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:

It's Official: 2018 Was The Fourth Hottest Year On Record

There were very few cool spots on Earth in 2018 which
was the fourth hottest on record.

Speculation among climate watchers has been going on since mid-autumn that 2018 would be the Earth's fourth hottest year on record. By late November, that stat was considered a shoo-in.

In a way, then, it's just slightly anticlimatic, pardon the pun, that the official word is that 2018 was indeed the globe's fourth hottest year. So says NOAA's National Centers for Enviromental Information. 

I say anticlimatic as a joke, but the stat is really no joke.  Each of the past five years were the warmest on record. All but one of the ten hottest years have happened since 2005. (1998 was the only one outside that set.)

That's not all the bad news in the NCEI's report. There's plenty more. I'll quote them:

"During the first century of the NOAA record (1880 to 1980), a new record high temperature was set on average every 13 years; however, for the more recent period of 1981-2018, the frequency o a new record has increased to once every three years on average."

The global heat in 2018 was incredibly widespread. The only real cool spots were a parts of a good chunk of central and northeastern Canada and far north-central United States, a piece of southwestern Russia and along parts of the west coast of South America.

The news from the Arctic and Antarctic is lousy, too. The average sea ice extent in the Arctic was the second lowest on record for the period from 1979 to 2018. Only 2016 was worse. Antarctic sea ice extent was also the second lowest on record.

The year closed on a hot note. While the overall 2018 temperature was the fourth hottest, December, 2018 was globally the second hottest final month of the year. Only December, 2015 was warmer.

On top of this, NASA, Britain's Met Office and the Japanese meteorological people all agreed 2018 was the fourth hottest. That's just in case you wanted more confirmation.

If all this news doesn't signify a bad trend, I don't know what does.

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:

2018 Was Another Active And Beautiful Weather Year In Vermont

The year 2018 got off to a harsh start in Vermont with storms, record cold
flipping to record heat and rain. The weather caused ice jams,
like this damaging one in Swanton. 

It took me awhile to get through, but here's what I regard as the big weather events of 2018. Take a look if you want to relive the fun we had watching the clouds and eveything else the weather had to throw at us.

BONUS: A YouTube video at the bottom of this post that shows some of my favorite weather event and cloud photos I took during 2018. Don't forget to scroll down for that.

1. Severe start to year: The winter was as almost as harsh as it could get in the week or so of 2018. A nor'easter on January 4 caused a damaging storm surge along the New England coast. Temperatres fell to the teens and 20s below zero, culminating in a record low of 20 below on January 7 in Burlington.

Jan. 12-13: Wild swings in temperatures and heavy rains caused serious flooding and ice jams in parts of Vermont. Just five days after that minus 20 record low, Burlington recorded a record high of 61 degrees.

Between one and two inches of rain with these warm temperatures rapidly melted snow and river ice, causing big ice jams, flooding parts of Johnson, Swanton and other towns. Eden reported 2.82 inches of rain.

The temperature crashed on January 13. Blizzard conditions hit on the morning of the 13th in northern Vermont, and ice jams worsened, particularly in Swanton.

February 21: One year after an unprecedented February heat wave brought temperatures to 70 and above to Vermont for the first time on record, there was a repeat in 2018. Burlington "only" reached 69 degrees, which would have been by far the warmest February day on record had it not been 72 degrees the year before.

But Montpelier set a February record of 70 degrees, and Bennington reached a whopping 77 degrees.

The Four Big March Nor'easters:

The first, at the very beginning of March, largely missed northern and central Vermont but created some whopping winds in southeastern New England. Gusts reached 83 mph in Little Compton, Rhode Island and 83 mph in East Falmouth, Mass.

No enjoying my back deck in March, 2018 as deep snows
blocked access to it. Four nor'easters blaasted
New England during March. 

The second nor'easter, on March 8, socked southern Vermont. Woodford, Vermont reported 36 inches and Searsburg clocked in with 32 inches.

There were reports of near 30 inch snow totals in western Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey. In the Massachusetts Berkshires, 18 inches of snow fell in three hours.

Northern Vermont only got about one to three inches of snow out of this.

The March 13-15 nor'easter really socked Vermont with heavy, wet snow. Eden, Stowe and Westfield, Vermont got 30 inches of snow. Two foot totals were reported in much of New England. An avalanche at Smuggler's Notch, Vermont injured five U.S. Army personnel who were training.

