Another Look At $1 Billion Damage Calgary Hail Storm

The morning after: A man stands amid hail drifts in front of a
Calgary home seriously damaged by hail/. Photo by
Jim Wells/Post Media

Yes, I understand Calgary, Canada is a long way away and I've already brought up in a previous post the massive hail storm and flash flood they had there this past Saturday.

I'm still wowed by the photos and videos that came out of that storm, so I'll share a couple here.  It's a    relatively slow weather news day anyway.

Videos are at the bottom of this post.

Damages from the storm could run to near  $1 billion dollars, that's billion with a "b"  So it was a huge disaster by any measure.

   The Calgary Sun says tens of thousands of homes were damaged in the storm. Pretty much every car not inside a garage in the northeastern part of the city was totaled.

"I would be very shocked if this isn't a top-five insurable cost event in the history of Canada," Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said. It's certainly the worst damage the city of Calgary has seen from a single storm.

I think the flooding was made worse by the hail. The ice, and leaves shredded by the hail, clogged catch basins.

Hail storms can be among the costliest weather disasters possible.   They cover bigger areas than a tornado would. If they hit an urban area, they might not destroy many buildings, but thousands of structures end up with damage, sometimes severe. Thousands of cars are usually wrecked, too.

Some examples of costly U.S. hail storms include a Phoenix, Arizona area hailstorm in 2010 that tcaused $2.8 billion in damage and a St. Louis area hail storm that cost $2.2 billion.

Hail and severe thunderstorms are common in and around Calgary but this was a whole new level.

More videos:

Here's a damage video taken the morning after the storm. Note how much hail is left on the ground surrounding the destroyed cars and heavily damaged houses:



A glimpse of the storm in progress:


A CBC News  summary of the storm:

Roller Coaster May Was Near "Average" But Not Really

A St. Albans, Vermont daffodil shivers in the snow on May 9. By
the end of the month  the same gardens were wilting in record heat

If you like changeable weather, May was surely your month here in Vermont.

The weather gave us a little bit of everything: Snow, record heat, subfreezing cold and severe weather.  No locusts that I'm are of, though.

This was the only May on record in Burlington with both measurable snow and 90 degree heat. As reported last week, that 95 degree reading on the 27th was the hottest temperature on record for the month of May, besting the old record by two degrees.

If you take all the extremes we had this month, you end up with a May with near normal temperatures.  Never mind that there were few actual days that were near normal.  Combine near record cold with record heat and you get something lukewarm, I guess.

In Burlington, the mean temperature for May, 2020 was 57.9 degrees, or 1.6 degrees above normal. Most other weather stations in northern Vermont, including Montpelier, St Johnsbury and Morrisville,  had a month that averaged out a little on the cool side.

If you ignore the Mother's Day weekend snows, the record heat near the end of the month and two severe weather outbreaks - which is a lot to ignore - the month overall was quite pleasant, with plenty of sunny days.

It was a dry May in Vermont, meaning garden irrigation got off
to an early start 

The inevitable result of all those sunny days, of course, is a dearth of precipitation. All of Vermont was solidly on the dry side in May.

That ranged from just a bit below normal in St. Johnsbury to more than a half inch below normal in precipitation elsewhere.

Both Burlington and Montpelier were on the dry side by nearly an inch, and Springfield's May precipitation was nearly an inch and a half below normal.

When it did rain in May, it was sometimes accompanied by dangerous weather. One round of severe weather prompted a tornado warning in southwestern Vermont on May 15. Though no tornadoes touched down in Vermont, there were aeveral reports of wind damage in the southern half of the state.

Another round of severe weather caused scattered damage throughout Vermont, but especially in the southwestern part of the state again.  I also saw some minor erosion damage around from torrential downpours. You can get that during dry months, even.

True to form, May closed with another wild shift in the weather with another cold shot. Snow was reported yesterday atop Mount Mansfield. Especially during light rain showers, mid-afternoon temperatures dipped into the 40s across northern Vermont at a time of day and year when it should have been around 70 degrees.

As June opened this morning, scattered frost iced up a few parts of Vermont and surrounding areas. It was 27 degrees in Saranac Lake, New York this morning and 32 degrees in Bennington. It was 39 degrees in Burlington, making it I believe the first time in several years that Burlington got under 40 degrees in June.

Top Vermont Weather Events Of The Decade 2010a

An iconic, old Vermont house destroyed by Tropicql Storm
Irene in 2011.

I'm a little late to the game here, given it's a week into the new year, but here's my list of Vermont's top 10 weather events of the decade that just ended at basically one minute before midnight, December 31, 2019.

I'm interested to see what people will think of my ranking.  My list is surely colored by personal experience, where I was living in that decade in northwestern Vermont, and what made an impression on me.

So, here are my nominees and what happened during those rather momentous wather events.

1. Tropical Storm Irene Flood Disaster, August 28-29, 2011

Hurricane Irene, not the worst hurricane ever as it came ashore at Cape Lookout, North Carolina with top winds of 85 mph.

But as it made its way northward the next day, with its huge slug of wet air into New England, it unleashed torrential downpours on an already sodden Vermont, unleashing the state's worst weather disaster since the Great Flood of 1927.

In a few places, it was as bad or worse than 1927. For instance, my late father who was still around in 2011 an a lifelong resident of West Rutland,  said Irene's flood crest was a little lower in town than in 1927, but the Otter Creek in nearby Center Rutland was higher than in 1927.

By the time in reached Vermont and New Hampshire, Irene was "downgraded" to a tropical storm.  However, tropical systems moving inland often create serious floods. That was the case here.

Irene killed six Vermonters, which is terrible, of course. Yet in these times, weather warnings from the National Weather Service and elsewhere are terrific. This storm was warned well in advance, with strongly worded statements from the NWS.  Which left us a silver lining: People got out of the way, and the death toll was so much less than the 84 deaths in Vermont the 1927 caused.

Farmstand owners and workers and volunteers frantically try to save
pumpkins and other merchanes amid rapidlyu rising
Mad River waters in Waitsfield, Vermont during Tropical
Storm Irene, Auguist 28, 2011.

The statistics, courtesy of Vermont Businss Magazine,  are staggering.  More than 500 miles of state highways and 200 state bridges were wrecked. It cost about 200 million to fix that damage

More than 2,000 municipal road segments were damaged, as were 280 town bridges and 960 culverts.   In the immediate aftermath of the storm, thirteen towns were without passable roads leading in and out of town.

The resilience of Vermonters shined bright during and immediately after the disaster. Volunteers arrived in droves to the hardest hit towns and mucked out muddy basements, cleaned houses, cleared debris, and offered food, money, supplies and moral support in droves.

By the time Vermont's all important fall foliage season arrived about six weeks after Irene, most roads were open, and much of the state looked like it was back to its old self, even as flood victims quietly continued trying to pick up the pieces.

One terrific example of this came on the Rachel Maddow show just under three weeks after Irene.  She showed what wiped-out Route 4 in Mendon looked like the immediate aftermath of Irene, and what a marvelous job construction crews did rebuilding it in less than three weeks.

2. Spring Flooding April-June, 2011

Lamoille River floodwaters cascade through trees near Fairfax,
Vermont during severe flooding in April, 2011.

The year 2011 was really the year of the flood in Vermont. A few months before Irene, in February and March, snow lay deep in Vermont, especially in higher elevations.

A  record large snowstorm in early March didn't help.  Water content in the snow was exceptionally high.

Minor flooding began in late March, and waxed and waned throughout the spring. On Vermont rivers, the worst flooding came on April 26-27 and on May 26 and 27.  Meanwhile, through all this, Lake Champlain reached record, destructive flood levels. More on that in a minute.

The first high flood, on April 26-27, was part of the same storm system that caused arguably the nation's worst tornado outbreak on record in the southeastern third of the nation.

Here, unseasonable waves of thunderstorms, some borderline severe, dumped heavy rain atop of snow that was still deep in the higher elevations. The melting was fast because of mild temperatures in the 50s and 60s. By early morning on April 27, the Lamoille River reached its fourth highest level on record, causing damaging floods along the river from above Johnson down through Milton.

The second wave of flooding struck as part of a severe weather outbreak on May 26-27.  The National Weather Service in South Burlington described the storms as a parade of mini-super cells that trecked across northern New York and through central and northern Vermont.

The storms prompted some tornado warnings in central Vermont, but none were known to have touched down. Baseball sized hail was reported at Duxbury,

Overnight on the 26th, the storms jelled into a train of storms that dumped up to seven inches of rain on central Vermont. This led to serious flooding, especially in the Winooski River Valley from Plainfield all the way to Lake Champlain.  Barre and Montpelier were especially hard hit, with numerous buildings damaged and roads wiped out.

Five to seven inches of rain fell on saturated soil in a band from around Barre to near St. Johnsbury, causing the extensive floods.

The series of floods inland over Vermont and New York during the spring of 2011 caused easily the worst flood on record for Lake Champlain.

At Burlington, Lake Champlain reached a record crest of 103.2 feet on May 6, 2011 easily exceeding the previous record of 102.1 feet in 1869.  

Camps destroyed by record Lake Champain flooding in May, 2011.

An estimated 500 Vermont homes were severely damaged by the flooding.  Extensive damage was reported in New York and especially southern Quebec.

In Quebec, the Richelieu River is the main outlet for Lake Champlain.  With the lake at record high levels, that river inevitably reached record high levels, too, flooding hundreds of homes.

Lake Champlain is a pretty big lake, so strong winds can stir up some big waves. Much of the destruction was caused by large, battering waves striking the shore.

The spring flooding helped set the stage for Irene a few months later.  The soil was still very soggy by June, and continued rains during the summer kept it that way. Then Irene's rains came.

Flood, Wind Storm October 31-November 1, 2019

Winooski River in Winooski, Vermont in high flood,
November 1, 2019.

This was probably Vermont's most destructive storm since Tropical Storm Irene.  After a very rainy October that saturated soils, a strong storm passed northeastward across the eastern Great Lakes into Quebec.  

This put Vermont into the warm side of the storm, the side in which deep tropical moisture rode northward from the Gulf of Mexico.

On Halloween night, the storm dumped three to five inches of rain across the northern half of Vermont in just a few hours, creating flash floods that damaged or destroyed dozens of culverts and road segments. Many homes were damaged as well.

In Burlington, 3.30 inches of rain fell as temperatures reached a record high of 71 degrees late in the evening of October 31.  Streets flooded, stalling cars. A landslide off Riverside Avenue nearly took a couple buildings with it.

Sections of two rivers in northern Vermont - the Lamoille and Missisquoi - reached record crests, flooding more buildings.

Behind the storm on November 1, strong west winds gusting as high as 65 mph cut power to?????  homes and caused damaged to roofs, other structures and trees.

3. March, 2017 Pi Day Storm 

Stuck cars amid near zero visibility during the Pi Day blizzard
of March 14, 2017.

An easy contender for one of the most intense snowstorms in Vermont history hit on March 14, 2017.

 The so-called Pi Day Storm (because it hit on Pi (3.14) dumped more than 30  inches of snow in parts of northwestern Vermont and New York.

Burlington's snow total reached 30.4 inches, which is the second deepest snowstorm on record and easily the biggest March snowstorm on record for the Queen City.

During the afternoon of March 14, snow fell at the rate of up to five inches per hour.  A foot of snow fell in Burlington in just over four hours. People who were foolhardy enough to go to work that morning pretty much could not drive home that late afternoon.

Thankfully, the storm was well-forecast by the National Weather Service, so most people had hunkered down at home to wait the storm out.

Also, the snow was relatively dry and powdery, so there were no issues with power lines and trees.

Even so, the western half of the state basically shut down during the blizzard.

4. May 2013 Flood and Snow, With More flooding June, July 2013

If you look  carefully you can see a swimming pool  beneath muddy
flash flood water on July 4, 2013. This storm was toward
the end of a nearly two-month siege of heavy rain
and flooding in Vermont. 

Vermont got locked into an incredibly wet pattern in mid-May of 2013, and it turned out to be something we couldn't shake until we got well into July.

The result was repeated flash floods and incredibly wet soil conditions that took a toll on farming throughout the state.

The rains came around the third week in May. Burlington received a whopping 7.47 inches of rain in the six days ending May 26. That's twice the normal amount for the entire month. Rainfall of that intensity was common in the northern half of the state during this period.

On May 21 through 23, the heavy rain came in the form of thunderstorms, some of which formed into a train of repeated storms over north-central Vermont.

The result was a swath of flash flood damage in northwestern Vermont, especially around Underhill and Cambridge.

On May 25, unusually cold air swept in and changed rain to snow at mid and high elevations, leading to some incredible snow totals for so late in the season. It was Memorial Day weekend, after all.

The summit of Whiteface Mountain, New York was buried beneath 30 inches of snow. In Vermont, Jay Peak had 18 inches, and the summit of Mount Mansfield had 13.2 inches.  At lower elevations in Vermont, Walden reported six inches,  Greensboro, 4.5 inches, Topsham, 3.5 inches and Troy, two inches.

Repeated flash flooding continued through June and into early July.  The floods would hit individual towns here and there through the period as the rest of the state endured continued soggy conditions.

In late June, a torrential thunderstorm flooded a several mile stretch of southbound Interstate 89 in Williston and Richmond and caused other property damage in northwestern Vermont.

Huntington was hit hard on July 3 On July 4, more flash flooding caused additional extensive damage, especially to local roads in an area centered around Jericho, Underhill and Richmond.

Total rainfall in June at Burlington amounted to 9.86 inches, which was just 0.06 inches shy of the wettest June on record. Essex Junction reporte 10.48 inches for the month.

5. July 4, 2012 Storms

Flooding in Burlington, Vermont after a very severe thunderstorm
on July 4, 2012.

Two severe storm complexes moved southeastward across parts of Vermont on the afternoon and evening of July 4 causing widespread wind damage and some flash flooding.

A third storm, a supercell, caused damage in northwestern New York that afternoon.

In Vermont, the first storm complex of the day formed near the Quebec border just north of Jay Peak and moved into the Northeast Kingdom during the mid-afternoon.

Strong straight line winds caused lots of tree damage throughout much of that area. Winds gusted to 70 mph in Walden.

The second, more serious storm complex formed southwest of Montreal and traveled southwestward down the Champlain Valley. The storms arrived just before planned fireworks festivities and other events, sending people scrambling for cover. Luckily, storm warnings were both timely and strongly worded, so no serious injuries were reported.

The storms did pack probably the strongest punch for a storm since the extreme severe storm outbreak and Colchester EF-2 tornado of 1983.  Winds hit 75 mph at Diamond Island, 70 mph in Colchester and 63 mph in Burlington.

There was widespread tree and power line damage. The storm produced intense rains. That caused flash flooding that damaged several buildings in and near downtown Burlington and stranded some cars. Nearly 1.4 inches of rain fell in Burlington in less than an hour.

6. December, 2014 Snow

A very wet, heavy and deep snowstorm struck Vermont in mid-December dumped six to 20 inches of snow that was basically the consistency of wet cement.  Damage was especially heavy in parts of Rutland County and the Champlain Valley.

The storm was considered by some the most destructive to Vermont's power lines since either Tropical Storm Irene or the Great Ice Storm of 1998.

7. Southwest Vermont Supercell, May, 2014

This is likely one of the most damaging single thunderstorm on record in Vermont (Outbreaks of many thunderstorms on the same day across Vermont were likely costlier).

The supercell thunderstorm developed in the southeastern Adirondacks around 2:30 p.m and barreled southeastward across Addison and Rutland counties before weakening in southeastern Vermont tha evening.

The storm produced a roughly three to four mile wide, 40 to 50 mile long stripe of hail and wind damage, with wind gusts to 74 mph near Bridport and very damaging hail, some golf ball sized or larger, especially in and around Rutland and Proctor.

8. Hot March, 2012

Vermont was affecting in what was very likely the nation's biggest March heat wave. The record heat extended from the northern Plains to the East Coast and on up into southeastern Canada.

Temperatures were as high as 84 in Montpelier, which tied the statewide record high for the month of March. It was 83  in Springfield and Union Village Dam. It wss 81 degrees up in the Northeast Kingdom in St. Johnsbury

Burlington had daily highs of 76. 79.80,81 and 81 on March 18-22. The month was a whopping 12.6 degrees above normal.

9. Hot February, 2017

Unprecedented springlike heat reached Vermont in late February, 2017 establishing some incredible new monthly records. On February 25, Burlington reached 72 degrees, beating the monthly record by a full nine degrees. (That record had been set just two days earlier.).  The 72 in both Burlington and Bennington established a new statewide record high for February.

10. Cold February, 2015

Winters have trended mild most of the time in Vermont over the past decade. However, a big exception was February, 2015.

Burlington ended the month 13.9 degrees colder than normal, enough to be the ?/coldest February on record. Sixteen of the 28 days were below zero.

Also Rans

There are other contenders for the top 10 weather events of the decade. Some that come to mind are the record hot summer of 2018, that killed six Vermonters. That's the one that maybe really should have been on the list.

Other biggies are the March 6-7 storm of 2011, which I briefly mentioned. It caused some flooding with heavy rain, which turned to heavy snow to the tune of two feet in northern Vermont.

Others include a severe storm outbreak in May, 2012 which included one tornado; dense smoke in Vermont on May 31, 2010 due to Quebec wildfires; Burlington's deepest single snowstorm, 33.1 inches as the decade opened on Jan 2-3, 2010; destructive ice jams and flooding, in January, 2018; severe thunderstorms and wind damage on July 8, 2014; and the supercells in northwestern Vermont and severe thunderstorms elsewhere on May 4, 2018.

Vermont December Was Two-Faced: Winter To Mild

Snow squalls lurk west of St. Albans, Vermont on December 18. The
first three weeks of the month were wintry in the state. The end of the
month, not so much.

After a very wintry November in Vermont, December brought more of the same, making us think we are going to have a long, long, hard winter.  Then, suddenly, right before Christmas, everything changed and winter ended, sort of, for now.

Before I get into my December in review, a program note: I'll get to a Vermont weather review for 2019, and the just-ended decade, within the coming days. It's New Year's Day. I'm starting slowly.

Through the first astronomical day of winter on December 21, Burlington was running about 2.8 degrees colder than normal.  Not really the coldest ever, but there was a noticeable chill for sure for the first three weeks of the month.

The weather then went rogue with the start of astronomical winter. Every day from December 22 through the end of the month got above freezing. In fact, Burlington was still just above freezing as the clock struck midnight and 2020 arrived overnight.

Elsewhere in Vermont, a cold start to December and the warm end made the month come out right around normal, temperature wise. Montpelier, St. Johnsbury and Springfield all ended up the month at between 0.2 and 0.6 degrees on the warm side.

In northern Vermont, no big storms hit until the closing days of December, when that wintry mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain passed through.  That left precipitation near to below normal there, with the driest region being in the Champlain Valley. Burlington ha only 1.59 inches of precipitation for the month, which was 0.79 inches below normal.

Southern Vermont was bookended by larger storms. On December 1, the two southern counties of Vermont were socked by more than a foot of snow.  Also, that mixed precipitation mess leading up to New Year's Eve was much more dramatic than in the north.

In the far south of Vermont, ice accumulated enough to cause a bit of damage to trees.  The storm down there was also punctuated by lightning and thunder.

2018 Was Another Active And Beautiful Weather Year In Vermont

The year 2018 got off to a harsh start in Vermont with storms, record cold
flipping to record heat and rain. The weather caused ice jams,
like this damaging one in Swanton. 

It took me awhile to get through, but here's what I regard as the big weather events of 2018. Take a look if you want to relive the fun we had watching the clouds and eveything else the weather had to throw at us.

BONUS: A YouTube video at the bottom of this post that shows some of my favorite weather event and cloud photos I took during 2018. Don't forget to scroll down for that.

1. Severe start to year: The winter was as almost as harsh as it could get in the week or so of 2018. A nor'easter on January 4 caused a damaging storm surge along the New England coast. Temperatres fell to the teens and 20s below zero, culminating in a record low of 20 below on January 7 in Burlington.

Jan. 12-13: Wild swings in temperatures and heavy rains caused serious flooding and ice jams in parts of Vermont. Just five days after that minus 20 record low, Burlington recorded a record high of 61 degrees.

Between one and two inches of rain with these warm temperatures rapidly melted snow and river ice, causing big ice jams, flooding parts of Johnson, Swanton and other towns. Eden reported 2.82 inches of rain.

The temperature crashed on January 13. Blizzard conditions hit on the morning of the 13th in northern Vermont, and ice jams worsened, particularly in Swanton.

February 21: One year after an unprecedented February heat wave brought temperatures to 70 and above to Vermont for the first time on record, there was a repeat in 2018. Burlington "only" reached 69 degrees, which would have been by far the warmest February day on record had it not been 72 degrees the year before.

But Montpelier set a February record of 70 degrees, and Bennington reached a whopping 77 degrees.

The Four Big March Nor'easters:

The first, at the very beginning of March, largely missed northern and central Vermont but created some whopping winds in southeastern New England. Gusts reached 83 mph in Little Compton, Rhode Island and 83 mph in East Falmouth, Mass.

No enjoying my back deck in March, 2018 as deep snows
blocked access to it. Four nor'easters blaasted
New England during March. 

The second nor'easter, on March 8, socked southern Vermont. Woodford, Vermont reported 36 inches and Searsburg clocked in with 32 inches.

There were reports of near 30 inch snow totals in western Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey. In the Massachusetts Berkshires, 18 inches of snow fell in three hours.

Northern Vermont only got about one to three inches of snow out of this.

The March 13-15 nor'easter really socked Vermont with heavy, wet snow. Eden, Stowe and Westfield, Vermont got 30 inches of snow. Two foot totals were reported in much of New England. An avalanche at Smuggler's Notch, Vermont injured five U.S. Army personnel who were training.

The fourth nor'easter on March 22-23 largely missed Vermont

April 4: Strong winds caused damage and widespread power 'failures in Ontario, Quebec, New York and Vermont. A northern New York man was killed when winds collapsed a sugar shack. Winds gusted to 63 mph at Burton Island, Vermont and 56 mph in Enosburg Falls.

Wet April: Burlington recorded 4.84 inches of precipitation in April, making it the sixth wettest April on record.

May 4 Severe weather

Roiling storm clouds near St. Albans, Vermont during a
May 4 severe weather outbreak. 

Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes affected parts of eastern New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. Vermont was under a tornado watch that day, but no confirmed tornadoes were reported in the Green Mountain State.

There were, however, some very severe thunderstorms.

Perhaps hardest hit was Shelburne, where many dozens of trees fell. At least one house sustained roof damage and blown out windows.

Other Vermont towns hit hrd were Brookfield, Pittsford, Ascutney, Thetford, Manchester, Danby and Colchester.

A tornado touched down just across the Connecticut River from Springfield, Vermont and traveled 35 miles through central New Hampshire. It was the longest tracked tornado in New Hampshire history.

June 19: More severe weather in New England, with tornadoes reported in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. A microburst destroyed a barn in Waitsfield, Vermont. Fallen trees also briefly blocked Interstate 89 in Waterbury and Interstate 91 in Orange County. In Burlington, 2.29 inches o rain fell.

June 30-July 5 Heat Wave

Intense heat enveloped much of the eastern United States and southeastern Canada, with often fatal results. At least six people died of the strong heat in Vermont, which made this heat wave the state's worst weather disaster since Hurricane Irene in 2011. The heat wave death toll in Quebec was at least 74.

Daytime highs were bad enough: Daily highs in Burlington starting on June 30 were 93, 96, 97, 93, 95, 95.

The nights were oppressively hot. The low temperature on July 2 was 80 degrees, the highest minimum temperature on any date in Burlington since record keeping began in the 1880s. The temperature failed to drop below 75 degrees from early in the morning of June 30 to early morning July 3. Heat index were near 90 at dawn.

Clouds that looked like they belonged on a tropical island
sit over the Adirondacks in July in this view from
South Burlington. Photo was taken on one of many
hot days in July, 2018. 

"Relief" from the heat wave wasn't substantial. The high temperture on July 6 was 85 degrees.

July 31: July ended up being the hottest month on record in Burlington, Vermont with a mean temperature of 76.0 degrees.

August 14: Despite record rains and frequent flooding across most of the eastern United States during the summer, rain repeatedly missed northern Vermont, resulting in an intensifying drought. Persistent heat contributed to the worsening situation.

August 31: For the second month in a row, Burlington had a record hot month. August was the hottest on record with a mean temperature of 74.5 degrees. Climatologists said Vermont also easily had its most humid summer on record, which increased the misery.

Sept 3-5. More record heat in Vermont, especially on Sept. 3 and 5. Record highs 0f 93 degrees were set on both September 3 and 5 in Burlington. Plattsburgh, New York had a record high of 94 degrees on September 3.

Also on September 3, the heat was accompanied by locally severe storms. Fallen trees blocked Interstate 91 and Route 5 in Coventry. A lot of trees blew over in Irasburg, and a baseball field dugout was destroyed.

September 10. Despite some local showers, drought worsened in northern Vermont. Moderate drought covered much of the northwestern part of the state.

September 17: Burlington reached a record high of 87 degrees. After one more day of mid-80s temperaures the next day, the first extended spell of autumnal weather arrived.

September 21: Strong winds buffeted Vermont, and a few strong thunderstorms moved through in the late evening. A devastating tornado hit during this storm around Ottawa, Canada.

October 9-10: One last late season heat wave. Burlington tied record highs of 80 and 82 degrees on October 9 and 10. After this, the long-lasting hot weather pattern finally flipped for good, ushering in generally cooler than normal conditions from mid-October to mid-December.

October 24: "Snoliage" fell across much of northern and central Vermont as a dusting to a few inches of snow decorated the remaining fall foliage. Derby, Vermont got 5.1 inches of snow; Orleans, Vermont reported 4.5 inches of snow. Randolph, New Hampshire reported 11 inches.

"Snoliage" in St. Albans, Vermont, Oct. 24, 2018

Nov. 16. First in a series of November snowstorms put a premature end to autumn cleanup in Vermont. In many places, the persistent cold that followed kept snowcover on the ground until a Christmastime thaw.

