You Think It's Hot Here? Go North To Maine/Canada For Real Heat

The more north you go, the hotter it gets. Forecast highs for
today. Northern Maine is expected to be in the mid-90s,
but it'll only be 80 degrees or so once you get
down to New Jersey. 

As expected, it was quite a hot day in Vermont Thursday. Burlington made it up to 92 degrees.  That was already the fourth day this year that made it to 90 degrees or better.

Normally, the Queen City has just five or six 90 degree days each summer, and most of those days come in July or August.

So we're ahead of the game. Especially since there's at least a chance today, tomorrow, or Sunday could also reach 90 degrees.  The humidity is also going to increase.

However, we're just on the edge of an intense heat wave that's hitting northern Maine, southern Quebec and New Brunswick with some mind-blowing temperatures.

To begin with, the temperature maps are inverted. It's hotter the further north you go on the East Coast. The hottest place anywhere in the United States yesterday east of the Mississippi River was the northern tip of Maine.

Caribou got up to 95 degrees, a record for the date.  Meanwhile, places like Atlanta, Georgia are still waiting for their first 90 degree day.

Some of the temperatures up in southeastern Canada were off the charts. At Sept Iles, way north along the north shore of the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, they experienced their all-time hottest temperature on record at 98 degrees.

Even further north, about 310 miles north of Montreal, Chibougamau, Quebec reached 91.5 degrees.

Jackson the weather dog sits in cool grass in the shade while
taking observations of 90-degree heat in St. Albans,
Vermont Thursday afternoon. 

In New Brunswick, Bathurst reached 99 degrees on Thursday.

The heat will continue in full force across southeastern Canada and northern Maine today. Heat warnings are up for much of Quebec, including metrol Montreal.  Caribou could have a high temperature of 97 degrees today, which would be the hottest reading there since at least 1939, when official records began.

Here in Vermont, it will be hot and humid through the weekend, but perhaps not as bad as points north. Most of the Green Mountain State can expect dailly hghs mostly between 85 and 90 degrees, probably through Tuesday.

There might be isolated thunderstorms, especially in the mountains, today through the weekend. Most of us will stay dry, though.  So drought or drought like conditions will likely keep building.

Weather Surprises Keep Popping Up Nearby And Beyond

Storm chaser Simon Brewer, who usually spends his time in the
Great Plains chasing tornadoes, had to travel to Glens Falls, New York
to capture this impressive wall cloud, that did produce a tornado. 

Although I don't have super shocking weather news to bring up today, there are still plenty of reports to confirm the weather is always surprising, in small and big ways.

First of all, I'm a little surprised I have to make this correction: 

Unlike what I said in yesterday's post, "no tornado is known to have touched down in that area," a tornado DID in fact touch down in that thunderstorm with the impressive wall cloud around Glens Falls.

The National Weather Service office in Albany New York confirms that Glens Falls storm, and presumably its wall cloud, DID produce a tornado.

The tornado was an EF-1 with winds of between 75 and 110 mph. It damaged at least one home and sheared off and uprooted many trees not far from Interstate 87 in Glens Falls. It actually crossed that busy highway, but luckily, it was a bit weaker by the time it hit that Interstate.

I'm impressed by how wide and long-tracked the tornado was for this far into the interior Northeast. Usually tornadoes are narrow and very brief.  This one was at one point as much as a quarter mile wide and the tornado traveled a total of 8.6 miles before lifting.

This was the second time within two weeks that a tornado touched down close to the southwestern Vermont border. In both cases, the tornado's parent thunderstorm moved into Vermont, caused straight line wind damage.  This time, Poultney was pretty hard hit by those winds.

WASHINGTON/OREGON STORMS

Speaking of surprising severe thunderstorms, it was eastern Washington State and Oregon's turn to endure supercells and damaging storms. It's fairly rare for conditions to come together in this part of the country for a lot of severe weather, but they sure did on Saturday.

Winds with these storms gusted as high as 97 mph in Washington, 85 mph in Oregon and 83 mph in Idaho.  I'm unsure if any tornadoes touched down with these storms. I'm sure local National Weather Service offices will be checking on that. There were certainly plenty of reports of damage in this area.

QUEBEC/CANADIAN YO-YO WEATHER

We here in Vermont have certainly cooled down from that record heat we and Quebec had last week.

That heat spread into much of eastern Canada as the week closed. Record highs included 93 degrees in Bathurst, New Brunswick,  31.8 in Gaspe, Quebec, 84 in Gander, Newfoundland and 82 in St. John's Newfoundland.

Up in Quebec, where temperatures were in the 80s and well into the 90s,  things had gotten ridiculously cool by this morning. Snow was reported in the Laurentian highlands this morning.

Don't worry, that snow won't work itself nearly this far south. We're done with snow until autumn.  But it will be remarkably cool for the season, with high temperatures in most of northern Vermont not making it past 60 degrees today. That's more typical for late April.  Monday will be quite cool as well before a warming trend kicks in to bring us up into the seasonable 70s by the end of the week.

The secondary cold front that brought in today's cool weather also managed to surprise me last night. It was expected to only produce sprinkles.  But there was widespread rains last evening across northern Vermont.  It wasn't super heavy, but my rain gauge in St. Albans, Vermont collected 0.12 inches of rain, and I was expecting nothing more than a trace.

Incredible May Heat REALLY Shattered Records

Anvil clouds from the top of thunderstorms over the Adirondacks loomed
over my house last evening in St. Albans, Vermont.  The clouds were
welcomed as they ever so slightly tempered the record heat
that baked my town and the rest of Vermont Wednesday 

We have another episode of extreme heat down in the record books in Vermont, continuing a seemingly increasing trend of major record breakers.

To recap:  

Burlington's temperature rose to 95 degrees on Wednesday, breaking the old high record for the month of 93 degrees. The quote, unquote low temperature for the day was 72 degrees, also the hottest for the month of May.

Many, if not most years in Burlington see entire summers that don't reach as high as 95 degrees, so this is really something.

On Mount Mansfield, records don't go back nearly as far as Burlington's, but the top of mountain set a really impressive record.    It reached 85 degrees there, the hottest temperature recorded for ANY month. Records go back to 1954 up on Mount Mansfield.

Montpelier, Vermont also set a new record high for the month of May with a reading of 91 degrees.

If anything, the heat was even more intense in soutbern Quebec, where some incredible records were set. The Montreal area seems to be the epicenter of this heat wave

As Dennis Mersereau writes in Forbes, it got up to a shocking  98 degrees at the Montreal-Trudeau Internation Airport.  That's a record for the month of May and comes very close to the city's all time record high of 100 degrees on August 1, 1975.

STORMS, TOO

The heat contributed to enough instability to trigger some spotty severe thunderstorms where mountains managed to create updrafts.

