Hot Arctic, Bad Hurricanes, Carbon And Coronavirus: All Bad Climate Change News

A few reports, studies and breaking news this week have all been bad news in the climate change department. Let's get into them:   

Recent temperature depiction of the Arctic.  The more orange, the
further temperatures are above normal.  Notice Siberia and the
area around the North Pole have the deepest orange.

ARCTIC HEAT

The (sort of) breaking news is a weird Arctic heat wave that has spread from Siberia and is reaching the North Pole and parts of Greenland. 

As noted in Gizmodo, temperatures at the North Pole will probably get a bit above freezing in the next few days.  For most of us, temperatures in the low to mid 30s most certainly does not constitute a heat wave. 

But such temperatures are odd for the North Pole, especially this early in the season.  Plus, it gets the Arctic off to an early start to the melt season. 

Same is true in Greenland.  The warmth has gotten the melt season going two weeks earlier than normal.  True, not a huge amount of ice has melted in this heat wave, compared to some mid-summer epic melts in recent years, especially last summer, which saw record melts in Greenland. 

As Gizmodo points out, though, this year's early melt exposes older dirtier snow sooner in the year than nornal. This old snow and ice can then absorb more warm sunshine during the rest of the summer than newer, whiter, fresher snow and ice would. This would bring up the risk of major melt events later in the summer. 

We should care more about Greenland's melt than Arctic Ocean melt.  If ice floating on the sea melts, it won't raise global sea levels. But ice melting off the above sea level glaciers in Greeland flow into oceans, raising their levels globally. 

Meanwhile, Siberia is once again on fire after its warmest winter and spring on record. Fires have already crept north of the Arctic Circle. Gizmodo reports there are even some "zombie fires" which smoldered in buried peat all winter and then sparked back up again amid the current record warmth in high latitude Siberia.  

TURBOCHARGED HURRICANES

Climate change appears to be making hurricanes and typhoons and such more intense, according to new research from NOAA and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies. 

As The Weather Channel reports:

"The researchers discovered that the probability of a tropical cycle having Category 3 or higher wind speeds (at least 111 mph) increased by aboug 15 percent between the first and last halves of the analyzed satellite data. This corresponds to about an 8 percent increase per decade over the period of the study. The proportion of all tropical cyclones exceeding major hurricane intensity showed a similar increase of about 6 percent per decade."

The largest increase in bad hurricanes was in the Atlantic Ocean, but other influences might have helped increase the odds of such storms, too. 

CARBON/CORONAVIRUS

Daily global emissions of carbon dioxide fell by 17 percent from the same period in 2018 as nations locked down their economies to battle the coronavirus pandemic. Most of that decrease was due to less travel and less industrial output. 

I suppose that's good news for people who are not fans of climate change, but obviously we would have all been better off without the pandemic.

Also, this cut in carbon emissions won't really dent the pace of climate change. Economies are already opening back up, and emissions will rise correspondingly.  Even a sustained 17 percent reduction in carbon emissions lasting years wouldn't really solve the problem. 

Said Richard Betts, head of Climate Impacts Research at the Met Office Hadley Centre in England said, "It's like we're filling a bath and have turned down the tap slightly, but not turned it off - the water is still rising, just not as fast. To stop the bath overflowing, we need to turn the tap off."

So yes, the world is rightly consumed with battling the pandemic, but we still need to deal pretty intensely with climate change at the same time. 

Winter To Slap Vermont Hard Again. Watch It On Roads This Afternoon/Eve

Too early in the season for dealing with this.  Snow slides off my
roof in St Albans, Vermont during today's minor thaw. The sliding
snow tries to block the front door. Another harsh cold wave
is starting this evening and continues through Saturday night. 

This isn't saying much, but today is the warmest day in Vermont since Sunday.  True, it's still chillier than normal and Sunday was cooler than normal, too. But I suppose we have to take what we can get.

This "heat wave" won't last. We have at most a few hours of it, then it's back to hard core winter. That re-introduction to the cold later today will be accompanied by the risk of danger on the roads later this afternoon and evening.

Another Arctic cold front is on our doorstep.  Temperatures ahead of this front are mostly above freezing. Snow and possibly rain showers will develop as the front presses in from the northwest.  This, and the minor snow melt we're getting earlier in the day, will make the roads wet.

Then, as the Arctic cold front comes through, many of us will have some briefly heavy snow squalls, and all of us will see rapidly falling temperatures when the front passes.

This will result in a flash freeze, where wet roads instantly ice over. The snow squalls will create periods of zero visibility in spots, and the snowfall will turn the ice on the roads very slippery.

The snow showers and snow squalls won't last long in any one place. Almost everyone will get an 1.5 inches of new snor or less. But that's enought to make things wild and dangerous on the roads during and immediately after the squalls.  The worst of it will be in the northern half of Vermont.

The timing of this is lousy, heading from northern New York at mid afternoon, then going northwest to southeast across Vermont in the late afternoon and evening. Just in time for the evening commute.

Expect the National Weather Service to issue snow squall warnings in areas of northern Vermont and New York later today. These warnings are much like severe thunderstorm warnings in the summer.  Each one will cover only one or a few counties and reference dangerous weather lasting for only an hour or two in a given area.

Some places will get it worse than others.  Some places won't even get snow squalls. But the risk of a mess is such that, if you can, get home before the snow squalls arrive.  If you're still at work or whatever when the snow showers and squalls hit, just hang out where you are until an hour or two after they pass by.

The roads will still be icy in spots, but at least the visibility will have improved and the road crews will have begun to clean things up.

Temperatures will crash right after the front and go right back down to record low levels tonight through Saturday night. This cold snap will be even stronger than the one we just had.  Lows tonight will be in the single numbers and only go into the teens to around 20 for a "high" Saturday

Lows Saturday night will also be in record territory, with temperatures of between minus 5 and plus 5 for most of us. That's just incredibly cold for mid-November and something that's not in the record books.

Winter isn't going anywhere, either. Tempertures will warm up next week, but still stay generally cooler than normal for this time of year. (Forecast highs are in the 30s to around 40, with lows in the 20s).

The exact track of upcoming storms and fronts starting Monday and through next week are uncertain, but we have good chances most days next week of a variety of winter precipitation. Ugh.

Storm Was Close To Forecast In Vermont; Now The Cold

The first half of autumn in Vermont was spectacularly gorgeous, and
at the time I warned that no good weather in Vermont goes unpunished.
Sure enough, late autumn payback: Record cold, a lot of snow
in the way and storm damage tree debris from Nov. 1 still to be removed
from my St. Albans, Vermont yard. 

I'm finally getting around to posting today's storm update, much later than usual. I slept in, then shoveled most of the driveway, and I'm feeling under the weather. That's my excuse anyway.

It's mid-afternoon Tuesday and the winter storm is just about over, except for some valley flurries and mountain snow showers.

The storm, tricky to forecast, played out close to expectations here in Vermont.  The only major differences were that mixed precipitation crept a bit further north than expected,  reaching as far as Burlington and St. Johnsbury.

