Are You Missing Snow? Plenty Still Out West

Looks like January, but this is a frozen high elevation lake in
California's Sierra Nevada mountains in mid-May 

The last of the snow on top of Mount Mansfield has (IS) finally disappeared.

The snow was unusually deep up there during the late winter and spring, and a cool April and May meant that it melted slowly.  As of Saturday, there was still one inch of snow at the stake near the top of Mount Mansfield.

So it's just about gone. I imagine it wil disappear in today's warmth.

Of course, if you get even more snow than Mount Mansfield, the white covering lasts a lot longer.

Which, if you're already missing snow,  takes us to the mountains in the western United States. The water content of the snow lingering in the Colorado mountains is more than six times the average for early June, says the Weather Channel.

Only three other years since 1979 had a higher snowpack in the upper Colorado and South Platte River basins, says the National Weather Service in Boulder, Colorado.

The Sierra Nevada range in California still has two to four times the early June average snow pack.  As of June 5 or so, a measuring station at Leavitt Lake still had 141 inches of snow on the ground.

An estimated 150 lakes above the elevation of 7,000 feet are still frozen.  At least three ski areas, Mammoth Mountain, Squaw Valley and Donnor Ski Ranch are still open. Mammoth Mountain expects to stay open into early August.

Some new snow managed to fall in some areas of the Northwest and in Canada last week. Snow dusted high elevations of Idaho, Montana and Oregon Thursday, with snow reported at elevations as low as 4,800 feet in Oregon.

As much as four inches of snow fell near Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

The West is warming up dramatically this week, so snow melt will also ramp up big time.  Excessive heat alerts are in effect Monday and Tuesday for lower elevations of California and parts of Oregon Monday and Tuesday.

That of course means it will be pretty toasty up in the Sierra Nevada, too. People are being warmed that streams and rivers coming out of the Sierra will rise dramatically each night as runoff reaches lower elevations.  Campers and hikers are being told to stay on high ground, away from any potential flooding.

These rivers will also be flowing wildly, and have very cold water. After all, it's coming from melting snow. People are being told to stay away from these rivers and creeks, as the cold water will kill them quickly if they fall in.

Similar warnings due to mountain snowmelt are in effect in Colorado, Utah and Montana.

Here We Go Again: Distant Wildfire Smoke Hazing Up Our Skies

Smoke from wildfires in Alberta gave a brassy hue to
the evening skies over St. Albans, Vermont Thursday. 

Did it seem hazy to you here in Vermont yesterday afternoon?

You were on to something. Smoke from wildfires in Alberta was high overhead, introducing yet another summer in which clear blue skies are marred by smoke.

To be fair, Thursday wouldn't have been a pure bluebird sky day anyway. High and mid level clouds were coming in ahead of a cold front that was to our north and a storm system scooting by to our south.

But smoky haze gave a brassy hue to the atmosphere, especially yesterday evening. With a northwest flow aloft occasionally coming through over the next week, I wouldn't be surprised if we have other hazy days.

It still seems sort of hazy out there this morning behind that cold front.

It's not just us. Those Alberta fires are pushing smoke into much of the United States. Smoky skies have affected much of the northern Plains states  and southern Canadian prairies as well.

The smoky skies have been occasionally spreading to far-flung places like Vancouver, Minneapolis, Toronto, Detroit and Kansas City.  Smoke has also been spreading north to the Arctic Circle and into northeastern Alaska. There's a great smoke map that allows you to track the smoke by hitting this hyperlink. 

The fires up in Alberta are huge and out of control. At least 10,000 people in the remote region have been evacuated, and there's little sign that they fires will be under control any time soon.

Wildfires do seem to be on the increase and the season is lasting longer, due in large part to climate change. Unfortunately, we've had to get used to hazy, smokey skies in recent years as large fires repeated pump smoke into the atmosphere.

Springtime wildfires in the North are increasing because the snow melts earlier in the season, things dry out faster so fires can start. There have also been substantial wildfires in Siberia this spring.

While the smoke is rarely dense enough in Vermont to cause health problems, any level of particulate pollution in the atmosphere isn't good for us.

Mostly, it's just a let down when you want a brilliant blue sky and you get a sickly haze. It's not that we won't have bluebird days this summer or in future summers. It's just that we'll have to get used to experiencing fewer of them.

On the bright side, I suppose, the wildfire smoke can create more colorful and interesting sunrises and sunsets. You always have to find the positive somewhere, right?

Some Cool Random Videos

A still from a video of a dust devil lifting chairs and
other items off the ground in Alberta recently. 

The weather is pretty quiet this week, so it's time for a few random videos.