A storm toppled numerous trees along and near Route 107 in Bethel. Other tree damage was reported near Waterbury and in Roxbury. The slow moving storms also dumped torrential rains in a small number of spots.  The rain was heavy enough to prompt a flood warning for a time in and around Hancock and Granville, Vermont Wednesday afternoon.

HOT RECORDS KEEP FALLING

This week's amazing heat is in step with some wild record highs in recent years around Vermont.

For instance, Christmas Eve, 2015 saw temperatures approach or even reach 70 degrees in parts of Vermont. Burlington had its warmest December day then, with a high o 69 degrees.

In February, 2017, Burlington's temperatures soared to 72 degrees, shattering the previous all-time high for tha tmonth, which had been 63 degrees.

On July, 2, 2018, the minimum temperature in Burlington was 80 degrees, the first time on record that a day's low temperature failed to drop below 80 degrees.

We still get cold spells, of course. Witness the snow earlier this month. But, consistent with climate change, the extreme warm spells are often getting more extreme, while the sharpest cold spells have for the most part lost some of their bite.

LOOKING AHEAD

The worst of the heat here in past, though it will remain oddly warm and humid for May today and tomorrow.  Clouds, in part from surprise Tropical Storm Bertha yesterday that came ashore in South Carolina, should  keep temperatures below 90 degrees in Vermont today. Still, it will be in the 80s, so it will feel uncomfortable. Little or no rain is expected.

Another very warm and humid day is on tap Friday, but changes are afoot. Those changes come in the form of some cold fronts approaching us.  The weather system should set off some badly needed showers and thunderstorms.

The drawback to this is that some storms may approach severe levels on Friday, with gusty winds being the main threat.

Storms might also drop some heavy rain. If several storms run over the same spot or two on Friday, which is possible, local flash flooding could ensue. However, it has been very dry, so flooding, if it happens, will be isolated at best.

That anticipated cool snap, with highs in the upper 50s to mid 60s and lows near 40, still looks like a good bet Sunday and Monday.

Analysis: Vermont Storm Fit Climate Change Trend: Was Big, I Even Have to Pick Up The Pieces

This tree fell on my husband Jeep in my St. Albans, Vermont yard,
likely totaling the vehicle

I spent last night as a storm refugee for the first time I can remember.  Then again, the storm Thursday night and Friday was among the worst I can remember, at least for Vermont as a whole.

At least in my opinion, it was the Green Mountain State's most destructive storm since the epic floods of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011.  Between the flooding - record river crests in at least two spots in northern Vermont - and the damaging winds, this one will probably have parts of Vermont declared a disaster areas.

For me and my husband Jeff, things aren't nearly as bad, as it is for some people, mind you.  My house is intact, but it lacks electricity. Falling branches pulled the wires and electrical box from the house and messed with the wiring system in the house, so we had to shut off the brakers. We hope to get things fixed within the next few days.

Plus a large tree fell on Jeff's Jeep, and it's probably totaled.  With all that going on, we moved into a La Quinta Inn motel room for the night.  I'm wrote most of this missive Saturday morning from the "comforts" of this motel room.

Our situation is an inconvenience that is being resolved super quickly. I was surprised and delighted when I checked on my house at 8:30 a.m. today to find Green Mountain Power already there repairing our electrical line. They have so much work to do after this store that I was very impressed with GMP's responsiveness.

There are other Vermonters who are sorting through flood damaged homes and businesses, trying to navigate washed out roads, figuring out what to do now that the culvert under the driveway, and the driveway itself is gone.  It will take awhile for some people to recover from this.  (Had we not replaced a culvert with a larger, sturdier one this summer, Jeff and I would have lost our driveway too in this storm, along with the other trouble we had.)

This was a much more serious storm than anyone expected in Vermont. Its effects are wide ranging, causing damage from near the Gulf Coast to Quebec.  The storm had its birth in the Rocky Mountains, where it caused unseasonable snows and all-time record lows for October. The storm contributed to the strong winds in California that fanned those wildfires.

Technically, the storm was a nationwide disaster.

You usually can't trace a direct line between a storm and climate change. You can't say this storm was "caused" by climate change. You can say this storm was consistent with climate change. The storm was probably influenced by climate change and there's a very good chance climate change made this storm worse than it otherwise might have been. If there wasn't climate change maybe the wind with this storm would not have been strong enough to knock the tree onto Jeff's Jeep. Who knows?

From WVNY: Significand flooding in Richmond, Vermont Friday. 

This tempest was a product of a wonky jet stream, which many scientists see as clue that climate change is messing with weather patterns. In a sense, this is so far the biggest direct impact climate change has had on me so far.

The rainfall was particularly, oddly heavy, especially in northern and central New York, most of Vermont and southern Quebec.  Here in Vemont, the storm dumped 5.26 inches of rain on East Berkshire and 4.85 inches on Enosburg Falls. After the heavy rains of the previous week, it's no wonder the Missisquoi River reached a record high crest at North Troy,'

In the Lamoille River watershed, 4.8 inches of rain fell on Fletcher, raising that river to a record high crest in Jeffersonville. This was no ordinary Vermont flood.

In an ominous way, this type of heavy rainfall makes sense. The atmosphere can hold more water when its warmer, meaning potential precipitation is heavier. Sure, this might have happened anyway. Vermont's worst flood on record, in 1927, happened this time of year, too. But these heavy rain events are getting more frequent. Parts of the Green Mountain State were declared a disaster area due to some serious flooding just this past April.

This storm had quite a one/two punch as the winds caused serious damage, as I said all up and down the East Coast and into Quebec. The damage was certainly noticeable here in Vermont, including at my St. Albans house, as mentioned.

Up to 50,000 people lost power in Vermont. That figure was 900,000 in Quebec, making this the worst power outage in the Canadian province since the famous ice storm of 1998. A man died around Montreal when, while taking a photo of a fallen tree, another tree fell on him, CBC reported.

The wind in Vermont was almost as destructive as the flooding. At some points Friday, at least 50,000 homes and businesses were without power in Vermont. Before dawn this morning that figure had fallen to roughly 28,000, including at yours truly's house.  With numbers that big, it will take a long time before everybody has electricity. I bet some people will be out for a week or more.

Elsewhere, the wind collapsed a large barn up in Maidstone, Vermont. A section of Interstate 91 was briefly closed when a fallen tree blocked both southbound lanes. The storm also cut off internet access in much of Burlington.

The temperature gyrations with this storm were incredibly remarkable, too. Again, I won't say climate changed "caused" this temperature weirdness, but it probably influenced it. Climate change can lead to bigger extremes.

True, out in the Rockies, on the cold side of this storm, they had a nearly unprecedented cold snap for this early in the season. Some cities hit all-time record lows for October. But as Vermont was in the throes of the storm, temperatures rose to a record highs in places like Burlington, where it reached 71 degrees late in the evening of October 31,  despite the fact the sun had long since set and it was raining.

The dew point, a measure of how much moisture is in the air, reached the humid levels of a muggy July night.