There was up to a foot of snow in northern New York, and six to 10 inches in northwestern Vermont. That was just a little under what was expected.  I had about eight inches at my place in St. Albans. I was expecting about a foot. It looks like the storm total at the National Weather Service in South Burlington will come in at a respectable 7.1 inches.

Where mixed precipitation fell, amounts dropped sharply, especially in low elevations from just south of Burlington and south of the central Green Mountains.  It looks like three to six inches of snow and ick accumulated in central Vermont, with less than three inches in most of southern Vermont.

In case you haven't noticed, it's damn cold out there for this time of year, and that state of affairs is still expected to last through Thursday.  After a few hours reprieve early Friday, we get another blast of Arctic air Friday night through Saturday night before things begin to recover.

This is part of that Arctic blast that's been all over the news, hitting most of the nation east of the Rockies.  There will be dozens upon dozens of record lows with this cold snap - there already have been quite a few.  Vermont will share in these record lows.

At night - tonight and tomorrow night - how cold it actually gets depends upon cloud cover. If skies clear over areas that have a good bit of snow on the ground, records will be broken by wide margins. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a few cold spots get below zero.  There will probably be a lot of lows in the single digits.

If skies stay cloudy, it'll be a little "warmer" but still in record territory. . The warm water of Lake Champlain will have sort of a tea kettle effect, creating steamy clouds in the Champlain Valley. That just might hold temperatures up in the teens, which could still threaten records.

High temperatures today, tomorrow and Saturday will also challenge marks for record low high temperatures.

It's still looking like temperatures will moderate to more or less normal levels starting next Monday and possibly continuing all week. We'll see.

Arctic Summer Has Been Too Much Like What We Normally Get

X marks the spot where the North Pole is on this map. Red box
points to where there was lightning recently. 

Time to check in once again to the not-so-Great White North, meaning the Arctic, which continues to have an extraordinarily hot summer.

You've seen some posts this summer noting how hot it is up there, but the news keeps coming. Alaska beach weather. Arctic wildfires. Summer thunderstorms rattling around the North Pole.

This in an area that is normally bleak and chilly despite the usual 24-hour a day sun in the first half of summer.

LIGHTNING NEAR NORTH POLE

Here in Vermont, we endured lightning strikes every summer.  That's just normal this time of year around here. But recently. lightning was also striking within 300 miles of the North Pole, which is really something.

In general, if you want a thunderstorm, it's fine to have cold, dry air aloft, but you need relatively warm, humid air near the surface.  We get that here in Vermont in the summer, so we have thunderstorms. As does pretty much everybody else in the mid-latitudes.

The Arctic has always had plenty of cold, dry air around. But warmth and humidity, at least compared to what it normally is up there, is usually scarce. Which means so are thunderstorms.

It's possible there has been lightning that far north before, but nobody that I've found knows of it. And one thunderstorm doesn't prove climate change. But this is odd. And warm.

It does make sense that lightning could become more common in the Arctic. There are signs it already is getting more frequent.  When the Arctic ocean is more ice covered, that stabilizes and chills the air, squelching any attempts at the billowing clouds that can produce lightning.

When there's open water, it can collect more heat, creating rising air currents and produce thunderstorms under the right conditions. Arctic sea ice is at its lowest level on record for this time of year, so it's kinda not surprising they had a weird thunderstorm up there.

The thunderstorms occurred in an area that was frozen over. But open water was just 150 miles away. The storms apparently got going there, over the open water, then moved north. 

ALASKA HEAT UPDATE

The ever helpful Category 6 weather and climate blog has given us a nice update on this summer in Alaska, which statewide, was the hottest on record.

The records are incredible, but the town that takes the cake in my opinion is Kotzebue, along the coast in northwestern Alaska. May, June and July there were the hottest on record. They have not had a single cooler than normal day since February 14! The last time Kotzebue had a cooler than normal month was two years ago.

That pretty much the entire state of Alaska was record warm in July is particularly incredible considering how vast it is. Superimpose Alaska on the Lower 48 and it covers the entire middle of the nation.

So far, the warm Alaska summer has extended through the first half of August.  Another heat ridge might build up there over the coming week or two, which would prolong the odd hot summer in Alaska.

SEA ICE AND OUR WINTERS

At least one new study suggests that melting sea ice is NOT
making our winter in Vermont more harsh. The debate continues....

As I've mentioned in previous blog posts here, some climate scientists have been wondering if the loss of Arctic sea ice have been making winters here in Vermont, elsewhere in the United States and in Europe harsher.

The theory is that the loss of sea ice makes the jet stream wavier and helps get it stuck,  causing cold air to plunge down on us from the north.

A new study questions this theory.  As ScienceDaily points out, the study says that although low winter Arctic ice levels and tough winters here often coincide, the low sea ice isn't having a big influence on these winters.

With or without climate change, Arctic sea ice levels fluctuate year to year. Sometimes there's not much ice, other times there's quite a bit. The overall trend is down for the ice, but it's not a steady drop over years and decades.

Atmospheric weather patterns tend to promote particularly relatively small amounts of sea ice in the Arctic during some winters. Those same weather patterns cause cold snowy winters in eastern North America and western Europe.

This won't be the final word on this issue. I'm sure the scientists will continue studying and debating this one.

Siberian Fires Are Another Climate Change Worry

Forests in Siberia are burning at unprecedented rates this summer,
causing all kinds of ecological havoc. Photo from Tass via Getty Images

Yesterday, I talked about the big meltdown going on across Greenland's ice sheet, which is of course bad news.

Today, more bad news. As you might have heard in some news reports, there are huge, HUGE wildfires going on in Siberia.

Why should we care, you might ask. Hardly anybody lives there, and it's so far away. It's not impacting our lives, is it?

Well, short term it's affecting our lives a little, and long term, is contributing to bigger problems associated with climate change.

So far, according to Vox, 15,000 square miles of Siberia have gone up in flames this year. That's about the size of Maryland.

Smoke from the fires is choking nearby cities, causing health problems for many. The smoke is circling much of the Northern Hemisphere. Here in Vermont, we can all agree that Friday was a gorgeous day: Clear skies, warm sun, low humidity, a perfect beach day. But did you notice the sort of hazy quality to the sky? It wasn't exactly a robin egg blue. More of an ashy color.

Most of that haze was caused by smoke from Siberia.

That haze contains little particles of soot that are raining down everywhere. Right here in Vermont, it's not a big deal, because there's too little of it to be much of a threat to anything.

But some of the soot is coming down on what's left of the Arctic ice this year, on the Greenland ice caps and glaciers throughout places like Canada, the Arctic and Europe.  The soot darkens the ice. Pure white ice deflects sunlight. Darker ice draws in the sun's warmth, leading to faster melting.

The soot will always be there. So, if pure white snow falls on top during the winter, that's a good thing. Unless all that snow melts next summer and the sooty snow is exposed to the sun again. That means faster melting next year, and years to come, too.