The fourth nor'easter on March 22-23 largely missed Vermont

April 4: Strong winds caused damage and widespread power 'failures in Ontario, Quebec, New York and Vermont. A northern New York man was killed when winds collapsed a sugar shack. Winds gusted to 63 mph at Burton Island, Vermont and 56 mph in Enosburg Falls.

Wet April: Burlington recorded 4.84 inches of precipitation in April, making it the sixth wettest April on record.

May 4 Severe weather

Roiling storm clouds near St. Albans, Vermont during a
May 4 severe weather outbreak. 

Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes affected parts of eastern New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. Vermont was under a tornado watch that day, but no confirmed tornadoes were reported in the Green Mountain State.

There were, however, some very severe thunderstorms.

Perhaps hardest hit was Shelburne, where many dozens of trees fell. At least one house sustained roof damage and blown out windows.

Other Vermont towns hit hrd were Brookfield, Pittsford, Ascutney, Thetford, Manchester, Danby and Colchester.

A tornado touched down just across the Connecticut River from Springfield, Vermont and traveled 35 miles through central New Hampshire. It was the longest tracked tornado in New Hampshire history.

June 19: More severe weather in New England, with tornadoes reported in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. A microburst destroyed a barn in Waitsfield, Vermont. Fallen trees also briefly blocked Interstate 89 in Waterbury and Interstate 91 in Orange County. In Burlington, 2.29 inches o rain fell.

June 30-July 5 Heat Wave

Intense heat enveloped much of the eastern United States and southeastern Canada, with often fatal results. At least six people died of the strong heat in Vermont, which made this heat wave the state's worst weather disaster since Hurricane Irene in 2011. The heat wave death toll in Quebec was at least 74.

Daytime highs were bad enough: Daily highs in Burlington starting on June 30 were 93, 96, 97, 93, 95, 95.

The nights were oppressively hot. The low temperature on July 2 was 80 degrees, the highest minimum temperature on any date in Burlington since record keeping began in the 1880s. The temperature failed to drop below 75 degrees from early in the morning of June 30 to early morning July 3. Heat index were near 90 at dawn.

Clouds that looked like they belonged on a tropical island
sit over the Adirondacks in July in this view from
South Burlington. Photo was taken on one of many
hot days in July, 2018. 

"Relief" from the heat wave wasn't substantial. The high temperture on July 6 was 85 degrees.

July 31: July ended up being the hottest month on record in Burlington, Vermont with a mean temperature of 76.0 degrees.

August 14: Despite record rains and frequent flooding across most of the eastern United States during the summer, rain repeatedly missed northern Vermont, resulting in an intensifying drought. Persistent heat contributed to the worsening situation.

August 31: For the second month in a row, Burlington had a record hot month. August was the hottest on record with a mean temperature of 74.5 degrees. Climatologists said Vermont also easily had its most humid summer on record, which increased the misery.

Sept 3-5. More record heat in Vermont, especially on Sept. 3 and 5. Record highs 0f 93 degrees were set on both September 3 and 5 in Burlington. Plattsburgh, New York had a record high of 94 degrees on September 3.

Also on September 3, the heat was accompanied by locally severe storms. Fallen trees blocked Interstate 91 and Route 5 in Coventry. A lot of trees blew over in Irasburg, and a baseball field dugout was destroyed.

September 10. Despite some local showers, drought worsened in northern Vermont. Moderate drought covered much of the northwestern part of the state.

September 17: Burlington reached a record high of 87 degrees. After one more day of mid-80s temperaures the next day, the first extended spell of autumnal weather arrived.

September 21: Strong winds buffeted Vermont, and a few strong thunderstorms moved through in the late evening. A devastating tornado hit during this storm around Ottawa, Canada.

October 9-10: One last late season heat wave. Burlington tied record highs of 80 and 82 degrees on October 9 and 10. After this, the long-lasting hot weather pattern finally flipped for good, ushering in generally cooler than normal conditions from mid-October to mid-December.

October 24: "Snoliage" fell across much of northern and central Vermont as a dusting to a few inches of snow decorated the remaining fall foliage. Derby, Vermont got 5.1 inches of snow; Orleans, Vermont reported 4.5 inches of snow. Randolph, New Hampshire reported 11 inches.