Very often, an emergency brings out the best in people and that was the case here.  For instance, in Burlington's Intervale, vegetable farms put out a call on social media to help quickly harvest carrots and other crops before the Winooski River flood arrived to ruin the vegetables. More than a dozen people showed up to save the day.

Even Vermont Gov. Phil Scott got into the act.  A tree blocked a road along his route Friday, so he pulled a chainsaw out of the back of his truck and removed the tree.

As is typical with big storms, we're getting something of a break from the rough weather.  A series of small little storms will gradually sink us into winter conditions over the course of the next week, at least for awhile.

But we are in a "new normal," as the cliche goes, so we'll experience more wild storms, more temperature extremes and more weirdness, both here in Vermont and everywhere else.  As my experience shows, even when it's not that bad, this is tiring and expensive. But here we are.

Some videos:

The Winooski River racing through the city of Winooski:



During the Halloween night storm, a tornado touched down west of Philadelphia. Here's a damage video:



And an ABC News overview of the storm.

Extreme Flooding Affecting Southeastern Canada

Flood evacuations in Sainte-Marie, Quebec. Photo
by Jacques Boissnot

Here in Vermont, officials are sorting it out with FEMA on the matter of getting federal assistance for at least $2 million in flood damage from a mid-April storm that brought snow melt and high water to much of the state.

Lake Champlain continues to flood, hovering just under 101 feet above sea level. That's very nearly a foot above flood stage. With more rain in the forecast, the Lake Champlain flooding won't go away any time soon. 

North of the border, though, things are much worse, much more dire. Severe flooding is wrecking communities near Ontario, in much of Quebec, including the Montreal metro area and in New Brunswick.

Here's just one sample, as reported by CBC:

"The most dire situation is in Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, a suburb west of Montreal that was inundated Saturday night after the Lake of Two Mountains burst through a natural dike.

More than 5,000 residents were forced to grab what they could and flee as waist-high water filled their streets and homes. Another 1,500 people were evacuated from their homes the following day."

At least 9,000 people in Quebec have been evacuated from their homes due to the flooding.

The Ottawa River between Quebec and Ontario is nearing a record high level set just two years ago. People have filled more than a million sandbags to protect neighborhoods in Ottawa and Gatineau, Quebec. Still, some neighborhoods in both communities are under water.

Gatineau has had terrible experiences with weather lately. Last September, a rare, strong tornado swept through Gatineau, injuring six people and damaging or destroying nearly 1,700 homes.

CBC also had this interesting factoid about weather extremes in Canada so far in 2019:

"The record flooding is expected to push losses for Canadian homeowners from extreme weather to more than $1 billion just four months into this year. The figure was close to $2 billion for all of 2018."

Though floodwaters are receding a bit from flooding along the St. Johns River in New Brunswick, more rain is forecast in saturated southeastern Canada this week.

Severe Storm Threat Definitely On Today In Vermont, Surrounding Areas

We here in Vermont are in the middle of a severe
thunderstorm risk today. Strong straight line winds are
the big

When I got up this morning and looks up at the clouds, they were screaming by, north to south. If Vermont State Police could catch them, they would issue speeding tickets for sure.

Those speeding clouds are a sign that we are in for severe weather. I was looking up at something called a low level jet. It's essentially a package or river of fast moving air just a few thousand feet overhead.

Under the right conditions, thunderstorms can "grab" this high speed air and bringing to the surface in the form of very damaging wind gusts.

We have most of those right conditions today.

A cold front is approaching from the west. If you've been outside, you noticed it has turned humid again. And we have that low level jet.

The only thing missing is a lot of sunshine. That would destabilize the air even more, making severe thunderstorms more likely. Watch the skies between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. today: If there's a lot of sun, the severe thunderstorms goes up.

The main risk in today's storms is those strong, damaging wind gusts. Of course, not everybody will get that, but a few to several places probably will. The current thinking is the  thunderstorms coming in today will probably in the form of a broken line heading east.

Watch out in particular for sections of this line of storms that form something that looks like  a backwards "C" on radar. Those are called bowing echoes. The apex of the backwards "C" is an area that will be especially dangerous for destructive winds.

While not a high threat, there is a slight chance of a tornado or two. A tornado would be most likely if a storm forms ahead of the main line of rough weather and starts to rotate. We could get a supercell or two out of this, anywhere in eastern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and perhaps points south.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center is giving us a
very slight, but non-zero chance of a couple
tornadoes today. 

Of course the chances of seeing a twister are low. Vermont and New Hampshire are in a 5 percent chance zone for a tornado. That means if you are in these two states, there's a 5 percent chance a tornado will touch down within 25 miles of you.

You see, a slim chance, but not a zero chance. Already, there were brief tornado warnings earlier this morning in western New York and western Pennsylvania.

By the way, southern Quebec, including Montreal is under the gun for all this potential severe weather, too. The Ottawa area, which saw devastating tornadoes last Friday, is under a much lesser threat today.

The biggest threat for severe storms today will be between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.

The National Weather Service in South Burlington,  ermont is thinking the main line of storms will form in northern New York between 1 and 3 p.m this afternoon, then reach the Champlain Valley around 4 p.m., give or take, then be out of Vermont and into New Hampshire by 8 p.m. or so.

If you've got lawn furniture and loose objects outside, I'd bring them inside or tie them down this morning in case strong thunderstorm winds hit.

If you have plans to go boating or hiking today, cancel those plans. Go tomorrow instead. The weather will be gorgeous by then. Trust me.

Also, today's the wrong day to park your car under an old, rotting tree.

There is a decent chance National Weather Service will issue a severe thunderstorm watch or even, possibly, a tornado watch later this morning or early this afternoon. That would be a signal to go about your business as usual, but keep your ear perked up for potential warnings.

If you get a severe thunderstorm warning, get inside a sturdy building and stay away from windows. (In a worse case scenario, flying debris in strong winds could break the glass.)  In the off chance you get a tornado warning, just go to the basement in a sturdy building. If there's no basement, get into an a room with no windows closest to the middle of the building.

Some of these storms will also have torrential, blinding rain. The storms will move fast and not linger over any one place for a long time. That means that there will be no substantial flooding. But the rain will be so intense that street flooding can occur in an instant. Drainage ditches and small streams could turn pretty wild pretty fast, too.

It all clears out this evening, and it's back to delightfully crisp, sunny fall weather Thursday.

First Fall Storm Stronger Than Expected, Tragically So In Quebec

Tornado destruction in Gatineau, Quebec Friday.

As advertised, the first autumn storm of the season blustered through the Northeast and southeastern Canada, including here in Vermont on Friday.

The storm in some ways was stronger than expected, especially in Quebec and Ontario. That strength unleashed an unexpected disaster near Ottawa.

In Gatineau, Quebec a tornado - and it looks like it was a strong one - swept through the city, injuring at least 25 people, with five having serious enough injuries to be hospitalized.

The storm displaced at least 600 people. This same storm caused added destruction in the nearby communithy of Dunrobin.

