Meet Hector, The Latest Weather Celebrity That's Actually Been Around Forever

Hector, the world's most reliable daily thunderstorm, pops up around
3 p.m. daily off the northern tip of Australia. 

Like clockwork, every day around 3 p.m or so between September and December, a big thunderstorm develops explosively over some two islands off the north shore of Australia.

The thunderstorm or thunderstorms are so reliable, like a good friend who pops in to see you everyday for an afternoon tea, the storm has a name. Meet Hector.

Weather is usually random and prone to surprising people. Which is why I like Hector so much.  It's the Old Faithful of weather.

Hector has alway been there, as far back as people can remember, but for some reason it's gotten a lot of publicity this year. Just randomly, I guess. Unlike reliable Hector itself, which keeps popping up as scheduled.

I like the fact that Hector gets so much attention.  At any given moment, there are something like 2,000 thunderstorms in progress on Earth. But most of those pop up and die in varying places, depending on whether there are storms are converging winds nearby.

Converging winds are why Hector gets going every day.  He forms over two islands named Bathurst and Melville.  The islands are somewhat pyramid shaped, so the converging winds hit the islands, and the air has to rise up the slopes of these "pyramids" and voila! You have Hector.

Hector was apparently named by World War II pilots flying between Darwin, in northern Australia and Papua, New Guinea because he is such a landmark. The thunderstorm towers high into the atmosphere, so pilots and others can see Hector from a great distance.

Much like you might use a big water tower or tall building to orient yourself in an unfamiliar city, pilots used Hector to orient themselves as they flew north of Australia.

Photographers love Hector, because who doesn't love photos of thunderstorms? Meteorologists who study storms love Hector, too. He's so reliable, there's almost no guess work with it.

I love thunderstorms, too, but living here in Vermont, I'm not exactly in the lightning and thunder capital of the world.  Maybe someday I'll go visit Hector.

Here's an rather engaging video from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology that explains Hector:

Quiet, Cloudy Weather Day Saturday, But Really Cool, Strange Satellite Imagery

Most of Saturday was cloudier than expected, especially over northern Vermont.

While the view of the clouds from the ground was kind of dull and gray, fascinating stuff became apparent on satellite imagery, especially for those of us who are weather geeks.

The satellite photo of the clouds is in this post for your reference.  It's a little hard to see what I'm talking about, so click on the photo to make it bigger and easier to discern.

So here's the set up: An incoming large high pressure system trapped moisture in some of the lower layers of the atmosphere. Usually, in the warmer seasons at least, uneven heating helps mix drier air downward from up above, and the clouds dissipate. 

The high pressure was too strong to allow much of that mixing to happen during most of the day, so we were stuck under the clouds that were only about 1,000 feet thick. But thick enough to block out the sun.

In a way, this could be a sign of the season. In the winter, when the sun is much weaker and lower, the heat doesn't make it through the clouds to mix the atmosphere to ultimate chew up the clouds.

That's a big reason why it's so often overcast in Vermont during the winter, especially between November and January, when the sun is lowest.

Perhaps the sun would have broken through earlier Saturday afternoon if it were June or July, not August, when the sun is beginning to wane.

Now, the really cool part of this satellite image is that very narrow band of clear skies, stretching southeastward in the satellite photo from around Montreal into north central Vermont near Jay Peak and on into the Northeast Kingdom. After this photo was taken, the narrow clear line continued moving southwestward and broadened a little bit.

Also note the clouds seem a little thicker than elsewhere just to the west of that clearing band.

I asked for help from the National Weather Service in South Burlington and as always, they got back to me right away with an explanation. I'll do my best here to relay what they told me.

At the time the satellite photo was taken, a weak weather boundary was moving southwestward from eastern Quebec. It was essentially a mini, weak cold front.

A "dry slot" of mostly clear skies behind a cold front is seen in eastern Nebraska,
Kansas and Oklahoma in this old satellite photo.

As the cold front approached, it provided a little lift into the atmosphere. The lift encouraged more cloudiness, which is why those clouds were thicker just to the southwest of that skinny clear line.

Behind this "front," there air sinks. The boundary was basically like a wave coming ashore at a beach. As the wave comes in, the water rises, than falls again as the wave passes. Behind this boundary in northern Vermont, the air was sinking.