"Snoliage" in St. Albans, Vermont, Oct. 24, 2018

Nov. 16. First in a series of November snowstorms put a premature end to autumn cleanup in Vermont. In many places, the persistent cold that followed kept snowcover on the ground until a Christmastime thaw.

East Enosburg received 14 inches of new snow, a foot fell on St. Albans and Burlington collected 7.9 inches. November as a whole was the fifth snowiest at Burlington, with 19.5 inches.

Nov. 23: Burlington dropped to a record low of 1 below zero, the earliest subzero reading on record, with data going back to the 1880s.

Nov. 27-29: Another big snowstorm, tbis time wet and heavy. The storm cut power to tens of thousands of Vermonters. Storm totals included 24.1 inches in Rochester and 16.5 inches in Westfield.

Dec. 21-22: Near record warmth and heavy rains melted the snow cover from November, creating widespread flooding across Vermont. Numerous roads were blocked by high water.

Here's my photo album of 2018 weather.

 

Vermont In 2018: Mostly Hot, Kinda Wet

One of many hot, sunny days during July, 2018 in Burlington, Vermont
July and August were the hottest on record. The year 2018 as a whole
was tied for the sixth warmest on record. 

I'll take my first crack at looking back at the climate of 2018 here, but I'll go over the top Vermont 2018 weather events at a subsquent post soon.

It's the first day of 2019, I don't want to work too hard. Let's ease into things, right?

So I'll start with a skimming review of the weather data from Burlington, Vermont in 2018.  Statistics? I got statistics. Here we go:

Despite rather intense cold periods here and there, 2018 was a hot one.

The mean temperature for the entire year was 48.0 degrees, which is 2.2 degrees warmer than normal. It was enough to make the year tie for the 6th warmest on record, with data going back to the 1880s.

For comparison's sake, 2018 for the Earth as a whole looks like it will be fourth warmest on record.

This Vermont warmth from 2018 is part of a definite trend. There are actually 13 years in the Top 10 warmest, because some years had ties with other years.

Of the 13 years that are among Burlington Top 10 Warmest, nine of those have occurred since 1998.

The last time a year in Burlington was among the Top 10 Coldest was 1978.

The only cold months in 2018 were April and November, but neither were chilly enough to be in the Top 10 coldest. By contrast, July and August, 2018 were the hottest on record. February was the second hottest, May was the fourth hottest and September was second hottest.

The low temperature on July 2 in Burlington was 80 degrees, the warmest overnight low on record in Burlington.  February 21, 2018 was the second warmest February day on record. It would have beat the hottest February day on record by a whopping seven degrees had we not established an incredible February record a year earlier in 2017, when it got to 72 degrees.

Sixteen daily record highs were tied or broken in Burlngton during 2018, but only two daily record lows were tied or broken.

Precipitation for the year was much less exciting than the temperatures. Many weather stations in the eastern two thirds of the United States had their wettest year on record in 2018, or at least close to it.

Burlington bucked that trend. The Queen City recorded 39.27 inches of rain and melted snow in 2018. That makes the year 2.45 inches wetter than normal, but we were nowhere near the Top 10 list of wettest years. The wettest year, by the way, was 2011, with 50.92 inches of precipitation.

We did have some snow excitement. March was the sixth snowiest on record with 30.1 inches. November was fifth snowiest with 19.5 inches.

Good New On 2018 Tornadoes, But There's An Ominous Study About Them

The last known EF5 tornado - the most powerful possible - in the
United States was this twister in Moore, Oklahoma back in 2013.
The storm killed 24 people. The U.S. has gone more than five
years without an EF5 tornado, which is a very unusually
long time between such disasters. 

It looks like we are about to conclude an incredibly benign year for United States tornadoes this year.

Despite an uptick in tornado activity in the Northeast during 2018, the nation as a whole saw relatively few tornadoes, and this will quite possibly become the year with the fewest tornado deaths on record.

On top of that, we're just concluding a rare year in which there were no EF4 or EF5 tornadoes, which are the strongest possible. These tornadoes have winds of 166 mph or more.

