Old Crow Medicine Show Tornado Relief Song Does Us All Good

Last month, as you recall, devastating tornadoes blasted through Nashville, Tennessee and surrounding towns, killing 24 people and causing widespread destruction.

As in virtually every disaster, people come together and help those whose lives are upended.  Of course, people are trying to do that on a much larger scale, what with the coronavirus pandemic killing so many people.  

In any event, one of the Tennessee recovery efforts came from the group Old Crow Medicine Show, which has always been a favorite of mine.  "Nashville Rising" is a benefit for Nashville tornado recovery of course, and proceeds from sales of this music is going toward that recovery effort.

It also works a bit as a little glimmer of hope as we try to get through the pandemic.  Plus, it's just a terrific, terrific song.  If you can do a little for Tennesse tornado victims, or the pandemic fight in your own town, maybe this great song will inspire you a bit:

Sunny Day Hail Storm Confirms Everything Is Upside Down

Bright sunshine amid falling hail near Portand, Oregon last week
You can see it better within the video in this post. 

You can hear the woman's voice in this brief video at the bottom of this post.

Yes, everything's normal. We're all under quarantine. It's a beautiful blue sky, sunny day. And it's hailing. Pretty hard.

That's the view in the video, so yeah, things are strange.

Actually, in terms of weather, it was strange, but very, very explainable.

Yes, there were blue skies overhead, but the air was unstable over Portland, Oregon on March 31, when the video was taken. That produced a lot of popcorn type showers in the Portland area.  The showers had gaps of blue sky between them. It was a very changeable day.

There was cold air just above the Earth's surface, so it was easy for hail to form. In the video, one of these shower clouds with hail must have just passed nearby, flinging handfuls of hail at this hapless homeowner.

The hailstones weren't big at all, as you can see, and caused little if any damage.

Still fun to watch in these topsy-turvy times. Here it is:

Tennessee Proud After Tornadoes

Volunteers move debris this weekend to help victims of the
devastating tornadoes in Tennessee that struck Tuesday.

Can I just say I'm totally impressed with the people of Tennessee?

As you well know, tornadoes slammed central Tennessee last week, causing at least 24 deaths and spreading destruction through huge swaths of the state.  

In every disaster, people step up to help those who were hit.  I remember the wonderful outpouring of support here in Vermont when extreme flooding from Tropical Storm Irene wrecked many communities here in the Green Mountain State back in 2011. Vermont Strong, right?

The reaction was just as glorious in Tennessee after the tornadoes.  Tennessee's nickname is "The Volunteer State" and it has certainly lived up to its reputation in the past few days.

On Saturday, so many thousands of people turned out to help with recovery in and near Nashville that some were turned away and told to come back in a few days. They'll be needed, as this mess will take a long time to clean up.

Also, the urge to volunteer is so great that cars belonging to the Good Samaritans started blocking the way for trucks deployed to clear debris.  So Nashville set up a nice shuttle bus system for the volunteers. 

The huge tornado chewed its way from near Nashville and  blasted its way toward the town of Cookeville, Tennessee.  The twister swept houses away just west of downtown Cookeville, killed several people and just laid waste to the landscape.

The tornado had traveled about 60 miles eastward toward Cookeville. Just before it hit the community's downtown, it abruptly, miraculously dissipated. The scientists out there say another, weaker tornado forming nearby robbed the monster tornado of its energy source, causing it to collapse.

That's probably true, but it still feels like an almost supernatural miracle.

Small piece of debris pulled up into the air rained down on undamaged neighborhoods sometimes miles from the tornado path. Some of that "debris" was precious - family photos and momentoes torn from homes and scattered to the winds.

Anyway, a coffee shop in downtown Cookeville, spared from the tornado, stepped up to help in a wonderful way.  People who find photos on their property can bring them to the Soul Craft coffee shop in Cookeville. They're put in the box, and people can come in and look through the salvaged photos to see if any of them are theirs.

 Here's a news story on that coffee shop:

Vermont Sky Photos Of 2019: Some Of My Favorites

One of the cloud photos I took in Vermont last year. 

Well, three months late, but I finally got around to doing my annual video of some of my favorite sky and weather photos from Vermont during 2019.

As you can see in the slide show, pretty much all of the photos were taken in northwestern Vermont.

