Twenty Feet Of Snow In Turkish Blizzard?

Here in Vermont we can get really big snowstorms at any time during the winter.

However, mid-February to mid-March seems to be the time of year when we are most at risk for epic snowstorms.  It's certainly cold enough to snow at this time of year.  But the forces of spring are just starting to be felt.

Warmer air, milder than what you'd expect in December and January, feed into large storms. That increases the chances that precipitation will be heavier. If it's cold, that means a lot of snow.

Think the Blizzard of 1888, the Valentine's Day Blizzard of 2007, the epic snowstorm of early March, 2011 and the Pi Day Blizzard in March, 2017.

There's nothing I'm seeing in the forecast at the moment that suggests we'll get a big snowstorm, although some type of storm looks like it will come along Wednesday night and Thursday.

But two or three feet of snow is one thing, as the above examples show.  Imagine a storm that dumps 20 feet of snow.

Such a storm just happened in a community called Yuksekova, near the Iran border. Its elevation is around 6,400, so it's high up. That helps make the area prone to snowfalls.

But not usually like this.

The snow was so deep that some residents trying to shovel roofs to reduce the weight of the snow found themselves throwing snow upward, as we in Vermont would if we were trying to get a couple feet of snow out of our driveways.

Videos of the storm's aftermath shows snow that appears to be fairly wet and heavy, which probably made post-blizzard cleanup even more difficult.

It doesn't look like this is the first time such a big snowstorm hit this region, judging from a newscast I found on YouTube from January, 2019.

Here's some videos.

First one shows post storm cleanup around Yuksekova.  Looks like an absolutely beautiful area, too:



The next video appears to be the downtown area of Yuksekova.  There might not be 20 feet of snow in this area, but it still looks pretty disruptive. Watch:


Another video shows buried homes and walkways that look like canyons in the snow.

Floods, Snow, Stupidity, More: Recent Wild Weather Videos

Aftermath of severe floods and mudslides in Brazil.
See video in this post. 

As I always say, pretty much everybody has a camera in their pocket, so we get all kinds of new perspectives on everything, including extreme weather.

As I do from time to time, I highlight some of these videos of wild weather going on in the world currently.  

The first one is part of a tragedy.  Massive floods and mudslides have hit parts of Brazil, killing at least 50 people. This video is very much reminiscent of the Ellicott City, Maryland flash flood videos of 2016 and 2018 in which people are trapped in a restaurant as a torrent sweeps cars and pretty much everything else away through the downtown.

This one is in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil:


Here's a flash flood hitting Narok, Kenya this past week. Would you cross this bridge in this weather?



St. John's Newfoundland has largely recovered from that massive blizzard earlier this month, but as you can imagine, there's still LOTS of snow on the ground.

Let's take a trip to the St. John's Costco, via this web cam video to pick up supplies. The middle segment of the video is something. Like driving at the bottom of a canyon:



The opposite end of Canada has gotten an oddly huge amount of snow, too.  Not nearly as much as Newfoundland, but for the Vancouver, Canada area, it's incredible. They've had about 14 inches of snow this month, compared to a normal of about four inches.

The snow there typically melts fast and doesn't stick around, but this time, it did. The next clip is from the famous Chilliwack, British Columbia security camera, which seems to catch an incredible number of odd happenings.

This clip is of all the people there who can't drive in the snow. And you thought it was bad here in Vermont! Watch:

Forecast Worsens In NW Vermont; Lots Of Damage In South, Midwest

Click on the map to make it bigger and easier to see. The Saturday
morning update to expected ice accumulations.Expect some
ice damage in areas shaded in red. Purple areas can expect
a lot of damage and power outages. 

Northern New York and northwestern Vermont are screwed.

These areas now appear all set to receive a damaging ice storm.   By Sunday morning, a lot of homes and businesses will be without power, and a lot of trees and branches will be on the ground in what will likely be the worst ice storm since 1998.  

As of this morning, the National Weather Service in South Burlington had extended the ice storm warnings that were already in effect for northern New York eastward to encompass Grand Isle county and the western half of Franklin County in Vermont.

In northern New York, ice accumulations are expected to be over an inch in spots. That's more than enough to cause severe damage to trees and power lines. In the ice storm warning zone in Vermont, ice is forecast to be a half to three quarters of an inch thick by Sunday morning.  That's also more than enough to cause a lot of damage.

(As noted yesterday, the criteria for an ice storm warning is if a half inch or more of ice from freezing rain is likely to accumulate. If less than a half inch of freezing rain ice will accumulate, the National Weather Service will go with a winter weather advisory.)

The only real reason this won't be as bad as 1998 is because the freezing rain won't last as long. Instead of a three day affair, the freezing rain will all come within a 12 hour period, give or take, tonight and tomorrow morning.

VERY WET AIR

What this storm has in common with 1998 is the extreme availability of moisture for this time of year.

One common way meteorologist use to determine how much moisture is available for a storm is something called Precipitable Water, or PW.  The measurement doesn't necessarily tell you how much precipitation is going to fall, but it goes like this: If there is one inch of PW, then if all the moisture above that location condenses out, they'd get one inch of rain. You never get all of the moisture condensing out of the atmosphere, but PW is still a good guide for expected rainfall.

Precipitable Water in the atmosphere over northern New York and much of northern Vermont will be at or near record highs for January tonight.  That means rain or freezing rain will come down hard, extremely hard for January.

Total rain or melted ice in northern New York with this storm is expected to be around two to three inches. In northern Vermont, slightly less will fall, with totals expected by NWS South Burlington to be in the one to two inch range.

For comparison, total precipitation for the entire month of January is usually between two and 2.5 inches of rain.

FORECAST STILL TRICKY

As we've been describing, this storm is bringing wet and record warm air up the East Coast.  Places from central New England on down through the Middle Atlantic States and maybe points south will have a lot of record highs today and Sunday.  It could get as high as 80 degrees in West Virginia and the upper 60s in southeastern New England.

Meanwhile, just as the heaviest rain is expected to move into northern New York and Vermont that shallow cold front will come down from Quebec.  Warm air will still roar northward above this cold front, so the precipitation will come down as rain and freeze on contact down on the North Country.

Cold air is more dense than warm air and tends to sink toward valley floors, so this cold air will creep southward more easily where it isn't blocked by mountains. That means it will get cold tonight in the Champlain and St. Lawrence Valleys pretty easily

In Vermont, the cold air has got an open shot to get down as far as Rutland, but it remains to be seen how far the chilly air does get.  There will be a sharp temperature contrast in Vermont, with 20 degree temperature differences late tonight and early Sunday with miles of each other.

Sunday morning, it will probably be in the 20s in far northwestern Vermont and near 60 in the southeast corner.

The varying temperatures so close to each other means its hard to determine who will get ice and how much when you get south and east of Franklin County, Vermont.

Burlington is a wild card. It's the most populated area of the state. It's hard to say if there will be enough ice there to cause a fair amount of damage or will the ice be not that bad? It's almost imposssible to tell.

A weather front will sweep west to east across the region Sunday morning and afternoon, mercifully ending the freezing rain as a brief period of snow, with little accumulation.  Gusty winds with and behind the front will probably cause more damage and power outages and ice-laden trees in the north sway and possibly collapse in the breeze

FLOODING WORRIES

Expected precipitation (rain and melted ice) for the upcoming storm
Areas in yellow and orange can expect to at least 1.5 inches of
precipitation, which is an awfully lot for January. 

Notice I mentioned the precipitable water, above. Areas in northern and central New York and northern and central Vermont that don't get a lot of ice will get a lot of rain.

 Flood watches are still up for all of Vermont except near the Canadian border, and the far southern two counties, where it won't rain nearly as hard as further north.

Very mild air today across all of Vermont and tonight in all but northern Vermont will quickly melt what snow we have out there. All this rain will add the runoff with the melting snow will set probably set up some floooding.  

The first problem will be small streams and creeks tonight, which could wash out parts of roads, driveways and culverts.

The water will then flow in to more major rivers. As it stands now,  forecasts call for moderate flooding on parts of the Winooski and Mad Rivers and Otter Creek, with minor flooding elsewhere.

You've heard the terms minor and moderate flooding bandied about, and here's what they mean:

Minor flooding means few, if any buildings will get flooded, and just some roads, fields, parklands and flood plains will go under water.

Moderate flooding means some buildings might start to flood, roads will be closed by flooding and a few spots might have to be evacuated.

SAFETY:

I'll re-up some tips I put out yesterday here in this space:

1. Today is the day to buy batteries, bottled water and other supplies you'll need to get through power outages that could easily last hours, and perhaps a few days in some spots, especially in northern New York. Remember, especially if you have well water, the pump for the water won't work without electricity.

2. Charge your devices today and this evening, too, so they'll have a full charge in case you need them tomorrow. Remember, Vermont's spotty cell service might be even spottier in areas that get freezing rain, as power outages can affect things, too.

3.  Grab some cash from your bank or ATM, and fill up the car's gas tank. If there's power failures, gas pumps won't work, and stores won't be able to process debit or credit card purchases.

4. If you have a generator, please, please make sure the exhaust is at least 15 feet from the house if posssible and pointed away from the house. You don't want to die of carbon monoxide poisoning.

5.  This should go without saying, but stay away from fallen wires, even if they don't seem like they have electricity flowing through them. Stay out from under ice-laden trees, too. You never know if or when they'll collapse.

6. Check on the elderly and ill, and make sure they're warm enough. If not, and if possible, bring them to someplace that IS warm.

7.  This should be another "Duh!" tip, but don't drive through flooded roads.  It doesn't take much water to sweep a car away.  An additional hazard is the water this time of year is cold, making your chances of dying of drowning and/or hyperthermia greater and quicker.

8.  When this is over and you need to drive somewhere get all the ice off all of your car or truck. Ice flying off your vehicle on the highway can hit the car behind you, breaking their windshield or causing them to lose control and create a crash.  Store your vehicle in a garage if you can. If not, and to make things easier, cover as much of your vehicle with a tarp as you can and secure the tarp down so it doesn't blow away.

After the freezing rain ends, carefully remove the tarp and your vehicle should largely be ice-free.

DANGEROUS NATIONAL WEATHER

As expected, there's widespread damage from severe thunderstorms and some tornadoes in the South, a lot of flooding in other spots, and a bunch of freezing rain and ice damage in the Midwest.

So far, there have been reports of three deaths in Lousiana due to either tornadoes or severe storms.

In Logan, Arkansas, a tornado destroyed a house but the family who lived there was not hurt because they were in a storm shelter, the National Weather Service reported. Damage from the severe thunderstorms was reported from Texas to Tennessee.

Severe thunderstorms and possible tornadoes were ongoing early this morning from Kentucky to the Gulf Coast.

Alabama and parts of Mississippi and Georgia are under the gun today for severe storms and possible tornadoes.

A huge area encompassing much of Missouri and Illinois and substantial chunks of adjacent Arkansas and Oklahoma were under flood warnings this morning.

The ice storm that will affect northern Vermont tonight and tomorrow has already brought widespread  icing from Oklahoma to the Great Lakes.

Last Year Was A Soggy One For The United States

According to the National Centers For Environmental Information,
the contiguous U.S. had its second wettest year on record. Only
the Pacific Northwest, South Texas and a bit of the Southeast
were dry. 

Figures came in the other day for how the climate fared in the United States in 2019.

Early indications are that the world as a whole had its second warmest year on record in 2019.  We should get more information on that in the next few days.

Meanwhile, the United States only had its 34th warmest out of 125 years of keeping track. It was also the coolest year overall for the nation since 2014, says the National Centers for Environmental Information.  

Nothing extreme, but not totally in line with the global warming trend, either.

That's not to say parts of the United States weren't hot.  And I mean hot, big time.  North Carolina and Georgia had their hottest years on record, and other Southeastern States came close to that, ranking in the top 10.  Alaska also had by far its hottest year on record.

The real news is how wet the nation was in 2019. It was the second wettest year in the Lower 48, with only 1973 being wetter, says NCEI.  Average precipitation across the contiguous United States was 34.78. That's 4.84 inches above average, which doesn't sound like much. But when you consider that some areas will naturally be very wet and others very dry in a typical year, this departure from normal is pretty damn large.

The Northern Plains had an especially miserable year.  It was quite a bit colder than normal in 2019 and a lot wetter than normal.

South Dakota had it the worst. It was the wettest year on record there, and the 12th coldest in 125 years of record keeping.

Four other states - North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan - also had their wettest year on record in 2019, but those states weren't as cold as South Dakota, at least relative to average, notes the NCEI.   North Carolina, Georgia and Alaska had their hottest years on record. Other states in the Southeast were in the Top 10 warmest.

For the record, for the entire state of Vermont, it was the 45th warmest out of 125 years. So yeah, a bit on the warm side, but nothing breathtaking.

Vernont also only had its 47th wettest year on record, again no great shakes. But interestingly, the northern parts of the state were unusually wet, with Burlington having one of its top ten wettest years on record. Southern Vermont was much drier, which explains the lackluster rain year in the Green Mountain State.