In Alberta, Canada recently, a dust devil interrupted a softball game.

It was strong enough to lift chairs, jackets, even batting helmets high into the air. Some of these items dropped some distance away in a residential area when the unusually strong dust devil dissipated.

Nobody was seriously hurt. Here's the video:



It's spring, and that means pollen. It's quite a season in the East, as spring has come on suddenly. My nose is running and pollen is not usually an issue for me. This year it is, a little bit.

In Millvillle, New Jersey, somebody decided to tap a pollen-laden tree with some heavy equipment. Here's the result:



Lake Como, Italy, is probably one of the lovliest places to go in the world, but not on Monday, as this brief video snows. Those big splashes in the lake are giant hailstones coming down:



A tornado hit a Sonic restaurant in Louisiana Sunday. Check out the two cars in the parking lot, especially the one that goes flying. It's hard to see it in the dust and debris, but take a close look in this brief video from a surveillance camera.



Finally, here's a rather sad Vermont video. It shows quite a bit of damage to the Causeway path that juts out into Lake Champlain from Colchester. High winds during the storms Friday combined with rather high lake levels caused a lot of erosion.

Wild, Funny Video Of People Fleeing Hail At A Fair In Canada

In this screen grab, fairgoers in Red Deer, Alberta us

Westerner Days in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada this past week was a rousing success, despite a glitch that forced the fair to close an hour early on Sunday, the Red Deer Advocate informs us. 

First it hailed like crazy, but that's OK. The storm passed and it turned sunny and warm for a few hours. Then it got windy and they had to close the fair down, the Advocate says. 

The best part of the disruptions, though, judging from the video you'll see below, was the hailstorm.

Gawd, you have to love Canadians' reaction to that country's sometimes volatile weather. First we had that now famous guy who mowed his lawn while a large tornado loomed behind him.

Then there was one of the videos I featured the other day, in which the guy calmly applied fungicide to his farm fields while another tornado loomed behind him.

And now we have Westerner Days in Red Deer, which pelted fairgoers with large hail, forcing them to flee into nearby pavillions.

I just love the reaction of the people fleeing. Some held folding chairs over their heads to fend off the hail. Then there's the woman pushing a little pink toy car through the hail, for reasons unknown. Another fleeing woman took care to hang on tight to the fair food she had just purchased. Wouldn't want it to go to waste.

The piece de resistance was the groups of people cooperating to hold tables over their heads as they strived to get out of the hail.

This video from the Weather Network is priceless.  Watch:

Fort McMurray Smoke Drifts Over Vermont

Satellite photo from the National Weather Service
office in Burlington, Vermont shows smoke
over the region from Alberta  

People in Vermont and much of the rest of the Northeast might have noticed the sky took on a hazy look last evening, and the blue sky still has a greyish hue to it this morning.

That's smoke from Alberta, mostly from the fire that devastated Fort McMurray last week. The fire is still burning big time and spewing smoke far and wide.

Depending on which way the wind has been blowing, the smoke has gotten as far from Alberta as the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Winds have shifted, and now the smoke is blowing over us.

Air quality isn't wonderful, but it's not bad enough to trigger air pollution alerts.

But the hazy Vermont sky is a reminder that the North American wildfire season is off to a bad start.

And we'll probably have hazy days like this several more times this summer.

Got Winter Yet? As Summer Lingers Signs Of Snow

Two proud Canadians enjoy the summer weather
 near Calgary, Alberta on Friday. Photo
by Stella Galbraith via CBC.  

It's the end of August, so it's not surprised I can see the gathering gloom of cold gathering way to the north.

Yeah, you're saying shut up already, I can hear you.

True, where I live in Vermont, summer has shown no signs of waning, like it sometimes does in late August.

Temperatures are expected to get into the low 80s this afternoon, "cooler" than the low 90s of last week.

But the end is near, so we might as well embrace it.

The evidence to the north is clear. The high Arctic is definitely cooling down, and snow is increasingly making an appearance way up there.

The snow has even snuck pretty far south, too.

Friday it snowed near Calgary, in southwestern Alberta. Judging from the CBC reports out of Alberta, it looks like a few inches piled up in a couple of the ski resorts near there.

It does snow in the Canadian Rockies occasionally in late August, so this isn't the weirdest thing that ever happened. Still it's a sign of the times.

But don't worry, there will be plenty of warm days left before winter really gets here. Temperatures are forecast to be well into the 70s all this week in Calgary. Here in New England, there's no sign of anything cooler than the 70s in the forecast for daytime highs for most of us this week.

The early signs of fall are starting to make me wonder where I put the snow shovels, even as I go outside to pick tomatoes out of my lush green Vermont garden this morning.