want to do in New England is quit being outdoors.
We're setting up for what looks like the coldest Thanksgiving on record. Data is slightly hard to come by, because Thanksgiving comes on a different date every year. But people have compiled some of this, and it looks like it will at the very least be brutal.
Add in some gusty northwest winds, and it will be awful. By the way, if you're silly enough to be going to the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in New York, expect temperatures at parade time to be around 20 degrees.
Yeah, better watch that one on TV.
Nighttime lows might not a huge number of records over Thanksgiving as but daytime "highs" might.
CITY FORECAST HIGH RECORD LOWEST HIGH
New York 26 26 -- 11/28/1901
Boston 22 24 -- 11/28/1901
Providence, RI 22 28 -- 11/28/1996
Philadelphia 28 30 -- 11/28/1996
Burlington, VT 17 19 -- 11/24/1938
In some areas in the far north, say the Adirondacks, the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, northern New Hampshire and northern Maine, high temperatures might not crack 10 degrees.
By the way, for comparison's sake, the normal high temperature in Burlington this time of year is in the low 40s. In mid-January, in the depths of winter, normal highs are in the mid to upper 20s.
Before we get to the cold, we've got snowy Thanksgiving travel trouble to talk about. In most places, snow accumulations won't be all that much, but the snow will probably put a monkey wrench in some holiday travel.
Today, it's snowing lightly through much of New England, except in the far south, where a cold rain is coming down. A few places in areas like southern New Hampshire might get as much as four inches of new snow.
On Wednesday, the cold front that will bring in the brutal Thanksgiving cold will also touch off some snow squalls. Snow squalls are particularly dangerous on roads, where there will be a lot of traffic as people rush to get to their destinations.
Visibilities in snow squalls drop to nothing in an instant, and roads ice up just as quickly. I worry about the risk of some of those big pileups you see on the news when snow squalls hit. This risk is in effect throughout much of the Northeast tomorrow. That includes here in Vermont, folks.
The best guess for the timing of the snow squalls at this point is noon to 2 p.m. in the Champlain Valley and 2 to 5 p.m. in central and eastern Vermont.
Chances are we'll get a bit of a break from this winter siege toward Saturday and especially Sunday and Monday. The weather won't exactly be nice, and in fact will barely rise to normal levels. Conditions will also be unsettled Sunday and Monday, with a risk of rain and wet snow.
Early morning Black Friday is bad enough. Up here in Vermont, temperatures
will be near 0 Friday morning. No Black Friday sales for me, thanks!
It's not worth it.
As we head over the hill and through the woods, or something like that, to Thanksgiving feasts, we here in New England will feel like we're forgetting to bring the Christmas gifts.
That's because the week will have the wicked chill of deep winter, the kind you get around Christmas time, not the vaguely chilly but still reasonable air we're used to around Thanksgiving.
Plus, there will be small additions to the persistent early season snow cover, a snow cover that's not going away anytime soon.
Today will be the "hottest" day of the week, with temperatures in many valley locations actually sneaking a little above freezing for a time. It will still be ten degrees colder than normal for this time of year, but there you go. Enjoy today's "heat."
A sneaky but weak coastal storm will get going in southeastern New England tomorrow. It's no blockbuster, but still good for two to six inches of fresh powder across interior Massachusetts and Connecticut, southern New Hampshire and far southern Vermont. A couple favored locations could get up to eight inches in that neck of the woods.
Northern areas of New England could pick up an inch or two of fluff from some passing snow showers on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, it will be starting to turn colder yet as a strong Arctic cold front blusters in. Careful on the roads on that busy travel day: The cold front will be accompanied by snow showers that could easily slicken the roads and dump another one to three inches of snow on us.
Thanksgiving Day will be dry, but it will be one of the coldest Thanksgivings on record. Highs temperatures across most of Vermont and the rest of the North Country will only get to the teens, and lows that night will go down into the single digits either side of zero.
Which would be another of many good reasons not to go out to the Black Friday sales. Who the hell wants to wait outside in an intensely cold, dark, windy parking lot for big box stores to open? I'm sure some people do, but I'm staying away from that.
There are signs it will turn slighly warmer next weekend, but it won't be anything resembling an Indian Summer. It will just be less cold