The United States had 14 weather-related disasters that each caused at least $1 billion in damage. These included eight severe storm and tornado outbreaks, three inland floods, a hurricane (Dorian), a tropical storm (Imelda) and one wildfire.

The billion dollar events cost a total of $45 billion in damage, just over the long term, inflation adjusted average of $43.9 billion per year.

Billion dollar disasters are getting more frequent and costly. Although part of that is likely due to climate change, another large part of the problem is more people are in the way of storms and other weather events, and many of the properties damaged are more elaborate than those in the past.

I'm actually wondering if we're starting the new decade with a new billion dollar disaster already. The expected tornadoes, severe storms, ice storms and flooding for a huge section of the nation today through Sunday will almost surely come to more than $1 billion.  Part of that is just because of the huge area the storm is covering.

Of course, it remains to be seen what the coming year and decade hold, but I'm sure there will be a warming and stormier trend.

Let's Go Back To Australia For More Weather Drama

A recent wildfire near Perth Stadium in western Australia. An incoming
heat wave will only make things worse.  Photo: AFP via BBC.

Summer has barely started in Australia, and the extremes are just coming fast and furious down under.

We've already mentioned the massive wildfires hitting large parts of the nation/continent. To make matters worse, a long lasting, intense heat wave is now moving into pretty much all of Australia, which is very roughly the size of the United States, excluding Alaska.

Perth in far western Australia, and Melbourne, in the southeast are expecting high temperatures of around 105 degrees this coming week, according to the BBC.  There's even a chance Australia could break the record for its all time hottest temperature, which is 123.3 degrees.

And there have been incredible thunderstorms, producing massive hailstones that have pummeled and wrecked countless cars, roofs and windows, and flash flooding that have quickly inundated neighborhoods. Some areas around Brisbane got as much as five inches of rain in a little more than an  hour.

Before you say that at least the storms are dropping rain to squelch all those wildfires, think again. The storms, intense as they are, have been quite localized, causing patches of severe damage, but not wetting down most of the landscape. So the fires burn on.

Image from the Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology
shows a big upward trend in that nation's temperatures.

Still, areas around Brisbane got a little drought relief from the storms, so that's a small area of good news in hot, burning Australia. However, areas in southeastern Australia below Brisbane with the most intense fires got little or no rain.

The incoming heat wave will also dry out any place that did manage to get some rain and hail, increasing the risk of wildfires.

If you think I've been harping on Australian heat and fires every winter (their summer), you're right. Like most of the rest of the world. Australia is heating up with climate change, so the summers are generally hotter there. That, in turn, helps make the bush fires, bigger, more intense and longer lasting.

Even if the heat and drought are briefly interrupted by thunderstorms, destructive as they may be, they're generally not enough to overcome the effects of the summer heat

Here's a hailstorm wrecking a roof of one Australian house in the past couple of days:



News report on the Brisbane storm. Mixed emotions, clearly. Happy for the drought-relieving rain, not so much for the flash flooding:



Meanwhile, in New Zealand, heavy rains caused this huge cliff to collapse. Hope nobody was standing beneath it!

Off The Rails Weather Update: Big CA Power Outages, Plains Blizzard, Northeast Blast

A high risk of wildfires in California today has prompted
the state's biggest utility to cut power to large areas
so that winds don't create arcing power lines that
would set dangerous fires. 

This is another one of those weeks when big sections of the United States are getting off-the-rails weather.

The Upper Plains and parts of the Rockies are set up for a big winter storm and single digit temperatures (in October!) Coastal New England and parts of the Middle Atlantic States are gearing up for a big hit by an odd, really strong ocean storm. And California is set for huge power failures. The utilities are shutting off the juice to prevent arcing power lines and wildfires as winds there pick up.  

Once again, we here in Vermont are pretty much escaping all this drama, as we will be blessed with seasonable temperatures, some sun, especially north and very little rain.

Let's start with California:

Pacific Gas and Electric has been blamed for some devastating, deadly wildfires in California in recent years, as the Weather Channel reports. This includes the extreme fire that pretty much leveled the town of Paradise, California and killed 86 people last year.

In parts of northern and central California, extremely critical fire weather conditions are forecast later today, according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center Fire Weather Outlook. 

Winds could gust as high as 60 mph, and relative humidities are forecast to drop into the single digits. If a power line snaps in the wind and arcs and sparks, you have another big wildfire on your hands.

PG&E plans to cut power to as many as 800,000 homes and businesses in the fire risk region, and some of these outages might last for days. If there's no juice flowing in the lines and they snap in the wind, nothing bad will happen, goes the logic.

The danger of wildfires will continue Thursday in northern and central California, and ramp up in southern California, too. leading to the risk of more precautionary power outages.

PLAINS SNOW/COLD

Heavy, wet snow caused a lot of tree damage in Spokane, Washington
overnight. Photo by Liz Kishimoto/Spokesman-Review

As expected that winter storm is cranking up in the Rocky Mountains and northern Plains.  Parts of North Dakota could see close to two feet of snow out of this, which is incredible for mid-October.

A huge area of the nation, especially for October, is under winter storm warnings and watches. These extend from western Montana to northwest Minnesota and south to the northwestern corner of Nebraska.

The storm's cold front will be impressive as it crosses the Plains and upper Midwest.  I can foresee temperatures dropping by 20 or 30 degrees in an hour or so in some places.

Denver, Colorado won't get much snow out of this. But after 80 degree temperatures today, readings could be as low as 10 degrees Thursday night. But by Saturday, the temperature in Denver should pop back up to the low 60s.  Talk about whiplash weather!

The storm extended west as far as Spokane, Washington, where more than 3 inches of wet, heavy snow falling on trees still holding on to their leaves caused lots of power failures.

The snowstorm is also socking the southern Plains of Canada as well. In all areas hit by this storm, there are going to be a lot of livestock and crop losses.

NEW ENGLAND STORM

Thank goodness this long-anticipated ocean storm won't hug the coast but stay offshore. Otherwise, it would be a disastrous storm.

Even so, with the soon-to-be-huge, intense storm spinning out there offshore, it's destined to cause a lot of headaches, especially on Cape Cod and the Islands, parts of Long Island and maybe coastal New Jersey, too.

They've already shut down the ferry to Block Island, Rhode Island in anticipation of gale force winds and high seas.

Up to eight inches of rain might fall on southeastern Massachusetts, where flood watches, coastal flood watches and high wind warnings are in effect.