Tornadoes with an EF4 rating will level well-constructed houses and toss cars around. An EF5 tornado would take those leveled houses and fling them away to oblivion.  Cars would be tossed 100 yards or more, and even extremely sturdy high rise buildings would be twisted and destroyed.

Needless to say, EF4 and EF5 tornadoes, and their nearly as strong companions EF3s, cause the most tornado deaths. There weren't many EF3's this year either. At last count, the nation had ten EF3 tornadoes.

There was one EF4 tornado in North America in 2018: An EF4 killed one person in Manitoba, Canada this past August. 

Still, 2018's lack of strong United States tornadoes contributed to the thankfully low death toll.

So far this year, only ten people have died in the United States in tornadoes. That would be the lowest toll since 1875, when they started really keeping track of such things. The current record for least tornado deaths is 12 in 1912, followed by 15 back in 1986, says the Weather Channel.

The nation has been in a bit of a tornado drought, and an especially thankful tornado death drought since 2012. The average number of deaths per year is 69. In 2018 and 2017 combined, there were only 52 deaths between the two years, says data from The Weather Channel.

The last year we had an average or above average number of tornado deaths was 2012, when 69 people died in twisters.

Of course, the famous tornado year of 2011 was tragically much worse. That year, 552 United States residents died in tornadoes, which is a tie with 1936 for the second-worse tornado year. Some 700 people died in 1925, mostly in just one super tornado.

Never mind science, we are overdue for a bad tornado year, unfortunately. It's just a matter of chance. You'll eventually get a bad roll of the dice.

This happened in the United States with hurricanes. We went eleven years from 2005 to 2016 without a major hurricane hitting the mainland U.S. Major being Category 3 or higher. That was an unprecedented. We'd never gone that long without a major hurricane.

Then came 2017 with Harvey and Irma, the first time since 1851 two Category 4 hurricanes hit the U.S. mainland. (And then we had Maria trashing Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.).  This year brought hurricanes Florence and Michael.

Tornado activity can turn on a dime like this too. This aspect has little if anything to do with global warming. But it does beg the question: Does climate change influence tornadoes?

INCREASED TORNADO POWER?

A researcher, Dr. James Elsner of Florida State University, says one measure of overall tornado power in the United States is increasing.

The tornado drought in recent years notwithstanding, there hasn't really been a trend up or down in strong and violent tornadoes over the past several decades

Dr. Jeff Masters wrote about this recently in the Category 6 blog in Weather Underground:

"Tornadoes have been coming in bigger bunches with individual tornadoes being wider and staying on the grojnd longer, resulting in an increase in the destructive power of U.S. tornadoes averaging 5.5 percent per year since 1994."

I have to say I got a lot of pushback when I retweeted something on this a couple weeks ago. Meteorologist and business consultant Mike Smith correctly pointed to data that shows there seems to be a general trend toward fewer strong tornadoes (EF3 or higher) since 1954. However, Eisner's research didn't really say there are more tornadoes, just that there are more long-tracked, strong tornadoes during large outbreaks. 

The number of violent tornadoes has trended downward in recent
decades, but there are worrisome exceptions to this trend

So it's kind of how you parse the data.

Anyway, Masters in Category 6 goes on:  

"Eisner's study found that a given tornado is more likely to be strong or violent at night,  between 10 p.m - 4 a.m. and during the coldest months, between November and April. This counterintuitive result could be because there are fewer tornadoes overall at night and in winter, but tornadoes that do develop at these times are more likely to be in environments of strong wind shear, thus allowing their destructive power to be higher on average."

The above situation describes conditions in which there is a lot of instability in the air, which climate scientists say should increase in a warming world. However, another key ingredient for tornadoes is wind shear, which is wind that changes direction and speed with height. Climate scientists say wind shear should decrease overall with global warming.

The decreased wind shear would be most pronounced in the warmer months and less so during colder times of the year, so this fits well with Eisner's research, and what's been going on in the real world in recent years.

Four or five years do NOT make a trend, but there have been fewer tornadoes during the warmer months lately. Then again, there's 2011, so it's hard to draw firm conclusions.

It's possible climate change could make winter tornado outbreaks worse, but this is too preliminary for me to definitely go there. I want to see more research.

For now, I'll just go for a little of that dreaded wishcasting:  Let's hope that 2019 continues with the tornado drought.