Sinking air can warm the atmosphere and that is often death to clouds.  That's probably why there was that narrow band of clear skies. Once that narrow air of sinking air passed, the moisture in the atmosphere was able to reassert itself, and the clouds once again formed in the far Northeast Kingdom and southeastern Quebec.

You see this kind of thing on a much larger scale with strong cold fronts, especially in the late autumn, winter and early spring. These much bigger versions of what we saw in that Vermont satellite photo are usually associated with strong storm systems, not weak, tiny little things that we had affecting us.

Lift ahead of these big cold fronts can often create a solid band of showers and thunderstorms. Behind the front, the air sinks, and you get a band of mostly clear skies known as a "dry slot."

As the narrow line of clear skies continued southwestward across Vermont during the mid-afternoon, it gradually widened, then the clouds over the entire region broke apart. The August sun finally did it's job, mixing the air and melting away that overcast. It was a gorgeous late afternoon and evening.

June In Vermont Was A (Mostly) Cool Spot In A (Mostly) Hot World

A shower blossoms over Lake Champlain Sunday. It was a fitting
close to a wet June 

Vermont experienced another relatively cool month in June, with most places running a little below normal in temperature and definitely above normal in rainfall.

With the final numbers in for June, the Champlain Valley actually eeked out a month that was pretty much right on normal for temperature.

But away from the lake, it was definitely cooler. Montpelier, which had a mean June temperature of 60.6, was 2.2 degrees chillier than normal. St. Johnsbury was downright frigid, with a mean temperature of 62 degrees. That was 3.6 inches colder than normal for June.

Did I mention all the rain? For the most part, we didn't have any kind of record rains, though there was certainly some flash flooding across central Vermont on June 20.  Montpelier had 2.55 inches of rain that day, contributing to a month's total of 7.06. That's more than three inches wetter than normal.

Most other areas of Vermont were wetter than normal in June, too, but not to the extent that central parts of the Green Mountain State experienced.

As you might have heard on the news, Vermont is a relatively cool island in a world that is experiencing yet another summer with odd heat waves. Well, OK, the Northern Hemisphere. South of the Equator, it's winter. I get it.

We've already mentioned that heat wave in Europe, which brought the hottest temperature on record to France and other areas of the continent. Countries that set new records in the past week for the hottest June temperature include Poland, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg.

Also in late June, Florida had an intense heat wave. Yes, I know it's always hot in Florida in the summer. Miami set 10 daily record highs in June, including four consecutive ones last week. That city has been at or above 95 degrees eight times this year already. Before this year, Miami had never had more than six 95 degree days in the first half of the year, notes meteorologist John Morales on Twitter.

It was hot in the northern and central Plains this weekend, too. Heat indexes in some areas South Dakota and Iowa reached 110 degrees Saturday, thanks to temperatures in the upper 90s and dew points (a measure of humidity) in the upper 70s.

Back here in Vermont, we're setting up for quite a warm week, but we won't be seeing any record breaking heat. Each day through Friday will be in the 80s, and some spots could get into the 90s Wednesday and Thursday.

June Is NOT Starting Off As Summerlike In Vermont

Webcam image from the Nashville section of Jericho from this
morning depicts that cloudy, cool conditions that have
continued from May into June in Vermont.

I'm out in South Dakota for my yearly trip. It's normally peak storm time out here, but the weather out here is pretty nice and settled.

Lots of haze from Canadian forest fires, but otherwise, it's bright and mostly storm-free, a welcome respite from the incessant rain and flooding in the Great Plains.

Back in Vermont, it's another story. Nothing dire will happen, but if you were expecting fine early summer weather as June opened, you are sadly disappointed. The chilly, gloomy May seems to want to continue into June.

A strong and unusually cold storm system for this time of year is affecting the North Country, and with it comes some unpleasant weather.

The Storm Prediction Center has southern Vermont in a slight risk zone for severe thunderstorms today and northern Vermont in a marginal risk zone.  While you should keep an eye to the sky today and seek shelter if there's any storms coming, this won't be a widespread outbreak of severe weather.

There wasn't much sun this morning to destabilize the atmosphere, for one thing. Breaks of sun and slightly warmer temperatures south of Route 4 will make that region the most likely target of severe storms. That would mean gusty winds, small hail, dangerous lightning and nasty downpours here and there today.

Northern Vermont has the same type of thing, but slightly less widespread storms than the south. But even there, strong gusty winds and small hail could accompany some storms. There is some wind shear, which means that wind direction is changing with height, so that could encourage some storms.

To be on the safe side, definitely go inside a sturdy building if a severe thunderstorm warning pops up.

Most if not all of Vermont will get some decent rains out of this. Some rain came last night, and there's a solid band of rain in New York State that will come through today. The storm's cold front will come through in several pieces this afternoon and evening.

The upper level storm associated with this storm will move overhead tomorrow. Which will make the weather interesting enough. It will be awfully cold for June. High temperatures will only get into the 50s, with maybe some upper 40s in the higher elevations.

Those temperatures are typical for April, not June.

The sun is just about as strong as you can get this time of year. It's only a couple weeks before the Summer Solstice, so the sun angle is intense. That means the sun will try to heat the Earth's surface, but it will be March-like cold several thousand feet up.

That's a recipe for billowing clouds and showers, with even a few thunderstorms. Since air temperatures will be below freezing just several thousand feet overhead, it will be easy for small hail to make it to the ground, too. So don't be surprised if it hails amid Monday's chill if you get hit by a particularly intense shower.

I also wouldn't be surprised if some snowflakes land on the high peaks of the Green Mountains, Adirondacks and White Mountains on Monday. It will be that cold. By the way, it's been such a chilly spring that as of this morning, there was still nine inches of snow atop of Mount Mansfield this morning, and the Killington Ski Area is still open. The ski area closes for the season at the end of the day today.

Since Monday will be as cold as it can get for June, it's only uphill from there. Luckily, despite Monday's chill,  frost is unlikely Monday night and early Tuesday, except in the cold hollows of the Northeast Kingdom and Adirondacks.

Tuesday will be dry, but cool for this time of year, with highs in the upper 50s and 60s. Still, brrrr.  With this long stretch of cold weather, the tomato plants you put in the garden won't be doing so great, but what can you do?

A warm front will come in Tuesday night and Wednesday with more showers. At least by the end of the week, it looks like temperatures won't be summer like, necessarily, but it will get into the 70s, which isn't too far from normal for this time of year.

One complication: a back door cold front might come down from eastern Canada, which would hold temperatures in the cool 60s instead next weekend. We'll have to wait and see.

So far there are no signs of any real summer weather at least through mid-June.

Yes, Vermont Has Had Much Worse Weather In May Than This Year

It's true that this May in Vermont has been cool, damp, cloudy and
rainy, but the weather has definitely been worse in other Vermont Mays

After yet another round of rain Friday morning, the sun came out in Vermont's Champlain Valley during the afternoon. The temperature in Burlington sneaked up to 77 degrees, the warmest reading so far this year.

The nice weather was welcome, as lots of people have been grumbling about the cool, damp, cloudy nature of May, 2019.

I've had a few people ask if this is the worst May for weather in memory. I can't speak for the rest of the cloudy Northeast, but we've had much, much, MUCH worse weather in Vermont this time of year.

I've got lots of examples. We run to David Ludlum's Vermont Weather Book, which tells plenty of tales of May misery.

On May 15, 1834, for instance. snow fell at a rate of one inch every 10 minutes for two hours in Newbury, Vermont, reaching a depth of three feet(!!) In low elevation Rutland, a foot of snow accumulated.

May, 1966 was probably the worst modern May on record. On May 3 that year, it reached 24 degrees in Burlington, which is still the coldest May temperature on record in the Queen City. It was 18 degrees that morning in Bloomfield and Chelsea.

Then, on May 8-10, 1966, Vermont had three consecutive days of snow. It accumulated to 3.5 inches in Burlington, 5.2 inches in Newport and 11 inches in Peru, Vermont.

My subjective vote for the worst May weather in my lifetime was in 1997. It wasn't the coldest May on record, but it was quite chilly, and constantly cloudy. Snowflakes made it all the way down into the Champlain Valley on May 7. It was 27 degrees on May 5, so anything that was trying to grow early got zapped by frost.

Under the persistent overcast, the temperature never made it above 70 degrees until May 28 in 1997, and the trees didn't leaf out until the end of the month. Ugh.

The first half of May, 1996 was at least as bad, with a general snowfall hitting most of the state, including the Champlain Valley on May 12 that year. Even Burlington got 0.3 inches of snow, which I think is the last time measureable snow fell in Burlington during May. (The weather got much better during the second half of May, 1996.)

This May surely won't be among the wettest on record, even as rainfall has been running above average. It does seem as though most recent Mays have been wet. The soggiest Mays on record in Burlington are 2013 (8.74 inches); 2011 (8.67 inches) and May 2006 (7.10 inches).  Those three wet Mays were not chilly, however. They were all warmer than average.

Looking ahead, the weather pattern looks like it will stay active, but maybe not as persistently overcast as it has been. Temperatures will bounce around a fair amount, but overall it won't be too far from average for this time of year.

"Ghost Apples" Were A Cool, Amazing Legacy Of Michigan Ice Storm

A "ghost apple" in Michigan. Freezing rain formed around rotten
apples on a tree. The branch shook, the apple fell but left its
icy coating behind. Photo by Andrew Sietsema.

Bouts of ice and freezing rain have been creating havoc off and on from Washington State to New England and beyond this month.

Count me among those who hate freezing rain. You can't drive in it, first of all. That is if you can hack your way through the ice to get inside your car.  

I'm tired of falling on ice, and since I'm getting older, I'm starting to increase my risk of getting hurt in these tumbles. Too much freezing rain brings down trees and power lines.

Yet, like anything else, there's a silver lining to silver thaws, as ice storms are often called. Sun glinting on ice covered trees is gorgeous, for instance. I suppose you can turn your driveway into a nice ice skating rink after freezing rain.  I'm grasping at straws here.

However, one very cool thing happened in Michigan after an ice storm earlier this month. This time of year, people who operate apple orchards begin pruning trees. Late winter is the time to do that.

Another "ghost apple" in Michigan. Photo by Andrew Sietsema via
WOOD-TV

One orchard operator in Kent County, Michigan named Andrew Sietsema went out pruning his apple orchard after an ice storm.

When he pruned, rotten apples still on the trees and encased in ice fell off the trees because the trees were shaking as he lopped off branches.

Most of the time, the ice and the apples fell off together.   But not always.

Apples have a freezing point a little colder than plain water. Temperatures while Sietsema was working were just perfect.  As WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids reported, it was warm enough for the apples to thaw, but cold enough so that the ice from the freezing rain stayed put.

As the trees shook, some of the mushy thawed rotten apples fell off the trees, but the ice that encased the apples stayed behind, attached to the trees.  As you can see by the photos in the post, this created what Sietsema called "ghost apples."  

The ice left behind after the old apples fell formed perfect molds of the apples that were once there. They looked like beautiful glass Christmas ornaments.

A Slightly Autumnal Feel To The First Day Of Summer

It's officially astronomical summer, and time to enjoy the great outdoors
This photo was taken during a heat wave a few years ago. But this year,
the first day of summer is actually on the cool side in Vermont.

Today's the first day of astronomical summer, the longest day of the year. It feels, however, just a bit like the autumnal equinox. It is a slightly chilly start to summer here in Vermont.

But don't worry! That doesn't mean the entire summer will be cold.

Actually, this cool first day of summer is quite pleasant from my perspective.

You can do anything outdoors and not melt from the heat. The sun is out, so it's not that cold, but the humidity is low, and there's a breeze. What's not to love?

Highs today will be in the upper 60s to mid 70s, which actually is only a little bit below normal for this time of year and certainly nothing all that unusual.

The coolness will linger off and on into the weekend and early next week. Tonight, temperatures will get down into the 40s across the entire region. So a good night for sleeping. Some of the cold hollows in the Adirondacks and Northeast Kingdom of Vermont could get into the 30s. I wouldn't even be surprised to see a touch of first night of summer frost in places like Saranac Lake, New York.

Temperatures will rebound nicely to normal summer levels Friday, but clouds and eventually showers moving in for Saturday and Sunday will keep temperatures on the cool side. On Sunday, another cold front arrives, which will keep temperatures a bit on the coolish side early next week before it warms up again.

Of course, we're talking about astronomical summer. Meteorological summer is considered to run from June 1 through August 31. For the record, June so far in Vermont has had temperatures averaging pretty close to normal.

Geeky But Wicked Cool NASA Video Shows Sea Salt, Smoke And Hurricane Interaction

An image from NASA's visualization of aerosols in the
atmosphere during the hurricane season. The blue and
white swirls over the oceans are hurricanes and other
storms concentrating sea salt in the atmosphere. The ghostly
white stuff in western North America is smoke from wildfires.

I just came across a cool visualization video that shows how aerosols in the atmosphere such as sea salt, smoke from wild fires and dust from the Sahara Desert interact and move around the world.

I know, I know, it sounds just a bit dull and science-y, but definitely watch the video at the bottom of this post. It's mesmerizing. Even to people who aren't weather geeks.

Says NASA:

"This visualization uses data from NASA satellites, combined with mathematical models in a computer simulation (that) allows scientists to study physical processes in our atmosphere. By following the sea salt that is evaporated from the oceans, you can see the storms of the 2017 hurricane season."

That is perhaps the most striking feature of the video. You can see high concentrations of salt gathered up in strengthening and strong hurricanes like Harvey, Irma, Maria and Ophelia.

A unique feature of Ophelia that you can see in the video is how it sucked up sea salt, like all hurricanes do, but also Saharan dust and smoke from deadly wildfires in Portugal, and that helps explain the odd smoky skies over Britain as Ophelia and its post-tropical remnants blustered through.

Another fascinating part of the video is how you can see wildfires break out in western and northern Canada, and in the western United States, then watch the smoke blow across the continent and over to  Europe and Asia.

The erupting wildfires are seen as dense pinpoint plumes of smoke before the smoke and ash disperse over wide areas.

The video sure helps explain why the sky was so often hazy and smoky over Vermont in August and September. A lot of wildfire smoke blew our way.

Smoke from the increasing trend of wildfires is raising health concerns as all the additional smoke from longer and more intense fire seasons is affecting human health, especially in areas relatively close to the fires.

You'll probably want to watch the video repeatedly to catch all the activity going on with the hurricanes, salt and smoke.

Here's the video:

You MUST Skip Stones Across A Frozen Pond Or Lake

This dude reacts after, for the first time in his life,
he skipped a stone across a frozen lake.  He's
obviously amazed at the sound. 

As yesterday's weather proved in Vermont, there's usually not much  joy or action or beauty during November in the North Country.  

Typical of this time of year, it was overcast and dark and dreary and quiet and gray. A few snowflakes descended through the chilly air from time to time. The forests, now devoid of leaves, was as gray as the depressing sky.

So you've got to find the cool things. Here's one thing I have done, especially as a kid, that you should go out and do, too.

Ponds and quiet coves in lakes are beginning to freeze this time of year. Please don't walk out on the ice, as it's way too thin to support you. You'll fall through.

Instead, pick up a rock and skip it across the frozen surface. Many of us Vermonters and other northerners have done this, and it's rewarding for the cool sounds it makes. If you have not given yourself the pleasure of doing this, please do it!

If you want a preview, watch this guy's reaction when he tries this for the first time in his life.

Live Science explains why you get sci-fi sounds when you skip a rock out onto a frozen lake:

".......The lake ice acts like a vibrating plate. When the stone hits, the impact launches a bending wave           (also called a flexural wave) in the ice. The bending wave travels at supersonic speed and continuously radiates sound into the air while it zips forward (away from the impact).......Because short waves travel faster than long waves, the higher pitches, or frequencies, hit your ear first."

So, you hear the higher pitch sounds separated from the lower pitches that are combined when the rock hits the ice. You need to be a little distance away from impact. If you drop the rock on the ice next to you, you just get a boring thud. So give the rock a good throw when you try this.

I will surely find a frozen pond soon to do this, as I often do. I'm still a kid at heart.

Here's a video of what you'll hear:

Random Images And Videos Of Really Cool Weather Phenomenon

Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds over Churchchrist, New Zealand.

I often run across images and videos on social media about weather that doesn't exactly fit what I want to tell you about, but are cool nonetheless.

So why not share them anyway?

The first image is of a rather rare cloud formation and one of my favorites: Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds. The photo was taken at an unspecified date over Christchurch, New Zealand.

The clouds, as you can see, look like breaking ocean waves. They are named for Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz, who studies the physics of the atmospheric instability that creates the clouds.

The clouds form when two different layers of the atmosphere move at different speeds. The upper layer of air is moving faster than the lower levels of the air when these clouds form. The higher winds in the upper layr will sometimes scoop the top of the cloud layer and form these wave-like clouds.



A gorgeous thunderstorm over Grenada, Spain

Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds are not dangerous, and don't produce severe weather. But they are a sign that the air is very unstable, and aircraft flying through areas with these clouds can get in trouble.

I've never personally witnessed Kelving-Helmholtz clouds, and being a weather geek, seeing the clouds is definitely on my bucket list.

The next photo in this post is not a terribly unusual weather phenomenon, but it's a gorgeous photo of a thunderstorm over Granada, a Spanish city in the foothills of that country's Sierra Nevada mountains.  

The Alhambra Palace, a luxury hotel, is in the foreground. Between that building and those dramatic clouds, it makes for just a gorgeous photo.

A dramatic looking but non-lethal avalanche in Juneau, Alaska recently
r

It was taken by Jose Luis Hens Terron.

The next photo was taken on March 3 in Juneau, Alaska.

Amid cold, blue skies, an avalanche descended from the steep mountains surrounding the city. The avalanche caused no deaths or injuries, and damage was minimal.

Pretty cool image of such a snow slide.

Finally, we have some cool images of severe thunderstorms developing in Nebraska about a week and a half ago.

The satellite feed here is mesmerizing, if you are a weather geek like me.

I'll have more images in future posts, because they're piling up left and right, but here's that Nebraska storm outbreak video:

Snow Be Gone: Satellite Shows Aftermath Of Vermont Spring Snow

A visible satellite photo taken Wednesday morning clearly
shows a stripe of snow on the ground through the Adirondacks,
central Vermont and New Hampshire. 

I was chilly working in a client's South Burlington, Vermont garden yesterday as a rather harsh late April cold snap continues.

While I worked, patches of snow lingered in the shade, a full two days after a two inch snowfall hit the area.

Much of Vermont got one to four inches of late season snow Tuesday.

Temperatures did get into the upper 40s the past couple of days, but the air was dry. When it's that dry, snow doesn't melt readily in areas that are shaded.

Besides, it should actually be in the low 60s this time of year. That snow should have melted much sooner, had things been normal.

Heck, it shouldn't have even snowed, but that's Vermont for you.

The National Weather Service in South Burlington shared a really cool satellite photo taken Wednesday morning over Vermont.

It's in this post. Click on it and make it bigger and easier to see.

To orient yourself, you can find Lake Champlain as the dark blue blotch near the upper center of the photograph.

You can clearly see the stripe of snow Tuesday's storm set down from the Adirondacks, through central Vermont and into New Hampshire.

By the time the photo was taken, the northern and southern edges of the snow cover had melted. In far northern Vermont, less snow fell, so it melted sooner. The more south you went, the snow mixed with rain, and further south, was just rain.

You also see the whiteness isn't as brilliant in the Champlain Valley as it is in the higher elevations of central Vermont and the Adirondacks of New York.

Less snow fell in the valley, and it was a little warmer there, so more of it was gone by the time the satellite snapped the photo Wednesday morning.

The satellite photo, though, really has a clear footprint of that snow, doesn't it?

It was another cold morning today, but some moderation in temperature is coming to Vermont Starting today.

Temperatures will rise into the 50s today and maybe touch 60 in a few spots Saturday. There's another freeze coming tonight, but we're used to that now.

Readings will be only slightly cooler than normal going into next week, so I guess that's an improvement over what we had this week.

Off and on precipitation is due much of next week, but this time, it will come all in the form of rain.

That won't create any more really cool visible satellite photos of Vermont, but that's surely OK by me!

Watch All Of The World's 2015 Weather In One Very Cool Video

A still from a video of satellite imagery showing
the world's weathe in 2015.

Meterologists put together a really cool video taken from geostationary satellites that show how the weather evolved across the globe during 2015.

The video is a compilation of geostationary satellities operated by EUMETSAT, the Japan Meteorological Society and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Mark Higgins, Training Manager at EUMETSAT narrates the video, pointing out highlighs such as the numeous cyclones and typhoons that formed in the eastern Pacific and Indian oceans and the seasonal transitions from large extratropical storms to thunderstorms in the northern hemisphere.

He also points out features like hurricane Joaquin, which then raced across the Atlantic Ocean as a strong non-tropical storm that unleashed floods in Europe.

It's a cool video to watch, if only to enjoy the steady flow of clouds and weather systems as they make their way around the world. It's like watching a well-tuned machine at work.

Even if under the clouds depicted in this "well-tuned machine"there's sometimes a chaos of wind and rain and blizzards and other dangerous weather.

 Here's the video:

Really Cool Photo Of Road Sign In Melting Oklahoma Ice Storm

The epic ice storm that hit Oklahoma over the weekend is starting to melt now, though heavy snow continues further north in Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota.

The melt yieided the cool photo in this post, as the melt caused the ice on this speed limit sign in Mustang, Oklahoma to slide downward, making pretty much a carbon copy of the original sign.

The photo went viral after meteorologist Brad Taylor of KWAX in Waco shared it on Facebook. The photo was taken by @barbiereif on Twitter.

Really cool!

Mexican Drought Makes Ghost Church Reappear

Ghost church reappears in a Mexican reservoir
as drought lowers water levels there.  

A drought has hit the state of Chiapas, Mexico and reservoirs have gotten low, low, low.

So low, that in one reservoir, a ghost church has emerged from the receding water.

According to The Independent, the Temple of Quechula was built in 1564 by Spanish colonists, who thought the area would become a major population center.

It didn't, and an outbreak of plague further reduced the population. The church never got that busy, and eventually, a dam was built in 1966 and the church disappeared beneath the new lake.

Now, local entrepreneurs are ferrying people out to the church for a look-see. It's pretty spooky looking, and it's amazing part of the structure is still around after being submerged like that for so long.

This isn't the first time the church has reappeared. In 2002, a drought made water so low that people could walk around the church and explore its rooms.

I'm sure the people of Chiapas are hoping the drought ends, but I guess the re-emergence of the church is one small bright spot to enjoy while waiting for the rains to return.

Wild Video: Flash Flood In Utah

Wild flash flood captured by David Rankin in Utah

I've featured these flash flood videos before, but I can't get enough of them.

Videographer and photographer David Rankin caught a particularly good one in southern Utah on August 30. A large storm dumped as much as 2.5 inches of rain over normally dry, mountainous terrain in the region.

Flash floods are a common consequence of these storms, but this one is particularly wild. You can see how dangerous they are, with all the logs and debris these rushes of water pick up.

In the drone footage within the video, you can see the storm in the distance that's causing the flash flood.

Pretty amazing:

Cool Time Lapse Of Nighttime Arizona Storm, Dust

The ever-reliable Arizona photographer and videographer Mike Olbinski captured this scene around Phoenix earlier this month of nightime lightning, dust storms and clouds, along with traffic, airliners and city lights in this mesmerizing time lapse video:

Love This Colorado Supercell Time-lapse

Watch this mesmerizing time lapse video of a supercell thunderstorm spinning like a top in Colorado on Friday.

I'm not aware of it causing much in the way of damage, but way cool:

Wild, Photogenic Tornado, Supercell Videos From North Dakota

Saturday's tornadic supercell in North Dakota.  

On Saturday, a scary looking rotating supercell thunderstorm raced southeastward from Canada into North Dakota.

StormChasingVideo.com personnel got a lot of it on video.

Saturday was a fairly busy day for tornadoes in the nation, with 24 reports of them, says NOAA's Storm Prediction Center. The tornadoes were in the Dakotas, Minnesota and the Mid-Atlantic States.

One of StormChasingVideo.com's film shows a narrow, but photogenic tornado zipping across the countryside northwest of Grand Rapids, Michigan. This tornado does not appear to have done much structural damage, as it was in a remote location.

Great video,:



StormChasingVideo.com also got shots of hail and rain, which were pretty dramatic, but  I LOVE the time lapse segments of their video.

Watch:

Awesome Satellite View of Spring Snow Melt In Vermont/Northern New York.

On April 12 in this screen shot from a NWS Burlington
Vermont video, a satellite image shows bare
ground in the Champlain Valley and ice breaking up
in Lake Champlain, but much of the rest of the
region still buried under snow and ice.  n

The National Weather Service in Burlington, Vermont today released a cool video showing the progression of early spring over most of Vermont, Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks of New York.

The view is via NOAA's MODIS visible satellite images, which can get down to pretty good detail in a relatively small area, like Vermont and northern New York.

The National Weather Service put images April 1, 12, 15 and 19 up in the video for comparison. They picked these days because skies were crystal clear, so no clouds were in the way of the view.

On April 1, everything is covered in snow except for a few evident bare patches in parts of the Champlain Valley.

By April 12, all of the Champlain Valley is clear of snow and ice is beginning to break up on Lake Champlain. Pretty much everyone else is snow covered. Things progress to Sunday, April 19, with snow only in the highest elevations, and no ice on Lake Champlain.

Things are beginning to backslide a little bit, temporarily of course.  Snow and sleet fell for a time this morning at mid and high elevations of New York and Vermont, though that had mostly changed to rain showers region wide by noon today.

Later this week and this weekend, a few inches of fresh snow might dust the mountains again as a chilly, unsettled spell of weather takes hold.

But soon enough, similar MODIS satellite images won't look so brown. Trees and fields will green up in another month or so, and the satellite images of Vermont on a clear day will be largely green instead of brown, as spring continues its unsteady advance toward the North Country.  

Here's the video:

Aurora Borealis Was Widespread Last Night. Did You See Any Of It

The International Space Station caught this
view of the Northern Lights last night.  

A large geomagnetic storm from the sun set off incredible displays of aurora borealis across much of the Northern Hemisphere, and parts of the Southern Hemisphere, both Monday night and especially last night.

Monday night, much of New Zealand was treated to the spectacle.

Last night, much of Northern Europe, including Britain, and North America, including pretty much all of the parts of Canada that had clear skies, and much of the northern United States got the great sky show.

The view of the Northern Lights from Yellowknife, Northwest
Territory, Canada last night. By Yuichi Takasaki  

This was probably the most intense electromagnetic storm in the past several years, even stronger than the one last September that also caused spectacular shows.

As EarthSky.org notes, these geomagnetic storms, outbursts from the sun really, send lots of charged particles which bombard the Earth's upper atmosphere if the sun's outburst is aimed at us.

This causes electrons in the upper atmophere to go into a higher energy state.

When the electons get over this excitement and revert back to their lower energy, they release a photon, otherwise known as light.  

Saginaw, Minnesota last night. Photo by Mark Tarello
via Twitter @mark_tarello.  

Of course, there are zillions of electrons up there, so when a whole bunch of them get together and release those electrons, you get the type of aurora borealis a lot of people saw last night.

If these space storms are super intense, the can disrupt power grids on Earth. In fact some scientists say a really bad one could cut electrical power to much of the Globe for weeks or months.

Imagine how disruptive that would be.

Nothing that bad has happened yet in modern times.

Sweden last night. Via Twitter, @AndersJilden. 

But an intense geomagnetic storm cut electrical power to pretty much the entire Canadian province of Quebec in March, 1989 for 12 hours. There have been smaller scale power outages in the United States caused by this.

This geomagnetic storm wasn't intense enough to screw up power grids. But it did give us quite a show.

Here in Vermont, it was kind of cloudy, but there were occasional clear moments. I saw a kind of a green, flickering haze near the northwest horizon as I took the dogs outside at around 4 a.m. today.

And there are nice photos and videos coming in from people who were watching the sky from on or near Lake Champlain.

Malletts Bay, Colchester, Vermont. Photo by
Dan Russell.  

It's hard to say whether there will be another show tonight, but the geomagnetic storm has peaked, so a display as widespread as last night's is unlikely.

I've also got a couple videos, below to show what happened last night.

The first is a largely unedited series of time lapse images of the aurora over southern Saskatchewan, Canada:




Another time lapse, this one by Dan Russell o Northern Lights Now, over Malletts Bay, Lake Champlain, Colchester, Vermont: