Arctic Siege Ends, Glorious Vermont "Warmth" But New Problems? Also California Deluge

As is my routine, I took the dogs out first thing when I got up before dawn this  morning. Saturday, when the wind chill was ridiculous, the dogs ran outside, did their business and raced back indoors. 

The shades of purple over the Northeast, including Vermont
indicate quite a bit of precipitation over the next seven days,
but will it be rain, snow, mix, other?

This morning, the temperature was a tropical 18 degrees above zero. The dogs luxuriously lingered outside and took plenty of time to play in the snow. I didn't mind. Eighteen degrees isn't exactly warm, but after what we've been through, it felt like a summer heat wave. 

Most weather stations in the Northeast, including Vermont had their coldest or second coldest two weeks centered around New Year's Day on record. 

Ten of the 12 days ending yesterday went below zero. The first week of January in Burlington, Vermont clocked in at a full 16 degrees colder than normal. 

That's all over. At least for now. We're going to have a warm week, but of course, there's complications to that. There always is around here in Vermont. Especially in the winter.  Not only are there complications and dangers here, but in California as well. The Golden State desperately needs rain. And they're going to get it. Except it will be too much too soon. More on California further down in this post. 

First, back to our home state of Vermont to take things day by day through the week. 

TODAY: It'll actually be rather snowy in the mid and high elevations of Vermont. Some places have already had a couple inches of new snow overnight, and those higher spots can expect another one to as much as five inches of fresh powder today. 

It looks like the Champlain Valley will largely miss out. Winds a few thousand feet overhead are screaming in from the southwest. That will encourage the Adirondack Mountains to block moisture, so places like Burlington and Middlebury might only get occasional light snow showers today. No biggie.

At least it'll be finally warm enough for salt to work on the roads. I figure mid to upper 20s will do it this afternoon. Which is blessedly normal for this time of year. 

TUESDAY: Pick of the week. Clouds and maybe some scattered morning snow showers giving way to some sun. Breezy but not that bad. Afternoon temperatures 25 to 32. It'll be your day to enjoy outdoor winter sports, as it'll be a perfect day for that. 

WEDNESDAY: Also pretty nice, but getting dicey at night. Increasing clouds, warmish, with highs of around 30 degrees. But an ugly mix of sleet, snow and freezing rain will move in overnight. It won't come down all  that hard, but enough to muck up the morning commute.

THURSDAY:  Major heat wave, compared to what we've seen. Temperatures will go way up into the 40s, and maybe touch 50 in the warmest spots in the afternoon. A bonafide January thaw. There will be some rain showers around, but beware: The ground is so cold after that Arctic siege that rain could still freeze on pavements. Roads might be slippery even after temperatures go well above freezing. Walking will be a chore on all this ice, too. 

So yeah, Thursday afternoon could be a full 70 degrees warmer than it was Sunday morning. Believe it or not, that's not the biggest temperature flip flop I've ever seen but it is impressive.  In January, 1994, Vermont had a spate in which record lows in the 28 to 40 below range were recorded, followed two days later by temperatures in the mid and upper 40s. 

FRIDAY: The thaw continues with more rain. At this point, I'd start to worry about ice jam flooding on some rivers. The thick early season ice could start to break up and cause problems. Street flooding in urban areas could be an issue, too, as snowbanks could block storm drains. Temperatures well into the 40s again. 

SATURDAY: Lots of uncertainties here, but it could be a very, very troublesome day. There are definite signs that a strong storm will go through with lots and lots of moisture with it. That would mean heavy precipitation. The question is, what kind? Either way, we're kind of screwed.

If the storm goes by to the west, up the St. Lawrence Valley, that means heavy rain and possibly flooding. Some computer models give us that scenario. Other models take the storm further east, giving us Vermotners a lot of mixed precipitation or snow, or something. It could get ugly.

SUNDAY: Turning colder again. There are signs that this will be the start of another Arctic blast, but this one very likely won't be as intense or nearly as long lasting as the one that just ended..

CALIFORNIA CAN'T CATCH A BREAK:

Californians, especially in the southern part of the state, have spent the winter so far just begging, begging for rain. As we've noted, wildfires lasted past Christmas during a winter season that should be rainy, rainy, rainy and damp. 

Heavy rains forecast in southern California today
and tomorrow could easily cause mud slides and debris
flows below hillsides that had recent large wildfires.
They could end up with damage like in this photo. 

Finally, the rains are starting in California today. What the state needs is a steady, light, soaking rain, maybe a quarter to a half inch a day every day for a few weeks at least.

Instead, what southern California is in for is a deluge. No doubt, this heavy rain will help the water situation. But remember, there were all those fires. There's huge burn scars. Vegetation is burned away. 

Southern California can expect two to four inches of rain in the lowlands, with up to seven inches of rain in the foothills and the mountains through Tuesday. That's more than enough to cause debris flows and mudslides as the rains wash over burned out areas.

Since the burn scars are huge, these debris and mud flows could be huge, too. Homeowners who barely managed to have their homes saved from wildfires over the past few months now face the prospect of having them destroyed by mudslides and debris flows Ugh. Stay tuned on this one 

California Drought: Things Are Better, But Not That Great

Last April 1, water managers tried to measure snow
in a high Sierra field, but came up empty. There should
be several feet of snow on the ground there
this time of year.  

Around the first of April last year, Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program, strolled out into an alpine meadow in the Sierra Nevada mountains to measure the snowpack.

There was no snow to measure. Just green grass and dust. The moment encapsulated the dire water shortages California was facing in a record drought. The Sierra snowpack was just 5 percent of normal about a year ago.

This week, Gehrke strolled out into that same Sierra alpine meadow. This time he happily trudged through deep snow.

He poked a measuring stick into the slush and powder, and discovered the snow was 58 inches deep, says the Los Angeles Times.

The snow was packed down tight in that field. It held the equivalent of 26 inches of rain. That's just a wee bit below normal, 97 percent of normal to be exact.

The same Sierra meadow as above on March 30 this
year had a welcome snow cover of 58 inches.  

Which means, in terms of drought, things have vastly improved in California, but the state has a long way to go to recover to normal levels of moisture in the snow, in the ground, in the reservoirs, in the aquifers.

Thanks to El Nino, that periodic warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean, a number of wet storms slammed into California over the winter.

But compared to other big El Nino years the amount of precipitation in California over the past several months was "Meh." The state was counting on El Nino to deliver epic rains and snows.

El Nino only delivered something close to average for a winter. Not enough to get California out of the hole.

In fact, southern California in particular missed out on the storms. San Diego had the least amount of winter precipitation of any El Nino year on record. As noted, El Nino years in California are normally quite wet.

Last year, when Gehrke had no snow to measure, California Gov. Jerry Brown declared there would have to be a 25 percent reduction in California water use for the year, a goal the state largely met.

With this year's good but not spectacular snow and rain, the governor left the restrictions in place.

Here's how Gehrke describes the current situation, as reported in the Los Angeles Times:

"We're barely average. It stops the downward slide.....Now we're clearly looking at next year, and there are no reliable indicators of what next year will bring."

There's the rub. El Nino is fading, and we don't know what the weather patterns will be like next winter in California.

The Golden State gets next to no rain from late spring, through summer into the autumn. That's normal.

The question is, will the dry times return to California next winter? Will they get more welcome storms, or will the pattern flip back to dry?

Moreover, will temperatures continue to run well above normal, as they have in California for the past few years. High temperatures prematurely melt the Sierra snowpack and increase evaporation, hastening water losses.

These trends can have long term consequences. Farmers in California, especially in the south, are scaling back, because we are possibly in a "new normal" that features a drier California, notes Yale Climate Connection.

Maybe farms will just move north, and farming will be a thing of the past in southern California. Time will tell.

Weather Calms, For Now. Faux "Polar Vortex" To Wane Quickly

That stubborn eastern United States cold front, kept moving only grudgingly by that cool air mass plunging southward instead of eastward in the Midwest, is finally getting ready to leave.

From @RobWhite11 on Twitter, this huge
tree fell in York, Maine Tuesday. Do
you think the car beneath it can be saved? 

With it will go the severe storms and the flooding that have plagued the Northeast for the past few days

As of early Wednesday morning, there was still a band of heavy rain through New England, and the eastern half of that region is still at risk for flooding through much of today.

Everybody else in the Northeast will start drying out today.

Severe weather was reported in the Northeast again yesterday and there was LOTS of flash flooding, especially in places like New Jersey, the New York metro area and southwestern New England.

Maine took the brunt of the severe storms, and weather experts will likely investigate today whether any tornadoes touched down. There were tornado warnings last evening in central Maine, and  a lot of wind damage was reported up that way.

And that Midwest cold snap that everybody is fighting about whether to call a "Polar Vortex" or not?  That is weakening fast under pressure from the warm July sun and a jet stream that is snapping back into a more normal summer pattern.

Here's how storms can cause false alarms. In this
photo I took during a thunderstorm in Milton, Vt
Tuesday, it looks like a funnel is forming. But it was
just a harmless scud cloud hanging from the base
of the thunderstorm. The storm was somewhat
strong but not severe and caused little if any damage.

There were some daily record lows and record low high temperatures in the Midwest yesterday, and maybe there will be some today in the central Plains and mid-Mississippi Valley today.

But it will warm up. Places that were autumn like early this week could go into the 90s by the weekend or early next week.

Here in Vermont, the "cold wave" isn't going to be that cold.

Temperatures over the next couple of days will be well in the 70s during the day, which is maybe five degrees cooler than average. We ALWAYS get occasional spells of weather like that in mid-summer.

By the weekend and next week, temperatures will be back up into the 80s.