Most Of Eastern Two-Thirds Of United States Had Incredibly Wet 2018.

Record spring rains in 2011 sent waves from a flooding Lake Champlain
crashing onto Route 2 in North Hero, Vermont. 

Up here in northern Vermont, it has only been a slightly wet 2018. In Burlington, for example, there had been a grand total of 37.13 inches of rain and melted snow and ice through December 12th. That's about an inch and three quarters wetter than normal.

Not a big deal, really. With only half a month to go in 2018, we won't come remotely close to the record wettest year, which was 2011, with 50.92 inches. We won't even come close to cracking the Top 10 wettest.  

We're an exception to the rule for much of the United States. Many places have been incredibly wet.

According to Climate Central:

"Of 2,800 stations analyzed by Climate Central, 133 (across 21 states) saw record precipitation totals this year, and 685 saw yearly totals that were among the top 10 on record. 2018 is already the fifth wettest year on record in the contiguous United States."

By the way, yes, I know Climate Central is an advocacy group that is trying to call attention to global warming and its effects. But the reporting here appears to me to be pretty solid. 

It's just normal to have a few places to report their wettest or driest year on record. There's always going to be extremes somewhere, that's just the way it goes.  

However, that so many places are having their wettest or close to their wettest year on record is indeed unusual. 

A great number of locations extending from the central Plains to the East Coast, with the exception of North Dakota, northern Minnesota and northern New England, have had an extraordinarily wet year. 

You can't blame one particular city's wet year on climate change, but when this sort of weirdness gets so widespread, you have to wonder.

THE SCIENCE BEHIND THIS

Warmer air holds more moisture. As the atmosphere warms, this added moisture can dump out in the form of heavier downpours than would occur in a cooler world.

Damage from flash flooding in Barre, Vermont during the record wet
year of 2011.

Dr. Jeff Masters at Weather Underground's Category 6 blog had an interesting tidbit on this subject recently. Says Masters:

"Preliminary research by precipitation expert Dr. Kenneth Kunkel of the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies announced in September that the three highest-volume rainfall events for the U.S. in the last 70 years occurred since 2016."

Those events were Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Hurricane Florence earlier this year in North Carolina and a March, 2016 storm in Louisiana.

Adds Masters, echoing what I said above: "It is highly unusual to get three such extreme events in one three-year period, and the odds of this occuring were increased by global warming, which boosts the amount of water vapor in the air and increases the frequencey and intensityof heavy precipitation events." 

Only three of the Top 10 precipitation events over the past 70 years uncovered by this research occurred before 1994 - just 25 years ago or so.

Climate change skeptic Joe Bastardi acknowledges the increased water vapor in the air in a recent Patriot Post article, at least in how it played out in the nation during early December.

Atmospheric moisture has been generally quite high overall this month. This tends to make overnight low temperatures warmer, and afternoon high temperatures cooler. Sure enough,  nightime lows for the nation as a whole were warmer than normal in early December, while daytime highs have been mostly cooler than normal.  

Here's where Bastardi and climate scientists disagree. Bastardi says a narrower temperature range means less volatility. He also says the temperature gradient between the poles and temperate regions in the mid-latitudes has decreased with this atmospheric moisture, deceasing clashes and thus dangerous storminess.

However, many climate scientists are coming around to the idea that the subsiding contrast in temperatures between the poles and the mid-latitudes is screwing around with the jet stream, making it much wavier and prone to getting "stuck" in position. That would increase storminess, or at least increase weather extremes.

By the way, Bastardi attributes the increase in atmospheric water vapor not to greenhouse gases but the oceans. He said natural cycles temporarily increased overall water temperatures, which then increases water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere. The water vapor warms up our nights, so that's what's causing what he sees as a temporry increase in Earth's atmospheric temperature.

The vast majority of climate scientists agree that the increased water vapor in the atmosphere is created by warmer oceas. But the oceans are warmer because of  increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the oceans won't cool noticeably through natural cycles. They'll just keep getting hotter.

DROUGHTS, TOO

Not everybody is wetter, of course.

Smoke from wildfires in the drought-stricken West helped create
this otherworldly sunset, as viewed from  St. Albans,
Vermont this past August 

With natural variability, often augmented by climate change, you can also get some serious and weird droughts in areas outside the "wet zones."

There were, of course, some weirdly dry sections of the nation as well. California and some other western states saw near record dryness in 2018, which helped fuel this year's extremely destructive wildfires in California. 

Also, parts of southeastern Alaska have "only" had 95 inches of rain this year. For most of the United States, that amount of rain would make things by far the record wetttest.

But southeastern Alaska is basically a rain forest (except for the mountain peaks, which of course are too high and too cold to support forests.)

The Weather Channel reports:

"Ketchikan, Alaska has recorded 96.62 inches of precipitation (rain/melted snow) in 2018 through December 10. In many parts of the United States, that would be an extreme amount, but in Ketchikan, that's 35.94 inches below average."

 It's going to be this Alaskan city's fourth driest year on record. 

Even in places that are extremely rainy, a shortage of precipitation like this can cause real problems.  Despite the heavy but still-subnormal rainfall, the region has been declared to be under a drought this year. 

According to the Weather Channel:

"The Metiakatla Indian Communityh on Annette Island was at risk of losing power after it had to stop hydroelectric power turbines due to low water levels. In early October, streamflows in the region were at much below to record low levels. 

Ketchikan had to switch to supplemental diesal fuel for power instead of cheaper hydroelectric power in late September."

It finally rained enough in November for Ketchikan to go back to hydroelectric power.

CIRCLING BACK TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Again, I want to be careful, because droughts have always happened. Areas of drought could easily be due to natural variability. It's a roll of the dice. One roll might give you a wet year, another might give you a dry year.

However, climate change might he weighing the dice to make one outcome more likely than the other. As Climate Central reports:

"Just as climate change has made heavy rainfall more common in some areas, so has it encouraged droughts in other. As temperatures continue to climb from increased greenhouse gas emissions, evaporation rates also increase. The higher evaporation rates dry out land surfaces faster, making droughts worse. Warmer temperatures can also cause more winter precipitation to fall as rain rather than snow, diminishing the store of snowpack whose slow melting many communities rely on for their water."

Up here in Vermont, we missed out on having an wicked wet year because a long-lasting weather pattern in the late spring and pretty much the entire summer steered moisture away from us 

Persistant high pressure off the East Coast and in southeastern Canada steered a steady flow of deep moisture up the East Coast, then steered it either westward or eastward a little south of us, so we missed out.

That same weather pattern created a lot of hot weather in our neck of the woods. The heat combined wth the relatively dry pattern triggered a drought over northern Vermont.

It took just two months of above normal precipitation in October and November to largely erase the drought. A wet early spring combined with the soggy late fall gave us our slightly wetter than normal 2018.

We are skewing wetter in Vermont, though. In Burlington, six of the top 10 wettest years have been since 1983. (Records go back at least to the 1880s). Meanwhile, all but one of the top 10 driest years in Burlington came before 1964. (The year 2001 made it into the Top 10.)

So in general, we might get our occasional Vermont drought, but for the most part, I see mostly wetter times ahead.  

Weather Geek Out: Time Lapse Satellite View Of Hurricane Season

This isn't an image from the video at the bottom of this post, but you get the
idea. The ebb and flow of Atlantic hurricanes is a sight to behold.

NOAA recently put out a time lapse satellite view of the Atlantic Ocean in which you can watch the progress of all the tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic basin during 2018.

That's the point of the video, anyway.

But it's mesmerizing to watch the flow of clouds across much of North America, the Atlantic and extreme western Europe. The air really acts like a fluid.

A time stamp in the upper right hand corner tells you what time of year you're in. Early in the video, clusters of thunderstorms keep popping up in the Plains, like premature Fourth of July fireworks. That's typical of that time of year.

The hurricane season got off to a slow start. You can see why. A milky haze is seen coming off the west coast of Africa in July. That's dust from the Sahara Desert, which helps suppress tropical storms.

At roughly the same time, you see a conveyor belt of clouds repeated moving northward along the United States East Coast, contributing to a record wet year in the Mid-Atlantic states

Later, when the Sahara dust diminishes,  you see Hurricane Florence making its long journey across the Atlantic Ocean toward North Carolina. You see how Florence moved in fits and starts, organizing, weakening, starting to head north, then changing its mind and beelining toward North Carolina.