East Enosburg received 14 inches of new snow, a foot fell on St. Albans and Burlington collected 7.9 inches. November as a whole was the fifth snowiest at Burlington, with 19.5 inches.

Nov. 23: Burlington dropped to a record low of 1 below zero, the earliest subzero reading on record, with data going back to the 1880s.

Nov. 27-29: Another big snowstorm, tbis time wet and heavy. The storm cut power to tens of thousands of Vermonters. Storm totals included 24.1 inches in Rochester and 16.5 inches in Westfield.

Dec. 21-22: Near record warmth and heavy rains melted the snow cover from November, creating widespread flooding across Vermont. Numerous roads were blocked by high water.

Here's my photo album of 2018 weather.

 

Vermont In 2018: Mostly Hot, Kinda Wet

One of many hot, sunny days during July, 2018 in Burlington, Vermont
July and August were the hottest on record. The year 2018 as a whole
was tied for the sixth warmest on record. 

I'll take my first crack at looking back at the climate of 2018 here, but I'll go over the top Vermont 2018 weather events at a subsquent post soon.

It's the first day of 2019, I don't want to work too hard. Let's ease into things, right?

So I'll start with a skimming review of the weather data from Burlington, Vermont in 2018.  Statistics? I got statistics. Here we go:

Despite rather intense cold periods here and there, 2018 was a hot one.

The mean temperature for the entire year was 48.0 degrees, which is 2.2 degrees warmer than normal. It was enough to make the year tie for the 6th warmest on record, with data going back to the 1880s.

For comparison's sake, 2018 for the Earth as a whole looks like it will be fourth warmest on record.

This Vermont warmth from 2018 is part of a definite trend. There are actually 13 years in the Top 10 warmest, because some years had ties with other years.

Of the 13 years that are among Burlington Top 10 Warmest, nine of those have occurred since 1998.

The last time a year in Burlington was among the Top 10 Coldest was 1978.

The only cold months in 2018 were April and November, but neither were chilly enough to be in the Top 10 coldest. By contrast, July and August, 2018 were the hottest on record. February was the second hottest, May was the fourth hottest and September was second hottest.

The low temperature on July 2 in Burlington was 80 degrees, the warmest overnight low on record in Burlington.  February 21, 2018 was the second warmest February day on record. It would have beat the hottest February day on record by a whopping seven degrees had we not established an incredible February record a year earlier in 2017, when it got to 72 degrees.

Sixteen daily record highs were tied or broken in Burlngton during 2018, but only two daily record lows were tied or broken.

Precipitation for the year was much less exciting than the temperatures. Many weather stations in the eastern two thirds of the United States had their wettest year on record in 2018, or at least close to it.

Burlington bucked that trend. The Queen City recorded 39.27 inches of rain and melted snow in 2018. That makes the year 2.45 inches wetter than normal, but we were nowhere near the Top 10 list of wettest years. The wettest year, by the way, was 2011, with 50.92 inches of precipitation.

We did have some snow excitement. March was the sixth snowiest on record with 30.1 inches. November was fifth snowiest with 19.5 inches.

Good New On 2018 Tornadoes, But There's An Ominous Study About Them

The last known EF5 tornado - the most powerful possible - in the
United States was this twister in Moore, Oklahoma back in 2013.
The storm killed 24 people. The U.S. has gone more than five
years without an EF5 tornado, which is a very unusually
long time between such disasters. 

It looks like we are about to conclude an incredibly benign year for United States tornadoes this year.

Despite an uptick in tornado activity in the Northeast during 2018, the nation as a whole saw relatively few tornadoes, and this will quite possibly become the year with the fewest tornado deaths on record.

On top of that, we're just concluding a rare year in which there were no EF4 or EF5 tornadoes, which are the strongest possible. These tornadoes have winds of 166 mph or more.

Tornadoes with an EF4 rating will level well-constructed houses and toss cars around. An EF5 tornado would take those leveled houses and fling them away to oblivion.  Cars would be tossed 100 yards or more, and even extremely sturdy high rise buildings would be twisted and destroyed.

Needless to say, EF4 and EF5 tornadoes, and their nearly as strong companions EF3s, cause the most tornado deaths. There weren't many EF3's this year either. At last count, the nation had ten EF3 tornadoes.

There was one EF4 tornado in North America in 2018: An EF4 killed one person in Manitoba, Canada this past August. 

Still, 2018's lack of strong United States tornadoes contributed to the thankfully low death toll.

So far this year, only ten people have died in the United States in tornadoes. That would be the lowest toll since 1875, when they started really keeping track of such things. The current record for least tornado deaths is 12 in 1912, followed by 15 back in 1986, says the Weather Channel.

The nation has been in a bit of a tornado drought, and an especially thankful tornado death drought since 2012. The average number of deaths per year is 69. In 2018 and 2017 combined, there were only 52 deaths between the two years, says data from The Weather Channel.

The last year we had an average or above average number of tornado deaths was 2012, when 69 people died in twisters.

Of course, the famous tornado year of 2011 was tragically much worse. That year, 552 United States residents died in tornadoes, which is a tie with 1936 for the second-worse tornado year. Some 700 people died in 1925, mostly in just one super tornado.

Never mind science, we are overdue for a bad tornado year, unfortunately. It's just a matter of chance. You'll eventually get a bad roll of the dice.

This happened in the United States with hurricanes. We went eleven years from 2005 to 2016 without a major hurricane hitting the mainland U.S. Major being Category 3 or higher. That was an unprecedented. We'd never gone that long without a major hurricane.

Then came 2017 with Harvey and Irma, the first time since 1851 two Category 4 hurricanes hit the U.S. mainland. (And then we had Maria trashing Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.).  This year brought hurricanes Florence and Michael.

Tornado activity can turn on a dime like this too. This aspect has little if anything to do with global warming. But it does beg the question: Does climate change influence tornadoes?

INCREASED TORNADO POWER?

A researcher, Dr. James Elsner of Florida State University, says one measure of overall tornado power in the United States is increasing.

The tornado drought in recent years notwithstanding, there hasn't really been a trend up or down in strong and violent tornadoes over the past several decades

Dr. Jeff Masters wrote about this recently in the Category 6 blog in Weather Underground:

"Tornadoes have been coming in bigger bunches with individual tornadoes being wider and staying on the grojnd longer, resulting in an increase in the destructive power of U.S. tornadoes averaging 5.5 percent per year since 1994."

I have to say I got a lot of pushback when I retweeted something on this a couple weeks ago. Meteorologist and business consultant Mike Smith correctly pointed to data that shows there seems to be a general trend toward fewer strong tornadoes (EF3 or higher) since 1954. However, Eisner's research didn't really say there are more tornadoes, just that there are more long-tracked, strong tornadoes during large outbreaks. 

The number of violent tornadoes has trended downward in recent
decades, but there are worrisome exceptions to this trend

So it's kind of how you parse the data.

Anyway, Masters in Category 6 goes on:  

"Eisner's study found that a given tornado is more likely to be strong or violent at night,  between 10 p.m - 4 a.m. and during the coldest months, between November and April. This counterintuitive result could be because there are fewer tornadoes overall at night and in winter, but tornadoes that do develop at these times are more likely to be in environments of strong wind shear, thus allowing their destructive power to be higher on average."

The above situation describes conditions in which there is a lot of instability in the air, which climate scientists say should increase in a warming world. However, another key ingredient for tornadoes is wind shear, which is wind that changes direction and speed with height. Climate scientists say wind shear should decrease overall with global warming.

The decreased wind shear would be most pronounced in the warmer months and less so during colder times of the year, so this fits well with Eisner's research, and what's been going on in the real world in recent years.

Four or five years do NOT make a trend, but there have been fewer tornadoes during the warmer months lately. Then again, there's 2011, so it's hard to draw firm conclusions.

It's possible climate change could make winter tornado outbreaks worse, but this is too preliminary for me to definitely go there. I want to see more research.

For now, I'll just go for a little of that dreaded wishcasting:  Let's hope that 2019 continues with the tornado drought.

A Pecos Hank Storm Chasing Video Is Absolutely Beautiful

A still shot from Pecos Hank's new video "A Storm of Beauty"

I'm going to take a break today from discussiong snow and winter cold and highlight a new video by my favorite storm chaser, Pecos Hank. It's his best yet.  

In his Texas drawl, he explains in the new video called "A Storm Of Beauty" some of the most breathtaking aspects of big thunderstorms. He explains how and where to view them, and how to photograph them.  

For us Vermonters, who don't exactly live in Tornado Alley, Pecos (real name Hank Schyma) highlights some of the wonders of thunderstorms that we occasionally see and enjoy in Vermont, and pretty much anywhere else.

 These include shelf clouds, mammatus clouds, and lightning. (Though you should always try to view and photograph lightning from a safe place.)

What I've always loved about the Pecos Hank videos is he avoids the yelling and screaming and dangerous moves that bring the chasers too close or even inside the tornadoes. For Pecos, he pays attention to art.

Pecos Hank, like fellow storm chaser Mike Olbinski, appreciates the allure of thunderstorms, which frankly are my favorite kind of weather anyway.  Most of the "A Storm Of Beauty" footage is time lapse.

Pecos is especially talented at establishing the foreground scenes in his videos. He outdoes himself with this talent in "A Storm of Beauty."

Below the drama he's capturing in the skies, we have scenes like a well-kept farmhouse, or some old, abandoned trucks, or grain bins, or train tracks, with a train zooming by as lightning flashes overhead.

You can see how Pecos Hank embraces the Great Plains of the United States. He's really a part of that world, and it shows.   He is also an accomplished musician, and he feature his music in the video.

One spectacular example of his music in his song and especially video for "Drive Under The Moon." in which he uses some of his storm footage for a haunting and mysterious music video.  Also definitely worth the watch.  Seems like all his videos - both storm and music - are moody.

"A Storm of Beauty" ranks right up there as easily one of the best storm videos I've ever seen. Every weather geek, or photographer, or people who just love nature should definitely watch.

To be fair to Pecos Hank, I won't display the video in this post. You'll need to click directly on the link below, so he directly gets hits on his video and YouTube channel.

Click on this this blue sentence to see the video. It's totally, totally worth it. 

"Weak" Cold Front Turned Into A Thundery Vermont Powerhouse Thursday

A rainbow appeared as a line of surprisingly strong
rain and snow showers, some with lightning, approached
Alburgh,Vermont Thursday morning. 

Here in Vermont yesterday, we woke up to quite a benign weather forecast: A slight chance of a light morning shower as a lame pair of cold fronts arrived.

Temperatures would start out mild in the 40s and fall into the 30s Maybe there'd be a mountain snow flurry.  

The temperature trend forecast was spot on, but boy those showers had some oomph to them.

I was working outdoors along Lake Champlain in Alburgh when the "light showers" arrived. It didn't rain particularly hard, but those clouds were tall and dark and the gust front with this was impressive. And was that thunder I heard in the distance?

Sure was. Some of the showers with the cold front had lightning strikes within them. And it abruptly turned colder as the showers arrived, turning the precipitation to snow in some areas. So a few Vermonters - like those in Craftsbury Common - were treated to relatively rare thundersnow, which is always cool.

Why was this cold front so impressive? After all, it wasn't the strongest cold front ever, in terms of temperature change. It got colder after that and another weaker cold front went by Thursday, but it was nothing extreme.

This was another of those "shortwaves" I talked about in recent posts, fast moving, small storms that don't have a lot of moisture with them and don't spread rough weather or heavy rain or snow over wide areas. But some of these shortwaves can have a punch.

Every time a cold front or other weather system comes through, the air is rising, which encourages clouds and precipitation to form. But for a variety of reasons, sometimes this lift is stronger than usual. Such was the case on Thursday.

One area of this shortwave had stronger updrafts than is typical for this time of year.  Stronger updrafts can help showers grow into thunderstorms. And that relatively small area of stronger updrafts happened to pass right over northern Vermont.

Stronger updrafts mean stronger storms, so this one was able to trigger some rare Vermont November thunderstorms.

This was the second time this month that Vermont experience thunderstorms. There were some loud thunderstorms as a cold front passed on the the night of November 9-10. Two thundery days in one Vermont November is pretty rare.

Vermont's January Was Among The Warmest On Record

Data shows the eastern half of the nation was wamer
than normal in January, while parts of the west was
cold. If you click on the map and make it bigger and
easier to see, you'll note that the greatest departure
from normal of anywhere in the country was
in northwestern Vermont. 

We're starting February on a somewhat wintry note here in Vermont with a little snow falling, though  temperatureshough still on the mild side for mid-winter.

This somewhat wintry start to February is a contrast to January, which was certainly lacking in the winter department. Now we have the numbers to prove it.

The mean temperature in Burlington, Vermont for January was 29.7 degrees. That ties the mark for the third hottest January on record. Data goes back to the 1880s.

The month was a full 11 degrees warmer than normal in January, 2017.  Preliminary data suggests northwestern Vermont had the largest departure from normal of any place in the United States.

January, of course, is usually the deepest of winter months in Vermont, with long stretches that stay below freezing and frequent excursions at night to below zero levels at night.

Not this January. It never once got below zero during the month in January, and only nine days stayed below freezing. And not by much. Only two days stayed below 20 degrees for the full 24 hours. Also, nine days had above freezing readings for an overnight low temperature.

Snowfall was super wimpy in January, too, at least in low elevations like Burlington. Only 7.6 inches fell during the month against a normal of 21.1 inches for January.  However, we didn't quite make it into the Top 10 for least snowy Januaries.

Snow for the entire season is almost as sparse as the near record lows suffered last winter. So far, Burlington has received 28.6 inches of snow against a normal of 44.4 inches which should have fallen by now.

Elsewhere in Vermont, data from the National Weather Service in South Burlington showed most weather stations in the state, such as at Montpelier, St. Johnsbury and Springfield, averaged about seen to eight degrees warmer than normal - pretty damn substantial.

For those wondering about the lingering drought that is still waiting to potentially pounce back out at us in the spring, the news wasn't super. While Burlington's precipitation for the month was close to normal, most of the rest of the state show precipitation that waa about two thirds to three quarters of an inch below normal in January, 2017.

Vermont wasn't alone in its January warmth Many cities across the South and East had one of their mildest Januaries on record.  The northwestern part of the country - the upper half of the West Coast, and the northern Rockies, were on the cold side last month.

There were areas that were particularly hot, such as parts of the Gulf Coast states and New England. But, as I said, it appears that northwestern Vermont around Burlington took the national prize for warmth.   Preliminary data suggests no other part of the country was as far above mormal than the the northwestern corner of Vermont.

Of course, there's no telling what February will bring. But given a relatively warm December and a super warm January, this winter could be the second in a row that is among the top 10 warmest. It all depends on whether February continues the big warm streak.

Quite A Lightning Light Show Over Vermont Friday Evening; More Noisy Storms Today

The first storm of what proved to be a loud,
lightning filled evening in northern Vermont is seen
blossoming over Lake Champlain west of St. Albans.  

UPDATE 1:45 p.m Saturday.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has upped the chances of severe storms across northeastern New York and most of Vermont and New Hampshire today.

There's now giving it a slight risk, which is level two of five risk levels, with five being the highest risk.

Earlier today, the Storm Prediction Center was giving us Level 1, or marginal risk for isolated severe storms.

The atmosphere is more unstable than first thought, there was plenty of sun this morning to activate the atmosphere, and it's still fairly humid, so the chances of damaging winds and hail have increased.

There's a good chance they'll issue a severe thunderstorm watch for the rest of the afternoon in the North Country. That watch could  come at any minute now.

As always, not everybody will get a severe or damaging storm. But some towns will see more trees and power lines topple, much like last night. And some gardens and crops here and there might be damaged by hail.

As of 1:45 p.m. Saturday, weather radar was lit up like a Christmas tree with lots of showers and storms, some strong, over southern Quebec, ahead of an approaching cold front

The storms were heading toward the southeast, and would start to cross the International Border by 2:30 p.m,. or even possibly sooner.

The storms will move southeastward and be out of our hair in northern New England by tonight

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

As expected, a bunch of thunderstorms, a few strong to severe, got going over southern Quebec, northern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine Friday evening.

I don't know if any of you saw it, but it was quite the light show. I don't think I've seen that much nighttime lightning in ages.

This was a weird outbreak of storms.

Friday turned out to be the hottest day of the summer, reaching 94 degrees in Burlington. That certainly added a lot of energy to atmosphere, priming it for storms.

As noted yesterday, all we needed was a trigger, and that came in the form of a pool of cooler air aloft and a weak cold front sagging down from Quebec in the evening.

As always with photos in this blog thingy, click on the photos to make them bigger and easier to see.

Skies grew ominous over Georgia,
Vermont at sunset Friday.  

Things got off to a late start. A few rogue showers and storms started firing in the North Country around 4 p.m. but they would pop up and peter out without amounting to much.

Then, shortly before sunset, the influence of that system from Canada began nudging in. The initial storms I noticed were weird: Tall, skinny things that didn't look like much from a distance, but were pretty intense once you got inside them.

One of the first storms of the night fired up in far southern Quebec and moved into my area, St. Albans, Vermont shortly before sunset. As you can see in the first photo in this post, it was a thing of beauty over Lake Champlain.

Soon, other tall, skinny storms formed near this one. There were pockets of hail and strong winds as they passed through.

One of the storms, which downed some branches in the southern end of St. Albans, seemed to have a small, slowly rotating wall cloud-like structure on the storm's back side as it moved east of town.

I doubt this storm was anything near tornadic (I'm guessing the rotation was probably just different updrafts and downdrafts and outflows influencing the shape of this particular cloud) but it was certainly interesting to watch the clouds grow and rotate a bit

This storm, shortly after I saw that, triggered the first severe thunderstorm warning of the evening in central Vermont.

Soon larger clusters of storms formed near Ottawa and crossed into northern New York and Vermont

This small wall-cloud like cloud structure slowly
rotated on the tail end of a thunderstorm
Friday evening southeast of St Albans.
I want to be careful and note this wasn't a tornadic
type storm, but the cloud feature was i
interesting nontheless.   

Later, at one point, all of Vermont north of a Rutland to White River Junction line was under a severe thunderstorm warning.

 I don't know the last time I saw such an extensive area of Vermont  under a storm warning.

Damage reports were spotty, with trees and wires down in places like North and South Hero, on Lake Champlain, near Hardwick, Cambridge and Middlesex.

Some of the storms produced torrential downpours, too. Radar estimates show spot totals in excess of 1.5 inches north of Route 2 in Vermont.

The lightning, as noted, was something else, too!  

A second, more intense cluster of severe thunderstorms moved west to east across most of Massachusetts and much of Connecticut as we in northern Vermont had our light show.

There was tree and wire damage, and some other destruction in the Bay State from Interstate 91 in the west all the way to Cape Cod.

We're not done with the storms yet. Another cold front will trigger more thunderstorms across the North Country today.

A few of the storms, once again, will become strong to severe, but there will be only isolated spots that have any more damage. Many of us will get some thunderstorm drama today but nothing totally destructive

Today's round of storms will come through much earlier than Friday's By noon, they will be firing up and generally heading southeastward across New York and Vermont.

The storms should rapidly wind down by evening, and we will have a much quieter night in Vermont than last night.

Sunday looks gorgeous with sun, seasonably warm temperatures and fairly low humidity, but more storms are possible Monday. Stay tuned!

Well, Monday Was A Stormy Day, Wasn't It?

Sorm rolling into Georgia Vermont Monday evening. 

As expected, Monday was a stormy day across the Northeast.

Here in Vermont, it was probably the biggest severe weather outbreak of the year so far.

I counted at least 32 storm reports in Vermont and northeastern New York logged by the National Weather Service in South Burlington.

As usual, I tried to take a few photos of the storms. Click on them in this post to make them bigger and easier to see.

I was working inside most of the day, so these photos are of the final storms of the day in northwestern Vermont.

Menacing clouds over Georgia, Vermont Monday evening.  

The day got off to an early start. What basically became a supercell formed in northern New York,  then skirted the entire Vermont/Quebec border, downing trees on either side of the boundary, then went into far northern New Hampshire and western Maine.

There, a couple of tornado warnings were issued, and one twister actually touched down in far northern Maine, of all places. (I don't think that brief tornado was part of this supercell)

Overall the Storm Prediction Center logged at least 281 reports of damaging winds, mostly in the Northeast.

Other clusters of storms kept forming all day and into the evening in New York State, then moved across Vermont. Bradford, near the New Hampshire border, got some hailstones that were 2 inches in diameter, which is bigger than a golf ball.

The storm ending in St. Albans, Vermont Monday evening.  

Another storm dumped some large trees on police cruisers at the Burlington Police Department, damaging some of them.

Three people had to be rescued when their boat capsized during a storm on Lake Champlain near Shelburne, Vermont.

The storms are long gone now, and it's cooler and less humid and refreshing behind a cold front.

The rest of today will be gorgeous, with partly cloudy skies. Wednesday is going to be the winner of the week.

More warmth and humidity, and maybe some more thunderstorms, are due in Vermont and much of the rest of New England by the end of the week.

Pretty ski over Fairfield Swamp,
Vermont after Monday evening's storms.  

More Details On A Nation That Ran Hot And Cold In 2014

A pedestrian braves temperatures of minus 10 in
Indianapolis last January. The year 2014 proved to
be the coldest on record for Indianapolis.
Photo by Michael Conroy.  

Some cities ran record cold. Some cities ran record hot.

That's the takeaway from more data released today from the National Climatic Data Center, which offers more detaisl on a topsy turvy weather year of 2014.

In their analysis, they found three cities - Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, Indiana, and Dubuque, Iowa had endured their coldest year on record.

By contrast, 16 U.S. cities, all on or near the West Coast or in Alaska, had their hottest years on record.

This bit of data, while giving us little of consequence on the overall impact of global climate change, does give us a few interesting tidbits.

The data center looked at 180 cities across the United States that have long term weather records, going back many decades.  

Phoenix, Arizona is already torrid, but 2014 was
its hottest year on record, one of 16 such record hot
cities in the U.S. last year. Here, Steve Koyle sprays
and cools down Indu the elephant amid
116 degree heat last July. Photo by Matt York/AP  

Drilling down even deeper, I found a couple weird things.

The weirdest was right here in Vermont. Burlington and Montpelier, Vermont are separated by about 40 miles. Burlington had its 16th warmest year in 2014, while Montpelier had its 18th coldest.

My guess is part of this had to do with last winter's enormous chill. There were a lot of clear nights in the depth of Arctic cold snaps in January, February and March.

In Montpelier, winds were probably lighter at night during these cold waves, allowing temperatures to really crash downward.

Burlington is in the open Champlain Valley, so winds stirred at night, keeping temperatures up.

I also think that Burlington has had a fair amount of development over the past three or four decades, so there's a bit of a heat island effect, as buildings and asphalt absorb the sun's heat during the day,  making the local area hotter. Those buildings and all that pavement also retain some of the day's heat, so nighttimes are a little warmer, too.

The area around Montpelier has not had nearly as much development over the past century, so there's less of a heat island effect.

By the way, when measuring overall global warming, scientists with their fancy-schmacy computers can correct for local heat islands, where they exist, so that doesn't affect the measurement of the Earth's overall upward trend.

Or, scientists just cut out the worst heat island cities, and just use the zillions of other measuring sites and methods to take an accurate measure of the Earth's atmospheric temperature.

In terms of precipitation, only one American city set a record. Sioux City, Iowa had its wettest year on record with 41.37 inches of rain, more than a foot of water more than they usually get in a year.

No American city had its driest year on record. Even in drought-stricken California, some rain in December prevented any city there from reaching among the top 10 driest. Las Vegas did have its ninth driest year in 2014, but that's not SUCH a big deal.

By the way there was no precipitation disparity between the nearby cities of Burlington and Montpelier, Vermont like there was in temperature.

Burlington had its 25th wettest year on record in 2014 while Montpelier had its 28th wettest.

The climate report also showed that only eight tropical storms or hurricanes popped up in the Atlantic basin in 2014, the fewest since 1994. Only one hurricane, Arthur made landfall, that being in North Carolina in July.

The nation also had a below normal number of tornadoes in 2014, the third year in a row with fewer than the usual number of twisters.

National Climate Data Dump: 2014 Hot AND Cold, Lots of Extremes In U.S.

The latest data shows the southwestern United
States has the hottest year on record in 2014, while the
center part of the nation was chilly.  

At first glance, the climate data for the United States released today by the National Climatic Data Center seems almost like a yawner.  

The year 2014 was the 34th warmest and 40th wettest year out of the past 120 years for the United States.

But that middling climate data was the result of huge, sometimes unprecedented regional extremes of heat, cold, abrupt weather changes, big giant storms and unrelenting drought.

Look at the details and you get things like this:

--- Three states, California, Nevada and Arizona, had their hottest year on record. That the nation had a warmer than normal year means 2014 was the 18th consecutive warmer than normal year in the United States.

-- The middle of the country, from the Great Lakes down to Louisiana, had a very cold 2014. Seven states were in the Top 10 list of coldest years, but none made it into the Top 5. A warm December nationwide prevented any state from having a Top 5 coldest year.  Most of the eastern half of the nation was a little on the cool side, except for New England, which was just a touch on the warm side.

-- The Climatic Data Center has something called the U.S. Climate Extreme Index. It's a pretty complicated formula that measures how often and what percent of the nation has much above or below normal temperatures and precipitation, and how may other extremes there were.

A graph showing the the yearly percentage of extreme
weather events has shown an upward trend since the 1960s.  

In 2014, the Climate Extreme Index registered at 31 percent. There has been a trend upward since the 1960s on the extreme index.

The year 2014 turned out to be more "extreme" than 2013, but not as "extreme" as 2012, which was by far the most wild year in modern U.S. weather history.

-- There were eight weather disasters each costing at least $1 billion dollars in damage. These eight disasters claimed 53 lives.

More detailed information, and an analysis of 2014 global temperatures, will be released around mid-month.

The National Climatic Data Center information is expected to show that 2014, on a global basis, was the hottest on record. The Japan Meteorological Agency has already declared the past year as the hottest on record.