Gatineau is just across the Ottawa River from Ottawa, Canada's national capital. It was something seeing a photo of Parliament Hill with the national legislative building in the foreground, with a tornado in the background picking up debris and explosively breaking power lines.

The tornado appears to be unusually strong for one so far north and so late in the season. Given the photos of shattered apartment buildings, many with their roofs gone and debris scattered far and wide, I would guess the twister was an EF2, possibly and EF3. Tornadoes of that strength are rare in Quebec and Ontario, though weaker ones are relatively common.

The view from Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Friday. The lowering
cloud and what appears to be dust nearer the ground between the
green spire and the red flag is the Gatineau tornado.

There are pretty incredible videos of the tornado at the bottom of this post that are worth watching.

Tornadoes hit other parts of Canada. Pontiac, Quebec apparently had a tornado that damaged at least 15 homes. Back in Gatineau, lighting struck the high school and it burst into flames. Students inside the school were safely evacuated.

Further south, a small tornado spun up in northeastern Ohio, and there were numerous reports of wind damage from severe thunderstorms in eastern Ohio and the western portions of Pennsylvania and New York.

Had the storm system's cold front and squall line come through sooner, this storm would have been real trouble for us here in Vermont and northern New York. But the squall line entered the region after dark and it also encountered more stable air. The line of strong storms that entered northwestern New York weakened dramatically by the time they reached Vermont.

Still, we had those strong winds ahead of the cold front. About 3,000 people still had no electricity in Vermont as of early this morning, according to Vermont Outage Map. However, that number shrank to less than 1,000 by 7 a.m., so power is quickly being restored.

The shoreline in South Hero, Vermont was looking rather
stormy Friday evening.

Winds gusted to more than 50 mph along Lake Champlain. While on the southern tip of South Hero last evening, I even had to brace myself against the wind a bit like those Weather Channel meteorologists who stand outside during hurricanes.

I did see many branches downed by the wind. Most were small, but a few were pretty good sized.

On my St. Albans, Vermont property, one 20-foot long tree narrowly missed a new lilac. Out by the road, a dead tree crashed against some live ones, but I don't think there's much damage there.

The good news in Vermont is the storm dumped more rain than expected. In the northern half of Vermont, where it has been driest, a half inch to an inch of rain came down. That was nice.

This coming week looks wet, too. It will be dry and cool this weekend, and we should worry about frost in many places at night. Tonight, there are frost and freeze advisories in the Northeast Kingdom and Adirondacks

More widespread frost alerts might be needed tomorrow night, so stay tuned.

Another storm that could be a fairly wet one will affect Vermont Tuesday night through Wednesday night. More than an inch of additional rain is possible with this one. Unfortunately, it also looks like another windy one, especially on Tuesday. However, winds probably won't be as strong as they were Friday.

Here are some videos of the wild  and scary Quebec tornado:

The first video is said to be from inside a Gatineau apartment building:



Here, a terrified woman in her car gets caught in the tornado as the side windows of the vehicle blow out:



Another view from inside a car, via a dashcam in Dunrobin, Quebec. The driver pulls the car against a building for protection as the tornado passes over her, hurling debris that hit the car. After the tornado passed, she drove on into a scene of destruction:

July Was Burlington, Vermont's Hottest Month On Record

The sprinklers were going frequently in my St. Albans, Vermont
garden in July as I, and my plants, endured the hottest month on record.

If you were saying to yourself in July, "I've never seen a month as hot as this one," you were absolutely right, at least if you were in Vermont, and some other areas of northern New England and southern Quebec.

Burlington, Vermont had an absolutely incredible month of July, capping it off by becoming the hottest month - any month - on record. These records date back to 1892.

A lot of records were tied or broken in Burlington. The ever-helpful National Weather Service office in South Burlington summarizes them for us:

Hottest Month: Mean temperature 76.0 besting the previous record of 75.3 in July, 1921
Hottest Maximums:  The average high temperature during July, 2018 was 87.4, beating the previous record of 86.5 degrees in July, 1949.
Most Days At Or Above 85 degrees in a month: 21 day in July, 2018, besting the old record of 20 such days in 1999, 1975 and 1955.
Most Days In a Month at 80 degrees or more: 29 such days in July, 2018, tying the record set in July, 1975.

Also, back on July 2, we had a minimum temperature for the day of 80 degrees, which is the highest minimum temperature for any date on record going back to 1892. And on June 30 through July 5, we tied the record for the second longest heat wave on record. Six straight days in the 90s.

HOT ELSEWHERE

Up in Caribou, Maine, normally an ice box, they had their hottest month on record, too. Their mean temperature for the month of July was 70.9 degrees, exceeding the previous record of 69.6 degrees in July, 1970.

The records are amazing, but of course they have real world effects. The heat early in the month killed at least four Vermonters and dozens in Quebec. July was drier than normal, but we didn't set any records for dryness. However, the extreme heat increased evaporation, so the ground dried out a lot more than it otherwise would have. You can actually see wilted, dead trees, killed by the dryness along Interstate 89 in Colchester, for instance.

If you thought it was hot in New England, and it certainly was, it was worse elsewhere. Death Valley, California just finished up the hottest month ever recorded anywhere in the United States. The mean temperature of 108 degrees (!!!) exceeded the record  of 107.4 degrees set just last year.

The many heat waves across the Northern Hemisphere seem to keep going. Record high temperatures were reported from Norway to Germany this week. A new heat wave developing in Portugal, Spain and France could bring all time European record high temperatures in the coming days.

It's true it's cool in some parts of the world -  parts of far northern Canada had a cool July and parts of the upper Midwest weren't super hot in July. However, all these heat waves do seem to overwhelm things. To me, a likely sign of global warming, climate change, whatever you want to call it.

HOT NEW ENGLAND OUTLOOK

Back here in Vermont, there's no rest for the heat weary. It's going to remain very warm and humid at least through next Tuesday, I'm afraid.

A warm front is trying to work its way up from the south today, which will set off scattered showers and thunderstorms. A few storms, especially south, and out towards New York's St. Lawrence Valley, might be strong this afternoon.

We still need the rain, so let's hope non-severe showers are widespread tonight. We'll see.

That warm front will make it even more humid going forward over the next few days. Daily highs will be in the 80s, with some 90s possibly showing up Thursday, and especially this coming Sunday and Monday.

There will be some hit and miss showers and storms scattered about through most of this period, but especially going into the weekend, I think the rain will be more miss than hit.

For those of you sick of the heat, I know there's no immediate relief in the forecast, but consider this: We're past the peak of summer. During August, normal temperatures in Vermont begin a slow decline. Maybe the heat will begin to wane later this month.

Vermont Heat Wave Was State's Worst Weather Disaster Since Irene

 A week of sustained heat scorched this hosta in my St. Albans,
Vermont yard. The hosta was adequately watered throughout, but
the heat curled and dried out some of the leaves.