The fires are contributing to likely further increases in global temperatures, too. Smithsonianmag.com reports that wildfires across the Arctic belched 50 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in June alone. That's about the same as Sweden's total annual carbon emissions.

Some of the fires are burning in Arctic peat bogs. Normally, they are wet and help contain the spread of fires. But early snow melt and hotter summer temperatures have led the peat to start burning as well. Peat contains carbon that's been stored there for decades or centuries. The peat fires are releasing that stored carbon into the atmosphere, as Smithsonian notes. 

It's a viscious loop.  Warming contributes to more Arctic fires. Those Arctic fires warm the atmosphere more, leading to even drier, hotter conditions up there, leading to more fires, more warmth, etc. etc.

As Vox notes, there are wildfires in Siberia every year.  But the fires this year, and in recent years, have been bigger and badder than in the past.

OK, have a cheered you up yet?

Europe Heat Sets All-Time Records Again, Plus More Bad Climate News

Forecast map of the departure from normal in Europe for expected
high temperatures today. Areas that are whitish will be about
30 degrees hotter than normal, which is uncharted territory
for these regions. 

The second super intense heat wave of the summer is now underway in western Europe, and like in the June heat wave, all-time record hot temperature records are falling.

This isn't your grandfather's heat wave. This one is much worse.

Germany broke its national all-time record high Wednesday when one town reached 105 degrees. Belgium had its hottest day on record with a reading of 103.8 degrees. The Netherlands also broke its all time record, reaching 102.7 degrees.

The city of Bordeaux, France, reached its all time record high of 106.1 degrees.

Incredibly, these new records are in danger of falling today as the heat wave, if anything might grow more intense. And expand. Paris, France, might break its all-time heat record. So might the United Kingdom.

Already this summer, 25 percent of France's weather stations have reported all time record high temperatures, according to the Category 6 blog. Forty-four of Germany's 490 stations have also done so, and that will surely increase today.

Most European homes don't have air conditioning, so this is a dangerous situation. Governments have learned from other, recent deadly heat waves and have set up cooling centers, air conditioned places and other options for vulnerable people to go.

By Saturday, cooler air will undercut the heat ridge and push it north into Scandanavia. That would probably make all time record highs fall up there, too.  It's possible the heat dome will extend as far as the North Pole, which isn't exactly great news for the already scant Arctic sea ice pack.

There's other types of climate related trouble and news, too:

ARCTIC FIRES

The center of this heat wave will move to Scandanavia and parts of the
Arctic this weekend, which is bad news for the ice up there. 

Extensive probably unprecedented wildfires burning in Alaska, northern Canada and Siberia and cloaking the Arctic in smoke, Forbes reports. Wildfires in such northern areas are bad to begin with, but these could contribute a bit toward making climate change worse.'

Especially in areas were peat is on fire, the blazes are belching carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which adds to the surplus that's causing climate change in the first place.

Soot particles from the fire are landing on Arctic ice. Bright white ice reflects sunlight, but darker material draws the sun's warmth in. The soot would therefore make the ice melt faster in the summer than it otherwise would.

ICELAND GLACIER DEATH

An Icelandic glacier dubbed OK is officially dead, the apparent victim of climate change. Summers in Iceland have gotten hotter in recent years and decades. That means the island's 400 or so glaciers are in retreat.

OK is the first of Iceland glaciers to be declared dead but it won't be the least. A glacier "dies" when it becomes so thin that it can't move on its own because it doesn't have enough weight.

According to Slate, the OK glacier probably died several years ago, and there's likely a few other glaciers in Iceland that have also died.

PAST CLIMATE CHANGE SMALLER

People who say climate change doesn't exist point to other climate shifts that happened before we started pushing all that CO2 into the atmosphere. They point to the Roman Warm Period between the years 0 and 300 AD, the Dark Ages cold period around the year 500 AD, the Little Ice Age in the 1300s through 1700s and the Medieval Warm Period around the year 1000 as examples.

According to Science News, these past climate events were regional, covering only sections of the Earth. That's unlike the current global warming, says Science. They report that 98 percent of the Earth is warmer now that it has been at any time in the previous 2,000 years.

This new study appears in the journal Nature.  The scientists conducting this study came to their conclusion by using proxies for temperatures from tree rings, glacier ice cores, lake and ocean sediments, cave deposits and historical documents.

Big Melt This Week In Greenland Is Bad, But Not (Yet) The End Of The World

Orange areas are spots in Greenland that
experienced melting on Thursday. That's
a very unsually large area for this
early in the season.

This sounds dire: Just on Wednesday, two billion tons of ice melted off of Greenland.

To put it in perspective, though, the two billion tons of ice that melted off of Greenland in one day is certainly very bad news, but it doesn't mean the whole ice sheet will go away in a flash. The vast, vast majority of the ice is still obviously very much there in Greenland.

But still. Forty-five percent of the Greenland ice sheet surface was melting Wednesday, which is pretty much the most anybody has seen this early in the season.  Temperatures were as much as 40 degrees above normal in Greenland, notes the Washington Post.

A very high elevation weather station in Greenland, aptly named Summit, briefly went above freezing this week. Thaws are rare at Summit. The last time it happened was in July, 2012, the Washington Post notes.

Much of the thawed ice that didn't manage to flow into the oceans will refreeze in cooler days ahead, but the initial thawing has weakened some of the ice, making it more prone to melting if it gets warm again later this summer.

Climatologists always worry about Greenland's ice sheet. As it melts off, it flows into the ocean and raises global sea levels. This year, the melt season in Greenland is definitely off to a bad start. It could rival the big melt of 2012, which is the benchmark for Greenland thawing.

Then again, the weather patterns might change and the melting could slow.  The fact that melting started in some corners of Greenland in late April amid record warmth, and the thaw continued off and on through May and the first part of June is ominous.

Arctic sea ice extent is so far at record low levels for this time
of year. This trend might or might not continue, depending upon
weather conditions in July and August. 

The bulk of the summer season thaw in Greenland is in July. Now that there has already been some thawing, much of the freshest, whitest snow atop the ice has gone away.

That leaves relatively dirty ice exposed, which attracts more of the sun's heat than pure white stuff. Which in turns means the risk of faster melting.

This latest melting episode in Greenland seems to be a case of climate change teaming up with a natural weather pattern.

The dreaded negative phase of what is known as the North Atlantic Oscillation is going on at the moment.

That pattern creates warm, sunny high pressure systems to sit over Greenland (and at the same time pushing chilly air southward into the mid-latitudes. This can help make it cool and cloudy here in Vermont. I bet you noticed that during this spring.)

Climate change is probably making what would already have been an odd warm spell in Greenland a little bit warmer.

It's not just Greenland that's been a toasty Arctic spot lately. Arctic sea ice is at its lowest level for mid-June since satellites started monitoring it in 1979, the Washington Post tells us.

Ice loss in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas along Alaska's northern coast is "unprecedented, said Rick Thoman, a Fairbanks-based climatologist.  Since so much water is already exposed, the sun will have a chance to warm the water, which could encourage further record-level ice melting  near the North Pole.