Also, the photos are pretty heavy on the summer season rather than winter, spring and autumn.

That's because the sky, at least in my opinion, is so much more interesting during that time of year.

Here's the video:

Winter Update And a Strange Norwegian Guy Embraces Winter, With The Help Of Vodka

As this projected weather map shows, two very strong
storms on Wednesday will disrupt Thanksgiving
travel across much of the United States.

Yesterday's storm in Vermont, as expected, pulled a few surprises.  Central Vermont, as expected, got two to four inches of wet snow, sleet and slush.

However, the light snow and rain that forecasters thought would develop in the Champlain Valley never materialized.

From Burlington north, it was a dark, gloomy Sunday with a heavy, thick overcast, but no precipitation fell. (It gave me a chance to do a little work outdoors, which was nice.)

That storm's gone, but it looks like Thanksgiving week travel is going to be a challenge for much of the United States.

The first storm will travel from the central Rockies, through the middle of the Plains and into the Great Lakes Wednesday.  This will lay down a stripe of heavy snow from Denver to Minneapolis to the northwestern Great Lakes Tuesday through Wednesday. That will cause a lot of problems and flight delays for sure.

Here in Vermont, that storm will give us a slug of of rain Wednesday and Wednesday night, followed by mostly light snow, gusty winds and cold weather on Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile a beast of a storm is due to crash ashore in Oregon Tuesday night with its own package of strong winds, snow and rain on the West Coast.  The storm will reorganize over the southern Rockies and then emerge over the Plains late in the week, so the trip home from wherever your going will be a challenge, too.   It looks like that one will be a big, disruptive coast-to-coast storm.

No rest of the weary.

So, with that in mind, I found this odd little video from a guy in Norway who is a bit enthusiastic about the onset of winter. Certainly more than me.

Clad only in black underwear, he cleans off his car, drives to a frozen bath tub, cuts up the ice with a chain saw and relaxes in that icy tub.  It's apparent that copious amounts of vodka are helping with this. And for some reason he's got a little doll to help him out with this adventure.

In other words, DON'T try this at home.  But the video is oddly entertaining nevertheless. Watch:

Waterlogged Venice, Italy Assessing After Near-Record Flooding

A lone person wades through the flooding in Venice, Italy this week.
It was the second highest flood crest on record. Credit: Getty Images

UPDATE:

In the "You Can't Make This Stuff Up department, the Venato Regional Council sort of a county or state government for Venice and environs, got flooded out literally moments after voting against spending money to combat climate change, CNN tells us.

Of course, as I describe below, climate change was only one of many ingredients that caused this massive flood in and around Venice.

But the irony of this story is certainly there.

Says CNN:

"The council chamber in Ferro Fini Palace started to take in water around 10 p.m. local time, as councilors were debating the 2020 regional budget, Democratic Party councilor Andrea Zazoni said in a long Facebook post.

'Ironically, the chamber was flooded two minutes after the majority League Brothers of Italy, and Forza Italia parties rejected our amendments to tackle climate change,' Zazoni, who is deputy chairman of the environment committee said in the post."

The League Brothers party is aligned with the Italian government's far right leadership. The head of the League Brothers for the Venato Regional Council rejected Zazoni's assertions saying the council has spent money on anti-pollution efforts.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

As anybody with a hint of awareness about Italy knows, the historic city of Venice is wet and prone to flooding.

Many of us have seen photos over the years of tourists standing knee deep in water or picking their way over makeshift platforms above flood waters.  The city has some flooding at least a couple dozen times a year.

This week's Venice flooding went way beyond that.  You can see video at the bottom of this post.

About 85 percent of Venice was flooded, the worst inundation since the famous storm of 1966, according to the Weather Channel.

The water reached 6.14 feet above normal, just 2.5 inches lower than the historic 1966 flood, the Associated Press reports.

There are fears that St. Mark's Basilica could be damaged, as water flowed through windows and into the crypt beneath, says the Weather Channel.  That might be compromised the historic building's structure, such as the columns that hold St. Mark's up.  The building is made largely of marble, which corrodes easily in salt water.

St. Marks has flooded just six times in its nearly 1,000 year history, but two of those times were in the past two years, says CBS News.