Last week's heat wave killed four Vermonters, making it the worst weather disaster to strike the state since the catastrophic floods with Hurricane Irene in 2011. 

Irene killed six Vermonters. Unlike Irene, the heat wave last week caused damage in the state somewhere in the range between minimal and non-existent.

Thus, there was little media attention to this latest weather disaster.

Unlike in Irene, viewers of national news had no word of our heat disaster - no footage of people mourning the loss of some of our iconic covered bridges, no images of plucky residents of devastated, isolated small towns reaching out to help their neighbors, no FEMA, no disaster declaratioms.

Though, as an aside if the current dry conditions continue to intensify in Vermont, we might find ourselves declared under an agricultural disaster zone, as drought could eventually ruin crops. But that's not an immediate threat.

Heat waves, as I have frequently noted, are not photogenic, like catastrophic floods are. So they don't garner as much media attention as more dramatic events would, like inundation, tornadoes and hurricanes.

Hot spells are in general the deadliest type weather event. On average, more people die from heat annually than from floods, tornadoes and hurricanes.  But we here in Vermont are not used to seeing heat deaths during the summer. We usually don't have enough hot weather to kill people.

However, heat kills in the Green Mountain State, and this July certainly wasn't the first time and won't be the last.   Two people in Brattleboro died of heat-related problems during a brief but intense June, 2017 heat wave. 

A Vermont State Police trooper died of heat stroke during a 2015 training exercise. And in 2013, a logger died of heat stroke while working during a record hot day. 

I'd been afraid that the heat wave would prove fatal in Vermont. As I've noted previously, at least 74 people died in Quebec from the early July heat. 

It's certainly possible more heat waves will strike the Northeast, including Vermont this summer. (Early next week looks like it might be brutal.) So, just like when winter weather turns especially harsh, we have to watch out for each other when it gets very hot.

Or at least try. My 89-year-old mother largely ignored my increasingly strident edicts demanding she get to the cool basement with her cat. My sister ended up dragging mom, kicking and screaming to air conditioned buildings for heat breaks.

Like most of us, I whined about how how it was and lamented the heat damage to my hostas, as the torrid weather kept grinding on. I was pretty much literally sweating the small stuff.

But the Vermont deaths in early July prove that any kind of weather can be deadly, if there's too much of it.

Yes, Humidity Was Terrible Last Night And This Morning, But......

Small, brief pop up thunderstorms formed last evening across
New York and Vermont, which were the first signs the heat wave
was about to end. This storm was over northern New York, as
viewed from St. Albans, Vermont at around 6 p.m. Thursday. 

We endured one more awfully lousy, stuffy sleeping weather overnight as our heat wave gets ready to draw to a close.

If anything, the heat and humidity made this the worst night yet.

It was still 83 degrees at midnight in Burlington, with a heat index of 88 degrees, so it was terrible.

Some showers and thunderstorms did break out early this morning, but in many places, it didn't rain as hard as I would have hoped.

We really need the rain, and this upcoming cold front is a disappointment in that regard. Only a few more showers will come down before the front goes by.

The front will NOT be a disappointment in ending this horrible heat and humidity, but we'll have to be a little patient early this morning, especially the more south and east you go. By 6 a.m this morning the front had entered northwestern New York - Massena's dew point dropped from 71 to 64 degrees within an hour.  It will soon cross Vermont and will move out of southeastern parts of the state by early afternoon.

As the day goes on, you'll really notice a sharp drop in humidity levels. Temperatures in the 70s early this morning should pretty much stay there, except pop back up into the low and 80s across southeastern Vermont.

Tonight will be a spectacular night for sleeping in the North Country. I promise. Pretty much everybody will get down into the 45 to 55 degree range, which is actually cooler than normal for this time of year.

I wouldn't be surprised if the very coldest hollows like Saranac Lake, New York and Island Pond, Vermont get down to something like 39 degrees. Yes!

As the heat closes, Burlington and other areas of Vermont continued to set new records. For the third time in a week, the summit of Mount Mansfield tied its all time record high of 84 degrees. The six days ending yesterday were the hottest six day period on record for Burlington, with a mean temperature of 83.5.

In Quebec, the death toll from the heat wave has risen to 33 people, with 18 of those in Montreal. I described this heat wave yesterday as one of Quebec's worst weather disasters, and as you can see, it has gotten even worse. I bet there will be more death reports in Quebec, as last night stayed hot up there, too.

I'm pleasantly surprised there have so far been no reports of heat deaths in Vermont, though a man participating in a trail race died of heat stroke last Sunday in the Adirondacks of New York.

LOOKING AHEAD

As nice as the cool blast will be, it won't last that long, and, as it turns out, it will be somewhat hotter starting Sunday and continuing through next week than we might have thought earlier.

Before you panic, we are NOT returning to days on end of highs in the mid 90s with stifling humidity like we just experienced.

Sunday, after a cool start, will turn into another great beach day. There will be lots of sun and temperatures will spike into the mid 80s in many location. Pretty toasty, yes, but the humidity will still be low.

Monday looks warmer still, with highs in the upper 80s, with a few spots maybe making it to 90 degrees.

It has seemed like the heat ridge that gave us this terrible hot weather will migrate west and give the western half of the nation a big heat wave. That's still true, but the heat ridge will sort of elongate next week to cover most of the nation

We'll be on the edge of it, and far enough north and east so that little cold fronts and disturbances zipping through will keep the worst of the  heat at bay for us. It will be a warm week, with temperatures in the 80s probably every day. But humidity will generally be moderate, and I still don't see signs yet of another big heat wave looming. We'll just settle into typical summer weather next week.

THE TROPICS TURN ACTIVE

While we were focusing on our heat wave the tropics got active both in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Surprising just about everyone, we now have Hurricane Beryl way out over the central Atlantic, east of the Lesser Antilles. We usually don't have hurricanes forming in this location until later in the season, but there you go.

Beryl was expected to just be a piddling weak tropical storm, but it surprised everyone by becoming a hurricane this morning with top winds of 75 mph. It'll probably strengthen a bit more today.

Beryl is a tiny little thing, as hurricanes go. Hurricane force winds extend out only 10 miles from its center, and tropical storm force winds of 39 mph only go out 35 miles from the center. To give you an idea how small this thing is, imagine if it was centered over Montpelier, Vermont. Beryl's outer edges would barely make it into eastern New York and western New Hampshire.

The fact that Beryl is so itty bitty means it can be torn apart easily by strong upper level winds if they develop. They are indeed expected to develop, and Beryl will probably fall apart as quickly as it formed, and do so before it reaches the Lesser Antilles.

Meanwhile, there is another disturbance halfway between the southeastern United States coast and Bermuda. Forecasters give it only a 50-50 chance at best of turning into a tropical storm, but it's still worth watching as it meanders off the coast over the next few days.

It turns out Maria is a bad name for hurricanes. We had Hurricane Maria last year, which as we know devastated Puerto Rico and other islands to the point where they still haven't nearly recovered. (The power blackouts on Puerto Rico are only now just ending.)

Now we have Typhoon Maria. (Typhoons are what we call hurricanes in the western Pacific Ocean, near Asia.)

Maria is now regarded as a "Super Typhoon," the equivalent of a very strong Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic. Typhoon Maria has sustained winds of 155 mph. It could affect Japan and China next week, but the typhoon, if it gets there, will likely have weakened somewhat, which is good news.

Historic Heat Wave Will Finally End Friday Morning

Cooling off this week in the fountains at Place des Arts, Montreal during
the killer heat wave that has so far proven fatal to 18 Quebec residents.
Photo by Eva Flambach, AFP/Getty Images

We here in northern New England and southeastern Canada are getting through one more very, very hot day today, before that long anticipated cold front comes through late tonight and tomorrow morning.

I don't think I've ever welcomed a cold front from Canada more than the one that is approaching us.

Just before the heat wave started seemingly ages ago, the National Weather Service in South Burlington told us this hot spell would be historic.

It certainly has.

We never did get past 100 degrees in Burlington, and we won't today, but longstanding records continue to fall.

Yesterday, the temperature atop Mount Mansfield reached 84 degrees, tying the all time record high for the summit. That record was also tied on July 2. If the temperature makes it to 93 degrees in Burlington today, which is fairly likely, it will be only the second time we've had six consecutive days of temperatures at 93 degrees or above.

The water temperature in Lake Champlain reached 72 degrees on the Fourth of July, which is the warmest it has been this time of year.

MONTREAL HEAT DISASTER

The temperature records are astounding, but the price isn't worth it. Montreal is actually experiencing one of its worst weather disasters in that city's long history.

True, damage to buildings, roads, vehicles and whatnot from the heat in Montreal is at most, minimal. However, the Montreal Gazette reports that the heat has killed 12 people in Montreal and 18 people in Quebec as a whole. That really is a terrible toll. That death count is likely to rise by tomorrow morning as more people succumb to the long heat wave.

For comparison's sake, the famous January, 1998 ice storm in Quebec and Ontario killed 35 Canadians. 

Just like us in Vermont, people on the other side of the International Border are just not used to such prolonged heat. Ottawa, for example, reached 95 degrees on Tuesday, another record high. Montreal reached 92.5 degrees on Wednesday. It was the fifth consecutive day that Montreal saw temperatues in the 90s.

GLOBAL WARMING?

Inevitably, when we get a hot spell like this, people start to ask: Is this global warming in action?

The best we can say is this heat wave is consistent with global warming, but you can almost never take one weather event in one spot on Earth and conclude climate change caused it.

It's summer, so heat waves are inevitable. This one is unusual because of its strength and length. That the world has warmed in the past century makes it easier for such hot spells to occur.

When describing what's going on, I always revert to my fictional steroid-addled Major League Baseball home run king, who I'll name Zack.

Before Zack went on steroids, he hit quite a few home runs - perhaps 50 a year, let's say. After he got involved with these drugs, he started hitting 100 home runs per year. The chances of Zack hitting a homer while at bat are much higher now that he's on steroids than when he wasn't.

Plus, some home runs Zack hit that barely went over the outfield wall now go way past it since he's gotten the power from steroids.

Same thing with heat and climate change. There's always been heat waves, but now they're more frequent. And often more intense. It's climate on steroids. There's no way to prove this particular heat wave was caused by climate change, but we know the chances that it would happen have increased.

In this heat wave, some nights have been particularly hot. As we've noted a couple times this week, the low temperature of 80 degrees in Burlington on July 2 was the hottest daily minimum on record for any day since they started keeping track.

Clouds and light breezes helped keep the temperature up that night so that heat couldn't radiate out to space. Burlington is more built up than it used to be. Asphalt, concrete and buildings hold the day's heat, keeping urban areas hotter than the countryside. I bet those two ingredients were key factors in creating such a hot night.

Beyond that, a hotter atmosphere can hold more water vapor that a cooler one. When there's a lot of water vapor in the air, nighttime temperatures can't cool down as much as if there were dry air.

Climate change makes the atmosphere hold more water, so the chances of getting an oppressively hot night correspondingly go up. Zack's steroids again.

So, we look forward to our cold front, and watch our heat wave shift out toward the western half of the country, leaving us with a welcome weekend of cool northwest breezes and a Saturday night that for once, will be incredibly comfortable for sleeping.

I can't wait.

Monday Evening Vermont Storm Update: Ski Areas To Rejoice

Compared to this morning, forecast snow totals
from the National Weather Service in South
Burlington, Vermont have been nudged up a bit.
Click on the image to make it bigger and easier
to se. 

The National Weather Service in South Burlington, Vermont has nudged their predictions for the expected snowfall Tuesday and Wednesday upward a little bit.  

This is especially true in the mountains.

The storm is coming in from the west, which means it won't initially have all that much moisture to deal with. That usually means we won't get that much snow.

But this is a strong, dynamic storm, if moisture-starved at first, so it will be efficient at laying down some pretty good snows.

Although this storm track and strength is somewhat unusual, I've seen it before. And what usually happens with this type of scenario is the valleys, especially in western and southern Vermont, get "meh" accumulations, but the mountains (read, ski areas) make out like bandits.

The South Burlington NWS has expanded winter storm warnings to cover all of Vermont except the Champlain Valley and the western half of Rutland County. The western half of Bennington County, covered by the NWS office in Albany, also escapes the winter storm warning.

Winter storm warnings are up for New York's St. Lawrence and Mohawk valleys. The northern half of New Hampshire and northwestern Maine are also covered by the winter storm warnings.

Areas I've not mentioned are generally under winter weather advisories, which implies slightly lower snow accumulations.

As I mentioned this morning, the storm will come in two phases. The first is during the day Tuesday. Interestingly, the eastern side of the Green Mountains will get the most snow out of this first phase. The western slopes of the Greens, definitely covered under the winter storm warning, will miss out, and get fairly light snow.

Expect a general two to six inches of snow, with locally more, during the first phase. The "locally more" will be mostly along the eastern slopes.

Phase Two comes in Wednesday, when the wind shifts to the west and northwest. That's when the western slopes of the Greens get clobbered and the eastern slopes get much lighter stuff.

Although the entire region - Vermont, northern New York, northern New England and southern Ontario and Quebec will feel the effect of this storm, the type of storm and its track is one of those that I like: Not quite as bad in the valleys with only moderate accumulations, but hefty totals in the ski country of the Adirondacks, Green Mountains, White Mountains and the Laurentians.

This is a long duration storm, so even in the valleys, the commutes during Tuesday morning and afternoon, Wednesday morning and probably Wednesday evening will be affected.

Overall, accumulations will be a bit higher region wide than we said this morning, if National Weather Service forecasts turn out to be accurate. It looks like six or seven inches in the Champlain Valley with up to a foot in the mountains.

