Mount St. Helens Blew Up 40 Years Ago This Week

Mount St. Helens erupting in May, 1980. At this point in the photo, the entire
north side of the volcano is falling away in a massive landslide
as the ash cloud just begins to rocket upward and laterally. 

This isn't a weather or climate story per se, but it is related.

People in Washington State are this week marking the 40th anniversary of the dramatic eruption of Mount St. Helens.  

It was the worst volcanic eruption on record in the continental United States, killing 57 people.

As the Seattle Times notes, the north flank of the volcano collapsed in an enormous landslide that buried 23 square miles of a river valley to an average depth of 150 feet. The blast sent rocks and a superheate ash cloud that toppled 230 square miles of forest in just three minutes.

Large swaths of a Washington State went dark as night under the immense ash cloud.

The blast had some effects on the skies around the nation for days afterwards.  I remember the ash cloud a few days after the eruption turning the May blue sky over Vermont a sickly slate gray.  The setting sun didn't seem to hit the horizon. Instead, it faded to nothing in the haze as the sun sank low in the west.

As dramatic and huge as this eruption was, it was actually too small in the grand scheme of things to actually affect worldwide weather and climate to any noticeable degree.  Or even that week here in Vermont. As the ash dimmed the skies over Vermont, daytime temperatures the week after the Mount St. Helens eruption rose into the 70s and 80s.

Large volcanic eruptions - much bigger than Mount St. Helens - can belch so much ash and soot into the air that it circles the globe and dims the sun, temporarily cooling the surface of the Earth.

One relatively recent example of this was Mount Pinatubo, which erupted in the Philippines in 1991. It pumped enough gunk into the upper atmosphere to briefly stop the upward trend in global warming around 1992.

A more dramatic example was Mount Tambora in what is now Indonesia back in 1815.  That massive volcano is thought to have created the "Year Without A Summer" in 1816. It caused global cooling, with some examples of that in Vermont. There was a June snowstorm that year, and hard frosts and freezes in July and August.

The effects of these massive eruptions on climate tend to last only a couple years as the ash particles from these volcanos slowly fall out of the atmosphere.

Don't Count On Summer Warmth To Squelch Coronavirus

Coronavirus has spread to most nations (blue shading) and will
continue to envelope the world  Viruses often wane in the
 summer, but don't count on that with th coronavirus. 

As all of us know, the coronavirus pandemic we're enduring is much worse than seasonal flu we get every year.  Many more people will die from this than the regular flu, which is why we are all in a panic.

This virus has some simularities to the flu virus though.  The usual flu the world gets every year tends to wane in the summer, as warm weather seems to hinder its spread.  That begs the question: Will we get a similar warm weather break with the coronavirus?

The answer seems to be: Don't count on it, but maybe. Even if it does wane in the summer, that won't solve our problems.

As National Geographic reports, recent research indicates many viruses are more likely to stay intact and travel further in cold, dry air.  These viruses tend not to spread well in warm, humid air.   Some scientists think that low humidity, - you know the dry indoor air we deal with in the winter - makes mucus in the nose function less efficiently.

That mucus helps block viruses and bacteria from getting into your body, and the cold air might weaken that barrier, National Geographic notes. 

Additionally, summer tends to be sunnier than winter, and viruses usually don't do well in sunshine.

Of course, summer doesn't give complete protection from viruses. People still get sick in the summer.

This conronavirus now torturing us is new, so scientists really don't know whether it will wane in the upcoming warm weather in late spring and summer.  We are totally NOT off the hook, I can tell you that.

The current pandemic is seen around the world, including the Southern Hemisphere, where summer is just ending. (Actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson recently announced they have the virus, and they caught it in summertime Australia).

It's unclear if the coronavirus will get worse in the Southern Hemisphere as their winter sets in.  The bottom line is scientists really don't know if the coronavirus will wax and wane with the seasons.  Plus, viruses circulate all year in the hot, humid tropics, so summer isn't exactly a disinfectant.

Dr. Marc Lipsitch, Director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, writes that  "new" viruses like the current coronavirus have an advantage.  Pretty much nobody is immune to it,  unlike "old" viruses that have been circulating for years.

New viruses can jump from host to host, person to person freely, without any interference from warm summer weather.  The new viruses like the one in the current pandemic have plenty of low hanging fruit to seize.

Older viruses, not so much.  Lipsitch writes: "Old viruses, which have been in the population longer, operate on a thinner margin - most individuals are immune, and they have to make do with transmitting among a few who aren't. In simple terms, viruses that have been around for a long time can make a living - spreading through the population - only when the conditions are the most favorable, in this case, in winter."

Even if summer gives us a slight break from the coronavirus,  it could easily come roaring back in the autumn.

Jeffrey Shaman, a Columbia University researcher on the flu-weather connection thinks that the virus will continue to rapidly expand in the United States and elsewhere through the month of April, and might finally start to decline in late May or June. This, according to a report by Bob Henson in the Category 6 Weather Underground blog. 

It we get lucky and the coronavirus does wane in the summer, that buys us a little time to get a handle on it. But even so, it would probably come roaring back in the autumn, before humanity has had a chance to develop a vaccine and innoculate people around the world.

One ominous precedent, according to Henson in the Category 6 blog, was the great pandemic of 1918. Sporadic cases popped up in March of that year, but seemed to subside.  Then the pandemic roared to life, killing 195,000 Americans in just the span of a month in October, 2018.  The pandemic would go on to kill many more.

Whether or not this coronavirus ends up being a seasonal thing, a lot of scientists say it's here to stay, and will circulate around the globe perhaps forever, always sickening and killing people.  That's why it's so important to develop a vaccine against this thing to limit the damage and prevent the vast majority of the world from continuing to all victim to the disease year after year.

Scientists are working intensely to develop a vaccine, but one that works is more than a year away, likely more than that.

I don't offer this report just because I want to scare people. It's just to tell you we are in this for the long haul.  Keep washing your hands, folks, and keep up the social isolation.

No Snow In Forecast, But Now's The Time We Can Start Getting It

A bit of snow in my St. Albans, Vermont yard one year ago today.
No snow in the forecast for the next few days, but it's surely coming.

On this date last year - October 24 - it snowed a little in most of northern Vermont.

It wasn't much in most places.  I got about an inch in St. Albans and a some places in the Northeast Kingdom picked up a few inches.

Though no snow is in the forecast for the next few days, last year's events are a reminder. Time to get the snow tires on, as we can get winter weather at any time now.

Vermont does have a history of October snows, some of them pretty substantial. And some of them came earlier than this.

I turn to the Vermont Weather Book by David Ludlum for examples. Details are sketchy on one the biggest Vermont October snowstorm on record because it happened so long ago. But on October 9, 1804 a moisture-rich hurricane swept up from the south.

A very cold air mass was in place over interior New England, so a lot of this came down as snow. Some places got a foot and a half of snow, with major tree damage because leaves were still on.

In modern times, nothing can beat the epic snow on October 4, 1987.  More than 18 inches of snow fell on southwestern Vermont and adjacent parts of Massachusettts and New York, including in the Albany, New York area.

 Totals of more than six inches extended through most of Vermont, except the Champlain Valley.

Wild scene in Bennington Vermont on October 4, 1987.

Of course in this instance, too, leaves were on the trees, so there was massive destruction and long power outages during the height of the fall foliage tourism season in Vermont.

Another biggie on October 10, 1925 dumped up to 18 inches of snow on the high elevations and up to a foot in the low and middle elevations of Vermont.

The storm was accompanied by high winds, so there was a lot of drifting. Road clearing wasn't great in those days and cars were relatively new.  Many got stuck in drifts up to five feet high. Some cars around Stowe were snowed in until the next spring.

Substantial October snowstorms also hit Vermont in 1933, 1969 and 1979. A few towns in southern Vermont got more than six inches of snow in the Octobers of 2005,  2011 and 2016.  The October 25, 2005 storm was particularly bad. Some leaves were still on the trees - it had been an otherwise warm autumn.  About 100,000 Vermont customers lost power, some for a week. Up to 14 inches of snow fell in Underhill.

So yeah, it can get wintry this time of year. It's just a matter of time before we get hit.

It's Classic Fourth of July Vermont Weather -- Hot!

A gorgeous summer day last year in Burlington, Vermont. This
year's Fourth of July weather - today - will be about the same.

"Hot as the Fourth of July," is a timeworn cliche, but hey, cliches are often true, right?

Such as the case today, the Fourth of July 2019, as we in Vermont are setting up for a hot one. Great beach weather. Great barbecue weather. Great fireworks watching weather. What's not to love?

Well, it will be a bit too hot for some people today.  (I've become a hot weather wimp in my old age, for instance.)

Everybody in Vermont, except those on the tippy tops of the tallest mountains will see high temperatures in the 80s today. Warmer valleys (I see you, Champlain and lower Connecticut valleys!) will have a great shot of getting to 90 degrees or even a little above that this afternoon. Thank goodness humidity levels will only be moderate. Not super dry, mind you, but not awful, either.

Plus the sun will be out most if not all of the day. Bottom line: The Fourth of July this year is a classic in the weather department.

The time around the Fourth of July has had its extreme weather. Two of Vermont's most historic, biggest heat waves happened on and around July 4.

In 1911, Vermont had it's hottest day on record on July 4, reaching 105 degrees at Vernon, in the southeastern corner of the state. Neighboring New Hampshire also had its hottest day on record on July 4, 1911, reaching 106 degrees.

Burlington, Vermont, was relatively "chilly" on July 4, 1911, only reaching a high of 98 degrees (ugh!) But that was down from 100 degrees the day before.

The 1911 heat wave was long, with a break in the middle of it. According to the Vermont Weather Book, Burlington's daily high temperature from July 1 to 12 was as follows: 86. 94, 100, 98, 98, 91, 75, 88, 95, 96, 96, and finally on July 12, a cooling trend started when the high only reached 86 degrees.

It's possible the 1911 heat wave was New England's worst weather disaster. Some estimates are that 2,000 New Englanders died in those pre-air conditioning days.

The other historic July 4 heat wave happened just last year, in 2018. On July 4 last year, Burlington reached 95 degrees on the Fourth of July, so the record for the date from 1911 still stands.

But the heat wave that lasted from June 30 through July 5 last year was among the most extreme on record. The low temperature in Burlington on July 2 was 80 degrees, the hottest "low" temperature on record. Burlington also suffered through six consecutive days with highs of 93 degrees or more.

Not to be morbid again, but the July, 2018 heat wave was Vermont's worst weather disaster since the Hurricane Irene floods of 2011.  The heat caused little physical damage but caused at least six deaths in the Green Mountain State.  (The link has four deaths, but two more fatalities were confirmed later.)

The 2018 Fourth of July  heat wave was part of what was to become the hottest summer on record in Burlington.

Sometimes, Mother Nature creates her own fireworks display on the Fourth of July weekend. We've had some doozies in Vermont.

Some examples: In 1999, a derecho formed in North Dakota on July 4, and sped rapidly over a long distance through Minnesota, upper Michigan, Ontario, Quebec and on into northern Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine in the pre-dawn hours of July 5.

The path of a long lasting derecho on the Fourth of July
weekend, 1999. It caused one death in the Northeast
Kingdom. No storms anylike this in the forecast today!

Winds in that 1999 Derecho reached 90 mph Colbrook, New Hampshire. In Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, one person died and others were injured as the derecho winds slammed through crowded camp grounds.

In 2012, Vermont was hit by more very severe storms on the Fourth of July. The day was classically hot, reaching 90 degrees in Burlington. But thunderstorms quickly erupted that afternoon and evening.

The first round headed southeastward across eastern Vermont in the afternoon, causing lots of tree damage. A second round moved southeastward through the Champlain Valley, with winds gusting to 70 mph in Colchester and 63 mph in South Burlington.

There was, predictably a lot of wind damage, mostly to trees. There was also extensive street flooding in Burlington, causing damage to several buildings. (See the video I took of this storm in Burlington. The rain amid the wind was so heavy that visibility was almost zero.)

On this Fourth of July, 2019, there is a slightest chance of an isolated shower or storm, but don't hold your breath.  The air is too stable to support much more than some cumulus clouds.

Here's a video of the July, 2012 wildness in Burlington. I know it looks like I was in a weird spot, but I was trying to shoot the video from a protected area behind buildings and tanks. Love the close lightning strike about two minutes in:

New Twist In Nation's 2019 Severe Weather Hell: A Derecho

Damage reports extending from Colorado to South Carolina Friday
along the path of a derecho.

As many parts of the nation continues to reel from severe storms and flooding that seem to go on and on, we had one more type of storm chaos to deal with this past week. A derecho.

Derechos are long-lasting, long-tracked thunderstorm complexes that are capable of lots and lots of damage. That's especially true because they cover quite a lot of real estate.

Here's the officials definition of a derecho from NOAA:

"By definition, if the swath of wind damage extend for more than 250 miles, includes wind gusts of at least 58 mph for most of its length and also includes several well separated 75 mph or greater gusts, then the event may be classified as a derecho."

It appears Friday's storm complex, which originated over Colorado late Thursday night and finally moved off the coast of far distanct South Carolina early Saturday, will be classified as a derecho.  This path was unusually long, even for a derecho. It went on for more than 1,000 miles before finally falling apart off the South Carolina coast.

Friday's derecho killed at least 3 people along its path, the Weather Channel reported. There were a good 550 reports of damage across the nation Friday, mostly along the path of the derecho.

Derechos can produce tornadoes, but most of the damage from them is from straight line winds. This was true of Friday's storm complex. Six tornadoes were reported, but most of the severe weather reports were of straight line winds.

Damage reports were spottier in Colorado and Kansas in the initial phase of the derecho. I think that's mostly because it went through sparsely populated areas so that not as many people were there to report on it

The derecho picked up steam later Friday as it past southeastward through Missouri, southern Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina.

Derechos aren't very common, to be honest. There's usually only a couple or a few in the United States every year, if that.

That's good, because derechos can be very expensive, not to mention deadly. Remember, they cover a lot of ground, so there's usually a huge number of people and property in the way of these things

There's no word on the dollar amount of damage of Friday's derecho, but some past ones have been really notable. A June, 2012 derecho that started in Iowa and moved east and southeastward through the Mid-Atlantic states killed 22 people, caused $2.9 billion in damage and cut off electricity for 4 million people.

Derechos are rare in Vermont, but can happen. On average, Vermont can be expected to experience a derecho once every four years.

Perhaps the most notable derecho in modern times to affect our neck of the woods was in July, 1995, amid a record heat wave. (Derechos often get their a lot of their energy from extremely hot, humid air.)

There was actually a series of four derechos during one week across the northern United States in mid-July, 1995. The fourth one originated in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and traveled southeastward through Ontario, New York, and on into southern Vermont and New Hampshire, and the rest of southern New England.

When this derecho crossed the Adirondacks, it leveled large tracts of forest and killed five people. There was also lots of tree damage in Vermont, mostly south of Route 4.

It's hard to tell when another derecho will develop. Suffice it to say there's plenty of severe weather once again in the middle of the nation today. No word yet on whether any of this will evolve into another derecho.

It's Official: Lake Champlain Froze Over Friday

Satellite view of Lake Champlain taken Friday afternoon showing it
is completely iced over. Open water would be seen as areas of
bluish-black. Dark areas on the surrounding landscape in this
satellite are mostly areas of conifer trees.

The National Weather Service in South Burlington made it official yesterday, so I might as well today:

Lake Champlain froze over.

For the first time since February, 2015, ice entirely covered the lake Friday.

Satellite imagery taken on a crystal clear, cloudless afternoon Friday showed no signs of open water on the lake. Since late February when most of the lake froze there had still been small open spots in the ice well off the coast of Burlington.

As far as freeze overs go, this one is pretty late. Usually, if the lake does freeze entirely, it happens in late January or February.   In somewhat unreliable records dating back to 1816, I could only find four years in which the lake froze over as late or later than it did Friday.

By this time in March, the sun angle is higher, and the dark water near the edge of the ice does a better job of absorbing the heat. That melts the ice from the edges of the water, keeping open spots.

Plus the nights are a little shorter, so there's not as much time for ice to re-freeze after the sun goes down.

But we had three days of mid-January chill this past week. Thursday night and the hours before dawn Friday offered the perfect conditions for freezing over any open spots in the lake: Winds were near calm, and the temperature fell to near zero.

Since it's so late in the winter, don't count on the lake staying completely frozen for long. For all I know as I write this at 2 p.m. Saturday afternoon, open spots might have re-formed. After all, the sun is blazing down nicely, and temperatures even in the shade are near or above freezing.

On Sunday, strong winds will probably shift ice, allowing for the possibility of more open water. If that and above freezing readings Sunday and Monday afternoon don't open up a few spots, expected temperatures in the 50s late next week probably will.

All this is to say don't count on the Lake Champlain ice being safe everywhere. Don't follow the rather tongue-in-cheek suggestion of television station WCVB in Boston to drive across the Lake Champlain. You might plunge through a pressure crack or weak spot with your vehicle.

You'll see a lot of vehicles and people on the thicker ice over bays and such ice as people ice fish or skate.   That's probably safe in the short term, but will get more and more unsafe as the month goes on.

Lake Champlain does not completely freeze over as much as it once did. However, the data is skewed because there weren't satellites to detect open spots years ago. So before the satellite era, the lake might have been deemed frozen over from viewers on shore, but there still might have been spots of open waters.

Still, I suspect climate change is taking somewhat of a toll on lake ice, because Vermont winters are demonstratively warmer than they were decades ago.

In the 19 years since 2000, the lake has frozen over only eight times. Before, say, 1970, back to 1816, when people started  really monitoring the lake, it froze over most years. Again, though, some of those years might have had small spots of open water people missed.

It's not just Lake Champlain that has a lot of ice this year. As of Friday, the Great Lakes were about 80 percent ice covered. That's only the ninth time in the past 47 years there was that much ice on those lakes. Like on Lake Champlain, the Great Lakes probably have the peak amount of ice they're going to get this winter. .

Vermont Snowstorm On Track; Big News Is Midwest Icebox

The latest snowfal prediction map for the region. The blue
in northern New York and Vermont depicts less snow,
around 5 inhes, while most of central and southern Vermont
can expect six to nine inches. 

Good Tuesday to you all!

I'll get into what's up here in Vermont first. (Spoiler: Snow, then cold.) Then I'll address the frozen elephant in the room, which is that intense Midwest and Plains Arctic blast that's making headlines.

HERE IN VERMONT

Light snow was falling here and there across Vermont and surrounding areas this morning, and that state of affairs should continue the rest of the day. That's coming from a fading storm coming in from the west.

Forecasters are still very confident a developing storm along the East Coast will spread moderate snow across Vermont later this afternoon, tonight and early tomorrow morning.

This still looks like a mid-sized, run-of-the-mill snowfall for the Green Mountain State. Most of the state should get four to ten inches out of this, with the least up in the northwest corner and the most in the high elevations and in eastern Vermont.

Winter storm warnings are up for most of Vermont, and winter weather advisories are in effect for western portions of the state.

It will be a powdery snow, so there's no worries about trees and power lines getting weighed down by heavy sludge. You'll need extra time to make it home this evening on the roads, and you'll need to leave early tomorrow morning for work and school because the roads won't be in great shape then, either.

You know the drill. You've done it plenty of times this winter.

That Arctic blast from the Midwest will start to come in on Wednesday.  Temperatures will slowly fall in the afternoon, and we're stuck in the ice box through Saturday.

As I mentioned yesterday, this cold wave will certainly be quite unpleasant in Vermont, but not nearly as bad as out west. I'll get into that in a moment.

The last half of the week will feature overnight lows from 0 to 15 below, depending upon whether you're in Vermont's banana belts or cold hollows. Highs will range from 0 to 15 above through the period. Wind chills could sink to as low as 30 below, especially Thursday.

A dramatic warmup still looks to be in the cards starting Sunday -- highs in the 30s! The forecast is a bit vague and uncertain beyond that. From this vantage point, Vermont looks like it will be relatively mild early next week, with risks of some snow, mixed precipitation and/or rain.

MIDWEST ICEBOX TO SET SOME RECORDS, BUT....

This credit union in Minot, North Dakota was
exaggerating things a bit yesterday. A sensor
broke in the sign, causing the wrong reading.
Still it was 19 below with a 45 below wind chill
in Minot this morning. 

The widely advertised intense cold wave has blasted into the middle of the nation, and they are feeling the chill big time.

In those rare instances when temperatures get into the minus 20s here in the Champlain Valley of Vermont, I really fall into a mode of dread. We should feel fortunate. High temperatures - Highs! today in northern Minnesota and northeastern North Dakota will be in the minus 20s.

It'll get into the minus 40s tonight.

Couple that with wind chills in the minus 60s and you know people are hibernating up there.

It's true this is probably the Midwest's most intense cold snap in a generation. It already is, in fact. There have been record low tempeatures in several cities and there will be more. On Sunday the was an unofficial report of an actual temperature getting down to 57 below in Cotton, Minnesota, which is close to the statewide record low of 60 below in 1996.

Minneapolis got below zero very early this morning and probably won't get above zero again until Friday morning. Lows Thursday morning could flirt with 30 below in the Twin Cities. Chicago could get into the minus 20s.

This is likely the worst cold wave in the Midwest since 1996.

The warnings to take care against the chill and be safe are well-placed. But to put it in perspective, if you want to avoid the hype, this cold snap will fall well short of the most intense, worst cold waves in U.S. history.

Cold waves of this magnitude are increasingly rare as global warming takes hold. Past cold waves make this one seem like just a cool, breezy day.

Some examples courtesy of The Weather Channel, which largely cited weather historican Christopher Burt:

The year 1899 featured what was probably the worst cold wave in U.S. history. It was 61 below in Montana and 2 below in Tallahassee, Florida. The nation had 45 states at the time, and all of them fell below zero.

A snow ball fight in Tallahassee, Florida during
the history cold wave of 1899. 

It was 16 below in Louisiana, 39 below in Ohio and 47 below in Nebraska, which still stand as the coldest temperatures on record in those states. It was 9 below in Atlanta. Parts of the St John's River around Jacksonville, Florida froze over and people walked out on the ice.

Ice floes emptied out of the Mississippi River into the  Gulf of Mexico.

So yeah, this cold wave is a piece of cake.

This cold wave won't last all that long. By the weekend. Temperatures across the ice box region will be near or above normal.

Minneapolis is expecting a high of 38 on Saturday, which would be 66 degrees warmer than the expected low on Thurday morning.

Past cold waves have lasted far longer than this. In the winter of 1935-36, the temperature stayed continuously below zero for 41 in Langdon, North Dakota.

In 1976-1977 the temperature stayed continuously below freezing in Burlington, Vermont for 52 days.

So yeah this cold wave is bad, but it could be so much worse. That's, ahem, cold comfort I realize, but take what you can get.

English Drought Is Revealing Ancient Sites, Settlements

The narrow straight, green line in this recent aerial photo from Great
Britain is from an old Roman temporary camp. The more curvy green
lines are ancient natural waterways that no longer exist. 

It's been a strangely hot, dry summer in what is usually damp old England.

Droughts are bad news, of course, because of the crop failures, water shortages and other problems such dry weather creates.

One good thing to come out of the British drought is the discovery of archaeological sites.

The dry weather has turned farm fields across Great Britain brown. However, people flying over these rural areas can see patterns of green -- lines, circles, etc amid all the brown stubble.

These green lines are often ancient ditches, moats, culverts and drainage ditches. The soil stays moist in these former features, so the plants over them stay green as everything else around them dries out.

The green cirtcles in this drought-stricken British farm field are
ancient burial sites, probably from the Iron Age  

The BBC says the recent dry weather has unveiled lots of new finds, including Iron Age structures and a temporary Roman camp in southern Scotland.

The patterns in the drought-stricken landscape do take detective work.

Are the straight lines of green the remnants of a drainage ditch that was created five years ago and subsequently covered up? Or were these ditches created hundreds or even thousands of years ago? Archeologists are trained to sniff out such differences.  

Archeologists are continuing to fly over the countryside looking for more ancient patterns, but they'd better hurry. It will rain soon, and the fields will turn fully green again, once again hiding these ancient artifacts.

Rain was already moving into western Great Britain as of Sunday.

Chilly, Snowy Vermont Aprils: We've Been Down This Road Before

Heavy snow collapsed a partly leafed out tree onto a car in St
Albans, Vermont in late April, 2010

I, like many Vermonters, have been whining about the Arctic winds, the forecasts of snow (like the dusting to three inches in the forecast for later today and tonight.) and the seeming absense of spring.

But it's been worse than this in past Aprils, often much worse, and we've endured.

Actually, this April's cold and snow in Vermont has so far been concentrated south and west of us, and we haven't gotten the worst of it.  And it can be brutal during a Vermont April, let me tell ya.

I'll give a couple examples, some from David Ludlum's Vermont Weather Book, some from the National Weather Service and some from my weather geeky memories.

Here we go, in no particular order:

1807: A big snowstorm on April 1 dumped 30 inches of snow on Danville, leavingthe total depth of snow on the ground at 60 inches. Montpelier had nearly four feet of snow on the gronnd.

Heavy wet snow crushes a partly leafed out, bloom budding lilac
bush in my St. Albans, Vermont yard, late April, 2010. The bush recovered.

1975: A big storm that began on April 2 dumped two feet of snow on Enosburg Falls and 21 inches in Manchester.  April, 1975 turned out to be the fourth coldest on record in Burlington.

As proof that awful springs can have a nice and welcome turnaround, May 1975 was the second warmest on record at that time. (There has since been one more warmer May, in 2015.)

1911: More proof that a bad April can have a nice turnaround to spring, eventually. Subzero temperatures were pretty common in northern Vermont in early April, 1911.

That May turned to be among the hottest on record, and in July, Vermont had one of its most intense heat waves on record. The state record for the hottest temperature on record, 105 degrees in Vernon was established in July, 2011. So be careful what you wish for.

1874: Let's get back to Aprils that were much more terrible than this one so far. That year -1874 - there was a snowstorm every week of the month in Vermont. On April 30, 1874, Woodstock, Vermont got 10 inches of new storm. The snow total for the month  there was 49 inches.

1972: April in Vermont was like March that year. Burlington by far had its coldest April with an average temperature of just 35.6 degrees. It got down to just 2 degrees on April 7 that year. On that date, there was still 39 inches of snow on the ground in Peru, Vermont.

1983: Burlington received 15.6 inches of snow pretty late in the month - April 17. It was the city's largest April snowstorm on record.

By the way, if you're disappointed by snow in today's forecast, remember it pretty much always snows in Vermont during April. Burlington's records date back to the 1880s. I could only find two years - 1941 and 2005 - when there wasn't at least a trace of snow in the Queen City during April. The average snowfall for the month of April in the Champlain Valley is around four inches.

The snow total in that white April of 1983 was 21.3 inches. As recently as 2000, we had 19 inches of snow during the month of April. Back in 2010, after a very warm start to the month in which the leaves came out amid 80 degree temperatures,  as much as a foot of snow fell around St. Albans and other sections of northwestern Vermont. The snow accumulated on the leaves, causing a LOT of tree damage, as you can see in the photos within this post.

Three days after that late April, 2010 snowstorm in St. Albans, the temperature was back up to 80 degrees.

All this is proof that you just can't trust April if you want spring in Vermont.

Global Cooling? Bali Volcano Could (Temporarily) Reverse Global Warming

Mount Agung in Bali erupting this week. So far, the
eruptions have not been strong enough to have any
effect on global climate, but that could change. 

The Mount Agung volcano on the Indonesian island of Bali continues to barf ash as high as two and a half miles into the sky.

More than 100,000 people have been evacuated, tourists were stranded and Bali's airport was closed because all that ash in the air would wreck aircraft engines.

The wind shifted yesterday, allowing the ash to clear, flights to resume and tourists to leave. But the threat remains.

So far, the Mount Agung eruption is a rather local disaster, but it's possible it could eventually have worldwide effects. In short, it could cause global cooling. That is, if Mount Agung really blows its top.

Global warming is the big concern everywhere, of course, as increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, mostly from us humans burning fossil fuels, is raising the temperature. The three years ending 2016 were the hottest for the world on record, and 2017 is going to make a run at the top three hottest.

What Mount Agung does next will determine in large part how much warmer than normal the world's temperature will be for the next few years.

So far, Mount Agung's eruptions have not been nearly big enough to have any effect on the world climate. But if it really blows, which many scientists expect, the volcano could temporarily cool the Earth's climate.

We're not talking about a new Ice Age here. Still, global temperatures would slip if Mount Agung erupted violently, which is a strong possibility. Vox quoted climate researcher Zeke Hausfather this way:

"This projection, which is based on the historical relationship between volcanic eruptions and temperature, suggests than an Agung eruption would reduce global temperatures between 0.1 and 0.2 Celcius in (the) period from 2018 to 202, with temperatures mostly recovering back to where they otherwise would be by 2023"

A worldwide temperature drop of 0.2 degrees does not sound like much, but it would be at least vaguely noticeable.

Throughout history, volcanoes have caused temporary bouts of planetary cooling. The last time this was really noticeable was in 1991, when Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted, cooling the Earth by as much as 0.4 degrees Celcius in 1992 and 1993 before temperatures recovered in 1994.

This chart shows global temperature trends, rising due
to global warming. The blue dip is a projection of
the temporary cooling Mount Agung could cause
if it erupts violently. The dips in the middle of the
graph show the cooling effects of the eruptions of
El Chichon in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991. 

That cooling was likely enough to help make a couple winters unusually  harsh in parts of the Northern Hemisphere in 1992 to 1994. (Here in Vermont, we had record cold in February, 1993 and January, 1994, but it's hard to tease out to what extent, if any, Pinatubo had on those winters.)

More notably, in 1815, Mount Tambora erupted in a much more violent fashion than Pinatubo, killing 90,000 people.

This eruption poured so much stuff into the atmosphere that the world cooled a fair amount, contributing to the 1816 "Year Without A Summer in New England, crop failures and epidemics in Europe, and more crop failures in China and Tibet.

The 1816 Year Without a Summer here in Vermont produced frost every month of the year, and snow in June, drifting to up to 20 inches deep in Danville.

Even if Mount Agung erupts terribly, we won't get another 1816. But how much the world cools from an eruption, if it does at all, depends on a few factors. The strength of the eruption is one of them. A stronger eruption would eject more ash and sulpher dioxide high into the atmosphere.

Sulfer dioxide is the stuff that would contribute most to global cooling. Sulfer dioxide particles, if ejected into the stratosphere, would reflect sunlight (much more than ash, which falls back to Earth quite quickly) and cause the world to cool.

Some volcanic eruptions pour out more sulpher dioxide than others, so how much sulpher dioxide would be in a new Mount Agung eruption would determine how much the world cools. When El Chichon erupted in Mexico in 1982, the explosion wasn't nearly as big as the one that would come from Pinatubo a decade later.

But El Chichon emitted an enormous amount of sulpher dioxide, so the world temporarily cooled after that eruption.

The vivid sky colors in Edvard Munch's
"The Scream" might have been inspired
by brilliant sunsets caused by sulpher
dioxide swept through the worldwide
atmosphere by the eruption of
Krakatoa in 1883. 

The fact that Mount Agung is near the Equator would help spread sulpher dioxide particles to both the southern and northern hemispheres which would make the volcano more efficient at cooling the Earth than volcanoes further north or south.

Volcanoes that erupt closer to the poles aren't as good at spreading their emissions worldwide, so they have less effect on climate that equatorial volcanoes.

By the way, another side effect of lots of sulpher dioxide going into the upper atmosphere, besides global cooling, is spectacular sunsets and sunrises. The particles scatter the low-angled sun light, causing brilliant reds and oranges.

The famous painting "The Scream" by Edvard Munch, with its swirling red colors in the sky, might have been inspired by the aftermath of the Indonesian Krakatoa eruption in 1883, which also temporarily cooled the planet and helped cause striking red worldwide sunsets.

Regardless of what happens with Mount Agung, global warming is not revoked. The sulpher dioxide released by the volcano will fall back to earth within a few years, but the excess carbon dioxide we continue to pump into the atmosphere will stay put.

Once the volcanic material from Mount Agung dissipates, global warming will come roaring back.

No Bad Weather This Thanksgiving; But 1950 Great Appalachian Storm Shows How Bad It Can Get

Storm surge Southport, CT during the Great Appalachian
Storm of 1950.

As advertised, the weather across most of the nation this Thanksgiving is mercifully quiet. It can get pretty darn stormy this time of year, so we're lucky.

There have been extreme Thanksgiving weekend storms in the past that really gummed up the works.  I remember when I was a kid, a 1971 Thanksgiving storm dumped more than a foot of snow across much of the Northeast, including here in Vermont.

But the granddaddy of Thanksgiving weekend storms was the Great Appalachian Storm of 1950, which on this date that year was just getting its act together.

A strong Arctic cold front passed through the middle of the country on this date, brining temperatures to record lows in many cities, including Chicago.

A storm formed along the Arctic front, which happens quiet commonly. But this particular storm had all the ingredients to form one deadly, remarkable and scary storm. There was record cold on the west side of the front, and record warmth to the east. With extreme upper level support, it allowed the storm to attain extreme levels. We haven't seen anything like this since.

On the cold, west side of the storm, the problem was snow, and lots of it.

The temperature contrast was pretty intense. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania got 30.5 inches of snow as temperatures there held in the single digits. Just to the northeast in Buffalo, New York, it was in the 40s with no snow.

In that warm sector on the east side of the storm, the wind was incredibly intense. The weather set up was not too different than the one that created our severe wind storm in late October. But the 1950 set up was much more intense than this year's, and so were the winds.

Digging out from the Great Appalachian Storm of 1950

Winds gusted to 94 mph in New York City.  The peak gust in Newark, New Jersey was 108 mph. Concord, New Hampshire endured a gust to 110 mph.  Bear Mountain, New York reached 140 mph. Here in Vermont, gusts over 70 mph were widespread and common.

You can imagine how many trees and power lines fell across the Northeast. A million or so people had no electricity for days.

The intense winds caused a nasty storm surge along the East Coast which caused severe flooding. Ocean water breached a dike at LaGuardia airport, flooding runways.

The weather station in Bridgeport, Connecticut was inundated with five feet of water. In some areas of Long Island and Connecticut, coastal destruction was even worse than during the Great Hurricane of 1938.

In the end, the Great Appalachian Storm killed 160 people and caused the greatest damage of any United States storm up to that date.

Bet you're glad there's nothing like that in the forecast for this weekend.

California Storm: Not Worst-Case Scenario, But....

This road in Santa Clara, California gave way during
the most recent spate of heavy rain in the Golden State.

The latest California storm is tapering off in the Golden State today.

It proved to be not a worst case scenario but still one that caused incredible amounts of trouble.

Plus the California rain and snow nightmare isn't done yet.  There's more rain and more runoff coming hat can continue to cause havoc in the next few days.

As it is, there have been a few swift water rescues, and at least one water-strained levee was breached in the San Joaquin Valley, forcing the evacuation of about 500 residents. 

One thing that's being talked about, as always seems to be the case, is what, if anything global warming had to do with the California storms.

There is some chatter from the climate change denial community that says climate activists had claimed that California was in a forever drought and the climate scientists were saying a wet winter like Caliifornia is having was a thing of the past.

As much as I respect Joe Bastatdi's meteorology, he's mistaken to suggest that there was a widespread belief that the Califoria drought was permanent, that heavy rain would never return to California. Only a few irresponsible commenters and extremists believed that

In reality, no serious climate scientist has made such claims. While the overall science of climate change is settled, the specifics of how it might influence a given location is still hazy.

We know that climate change is likely to cause more extreme weather in most places around the world, very likely in California as well.

The general, though admittably not unanimous consensus is that California is in for longer, more intense droughts than in the past. But it might also be prone to more severe winter rain and snow blasts.

California did just have an extreme, long-lasting drought that appears to have ended this winter.  Now this winter is in the running to be the wettest on record, or at least close to it.

That pattern of drought to extreme rain is consistent with what climate scientists say is in store for California, but of course that's not guaranteed.

Who knows? The state could revert to really bad, long lasting drought once this winter rainy season has gone by,  

The Great Flood of 1862 in Sacramento. While California
has not experienced such a megaflood this year, some
scientists warn the state is overdue for such
an epie inundation 

It's also possible this wet winter is a foretaste of what could be in store for California.

It has happened before.

Every once, say, 200 or 300 years, California gets hit by huge rains that make this winter seem like child's play.

The last time this happened was in 1862, in which California's Central Valley, including present day Sacramento, turned into a lake perhaps 20 or miles wide and up to 300 miles long. 

If that were to happen again - and it could - we could lose thousands of lives and see tens of billions of dollars or more in damage in California.

As bad as it is in California right now, we're no where close to this cataclysmic scenario.

Remember, with or without climate change, underlying weather and extremes will always happen.  The question is, will climate change make persistent weather patterns that might have happened anyway more extreme?

For instance, in a hotter world, will the heat increase evaporation and prevent snow from accumulating in the mountains, making droughts worse?

Many of the recent storms in California were due in large part to atmospheric rivers, relatively narrow ribbons of super wet air that move up from the tropics and target specific areas of the West Coast like a fire hose.

Atmospheric rivers have always happened and always will. That's meteorology, not climate.

However, will these naturally occuring atmospheric rivers turn more intense as the climate warms? After all, hotter air can hold more moisture than cooler air, so will the added heat supercharge the atmospheric rivers, making them more destructive once they make landfall on the West Coast?

No matter what, climate change will probably make things worse in California, as it will almost everywhere else on Earth.

It is going to rain again in California in the next several days and weeks, probably heavily at times.

Over the next week, parts of northern California could see up to a half foot of additional rain on saturated soil.

That's not as bad as the storm we just had, but it's guaranteed to keep the flood and mudslide and landslide threat going.

Californians begged for rain to end their punishing drought and they sure as hell got it. Now, they want a break, right?

Sadly, Extreme Weather Just Killed A 600 Year Old Tree In New Jersey

This 600 year old oak tree in Basking Ridge, New Jersey
died this summer, in part because of extreme weather

There's been an ancient oak tree in Basking Ridge, New Jersey for as long as anyone can remember.

Judging from its size, experts estimated it was about 600 years old. George Washington is said to have rested under the then nearly 250 year old or so tree during the Revolutionary War.

The tree, however, finally died this summer amid some pretty bad weather.

A spate of extreme summer weather killed the tree. Like people, older trees are more likely to succumb to extremes and injuries than the spry young fellas and gals.

In Basking Ridge this July, there was two weeks worth of extreme 90 degree heat. It was one of the hottest stretches on record, and was accompanied by very little rain.

As the New York Times notes, trees compensate for such weather. According to The Times:

"(Arborist Rob) Gillies said the tree responded to the initial 'heat stress' by closing off the pores in the rings deep inside, behind the bark. 'These shut down, so it doesn't transpire,' he said. 'Then it was inundated' by almost 12 hours of heavy rain. 'The roots were soaking because it couldn't process the water,' he said."

In other words, if the heat wave weren't quite so intense, and had it ended in light to moderate rains, things might have gone OK. But the weather whiplash - heat and drought to deluge - was too much for this iconic oak.

People in Basking Ridge and in particular the Presbyterian church where the tree is are devastated by the death. When new of the tree's death broke, people who had grown up in Basking Ridge and moved away called the church and town officials, offering condolences.

The church is actually holding a community memorial service for the tree on November 6.

Crews have already removed dead branches from the tree that threaten historic gravestones and nearby old buildings. But the bulk of the tree will come down in the spring. The church will use the wood for an as yet unspecified use.

While some outlets were quick to blame climate change for the tree's death, it probably isn't that simple. True, the odds and frequency of having long torrid hot spells in New Jersey and elsewhere have increased. And extreme rainfall events have also gotten more frequent, and all this is likely due to climate change.

However, the tree was old, and eventually, a inevitable confluence of adverse weather that might have come with or without climate change  killed the tree. The tree had clearly been in decline for several years before it finally succumbed this year.

We'll never know if climate change caused its demise earlier than it would have.

New England's Worst Tornado On Record Struck On This Date In 1953

Worcester, County, Massachusett tornado, Jume 9, 1953  

Let's face it.

New England isn't exactly tornado alley.

Oh, sure we get tornadoes. Quite a few of them, in fact. On average, there's a handful every year.

Almost all of them are brief and small, and only cause relatively minor damage.

On this date in 1953 though, New England had a major and tragic exception to our relative lack of deadly tornadoes.

The Worcester County tornado killed 94 people, injured 1,000 or so people and damaged or destroyed a good 4,000 buildings.

It was a classic Midwestern style wedge shaped tornado, wide and powerful. It was as much as a mile wide and left scenes of destruction familiar to people now used to news video of entire neighborhoods leveled by this type of storm.

It estimated that under current tornado classifications, the Worcester County Tornado would have been a strong EF4 twister which would have packed winds of close to 200 mph.  

Debris from the Worcester Tornado was found as far east as Cape Cod and adjoining waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

Wrecked house in Worcester, Massachusetts after
New England's deadliest tornado on record, June 9, 1953  

The Worcester County tornado came a day after an even worse tornado in and near Flint, Michigan.  That tornado, which would have been an EF5 with winds of at least 250 mph, killed 116 people.

Another devastating tornado hit Waco, Texas earlier in 1953, smashing through the city's downtown during the afteroon rush hour and killing 114 people.

Interestingly, arguably New England's second worst tornado on record hit the Springfield, Monson and Brimfield areas of Massachusetts on June 1, 2011.

The year 2011 was also among the worst tornado years in American history. That was the year that mega-tornadoes destroyed large swaths of Tuscaloosa, Alabama and Joplin, Missouri, among many other cities.

Five Years Ago Today: More Than Two Feet Of Snow

Buried cars in Burlington, Vermont, March, 2011

It's going to turn out to be a springlike week in Vermont, unlike the same week five years ago as we were recovering from one of the deepest snowstorms on record.

Burlington received 25.8 inches of snow on March 6-7, enough to be the third greatest snowstorm on record.

The snow fell atop an already deep snow pack which led to destructive flooding later that spring when the snow melted and heavy rain arrived.

The flooding was bad along Vermont's rivers, and even worse along the shores of Lake Champlain, which had record flooding.

Snow clogged street in Burlington, Vermont, March, 2011

As if to demonstrate how extreme March can be, the very next year, 2012, brought a March that was by far the warmest on record. It featured a week during which daily high temperatures were in the upper 70s and low 80s, pretty close to July levels.

But in March, 2011, we were digging out, thinking that spring would never get there. But it did, after that flood disaster.

This post contains photos of what Burlington, Vermont looked like during and after that storm.

(Shudder)

Church Street, Burlington, Vermont, March 2011

El Reno, Oklahoma Is Eplcenter Of Ice Storm Disaster

Ice storm damage Saturday in El Reno, Oklahoma.
Photo from television station KOCO. 

When I think of weather disasters, El Reno, Oklahoma comes to mind for a 2013 epic record wide tornado that was among the widest, strangest and most unpredictable on record.

That tornado was a record 2.6 miles wide at its peak, and killed eight people traveling in vehicles caught up in the huge and abruptly expanding tornado. Three experienced storm chasers were among the dead from the twister.  

It was probably and EF5 -the strongest possible - packing winds of up to 295 mph.

But the storm was categorized as an EF3 because it fortunately stayed away from El Reno proper and stayed mostly over rural farmland. So there wasn't really that much damage. Tornadoes are categorized largely by the severity of local damage they cause.

A much worse disaster unfolded in El Reno the past couple of days. As I've been reporting, a wide area of northern Texas and much of Oklahoma has been experiencing a crippling ice storm the past couple of days.

Power lines coming down in an ice storm, El Reno, Oklahoma
on Saturday. Photo via Twitter @ChanceTColdiron and KOCO

El Reno appears to be the epicenter, with the thickest ice accumulations, over an inch in many areas around the community.

The damage pattern is the opposite of that famous 2013 tornado.

Out in rural areas, slammed in 2013, there's not that many trees. Which means the heavy weight of ice on trees is a minor factor. The ice (almost) harmlessly accumulated on fallow late November farm fields.

El Reno proper has a lot of trees and powerlines lining its streets and yards, typical of communities in the Plains and Midwest.

There were lots of branches and wires for the freezing rain to accumulate upon. Which means lots of trees and power lines to collapse under the weight of the ice.

On the very bright side, I have heard of no fatalities from the ice storm around El Reno.

Still, things got really bad in town. You can tell from this video:

Mexican Drought Makes Ghost Church Reappear

Ghost church reappears in a Mexican reservoir
as drought lowers water levels there.  

A drought has hit the state of Chiapas, Mexico and reservoirs have gotten low, low, low.

So low, that in one reservoir, a ghost church has emerged from the receding water.

According to The Independent, the Temple of Quechula was built in 1564 by Spanish colonists, who thought the area would become a major population center.

It didn't, and an outbreak of plague further reduced the population. The church never got that busy, and eventually, a dam was built in 1966 and the church disappeared beneath the new lake.

Now, local entrepreneurs are ferrying people out to the church for a look-see. It's pretty spooky looking, and it's amazing part of the structure is still around after being submerged like that for so long.

This isn't the first time the church has reappeared. In 2002, a drought made water so low that people could walk around the church and explore its rooms.

I'm sure the people of Chiapas are hoping the drought ends, but I guess the re-emergence of the church is one small bright spot to enjoy while waiting for the rains to return.

Vermont Spring Flood Threat? Well..... Maybe

In Vermont, the Burlington Free Press put out an Associated Press article last week discussing what might be a rising chances of spring floods in the Green Mountain State this spring.

Severe flooding on the Lamoille River near Cambridge, Vt.
after torrential thunderstorms and rapid snowmelt in April, 2011.  

The headline was "Vermont Snows Prompt Worries Of Spring Flooding"

That's true, but at this point, it seems that chances are spring flooding won't be extreme, unless some incredibly extreme weather comes into the picture in the next few weeks

It's true the snowpack has increased in recent weeks and rivers are very, very frozen, two factors that could contribute to floods.

However, I don't expect a big spring flood disaster like the state got in 2011 unless something unprecedented happens.

The Burlington Free Press/AP article did not say we would get a flood like 2011, but understandably the piece brought the idea up. People are still spooked by that disaster, and the even-worse Tropical Storm Irene floods three or four months later in 2011.

The spring of 2011 was a special case.  It really was a worst case scenario.

The late winter snow cover that year was among the deepest ever seen in Vermont. Many feet of snow covered the ground in the beginning of March, especially in the mountains.

Worse, that 2011 snow cover had an unusually high water content. That meant there was the potential for massive amount of water to be released when the spring thaws came.

Strong winds over a badly flooded Lake Champlain
send waves crashing onto a North Hero, Vermont
highway in April, 2011.  

And that's what happened. Still, the flooding wouldn't have been too bad if the spring of 2011 was relatively dry.  Instead, it was easily the wettest spring on record in Vermont.

Early on, in April, torrential rainstorms caused river, street and basement flooding.  A storm that caused the worst tornado outbreak in United States history in late April of that year sent record warmth and very uncommon, torrential thunderstorms  into Vermont, causing severe flooding in some rivers, especially in the Lamoille River Valley.

The huge volumes of water poured into Lake Champlain, and meanwhile, the torrential rains continued to pour down from the sky during May. The result was by far the worst flood on record in Lake Champlain.

The flood also lasted a long time, well into June, due to the repeateded heavy rain. Millions of dollars in damage hit homes, camps, roads and other properties near the lake in Vermont, New York and Quebec.

Needless to say, all those bad weather spells in spring, 2011 coming all at once is pretty much impossible to replicate.

So I don't expect anything nearly as bad in 2014 in Vermont or surrounding states.

Still, there are some things to watch for, which could cause some real flooding trouble as we head into the spring.

This Year: 

The biggest flood threat this year, at least in my mind, is ice jams. Some thaws in midwinter have left jumbles of broken ice piled up in some rivers, and those piles threaten to jam up again if higher water moves them.

Camps severely damaged by record flooding
along Lake Champlain in May, 2011.  

All the rivers have also re-frozen solidly in the face of February cold spells.

Far colder than normal weather this week will extend into March, so the river ice will continue thickening, spelling more and more potential for trouble once we get the spring thaw.

Thick ice chunks make more bigger, more solid ice jams than thin, breakable ice.

If we get ice jams, chances are they might form in fairly remote areas, so they won't be that much of a problem. So what if Farmer Bill's field goes under water for a couple days in late March?

But if the ice jams form near communities, we could have a real disaster, like the ice jam flood in Montpelier in 1991. Needless to say, the ice breakups in northern New England rivers are going to have to be watched carefully this spring.

In January, the snow pack in the mountains of northern New York, and in Vermont and New Hampshire were way, way below normal, which, had the trend continued would have greatly minimized the threat of spring flooding.

But the snow cover caught up in February and it's now near normal. The water content is pretty high in that snow, too, since last week's rainstorm largely soaked into the snow rather than melting most of it.

Still the amount of snow, and the amount of water in it, is much, much less than it was in 2011.

The longer we go into March without a good thaw, the greater the chance it will turn really warm later in the spring and melt the snow suddenly, which could cause some river flooding if we get a lot of rain.

The good news is this week, only light amounts of snow will add to the snowpack, so the potential water for floods won't increase markedly (Although there are some highly uncertain hints northern New England could get a pretty good sized snowstorm next week, which would definitely add to the snowpack)

Finally, there's frozen Lake Champlain. Water levels are a little above normal now in the lake, because of some winter rainstorms. The lake is mostly iced over, so water can't evaporate from the lake that much. Of course, evaporation only would have lowered water levels only a tiny bit.

Flood stage in the lake is 100 feet, and I think there's a pretty good chance the water in Lake Champlain will reach that height as the snow melts this spring. But that's still way different than 2011, when the water got up to 103 feet above sea level.

I can't imagine the lake remotely close to that height again this spring, unless the impossible happens and we get a lot more rain this spring than the record amounts in 2011.

The bottom line around Lake Champlain and surrounding areas:  Yeah, watch for spring flooding because there's about a normal chance that could happen. But don't panic over it. There's no reason to see signs of a watery apocalypse.

Elsewhere in the nation, places like the Upper Midwest, the Great Lakes and the rest of northern New England could be in for some flooding this spring, given deep snow cover in those areas.

As in Vermont, it depends on how much rain falls in the spring, and how fast it finally warms up.

Here's a video I took of the severe flooding on Lake Champlain, in Colchester, in May, 2011.