Weather Surprises Keep Popping Up Nearby And Beyond

Storm chaser Simon Brewer, who usually spends his time in the
Great Plains chasing tornadoes, had to travel to Glens Falls, New York
to capture this impressive wall cloud, that did produce a tornado. 

Although I don't have super shocking weather news to bring up today, there are still plenty of reports to confirm the weather is always surprising, in small and big ways.

First of all, I'm a little surprised I have to make this correction: 

Unlike what I said in yesterday's post, "no tornado is known to have touched down in that area," a tornado DID in fact touch down in that thunderstorm with the impressive wall cloud around Glens Falls.

The National Weather Service office in Albany New York confirms that Glens Falls storm, and presumably its wall cloud, DID produce a tornado.

The tornado was an EF-1 with winds of between 75 and 110 mph. It damaged at least one home and sheared off and uprooted many trees not far from Interstate 87 in Glens Falls. It actually crossed that busy highway, but luckily, it was a bit weaker by the time it hit that Interstate.

I'm impressed by how wide and long-tracked the tornado was for this far into the interior Northeast. Usually tornadoes are narrow and very brief.  This one was at one point as much as a quarter mile wide and the tornado traveled a total of 8.6 miles before lifting.

This was the second time within two weeks that a tornado touched down close to the southwestern Vermont border. In both cases, the tornado's parent thunderstorm moved into Vermont, caused straight line wind damage.  This time, Poultney was pretty hard hit by those winds.

WASHINGTON/OREGON STORMS

Speaking of surprising severe thunderstorms, it was eastern Washington State and Oregon's turn to endure supercells and damaging storms. It's fairly rare for conditions to come together in this part of the country for a lot of severe weather, but they sure did on Saturday.

Winds with these storms gusted as high as 97 mph in Washington, 85 mph in Oregon and 83 mph in Idaho.  I'm unsure if any tornadoes touched down with these storms. I'm sure local National Weather Service offices will be checking on that. There were certainly plenty of reports of damage in this area.

QUEBEC/CANADIAN YO-YO WEATHER

We here in Vermont have certainly cooled down from that record heat we and Quebec had last week.

That heat spread into much of eastern Canada as the week closed. Record highs included 93 degrees in Bathurst, New Brunswick,  31.8 in Gaspe, Quebec, 84 in Gander, Newfoundland and 82 in St. John's Newfoundland.

Up in Quebec, where temperatures were in the 80s and well into the 90s,  things had gotten ridiculously cool by this morning. Snow was reported in the Laurentian highlands this morning.

Don't worry, that snow won't work itself nearly this far south. We're done with snow until autumn.  But it will be remarkably cool for the season, with high temperatures in most of northern Vermont not making it past 60 degrees today. That's more typical for late April.  Monday will be quite cool as well before a warming trend kicks in to bring us up into the seasonable 70s by the end of the week.

The secondary cold front that brought in today's cool weather also managed to surprise me last night. It was expected to only produce sprinkles.  But there was widespread rains last evening across northern Vermont.  It wasn't super heavy, but my rain gauge in St. Albans, Vermont collected 0.12 inches of rain, and I was expecting nothing more than a trace.

Seems Like There's Flooding Everywhere This Winter

Evacuations as the Pearl River around Jackson, Mississippi continue
rising. Photo via the Jackson Clarion-Ledget

The climate change experts say that as the world warms, rainfall events will become more and more extreme in many parts of the world

That seems to be already happening.  It seems like there were lots and lots of floods around the world in the past couple of years. This year seems to be starting on an even worse footing.

You can't point and yell "Climate change!" at every odd or big time weather event, but this spate of flooding, various videos of which you will see below, are certainly consistent with climate change.

So let's wander around the flood zones.

The southeastern third of the United States has had repeated bouts of flooding since January.  Some places have had four times the normal amount of rain for this point in the year. Not surprisingly, the flooding has been intense.

The rain has temporarily let up in the South, but the flooding continues. In Jackson, Mississippi, the Pearl River is likely to reach its third highest level on record, flooding several neighborhoods and part of the downtown.

During the height of last week's floods, some of the worst of it was in hilly and mountainous parts of Kentucky and Tennessee.

Here's a mobile home being swept away in Harlan, Kentucky:



Australia spent the first half of the summer burning down. Then torrential rains hit. The good news is all that record breaking rainfall put out the fires. But now, many of the same areas that were hit by fires are now having serious flooding. Here's just one news dispatch from Australia this past week:


In Great Britain a week ago, a storm  dubbed Ciara caused widespread havoc, including the third destructive flood in West Yorkshire in eight years.  This was even before Storm Dennis caused even more havoc, which deserves its own post in this blog, which you will see coming in a day or two. (That story is still breaking as I write this Sunday morning).



That British flooding also did this to a riverside building:



It's not just coming from the rivers in Great Britain.  Watch this storm surge from Storm Ciara in New Brighton:



Now on to the Pacific Northwest.

Pendleton, Oregon, in the northeastern part of that state, is normally pretty dry. The Cascade Mountains well to the west block the flow of moisture off the Pacific Ocean, so they only get about 14 inches of rain per year. You don't associate Pendleton with heavy rain and flooding.

However, this year, the firehose of moisture off the Pacific is so extensive that Pendleton just experienced some  serious flooding:



Closer to the Pacific Coast, heavy rains over the past month have caused a lot of flooding. Winters are normally really wet west of the Cascades, but this year has been ridiculous.  However, rainfall in the West has been oddly variable.

San Francisco, California usually gets a fair share of rain in February.  This year, for only the second time on record, it doesn't look like it will rain in February at all. They want some of that rain a few hundred miles to the north, and Washington State would love to send some of their rain south.

It ain't happening.

Meanwhile, flooding along the Snohomish River stacked a massive logjam against a major highway bridge in Everett, Washington.  It was eventually cleared out, but only after a lot of effort. You can see why from this video:

I Guess Tumbleweeds Are The Latest Winter Driving Hazard

Workers dig cars out from a tangle of tumbleweeds on
New Year's Day in Washington State. 

It sucks to be a motorist in much of the nation, and the Northern Hemisphere, for that matter, during the winter.

There's always the risk of snow, sleet, freezing rain, high winds, flooding, intense cold or other problems to prevent you from getting from here to there.

Add tumbleweeds to this hazard list.  No, us Vermonters need not worry about that during this or any winter. However, motorists up in Washington State had to deal with this, big time.

As NBC reports:

"A few people in Washington state spent part of their New Year's Eve trapped in their cars after winds blew a massive amount of tumbleweeds onto a highway.

The incident happened on Highway 240 in Benton County near Yakima, a city about 150 miles southeast of Tacoma. Washington State Patro Trooper Chris Thorson told NBC News that 911 calls started to come in around 6:30 p.m about people trapped in their vehicles.

He said winds that night were between 40 to 50 mph and it took about 30 minutes for the tumbleweeds to fully encase five cars and partially trap a semi-truck. The highway in both directions was closed for more than 10 hours in order for the tumbleweeds to be removed."

Thorson told the Seattle Times that occupants of the cars trapped in tumbleweeds "were not as amused as the rest of the people watching. Some of them had to ring in their New Year fully encased in tumbleweeds."

People think of Washington State as wet, and not prone to arid location hazards like tumbleweeds. But eastern Washington where the tumbleweed attack took place is dry because the Cascade Mountains to the west of this location block so much of that moisture coming in from the Pacific Ocean.

Yakima, Washinton, near where this took place, only averages about nine inches of rain per year, compared to the roughly 37 inches wet Seattle, Washington on the Pacific coast gets.

Here's a clip of people trying to rescue vehicles and clear the tumbleweeds:

Seattle And Hawaii Battling Weird Winter Storms

Huge wave crash into Hawaii in November 2013. This weekend, waves
that make this look like a bathtub could crash ashore in Hawaii as
a very dangerous, rare storm moves in. Image via Weather Underground

It's the heart of winter storm seasons, but two places that normally aren't that wintry are, well wintry.

One of the two places I'm talking about - Hawaii - of course won't be particularly snowy, but is having some serious stormy challenged. 

The other place I'm discussing - Seattle - gets snow pretty much every winter, but the snow there lately has been much more than they're used to.

HAWAII 

It can get stormy in Hawaii, but not like they're expecting this weekend.

In the winter, Hawaii is prone to something called Kona storms.  In these cases winter storms in the North Pacific come far enough south to drag cold fronts through or near Hawaii. Ahead of these cold fronts, winds come from the southwest in Hawaii, which is opposite of the usuall east to northeast trade winds.

When the Kona storms hit, normally dry areas of Hawaii get rain. (Usually the trade winds dump rain on east facing parts of Hawaii while western parts of islands behind mountains stay dry.)  These Kona storms also increase winds, and dump snow on the highest volcanic peaks, like Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.

The storm this weekend is odd and a lot more intense than usual because it's coming directly from the north, heading due south toward Hawaii. Which means it won't be paradise in these paradise islands this weekend.

North facing shorelines face very serious surf and coastal flooding.  Wave heights just off the northern shores of the Hawaiian islands could reach 60 feet.

The National Weather Service in Honolulu said:"Overall, this low is shaping up to be a high-impact event, bringing mulitple weather hazards and significant threats to life and property.....Anyone with vulnerablle ocean front property needs to complete their preparations for this event as soon as possible."

The NWS said the storm and waves could bring unprecedented flooding and damage to north and west facing beaches in Hawaii.

The winds, as noted will come from an unusual direction for Hawaii. That means winds could rush down the south and east slopes of some mountains, causing high, damaging winds in areas that aren't used to it, including some areas of Honolulu.

Finally, this is a cold storm so by Hawaiian standards, it's going to be frigid this weekend. High temperatures Sunday will probably only barely make it to 70 degrees Sunday amid the high winds and rains. Lows Sunday night in Honolulu will be in the upper 50s, which is ice box weather for that region.

SEATTLE SNOW

A rare, snowy mess in Sequim, along the Washington State coast.
It snows a LOT in the Cascade Mountains, but it usually rains
near the coast. Not this week.

The same complicated weather pattern in the North Pacific that's causing the Hawaii storm is setting up an unusually long-lasting spell of winter weather in the Pacific Northwest.

As of late morning today, Seattle's Sea-Tac airport had gotten 7.9 inches of snow in the latest storm. That's on top of a few inches earlier in the week. Of the snow they've gotten, 6.4 inches fell on Friday alone, the second most Seattle has gotten in a single day.

They're not used to this. Seattle usually would have gotten about 3 inches of snow for the entire season by now. 

You can tell Seattle residents don't deal with winter this intense. Grocery store shelves were pretty much devoid of break, milk water and other staples by Friday afternoon. (Despite the snow, they're being re-stocked).

Usually Seattle comes in light flurries that melt quickly.  Seattle this month so far is a snowy New-England-y landscape There was snow on the ground three days during last week, and the snow that's there now will be there for awhile.

There are daily chances of snow, or even likely periods of snow through this coming Friday around Seattle.

The snow has really been piling up in the West Coast mountains, too. Down in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, some resorts got more than seven feet of snow last week. Another several feet of accumulation is expected in the coming week.

It's going to stay cold and snowy in Seattle well into the upcoming week.

West Coast Has Been Battered And Bruised Lately With Big, Weird Storms

Big waves on the California coast last week. Photo by Kent Porter/AP

While I've been whining about the stormy, wet, flood producing, windy, temperature-gyration storminess in our New England neck of the woods, it's been a trying December along the West Coast, especially up toward Washington State.

Giant waves, a very odd and strong tornado and then another nasty windstorm has made pretty much everyone in the dark December Northwest weather weary.

Videos are at the bottom of this post.

GIGANTIC WAVES

The stormy period started with some of the largest waves seen on the West Coast in years. These waves were generated mostly by immense storms in the Pacific Ocean in and south of the Gulf of Alaska.

The waves forced the postponement of the Mavericks surfing competition. They'll try to reschedule when the surf becomes less deadly. These cancellations happen from time to time. Better safe than sorry.

Forecasters issued strident warnings to people, urging them to stay away from beaches. "Sneaker waves"  gushes of water from the turbulent seas, could have easily overwhelmed areas along shorelines untouched by waves in the previous hours. That would have swept people out to sea.

The National Weather Service office in San Francisco warned people: "Stay way back from the ocean or face certain death."

So far, I haven't heard of any deaths or serious injuries from these waves. But some surfers braved the waves. Some of them reported got tossed onto rocky shores, giving them  some nasty bumps and scrapes.

There were reports of damage. The 146-year old Ventura Pier in California was closed after a couple pilings and a cross brace were wrecked by the big waves. They're not sure when they will reopen the pier, because now officials have to do a safety inspection. The pier is a popular spot for marriage proposals, prom photos and the like.

BIG TORNADO

A house wrecked by a tornado in Port Orchard, Washington
last week. Photo by Ted S. Warren/AP

It was pretty strange. It was a scene straight out of the spring tornado season in the Great Plains.

Yet it hit this week, a little southwest of Seattle, Washington. It was definitely not the place you'd usually find dangerous tornadoes.

But there it was, an EF-2 tornado that tore roofs off houses, sent debris flying into the air and caused a lot of damage.

Somehow, Washington got lucky in one important way: There were no reports of serious injuries, but roughly 450 homes and buildings were damaged. Some of them look like they are total losses.

Tornadoes do hit Washington State on a fairly regular basis, but they're usually not this intense. On average, the state sees 2.5 tornadoes per year.  This one was the strongest one to hit the state since 1986. And usually, the relatively stronger tornadoes that hit Washington occur on the eastern side of the state, not west of the Cascades.

Most are really weak, but there are exceptions. The worst was an EF-3 in and around Vancouver, Washington on April 5, 1972. It killed six people and injured 300, says mynorthwest.com

As in much of the rest of the nation, if you're going to get a particularly bad tornado in Washington it'll hit in the spring or early summer.

But as we saw this week, there are exceptions. Strong winter storms do sometimes create spinups in western Washington in December, January and February, but these twisters rarely amount to much.

Tuesday's tornado in Port Orchard was probably the strongest winter season tornado on record in Washington, but there is a close second, according to mynorthwest.com

On December 10, 2015, an EF-1 tornado with wind speeds of up to 104 mph touched down in two spots around Battle Ground, Washington, damaging 36 homes but causing no injuries.

THEN A WINDSTORM

Tornadoes like the one that hit Port Orchard, Washington cause severe damage, but normally in highly local areas. Go a half mile away from the tornado path, and everything's fine.

Not so when you get a large scale wind from a large storm coming off the Pacific Ocean. The damage might not be as intense as a tornado, but it's ultimately worse because it's so widespread.

Winds gusted to 70 mph in some locations in Washington, cutting power to tens of thousands of people. Interstate 5 north of Seattle was closed for a time due to downed power lines. Other state highways were closed because of fallen trees.

One person was killed by the storm in British Columbia and power was cut in and around Vancouver. Part of a pier broke apart in the wind and waves along the British Columbia coast, leaving a man stranded on the far end of the pier. He was later rescued by helicopter.

Of course, energy from these storms have been crossing the nation. That helped lead to the storm we had here in Vermont on Friday. Another large storm will organize in the middle of the country just after Christmas, promising a winter storm in the Upper Plains and more wind and rain for the Northeast. It looks like that will include Vermont.

Here's some videos:

We'll start with big waves on the West Coast to start last week:
\
First, an Associated Press reported on the rough surf:



The next video shows some beautiful, massive ways. It also shows a horde of photographers capturing the action. Photo buffs always know where to get the good shots, I guess:



Next up, the Washington state tornado:

Here's a compilation video of what people saw:



Here's a CBS News report that gives an overview:

Washington State Ocean Front Rapidly Erodes, Watch Houses Fall Into Sea

One of the houses that recently fell into the Pacific
Ocean at aptly named Washaway Beach in Washington State.  

It's wintertime in the Pacific Northwest, and that means a parade of gusty, rainy storms stir up big waves on the ocean and send them crashing on shore.

There's an aptly named place in Washington State called Washaway Beach in which the waves generated by Pacific Ocean storms are eroding the land rapidly, and houses and other buildings are falling into the ocean one right after the other.

At least three more went this week.

Coastal erosion is a big problem in many areas of the world, especially as sea levels rise due to global warming. 

In most places, the process is gradual. A large storm every now and then in most places permanently destroys some land, and takes buildings with it.

Just last week, St. John's County in northern Florida issued an emergency declaration as coastal erosion threatened homes and roads.

A few days ago, a massive storm caused enormous waves and coastal flooding and erosion in Great Britain.

At Washaway Beach, in Washington State, the rapid erosion has little if anything to do with global warming and is more a creature of local effects.

According to the Washington State Department of Ecology, the land near Washaway Beach has been eroding away at an average rate of 100 feet per year for a century.

Natural processes are making a tidal channel migrate northward, causing the rapid erosion.

The result is that people who bought vacation homes a decade or two miles from the beach now find the ocean washing their houses away.

As the normal parade of winter storms continues in Washington State, most people will just hunker down against the wind and rain. But at Washaway Beach, more houses will surely be lost to the Pacific Ocean.

Here's the video of the latest loss at Washaway Beach.

Rare Tornado Hits Longview, Washington (Photo, Video)

Damage from a tornado that hit
Longview, Washington today.  

New England wasn't the only place in the nation having stormy weather today.

The town of Longview, Washington was hit by a rare tornado today. It ripped roofs off buildings, toppled trees and power lines  and scared quite a few people, but luckily nobody got hurt.

Television station KOMO said the tornado was on the ground along a path of up to a mile in Longview and Kelso. The two communities are in southwestern, near the border with Oregon and not far from Portland, Oregon.

National Weather Service meteorologists were on their way to Longview to assess the strength of the storm.

If I had to guess based on video of the twister, I'd say it was a low end EF1, meaning it had winds of 86 to 110 mph, probably closer to 86 mph. We'll see what the experts say.

Washington State averages two tornadoes a year.

This is the second time this month the state has had a tornado scare.

Tornado warnings went up in parts of the Seattle area on October 11 when a waterspout touched down off Anderson island. The waterspout never made it to shore and there were no injuries and little if any damage with that storm.

Here's a video of the Longview tornado as it blew right across the street from the person taking the video. A voice heard in the video says they shouldn't be near windows. They were right, but in this case, the people near the windows didn't have to contend with shattering glass.

Worst Attempt At Debunking Climate Change Ever

Of all the weak arguments I've heard claiming that global climate change isn't happening, the worst came the other day from that, er, icon of scientific thought, televangelist Pat Robertson.

Pat Robertson said God had
a humorous editorial comment
on global warming politics.  

The other night, U.S. Senators, attempting to call attention to the issue, held a marathon overnight session highlighting the therat of climate change.

The next night, a cold front packing strong winds swept through Washington DC, briefly cutting power to the U.S. Capitol.

With that information, Robertson had everything figured out.

Take away, Pat!:

"Do you think God has a sense of humor? Well, I think he does. Let me tell you what happened. In the United States Capitol, Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer and the Democrats had an all night marathon advancing global warming. And they said we have to be in fear of global warming.

So God says, 'Harry and Barbara, you've got it all wrong.' He dropped the temperature 40 degrees, send so much wind that it knocked out the lights in the Capitol dome for the first time in years. And it's still cold! And the Lord is saying, 'Democrats, it isn't going to happen that way.' Isn't that fun? God has a sense of humor"

Yeah, God surely would take time out from His busy day to offer a political commentary about speeches by Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer.

And since it was windy and cold in Washington DC, on one night, regardless of the weather elsewhere on earth, global warming surely doesn't exist. Of course, then how do you explain the fact it was in the 70s in Washington early that day?

Oh yeah, weather. You know, warm fronts and cold fronts changing the temperature periodically, like they always do. But that's not nearly as fun an explanation as God yanking on Washington DC power lines.

Meanwhile, as I sit and write this in Vermont, it's breezy with normal temperatures. I have no idea what God is trying to tell me with that.

I guess God needs to make his signals from the heavens  little more clear to heathens like me.