Alaska's The Latest Place To Get "Baked" By A Record Heat Wave

People cool off in a lake near Wasila, Alaska during this
record breaking heat wave. Photo by Mark Thiessen/AP

If you like cool summer weather, Anchorage, Alaska is your kind of place.

Normal highs there this time of year are in the mid-60s and lows generally get to the low 50s.

Except this week. Parts of Alaska are having what might turn out to be an unprecedented heat wave, joining a long list of other places to have previously unheard of type heat waves.

Until yesterday the highest temperature on record for any date in Anchorage, Alaska was 85 degrees.  On this year's Fourth of July, Anchorage reached 90 degrees.

To break an all time record by five degrees is really something.  Heat waves - at least some of them - have gotten more extreme in recent years, and this is another example.  It's rare to break an all time record high, and much more rare to break it by such a big margin. And just last month parts of Europe broke record highs by similarly odd, large margins.

For perspective, it was hotter in Anchorage on the Fourth of July than it was in Little Rock, Arkansas and Key West, Florida, though it was more humid in Arkansas and Florida than in Alaska.

It's going to stay hot in much of Alaska for the next week or so, and it's already been off the charts for a week.

The seven-day period ending on Wednesday in Anchorage was the hottest such period on record, with a 67.4 degree average temperature. And that was before the real heat set in yesterday for a what will probably be a week long stay.

Other Alaskan places are hot, too. King Salmon and Kenai, Alaska broke or tied all time high temperature records at 88 degrees. Kodiak, Alaska just had its hottest July day on record, with a reading of 83 degrees. Northway, Alaska hit an all-time high of 92 degrees on June 30.

Last month was the warmest June on record in Anchorage, with a mean temperature of 60.5 degrees. That beat the old record set in 2015 by a whole degree. And talk about the longevity of the southern Alaska warmth! Each of the past 16 months have been warmer than average.

June in Anchorage was also the driest on record, with just 0.06 inches of rain. For perspective, a one-hour rainfall of that magnitude would barely make the pavement wet.

As can imagine, the odd warmth and dryness has been causing lots of problems. Overall, the current young wildfire season in Alaska is only slightly worse than average, but the fires could really get out of hand with the upcoming week of hot, dry weather and lightning strikes.

Plus, the Anchorage area is usually on the moist side, but not this year. So wildfires and the resulting air pollution is hanging around that city much more than usual.

It's not just the air that's hot. Relatively speaking so are many of the oceans and seas along the coast of Alaska.  The northern Bering and southern Chukchi sea water temperatures are as much as 10 degrees warmer than normal. 

The hot water is screwing up fisheries. Also, lots of dead seals are appearing on Alaska's northern and western shores. It's a mess.

The Alaska heat has so far only made occasional forays into central and northern Alaska. June in Utqiagvik, formerly Barrow on the northern tip of Alaska was only a modest 1.4 degrees warmer than normal, but did feature one day that hit 73 degrees, the warmest June reading on record there.

Fairbanks, in central Alaska, definitely had above normal temperatures in June, but it didn't break records. Temperatures in Fairbanks are expected to reach the 80s over the next week to ten days, which is about 10 degrees hotter than normal for this time of year.

The Alaska heat wave was created by a very unusually strong and far north ridge of high pressure parked over the state. It's a similar setup to what caused the record European heat wave last month.

Climate scientists keep tellling us these extreme heat waves are boosted by climate change. Perhaps these heat waves would have occured without climate change, but are being made more intense by all the CO2 we're pumping into the air.

Referencing the Europe heat wave, Columbia University climatologist James Hansen told CBS: "For all practical purposes, the heat wave is caused by human-made global warming."

I suspect the Alaska heat wave has climate change fingerprints all over it, too.

Skeptics point out, correctly, that the jet stream is wavy.  Immediately to the east of the European and Alaskan heat ridges were dips in the jet stream. Under these dips, temperatures were or are cooler than normal.

That's true. But the chilly weather in these jet stream dips wasn't record-breaking, or nearly as far from normal as the temperatures in the core of the heat waves.

Here in Vermont, we will very briefly get into this "dip" in the jet stream on Sunday, when high temperatures will "only" reach the mid and upper 70s. That's just few degrees cooler than normal, and nothing at all unusual for July.

Guadalajara, Mexico Had A Hail Of A Time

Hail swamps Guadalajara, Mexico over the weekend.
Photo by Ulises Ruiz/AFP/Getty Images

A hailstorm in Guadalajara, Mexico has certainly been in the news.

Over the weekend, a massive amount of hail fell in that region over the weekend. The hail, mixed with water, flowed down streets and piled up as deep as six feet in some areas around the city.

The hail flow amid the flash flooding was so intense that it busted through doors and windows to bury home interiors in ice.

Cars and trucks were also swept away.  At least 450 homes were damaged. Ten people were treated for hypothermia due to ice exposure.

That fact is incredible, since Guadalajara is in the tropics and it's the middle of summer.  You can expect cases of heat stroke this time of year, but hypothermia?

Also, that volume of hail is pretty incredible.  None of the hailstones were particularly big, but as you can see there was a hell of a lot of them. That had to be an intense thunderstorm to unleash so much hail is such a warm part of the world. Since a thick layer of the atmosphere is warm in Mexico this time of year, a lot of the hail had to have melted on the way down. And still this much accumulated.

Obviously most of Guadalajara didn't have this much hail. The photos and videos in this post show where flash flooding piled the hail into immense drifts.

Some videos are below. First one is an overview from VOA. The hail inside the house near the start of this clip is something!



Somehow this truck made it through the hail:



Another good compilation video of the hailstorm and its aftermath

Every Kind Of Weather Possible Hit On Wednesday. Here's Why

After a sunny start, cold storm clouds loomed over Lake
Champlain in Alburgh on Wednesday. 

The old saying "If you don't like the weather in Vermont, just wait a minute and it will change," was probably never more true than in was Wednesday.

Especially in northern Vermont. One minute it was sunny and mild, the next featured black clouds looming, as if there was a summer thunderstorm approaching.

Then a tremendous gust of wind, then some rain, maybe some sleet, then a burst of snow, then back to sunny and nice, then rinse and repeat.

You always want to dress for the weather, but on Wednesday, you would have needed to take your entire wardrobe closet with  you to pull that off.

What the hell happened?

A chaotic sky over St. Albans, Vermont Wednesday produced a day
with almost every kind of weather imaginable. 

It turns out early April is the perfect time of year to get weather that will mess with your head, like it did yesterday.

The sun angle is about as high as it is around Labor Day. That's why the day started off so pleasantly. The sun was able to warm the atmosphere, and temperatures really sprung upward during the morning.

Meanwhile, a few thousand feet overhead, the atmosphere still thinks it's winter.  It was cold up there yesterday, especially with a cold front passing through and a chunk of chilly air from Canada coming in at us.

When there is a big contrast between the warm surface and cold air thousands of feet above us, towering clouds can form. These develop into showers and thunderstorms, which happened yesterday. (There wasn't much in the way of lightning strikes yesterday, just a few, but you get what I mean.)

On top of all that, winds aloft tend to be much stronger in the winter than in the summer. Remember, it's still pretty much winter way overhead, so it was a screaming gale up there.

One of those storm clouds yesterday set off this springtime snow
squall in St. Albans, Vermont late Wednesday afternoon.

The showers that formed, and the downdrafts created by the those showers, were able to grab some of that high level wind and bring it to the surface. That's why it would get so windy in those passing showers.

The air was relatively dry, and much of the precipitation evaporated on its way down. That evaporation also helped bring wind to the surface.

Some of those gusts yesterday were impressive. I was at an exposed location on the shore of Lake Champlain in Alburgh Wednesday when one of those storms came through.

Winds gusted to an estimated 55 to 60 mph, downing some tree limbs and taking a few shingles off a couple houses. Winds gusted to 52 mph in Burlington. Many places in Vermont had gusts in the 45 to 55 mph range.

The cold air brought to the surface during these showers was enough so that the entire column of air was chilly enough so that snow aloft stayed snow all the way to the ground. We had a couple brief gusty snow squalls here in Franklin County, Vermont yesterday.

A confused weather day created dark clouds, blue sky, light and
shadows Wednesday evening in St. Albans, Vermont

Between the showers of rain and snow, the warm April sun would come back out, raising temperatures again, only to see them crash when the next windy storm came through. I swear we packed 12 months of weather into one afternoon.

Today won't be so changeable. High pressure has moved in. The air is very dry throughout the entire height of the atmosphere, so there won't be any towering clouds to promote more showers of either rain or snow.

However, the air remains chilly, especially aloft. The April sun will roil the atmosphere, creating updrafts.

What goes up must come down, so these updrafts will grab more of that strong wind from up above and bring it to the surface. It's so dry there won't be much in the way of clouds, but there will be some pretty strong wind gusts today, probably as high as 40 mph in spots. Not as bad as Wednesday, but still.

In the Champlain Valley and in the lower Connecticut River valley, almost all the snow is gone.  Last year's vegetation is brown and bone dry.  Humidities will be quite low today amid those gusty winds. That means there's a risk that any brush fires could get out of control pretty quickly.

If you were planning on setting your brush pile alight or doing any outdoor burning today, think again. Find another day to do it. One that's wetter and calmer.

This is also true across all of southern New England.

Precipitation will move in Friday afternoon to wet things down somewhat. At least this next little weather disturbance, with its cold rain and mountain wet snow, won't be as dynamic as Wednesday's conditions were. It won't be a Heinz 57 weather kind of day.

Some video of one of the storms rolling through Alburgh Wednesday.   Click the big screen icon on the lower left of each one to see a wider version of these. F

Torrential Rain, Floods In Southeast, But Storms Will Barely Affect Northeast

Map shows large areas of the Southeast receiving five to
ten inches of rain over the next seven days. (orange areas.)
The area is already saturated, so now there's the threat
of some veryserious flooding. 

A weather pattern that has been more or less in place all month is reinforcing itself across much of the United States, and that will bring some seriously flooding across the southeastern United States.

The pattern has shifted a tiny bit in the past couple of days,  so that California will be slightly drier and the Pacific Northwest will be slightly less snowy.

But there will continue to be a dome of cold air affecting the northwestern half of the nation, and a warm ridge of high pressure in the Southeast keeping some areas down there springlike.

In the middle, a stormy battle zone between the cold and warm continues, especially in the Southeast and Tennessee and Ohio valleys. It has already been one of the wettest Februaries on record in parts of this region. Within the next week, another five to eight inches of rain, and in some places more, will drench this area.

The state of Tennessee and adjacent areas seem to be the epicenter of the latest, upcoming round of flooding. Nashville has already had nearly seven inches of rain so far this month, which is 4.5 inches above normal.

It's wet today in parts of the Tennessee Valley and the Southeast, but the real downpours won't begin until Tuesday. Then they will continue through the end of the week.

They've already had some flooding there, and it's going to get a lot worse. Much of the lower Mississippi River is already at flood stage and so is many of its tributaries.  With all the rain coming, the Mississippi River flooding looks like it will go well beyond nuisance water and will flood neighborhoods by early March.

A large section of the Ohio River is also already at flood stage. That flooding of course might get worse after this upcoming wet week.

The National Weather Service in Nashville, Tennessee is already alerting residents that things could get pretty bad by the end of the week.

The bottom line is that you will hear lots of stuff on the news later this week about flooding, especilly in the Ohio and Tennessee Valley, and in the northern Gulf States.

CLIMATE CHANGE INFLUENCE?

In terms of wet weather this year is really picking up where 2018 left off. Last year, large parts of the eastern half of the nation - and a few places further west - had their wettest year on record or close to it. Now, 2019 is off to an incredibly soggy start in large swaths of the nation.  This includes parts of California, Arizona, and the southeastern third of the nation, with the exception of Florida.

I can't attribute a single weather event such as this to climate change, but scientists have been warning us that some areas of the nation, especially the eastern half, face much more rain than in the past as global temperatures rise. 

Which means this pattern is at least consistent with climate change.

Another thing that is going on which somewhat consistent with climate change is the "stuck" weather pattern. The science on this aspect isn't as settled as the overall concept of global warming, but some experts say climate change could create more "stuck" weather patterns, in which the saame type of conditions remain over a particular area for weeks or even months.

This month, the relatively "stuck" pattern is causing some very different temperature departures, never mind the precipitation. In the heart of the "cold" zone this month, temperatures are running at about 25 degrees colder than normal for February. Cut Bank, Montana endured 12 consecutive days in which the temperature constantly remained below zero.

In the Southeast, spring is way ahead of scheduled due to a remarkably warm February. Most of the region is running six to ten degrees warmer than normal so far this month.

VERMONT EFFECTS

This month's weather pattern has gotten Vermont caught in the middle of the two extremes, but at least the storminess it's causing hasn't been too bad here.

Floodwater cascades through forests along the Lamoille River near
Cambridge, Vermont in 2011. While spring flood potential is
certainly lower in Vermont this year than in 2011, there's
still a risk of trouble. 

This northwest cold/southeast warmth has kept the Green Mountain State in a very active weather pattern most of this winter.  Some sort of storm system seems to affect us almost every other day.

On the bright side, the storms here have not been really extreme. The best moisture has been mostly going by to our south with most of these systems.

The result is a wetter and snowier than normal January and February here, but we're not shattering records. Temperatures have been see-sawing back and forth since we are in the battle zone. That means the winter overall has been running close to normal. January was a little on the cold side, and February so far is a little on the warm side.

We've also had more than our share of freezing rain and sleet.

The next storm is a pretty weak one that will affect us later tonight and Monday. It's going by to our south, and this means just a little snow. Areas around Bennington and Brattleboro might get up to three inches of snow, while spots near the Canadian border basically get flurries.

Other storms will bring some snow and mixed precipitation to us, probably on Thursday and Sunday, but neither storm looks big.

If this weather pattern keeps going or gets worse, we might have to worry about spring flooding in Vermont. Snow cover and the water content in the snow up in the mountains is above normal. So are stream flows and soil moisture. Lake Champlain is higher than normal for this time of year.

All this spells potential trouble as we head into later March and April.  Conditions aren't nearly as scary as in 2011, when Vermont faced destructive river flooding in April and record flooding along Lake Champlain in May.  The flood potential will still have to be monitored, though.

Category 4 Hurricane Matthew A Dangerous Worst Case Scenario

Satellite view of extremely powerful Hurricane Michael as
it approached the Florida Panhandle this morning. 

I was a little worried yesterday that Hurricane Michael might end up being more powerful than forecast.

Unfortuately, it's more powerful than expected. Much more powerful.

Hurricane Michael was a Category 4 storm with top winds of 145 mph as of 7 a.m. today.

Worse, it was still strengthening as of 8 a.m. this morning. The tops of the clouds near the eye of the storm were getting colder, which is a sure sign of strenthening. The central air pressure of Michael was also falling, meaning it's getting stronger.

If Michael comes ashore with 145 mph winds, it will be among the ten strongest hurricanes to make landfall anywhere in the United States. The area where it hits - probably near Panaman City - will never look the same.

To think that just five days ago, Michael seemed like a distant, minor threat. Now, it's a cataclysm. Another one in an era that has brought us some of the most destructive  hurricanes in U.S. history: This list is getting long and depressing: Harvey, Irma, Maria, Matthew. Sandy, Irene

The outer winds of Hurricane Michael were coming ashore in the Florida this morning. As I noted yesterday, this area has had a lot of hurricanes over the years. But this one is the strongest in memory.
A category 4 hurricane has never come ashore in the Florida Panhandle in records dating back to at least 1851.

The National Weather Service in Tallahassee put it starkly enough: "This will be a catastropjic event the likes of which this region has never seen."

The 145 mph winds will cover a relatively small area, as they do in most strong hurricanes. But destructive hurricane force winds will  cover a wide area. As of early this morning, the hurricane force winds extended out 45 miles from the center of Michael. Tropical storm force winds extended out 185 miles from the center.

The winds of all hurricanes diminish fairly quickly once they come ashore. But Michael is so powerful it will take quite awhile for the winds to spin down. That means hurricane force winds will plow into Georgia and tropical storm force winds will go all the way up into the Carolinas.  Michael will then pass off the East Coast by early Friday morning.

Best guesses are more than a million people will lose electricity from Florida to North Carolina.

Hurricane winds are often the most visually dramatic aspects of storms like Michael. We'll see a lot of  videos of it, I'm sure,since this storm is coming ashore during daylight hours.

Radar imagery of Michael at
7:10 a.m. today. 

However, storm surges are the most dangerous and most deadly aspects of hurricanes. The storm surge associated with super strong Michael will be beyond awful.  When the storm was still well off shore early this morning, Apalachicola, Florida had its fourth highest tide on record.

When the storm comes in, the storm surge will be ridiculous. If the storm comes ashore at high tide, the surge could be as much as 13 feet above normal levels.

Anybody who didn't evacuate from the storm surge zone will very likely die.  Storm surges flow violently, and have battering waves from the hurricane winds to boot. The water will also be laden with debris as it plows into shoreline neighborhoods.

I hope everybody is away from the coast by now. The mayor of Tallahassee, Florida said this morning it's now too late to evacuate. People just have to hunker down and hope for the best.

All hurricanes produce torrential rain. There will be stripe of four to eight inches of rain, with locally higher amount from the Florida Panhandle, across central Georgia, and into the Carolinas and southeastern Virginia.

As you remember, the Carolinas are still dealing with the catastrophic flooding and its aftermath from Hurricane Florence.  As of this morning, a southeasterly air flow off the Atlantic Ocean, arranged in part by the position of Michael, was dumping heavy showers on South Carolina.

This is going to be another extreme disaster. This, in a year we've had far too many.

This Vermont February Hot Spell Will Be Really Weird. Strange Weather Everywhere

Snow was rapidly melting in my St Albans, Vermont
yard this morning. I expect pretty much all of this snow
to be gone by tomorrow with record heat moving in

As of this Tuesday morning, a warm front was slowly working its way north into and through Vermont and the rest of New England, setting the stage for that long awaited record heat.

This is just part of the extreme weather pattern I referred to yesterday that will keep forecasters veyr busy, and likely guessing at what's next for days, if not weeks

As the warm air comes in, signs of the strangeness are there already. Typically, warm air will come in at higher elevations first as a winter warm front arrives. That's true this time, but up above us, it's really warm. Atop Mount Mansfield at 8 a.m., it was already 46 degrees.

Even loftier Mount Washington was 40 degrees as of 10 a.m. Their all time February record high up there is 43 degrees, so they have a good shot.

The warm air will continue to creep in, southwest to northeast all day. High temperatures for the day will probably occur toward evening.  It'l be warmest to the southwest, where parts of New York and low elevations in southwestern Vermont will get close to 60 degrees.

Flood watches continue across the region, for good reason. Part of the problem, of course, is the rain that's falling across our area with this warm front. The air is humid, and will get more humid. Dewpoints will rise into the 50s, which is typical for summer.  When it's this warm, especially when the air is humid, melts snow really, really fast.

Rivers will rise quickly by later tonight through Wednesday. The biggest problem areas, of course, are where there's existing ice jams, but I imagine rivers will go over their banks to cause at least minor flooding across some river valleys in Vermont.

At mid elevations, there was two to four inches of "rainfall" locked in the snowpack. That snowpack will have completely disappeared by Wednesday. So that's two to four inches of "rain" on top of the actual rain coming out of the sky during this hot spell.