The Associated Press also said the Ca'Pesaro modern art gallery was damaged because water created an electrical short circuit, which started a fire.

Those platforms tourists walked on during high water were taken down because the inundation was so bad those platforms could have washed away.  Shopkeepers traditionally put boards in front of doors to keep water out, but this time the water overtopped those boards, flooding countless businesses and homes.

On the bright side, the AP said that priceless artworks in Venice were unscathed.

"These are the effects of climate change," Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said on Twitter as he surveyed the damage, which he said amounted to hundreds of millions of euros.

He's probably only partly right about climate change.  It could well have influenced this week's flooding, but it's not the only player.

Plenty of things came together to create the destructive Venice flooding.  A full moon made ocean tides higher worldwide.  Strong southerly winds pushed the high tide into Venice. Plus, the city is slowly sinking because of ground water pumping.

And, yes, climate change contributed because sea levels are rising due to the warming. That made the water a little higher than it otherwise would have been.

Venice has been building multi-billion dollar flood barriers for more than a decade, but the project has been plagued by delays, cost overruns and corruption.

Video of the flood from The Guardian:



More footage from the BBC. Note the water flowing into shops and hotels:

Recovery Slow In Florida After Hurricane Michael, One Year Later

A house in Panama City, Florida damaged by Hurricane Michael last
year still sits unrepaired. Photo by Valerie Crowder/WFSU.

Just about a year ago, on October 10, 2018, category 5 Hurricane Michael slammed ashore at Mexico Beach, on the Florida panhandle, with 160 mph winds.

Needless to say, the area in and around Mexico Beach was pretty much leveled.  As the one-year anniversary approaches, the area is still struggling big time, as you will see in the sad video at the bottom of this post. 

You can tell some early hopefulness faded.  On some buildings, blue tarps had been placed over the remains of roof, as property owners hoped to salvage what they could and rebuild. But no work has begun on some of these properties and many of these tarps are now shredded and useless, flapping in the Gulf of Mexico breezes.

On other properties, the debris has been removed, leaving just blank concrete slabs. Other buildings lay in ruins, looking just the way they did when we saw news footage of them on the days immediately after the storm.

Hurricane Michael coming ashore at Mexico Beach, Florida last year.

Part of the reason might be this: As of July, 15% of Michael-related insurance claims were still unresolved, according to the Associated Press. 

Vast pine forests just inland from Mexico Beach still lie in twisted ruins, with a little greenery popping up in what is left of the understory.

Back in Mexico Beach, resilient palm trees look like they've made a nice comeback, but otherwise there's still scarcely any green trees left. 

The white sandy beach in the town looks inviting, but few beachfront buildings have been repaired. Some ostructures are undergoing reconstruction, but not all that many. The only fully restored and open business I saw in the video is a Dollar General.

There's still  few people around, too. It looks might many have abandoned Mexico Beach. There are plenty of forlorn "For Sale" signs on ruined or blank properties, with no takers.

Here's the video:

More Showers And Storms In Forecast, So We'll Just Enjoy This Beagle Watching Hail

A storm over Georgia, Vt on July 31. More scattered storms are
scheduled for Vermont and surrounding areas today.

We continue this morning to enjoy or endure, depending on your perspective, a weather pattern that is giving us rounds of hit and miss showers and storms this morning.

This, after severe storms caused some damage in parts of southern and eastern Vermont Saturday, and some really lightning-charged storms in far southern Vermont Sunday evening. (Fortunately, those storms had weakened some before reaching Vermont.

They caused a fair amount of damage in Saratoga County, New York, not too far from the Vermont border.

A few showers are scattered around parts of the North Country this morning, and a few more storms might pop up this afternoon. Most of those will probably be over and east of the Green Mountains, as it looks now.

After a break Tuesday, more showers and storms will fire up Wednesday, before things turn clearer and autumn-like by Friday.

It's pointless to predict at this point how extensive the storms might be on Wednesday (I'm not expecting anything huge at this point), we might as well enjoy the video, below.

It's a brave little beagle pup, experiencing his first, gusty thunder and hail storm. Some of the storm's loudest moments are a little frightening for this little guy named Smudge, but his curiosity about the storm carries him through. He even gets to snack on some hailstones after the storm blows over.