This storm looks made for the northern Green Mountains. I wouldn't be surprised to see 18 inch totals near the summits of places like Mount Mansfield and Jay Peak.

This snow will stick around for awhile, as it is expected to remain relatively cold for the next several days at least.

Unlike November, which had an unusually quiet weather pattern, the rest of December looks active, with frequent chances of precipitation. (Notice I said precipitation. I'm not guaranteeing just snow between now and Christmas. Could be some mixes or rain at times, too, we'll see.)

Still, I think the chances of a white Vermont Christmas look pretty decent. Time will tell.





One interesting thing is that in the winter

Serious Flooding In Montreal, Quebec, Ontario, And Great Lakes In New York

Flooding in Rigaud, Quebec. Photo by Paul Chiasson
Canadian Press

It's been a rainy several weeks here in Vermont, but it hasn't been bad enough to cause any serious flooding.  

It's another story, though, in the eastern Great Lakes and in Quebec and Ontario in Canada as a snowy winter gave way to a very rainy spring.

The Montreal area is especially hard hit. Water in Montreal Harbor along the St. Lawrence River is four feet higher than normal.

As I write this Sunday morning, it's still raining in that region.

According to the CBC the flooding is widespread in Quebec.

"As of Saturday evening, Urgence Quebec is reporting that 126 municipalities across the province are affected by rising water levels, especially in the regions of Montreal, the Monteregie, Laval, Maurice, Lanaudiere and the Laurentians."

The Ottawa River in Ontario and Quebec is also causing severe flooding.

The situation along Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River system is similar to the situation we here in Vermont faced in the spring of 2011, when we had frequent river flooding, and record flooding along Lake Champlain.

Both disasters were caused by unprecedented record spring rainfall.

Along the shores of Lake Ontario near Rochester, New York, at least 11 inches of rain (or melted snow) has fallen since March 1. Around Montreal, the figure is 13 inches.

Lake Ontario is at its highest level in 20 years, causing extensive flooding and erosion damage along its New York shore. That's especially true on days like today and tomorrow, when strong north winds drive the water onshore.  

Erosion damage along Lake Ontario in Hamlin, New York.
Photo by Carlos Ortiz, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

Lake Ontario empties into the St. Lawrence River, which is causing the highest water levels in Montreal and along nearly the entire length of the river in a century.

This echoes 2011, when a record high Lake Champlain emptied as always into the Richelieu River iin southern Quebec, causing severe flooding there.

In New York there are calls to open more flood gates to lower Lake Ontario levels and ease flooding. But that would worsen flooding along the St. Lawrence River in Quebec.

It's all a no-win balancing act. There has simply been way too much rain for any of these water systems to handle.

It's been a very flood prone year in North America. During the winter, there was extensive flooding in California, Oregon and Washington. This weekend, there are floods and mudslides in British Columbia that have already killed two people. 

In the past week, record flooding has slammed areas in and around Missouri. The Carolinas had severe flooding a couple weeks ago.

It goes on and on.

Lingering Snow Falls This Afternoon As We Start Cleanup from Historic, Record-Breaking Snows.

A bit of work to do at this
Trumansburg, New York car dealership

 1:30 PM WEDNESDAY UPDATE

OK, it can stop snowing now.

Snow continues to fall mostly lightly, across especially western Vermont as our storm slowly winds down.

There's not much additional accumulation going on, but it is harassing those of us who are trying to clean up, and it's keeping road conditions from improving as fast as we'd like.

Burlington, Vermont is up to 29.6 inches from this storm, just 0.2 inches from becoming the second biggest snowstorm in the city's history.

Still could do it, as a little light snow continues to fall in the Burlington area as I write this.

I made a mistake in this morning's post. It turned out Plattsburgh, New York DID achieve blizzard conditions in yesterdqy's storm. A blizzard is defined as at least three consecutive hours of visibility of a quarter mile or less in falling and/or blowing snow, with frequent gusts of 35 mph or more during that period.

Turns out Plattsburgh DID have that long a period with blizzard conditions. Ticonderoga, New York also have an official blizzard. Burlington, Vermont did not because winds weren't strong enough.

Other updated snow totals include 41 inches in Lake Placid, New York, 35 inches in Au Sable, New York, 32 inches in Westford, Vermont and 30 inches in several towns in the eastern part of Chittenden County, Vermont.

I'm still sure more updates are coming.  More details on snowfall are in this morning's post. You can scroll down and read it below this update.

Up in Quebec, the snow was deep, too, causing numerous buses and cars to get stuck overnight in the Montreal metro area. A 50 car pileup developed on a highway near Magog, Quebec.

Elsewhere, I should note a freeze warning is up for an ENORMOUS part of the southeastern part of the country, all the way down into northern Florida.

A record warm February caused a record early spring, and now a record cold wave is hitting that neck of the woods. We're still expecting most of this year's peach and pecan crop to be wiped out, along with other foods and veggies.

Temperatures will get into the mid and upper 20s in northern Florida, and the low 20s, with maybe a few upper teens in Georgia and South Carolina.

The famed cherry blossoms in Washinton DC are absolutely screwed. They were about to bloom and the weather will probably kill a large proportion of them off.

The trees will survive to bloom hopefully next year, anyway.

My husband Jeff snapped this
pic this morning of me starting
the enormous task of shoveling
our driveway out of 26
inches of new snow. 

The blossoms managed to mostly survive cold weather last weekend and a snowstorm yesterday but temperatures might not get above freezing there this afternoon, and temperatures will bottom out at or just below 20 degrees in Washington DC tonight.

Very sad

Back up here in Vermont and the rest of New England, all this snow isn't going anywhere anytime fast. Unlike the snows of February, which rapidly disappeared amid record warmth, it's going to stay wintry for quire awhile.

Computer models disagree on a system for this weekend. Some of the models say a system will come in from the west and bring light snow, maybe a bit of rain in the valleys, and then another nor'easter will blow up off the New England coast.

Some models place that storm too far off the coast to have much of an effect, while other computer models suggest we might get more snow out of it. (But not 30 inches)

Then another sharp wintry cold wave blasts in for the middle and end of next week.

Sigh.

Here's a dramatic video of that snow covered big highway pileup near Magog, Quebec, and below that, you can read this morning's detailed post of this storm if you missed it.

9 AM WEDNESDAY DISCUSSION

My weather watching dogs Tonks (foreground) and
Jackson (in black) struggled with the two feet of new
snow outside my St. Albans, Vermont house this morning. 

It's still snowing in much of Vermont this morning, but nearly as hard as it did yesterday.

With snow still falling, we haven't finished re-writing the record books yet from this big March storm.

Already, though, the National Weather Service office in South Burlington, Vermont reported its largest March snowstorm on record with 25.9 inches. So far.

It was still snowing lightly there at last report. It's also the third largest snowstorm of any month in Burlington.

