I Guess Tumbleweeds Are The Latest Winter Driving Hazard

Workers dig cars out from a tangle of tumbleweeds on
New Year's Day in Washington State. 

It sucks to be a motorist in much of the nation, and the Northern Hemisphere, for that matter, during the winter.

There's always the risk of snow, sleet, freezing rain, high winds, flooding, intense cold or other problems to prevent you from getting from here to there.

Add tumbleweeds to this hazard list.  No, us Vermonters need not worry about that during this or any winter. However, motorists up in Washington State had to deal with this, big time.

As NBC reports:

"A few people in Washington state spent part of their New Year's Eve trapped in their cars after winds blew a massive amount of tumbleweeds onto a highway.

The incident happened on Highway 240 in Benton County near Yakima, a city about 150 miles southeast of Tacoma. Washington State Patro Trooper Chris Thorson told NBC News that 911 calls started to come in around 6:30 p.m about people trapped in their vehicles.

He said winds that night were between 40 to 50 mph and it took about 30 minutes for the tumbleweeds to fully encase five cars and partially trap a semi-truck. The highway in both directions was closed for more than 10 hours in order for the tumbleweeds to be removed."

Thorson told the Seattle Times that occupants of the cars trapped in tumbleweeds "were not as amused as the rest of the people watching. Some of them had to ring in their New Year fully encased in tumbleweeds."

People think of Washington State as wet, and not prone to arid location hazards like tumbleweeds. But eastern Washington where the tumbleweed attack took place is dry because the Cascade Mountains to the west of this location block so much of that moisture coming in from the Pacific Ocean.

Yakima, Washinton, near where this took place, only averages about nine inches of rain per year, compared to the roughly 37 inches wet Seattle, Washington on the Pacific coast gets.

Here's a clip of people trying to rescue vehicles and clear the tumbleweeds:

Will Snowy, Ugly Monday Morning Commutes Become Tradition This Year?

My house in St. Albans,  Vermont was looking all
Christmasy Monday after an abrupt dump of
five inches of new snow. Another snowfall
expected this Monday will freshen up the snow cover

I know it's the weekend -- YEEHAW -- but I'm already looking at the back to work situation this comingMonday and it's beginning to look like it might be similar to last Monday's mess.

You remember last Monday in Vermont and surrounding areas: That burst of rather heavy snow that struck just as everybody hit the road to go to work.

People crashed into each other, slipped and slid, got stuck in traffic jams and pretty much  had a miserable time.

It might be very much the same this Monday.

There's a storm making a cross country trip across the northern tier of the United States, coast to coast. It caused lots of winter weather issues in places like Seattle and Portland the other day.

Now there's winter weather advisories and winter storm watches with this storm up from South  Dakota to Michigan today and/or Sunday.

Monday is our turn here in Vermont as the storm finally reaches the New England coast to end its cross country journey.

Like last Monday, this is not a blockbuster storm, certainly not one for the record books. I'm guessing most of the northern half of New York and northern New England is in for maybe two to six inches of snow, with maybe locally higher amounts in one or two spots.

But, this coming Monday morning, the  heaviest burst of snow will probably come just as we're driving to work, just like the Monday before.

Definitely plan on leaving for work earlier than you normally do. Or hey, better yet: Call in sick if you feel like it.

There won't be much precipitation left over for the afternoon trip back home Monday. Just a few snowflakes. Maybe even a few raindrops mixed in the warmer parts of the Champlain Valley.

The rest of next week looks wintry, with some chances of snow, and a cold blast at the end of the week that's chillier than the one we've got today.

Enjoy!

Fast Moving Snow, Rain Storm To Hug East Coast Tonight, Saturday

Snow forecasts for the Northeast for tonight
and Saturday. (Click on the map to make it
bigger and easier to see) Southeast
New England seems to be the most targeted.  

Winter weather advisories are up for a long, skinny stretch from the mountains of North Carolina northeastward into the Middle Atlantic States on into New England.  

Up in southern and eastern New England, the advisories become a winter storm watch for the potential or a more sizeable snowfall.

That storm we've been talking about is on its way, and will rocket up the coast Saturday.

It's moving faster than first thought, so it will start tonight and be pretty much over by afternoon roughly south of New York City by Saturday afternoon.

Up in New England, it will be a Saturday daytime event, over by night, except maybe lingering in eastern Maine.

Forecasts for snow are still in line with what they have been. The consensus is two to six inches of wet snow from northern Virginia, through western Maryland, the southeastern half of Pennsylvania, and southern New York.

East central Massachusetts, just west of Boston and on into southeastern New Hampshire and southeastern Maine, the areas under the winter storm watch, are due for four to eight inches of snow, and far eastern Maine could get up to 10 inches.

This is all going to be heavy, wet snow, mixed in some areas with sleet, freezing rain and rain. In fact, closest to the coast, there will be more rain than snow, probably.

It will be another mess driving in the Northeast tomorrow morning, but hopefull not as bad as last Sunday, when widespread freezing rain caused havoc.

At least this time it will be a sloppy snow and mix, and not smooth ice like you get in freezing rain. So the roads will be awful, but maybe not skating rinks this time.

Temperatures will be marginal, so there's a high bust potential with this. Some areas that are expecting quite a bit of snow might end up with rain if temperatures are a degree or two warmer than forecast, which could easily happen.

And places closest to the coast where we are anticipating more rain could get an unexpected snowstorm out of this. Nothing is set in stone here.

There will be a sharp cutoff to the snow northwest of the storm track, a sharper cutoff than usual for this type of storm. So northern New York, most of Vermont and the northern and western halves of New Hampshire and Maine will miss out on this.

After this goes by, a cold front blasts down from Canada, and the eastern United States is in for a long, nasty cold wave that will go into the second week of February in many areas, especially the more north you go.

There might be brief breaks in that long,  long cold spell, but the pattern features one Arctic high pressure system after another rolling down from near the North Pole.

It's also a dry weather pattern. An Alberta Clipper might create a moderate sized snowstorm for the Middle Atlantic states Monday.

There will also be a very, VERY active storm track well off the East Coast. At this point, these far offshore nor'easters don't look like they'll hit the United States, but you never know if one or two will manage to curve further west and give some snow to East Coast as well.

Winter in the East is here to stay for awhile. Meanwhile, in the western United States, they're going to be asking, "What winter?" Some record high temperatures will be challenged in the western third of the nation between now and Valentine's Day.

Huge Forest Fires Are Bad In More Ways Than You Think

Friday afternoon and Saturday, the sky over my house in northwestern Vermont took on a brassy pallor.

A massive fire in Northwest Territories, Canada last week.  

The deep blue sky had turned milky, the sunshine had sort of an orange-ish color, and a bit of haze made some of the Green Mountains seem bluish and blurry.

Blame the big forest fires in Washington State and western Canada for that.

Smoke from the huge fires, hoised aloft, blew thousands of miles in high upper atmospheric winds and went clear across the country to New England.

That the smoke slightly dulled a bright Vermont summer day is the smallest negative effect that these huge fires have around the world.

Yes, the fires destroy forests and the homes of people who live there. That's the most obvious reason out of control wildfires are bad things.  The fire in Washington, for instance, has destroyed more than 100 homes as of Sunday. 

But the fires are also a health hazard for people with breathing problems, probably worsen global warming, and cause huge problems when the droughts that helped start the fires end and the rains begin.

A big forest fire in Oregon last week. 

Many observers see the many of these fires, like the one in Washington State, the big blazes underway in Canada's Northwest Territories, and epic conflagrations in recent years in Siberia, as signs of global warming. 

The far north in particular, northern Canada, Alaska, and Siberia, have warmed up a LOT in recent decades, more than the rest of the world.

That means there's snow on the ground for a shorter time of year and the boreal forests up that way have a bigger chance to dry out in the warm season.

Then they catch fire.

Even worse, these fires set the stage for even more global warming. Soot from the fires can travel thousands of miles, and settle on ice in the Arctic Ocean, and on the great ice sheets of Greenland.

Normally, this ice is pretty white and reflects the summer sun away, so melting is minimized to an extent, even when the Arctic is warmer than normal.

But these tiny particles of soot settling on the ice collect the sun's heat, and hasten melting. That might be partly why the polar ice cap has gotten so much smaller in recent decades (though a warmer Arctic climate still takes most of the blame)

In Greenland, the soot has helped melt the ice sheet faster, and that's even worse than the ice on the Arctic Ocean melting.  That ice melt runs off into the oceans, contributing to worldwide rises in sea levels.

Ultimately, those fires in northwestern Canada, then, are helping to drown cities like Miami and Norfolk Va.

The fires are also very bad for those of us who like to breathe. This is true even for people who live far away from the blazes.

In 2002, fires in northern Quebec blew smoke southward to where I live in Vermont.  The same thing happened in 2010 and 2013. There were air pollution warnings galore during these episodes, because the tiny particulates in the air could cause lung damage.

With the fires burning in Washington this week, air pollution alerts extended into Idaho and Montana, two places you normally don't think of as having dangerous air pollution. But there you go.

After the fires are out and the rains come, the blazes still cause huge problems. There's no vegetation left to soak up the rain.  The downpours cause runoff, which leads to flash floods, mudslides and debris flows.

That is a constant problem in California after the seasonal fires when the winter rains return. (At least we hope they do this year.

Last year, after fires in the Waldo Canyon area of Colorado, heavy thunderstorms hit later in the summer. So you get scenes like this:

It's Starting To Snow In Vermont As Big Storm Arrives

As of 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, a little light snow was falling in Vermont, and some roadways were getting a bit slick, the opening salvo of that messy storm we've been advertising for a few days now.

A snowplow clear roads near Alburquerque, New
Mexico the other day. That area was hit by the
same storm that is now approaching the Northeast
Photo by Jim Thompson, Alburquerque Journal.

I looked at the late afternoon forecast updates and the forecasted scenario hasn't changed much from previous predictions.

That mess of snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain still likes a good bet in most of Vermont overnight, though the warmer valleys of southern Vermont could see mostly rain.

Northern New York, away from the Champlain Valley, still looks to be under the gun with heavy, wet snow and some mixed precipitation.

Wednesday's weather will be all over the place. High temperatures across northern New York and northern New England will range from the low 30s to upper 50s.

Let me explain that one. It's a strong storm, and will move right up the Connecticut River Valley. The cold west side of the storm, in New York State, will continue to see the mostly wet snow.

These strong storms tend to gather a lot of warmth on their eastern flanks, so temperatures will rise to the low 50s in southeastern Vermont and well into the 50s to low 60s in New Hampshire and southeastern New England.

Vermont is in the middle and we're still looking at a cold, nasty, drenching rain for most of Wednesday.   But in the afternoon, precipitation will start to transition to ice and snow in the far northern Champlain Valley.

As the storm passes, temperatures will quickly drop and that snow and ice  up by Swanton and Alburgh, Vermont will race south and east across the rest of Vermont and into New Hampshire and Maine.

The western slopes of the Green Mountains still look like they'll take the brunt of the snow Wednesday night. I'm predicting more than six inches for those areas.

The northern Champlain Valley, from St. Albans north, could get several inches of snow, too. A bit more to the south, Burlington and the southern Champlain Valley are in for just a couple, maybe three inches of snow.

Unless of course the storm does something unexpected, which is possible.  Keep checking forecasts, things could change.

In places where it rains Wednesday, I'm still thinking it will come down hard, especially under and just east of the storm track. There's a flood watch in far southern Vermont for possible heavy rain.

And as much as 3.5 inches of rain is possible in parts of New Hampshire, which could lead to flooding.

The bottom line: Travel will be iffy tonight, and get better in all areas of New England except for maybe far northwestern Vermont during Wednesday. Northern New York is in for icy, snow covered roads during Wednesday, too.

The worst driving conditions will come after 5 p.m. Wednesday, when temperatures are probably going to fall rapidly and snow will pile up. The "flash freeze" plus the snow are guaranteed to make the roads really, really horrible Wednesday night.

So maybe try to time your holiday travel for the daylight hours on Wednesday.

Early Thanksgiving morning, the roads will still be largely ice covered, snowy and hazardous, but get better as the snow showers taper off and the sun comes out at times.

It'll be bitterly cold on Thanksgiving though. If you enjoyed the mid-winter chill and strong winds on Sunday, you'll like the Thanksgiving frigid weather too.

If you're flying Wednesday, prepare for a frustrating day. Most northern New England airports, like Burlington, Vermont and Manchester, N.H., tend not to close in storms. But a lot of flights throughout the eastern half of the nation will be delayed or cancelled because of the storm that is affecting a huge chunk of the U.S., not just us.

The weather will stay cold and wintry, but warm up a bit toward normal levels (upper 30s) by the beginning of next week.

Tues Morning Update: Upcoming Storm's Timing Not So Good

As I look at the forecast updates Tuesday morning, not much has changed in the thinking of how this big oncoming storm is going to behave.

Here's an early NWS/Burlington forecast of how much
snow will accumulate in northern Vermont
and New York from this storm. Click on
the image so it's bigger and easier to read.  

Some details seem to be emerging, though.

Before I go on, I have to repeat some of the caveats you probably have already seen: The forecast could still change, and we could still get some surprises.

And the weather will probably be very different over short distances in Vermont and surrounding areas. One spot might be just getting rain, while it's freezing rain just up the road, and wet snow a few miles beyond that.

Now, the particulars. A winter weather advisory is up for Vermont and a winter storm warning is in effect for northern New York away from Lake Champlain.

The scenario, as forecasters see it is this: Snow or mixed precipitation comes in early tonight. It'll be a gloppy mess of wet snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain that will continue on into the morning commute in most of the region.

Expect a thin layer of slush in the warmest spots, maybe the southern Champlain Valley, to between and inch and four inches of crud with the consistency of wet cement in much of Vermont and the northern half of New Hampshire.

In northern New York, the precipitation will stay mostly wet snow, with some mixing, through most of Wednesday. Expect 6 to 12 inches of wet snow there, which could really be a problem. Wet snow can bring down trees and power lines.

Since there will be slush and ice around in the morning, build in extra time for  your trip if you have to drive to work Wednesday morning.

As the storm moves northeastward through New Hampshire, enough warm air will probably come along to change much of the precipitation to a cold rain across Vermont for much of Wednesday. Some areas, especially across the northern mountains and perhaps the Champlain Valley way up north above St. Albans, could hang on to some mixed precipitation.

This continues to look like a very wet storm, so it could rain pretty hard at times. Wednesday by any measure will be a yucky day.

Although no watches or warnings are in effect, it might rain hard enough in parts of New Hampshire and Maine to cause some flooding. Some computer forecasting models predict more than four inches of liquid precipitation in western Maine.

Late Wednesday afternoon, we run into more problems for commuters or holiday travelers. Actually worse problems than on Wednesday morning. Cold air will quickly wrap around the back side of the storm, temperatures will crash and precipitation will change to snow.

This is bad as wet roads will freeze and snow will accumulate on top. That's the worst possible mix for scary, hazardous road conditions.

It'll snow kind of hard at times Wednesday night, especially in some parts of the Champlain Valley and definitely along the western slopes of the Green Mountains in Vermont. The Adirondacks and New Hampshire's White Mountains could also get a pretty good dump out of this.

The best guess from the National Weather Service is Wednesday night's round of snow will bring an accumulation of two to six inches. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the western slopes and the northern Vermont ski areas pick up more than six inches.  The Jay Peak cloud could dump up to a foot of powder.

If you have to travel Thursday morning, the snow will have tapered off to flurries, but the roads will still be bad. It will be another frigid day as winter has settled in for an early arrival. Many places won't make it above 20 degrees.

It'll stay cold until a slight, not dramatic warm up comes in around Sunday.

Safe travels, my friends!