If a lot of ice melts in the Arctic Ocean, that won't raise sea levels like Greenland's melt would.  The melting Arctic Ocean ice is like ice cubes melting in your glass of gin and tonic. The water level won't change. Greenland's melt is like a colander filled with ice held over the glass. The thawing ice would drip into the glass, eventually causing it to overflow.

With or without climate change, Arctic weather is highly variable. There's always a chance the weather in the far north could turn cloudier and cooler for the rest of the summer. That would prevent this year from being another record melt, like 2012 was. We'll just have to wait and see on that one.

While Vermont Stayed Wintry; Parts Of Arctic Incredibly Spring Balmy

Temperatures in northern Alaska are likely to be a whopping
35 to 50 degrees above normal this week. While temperatures
normally hover near 0 this time of year in that region,
readings are likely to get above freezing. 

It was another truly wintry morning around Vermont today. For the second day in a row, it was right around 9 below up in Island Pond. Lake Eden clocked in with 6 below.  Many Vermonters awoke to temperatures in the single digits above zero.

The good news for those who are winter-weary is that this will likely be the last time anyone in Vermont sees subzero temperatures until next November at the earliest.

The snow cover, deep in many areas, will begin to subside, starting today and continuing through the weekend amid thawing temperatures.

Despite the fact we will have a few wintry setbacks, spring is finally asserting itself in Vermont.

Meanwhile, it's been springlike up in parts of the Arctic all month. At least springlike by their standards. In parts of Alaska and northwestern Canada, this March will be far and away the warmest on record.

The ever-reliable Category 6 weather blog at Weather Underground has the rundown on this incredible Arctic "warmth."

Let's start with Utquiagvik, Alaska, formerly known as Barrow in the extreme northern tip of that state. The high temperature there yesterday was 32 degrees and the low, 17, which was almost exactly like the conditions we had here in Vermont on Tuesday. Seemingly not all that impressive.

But remember, this is the northern tip of Alaska. That 32 was record high for the date and Tuesday was 35 degrees warmer than normal in Utqiagvic. (Normal high there yesterday was minus 4, normal low, minus 17.

Utqiagvic is running 16 degrees above normal for March, and they are likely going to have the warmest March on record, and the first March with a mean temperature above zero, given the forecast of continued mild temperatures into early April.

It's not just Utqiagvic. Much of Alaska has been even hotter.  Kotzebue, Alaska, about 300 miles southwest to the former Barrow is having a March that will end more than 20 degrees warmer than average, and a record high. Thaws in Kotzebue are rare and brief in March, but each of the past five days there have gotten above freezing. (Normal high this time of year around Kotzebue is around 10 degrees).

There have been some incredible March record highs in Alaska, the Northwest Territories of Canada and far western Siberia. Sitka, Alaska,  reached 67 degrees this month.  Yohin Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada sits just 400 miles from the Arctic Circle and managed to hit an incredible 71 degrees a week or so back. At the hour it was that warm in Yohin Lake, it was a degree or two cooler than that in Miami, Florida.

Tofino, British Columbia reached 76 degrees, which is a March record and would have been the all-time hottest reading there in April, too.

The odd warmth in Alaska is due largely to an odd and strangely persistent weather pattern that has brought repeated bursts of air from the south to the region. Plus, the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet due to climate change.

Superimpose climate change on an odd, warm weather pattern and you really get some bizarre northern heat.

HOW IT AFFECTS US

If it seems this Arctic warmth is something that is happening too far away to affect many people and doesn't affect you at all, think again.

First of all, the lack of ice in the Bering Sea off western Alaska is having a wide range of effects. Ice usually prevents large storm waves from crashing ashore in western Alaska. With the lack of ice, the waves have been producing coastal flooding and erosion, notes the Anchorage Daily News. 

Nobody can go crabbing, fishing and walrus hunting either.

This weather pattern has certainly affected the United States. The big northward bulge in the jet stream has created a big dip downstream. That means cold air masses have been able to easily move south from Canada. Air that's really warm for the season north of the Arctic Circle is cold for the season by the time it heads south to places like, well, Vermont.

Which helps explain why the weather was basically the same yesterday in Vermont as it was way up in the northern tip of Alaska.

This warm Arctic spring is reason to worry about the extent of Arctic ice, too.

Overall, despite the tiny amounts of ice in the Bering Sea, overall Arctic ice extent did not set any record lows this winter, which is a good thing. The ice extent probably peaked around March 13 and it was tied for the seventh lowest in the past 40 years. Not a terrific thing, but at least the amounts of ice didn't crash this year.

This week, the odd heat has expanded to include almost all of the Arctic. This is almost certainly a temporary thing, but it does start off the melt season awfully fast. If the trend were to continue well into the summer, we'd be a risk of setting a new record for lowest ice extent.

That's just speculation at the moment, anything can happen with the pace of this year's melt. It all depends upon what the weather pattern is like when summer really hits in June, July and August.

But if the Arctic ice continues to diminish, it will help keep making the weather patterns weirder and more extreme in places where we live in the mid-latitudes.

GREENLAND GLACIER GROWS

A good example of how natural cycles are superimposed on a warming climate is at the Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland.

The glacier became something of a poster child for climate change back in 2014, when it rapidly began to lose mass. It stunned people watching the climate, as glaciers like Jakobshavn, when they melt fast, contribute to sea level rise.

Well, guess what? The Jakobshavn glacier is growing again. Adding ice. So, no worries about climate change right?  A Greenland glacier is actually growing!

Not so fast.

In the short term, the fact that Jakobshavn glacier is growing is a very good thing. It's not contributing to sea level rise, and is in fact slowing it by an imperceptible amount.

The glacier stopped shrinking and started expanding again because an ocean current bringing water to the spot where the glacier meets the ocean got much chillier starting around 2016.  The water there is the coldest it's been since the 1980s, as Marshall Shepherd notes in Forbes.

There's a natural pattern called the North Atlantic Oscillation that makes the North Atlantic flip between cold and warm once every five, ten, fifteen, twenty years - it depends.

It's in the cold phase, so that's helping the glacier grow. Which leads Shepherd to a great point in his Forbes article.  People who deny or are skeptical of climate change often say the climate changes naturally.

Climate scientist would respond by saying, Duh!  They all already know climate changes naturally. always changes.  As Shepherd writes:

"It's not 'either/or' with naturally-varying climate and human influences. it's 'and.''

Which is what we're seeing now with the Jakobshavn glacier, and the odd heat in Alaska.

Chances are, when the North Atlantic Oscillation flips again, that Jakobshavn glacier will begin to thaw again.

Big Storminess Of Past Week Kinda, Sorta Calming Down In U.S, Including Here In Vermont

A mother and her four year old kid managed to
survive this tree falling on their car during
high winds yesterday in Milton, Massachusetts.

Well, that was quite the windy day here in Vermont, wasn't it.