Looks like 25 inches of new snow outside my house in St. Albans, so far. It's still snowing. I've got a LOT of work to do outside, don't I?

Well, at least if I was itching to go anywhere, the National Weather Service is putting a stop to that. Yes, the blizzard warning has been cancelled, having been downgraded to a winter weather advisory in the Champlain Valley.  A winter storm warning continues in the Northeast Kingdom and in the mountains.

However, the National Weather Service, Vermont State Police and pretty much everybody else is saying that travel is TOTALLY not recommended in the state this morning. Roads are still hopelessly clogged.

As an aside, I noticed up on Montreal, about 300 motorists were stranded overnight on Highway 13 in the West Island. See? Even in urban areas, you can get in trouble with the kind of road conditions we have now.

Plows are working on it, but this amount of snow takes time. Plus, the wind is going to pick up again today, making the blowing and drifting all that much worse. And, as noted, some more snow is coming down.

They're expecting another one to three inches in the part of the Champlain Valley closest to the lake, two to five inches away from the lake, and four to eight inches additional in parts of northern Vermont and the mountains.

As the day wears on, the snow will become more and more confined to the spine of the Green Mountains and the western slopes. I can't wait to hear storm total reports from places like Jay Peak .

IMPORTANT TIPS

Some tips, since we haven't coped with a storm this big since March, 2011:

Take your time shoveling. Your boss, your school or whatever is going to give you some slack today if you show up late or not at all. Plenty of schools and businesses are closed today anyway, so don't panic. Or get somebody else to shovel and plow. There's always somebody looking to pick up an extra buck.

This is IMPORTANT: The first place you should shovel is near any exhaust vents for your house or building.  If you don't, carbon monoxide can back up into your house and kill you. And you do have working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, right?

I don't think these vehicles in my driveway are going
anywhere anytime soon

If you want to warm up your car, and I don't know why if it's mired in two feet of snow, don't sit in it unless you are COMPLETLY sure there's a big clearing with no snow anywhere near the exhaust pipe.

Same problem as above here: A snow clogged car tailpipe will kill you with carbon monoxide.

Is there a fire hydrant buried in snow somewhere near your house? Give that priority too, and dig it out pronto. Shovel away a nice clearing away from the hydrant. That way, if there's an emergency, the fire department will be able to find and use the hydrant quickly.

Low on fuel and expecting a fuel delivery? Shovel a nice clear path to the intake valve. Fuel delivery people have to drag heavy hoses to fill the oil tank and it's just impossible if there's two feet of snow in the way.

STORM STATS:

As noted above, Burlington, Vermont had its largest March snowstorm on record with 25.9 inches, beating the record of 25.8 inches on March 6-7, 2011.

There was a blizzard warning up yesterday for parts of the North Country, especially the Champlain Valley. There might have been spots that qualified for a blizzard, but major reporting stations as far as I can tell fell short of a blizzard.

A blizzard is defined as at least three hours of visibility of a quarter mile or less in falling and/or blowing snow and frequest gusts to at least 35 mph.

Plattsburgh, New York came close. There was indeed a three hour period when winds gusted over 35 mph. Two of those hours had visibilities of a quarter of a mile, but in the third hour, visibility "improved" to a half mile.

Burlington did not come close. The city had several hours of visibility of under a quarter mile, but no prolonged periods with wind gusts over 35 mph.

But who cares if you didn't get an official blizzard. This was still a memorable storm, for sure.

Snow totals elsewhere in Vermont included 34 inches in Jay, 26 inches in Hyde Park and 29 inches in Jericho. Several places statewide are at or at least approaching two feet of new snow. I'm sure we'll get even bigger numbers later today

Elsewhere in the Northeast, Binghamton, New York had its biggest one day snowfall on record with 31.3 inches.

Numerous places in northeast Pennsylvania and areas of New York just across the border from Pennsylvania had 30 or more inches of snow. Same was true for many communities in New York's Hudson Valley.

Wind was the major factor in coastal New England. Winds gusted as high as 79 mph in Wellfleet and 77 mph at Plum Island, both in Massachusetts.

The wind, combined with wet snow and mixed precipitation, caused widespread tree and power line damage. Quite a few houses and cars were trashed by falling trees. A wind turbine toppled over in Rhode Island during the wind, and part of a church roof was blown off in Lowell, Massachusetts.

I'll have more updates later.

Coldest Spot In Northern Hemisphere Was in Quebec, New England

This graphic generated by the National Weather Service
office in South Burlingotn, Vermont shows
a Sunday depiction of the core of the coldest
air over Quebec and Ontario. Click on the image to
make it bigger and easier to read.  

Congratulations, residents of southern Quebec and maybe northern New England!

By one measure, you were probably the coldest spot in the northern hemisphere last night and this morning.

When analyzing data for forecasts, meteorologists look to levels of the atmosphere above the Earth's surface in layers from a few thousand to tens of thousands of feet above the ground.

That helps the meteorologists understand flow patterns of temperature, moisture and wind, and from there, they can forecast what's going to happen down where we live.

Starting at just a few thousand feet above the Earth's surface, the coldest temperatures found anywhere in the northern hemisphere was southern Quebec last night. That cold spot pretty much extended into northern New England as well.

This area of cold was more frigid than the North Pole, the ice caps of Greenland and the most northern remote regions of Siberia.

Down at the Earth's surface, where we live, there was probably a few places up by the North Pole, extreme northern Alaska and Greenland that were colder than Quebcc, southeastern Ontario and New England.

That's because the sun's angle is still higher here than points north, so the ground levels can be heated more efficiently than at the North Pole. Plus, there's less snow and ice here that in places like Greenland, so what meager heat comes from the sun won't be reflected back to space as much.

The "heat," if you want to call it that, from the sun lingers to a small extent in more southern places like Montreal and Maine during the night, so yeah, we're probably warmer than the high elevation ice cap of Greenland.

And the top of Greenland's ice cap is at a much higher elevation than Quebec or New England, so it is colder there.

Still, the fact that Quebec and New England are colder a few thousand feet above the surface is remarkable to say the least.  The coldest pool of air in the northern hemisphere usually doesn't settle this far south.

Though it might be colder in one or two places at the top of the world, it's certainly cold enough here. Subzero readings this Monday morning are reported in spots across Quebec, Ontario, northern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

Especially in Quebec, the other eastern provinces of Quebec and New England, it was quite windy Sunday and last night, and will continue to be very gusty today. Wind chills were in the teens or even 20s below in some areas Monday morning.

I don't think I've ever seen wind chill advisories in Vermont, New York, New Hampshire and Maine this late in the season.

Highs yesterday and today in the teens are colder than the normal overnight lows this time of year. A few record lows will fall.

The cold air will retreat north closer to where it belongs starting Tuesday, and there will be a brief period of near normal temperatures Wednesday and Thursday.

Then it gets cold again for next weekend. But not as cold as it is now. It most likely won't be this frigid again in Quebec, Ontario and New England until next November or December.