Drought Starting To Take Hold In Vermont, Northeast

There was a light spattering of rain drops coming down in St. Albans, Vermont early this morning when I took the dogs out.

U.S. Drought Monitor sows moderate drought
in orange areas of the map and abnormally dry
conditions in yellow areas.

I'll take anything for rain at this point. The showers today aren't amounting to all that much, but at least it's something. It's getting drought-y out there.

The U.S. Drought Monitor depicts moderate drought now across central and southern Vermont, parts of northern New York, the southern half of New Hampshire and southwest Maine. Most of the rest of the region is described by the Drought Monitor as "abnormally dry."

So far, this isn't nearly as bad as it got during the summer and early autumn of 2016, but it's something to keep an eye on if the weather pattern doesn't change soon.

There's already one forest fire burning near Altona, New York that has so far charred about 320 acres, WCAX reports. (The fire was one major reason there was a smoky haze in the Champlain Valley Friday.)

Elsewhere, the forest fire danger in the region is at least moderate, and people are beginning to worry about their wells. Dry, brown lawns are now the norm across the area.

I'm luckier than most. It's dry in my neck of the woods in far northwestern Vermont, but a thunderstorm with a drenching downpour helped out some back on Tuesday. Other storms were scattered around the state on that day, but it was hit and miss. What we need is a statewide, regionwide drencher.

There is some hope in that regard on the horizon. Today's rain will amount to two-tenths of an inch or rain or less for most of us. So no biggy.  A very small percentage of us might be blessed with a brief downpour if any thunderstorms get going this afternoon. An even small percentage of us might get a quick thundershower Sunday afternoon.

Forest fire near Altona, in northern New York. Photo from
Beekmantown Fire Dept via WCAX

But after an oppressively hot Monday, we're looking at a shot of decent rain for Tuesday. At least that's what the thinking is now. We might end up being robbed, but Tuesday looks like it wants to feature a cold front making its way through the region.

It seems like the front has a lot of moisture to work with, so it might rain pretty hard at times when the front approaches and comes through.

After that, it appears we might go back to "how dry I am" for the remainder of next week.

Deadly Portugal Forest Fire Largely A Man-Made Tragedy.

A huge forest fire in Portugal has killed at least 64 people

I'm sure most of you are horrified by the news out of Portugal last weekend, when a huge forest fire in the central part of that nation killed more than 60 people.

Lots of observers are saying that the disaster was at least in part man-made.

The Portugal forest fire hit during a spell of extremely hot, dry weather, the kind of conditions that climate change and global warming tend to encourage.

There's that, but an even bigger reason for the Portugal disaster has an even more direct line to what humans did.

As the BBC and many other media outlets note,  eucalyptus trees had a lot to do with this.

I'll let the BBC explain:

"Much of the area in flames is dominated by eucalyptus, an Australian species introduced to Europe in the 18th Century, but which really boomed in Portugal with the rise of the paper industries in the mid-20th Century.

It is one of the most profitable trees, but ecologists say eucalpytus sucks up rare groundwater and is bad for native plants and animal life. 

The sap-rich tree that now covers large parts of central and northern Portugal is also highly flammable

Eucalyptus lined route N-236, where 47 people died in their cars while trying to flee." 

On top of all that, a lot of forest in Portugal is privately owned, and much of it isn't managed well. Plenty of underbrush, dead branches and other fuels accumulated in the forests, and that contributed to the fire's intensity as well.

Worst of all, a person might have started the fire. Initially, it was thought that lightning struck a tree during a "dry thunderstorm" sparking the blaze.

But there are now reports that the forest fire was already going gang busters when the lightning struck. The thunderstorm winds might have fanned the flames, but an arsonist might have started the fire ahead of time..

We always hear of "natural disasters" as being "an act of God." and there's nothing we can do about it.

To an extent, that's true, as we can't prevent every storm, every drought, every heat wave, every hurricane, every tornado.

However, every disaster death toll is made worse by something we could have done better. Hindsight is always 20-20, but when people die in a weather calamity, it's always useful to figure out why people died and how we can prevent deaths the next time.

Because there's always a next time.

Vermont, New England Drought Pushes On

Smoke from a forest fire mars this scene of fall
foliage last week near Richmond, Vermont 

The drought that began in many parts of the Northeast is dragging on, and there are only limited signs things could ease soon.

The drought gets a little worse or a little less bad in any particular location depending on where the light rain showers we've been wringing out of the mostly dry sky have landed.

Southern New England has seen some rain, but parts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine remain in extreme drought as do parts of western New York, according to U.S. Drought Monitor.

Here in Vermont, if anything, things have gotten worse. The southwestern two thirds of the state is in moderate drought now, and a tongue of severe drought extends from northern New York into Chittenden County, especially around Burlington.

Residents of Dorset are facing overnight water shutoffs as the community scrambles to save what little water is left in their reservoir. All 201 customers on that system should also boil their water until further notice, because of the low water, says Vermont Public Radio. 

Lake Champlain doesn't have tides, but it certainly looks like low tide as the water has reached a low not seen in decades. The water level in Lake Champlain at last check was 93.33 feet above sea level.
That's less than a foot above the all time record low in the lake of 92.61 feet on December 4, 1908.

The lake level, by the way, is still slowly fallling.

Thayer Beach on Lakc Champlain in Colchester, Vermont
shows a very low lake. Photo by
Pamela Jacobs via Twitter. 

The other day, the fall foliage southeast of Richmond, Vermont was marred by smoke from a forest fire burning on Robbins Mountain.

Fire officials say the fire is burning mostly underground, a testiment to how deep the dryness in Vermont has gotten. Luckily, the smoldering fire is not threatening any structures.

As there has often been the case this summer and fall, there are signs we could get a good rainstorm next weekend, but we've heard that song before.    

Tantalizingly wet weather patterns seem to want to develop, with a round of showers or even a couple of thunderstorms late tonight that could bring up to a third of an inch of rain.

Which is tiny, but it's something.

Then, toward the end of the week and the weekend, many forecasters, including the National Weather Service in Burlington, Vermont are at the moment anyway expected a rather soggy storm that could dump an inch of rain on us.

Maybe. That's the hope, anyway. We've been burned before.

What we need, of course, is several storms like the hoped-for one at the end of the week. Maybe one such storm a week until the ground freezes. The chances of that are low, though, because that usually doesn't happen normally, and the overall weather pattern favors relatively dry weather for the rest of the autumn in the Northeast.

So, we'll have to pray for a snowy winter and a fairly wet spring.

Incredible Time Lapse Shows Forest Fire Smoke Choking Lake Tahoe

The King Fire in California last week.
Photo by Noah Berger, Reuters.  

You've probably heard on the news about the so-called King Fire, a massive forest fire east of Sacramento California.

It has burned more than 87,500 acres, an area bigger in size than sprawling Atlanta, Georgia or Las Vegas, Nevada. It's still spreading amid shifting winds, drought and wicked hot temperatures.

Until recently, the King Fire pretty much avoided most homes, but now it's spreading into populated areas and has burned at least 22 structures and threatens more than 20,000 others.

A man named Wayne Allen Huntsman was charged with arson in connection with the fire and his bail was set at $10 million, local authorities said.

On Saturday, the wind abruptly shifted, bringing the smoke very fast over the Sierra Nevada mountains and into Lake Tahoe.

The onslaught of smoke forced the cancellation of the Ironman Lake Tahoe on Sunday, due to very sensible worries that vigorous exercise in dense smoke could be dangerous.

No doubt, the athletes were terribly disappointed. Says the Washington Post, quoting athlete Tom Kazukynas:

When the organizers of the Ironman announced that was canceled, athletes were crushed. 'Racers fell into the sand crying, total disbelief on some faces and shock on others,' said Kazukynas in an email. 'This Ironman is a once in a lifetime chance for many of the racers and to see the look of the athletes who just had taken away by an act of arson was absolutely heartbreaking."

A dense smoke advisory is still in effect around Lake Tahoe and Reno, Nevada due to the King Fire.

Here's that time lapse video showing the King Fire smoke invading the Lake Tahoe basin on Saturday. Pretty wild:

Forest Fire Crashes Wedding; Beautiful Photos Result

From Buzzfeed:        

Wedding photographer Josh Newton got this
awesome shot of newlyweds Michael and April Wolber
as a forest fire threatened to crash their Oregon
wedding recently.   

A couple got married last week in a beautiful patch of forest near Bend, Oregon.

Of course, the wedding had to be rushed because partway through the ceremony, firefighters crashed the event.

They told the couple, Michael and April Wolber, and their guests that a large forest fire was heading in their direction. The firefighters allowed the couple to get through the ceremony really fast, then evacuate.

Hmm. Weather is always a risk when you hold an outdoor wedding. But a forest fire? That's certainly unusual. But maybe not so in much of the tinder dry western United States.

(The reception was to be held in a spot away from the fire anyway.)

Before the party fled, the couple's wedding photographer, Josh Newton got some unexpectedly awesome shots for the Wolbers. One of them, the best in my opinion is in this post.

Everybody's wedding is memorable, but this one surely is especially so.