As advertised, things weren't quite as bad in the Green Mountain State as elsewhere, but it was impressive. Damage was widely scattered but noticeable: A couple barns lost their roofs, trees and branches fell everywhere, including on a few houses.

Power was out for thousands across Vermont yesterday, but most of us have their juice back. There were just a few outages left here and there as of 8:30 a.m. today, mostly in Bennington County, where winds were arguably the strongest in the state on Monday.

Most low elevations in Vermont had peak gusts in the 45 to 55 mph range, but this storm was really something in the mountains here in Vermont and in the rest of the Northeast.

It's always windier - especially during storms - in the mountains, but this was really something.  Thank goodness these screaming winds above 3,500 feet or so in elevation had some trouble mixing down to the valleys.

Whiteface Mountain, New York had a gust of 107 mph. A large communications tower on Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine collapsed in 100 mph gusts. The top of Mount Washington reached 171 mph, the strongest wind on record for February on the New Hampshire peak.

Back here in Vermont, the top of Mount Mansfield reached 124 mph, which I think might be some sort of record, I'm not sure.

It's still windy today, but not nearly as bad. There won't be any more wind damage, but the gusts will keep us feeling cold. Temperatures will only make it into the teens this afternoon, and with wind gusts as high as 30 mph, wind chills will certainly be below zero.

The weather here in Vermont and most of the rest of the nation will not be as dramatic over the next week as it has in the past week, but there's still plenty of action to talk about.

If you were looking for an early spring this year, it ain't happening. A guess that stupid rodent in Pennsylvania was wrong back on February 2.

High winds, drifting snow, and blowing snow obscured the landscape
in Kassan, Minnesota over the weekend, trapping cars. Persistent
cold and record amounts of February snow in that region are
raising fears of flooding later in the spring. 

The weather pattern favors below normal temperatures for almost all of the nation through about March 10. Many areas after that date will stay cold.

The epicenter of the cold is going to stay where it has all month -- in the northeastern Rockies and northern Plains. There will be quite a few cities and towns there that will end up having their coldest February on record.

Some examples: Cut Bank, Montana, near the Canadian border, is running an incredible 28 degrees below normal so far this month, and the intense cold there will continue through the first week of March. Cut Bank has had 16 days this month where the temperature stayed below zero all day, and only two days this month failed to get below zero.

Yeah, I'm complaining about the cold in Vermont, but I've got nothing on Cut Bank.

In addition to the intense cold, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin have had record or near record amounts of snow in February. With forecasts of a delayed start to the melt season,  there's fears the weather will turn to spring all at once later on, causing an abrupt melt and severe flooding.

People in this region are already whispering about 1997, when a massive flood after a snowy winter and a late spring unleashed a devastating inundation of Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Back here in Vermont, it will be cold, but not to the extreme of the northern Plains. After a couple days that will be about 20 degrees colder than normal, we'll briefly warm up to something close to normal by Friday and Saturday. Then it will get cold again, probably until at least around March 10.

Things could change of course, but right now I'm not seeing any really big storms in the next week or so. Yes, there will be a little snow in southern Vermont Wednesday or Wednesday night, and maybe a little snow, rain or a mix Saturday. But unless things shift dramatically, forecasters see not big dumps of snow or torrential rains or super wind storms for now.

Here We Go Again: Winter Storm Watch Up For Vermont

Here's that familiar snow forecast map we've seen so much of
this winter. This new storm Tuesday into Wednesday is forecast
give most of us 6 to 12 inches of new snow.

It's certainly been a back and forth kind of winter here in Vermont. We get a bunch of snow. Then a lot of it melts. Then it all comes back. Melts again. Rinse and repeat.

Obviously, a fair amount of snow remained after last Thursday's rain, thaw, ice jams and general ugliness.  We got some replacement snow yesterday, as one to four inches of snow, some of it in squalls, dumped on us Vermonters.

Now, this morning, once again, we find ourselves under another winter storm watch.  It looks like another six to 10 inches of powder will come down on us, mostly Tuesday night.

The meteorologists and weather geeks have been watching a storm in the Midwest that's been bringing heavy snows and blizzard conditions to areas from the Dakotas to Michigan. This storm is the leading edge of that Arctic blast that's been hyped up for a week now.

That Arctic blast is still expected to bring very dangerous 40 to 60 below wind chills to the upper Midwest this week with actual temperatures in many areas out there near the record low territory. Lows will be as chilly as the 40s below in northern Minnesota.

Not to be cavalier, but that's their problem. That storm in the Midwest will keep chugging east and wind up somewhere in western New York or southern Ontario by Tuesday evening. By then, light snow will have spread over our region.

The storm over Ontario will move northeast and fade, while a new storm blossoms somewhere near New Jersey and heads northeastward along the New England coast Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

The seeds of this coastal storm are prompting winter storm watches and warnings for the Deep South, places like Mississppi, Alabama and Georgia, where one to three inches of snow is expected tonight and tomorrow.

A snow squall sharply reducing visibility in St. Albans, Vermont Sunday

Tuesday night is when most of the snow will come down around here.  The steady snow will shut off pretty quickly during the day Wednesday, though light snow showers and flurries will continue, possibly into Thursday.

The snow this time is no blockbuster, and will certainly be smaller than the dump we got a little over a week ago.  

The general consensus is most of us will received six to 10 inches of snow, with maybe a little more than that in southern Vermont a perhaps a tad less in far northern New York.

An exception to this forecast is the western and central Adirondacks of New York. Lake effect snow will keep cranking into Wednesday, so storm totals there will be more like 12 to 18 inches.

We don't have much on the ground to show for it, given the thaws between the cold snaps this month, but this January in Burlington is among the snowiest on record. The city has already gotten 34.2 inches of snow this month. Even if not another snowflake falls through the end of the month, it will still be the seventh snowiest on record.

The upcoming storm will not be enough to make January the snowiest first month of the year. That honor goes to January,  2010, when 48.4 inches of snow fell on Burlington.

That Arctic blast from the Midwest will come in on the heels of the storm, but I will call it a semi-blast by the time it gets to Vermont.  From Wednesday night on through Saturday morning, we'll have subzero overnights - but only in the "meh" range -- 5 to 15 below. We can handle that if we dress the part.

Daytime highs only in the single numbers and teens.

Next - and a lot of you are going to hate this -- there are signs the up and down roller coaster will continue. It appears it will start to warm up dramatically next Sunday, with a decent chance of yet another mix to rain episode of a storm toward next Monday and Tuesday.

That long range forecast could change, but it would certainly fit the pattern of this up-and-down, active winter.

That Arctic Blast Everybody's Talking About And What It Means For Us

Do you like cold weather? Head to Minnesota. These were temperatures
there this morning. Expect this and worse in Minnesota and the
rest of the Midwest most of this week.

The big Arctic blast that everybody's been hyping in the Midwest seems to have started kind of before it began.

An initial surge of bitter air settled over an area centered around northern and central Minnesota - and  surrounding areas - this morning, setting some awfully nasty record low temperatures in the process.

Meanwhile, the main surge of Arctic air should surge across the Canadian border tomorrow. For parts of the western Great Lakes and Midwest, this will be the most intense cold wave in at least a few years.

It won't be the worst ever, contrary to what some clickbait types are telling us, but it will be impressive.

For us here in Vermont, we'll have our share of bitter air with this, but it won't be as bad as our friends to the west are experiencing. I'll get into how Vermont fares in a bit.

First, we go west. Checking the weather in International Falls, Minnesota early this morning, their conditions were dense freezing fog, with a temperature of 45 below. That's not the wind chill. That's the actual temperature.

That 45 below was a new record for the date, beating 36 below in 1966. It was a record 40 below in Hibbing, Minnesota and 47 below in Ava, Minnesota.  They can keep that.

On Saturday, it was 23 below in Madison, Wisconsin, colder than any reporting station in Alaska. (It's a bit on the warm side for this time of year in much of Alaska.

It will get worse out there in the Midwest. The temperatures probably won't go that low again this upcoming week, but the wind chills with the  main Arctic outbreak this week will be ridiculous.

Low temperatures this week in cities like Minneapolis, Chicago, Des Moines and Detroit could easily fall to levels not seen since the 1990s. Minneapolis could get well into the minus 20s. Chicago might flirt with 20 below, too.

Of course, cold snaps of this magnitude used to be more common, but have gotten more rare with global warming.

As dangerous as this cold wave will be for the center of the nation - and it is a dangerous cold wave - it won't last nearly as long as some of past historic cold waves, like those in the 1930s and to a lesser extent those in the 1970s.

By next weekend, temperatures in the Midwest will be rebounding to levels that are chilly, but nothing out of the ordinary for early February.

I also want to add a hype alert: You will see it in the headlines all week, "OMG!! Polar Vortex Invades US! We're all DOOOMMMED!!!!!!!!!!!

Um, no. Pieces of the Arctic polar vortex do break off and head south from time to time, occasionally reaching the United States. That's what's happening this week, and it's not that weird. Although the intensity of the cold will be worse than usual, it's not unprecedented.

During a similar weather pattern in 1996, the temperature fell to as low as minus 60 in northern Minnesota. It won't get that cold this time.

VERMONT EFFECTS

We in the Green Mountain State will certainly feel the effects of this Arctic blast, but it won't be as bad as it's likely to be in the Midwest.

The Arctic air is coming almost due south from the northern reaches of Canada straight down into the northern Plains and western Great Lakes. It will move fast and  not have a chance to warm up even a smidge by the time it hits the United States. That's why places like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois are going to be hit so hard with this.

From there, the Arctic air will head east, across the Great Lakes toward us. The comparatively warm waters of the lakes will modify the air a little bit. Also, once the bitter blast gets as far south as the United States, it will be exposed to more sunshine than areas in northern Canada. That will take a little bit of the punch out of the chill as well.

That said, it won't be a picnic here in Vermont. This cold wave will probably be on par with the one we had last Monday. That means from Wednesday into next weekend, we'll have subzero nights and early mornings, and high temperatures in the single number and teens, which is definitely a lot colder than normal.

Wind chills will be brutal, too, especially Wednesday and Thursday. This won't be the worst cold wave ever in Vermont - not by a long shot. But it will be unpleasant, that's for sure.

Before we get to the chill, we have some more snow to talk about. As of mid-morning today, Sunday, January 27, there are already snow showers and blowing snow around Vermont amid gusty south winds.

Those south winds are bringing a bite to otherwise relatively mild air that will take us to near 30 this afternoon.

The big news today is something that on radar looks like one of those summer time thundery, gusty squall lines heading toward us. In today's case, that's a line of snow squalls that seem destined to come through Vermont during early to mid afternoon.

This line of squalls will hit some areas harder than others, but a lot of us face the prospect of a brief period of very heavy snow, terrible visibility on the roads, which will suddenly become slick, and some relatively strong gusty winds.

Snow accumulations today will only amount to one to three inches, but in many places those snow squalls will be a danger.

Monday, a modified piece of that Arctic air from Minnesota will be here, giving us a chilly day. Tuesday will warm up to near 30 degrees ahead of that main cold front. A complex storm along this front at this point looks like it could give us a few to several inches of snow.

Then the Arctic blast hits. Enjoy the ride!

A Challenging Weather Pattern: It Ain't Over For Us Vermonters

Riverside Avenue in Burlington this morning. Roads across
Vermont remain snow covered, icy and slippery because it's
still too cold for salt to work. Allow extra time
and be prepared for lousy driving.

As expected, it's below zero everywhere in Vermont this morning, and north winds are making it feel even worse. A little snow is lingering in some areas, but it won't accumulate much.

If you're tired of this very active weather, well, buck it up.

We're in for a stormy, challenging, wintry ride for the next week at least, probably more, and there's something in the forecast to cheer - and disappoint - pretty much everybody.  The weather pattern coming up is going to be a lot of work for all of us Vermonters. 

I'll get to that in a minute, but while we're cleaning up the snow outside, I'll clean up some more storm tidbits from the weekend.

One remarkable thing about the storm was how uniformly Vermont got hit. Most of the time, one section of the state gets really bullseyed, while others miss out.  This time, pretty much everybody got at least a foot, with just a few exceptions.

Burlington is usually one of the places that get a little less snow than others. But the storm total there is an impressive 17.3 inches.  This is the 17th biggest snowstorm on record for Burlington. That total includes 15.6 inches that fell on Sunday, making it easily the snowiest January 20th on record.

The highest snow totals I see now are across the pond in New York with 21 inches in North Hudson, New York and 20.8 inches in Elizabethtown, New York.

In Vermont, there are 18 inch reports scattered statewide, including Walden in the northeast, Craftsbury, and Sudbury, in northern Rutland County.

Snow for the season in Burlington is up to a pretty impressive 57 inches, which is 20 inches ahead of normal for this time of year.

The other aspect of the storm was the low level cold air in the Champlain Valley, that we've already talked about. It seems like Burlington and Mount Mansfield reversed each other. The high and low temperature in Burlington Sunday were 5 above and 6 below.

Atop Mount Mansfield, the high was 16 and the low was 3 above.  Very strange.

Now on to what happens next. As I said, it's busy.

TODAY:  The wind chill warning stays in effect until 1 p.m. but the entire day really will feature nasty cold. Highs will end up a few degrees either side of zero, and winds will gust to 25 mph. Expect wind chills to often be in the minus 20s.

Road conditions will remain iffy because it's too cold for salt to work, and winds will blow snow back onto the roads. Take extra time to get to your destination. On my ride in today, the snow was packed on roads and had pretty much turned into ice. They won't get much better until it gets warm enough for salt to work.

TUESDAY: Pick of the week I suppose. It will be really cold at dawn, with temperatures in most places in the teens below zero. Near Lake Champlain it'll be in the single numbers below zero and the cold spots will be near minus 20.

But, the day will be generally sunny, winds will be lighter and temperatures will "warm" into the 8 to 18 degree above range.

WEDNESDAY: Early in the morning, before dawn, both temperatures and wind will be rising. By Wednesday morning, winds will be gusting as high as 35 mph across much of Vermont and as high as 45 mph in the  Champlain Valley.

Which means there will once again be lots of blowing and drifting snow. The wind will be coming from the south this time, the opposite of yesterday and today. Which means snow that was in protected areas will now get blown about. There will be visibility problems on roads. In open areas, rural roads and driveways will once again be blocked by drifts. The work never ends.

There will also be some light snow around, especially outside the Champlain Valley. Some places could get another one to three inches.

Temperatures in some spots could make it above freezing by mid-afternoon, so a few raindrops might mix in.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT AND THURSDAY: Lots of uncertain, still, but it's seeming more likely it's going to rain on our nice deep winter sports-friendly powder snow. A cold front will be approaching from the west, and a wave of low pressure will be moving up the East Coast, but it's looking like that storm's path might be well inland.

If that's the case, we could get unpleasant rainfall or a mix Wednesday night and Thursday. If by some chance the path of the storminess is a little east of forecast, we'd get more snow. Stay tuned on this one. Nobody is yet sure how this will pan out.

FRIDAY: Cold air comes in again. There could be some snow, but how much is anybody's guess.

SATURDAY: A good chance of a reinforcing shot of cold air. Some computer models give us some run of the mill snow showers and a typical January cold shot. Other models give us some nasty snow squalls and a super bitter air mass at least as frigid as the one we're getting this morning. We'll see.

BEYOND SATURDAY: It's impossible to tease out weather systems with any detail this far in advance. It looks like an active pattern wil continue into early next week, but it's hard to say if we'll get small snow installments or some kind of humdinger.

But with such a busy week coming up, it's easy to wait and see what happens a week from now.

Winters in Vermont Have Gotten Warmer. And Snowier

At least seven feet of snow has come down in Woodford,
Vermont, in the southern Green Mountains this month.

It seems like a paradox: Winters in Vermont have been generally trending warmer in recent decades.

Lately, they've also been getting snowier.

As you well know, many of us are buried in snow today in the lead up to the official start of spring next week.

So far this March, Burlington, Vermont has had 30.1 inches of snow. Even if not so much as one more flake falls this month (ha!) it'll still be the sixth snowiest March on record. Also, if it doesn't snow for the rest of March, April and May, this winter's snowfall will be above average.

VERMONT GETTING SNOWIER?

I looked at annual winter snowfall dating back to 1947 at the National Weather Service office in South Burlington, Vermont. The average annual snowfall during that period was 80.7 inches.

Since 2001, 14 of the 18 winters had snowfall above that average. (Including the current winter, since we're already up to 84.5 inches for the season.)

It's hard to say whether climate change has anything to do with this. Storms are wetter in a warmer world. So if it's below freezing locally, any given storm could be wetter, which would boost the snowfall totals.

However, it could just as well be some sort of natural cycle. For instance, during the 13 winters from 1966 to 1979, only one winter's snowfall was below the average, and then, just barely.

Three of Burlington's snowiest winters have been since 2000, and another three of the snowiest winters were during that 1960s and 1970s snowy period.

The difference between the 1960s and 1970s and now is that the earlier snowy winters were also generally cold. Most, but not all of the snowy winters in the 2000s have been near normal or warmer than normal, temperature wise.

THE BIG PICTURE

One study that made news this week concluded that big spikes in winter temperatures around the Arctic since 1990 correlate with big winter storms in the northeastern United States.

I usually have a nice sunset view in the evening out my
St. Albans, Vermont windows, but accumulated snow
and snow that slid off the roof ends that idea for now

A team of researchers looked at winter weather patterns dating back to 1950 According to Inside Climate News:

"Their study, published in the journal Nature Communications, links the increased frequency of extreme winter storms with the rapid and persistent warming of the Arctic since around 1990. When temperatures over the Arctic spike, especially high in the atmosphere, extreme winter weather is two to four times more likely in Boston and New York, while the U.S. tends to see warmer and drier conditions, they conclude."

This study doesn't prove that Arctic warmth is causing these northeastern winter storms, but suggests a possible link. Inside Climate News quotes Rutgers University climate researcher Jennifer Francis as saying this study reinforces previous studies that a declining temperature contrast between a fast-warming Arctic and somewhat slower warming mid-latititudes makes the jet stream more wavy.

A more erratic jet stream like this is more likely to cause extreme weather.

Climate change skeptics, like Joe Bastardi, on the other hand, say there have been weather patterns like this before.  And he's absolutely right. March, 1962, for instance, featured Arctic warming and lots of winter storms in the northeastern United States.

However, the question is, are these warm spells in the Arctic becoming more frequent? The science suggests they are.  Which would tend to indicate that we might have other very snowy winters in our Vermont future.

Short term, it looks like the wintry weather is here to stay in Vermont for awhile yet. Not much new snow will fall between now and Monday, with just scattered snow showers and possible brief squalls now and again as Arctic boundaries and disturbances pass through.

However, everybody is still watching out for the possibility of another snowy nor'easter during the middle of next week. It's still way too soon to determine whether that one will hit us, or mercifully slide out to sea too far south to give us more piles of snow to shovel.

Another Day Of Weather Extremes Across Vermont, Northeast And It Ain't Over Yet

Boston Post Road near Enosburg, Vermot covered
with ice chunks and water as the Missisquoi River rises
amid rain and record high January temperatures Friday.

As of late afternoon Friday, we're still experiencing quite an extreme weather day here in Vermont and in the rest of the Northeast.

Flood watches and warnings, and a variety of winter weather alerts remain in play overnight and into Saturday as some truly bizarre weather moves through.

Record highs were abundant today across the region, just five days after record cold. As of last report, it got up to 61 degrees in Burlington, Vermont, breaking the old record of 55 degrees set back in 1980.

That's a full 81 degrees warmer than the record low of 20 below set just this past Sunday. Elsewhere in Vermont and eastern New York, there were a few reports of temperatures as high as 64 degrees.

Two more kind of weather geeky observations from today: Dewpoints got into the mid 50s. (The dewpoint is the level the temperature has to fall to fully saturate the air. It's a decent measure of how humid it feels out there.)

A dewpoint of 60 degrees in the summer makes us feel a little sweaty. Dewpoints in the mid-50s, like today, are actually quite common in July here in Vermont. Remember, if you can, one of hose pleasantly warm summer days when you're at the beach and it's sunny and 80 and the sky is blue and the humidity isn't so bad and it's a perfect out for swimming and picnicking and anything else. The dewpoint was probably in the mid-50s on that day you are remembering.

Another indication is something called precipitable water. It's kind of technical, but it's a measure of how much water is in the air that's available to come down as rain or some other form of precipitation.

Precipitable water is usually much higher in the summer than in the winter, since warm air can hold more moisture than cold air. In New England, precipitable water values were at record highs for this time of year.

No wonder. Much of the moisture feed for this current storm is coming straight from the Caribbean Sea. That's a lot of warm, moist air. No wonder the precipitation has been so heavy, and the air has been so warm and humid today.

Everybody in the Northeast is getting heavy precipitation and that will largely continue through tonight, and in some areas, well into Saturday.

One river of heavy rain has been moving today from southwestern New England into central western and central Massachusetts, central New Hampshire and into Maine.

Here in Vermont, the rain hasn't been quite as heavy, but it's still substantial. (Burlington, on top of its record high temperature, today had its wettest January 11th on record. - 0.64 inches of precipitation as of late afternoon and still counting.)

Add to it this warm, humid, which melts snow at the fastest rate possible, and no wonder pretty much all the snow has disappeared from valleys and melted substantially from mountains. And no wonder flooding is a problem.

Now, of course, that long promised sharp cold front is entering the region as of Friday evening.  The cold air will blast in near the surface of the earth first, and the warm air will linger a bit higher overhead.

That moisture feed from the Caribbean is continuing tonight, but will glide up and over that onrushing cold air.

We're still looking at the rain changing to freezing rain from northwest to southeast across the region tonight. Since temperatures will be crashing so fast, any standing water will freeze, too. It's called a flash freeze and you can get why.

Over New York, and the northwest corner of Vermont, the precipitation will be quicker to change to sleet and then snow overnight and into Saturday as the cold air really establishes itself. Which means the forecast is still on track for only relatively light icing from freezing rain tonight,  followed by four to as much as 10 inches of sleet and snow accumulation throught Saturday.

Further south in Vermont, forecasters are still expected a longer period of freezing rain before the sleet and snow come in on Saturday. There still might be enough ice accumulation to cause scattered power failures and broken tree limbs.

If you were planning on traveling anywhere in eastern New York, Vermont or most of the rest of New England Saturday morning, don't bother. Between the ice left over from the flash freeze tonight, the occasionally heavy freezing rain, sleet and snow coming down, increasing north winds, blowing snow and crashing temperatures, it will be downright scary out there.

Things will slowly start to improve Saturday afternoon and night, but the temperatures will keep crashing. falling well below zero Saturday night - somewhere near 10 below.

It'll stay cold during the first half of the week and then start moderating some - but not up to 60 degrees again!

The computer models are still disagreeing about a possible storm sometime around the Tuesday to Thursday time frame. Some of the models keep insisting on a substantial snowstorm for our area, while others are saying, meh! just some light stuff.

Let's just get through this storm and deal with any other problems afterwards. Dizzy yet?

I do have to say what I keep saying: That extreme weather in one location is no proof of global warming or the lack thereof. However, we here in Vermont have had an oddly large number of completely off the rails weather events over the past few years, and they seem to be coming faster and more furiously. Today just added to that growing list.

That seems to be happeneing in many other parts of the world, too. That, trend, of an increasing frequency of bizarre weather events, IS consistent with climate change. I do think this string of oddball weather happenings is a symptom.

 

Wednesday Evening Big Storm Update: A Little More Intense Yet

You don't see this everyday: They
were able to make little snowmen in
Tallahassee, Florida today.

So far, as of Wednesday evening, the trend has continued to keep ever so slowly nudging the expected path of the gigantic nor'easter further and further to the west, or at least basically putting it where we thought it would go this morning.  

I don't know if any new trends in the forecast path will develop,  but for now, the impacts of this storm on New England and to a lesser extent Vermont look to be even a little more extreme than we thought this morning.

It's already a mess in the Southeast, if you haven't already heard. Freezing rain in normally mild cities like Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina has changed to snow and is piling up. You really can't drive anywhere down there, as they don't have the equipment to deal with a rare and nasty winter storm such as this.

Tallahassee, Florida measured 0.1 inches of snow today, the first measureable snow that city has seen since 1989.

Up north, expected snowfall amounts have ticked upward for most of New England, except the extreme east. In southeastern New England and especially Cape Cod and the islands, the westward nudge in the expected track of this vast nor'easter will enable rain or mixed precipitation to temporarily get in there before the Arctic cold comes blasting back.

There's been no change in the worry over coastal flooding, especially on north and east facing shores of Massachusetts. Moderate to major coastal flooding is still a good bet in many areas tomorrow. Battering waves will make things worse, as will chunks of ice left over from this past week's frigid temperatures.

You don't see this everyday, either. Downtown Charleston,
South Carolina today.

As temperatures fall, freezing spray will coat buildings, possibly causing even a little more structural damage. Storm surge flooding in some areas could freeze in place, leaving some neighborhoods encased in thick ice along the coast.

Power failures in eastern New England because of the strong winds remain a huge concern, since temperatures will head below zero Friday and Saturday. A foot or more of snow is now a good bet in much of eastern and central New England away from the coast. The bigger problem will be enormous amounts of blowing and drifting.

Here in Vermont, conditions will keep getting worse throughout Thursday. Your evening commute is not going to be happy, I know that. Both the snow, the wind and the blowing snow will ramp up through the morning and afternoon as temperatures begin to fall.  

The National Weather Service in South Burlington, Vermont
is taking this shot at expected snowfall amounts from this
storm. Click on the map to make it bigger, easier to see.

The National Weather Service in South Burlington has nudged the expected amount of snow up a smidge, with three to eight inches of snow still expected, but a little more is likely east of the Green Mountains. The snow will be terribly hard to measure, given how fluffy it will be and how badly wind blown it will also be.

Plus, the expected snowfall amount is by far the trickiest forecasting aspect of this storm. A band of slightly heavier snow might develop along the western edges of the main storm.

That might or might not put Vermont in a zone of heavy, or least heavy-ish snow for awhile. And nobody has any clue where that heavy-ish band of snow does get going in Vermont, if it does at all.

Regardless, expect mega drifts with this one, so even when the snow tapers off Friday, the drifts will still keep reappearing on roads almost instantaneously.

Yes, it's not a huge amount of snow, but the drifting, and the fact that it's going to be so cold will make it worse. Salt does not work in subzero cold. Neither does equipment, or humans for that matter. So getting rid of the snow will be more difficult than it normally would be for a moderate dump.  

Friday morning, subzero temperatures, lingering light snow and a lot of blowing and drifting, plus black ice on the roads, will surely make few Vermonters happy.

Forecasts for the temperature profile, such as it is, haven't changed much. It'll be in the teens to low 20s below zero late Friday and early Saturday, with wind chills as low as 50 below.

Actual temperatures early Sunday morning still look like they'll be in the 20s and 30s below zero across most of Vermont. Can anyone say frozen pipes?

This harsh winter now looks like it will continue beyond this weekend. More snow is a good bet next Monday and Tuesday, but we don't know how much yet. We're still looking at much warmer temperatures Monday and Tuesday (20s to low 30s look awesome at this point, don't they?)

It's also looking like another Arctic blast will come down on us during the second half of next week. Though it probably won't be as bad as what's coming over the next few days, it will still be annoying, with nightime lows well below zero again.

Sigh.