Actual temperatures overnight will also be in the 50s, possibly near 60 in some of the warmer areas as we get close to dawn. Again, that's something that we often seen in the summer, but not February!

The February heat here in Vermont will be brief, but intense. It's usually very hard for computer models, and human weather forecasters to get a handle on exactly what will happen, since this kind of thing is so unprecedented.

At the moment, the National Weather Service in South Burlington, Vermont is going for a high temperature of 69 degrees in Burlington on Wednesday. If not for last year, that temperature would have broken the record for the hottest February day by seven degrees.

That is, except for last year, when the February temperature in the Queen City reached an incredible 72 degrees. So we'll probably end up with the second hottest February temperature on record.

But the top two hottest February days coming in consecutive years?!?!? Wild.

The NWS in South Burlington looked at the trajectory of the air that is supposed to be over us tomorrow. That is, where it's coming from. Their answer: Grand Bahama Island.

Also, if it hits 70 degrees anywhere in Vermont on Wednesday, it will be the third winter in a row where it was 70 degrees somewhere in the Green Mountain State.

Depending on the timing of an afternoon cold front on Wednesday, we definitely have a good shot of seeing a spot 70 degree reading in the southern Champlain Valley, the lowlands of southwestern Vermont, or in the Connecticut River valley down by Brattleboro.

As noted, a cold front will come in during Wednesday afternoon. There will probably be a very abrupt drop in temperature into the low 50s during that time - still awfully hot for February.

OFF THE RAILS ELSEWHERE

This weather pattern, as noted, is causing all sorts of issues across the nation - and elsewhere, really.

Repeated thunderstorms and downpours have much of Michigan awash in floodwaters. Other downpours - amounting to more than half a foot of rain in many areas, will stretch from northeast Texas to the Tennessee and Ohio river valleys over the next few days, so major flooding will be in the news from there.

On the cold side of this weather system, an ice storm is unfolding in parts of Kansas and Missouri. As of this morning, those areas were getting freezing rain, punctuated by claps of thunder at times.

In Minnesota, freezing rain was also coming down. And, as expected, a hard freeze was killing crops this morning in California's Central Valley.

LOOKING AHEAD

The weather pattern across the Northern Hemisphere is turning "blocky." That means that big gyrations in the jet stream are slowing down storms and weather systems and making them move in odd and unpredictable ways at times.

For us here in Vermont, that means a gradual cooldown over the next several days, with several chances of rain and snow. Readings will still be warmer than normal heading into this weekend, just not extreme like we're expecting tomorrow.

With this blocky pattern, we could have some interesting weather much of next week, but nobody really knows yet what we mean by "interesting." Storms? cold? warm? Stay tuned.

This impending pattern is flooding the Arctic with what for them is unseasonably hot air near the freezing point. And very cold, possibly near record cold will spread across Europe and into Great Britain.

Never a dull moment, huh?

If You Average It Out, January Was Pretty Average Here In Vermont, But....

Ice jam on the Missisquoi River in Swanton, Vermont in
January, created by large swings in temperatures.

Sure enough, just as I thought the other day, temperatures for the month of January, 2018 for the most part averaged a little warmer than normal.

Who'd have thunk, given the frigid opening to the month, but the numbers don't lie.

The mean temperature in Burlington for the month was 20.1 degrees, which was 1.4 degrees warmer than average. That's not extreme warmth by any measure, but it was definitely on the mild side.

As we know, though, temperatures were all over the place. Seventeen of the 31 days in Burlington's January were at least 10 degrees warmer or colder than normal.

Most other weather stations in Vermont ended up just a bit mild for the month of January, too. Montpelier was just under a degree warmer than normal. St Johnsbury also bested normal by a degree.

In the southeastern part of the state though Springfield was just a smidge cooler than normal - 0.3 degrees chillier than average, to be precise.

January was also a bit on the wet side in January, too, with most places across the state running anywhere from about a quarter to three quarters of an inch wetter than average.

Of course, a lot of that precipitation came in the form of rain or mixed precipitation, not snow.

Even though January was just a little milder than average, the winter so far is running a little on the cool side. December in Burlington was 3.5 degrees colder than average, more than outpacing the wane January "mildness."

We'll see what February does. As I always say, forecasts beyond a few days are notoriously iffy. Let's take a stab at it anyway. At this point, it looks like the overall pattern for the first half of the month looks to be on the cold, or at cold-ish side.

Some computer models are hyping a very frigid first half of February while many others keep the worst of the cold air well to our north and west, leaving us with a somewhat cold, but not ridiculous February.

We'll find out eventually, won't we?

Frigid To Normal To Frigid Again?

A warm sun broke out late Tuesday afternoon in St. Albans,
Vermont after another day long, rainy thaw. Warm weather
over the past couple of weeks has made January's temperatures
near normal so far, despite a deeply frigid first week. 

Here's how topsy-turvy the weather has been in the eastern United States, including here in Vermont.

When the first week of January ended, after a long spell of record and near-record cold, it looked like January would end up being among the coldest months in recent decades.

Now, not so much.

The first week of January in Burlington, Vermont was a full 16 degrees colder than normal. It would be awfully hard to make up for that temperature deficit for the other three weeks of the month, right?

Nah.

As of yesterday, January in Burlington was averaging exactly normal. Of course, we don't know if the month will ultimately be a little warmer, or a little cooler than normal. During the next week, we will get spells of Arctic chill interspersed with more thaws, so where we'll stand at the very end of the month is anybody's guess.

But January will average close to normal, even if few individual days during the month were anywhere near normal.

Cities further south along the Atlantic Seaboard are still recording Januaries that are at this point a couple degrees cooler than normal, weighed down by that frigid first week. But the relative warmth is expected to remain a bit more consistent from New York City south for the rest of the month, so temperatures in those cities will probably end up close to normal for January, too.

You'd better not be thinking winter is over. It's not.  Not by a long shot. I usually don't put too much weight on long range forecasts, but the current long range forecasts for the month of February are remarkably consistent. Most models indicate a weather pattern that is at least similar to that which froze our butts off in late December and early January.

It's too soon to get into specifics, but we might end up having another long, frigid spell of well below normal temperatures after the first week of February, possibly continuing into March.

We'll see how that works out. But hey, even if it gets really cold, the days are getting longer, so that's a plus.

Back here in Vermont, it's been a relatively stormy month, too. At Burlington, snowfall is a bit behind normal so far for the month, but overall preciptation is running an inch ahead of normal at this point. (We've had a lot of storms with rain and mixed precipitation, which cut down on the snow.)

Long range forecasts call for up to an inch of additional rain or melted precipitation before January closes.

Get Ready For More Big Temperature Yo-Yo's And Weather Whiplash

The weather this month has, and will continue to, remind
you of this as temperatures keep yo-yoing from one
extreme to another. Coming up: Another big thaw,
and then a harsh freeze right after.

This has been a terrible month in Vermont and surrounding regions if you like consistency in your weather.

It's gone from one extreme to another. You remember the record low of 20 below in Burlington, Vermont on January 7, followed by the record high of 61 degrees just five days later, followed by subzero readings again just two days later.

Temperatures and weather conditions have somewhat stabilized for the past few days, but we're in for weather whiplash again.

Here's the deal: That powerful storm in the middle of the nation is sending a warm front our way initially. That means mixed precipitation (read icy roads) overnight tonight and early Tuesday, especially east of the Green Mountains and in New York's St. Lawrence Valley.

Once the warm front is through, it'll be warm and rainy Tuesday, with highs well up into the 40s. The rain - probably more than a half inch of it - and the warmth is still forecast to maybe shift existing ice jams around, or dam up more water behind them, so look for some more local flooding.

This won't be as bad as the January 12-13 episode because it won't be as warm, there's less snow to melt and it won't rain as hard. But it's still something to watch.

Then the cold front comes through Tuesday night and temperatures will crash early Wednesday. Around midnight Tuesday night, it still might be in the 30s in some locations, but by Wednesday afternoon, it'll probably be in the low teens with a subzero wind chill.  It looks like there will be some snow showers around, too, but accumulations won't be all that great.

Thursday stays cold, with morning lows near zero and highs in the teens. Then, the rolling coaster keeps going with temperatures warming back up into the 40s next weekend.

It's exhausting!

It also looks like this yo-yo trend might continue beyond next weekend, too. The odd thing is it's beginning to look like the overall mean temperature for January will come up somewhere fairly close to normal. It's just that almost none of the individual days will be near normal.

By the way, the storm in the middle of the country has, as expected, created its own batch of weather extremes. There were a couple of tornadoes in Texas and Missouri, and blizzard conditions are ongoing in parts of the central and northern Plains. An active weather pattern indeed!

Death Valley Just Had The World's Hottest Month

Death Valley, California just set the record for the
hottest month reliably measured on Earth

If you just love hot summer weather, you should have spent July in Death Valley, California.

According to meteorologist and climate stats expert Christopher Burt, the average temperature in Death Valley this July was 107.4 degrees.  

For comparison's sake, the average temperature in July, 2017 in Burlington,  Vermont - close to me - was 70.6 degrees, which is normal for the month.

Some media outlets said the Death Valley figures from this July made it only the second hottest month recorded on Earth.

However, Burt says the King Kalid, Saudi Arabia military base, which has claimed the world's hottest month has unreliable data. The data from Death Valley is more accurate, he says.

Three nights in Death Valley during July never fell below 100 degrees. The hottest afternoon there this July reached 127 degrees.

By the way, the "coldest" night at Death Valley in July, 2017 plunged all the way down to 89 degrees. Again, for comparison's sake, the hottest day in Burlington, Vermont this July was 89 degrees.

I'm not sure what August will bring for Death Valley but it sure is hot this week. Afternoon temperatures there for the rest of this week will generally be in the 115 to 120 degree range. (Here in Vermont, expect 70s to low 80s.)

Miami Is Having A REALLY Terrible Summer

Flooding in Miami on Tuesday. The city has been beset
by record heat and tremedous downpours all summer
Photo by Emily Michot/Miami Herald. 

If heat, humidity and torrential downpours aren't your thing, you'd be wise to avoid Florida in the summer.  

That kind of weather is a staple down there.

But even by Miami standards, this summer has been a humdinger, and not in a good way.

First of all, Miami just completed its hottest July on record. Julys are oppressive there anyway, but this was ridiculous.

July there was the hottest on record with a mean temperature of 85.7 degrees. All but one day made it above 90 degrees during the month. On 19 days in July, the temperature at night never made it below 80 degrees.

Ya like rain with your heat? You got it in Miami. July turned out to be just the warmup in that department, with a total of 12.45 inches of rain, almost double the average. Pretty much all that rain came in just five days during the month, including a 5.49 inch deluge on July 12.

Then August hit. Miami SO did not get off to a good start this month. An epic flood swept the area amid all that humidity. Especially in Miami Beach.

The officials rain measurement at the Miami airport yesterday was a lackluster 0.57 inches, but downtown Miam and Miami Beach got seven inches of rain in just a few hours. Many blocks of Miami Beach were underwater, with flooding gushing into businesses and apartments.

The heavy rain also hit during high tide. Sea levels are rising, and high tides often cause minor flooding in Miami Beach anyway. The torrential rains could not drain away easily with the high tide, despite an elaborate array of drain systems the city is installing. That work isn't done yet, and the rain was too heavy to deal with it anyway.

One video showed cars at a flooded intersection, with employees at a Walgreens bailing water out of the store.

By the way, unlike in some media reports, yesterday's Miami flood was not caused by the remnants of Tropical Storm Emily. It was caused by slow moving thunderstorms along a weak but humid weather boundary.

Here's another video of the Miami flood. Pretty rough!

Worst Thunderstorm in 100 Years Kills 16 In And Around Moscow, Russia

The roof of the Kremlin was among those damaged in
what was probably the worst thunderstorm in recent
Moscow history on Monday. 

Here in the United States, it's the peak of the severe thunderstorm and tornado season, but the worst outbreak of severe weather lately seems to have been in unlikely location of Moscow, Russia.  

An extreme thunderstorm packing winds of at leaset 70 mph swept Moscow and surrouding areas Monday, killing at least 16 people and injuring at least 150, the BBC said. 

Many locals said it was the worst storm to strike Moscow in as many as 100 years.

Five pedestrians were killed by falling trees. Two people died when their summer house near Moscow when a tree fell on it.

 Moscow is not used to such storms and buildings could not withstand the onslaught. Debris flew through the streets of Moscow as roofs blew off, windows shattered and walls collapsed. Hundreds of trees fell throughout the city.  One report said 3,500 Moscow trees toppled.

Even the roof of the Kremlin Senate was damaged. The BBC said a Canadian tourist, Frank Davis, told them debris was flying around in all directions.

 Below are some videos of the Moscow storm. The first one includes footage of a tennis center being torn apart:




Russia is famous for its dash cam videos, since everybody's got a dash cam. Here's a dramatic one in the storm:



Yet another compilation video:



Finally, here's what the Moscow storm did to some revolving doors: