Three Days Of Summer Snow Make A Mess Of Calgary

Workers try to remove snow from a Calgary golf course
in anticipation of a golf tournament this weekend. Photo by
Stuart Dryden, Calgary Sun.  

It's been snowing for three days now in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and as you can imagine, it's really taking a toll.

The big problem is the trees haven't begun to lose their leaves yet, since it's still technically summer. The snow is piling up on the leaves, weighing down the trees and they're breaking left and right. 

Then you have the tableau of snow covered boats still docked at the lakes. (Again, still summer!)

Plus you get the usual litany of slippery roads, car accidents, slips and falls on icy sidewalks and events being canceled.

 They're even trying to clear snow off a golf course so they can play the Spruce Meadows Masters Tournament in Calgary this coming weekend.

According to the Weather Channel, Calgary had 4.6 inches of snow Monday and another half inch today.

This photo wasn't taken last winter.
It's this week, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.  

Believe it or not, that's not a record early season snowfall. The earliest four inch snowfall on record in Calgary was on September 6, 1972,  says the Weather Channel.

On August 25-26, 1900 the city had a two-day total snowfall of around four inches. And a dusting of snow covered the Calgary ground on July 23, 1918, adds the Weather Channel.

The cold air causing the snow is heading across the international border into the United States, so the states will get some snow as well.

There's a winter storm warning for higher elevations of Montana, and even somewhat lower elevation cities like Great Falls might pick up a couple inches tonight.

There's also a winter weather advisory for tonight and tomorrow in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where they might get three to six inches of snow.

Yikes!!

Everybody has an opinion. Someone leaves
their thoughts on this week's snow in Calgary.  

The cold will spread south and east across the Great Lakes, Plains, Ohio Valley and East Coast over the the next few days.

None of these places will get snow, but frosts and freezes are possible in some of these areas.  

Meanwhile, the the great relief of people in Calgary, winter hasn't permanently settled in. Environment Canada forecasts a high of 50 degrees (Fahrenheit) on Saturday, 63 on Sunday and 75 next Monday.

Meanwhile, here's a chilling video of a guy's drive around Calgary during the snow. The trees don't look so good.

The Flooding Continues....

From @8NewsNow on Twitter, flooding
on a Nevada Interstate Monday.  

The other day, I wrote about the flood woes in Phoenix on Monday, with its wettest day on record.

Since then, the flash flooding in different parts of the nation has continued on and on,  hitting the Tidewater area of southeastern Virginia and eastern North Carolina, then toward evening in southern Nevada, near Las Vegas.

In Virginia and North Carolina, many areas received 9 to as much as 12 inches of rain in a day. In Nevada, several inches of rain flooded, closed and destroyed parts of Interstate 15.

A post-script on the Phoenix flood. It turned out they got 3.29 inches of rain Monday, beating the calendar day record of 2.91 inches set in 1933. (It hadn't stopped raining when I last reported the Phoneix flood, so I had 2.96 inches.

This wasn't, however, a 24-hour record for Phoenix. That was 4.98" on July 1-2, 1911.

But I'm nitpicking, of course. The flooding, by any measure, in Phoenix and other areas, including Nevada, was breathtaking.

The Southwest might have a repeat next week, as a similar weather pattern, when a forecasted hurricane off Baha California could spread more deep tropical moisture into the Southwest.

Here's the scene on Interstate 15 on Monday between Las Vegas and Mesquite, Nevada. Scary. (Scroll down for more flood news below the video):

 

Overnight, it was the Midwest's turn.

Kirksville, Missouri picked up 8.62 inches of rain in just a few hours early today. Television Station Fox 4 in Kansas City says several motorists had to be rescued from flooded Interstate 29 last night. Some of the people rescued had been clinging to their car roofs for an hour.

It seems weather historian Christopher Burt said it best in his blog yesterday:

"It seems this has been a summer of remarkable extreme precipitation events across the U.S.

Indeed!

Climate Progress weighed in this week about the frequent floods.   They note climate change makes flooding like we've seen in so many different areas of the world more likely. They cite the 2014 National Climate Assessment:

"Warmer air can contain more water vapor than cooler air. Global analyses show that the amount of water vapor in the atmospher has in fact increased due to human caused warming.

This extra moisture is available to storm systems, resulting in heavier rainfalls. Climate change also alters characteristics of the atmosphere that affect weather patterns and storms."

Some climatologists are also looking into the possibility that climate change is causing weather patterns to become "stuck" causing prolonged storminess and downpours in some areas, while other areas experience drought.

As for the near future, flood watches are in effect today across parts of Indiana and Illinois because of the risk of torrential thunderstorms. Flood watches are also up for northern Wisconsin and the Upper Pennisula of Michigan

One last flood video: There was another flash flood, this time in Turkey. In the incredible video below, a woman is washed along in a torrent racing down a city street. Watch what happens:

Incredible Russian Dash Cam: Guy Tries To Get Back In Garage As Tornado Arrives

Things start to get way too stormy just after
a guy in Russia pulls out of his garage.  

There was a big tornado in Russia about a week and a half ago.

We now have a dash cam view that is probably one of the most remarkable videos I've seen of a tornado.

We see the view through the front windshield as the Russian driver backs out of a garage on a stormy day.

(Note: the time stamp on the video is incorrect. This was in late August)

Just as he pulls out onto the road, chaos erupts. It's a tornado!  Better get back into the garage!!!

Watch below what happens when he tried to do just that.

Spoiler:  Judging from the damage to the car and everything else around toward the end of the video, you wonder how he survived.

This is INCREDIBLE, though. Watch:

Epic Flood: Phoenix, Arizona No Longer A Desert City, At Least For Now

Flooding in Phoenix this morning.  From Twitter
via @photochowder (Michael Chow)

Just a few days after experiencing quite a huge dust storm, Phoenix Arizona found itself drowning this morning.  

They had their wettest day on record, and the flooding was incredible.

More than three inches of rain poured down on Phoenix in just a few hours. Some areas nearby had at least five inches of rain.

Such rainfall totals are really impressive for rather wet places, like where I live in Vermont. But to have something like that in the desert is just wild.

At last check, the National Weather Service office in Phoenix recorded 2.96 inches of rain so far today, breaking the single day rainfall record of 2.91 inches set in 1933.

During the (comparatively) wet monsoon season in Phoenix, which runs July through September, normal rainfall for the three months totals about 2.7 inches.

Today, they got just under three inches in seven hours. Like I said, wild.

Another view of Phoenix, Arizona flooding
today from Michael Chow. Via Twitter, @photochowder  

Desert sands and rocks really can't absorb heavy rain very well, so the water runs off into floods. And Phoenix is basically miles and miles of sprawling concrete and asphalt.

As you can imagine, water doesn't exactly soak into concrete or vast stretches of pavement on freeways and parking lots

So you get epic flooding when a storm of this hugeness hits.

The culprit behind all this desert rain is the normal monsoon moisture finding its way northwestward from the Gulf of Mexico to the deserts. That would be enough to cause some downpours.

But moisture from the remnants of Hurricane Norbert, which was off the coast of Baja California a couple days ago, is really adding water to the atmosphere, so you get the downpours you got around Phoenix today.

Like I've said before, this really does seem to be the summer of flash floods across the nation and across the world. That's continuing apace, that's for sure.  

Yet another view of the Phoenix flood, via Twitter
from @JillGalus.  

In addition, to Phoenix, flash flooding has been a real problem the past few days elsewhere in Arizona and in the deserts of southern California, especially around Riverside. 

Elsewhere in the world, the dire flood situation in Kashmir and Pakistan is getting worse. The most extensive flooding in that region in decades has killed at least 175 people, says Reuters. 

There has also been really bad flooding in southern Europe, especially in parts of Italy over the past few days as well. 

I hate to sound like a global warming broken record, but once again, I have to. These frequent, extreme rainstorms and flood are consistent with climate change.  One outcome of the warming planet is that while some areas experience worsening droughts,  storms and floods are continuing to get more intense in many places on Earth.

That trend is expected to continue as the world continues to warm. While it's hard to pin a flood like that experienced in Phoenix solely on global warming, the changing climate probably made that flood, and others around the world, a little more likely than they would have been a few decades ago. 

Sign Of Winter? Strong Storm System This Week

Does this photo scare you? Don't worry, nothing
like this is the forecast this week, but the first
chilly autumnal storm of the season
will cross the nation the next few days.  

In the summer, storm systems are almost always weak in the United States.

Yes, the cold fronts and other weather disturbance stir up severe local thunderstorms, but the parent low pressure systems with these gusty thunderstorms are not impressive at all.  

You know it's fall when larger low pressure systems start to move across the country. The first good one of the season is just starting to get going now.

It'll go from the central part of the country, up through the Great Lakes and on into Ontario and Quebec between now and Thursday

Had this been later in the autumn, it would snow in parts of the Upper Midwest. But it's still early in the season, so we don't have to worry about that yet.

Still, on Wednesday in northeastern Minnesota, they're expecting rain with daytime high temperatures in the mid-40s, with a stiff north wind, so it won't exactly be summertime up there.

And the snow isn't so far away. It's supposed to snow in and around Calgary, Alberta, Canada today. 

South of the storm system, summer heat and humidity still lingers, as it often does in September. With the cold front invading, expect some severe thunderstorms in and around Iowa on Tuesday, and in the southern Great Lakes area Wednesday.

There could be a couple strong tornadoes in and around Iowa Tuesday, says the Storm Prediction Center, but almost the entire storm threat will be for strong straight line winds.

The showers with the storm will sweep through the Northeast on Thursday.

Behind this storm, it will be chilly, with areas of frost possible from the Northern Plains this week and spreading easti into some of the mountains of northern New England, toward Sunday.

Is That Hot Spell We Had In The Northeast The Last One Of The Summer?

It was hot and humid late Friday afternoon
at my home in northern Vermont, but
some of my trees are already saying "autumn"  

True confessions time:

I'm an avid gardener, to the point that, when I have time, I put on a headlamp and go outside to play in the dirt. Especially if it's a gorgeous night.

Last night around my house in St. Albans, Vermont, it was magical.

Well past dark, it stayed very warm, close to 80 degrees. However,  a steady, strong south wind kept it comfortable.

A bright, nearly full moon shone, lighting up a few ragged, fast moving clouds in the sky.

It's September, so most of the bugs are gone, and the wind kept the last few stragglers away. I worked in the gardens for a few hours, then, around 10 p.m, felt so content, I lay down on the grass and fell asleep for more than an hour.

Faint flickering light woke me up. While I was asleep, thunderstorms formed just to my north and east, and then raced into nearby southern Quebec. The flickering I detected was lightning, just southeast of Montreal, about 60 miles away.

I say all this to,  yes, demonstrate what a batshit crazy weather geek I am, and also to say, last night might have been a crowning last hurrah, and a goodbye to summer.

Each of the first five days of September in Burlington, reached into the 80s, which is quite a stretch of summer weather for this late in the season. The end of summer is nigh, though.

That lightning I saw was the first sign a cold front was approaching. This Saturday morning it's cloudy and threatening, but the summer warmth and humidity remains. But not for long.

This cold front will usher in somewhat autumnal weather.  Some of the storms will drop briefly heavy rain across Vermont.

More importantly, there's the risk of severe storms, maybe even a supercell, in southern and eastern New England later today. The area most likely to see a few severe storms is a zone from Connecticut, through western and central Massachusetts, and on up into most of New Hampshire and Maine.

There's even the slight chance that area could see a brief tornado.

Sunday will be nice, but again, slightly autumnal in the Northeast. And we will have bouts of pleasantly warm weather well into the autumn, as we almost always do.

But that beautiful summer night I embraced last night, and the several day stretch of  rather hot, humid weather we had for the past few days probably won't be repeated again in New England.

At least until next summer.

More Weather Trouble Spots Coming: New England Storms, Southwest Floods, Great Plains Freeze?

Some severe storms are likely in southern New
England Saturday. We hope they won't be as
bad as the tornado in Revere, Mass in July.
(Aftermath of that storm pictured here)  

The nation's ever-active weather keeps giving us more and more to talk about, with tricky, challenging forecasts and some pretty big extremes.

Here's the highlights:

New England Storms:

Scattered severe storms will hit parts of Indiana, Ohio and Michigan today ahead of a cold front. But I think the real show with these storms could hit on Saturday in the Northeast.

It's unusually hot in New England today, with temperatures flirting with 90 degrees, with high humidity. An autumnal cold front is slowly coming in, and the mix will help create some severe storms on Saturday.

The Storm Prediction Center has got a slight risk of severe storms over all but far northwestern New England on Saturday.

However, I think a bullseye for bad storms will extend from the New York metro area, through Connecticut, most of Massachusetts, maybe the southeast corner of Vermont, and on into New Hampshire and Maine.

In those places, strong wind gusts will be fairly common during the storms. There will be some large hail, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear a report or two of fairly brief tornadoes in the region I outlined.

It's odd, but the Northeast seems to be having more tornadoes this year than Oklahoma, in the heart of tornado alley. There have been at least six confirmed tornadoes in New England so far this year. (None so far in Vermont, though) Oklahoma has had only 14, near the lowest on record for them.

On Saturday, the rough weather will go off the coast during the evening, and Sunday will end up sunny and cooler

Southwest

In the Desert Southwest, which has actually been undesert-like this summer with frequent monsoon storms and flash floods, they're under the gun again.

Flash flooding invades Interstate 17 in Arizona
last month. More flash flooding in the Desert
Southwest is likely this weekend.  

Hurricane Norbert could cause some big problems in parts of Arizona and New Mexico, and maybe into southern Nevada this weekend.

No, the deserts aren't going to have a hurricane. Norbert was off Baja California Friday morning and will weaken and fall apart as it moves north into cooler water.

The storm will never make landfall. But moisture from the storms could move into the Southwest, dumping many inches of rain on some towns.

Look for a lot of flash flooding in that neck of the woods. It would be nice if some of Norbert's moisture would make it into California, but that's iffy, especially in the populated areas closer to the coast.  But any rain will help there.

Great Plains Cold

Long range computer models are predicting a nasty outbreak of cold weather in the Great Plains and parts of the Great Lakes next week? Sound familiar. That region has had more than its share of epic cold snaps since last winter. It even got chilly at times in July, thanks to a huge dip in the jet stream that keeps reasserting itself in that neck of the woods.

This time, it could get cold enough in a broad area from the Dakotas to Michigan so that frost could be a problem. Stay tuned.

Western heat:

With the dip in the jet stream in the Midwest, that big ridge of hot, dry air will reassert itself over the West Coast. That means more near record heat, and continued intensification of the drought out that way.

The ridge, or "ridiculously resilient ridge" as it's been dubbed, has pretty much been there in various degrees of strength for a couple years now.  Experts are investigating whether this remarkably stuck weather pattern, the western ridge, the Midwest dip, is linked to climate change.