So here's Smudge to brighten your potentially stormy day:

It's Classic Fourth of July Vermont Weather -- Hot!

A gorgeous summer day last year in Burlington, Vermont. This
year's Fourth of July weather - today - will be about the same.

"Hot as the Fourth of July," is a timeworn cliche, but hey, cliches are often true, right?

Such as the case today, the Fourth of July 2019, as we in Vermont are setting up for a hot one. Great beach weather. Great barbecue weather. Great fireworks watching weather. What's not to love?

Well, it will be a bit too hot for some people today.  (I've become a hot weather wimp in my old age, for instance.)

Everybody in Vermont, except those on the tippy tops of the tallest mountains will see high temperatures in the 80s today. Warmer valleys (I see you, Champlain and lower Connecticut valleys!) will have a great shot of getting to 90 degrees or even a little above that this afternoon. Thank goodness humidity levels will only be moderate. Not super dry, mind you, but not awful, either.

Plus the sun will be out most if not all of the day. Bottom line: The Fourth of July this year is a classic in the weather department.

The time around the Fourth of July has had its extreme weather. Two of Vermont's most historic, biggest heat waves happened on and around July 4.

In 1911, Vermont had it's hottest day on record on July 4, reaching 105 degrees at Vernon, in the southeastern corner of the state. Neighboring New Hampshire also had its hottest day on record on July 4, 1911, reaching 106 degrees.

Burlington, Vermont, was relatively "chilly" on July 4, 1911, only reaching a high of 98 degrees (ugh!) But that was down from 100 degrees the day before.

The 1911 heat wave was long, with a break in the middle of it. According to the Vermont Weather Book, Burlington's daily high temperature from July 1 to 12 was as follows: 86. 94, 100, 98, 98, 91, 75, 88, 95, 96, 96, and finally on July 12, a cooling trend started when the high only reached 86 degrees.

It's possible the 1911 heat wave was New England's worst weather disaster. Some estimates are that 2,000 New Englanders died in those pre-air conditioning days.

The other historic July 4 heat wave happened just last year, in 2018. On July 4 last year, Burlington reached 95 degrees on the Fourth of July, so the record for the date from 1911 still stands.

But the heat wave that lasted from June 30 through July 5 last year was among the most extreme on record. The low temperature in Burlington on July 2 was 80 degrees, the hottest "low" temperature on record. Burlington also suffered through six consecutive days with highs of 93 degrees or more.

Not to be morbid again, but the July, 2018 heat wave was Vermont's worst weather disaster since the Hurricane Irene floods of 2011.  The heat caused little physical damage but caused at least six deaths in the Green Mountain State.  (The link has four deaths, but two more fatalities were confirmed later.)

The 2018 Fourth of July  heat wave was part of what was to become the hottest summer on record in Burlington.

Sometimes, Mother Nature creates her own fireworks display on the Fourth of July weekend. We've had some doozies in Vermont.

Some examples: In 1999, a derecho formed in North Dakota on July 4, and sped rapidly over a long distance through Minnesota, upper Michigan, Ontario, Quebec and on into northern Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine in the pre-dawn hours of July 5.

The path of a long lasting derecho on the Fourth of July
weekend, 1999. It caused one death in the Northeast
Kingdom. No storms anylike this in the forecast today!

Winds in that 1999 Derecho reached 90 mph Colbrook, New Hampshire. In Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, one person died and others were injured as the derecho winds slammed through crowded camp grounds.

In 2012, Vermont was hit by more very severe storms on the Fourth of July. The day was classically hot, reaching 90 degrees in Burlington. But thunderstorms quickly erupted that afternoon and evening.

The first round headed southeastward across eastern Vermont in the afternoon, causing lots of tree damage. A second round moved southeastward through the Champlain Valley, with winds gusting to 70 mph in Colchester and 63 mph in South Burlington.

There was, predictably a lot of wind damage, mostly to trees. There was also extensive street flooding in Burlington, causing damage to several buildings. (See the video I took of this storm in Burlington. The rain amid the wind was so heavy that visibility was almost zero.)

On this Fourth of July, 2019, there is a slightest chance of an isolated shower or storm, but don't hold your breath.  The air is too stable to support much more than some cumulus clouds.

Here's a video of the July, 2012 wildness in Burlington. I know it looks like I was in a weird spot, but I was trying to shoot the video from a protected area behind buildings and tanks. Love the close lightning strike about two minutes in:

Guadalajara, Mexico Had A Hail Of A Time

Hail swamps Guadalajara, Mexico over the weekend.
Photo by Ulises Ruiz/AFP/Getty Images

A hailstorm in Guadalajara, Mexico has certainly been in the news.

Over the weekend, a massive amount of hail fell in that region over the weekend. The hail, mixed with water, flowed down streets and piled up as deep as six feet in some areas around the city.

The hail flow amid the flash flooding was so intense that it busted through doors and windows to bury home interiors in ice.

Cars and trucks were also swept away.  At least 450 homes were damaged. Ten people were treated for hypothermia due to ice exposure.

That fact is incredible, since Guadalajara is in the tropics and it's the middle of summer.  You can expect cases of heat stroke this time of year, but hypothermia?

Also, that volume of hail is pretty incredible.  None of the hailstones were particularly big, but as you can see there was a hell of a lot of them. That had to be an intense thunderstorm to unleash so much hail is such a warm part of the world. Since a thick layer of the atmosphere is warm in Mexico this time of year, a lot of the hail had to have melted on the way down. And still this much accumulated.

Obviously most of Guadalajara didn't have this much hail. The photos and videos in this post show where flash flooding piled the hail into immense drifts.

Some videos are below. First one is an overview from VOA. The hail inside the house near the start of this clip is something!



Somehow this truck made it through the hail:



Another good compilation video of the hailstorm and its aftermath

Colorado Greets Summer's Arrival With Winter Snow; Also More Storm Videos

Snow in Colorado over the weekend. Photo via Twitter @CoDude5280

The Summer Solstice brought a rare winter storm to Colorado and other sections of the Rocky Mountains.

Some of the higher totals included 4.9 inches in Cameron Pass and 4.2 inches in Berthoud Pass.  Mountain summits really got clobbered, with a report of two feet of new snow at Steamboat Springs.

The new snow prompted the Arapahoe Basin ski area to extend its season to the final days of June.

June snow happens from time to time in the Rocky Mountains, but this was awfully late in the season and awfully deep for the Summer Solstice

Here's the mid-winter like scene in Rabbit Ears Pass, Colorado over the weekend:



Storms continued to batter other parts of the nation Sunday. A tornado touched down around South Bend, Indiana. There were also many reports of wind damage across the South and Midwest.

Here's a close range video of a tornado hitting South Bend, Indiana. The twister badly damaged a day care center behind the CVS Pharmacy in the video:



Here's traffic cam footage in Georgia the other day showing extreme thunderstorm winds thrashing and collapsing traffic signals. Glad I wasn't in one of the cars there:

Germany Hailstorm Causes Serious Damage

Chaos in Germany: Cracked windshields from hail
and cars stranded in flash flooding near Munich.
Photo via Twitter, @MegabrainTV 

Here in the United States, we've hit a relative, temporary lull in severe thunderstorm activity after a very busy May.

Things look like they might pick up again in the middle of the country. We'll have to see about that. '

Meanwhile, as you can see in the dramatic videos at the bottom of this post, extreme hailstorms hit parts of Germany on Monday, especially around Munich and other areas of Bavaria.

The hail was as big as tennis balls. Such storms hitting a populated area like Munich probably caused tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

Countless cars had cracked and broken windows, as did houses and buildings. Roofing and siding also took a serious hit.

Several people were injured, but no deaths were reported in the Monday storms.

New storms struck eastern Germany Tuesday, with another round of large damaging hail, this time around Saxony and Brandenburg. Potsdam, Germany reported severe flash flooding and wind damage .
The weather is forecast to remain unsettled around Munich and other areas of Germany for the next few days, with more thunderstorms possible Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, according to The Weather Channel.

Some videos:

Here's a compilation video of some of the hailstorms around Munich on Monday:



Here's one of many motorists in Germany losing a windshield

Rare Haboob Blasts Lubbock, Texas

The haboob entering a neighborhood near Amarillo. Photo by
Jaci Herrera via Twitter. 

One of the most visually striking meteorological phenomena are haboobs.

Haboobs are walls of dust that roar across usually desert landscapes. They form when strong downdrafts and wind gusts from thunderstorms stir up the dust.

The walls of dust are amazing to look at, but also dangerous. They cut down on visibility on highways, often leading to fatal crashes.

And who wants to clean up after all that dust settles over everything?

Haboobs are common in places like Saudi Arabia and Arizona. Phoenix, Arizona frequently gets them.

They're not as common elsewhere. But yesterday, Lubbock, Texas had an absolutely spectacular haboob. 

The haboob crashing through the Texas panhandle near Lubbock, Texas
yesterday. Photo by Joe Scott, via Twitter. 

A line of severe thunderstorms packing winds of at least 60 mph formed west of Lubbock Wednesday.

The outflow from these storms created this spectacular haboob. No injuries were reported, even as visibility fell to zero on Interstate 27 north of Lubbock.

The National Weather Service issued dust storm warnings for a long strip of the Texas panhandle as the haboob progressed eastward.  Videos are below.

On the bright side, after the haboob moved through, the thunderstorms that caused them also moved through, dumping rain and washing some of the dust away.

Haboobs are rare in Lubbock, but they do happen. Another spectacular one occurred there in October, 2011. 

It's been a wild week in the Texas panhandle. Over the weekend, another, wetter thunderstorm caused extensive flash flooding in Amarillo, about 120 miles north of Lubbock.

In the videos below, you can see the dark parent thunderstorm behind the haboob.  Some clouds along the gust front seem to be interacting with the haboob.

The National Weather Service office in Lubbock issued this time lapse video of the haboob.



The haboob came through during television station KAMC's newscast. They fortunately kept the view from their sky tower camera on, interrupting the normal news program:

All The Stupid Complaints About Meterologists In One Handy Video

This dude plays the archetypal dumb cluck who says all
the dumbest things to meteorologists in a worthwhile video.

I'm not a meteorologist. Just a weather geek. I definitely have training in meteorology, but didn't go the full distance to get a degree in it.

I'm not super great at more advanced math, which a meteorology degree requires, so I went with a journalism degree.

Basically, that means I'm not smart enough to be a full-blown meteorologist, pardon the punny weather reference there.

Meteorologists are really, really smart. However, arguably more than any other profession, they have to put up with an awful lot of outspoken stupidity raining down on them. (There I go again.)

Not all meteorologists are on TV, but they are the ones who constantly get harassed about their wardrobe. As if that aspect of a weather person is the most important. Female meteorologists seem to be most targeted here.   As if the most important thing about a televised tornado warning is the color dress the person delivering said warning is wearing.

Speaking of which, people always complain when regular programming is interrupted by a tornado or some other severe weather warning. The warning might not be for a location close to you, so you scream that the warning interrupted a critical moment of "Wheel Of Fortune."

You really don't care if the TV meteorologist is trying to save lives eight counties over. "Wheel Of Fortune" is so much more important, right?

Then the meteorologists get dinged for a slightly inaccurate forecast, or the forecast is accurate but people don't understand what a 30 percent chance of showers means. Crackpot tinfoil hat-wearing onspiracy theorists are angry because meteorologists know chemtrails are bullshit fiction. People would rather believe some Russian bot on the internet than a real, live scientist, I guess.

Anyway, rant over. This rant will continue in this entertaining and what meteorologists would say is a way-too-familiar scenario in this video:

Here's One Way To Travel Across A Lake In The Winter

A guy in Maine wanted to get across a frozen lake.

It didn't take much effort. He just opened an umbrella, and let the wind propel him across the slippery ice on the frozen lake. The man in the video claims he traveled three miles this way.

Looks fun. Watch:

Vermont Weather Photos, 2018

For those of you who might not have wanted to go through my entire written year in review the other day, here's a quick video of some of my favorite weather and cloud photos of Vermont in 2018. 

I didn't put in background music. Just come up with your own, as your taste might be better than mine!

Here it is:

WIndy And Wild In The Rockies

Very strong winds are pretty common along the front range of the Rockies in Montana, Wyoming and  Colorado during the winter.

Recently, a man stepped out onto the ice on Hogan Reservoir near Clark Forks, Wyoming. Here was the result:

Leave It To A Vermonter To (Try) To Get Southern Snow Motorist Unstuck

Jim Cantore, in blue coast crouched in front of car, tries to get a Boone,
North Carolina car unstuck from deep snow this weekend. 

As you might have seen recently on the news, the Southeast has been hit with an unusually severe snowstorm.

Some areas in North Carolina were hit by a foot and a half of snow. Of course, the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore was there, because he's always there for any big storm.

There's one video circulating that's just typical. In hard-hit Boone, North Carolina a car got stuck in deep snow. Southerners aren't used to snow, so you can tell they were a bit flummoxed.

Cantore, though, is originally from snowy Vermont, orchestrated a rescue of the stuck car. Talk about taking charge!  You do this, you do that, he's instructing people on camera.

By the end of the video, the car is not quite yet unstuck, but all I could think of while watching the video is an old curmudgeon but secretly kind Vermont farmer trying to get some skier flatlander's SUV unstuck from a snowy rural road on the way to Killington.

You just can't take the Vermonter out a Vermonter, no matter where they end up, can you? Here's the oddly entertaining video:

"Snoliage" Day Past; Still Cold, Future Snow Threat Diminished

A bush in my back yard in St. Albans, Vermont gets dusted with
snow Wednesday morning. 

As of 8:15 this morning, most of the 0.7 inches of snow that fell on my St. Albans, Vermont property yesterday had melted.

The early shot of winter isn't quite over, as I noted a special weather statement from the National Weather Service in South Burlington alerting us to spotty freezing drizzle (ugh!) in the northeast quarter of the state.

Except in the Northeast Kingdom, yesterday's snowfall, while pretty, was not substantial. I did see a report of 5.1 inches in Derby Center and 4.5 inches in Holland, with a smattering of six inch totals over some high elevations.

Northern New Hampshire and Maine were the big "winners' in this storm. Upton, Maine had a foot of snow, and Berlin, New Hampshire was close with 11 inches.

Sugar maple leaves dusted in snow
yesterday in St. Albans, Vermont. 

Some New England ski areas are already in operation. Killington opened nearly a week ago. Mount  Snow in southern Vermont plan its earliest opening in its 64-year history this coming Saturday.

Also coming Saturday is that nor'easter type storm we've been talking about.  As forecasts keep getting adjusted, it doesn't look like it will be a huge snow producer, except possibly on the highest peaks.

It looks like there might be some snow and sleet at the onset of the storm Saturday, even on some valley floors. But warmish air will move in aloft, and we'll have a cold rain instead for most of Saturday night.

Another storm might get going midweek, but nobody's sure if it will come close enough to give us substantial precipitation, and what form that precipitation might take.

In any event, scroll through the photos of the "snoliage" yesterday in this post, because it does have its beauty. I even did a short pano of the snow falling around my house yesterday, which is included below.

The skies cleared for a time in the late afternoon, which quickly melted a lot of the snow, but added some to the beauty around me.

Snow meling in my garden in late afternoon sun yesterday amid
fall foliage.

The sun came out late Wednesday afternoon but my back deck in St.
Albans, Vermont was not as inviting as usual, given that it was
coated in snow 

Here's a very short video of the snow falling around my house in St. Albans, Vermont yesterday:

Storm Chasers Capture Horror Of Hurricane Michael in Florida

The blue house was lifted off pilings where it had been on the right side
of this road. It was pushed across the Mexico Beach road and into a
larger condominium across the street. Photo via Twitter, @SimonStormRider

Simon Brewer and Juston Drake of StormChasingVideo on YouTube have what is perhaps the most horrifying video yet of Hurricane Michael in Mexico Beach, Florida, where it made landfall

The video, which you'll see below, just shows the enormous power of the wind and what it can do. I'm speechless.

In one clip of the aftermath, I think I found the blue house that ABC meterologist Ginger Zee lost as a storm surge ripped the house for its mooring and rolled it past her condo and into the abyss of wind and rain.

The Brewer/Drake video show the blue house sitting in the middle of the main street through Mexico Beach.

I think the most haunting images, actually the sound, are clips they took in the immediate aftermath of Michael. All the smoke and burglar alarms are going off in the shattered houses and buildings around them. It is incredibly eerie.

 Here's the stunning video: