Storm Update: Lots Of Wind Still Coming, Lots Of Rain, Too. And Temperature Swings

Expected to p wind gusts with the upcoming storm. Widespread gusts
to 60 mph are expected in northern New York. The 45-50 mph
gusts in Vermont might be a little underdone in this map. There could
be local gusts to 60 mph or more in some downslope areas.

The forecast for the upcoming storm hasn't changed too much, but word to the wise: Charge up all your devices today.  Your power just might go out.

It was very mild and damp this morning ahead of the storm.  The temperature just before dawn in Burlington were at 58 degrees, not that far from normal for that time of day in July.

Most of us will stay very mild today as the storm approaches.  An exception might be parts of far northern Vermont and the St. Lawrence Valley of New York, where a stalled weather front is keeping things a little cooler. 

The drama comes in tonight with a steadier rain developing this afternoon while winds pick up this evening.  Channeling in the Champlain Valley will probably increase gusts to over 40 mph. Meanwhile, the western slopes of the Green Mountains are in for probably the hardest blow since the huge wind storm of October, 2017.

On some of those western slopes, winds tonight could gust to 70 mph, at least in a few locations.

The south winds will briefly pump very mild air into the region.  Amid the wind and rain this evening, temperatures in much of Vermont will stay in the 60s.  Burlington has a shot of breaking the record high for the date, which is 69 degrees.

To our south, in a broad area of the Mid-Atlantic States, a powerful squall line is expected to develop. ahead of the cold front in this very warm, humid air.  That's expected to cause widespread damaging thunderstorm winds and scattered tornadoes.  Some forecasters think a couple of the tornadoes down there could be rather strong.

There will be a lot of power outages and trees down from Pennsylvania and New Jersey down to the Carolinas.

We here in Vermont are north of the worst of that squall line. However, in this type of autumn storm, a thin squall line can develop along or just ahead of the cold front. The National Weather Service in South Burlington says computer models suggest such a thing happening overnight.

As windy as it will be down here in most places near the surface, winds will be absolutely screaming at hurricane force perhaps several thousand feet overhead.  This thin line of storms can in places "grab" some of those high level winds and bring them to the surface. In a few spots, this squall line will then cause some brief damaging wind gusts.

I think for many if not most of us, the strongest winds will come with that squall line/cold front. The strong winds with the front won't last long, but they'll pack a punch.

The wind is really coming from everywhere with this storm isn't it?  After the cold front goes by early tomorrow morning, temperatures will really crash. Readings are likely to fall 15 to 20 degrees within an hour or two after the cold front passes.

After the front, strong southwest winds will get going. It'll be the worst up in New York's St. Lawrence Valley and parts of the Adirondacks, where many gusts will probably go over 60 mph there. A high wind warning is up for that region.

In Vermont, winds will be a bit lighter, but still strong.  There will probably be gusts to over 50 mph in lots of places, with a continued risk of power outages. Winds could gust as high as 60 mph in some of the eastern slopes of the Green Mountains.

We're still expecting a lot of rain tonight from this storm.  Almost everybody will see one to two inches of rain, with a few spots getting more than that. Minor flooding is still expected along some rivers, and a flood watch is still in effect.

This kind of strong storm is relatively common in the fall, especially in October and November in the Great Lakes and Northeast.  It's an example of the "gales of November" illustrated in the  famous song "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald." It's about a fatal shipwreck on Lake Superior during a savage 1975 storm.

In some ways, I am looking forward to tonight's storm. Not that I want damage and power outages and such. It's Halloween, so it will be an appropriately dark and stormy night, as they say.  There will probably be lots of creepy noises in the wind.

To get you in the mood for tonight, here's what I think is the perfect musical accompanyment for such a stormy night:

Two Very Different Style Windstorms To Affect Vermont, California

Widespread rainfall of near two inches is expected with the
upcoming windy storm Thursday into Friday.

This is essentially an update to yesterday's post, with more details about a pretty stiff storm about to sock us here in Vermont, and a nearly unprecedented wind event (and possibly fire event coming to southern California today.

Let's start locally.  It's already been breezy in parts of Vermont, especially the Champlain Valley, as I drove through a blizzard of falling leaves amid 30 mph wind gusts.

That's just a foretaste of what's to come.  Yep, we are going to get a lot of rain and wind.  There's a risk of both flooding and damaging winds Thursday night and Friday in and around Vermont.

I suppose way out ahead of the main storm there could be a couple light showers this afternoon, but they're nothing to worry about. 

The main show arrives tomorrow. At first, it'll just be showers, but a steady rain will move in during the afternoon as winds increase.

It's tricky to predict how strong winds will get while it's raining.  There will be strong winds aloft, but  rainfall can sometimes prevent those winds from mixing down to the surface.

There will be locally strong winds.  Meteorologists at the National Weather Service in South Burlington think channeling effects in the Champlain Valley could bring gusts to 45 mph there.

Worse, the southeast flow could bring strong downslope winds to the western slopes of the Green Mountains. There's definitely a risk of gusts in the 60 to 70 mph range, with maybe a couple locally higher gusts along the western slopes of the Green Mountains Thursday night.

That will be Round One of the wind. More on Round Two at the moment.

Between the wind and the rain, it's not going to be a great night for trick or treating. Overnight, this noisy storm will likely produce a lot of rain.  Most of the state should get one to two inches, with locally three inches possible.

We've had a lot of rain lately, so the soils are saturated. This amount of rain is probably enough to cause some flooding. It won't be an Irene-style epic flood, but even minor flooding is something to pay attention to.  People always tend to try to drive across flooded roads and that's such a bad idea.  This should be obvious, but whatever.

It seems the rivers most at risk of some flooding are the Mad and Winooski and Other Creek in Vermont and Ausable in New York.  But any water way could flood, and small streams could wash out dirt roads.

Newly fallen leaves can form little dams in streams. When these dams eventually break, you get rushes of water that can take out culverts or wreck gravel roads.

In urban areas, newly fallen leaves can can clog storm drains, too.  Needless to say, a flood watch is up pretty much region wide.

Friday morning, the storm's sharp cold front will whip through, which will shut off the heavy rain. (Lighter showers will continue here and there.)

This cold front opens the door for more strong winds, this time from the west.  Gusts in favored areas could reach 55 mph. Most of us will gust over 40 mph Friday.

Overall, there's already a high wind watch up in northwestern New York and those wind watches, warnings and advisories will almost certainly spread across most of Vermont.

Obviously, the large upcoming storm won't just affect Vermont.  The entire Northeast is due for a big blast of wind, rain and power outages with this storm. 

Not everybody will lose electricity, but there will be outages.  Make sure your devices are fully charged by Thursday evening, just in case.

CALIFORNIA WIND/FIRES

It seems like we've been talking about the California wildfires for weeks now, though it's only been days.

It also seems like every time we say this will be the worst day, an even worse day comes along. That's today in southern California.

Meteorologists are predicting one of the strongest Santa Ana winds on record in southern California. This will be combined with a relative humidity of well under 10 percent.  Santa Ana winds and fire weather occur every autumn in southern California, but not like this.

Every time there's a real fire risk, something called a red flag warning is issued.  This happens a lot in southern California in the autumn, so the National Weather Service in Los Angeles worried that people would just dismiss it as just another background noise weather alert.

To shake people out of their complacency, they're calling this one an Extreme Red Flag Warning. "Conditions are as dangerous for fire growth and behavior as we have seen in recent memory," the NWS warned. 

Unlike most Santa Ana wind events, the weather won't be particularly hot this time. Normally, the air rushing down the hills in Santa Ana winds compresses, which heats it up. The air mass triggering the winds is so cold that this warming won't be very pronounced.

Unfortunately, that doens't matter.  Between the winds gusting to 80 mph on the ridgelines and in some canyons and 60 to 70 mph elsewhere; and the relative humidity running in the single digits, you can imaging how fast a fire would spread.  I don't think any human could keep up with it.

So, millions of people in southern California are on edge, wondering if they will be the ones who have to flee in a flash because of a fire.

The winds are so strong this time that even outside fire zones, the National Weather Service is saying people should stay out of forested areas and away from trees.  They could topple easily in such strong winds.

I guess we here in Vermont should count ourselves lucky that we're only going to get lowland flooding, a few toppled trees and power failures.

Spooky Halloween Storm To Step Vermont Down Closer To Winter (California Keeps Burning)

Fallen leaves in my St. Albans, Vermont yard.
The few remaining leaves on the trees will
probably come down Thursday and Friday
amid an expected rain and wind storm.

Every autumn, a strong storm comes along bringing a lot of precipitation and wind, and a pronounced step down toward winter.

Such a storm is coming for Halloween and on Friday, so get those winter jackets out! It won't be extremely cold after this storm goes by, but you'll notice the difference.

First, we have to get through this uncoming storm, which looks to be a bit of a doozy.

Today will be OK, with relatively mild temperatures and some sun in the western half of Vermont. Eastern Vermont will be cloudier.

Same is true Wednesday with only a slight chance of showers.

Thursday, Halloween, is when things start to get interesting. And it's bad news for trick or treaters, unless they're planning on dressing up as umbrellas or rain gauges or something.

It'll get showery and breezy Thursday as the storm's warm front arrives. Things will intensify Thursday night as a lot of moisture is likely to get sucked up from the Gulf of Mexico into this storm.

It's been wet lately, and it looks like we're in for another one or two inches of rain with this storm Thursday night and Friday. Some places will get even more than that. I think at least some minor flooding is a good possibility with this storm.

Overnight Thursday and into Friday morning will be perfectly spooky for the season with strong winds and occasionally heavy rains.  That makes for a noisy storm, and you'll hear eerie things outside, like the occasional small branch breaking,  shutters rattling, things blowing around in the yard, loose shed doors banging shut, that sort of thing.

We'll also have to look out for possibly damaging winds in some areas starting before dawn Friday and lasting much of the day. Details are iffy, but there could be some areas of downed branches, trees and power lines across most of Vermont and surrounding areas Friday.  I imagine a lot of gusts will be in the 50 mph range.

Saturated soft soil also makes it easier for trees to uproot in strong winds.

Behind the storm, we get into a sustained period of chilly weather.  Definitely not like anything we've seen since April. But it will be very typical of November.

Daytime highs starting Saturday and lasting well into next week will only reach the 40s, with lows in the upper 20s to mid 30s. It'll be unsettled, with scattered rain and snow showers around. Some of those snow showers will extend to valley floors, especially at night.  This chilly pattern might easily extend into the middle of November at least.

Deal with it, because at least the weather here is not as extreme as it is out west.

FRIGID ROCKIES, FIERY CALIFORNIA

The weather pattern that is bringing us the storm later this week and the colder air for the weekend is bringing bigger extremes to the west.

This pattern, which I told you about yesterday, features a big northward bulge in the jet stream in Alaska, and a sharp dip southward into the Rockies. Compact storms roll like bowling balls almost due southward into this dip, which have been bringing repeated snowfalls to the West.   Great Falls, Montana has already had more than 31 inches of snow this "winter" for instance.

Each of these "bowling balls" also bring batches of Arctic air.  A high mountain valley, at an elevation of around 8,000 feet, might have set a national record for the coldest October reading on record in the Lower 48. Peter Sinks, Utah got down to 34.7 below zero!  Brrrr!

Denver, Colorado, hasn't been any warmer than the low 20s since early Sunday morning and won't get warmer than that until Thursday.  A winter storm warning is up for the Denver area today, with six to 12 inches of snow in the forecast. Record lows of near zero area expected later this week.

That's way too early for me.

These "bowling ball" disturbances I've describing also increase the pressure gradient between the California coast and the Sierra Nevada mountains and other hills. That's what's been producing the Santa Ana winds in southern California, which has been causing those destructive fires.

It's only going to get worse over the next couple of days.  Santa Ana winds of 30 to 55 mph with gusts to 80 mph on the higher hills are producing another round of extreme fire risk later today through Friday. This is near record territory for the strength of the Santa Anas.

New and existing fires will spread like crazy.   Embers from these fires will fly long distances to start new fires.  Remember, these exceedingly dry winds have been going on and off for a month now, so it's made everything in southern California super arid.  This is NOT going to be a good couple of days there.

While Watching California Burn, Wishing We Could Send Vermont's Dreary Downpours To Them

Yesterday was as dreary a day as you can get in Vermont.

A foreboding, stormy, gloomy late autumn day Sunday
in my St. Albans, Vermont yard.

Stuck inside, I watched videos depicting parts of California burning amid arid, blowtorch gales. A few of the videos are at the bottom of this post.

 I also watched yet another drenching storm soak Vermont, keeping me from doing my outdoor autumn chores. It was a classic, dark, wet, foreboding late October day as we race toward winter.

I wished I could teleport all that rain and wetness to California.

Not that's it's been an ugly, awful month in Vermont. Quite the contrary.  We've had a lot of gorgeous days this autumn.  But the rainfall, especially in northern Vermont, is kind of impressive for October, which is normally a relatively dry month in Vermont.

A little over an inch of rain dropped into my unofficial rain gauge in St. Albans, Vermont, bringing the month's total to 6.4 inches. That surely must put us in the top 10 wettest list for Octobers. Again, we haven't had a lot of rainy days, really. It's just that this month, when it rains, it pours.

Burlington, Vermont so far has had less rain than right up along the Canadian border. The Queen City has had 5.14 inches as of last midnight. That doesn't place October in the top 10 wettest, but if the next storm comes early enough, on October 31, it could put this month in that top ten list.

The storminess here and the fires are related meteorologically. And climate change might have a hand in it.  When the Arctic is warm, it does seem the jet stream has more and bigger northward bulges and southward dips. And those patterns seem to get stuck.

This month, an enormous northward bulge in the jet stream has kept Alaska very toasty, at least by their standards.  What goes up must come down. So there's been a corresponding major dip in the jet stream into the Rockies and western Plains.

Which is why they've had some odd wintry cold fronts and snowstorms out in that neck of the woods.

The cold in the Rockies and the warmth in California has increased the pressure gradient between the West Coast warmth and Rockies cold.  Bigger pressure gradients mean more wind, which is in part why these periods of very gusty, dry downslope winds have brought fires to California.

That dip in the jet stream means there's a corresponding northward bulge further east, off the East Coast.  Which puts us Vermonters in a flow that comes from the southwest.  This arrangement allows storms to pull lots of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, so it rains hard.

Yet one more storm is coming along, as I said on Halloween and November 1.  Details are still sketchy, but there could be heavy rains and strong winds in and around Vermont with this one. We'll keep an eye on it.

Meanwhile, California keeps burning. The biggest danger today shifts toward the southern part of the state, especially near and north of Los Angeles. Already early this morning, a roaring wildfire developed near the 405 and Getty Center. It was rapidly spreading, a few houses were already on fire and there were hasty evacuations going on.

So the day doesn't look good at all in that region

Some videos:

A grass fire trapped cars on Interstate 5 near Sacramento. Some people had to run for their lives as their cars caught fire. Others looked for an escape route as traffic jammed amid the smoke and embers.

Here's somebody on that Sacramento freeway as the wildfire closes in, directing traffic onto a dirt side road that would help them escape the fire. Chaotic!



A dangerous fire developed in Vallejo, California, but firefighters eventually, somehow got the pper hand on it.  Here's what it looked like for awhile:



A home burning during the Kincade fire. Watch to near the end as a tree explodes dramatically overhead:

Dire Situation Unfolding In Northern California Wildfires Today

The Soda Rock Winery in Healdsburg, California in flames during
the Kincade fire this morning. Photo by Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images.

A lot of peoples worst fears are being realized in northern California today.

Wildfires, including the huge Kincade Fire, exploded overnight amid extreme Diablo winds gusting in some places past hurricane force, with relative humidities in the single digits. One wind gust of 91 mph was reported this morning near the Kincade fire.

This is about as extreme weather as you can get in wildfire situations, so it's sadly not surprising that things are falling apart quickly in northern California today.

The reporting from television station WPIX in the Bay Area early this morning is stunning.  Like this snippet of their reporting:

"By 3:30 a.m., a wall of fire ws rapidly approaching Windsor, triggering a frantic call from the Sonoma County Sheriff's department for residents - who had ignored a mandatory evacuation order Saturday, to flee now."

For some people, it might be too late to flee, which means I worry some people will die.  In the hard hit town of Geyserville, WPIX reported that high winds ahead of the fire toppled trees across roads, which would make a fast evacuation pretty much impossible. The WPIX reporter giving us this information was standing in front of the Soda Rock Winery, established in 1869 and during her report, fully engulfed in flames.

Seventy-nine structures, including 31 homes, have been confirmed destroyed, says KPIX. I'm sure that number will rise exponentially.

Evacuations ordered went out for a big chuck of Santa Rosa, Califoria, north of Highway 12 and west of Highway 101. By my reading of maps, that's roughly a quarter of the city of 175,000 people. The evacuations extend westward all the way westward to the Pacific Ocean, which makes me think officials think the out of control fire will race to the beach, too strong for anybody to stop it.

This Santa Rosa situation is particularly painful as that city was ravaged by a wildfire just two years ago that  killed 22 people and destroyed more than 4,600 homes.

People whose houses survived the 2017 Santa Rosa fire, or are just moving into rebuilt ones, are understandably traumatized, the Mercury News reports. 

In all, 90,000 people have been evacuated so far, and you can imagine the logistical nightmare that would entail

The Kincade fire started early this past week and was less than 15 percent contained when the winds whipped up this morning. It was breaking through those containment lines, with flames more than 100 feet tall torching trees on ridgetops.  Hot embers are flying in the wind well in advance of the main fire, causing spot fires that are rapidly growing.

Meanwhile, the fire risk, already high in southern California, will go to an extremely critical risk in some areas near Los Angeles tomorrow.  Extremely critical risk, like the one in northern California today, is the highest level of alert for wildfires. It's like a Category 5 hurricane, as compared to a Category 1 type. In other words, much, much worse.

Videos:

Terrifying video from the Los Angeles Times. Turn up the volume. Just the sound is incredible:


Here's the Soda Rock Winery in flames:

Vermont Weekend Half And Half; Dangerous Weather Elsewhere

Welcome to the weekend.

A gloomy day last December in Burlington, Vermont. We're heading into
the cloudiest time of year. After a relatively nice Saturday, we'll
have a rather stormy dank Sunday, followed by unsettled weather
through most of the upcoming week.

Here in Vermont, today's weather will be OK, with some sunshine, but if you have outdoor plans Sunday, you might as well pretty much forget it. That's thanks in large part to ex-tropical storm Olga.

Olga formed briefly in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday before being quickly overtaken by a strong cold front, turning this thing into an ordinary, but still rather potent storm. 

It brought damaging tornadoes Friday around Mobile, Alabama and severe thunderstorms elsewhere in the South. Strong winds caused quite a few power failures in and around New Orleans, Louisiana.

Ex-Olga will make a beeline into Michigan by Sunday morning, bringing a good batch of good old Gulf of Mexico moisture with it.  That means a pretty nasty day Sunday with wind, rain and chilly temperatures.

Now, it won't be extreme for the end of October, but not as pleasant as we've gotten used to. Most places in Vermont will get an inch of rain or a little less than that, so flooding isn't a big worry.  Most of the strongest winds will be limited to the mountains, but it will be gusty pretty much everywheere. There might be a few power issues, but nothing widespread.

In some of the higher elevations to the north especially, the National Weather Service in South Burlington says the storm might start with some wet snow flakes early Sunday morning before changing to rain. Yes, it's that time of year.

Later on Sunday, the rain might become a little more showery, but it will still be damp. Unsettled weather will continue most of next week. We are getting toward the cloudiest time of year in Vermont, which is November and December, so we have to expect that.

CALIFORNIA FIRES UPDATE

In Vermont, Sunday's weather will be merely unpleasant. In much of California, it will be scary and dangerous.

The weather of late has favored conditions that have made for some destructive wildfires.  On Sunday, things will go to a whole other level in northern California.

National Weather Service meteorologists in the Bay Area warn of a  "long duration and potentially extreme/historic event across the North Bay."

Even by California standards, the fire risk is off the charts Sunday with winds gusting to 55 mph in the low elevations and up to 80 mph up high. Combined with very low humidity, this is a recipe for disaster if any fires get going, or if the wind whips up existing fires.

If things go well, it will just be windy. If things go badly, this has the makings of destructive wildfires chewing up swaths of neighborhoods and towns, like what happened in Santa Rosa in 2017 (44 deaths) and Paradise, California last year (more than 80 deaths.)

Southern California, already hit by wildfires this year, is also at risk.

Pacific Gas & Electric, which has been cutting power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses during periods of high fire risk, will likely step it up even more Sunday, possibly cutting power to more than 2 million people.

Even without any fires, that's a huge impact in and of itself.

California Fires, Texas Snow: Another Oddball Week

Amarillo, Texas got its first snowfall of the season yesterday, before
we in Vermont have gotten anything substantial

So far this week, I've talked about, among other things, wildfires in California and the prospects for snow, or lack thereof in the near future here in Vermont.

Today, the news is still full of wildfires and snow.

I'll start with the less disastrous stuff first.  Texas and Oklahoma have managed to get a bunch of snow before we here in Vermont have gotten any.  Yes, it's snowed on the peaks of the Green Mountains, but most of us Vermonters have not seen anything yet.  

Boy, the Texas Panhandle sure did, though. Amarillo, Texas picked up 2.6 inches of snow. It occasionally fell heavily, with thunder and lightning, winds gusting past 40 mph and occasional near whiteout conditions. A town in far western Oklahoma reportedly picked up nine inches.

Snow in the Texas Panhandles is of course rare this time of year, but not unheard of. As CNN reports, Amarillo once got measureable snow as early as September 29, 1984. The earliest one inch or greater snow there was on October 15, 1970.

Amarillo sits at about 3,600 feet in elevation. So somewhat like mile-high Denver, Colorado, it is often hot and dry, but under certain conditions the relatively high elevation can bring enough cold for seemingly out of season snows.

CALIFORNIA FIRES

People fleeing through fire and live ashes during wildfires
in northern California on Thursday.

The big news is how things are going from bad to worse in California. A fast-spreading blaze broke out in the hills above the California wine country, north of San Francisco late Wednesday or early Thursday.

That fire has destroyed an as yet undetermined number of homes. KQED says CalFire is estimating 49 structures lost so far. About 2,000 people have been evacuated.

Winds have temporarily died down in northern California, but the worst is yet to come. Over the weekend, extremely strong winds and low humidity will make for a critical fire risk.  Winds could gust to over 45 mph in the valleys and 75 mph in the mountains.   This is certainly a recipe for disaster.  The conditions will be similar to 2017, when a wildfire chewed through a large section of Santa Rosa, California.  
 
Pacific Gas & Electric, which cut power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses to help prevent fires from falling power lines, plans to do so again on a larger scale this weekend. The thought is if the wind breaks power lines, they won't cause fires because no electricity will be flowing.

In southern California, another fire, called the Tick Fire, is burning through canyons north of Los Angeles. It kept spreading early this morning amid gusty winds and jumped the 14 Freeway, prompting more evacuations. Several buildings have burned and the fire is far from contained.

The chances of high winds this weekend are slightly less in southern California than in northern parts of the state, but the risk is still real.  It's turning out to be another ugly fire season in California.

No Snow In Forecast, But Now's The Time We Can Start Getting It

A bit of snow in my St. Albans, Vermont yard one year ago today.
No snow in the forecast for the next few days, but it's surely coming.

On this date last year - October 24 - it snowed a little in most of northern Vermont.

It wasn't much in most places.  I got about an inch in St. Albans and a some places in the Northeast Kingdom picked up a few inches.

Though no snow is in the forecast for the next few days, last year's events are a reminder. Time to get the snow tires on, as we can get winter weather at any time now.

Vermont does have a history of October snows, some of them pretty substantial. And some of them came earlier than this.

I turn to the Vermont Weather Book by David Ludlum for examples. Details are sketchy on one the biggest Vermont October snowstorm on record because it happened so long ago. But on October 9, 1804 a moisture-rich hurricane swept up from the south.

A very cold air mass was in place over interior New England, so a lot of this came down as snow. Some places got a foot and a half of snow, with major tree damage because leaves were still on.

In modern times, nothing can beat the epic snow on October 4, 1987.  More than 18 inches of snow fell on southwestern Vermont and adjacent parts of Massachusettts and New York, including in the Albany, New York area.

 Totals of more than six inches extended through most of Vermont, except the Champlain Valley.

Wild scene in Bennington Vermont on October 4, 1987.

Of course in this instance, too, leaves were on the trees, so there was massive destruction and long power outages during the height of the fall foliage tourism season in Vermont.

Another biggie on October 10, 1925 dumped up to 18 inches of snow on the high elevations and up to a foot in the low and middle elevations of Vermont.

The storm was accompanied by high winds, so there was a lot of drifting. Road clearing wasn't great in those days and cars were relatively new.  Many got stuck in drifts up to five feet high. Some cars around Stowe were snowed in until the next spring.

Substantial October snowstorms also hit Vermont in 1933, 1969 and 1979. A few towns in southern Vermont got more than six inches of snow in the Octobers of 2005,  2011 and 2016.  The October 25, 2005 storm was particularly bad. Some leaves were still on the trees - it had been an otherwise warm autumn.  About 100,000 Vermont customers lost power, some for a week. Up to 14 inches of snow fell in Underhill.

So yeah, it can get wintry this time of year. It's just a matter of time before we get hit.

California Fires Loom Again. So Do Power Outages

Believe it or not, firefighters were able to save all of these homes
in Pacific Palisades, California during  a brush fire Monday.
Image from ABC 7

It's the peak of the California fire season, and they're not getting a break. Not this week.

Intense Santa Ana winds are forecast to whip up today and especially tomorrow and Friday,  causing a big risk of explosive brush fires that can rip through neighborhoods in an instant.

There was already one close call Monday, when a fire in Pacific Palisades burned just feet from multi-million dollar hilltop mansions. Three homes burned in another fire in San Bernadino, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Pacific Gas & Electric once again plans to cut power to prevent falling power lines for arcing and causing fires. This of course is controversial.  On the one hand, it's preventing fires. On the other hand spending a couple days at least without power and inconvenient and very expensive for businesses.  

Earlier this month, PG&E cut power to 800,000 homes and businesses in an effort to prevent fires. This time, they're anticipating 200,000 power cuts, but that figure could change.  This is turning into an ugly new normal out there in California, isn't it?

During the last set of outages, there were still damaging wildfires, so it's hard to tell if the power outages helped or not.  One of the worst fires was caused by a garbage truck driver dumping burning trash on dry terrain, causing a fire that destroyed dozens of buildings.

Plus, as NPR points out, the last PG&E outage was not handled well. Their website crashed, call centers were overloaded and outage maps were not accurate.  We'll have to see how things go this week.

And no more burning garbage trucks, please.

Here's a video of the fire in Pacific Palisades on Monday. You can see how close the houses came to burning down. Firefighters were able to beat back the flames at the last second in some cases:

Weather Channel To Interview Presidential Candidates On Climate

The Weather Channel will interview nine presidential candidates
on the subject of climate change. 

The Weather Channel is wading into the politics of climate change.

The popular weather network will interview nine presidential candidates on the topic of climate change, according to the Associated Press.

Rather than  have a town hall style thing or a debate, which just usually devolves into "I'm better! I'm better!" the Weather Channel will conduct individual interviews.

However, Donald Trump declined to be interview.  He doesn't believe climate change is anything to worry about. Probably a Chinese hoax or something, he says.

Arguably the Democratic front runner, Joe Biden, wasn't interviewed. His campaign said the problem was scheduling conflicts, reports the AP.

Candidates will be interviewed at specific sites that highlight climate change.  For instance, Sen. Bernie Sanders will discuss the issue in a California town wrecked by wildfires. Sen. Kamala Harris will talk at a flood-prone spot along the Mississippi River.

The AP says all three Republican challengers to Trump agreed to interviews. They are Joe Walsh, Bill  Weld and Mark Sanford.

Besides Sanders and Harris, other Democratic candidates to be interveiwed are Sen Cory Booker, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke and Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

The Weather Channel admits that some people find the network a refuge from politics and might be dismayed by this series. But the network says a lot of viewers are interested in the subject.

I agree. I hope these are thoughtful interviews and I hope the journalists questioning the candidates don't let the politicians slide by with platitudes. The candidates  need to back up their statements and  reveal, as thoroughly as possible, their plans.

Climate change is finally becoming a big concern to voters and not a moment to soon.  It will be a major issue in the 2020 campaign, so kudos to the Weather Channel for doing this.

Dallas Tornado: Destructive Storm Odd For October, Not Unheard Of

One of last night's Dallas-area tornadoes
lit up by lightning. Photo by Billy Frank Watkins Jr.

A tornado struck the Dallas, Texas area last night, and apparently it was a very serious one.

Details were still somewhat sketchy early this morning, but news reports and social media videos showed a debris-strewn Interstate 35 with battered cars, a demolished Home Depot and dramatic video of what looked like a big tornado lit up by lightning and power flashes.

The tornado or tornadoes hit shortly after 9 p.m. last night in the northern sections of Dallas, near Love Field.

It was terrible timing for a tornado.  It was dark, so a lot of people would not be able to see it coming. (People seem to always want a visual cue of a tornado. They look for it at night, but then it's on top of them before they can see it and take shelter).

Plus, it was early enough that people were still out and about, perhaps driving home from dinner, a movie or a visit with friends.

As of this writing, there were several reports of injuries but so far no deaths.  Which is surprising. Traffic was heavy on freeways hit by the tornado.  The tornado's path took it through heavily developed neighborhoods consisting of large commercial buildings, apartments and densely packed single family houses.

Spring and early summer are the peak times annually for tornadoes, especially in Texas, but twisters can of course happen any time of year.

Sometimes, as is the case here, a potent storm can overwhelm the relative lack of heat and instability this time of year  to produce dangerous weather. In North Texas for instance, there is a big peak in tornados in the spring, followed by a lull during mid to late summer.

As autumn arrives, storm systems get stronger, leading to a secondary peak in severe weather in parts of the country, including Texas. There aren't nearly as many tornadoes this time of year as in the spring but there is a slight upticik.

This particular system contributed to severe thunderstorms in Idaho Saturday. It moved on to cause widespread strong storms Sunday, not only near Dallas, but also through large sections of Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri.

Tornado watches and warnings continued this morning in western Tennessee. Terminals were evacuated at Memphis International Airport this morning amid tornado warnings and strong winds. People who were in the terminal reported damage, but the airport said the damage was relatively minor.

But the mess wasn't. Everyone had to go back through security to get to their flights. Long delays and cancellations were going on at the Memphis airport this morning.

A good chunk of the South is at risk for severe storms and possible tornadoes as we go through the day today.

This is also at least the third time this year that a heavily populated area has been hit by an especially dangerous nighttime tornado. Tornadoes caused a lot of destruction in the dark earlier this year in Jefferson City, Missouri and Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Here's a video of the large gornado near Love Field:



 A motorist stunned by the tornado afternmath on this Dallas-area freeway last night:

Climate: Worldwide Hot Times Continued In September

A picture of a hot world: September, 2019

Once again, and I'm sounding like a broken record, the world had a wicked hot month in September.

The latest word came out from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information this past week, and they said this September tied with 2015 as the hottest global September since good records got going somewhere in the late 1800s.

For those keeping score, all of the top 10 hottest Septembers have happened since 2005, and each of the last five Septembers were among the five hottest.

This, of course, is just another little addition to the mountain of evidence that overall, the world's climate is warming.

The year 2019 so far has been the second warmest on record. Only 2016 was toastier.

The warm trend has, of course been going on for decades now. If you're under the age of 34, you have never seen a global month that was cooler than average.

As always Arctic sea ice reached its minimum summer extent in September. It was tied with 2007 and 2016 as the second lowest season minimum on record. Of course these records only go back 41 years, but still.

You might recall that we here in Vermont didn't have a particularly warm September this year, but many places in the world obviously did.

The places that were warmest, relative to average, according to NOAA, were the northern and westernPacific Ocean, the south-central United States, northern Canada, much of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the Middle East,  northern China and a big chunk of Africa.

Semi-Tropical Storm Nestor: Weak On Paper, Nasty In Reality

Tropical Storm Nestor about to make landfall in northwestern Florida
this morning.

Tropical Storm Nestor, if you can call it that, is expected to make landfall in northwestern Florida today..

It doesn't at all look like a classic tropical storm. It looks more like just a regular old nasty batch of thunderstorms arranged in a comma shape. 

Top sustained winds  this morning were  a ho-hum 50 mph. It was even kind of hard to pick out its center of circulation, as it mostly consisted of rough weather to the north and east of the center. 

So on paper, Nestor is not much to worry about. In reality, though it's a pretty rough one.

It's coming ashore, as I said in northwestern Florida. The topography of the region is helping make the storm surge from Nestor worse than it otherwise would be, so flooding is a problem.

As you can see on a map, the coastline of western Florida makes an arc like a tilted, backwards "C" between Pananma City in the panhandle, and Tampa, halfway down the west coast.

Water is being driven from the southwest toward the northeast into this backwards "C".  That tends to shove and converge water into the middle of this curving coastline.  Which means Nestor is capable o storm surges of three to five feet above normal water levels.

Since much of this coastline is low and flat, water can definitely push inland past the beaches into homes and businesses. There was already a round of storm surge flooding last night, and there will be another one today.

Friction with land can also help make the disorganized storms with Nestor, creating tornadoes. There were already a couple last night, including one that sent debris flying across busy Interstate 4 near Lakeland Florida.

More tornadoes will probably touch down in Florida and Georgia today.

What's left of Nestor will move up over the eastern Carolinas today and tomorrow, then out ot sea.  It won't really affect Vermont much, except perhaps add a little moisture to a cold front coming in Tuesday night.

That cold front, and not Nestor, will be the main player for us here in Vermont. We'll get a decent slug of rain out of it but not nearly as much as we got from that nor'easter on Thursday. So the flood threat looks pretty low at this point

Nor'easter Recap: A Memorable Humdinger Could Have Been Worse

A road washout after heavy rains from yesterday's nor'easter near
Lincoln, Vermont. Photo from WPTZ-TV

It was damp and still a little gusty outdoors in St. Albans, Vermont when I let the dogs out before dawn, but the persistent and strong nor'easter is getting out of our  hair after creating a very, very storm New England day Thursday.

One surefire way to measure a storm's relative strength is to measure its lowest air pressure.  (Storms are always areas of lower pressure.  By this measure, Thursday's storm in many areas of New England was the strongest October one on record.) 

For instance, the pressure at Boston fell to 975.3 millibars or 28.80 inches.  That's a very low pressure, and is something you might get if a dying hurricane from the south came across New England. Pretty impressive.

As noted yesterday, these kinds of storms produce lots of wind, and more than a half million people in the Northeast lost power during the storm.

Here in Vermont, Green Mountain Power, easily the state's largest utility, reported 25,000 homes and businesses without power.

Things were a lot better early this morning. Vermont Outage Map reported about 1,100 homes and other Vermont buildings without electricity just before dawn today.

Aside from lots of fallen trees and branches and broken power lines, the storm wasn't as damaging in Vermont as it could have been. In most places, the highest wind gusts stayed under 50 mph. (There were several exceptions, with less than a dozen Vermont towns reporting gusts higher than 50 mph.

Burlington looked like a mess yesterday, with tons and tons of small twigs and branches down, and minor street flooding from leaf-clogged storm drains. But as chaotic as the Queen City looked, there wasn't a whole lot of damage. Only a few trees came down and there was very little structural damage. if any.

We dodged a bullet with flooding, too. The heaviest rain fell in southern and western Vermont, mostly from  Burlington south.  Several towns reported well over three inches of rain, which a LOT for a single storm in Vermont.

Springfield had 4.4 inches, Rutland clocked in with 3.78 inches, Bridport was close with 3.72 inches and Bethel had 3.2 inches.

The heaviest rain seemed to fall on the parts of Vermont that before the storm were the driest. (northern and especially northeastern Vermont were drier than further south and west before the storm. And the nor'easter dropped less rain in the Northeast Kingdom than elsewhere in the state.

Had it been very wet before this storm, there would have been significant flooding. This time, only minor flooding and relatively inconsequential washouts were reported. The Otter Creek hit minor flood stage and a couple roads near Middlebury closed due to high water.

WPTZ-TV also reported a road washout in Lincoln, high water on the New Haven River and water across the road along Route 116 in Bristol.

With this storm and others, October, 2019 is turning into a wet month in Vermont, especially in the north. Burlington has so far had just under four inches of rain so far this month. Normal for all of October is a little over three inches. The wettest October in Burlington was in 1918, with 6.75 inches.

Here at my house in St. Albans, I've unofficially collected 4.8 of rain this month, including 2.25 inches from the nor'easter yesterday.

On top of that, more rain is on the way. Possibly a fair amount, too. A messy system in the Gulf of Mexico is expected to become Tropical or Subtropical Storm Nestor later today and the weekend.

This will cause heavy rain, storm surges and other severe weather over the weekend near the Gulf Coast.. Meanwhile, another strong storm and cold front will start to march toward us from the Midwest early next week.

By Tuesday into Wednesday, moisture from the Atlantic, Gulf and maybe wannabe Nestor, and the dynamic cold front from the west  could dump a good bit of rain on us. Nobody knows precisely how much yet, but early indications are it won't be as much as we got yesterday.  Which is good, because a repeat of Thursday would bring us a flood problem.

Longer range forecasts are iffy, but for what they're worth, these forecasts predict wetter than normal conditions in Vermont through the end of October.

Nor'easter Slams New England; Vermont Very Wet And Windy

Lots of damage from last night's nor'easter in Lynn, Massachusetts
Photo via Twitter, @marshallhook.

Boy, this nor''easter really packed a punch in southern New England overnight!

It's a mess down there, with fallen trees everwhere. No wonder, with reported gusts of 90 mph in Provincetown, 89 mph in Wellfleet and 88 mph in Fairhaven, all in Massachusetts.

The Weather Channel reported that more than 500,000 people were without electricity in different parts of the Northeast overnight.

The nor'easter then moved inland and early this morning was on the New Hampshire/Vermont border, a little below White River Junction. 

That means we in Vermont, as expected are in for a miserable day.

The worst of it will be in western Vermont and eastern New York, as a pretty good rain band has set up there, and could linger for a good part of the day.  In eastern Vermont, the rain might be more showery.  Strong storms like this often ingest a band of drier air into the system, leaving parts of the storm area with less rain.

Rain in the western half of the area could be enough to cause some mostly minor flooding, especially along the Ausable River in New York and possible a little bit along the Otter Creek, Mad and Winooski rivers and maybe a couple others.  The National Weather Service in South Burlington  has flood watches up for most of Vermont, except the Northeast Kingdom.

Flood warnings are already up for the parts of the Capital District of New York, around Albany, as two inches of rain had already fallen as of early this morning and more downpours were coming.

In Vermont, it won't be a huge flood, but something to watch out for regardless.

The heavy rain will cause local street flooding, especially given that so many leaves have fallen to clog storm drains.

Strong winds might be the real story today.

Winds were really starting to pick up in Vermont before dawn this morning. This will be a problem for much of the day, especially over the western half of Vermont and especially between now and, say, mid-afternoon.

High winds have already blown throught southern and eastern Vermont overnight.  Winds gusted to 66 mph around Bennington, for instance. As of early this morning, about 10,000 homes and businesses were without power in the Green Mountain State. Most of those outages were in the southeastern half of the state.