Powerful hurricane Michael looks almost like an afterthought on satellite. It was a terribly powerful, destructive storm, but in the grand scheme of things, didn't have a particularly long life. At the same time that Michael was raising havoc, Leslie in the central Atlantic danced and swirled around aimlessly seemingly endlessly looping around out there before finally giving up the ghost and heading toward Portugal.

Even if you're not into weather like I am, the video is worth watching. In a stressful time of year, the ebb and flow of the clouds in the video is soothing. Which is ironic, since hurricanes are anything but soothing.

So here's the video. Enjoy!

Late May Often Terrible, Dangerous Time For Tornadoe. Not This Year

A deadly EF-5 tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, May, 20, 2013. This was
the most recent  EF-5 tornado recorded in the United States.

As I do every year for about a week to 10 days, I've moved myself and this here blog thingy out to the lovely little city of Yankton, South Dakota. The main reason to do this is to visit my outlaws, er, I mean inlaws.

Southeastern South Dakota is also a decent vantage point this time of year to observe spring thunderstorms. And they're often severe. And there's sometimes tornadoes here and there.

That might be the case this year, but I'm not counting on it. Which is a good thing. Tornadoes are dangerous, after all, and like I said, Yankton is lovely, and I'd hate to see any damage here.

As I think I've mentioned before, this remains a slow severe weather season, with a definite dearth of tornadoes, notwithstanding the nine tornadoes that struck the Northeast last week,

Often, during the final 10 days of May, there are very, very often dozens of tornadoes spinning out of the supercells and storm complexes that typically cross the nation this time of year. There were pockets of severe storms yesterday, but nothing spectacular.

Devastation from an EF-5 tornado in Parkersburg, Iowa in 2008

One weak tornado was reported Monday in Colorado, and it caused no damage. Some places had strong winds and hail, particularly in Colorado, New Mexico, Ohio and North Carolina.

Today and tonight, there will be new pockets of severe storms, especially in and near eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Also, there might be some, especially tonight, in parts of the northern and central Plains, including here in Yankton.

But the tornado threat is very low, and these patches of severe storms won't be nearly as extensive as they often are this time of year. The rest of the week also looks quiet.

This is a huge contrast to many late Mays. The devastating Moore, Oklahoma EF-5 tornado, for instance, came on May 20, 2013. And thirteen days later, an immense 2.6 mile wide tornado in El Reno, Oklahoma killed storm chasers trapped in its path.

On May 29-31, 2004, a total of 170 tornadoes killed five people and injured 150 people in 16 states.

On May 23, 2008, 80 tornadoes touched down in just Kansas alone, and two days later a huge EF-5 tornado wiped out much of the city of Parkersburg, Iowa. 

Stunned survivors after the EF-5 tornado in Joplin, Missouri, May 22, 2011.

On May 31, 1985  30 tornadoes touched down, mostly in Ohio and Pennsylvania. This included an EF-5 tornado, the strongest you can get, that pretty much wiped out Wheatland, Pennsylvania. (the Moore tornado was EF-5, too.)

We also can't forget the EF-5 tornado that devastated Joplin, Missouri on May 22, 2011, that killed 161 people.

Notice I'm mentioning all these EF-5 tornadoes that often come this time of year. These are the ones that make most of the tornado news every spring or summer. They're rare. The United States has had only 59 of them since 1950. But EF-5's cause the most damage and are the most deadly. These are the worst tornadoes you can get, with winds of over 200 mph.

There's a couple videos of EF-5 tornadoes at the bottom of this post to give you an idea of how scary they are.

The nation, mercifully is now in one of the longest streaks in history in which no EF-5 tornadoes touched down The last EF-5 tornado the nation endured was that Moore twister in 2013. That's five years without such a tornado. That's the second longest period of time we've gone through without such a strong tornado since 1950. (There were no EF-5 tornadoes in the eight year span between May 3, 1999 and May 4, 2007.)

Regular tornadoes are also in relatively short supply this spring. So far this May,  there have been 52 confirmed tornadoes in the United States. During the entire month of May, there's typically more than 200 tornadoes in the U.S.

Greensburg, Kansas was destroyed by an EF-5 tornado in 2007

So why has this May been so benign in terms of tornadoes and other severe weather?

And why has each year since 2012 been relatively calm in the tornado department? Unlike many climate trends, I don't think we can clearly pin climate change on this fortunate turn of events.

It's probably just dumb luck. This year, the first part of spring was dominated by blasts of Arctic air that suppressed the warm, humid air needed for tornadoes well to the south. So there was not much severe weather back in April.

In late April and early May, the weather pattern shifted dramatically and abruptly toward a summer pattern. The jet stream, which energizes storm systems, usually comes across the middle of the country this time of year, helping spawn severe weather outbreaks.

This year, the jet stream shifted far north, mostly over southern Canada or the extreme northern United States where it usually resides over the summer.  That means there's not as much energy to produce big storm systems.  Which means we just have relatively small weather disturbances that produce modest outbreaks of severe storms.

You can still get a lot of severe weather in June, and in the northern United States in July and August, so we're not out of the woods.

But in a time period over the past five years in which the United States has endured incredibly severe wildfires, deadly floods, severe winter storms and, last year, devastating hurricanes, the general lack of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms is a gift.

Here's a video of the Moore, Oklahoma tornado on May 20, 2013 as it rapidly intensified from something small to an EF-5 monster:



Famous surveillance video of the EF-5 tornado blowing away a house in Parkersburg, Iowa
back in 2008:



Storm chaser Jeff Piotrowski and his companion go from excitement to terror to horror as they watch an EF-5 tornado destroy much of Joplin, Missouri.

Tropics Starting To Bubble Before Hurricane Season Even Hits

From left to right: Hurricanes Katia, Irma and Jose last year. 

Last year in the Atlantic Ocean, the hurricane season was horrific.

Harvey. Irma. Maria. I shudder just thinking about those deadly, destructive storms.

Hurricane season starts May 15 in the eastern Pacific Ocean and June 1 in the Atlantic Ocean, but there are already signs that things might start to get active soon, even before the officials start of the tropical storm season.

There won't be anything like Harvey or Maria in the near future, thank goodness, but there a couple things worth watching

There's a decent chance a tropical storm could form in the eastern Pacific, off the coast of Mexico in the coming days. Most of storms that form there don't hit land but a few do. If this particular disturbance forms, it will be the second year in a row a tropical storm formed there before the May 15 "official" start to the season.

In any event, if this storm gets going, forecasters say it won't last long and won't hit land.

Meanwhile, in the Atlantic, some computer models are suggesting something might get going in the western Caribbean Sea late next week. I'm not counting on it though. Other computer models have nothing there next week.

However, water temperatures in the western Caribbean are warmer than normal for this time of year and are toasty enough to support tropical storms. Also, this time of year, the jet stream is usually far enough south to rip apart any tropical storms that try to form in the Caribbean, but the jet stream is expected to be further north than usual for a time next week, which could offer a window for tropical storm development.

Off the coast of Chile, a subtropical storm formed this week. That's very rare, since ocean waters off the Chilean coast are usually too cold to support any kind of tropical system. (Tropical storms and hurricanes need very warm water to form and thrive.)

A rare subtropical storm off the coast of Chile this week.

Subtropical storms have characteristics of both tropical storms and normal average everyday storm systems.

Such a storm had not been seen off the coast of Chile until now. Some may have formed in the past, though, before there was decent satellite imagery coming from that area in the southern hemisphere.

Even if the hurricane season gets off to an early start, that doesn't necessarily mean this will be a busy, destructive season. It's partly a matter of luck. If any big hurricanes form, will they stay out to sea or hit land?  Will weather conditions and water temperatures conspire to give birth to lots of storms later this year? Nobody knows for sure.

For what it's worth, Colorado State University puts out hurricane season forecasts every year, and they're predicting a slightly above normal season in the Atlantic. The Weather Company, parent of the Weather Channel, predicts a near average season. 

One thing to note: Some of last year's most destructive Atlantic hurricanes developed explosively. They went from nothingburgers to monsters in days or even hours.   Some scientists are saying this kind of rapid, dangerous development could become more common as oceans warm under the influence of global warming.

Meanwhile, we're in the heart of the severe storm and tornado season in the United States. So far, it hasn't been too bad. As of today, there have been 317 reports of tornadoes in the United States in 2018. That sounds like a lot, but it's actually below average.

Maybe that trend will continue?