However, those power outages will probably spread into the northwestern half of the state during the rest of the morning, as wind gusts could reach as high as 55 mph in a few spots. Shortly after dawn, the wind gusted to 54 mph at Thompson's Point in Charlotte, which is on Lake Champlain.

So yeah, bottom line is this is a pretty damn impressive storm.

Starting this evening, the storm will begin to wind down. Rain and wind will both diminish. It'll be a cool and somewhat cloudy day Friday.

Another soaking rain is possible during the middle of next week. We'll have to watch that one. Things are soaked down now, and a particularly heavy rain could cause flooding problems. It's too soon to say how hard it will rain next week, so we really can't be specific on whether a flooding risk will come up.

Big Storm About To Sock Vermont, Rest Of New England

Red sky in the morning, sailers take warning. True in this
case as a big storm is coming to New England tonight.
True, this view from St. Albans, Vermont this morning is
more pastel than anything else, but you get the point. 

A powerful nor'easter is poised to hit New England later tonight and Thursday, promising oodles of rain and wind for the entire region, including here in Vermont.

The nor'easter will develop off the Virginia coast today and track northward, making landfall on Long Island and probably going up through central or eastern New England tomorrow.

It will strengthen rapidly as it does so.  This could be among the strongest nor'easters to hit New England in October on record.

With a track and strength like that, the broad-brush forecast for Vermont is easy-peasy. Expect some heavy rain later tonight and tomorrow, and some gusty winds.

The devil is always in the details, though, so there are a couple interesting things to look for. The onset of precipitation will come in slowly.  The National Weather Service in South Burlington is thinking rain will make it into the western Adirondacks by 4 p.m. or so today, but not get to the northern Champlain Valley until perhaps 10 p.m..

Once the rain gets here, though, it will come down at a pretty brisk clip.  Converging winds in the Champlain Valley Thursday could enhance the rainfall. Many areas of Vermont, especially west of the Green Mountains,  will probably get close to two inches of rain, if the forecast plays out as expected.

A few spots could clock in with three or more nches, especially in southwestern Vermont That's a lot of water for an October storm.  The White Mountains of New Hampshire will block some of the storm's moisture from getting into the Northeast Kingdom, so less rain will fall there. Probably an inch or less.

Luckily, it's not that wet out there to begin with, so flooding should be minor.  The big problem will probably be in urban areas.  A lot of leaves will be falling during this storm, and that will clog up storm drains.

Watch out for flooded streets and deep puddles on your way to work Thursday morning.

The National Weather Service forecast for rainfall from this
upcoming storm. Some stpots could get more than two
inches of rain

As I said, it will be windy.  Ahead of the storm, southeast winds will gust as high as 35 mph today, even as Vermont pretty much remains precipitation-free.

Many nor'easters cause strong downslope winds on the western slopes of the Green Mountains and it looks like this will happen with this one. It won't be nearly as bad as the downslope wind havoc of October, 2017, but it will still be an issue.

Winds tonight could gust in the 55 to 60 mph range, possibly a bit more, in some downslope wind prone towns like Mendon, South Lincoln, Huntington, Underhill, Cambridge and maybe as far north as Belividere.

As the storm moves east and then north of us Thursday, everybody in Vermont will share in the usty winds, probably going to 40 mph in gusts or even a little more.

Thursday will surely be a yucky day, with lots of rain, especiallyin the morning, strong, chilly winds and temperatures holding in the 40s.

If this were a little later in the fall, say mid to late November, we'd probably be getting an immense early season snowstorm out of this.

Even with this storm, you have to be a little careful.  Intense storms like the one that we are about to have can generate their own cold air aloft, which can turn rain to snow if the precipitation is heavy enough.

Although I think it's possible but unlikely a few snowflakes could make it down into the valleys, it looks like any snow with this will be confined to the highest elevations.

Right now, the National Weather Service in South Burlington is only calling for light accumulations along the ridge lines, it's possible a couple high spots in the Adirondacks and Green Mountains could end up with a surprising amount of snow.

We'll have to wait and see on that one.

Elsewhere, this strong early season storm will probably produce some damaging winds along parts of the New England coast. Some areas of central Massachusetts could get locally up to five inches of rain, which could produce some flooding.

Since the storm looks like it might go inland over interior New England, there might be a risk of some severe storms or even a coastal waterspout or two overnight in far southeastern New England.

Coastal flood advisories and flash flood watches are up for the New York City metro area, too.

John Oliver Slams NWA Privitization Efforts

Once again, on "Last Week Tonight," John Oliver took an obscure, dry subject and turned into entertainiment and real information.

He tackled weather on Sunday.  (See the video at the bottom of this post.) Specifically, his 16-minute segment covered the National Weather Service and Republican or conservative efforts to privatize it.

As I've mentioned in this blog previously, so called free market types think that the National Weather Service shouldn't be giving us potentially lifesaving forecasts for free. We should pay for it from private weather companies.  

I'm overdramatizing it, of course, but as Oliver points outs, the private weather companies depend on the National Weather Service for a large share of their output.  The NWS is the source of their raw data.

True, private weather companies like Accuweather and The Weather Channel do perform great public services, and frankly, I'm glad they're around. I applaud any and all efforts to educate the public about the weather, hazards, climate change and all kinds of important stuff.

These private weather companies are certainly crucial in that effort.

Oliver's segment focused on the Myers family, which runs Accuweather.  The Trump administration tapped Barry Myers to run the National Weather Service a couple years ago, but the Senate has been sitting on the nomination, so Myers hasn't started serving yet.

Myers has long lobbied Congress to limit free public distribution of information and data from the National Weather Service.

Do note that National Weather Service data, provided to the public free of charge, includes such life saving things as tornado, flash flood, hurricane and blizzard warnings.

As Oliver points out, turning everything over to private weather companies risks limiting those warnings to only those who can buy information from private weather companies. If you can't afford it, sorry, you don't find out the tornado is heading toward your house until it's too late.

This, of course, would be a worse-case scenario if the NWS were privatized, but it's worth considering

John Oliver makes all this easy and entertaining, so it's worth watching his segment. Here it is:

Gorgeous But Fleeting Vermont Foliage To Fade This Week

Fall foliage in my St. Albans, Vermont back yard Sunday.

You know the end of the spectacular fall foliage season is about to come to end when a wind gust of maybe 5 mph sends a blizzard of orange maple leaves off the tree you're standing under.

That was the situation Sunday, a gorgeous peak fall foliage day while I was working in a yard in Richmond, Vermont.

With lots more wind in the forecast this week, foliage season will largely end. Not completely, of course.

There will still be splashes of color statewide, and warmer spots like the Champlain Valley and lowlands in southern Vermont will hang on to the fall beauty even with the wind and rain expected between now and Friday.

Early this morning, leaves were already blowing around like crazy when I got up in St. Albans, Vermont.  Winds were only gusting to about 20 mph, so it wasn't exactly a storm. But there you go. Expect winds like that all day today, so the leaves will be falling.

Fall foliage just beginning to fade Sunday near Hinesburg, Vermont.

After a cooler, but sunny and tranquil day Tuesday, Mother Nature's leaf blower will really get going Wednesday and Thursday.  A storm will pass to our north starting Wednesday, which would pick up winds from the southeast.

Meanwhile, a nor'easter will begin to form off the coast of Virginia and head toward coastal New England, all the while strengthening rapidly. This will all but guarantee wind gusts in the 25 to 35 mph range locally into Thursday night.

Depending upon how close the nor'easter comes to the coast, we could also have some pretty heavy rain later Wednesday and Wednesday night from the nor'easter. That would also help the leaves to drop.

It all sounds disappointing, but I think one thing that makes fall foliage so wonderful in Vermont is its fleeting nature. This type of windy week happens pretty much every October, which ends foliage season, well, every October.

Besides, this won't be a terrible storm for us. Southern Vermont, in particular could use more rain. (Northern areas are pretty OK with above normal rainfall over the past few weeks.

Southern New England endured wind and rain from another  offshore nor'easter that turned into a tropical storm last week, so they're probably sick of inclement weather. We here in most of Vermont, escaped with nice weather last week.

Southern and eastern New England will bear the brunt of this next nor'easter as well, with the risk of strong winds and heavier rainfall than Vermont would get.

Unlike the last storm that missed Vermont, this one will move right along and be out of our hair on Friday.

TYPHOON HAGIBIS

A much bigger, more newsworthy storm hit Japan over the weekend in the form of Typhoon Hagibis.

Typhoons are fairly common in Japan, but this one might have been the worst in 60 years.

It had been a super typhoon out over the eastern Pacific, with winds of 150 mph. Those dropped down to 90 mph or so by the time the storm hit Japan. So the wind, while intense, was not the worst that Japan can get.

What made this typhoon so bad was that it was even wetter than your typical typhoon. That meant the flooding was immense.

So far, nearly 50 deaths have been reported, with more people missing. Tens of thousands have been evacuated. Some areas received 30 or more inches of rain during the typhoon


Hagibis

Flooding From Storm "Melissa" Is Worrying Sign Of Future Trouble

Flooding in Annapolis, Maryland on Saturday due
to offshore Tropical Storm Melissa and sea level
rise. Photo by Elly Tierney via the Baltimore Sun

A storm that turned into Subtropical Storm Melissa and then Tropical Storm Melissa has been spinning off the East Coast of the United States for the past week.

During this time, the strong winds from the storm have been pushing water into the shore, causing some coastal flooding from Maine to Florida.

The flooding wasn't super destructive, as floods go, but it was in the way, and caused damage, and was a general nuisance.

This is another ominous example of the rising number of so-called "nuisance" floods along the coast, brought on in large part by yes, climate change.

One disconcerting thing about this Melissa thing is that this wasn't exactly "Storm of the Century" spinning out there. It was powerful, but nothing that out of the ordinary.

True, it was there for an unusually long time, which meant the storm had a long chance to keep piling water up against the East Coast.

Also true was a high pressure system to the north of Melissa - the one that brought most of us here in Vermont some spectacular fall weather - also helped steer water and waves against the coast.

So those were contributing factors. But really. A strong but not all that unusual storm causing such flooding bodes poorly for the future. Especially since astronomical tides this week were pretty low. If there had been a full or new moon during Melissa, there would have been even bigger trouble.

This flooding wasn't just making for narrow beaches and wet ground underfoot. Some people had to be rescued from homes in flood prone coastal Sea Bright, New Jersey, NBC Philadelphia reported.

By Saturday, as Melissa was finally getting ready to depart, the moon was much closer to full, so that, in combination of the storm, sent ocean water into downtown Annapolis, Maryland, says the Baltimore Sun.

The Charlotte Observer says that on Cape Hatteras, waves trapped cars on Route 12, which had to be closed, and caused flooding in Avon, Buxton and other towns on Cape Hatteras.

Splashover and some flooding was reported in coastal New England, too.

All this is going to get worse in the future as sea levels continue to rise. Already, in places like Miami, when astronomical tides are high, there is some flooding even when there is no storm anywhere near Florida.

Along parts of the East Coast, this is double trouble because not only is the sea level rising, but land is sinking due to natural processes.

The East Coast, of course, has always had coastal flooding, battering waves and erosion from storms. Those nor'easters and hurricanes will always keep happening. But as time goes by and sea levels keep going up, those nor'easters and other storms will have more and more power to cause worse and worse coastal flooding because the ocean is higher to begin with, even before the storm.

The destruction will be especially bad when we get the inevitable super storm, like the extreme New England hurricanes of 1815 and 1938;  the Ash Wednesday super nor'easter of 1962 or the Perfect Storm from 1991.

As lovely as large swaths of the East Coast can be, I'm certainly not going to invest in oceanfront property.  I have to wonder about insurance, the economy and survival of coastal communities will be like in coming decades.

Fire And Ice: Videos Show Destructive CA Wildfires, Dakota Blizzard

Big California wildfires yesterday destroyed dozens of homes and
killed two people.

I was hoping, against reality actually, that maybe California would escape destructive wildfires for once this year.

As we've seen on the news, that wasn't to be. Wildfires yesterday killed two Californians, destroyed probably a few dozen homes and forced 23,000 people to evacuate.

It's not over yet, but winds are forecast to decrease, which might give firefighters the upper hand with these blazes. 

Some videos.

Dramatic overview from ABC News



The second half of this video is especially scary with flames, tons of embers and strong winds blasting through a southern California neighborhood:



Meanwhile, an incredible blizzard for this time of year hit North Dakota and southern Manitoba, Canada.

More than two feet of snow has piled up in some spots. Winds have gusted to 60 mph, causing huge drifts and closing highways.

As CBC reports, leaves were still on trees, so the heavy, wet snow has caused lots of damage to those trees. It'll take a long time to pick this mess up. Worse, wheat hasn't been harvested yet, so those crops are lost.

This view, I think in Winnipeg, Canada shows the effects of snow when leaves are on the trees. The trees that had already lost their leaves seem to be weathering the storm well. Trees with leaves, not so much:



Here's an entertaining video narrated by a North Dakota gentleman who regrettably left his 30-pack of Busch Light beer in his picking truck in the midst of yesterday's blizzard.  Yeah, I don't know how he can even stand drinking that icky stuff, but whatever.

We still get to see the midwinter like, very windy and snowy conditions as he retrieves his prize. Remember, this is October: