Glacier Collapse Sends Tourists Fleeing

A glacier collapses into water in Iceland recently, setting off a huge
wave that sent tourists scrambling for safety. Nobody was hurt. 

Tourists often go to Iceland to see the natural beauty of this Arctic, North Atlantic island. One of the draws are the beautiful glaciers which often calf off into the water.

One group of tourists recently almost got more than they bargained for. One spectacular thing to watch is when the end of a glacier breaks off and falls dramatically into the water. If you get too close, though, it can get dangerous.

Now, forgive me for giving you a salad of alphabetical letters here, but Icelandic locations are notoriously difficult to spell. The video you'll see below took place on March 31 in Jokulsarlon lagoon, part of the Breioamerkurjokull glacier.

Tourists watched as pieces of ice fell off the glacier. Then a big piece fell off, hitting the water and basically causing a localized tsunami.  Everybody had to run for their lives. Spoiler alert: Everybody got out of the way in time and nobody was hurt. The group of people had been previously briefed by tour guides on what to do if a wave approached.

By the way, this video isn't part of a climate change screed, though Iceland, like many parts of the Arctic are affected by global warming. The types of ice falls you'll see in the video are quite normal, with or without climate change.

The type of glacial calving, as it's called, is fairly common in Iceland this time of year, but the one in the video is larger and closer to shore than usual. I love the loud roar the event caused.

Here's the dramatic video:

Spring Can Be Fire Season; Huge Wildfire Disasters In South Korea, China

Wildfires burn this past week among buildings in northeastern South
Korea. Photo by Gangwon Lobo, Getty Images.

When I got up at my house in St. Albans, Vermont this morning, it was dank and damp out. There was a slushy coating of melting snow on the ground from last night. There was a bit of fog, and water dripped from the trees.

Not exactly the kind of weather that would be conducive to brush fires. But this is the time of year they can happen.  Mostly in areas where it is early spring, and things haven't really greened up yet.

Here in Vermont, it will generally be too damp over the next several days at least to worry much about brush fires.

Plus, this time of year has a reputation of being too soggy to allow for brush fires. But with last year's vegetation all dried out and things yet to green up, a few dry days would boost the risk. It wouldn't take long for things to dry out, either, if the weather cooperated.

This time of year is the peak season for brush fires in Vermont, believe it or not. We do get extended periods of damp weather in April - April showers bring May flowers after all. However, we also often have weather patterns in which very dry, sunny high pressure areas drift down from Canada and stall in our area. That creates several days in a row in which moisture can quickly evaporate.

The sun is strong, and there's no leaves on the trees to stop that drying sun to penetrate the forest floor. There was a fire risk the other during dry, windy weather, so it can happen.  It's just not in our immediate future.

There was absolutely no fire danger this morning in this brushy area behind
my St. Albans, Vermont house this morning, what with the slushy covering
from an overnight snow and a foggy, drizzly atmosphere. But this same
area can dry out within a couple days this time of year. Obviously, I do
my brush pile burns in the winter, when there's deep snow on the
ground, and not during fire-prone April.

It's happening elsewhere, though, as other areas of the Northern Hemisphere are waiting for the spring green up.

Springtime wildfires turned into a major disaster in South Korea this week, when strong winds and dry weather whipped up wildfires in that country's Gangwon Province. The fires destroyed hundreds of homes and killed at least two people. 

Springtime wild and brush fires do pop up almost yearly in this region of northeastern South Korea, but they normally stay in the mountains and don't get this big. This one was the worst in decades, hopscotching from town to town. This is the region that hosted the Winter Olympics last year, and the fires burned through neighborhoods and between high rise buildings and commercial tracts.

Most of the fires had been largely contained as of Friday.

An even worse wildfire this past week in China killed at least 30 people, most of them firefighters battling the blaze in Sichuan province at elevations as high as 12,000 feet. That elevation, and the extremely steep slopes where the fires were burning had to be challenging to say the least.

Back here in the United States, Vermont pretty much escaped having any wildfires this past week, although one was reported around Hartford, near White River Junction. The only regions of the state that could have had them were the Champlain and lower Connecticut River valleys. Other areas of the state were still snow covered, so no fires there. Yet. Wait until the snow melts.

There were forest and brush fires, though in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusetts. There were no injuries and damage to buildings was very minimal or nonexistent. But the fires prove you can get them around here this time of year.

As noted, there's no particularly dry weather in our immediate future. But if we have a stretch of warm, sunny weather late this month or in the first half of May, be careful. I can't imagine we'd get anything as bad locally as there was in South Korea, but these fires can cause some real damage.

No outdoor burning, please, and don't be an idiot and throw your cigarette butt out the car window.

Here's a video of the Korean fires:

Another Winter Throwback In Vermont; Much More Serious Threats Elsewhere in Nation

Sunshine tries to break through as snow falls in my St. Albans, Vermont
yard on Wednesday. It looks like a little more snow will fall tonight.

The never-ending winter of 2018-19 in Vermont marches on the best it can, despite the calendar saying we are well into spring and the strong sun trying with limited success to oust the cold.

Despite that bright sunshine, it was a cold Thursday. I cut short outdoor chores at my house in St. Albans, Vermont early last evening.

The sun felt nice enough when it was out, but the air was cold - only in the low to mid 30s. Winds gusting past 30 mph added a lot of chill to the air.

This morning, it's as cold as 8 degrees in Saranac Lake, New York, and Island Pond, Vermont. The "toasty" spots in the state were around 20 degrees. Not exactly spring-like, huh? 

And guess what? It's going to snow tonight!  Luckily, it won't be a big snowstorm at all by Vermont standards, or even April standards, but snow does frustrate this time of year. Ironically, the snow will be caused by a warm front.

Precipitation will break out as the warm front approaches late this afternoon and evening. Many of us will probably start off as rain. But the rain will initially be falling into dry air. That causes the air to cool, so the rain will change to snow.

Almost all of us, including the Champlain Valley banana belt, will get some snow out of this. The current thinking is we'll get an inch or so of slush in the valley, with one to three inches in north-central and northeastern Vermont tonight. A couple favored higher elevation places might clock in with four inches or so.

The good news is this is a warm front, after all, so we'll be left with a decent weekend. High temperatures will reach the 50s both Saturday and Sunday. That's not super warm for April, but it's OK, and we'll take it

The weather turns unsettled again next week. We're settling back into that pattern we had all winter, with storms crossing the country from the West Coast up to the Northeast, leaving trails of bad weather with them. 

Here in Vermont, that means rain, with some mountain snows each time a storm comes by. We'll have to watch this, as there's still a lot of snow in the mountains. If the rain is heavy, there could be some flood concerns. It's too early to tell on that one.

We know a slug of rain, with maybe a little mountain snow will come through Monday, with showers lingering into Tuesday. There's the potential for a relatively strong storm to pass through in about a week, so we'll see about that.

SEVERE WEATHER

Big area of the South, in yellow, under threat for severe weather Saturday.
A possibly even bigger area is possibly under the same threat Sunday. 

The increase in storminess across the nation, combined with the fact that it's spring, means the potential for severe weather and tornadoes is really ramping up now.

The first round of severe weather starts today in Texas, part of the storm system that will affect us here in Vermont by Monday.

A very big area of the nation, which includes much of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana Saturday, are in for large hail, damaging winds and a few tornadoes Saturday. 

An even bigger area encompassing a broad area along and a couple hundred miles either side of the central and southern Mississippi River is under the gun for this severe weather on Sunday.

Following that is a larger storm during the middle of next week in the middle of the nation. If that one shapes up like it appears it might, that would produce an even more intense round of severe weather and possible tornadoes in the southern Plains, and Mid-South next week.

After that, the parade of storms will probably continue with more threats of severe weather.

FLOODS INTENSIFY?

Especially the areas in pink, purple and red can expect heavy precipitation
over the next week or so. 

The northern and central Plains are still reeling from spring floods this year, and much of the Mississippi River, among many other major waterways are still in flood.

This upcoming parade of storms threatens to unleash another deluge on these areas. Up to two inches of precipitation are expected in just the next seven days in parts of the Plains. Then more storms will come after that.

Some of this might come down as snow, which further delays spring planting preparations. And that snow will melt, of course, leading to more water in already badly flooded areas.

Parts of the southern Mississippi Valley had heavy rain and flash flooding on Thursday. The storms will produce more heavy rain in that area over the next week or two.

I guess this is turning out to be the spring of our discontent.

Every Kind Of Weather Possible Hit On Wednesday. Here's Why

After a sunny start, cold storm clouds loomed over Lake
Champlain in Alburgh on Wednesday. 

The old saying "If you don't like the weather in Vermont, just wait a minute and it will change," was probably never more true than in was Wednesday.

Especially in northern Vermont. One minute it was sunny and mild, the next featured black clouds looming, as if there was a summer thunderstorm approaching.

Then a tremendous gust of wind, then some rain, maybe some sleet, then a burst of snow, then back to sunny and nice, then rinse and repeat.

You always want to dress for the weather, but on Wednesday, you would have needed to take your entire wardrobe closet with  you to pull that off.

What the hell happened?

A chaotic sky over St. Albans, Vermont Wednesday produced a day
with almost every kind of weather imaginable. 

It turns out early April is the perfect time of year to get weather that will mess with your head, like it did yesterday.

The sun angle is about as high as it is around Labor Day. That's why the day started off so pleasantly. The sun was able to warm the atmosphere, and temperatures really sprung upward during the morning.

Meanwhile, a few thousand feet overhead, the atmosphere still thinks it's winter.  It was cold up there yesterday, especially with a cold front passing through and a chunk of chilly air from Canada coming in at us.

When there is a big contrast between the warm surface and cold air thousands of feet above us, towering clouds can form. These develop into showers and thunderstorms, which happened yesterday. (There wasn't much in the way of lightning strikes yesterday, just a few, but you get what I mean.)

On top of all that, winds aloft tend to be much stronger in the winter than in the summer. Remember, it's still pretty much winter way overhead, so it was a screaming gale up there.

One of those storm clouds yesterday set off this springtime snow
squall in St. Albans, Vermont late Wednesday afternoon.

The showers that formed, and the downdrafts created by the those showers, were able to grab some of that high level wind and bring it to the surface. That's why it would get so windy in those passing showers.

The air was relatively dry, and much of the precipitation evaporated on its way down. That evaporation also helped bring wind to the surface.

Some of those gusts yesterday were impressive. I was at an exposed location on the shore of Lake Champlain in Alburgh Wednesday when one of those storms came through.

Winds gusted to an estimated 55 to 60 mph, downing some tree limbs and taking a few shingles off a couple houses. Winds gusted to 52 mph in Burlington. Many places in Vermont had gusts in the 45 to 55 mph range.

The cold air brought to the surface during these showers was enough so that the entire column of air was chilly enough so that snow aloft stayed snow all the way to the ground. We had a couple brief gusty snow squalls here in Franklin County, Vermont yesterday.

A confused weather day created dark clouds, blue sky, light and
shadows Wednesday evening in St. Albans, Vermont

Between the showers of rain and snow, the warm April sun would come back out, raising temperatures again, only to see them crash when the next windy storm came through. I swear we packed 12 months of weather into one afternoon.

Today won't be so changeable. High pressure has moved in. The air is very dry throughout the entire height of the atmosphere, so there won't be any towering clouds to promote more showers of either rain or snow.

However, the air remains chilly, especially aloft. The April sun will roil the atmosphere, creating updrafts.

What goes up must come down, so these updrafts will grab more of that strong wind from up above and bring it to the surface. It's so dry there won't be much in the way of clouds, but there will be some pretty strong wind gusts today, probably as high as 40 mph in spots. Not as bad as Wednesday, but still.

In the Champlain Valley and in the lower Connecticut River valley, almost all the snow is gone.  Last year's vegetation is brown and bone dry.  Humidities will be quite low today amid those gusty winds. That means there's a risk that any brush fires could get out of control pretty quickly.

If you were planning on setting your brush pile alight or doing any outdoor burning today, think again. Find another day to do it. One that's wetter and calmer.

This is also true across all of southern New England.

Precipitation will move in Friday afternoon to wet things down somewhat. At least this next little weather disturbance, with its cold rain and mountain wet snow, won't be as dynamic as Wednesday's conditions were. It won't be a Heinz 57 weather kind of day.

Some video of one of the storms rolling through Alburgh Wednesday.   Click the big screen icon on the lower left of each one to see a wider version of these. F

Spring Brings, Odd Snows, Fire Risks, Possibly Thunderstorms, Wind, You Name It

Springtime snow in North Carolina Tuesday.

It's spring, so here in Vermont and in much of the rest of the nation, it's the season to expect the unexpected more so than any time of year. I think we're now in the peak "anything goes" weather time of year, so there's all kinds of relatively odd things going on.  

For the most part, there's no super extreme weather to talk about for the next couple of days here or anywhere else in the East, but it sure is interesting for a weather geek like me.

There has been, or very soon will be, snow in unusual places for this time of year, a beautiful nor'easter, fire weather risks, some possible thunder, and some throwbacks to winter.

Many but not all of these are affecting us here in Vermont.

A NEAR-MISS NOR'EASTER

Yesterday, as an impressive nor'easter got going off the coast of North Carolina, the storm manufactured its own cold air pocket, which allowed rain to change to snow in many parts of North Carolina. Charlotte, North Carolina picked up 0.1 inches of snow, only the second time in the past 100 years they had measureable snow in April.

Some areas of the state picked up more than an inch and a half of snow. This is an area where trees are already leafing out, so it is unusual.

The nor'easter was beautiful, at least to us weather geeks. It did manage to stay offshore enough to minimize its impacts. That's a good thing because this was a strong one. Hurricane force winds were reported offshore. There were probably some intense waterspouts out there over the open ocean, and on satellite photos, the nor'easter developed a feature that looked like the eye of a hurricane.

Impressive nor'easter off the North Carolina coast yesterday.

Had this storm hugged the coast, there would have been a terrible snowstorm all the way up the East Coast into our neck of the woods, with flooding rains, and battering wind and storm surges in along the Northeast coast.

The nor'easter did produce gusty rains in eastern New England overnight and was dumping some snow in eastern Maine.

WIND AND FIRE

Behind this storm and ahead of a cold front coming in from the northwest, it's windy in the Northeast, or at least becoming so. The air is quite dry in much of the Mid-Atlantic states and in the southwestern half of New England.

This is the time of year when vegetation from last year is drying out and new green stuff hasn't really gotten going yet. The dry air and wind and the dead weeds and brush can easily go up in flames in this weather.

There's a big area including all of New Jersey, most of Pennsylvania, most of Maryland, parts of southwestern New York and other places that are under a Red Flag Warning today.

A Red Flag Warning means there's a big risk of fast moving, dangerous grass, brush or forest fires. It's kind of unusual to have this kind of a warning in this area, especially one that covers such a big area. But you do get these alerts in the Northeast from time to time around now. Red Flag Warnings are much more common in the West.

There have already been a lot of brush and forest fires in the area covered by the Red Flag Warning in recent days, so more are likely.

In parts of Vermont, particularly the Champlain Valley roughly south of Burlington and the Connecticut Valley floor south of White River Junction, the snow has melted. There is a risk of brush fires in these areas of the Green Mountain State, too, due to winds and dry air today.

THUNDERSTORMS? THEN WINTER AGAIN

A sign of spring is coming from the north today. But it being spring, so there's some wintry aspects of this, too.

That cold front coming in from the northwest is pretty starved for moisture, but does have a lot of energy with it. This looks like it will produce the first band of convective showers and possible thunderstorms of the warmer season in northern Vermont later today.

Convection is basically those towering clouds you see mostly in the summer that produce showers and thunderstorms.  They're mostly a creature of the warm season.

So, it's a sign of spring I suppose that we might get some convection today, especially near the border with Canada. There won't be anything severe, but there might be some rumbles of thunder, some gusty winds, maybe even a tiny hailstone or two in the stronger ones.

It will be windy anyway this afternoon, with gusts over 45 mph, but the stronger storms racing across northern New York and Vermont could produce gusts stronger than that.

As the cold front goes through, it will produce a few more scattered showers, and those will turn to snow in the mountains as it gets colder. Winter will kind of come back. Tomorrow will be windy and cold, with highs in many areas not getting out of the 30s. The coldest valleys of the Northeast Kingdom could reach the single digits above zero again tomorrow night.

A weather system coming through Friday and Friday night could put down a slushy light accumulation of snow in the mid and high elevations, though it will probably be cold, light rain in the valleys.

EARLY SPRING CANCELED

It also is beginning to appear that long range forecasts suggesting that spring would really blossom in our neck of the woods in April were wrong.  Many extended forecasts issued in late March indicated April would mostly be on the warmer than average side here and in much of the rest of the nation.

Although there will probably be some relatively pleasant days here and there, the trend will be unsettled and on the chilly side most days going forward through most of the month here in Vermont.

Blame, in part, this ridiculously resilient ridge in Alaska that has kept that state unusually warm for months. For some reason, these northward and incredibly persistent bulges in the jet stream have been forming repeatedly over the past decade in the eastern Pacific or in western North America for the past decades.

I know climate scientists are looking into this. Are these "ridiculously resilient ridges" at least partly a product of climate change or just chance? Some preliminary science suggests that climate change can create "stuck" weather patterns, so we shall see.

Incredibly Dramatic Videos Emerge Of Scary Deadly Iran Flash Flood

Another big disaster: Huge floods in Iran have claimed at least 45
lives. It looks like it's going to get worse, too.

Devastating and deadly flash flooding hit much of Iran in the past week, killing at least 45 people and injuring scores more.

Reuters reports that the worst of the flooding is in northern and southwestern Iran, especially around the city of Shiraz, and the oil-rich province of Khuzestan.

Vast neighborhoods were or are under water and cars were swept off highways and left in huge heaps of twisted metal by the rushing water.

Iran is used to disasters such as earthquakes, and floods do hit the nation from time to time. But this one is probably one for the record books.  The rain so far is said to be the worst in at least a decade, and more heavy rain is in the forecast over the next few days in the hardest hit region.

As always, it's tempting to blame this disaster on climate change, but the direct connection is hard to prove. It can be said that climate change does add water to the atmosphere, potentially making big rain storms bigger and increasing the chances of floods.

So in this case like many others, the latest Iranian disaster is consistent with climate change, although it would take people a lot smarter than me to figure out how direct the connection might or might not be.

The flash floods were immense and caught people off-guard. As you'll see in videos below, the sudden, massive rush of water swept many people away and screaming, horrified onlookers could do nothing about it as the flood waters were too dangerous and fast to try rescues.

Hundreds of cars, some of them occupied, raced along with the floodwaters to.....somewhere. The videos also showed people trapped on suddenly-formed islands amid the water.

Here's one terrifying video compilation of the disaster:



More dramatic video from the Iran Press News Agency:



Video from an Iranian television station shows some of the scope of the flooding, and a TV reporter waist deep in the water:



Finally, here's a dog being rescued from the flood. It would have drowned had not these guys come along in a boat:

March In Vermont Seemed Bad, But It Was Only Because Of Long Winter

Scene in my yard this morning definitely felt like an April Fool!
After a snowy March, the snow cover had finally mostly disappeared
by yesterday, only to return overnight to greet me this morning.
After a chilly day today, seasonable temperatures the
rest of the week should get rid of this inch of snow cover.

It's April Fool's Day! Which means its time to assess Vermont's weather in March.

The statistics show, at least from my perspective, that it wasn't as bad as I thought. 

In Burlington, it was essentially a normal March. Temperatures were just a tad cooler than normal, with a mean temperature of 30.4 degrees.

It was actually about 0.6 degrees cooler than average in the Queen City, but that's essentially run of the mill normal.

Precipitation - rain and melted snow - was pretty much spot on average at around 2.3 inches.

The month's snowfall, 15.2 inches, was only a little more than an inch above normal. Remember, though, that many areas of the state had much more snow than that during March.

I would have guessed the March statistics would have come out worse than they did. But it was psychological. Vermont did not have a particularly harsh winter, though snowfall was definitely above average.

What made us weary by March was the fact that winter came in early, sudden and fast in mid-November and there were few if any breaks to the relatively cold weather and nearly constant snows.

In March, the Champlain Valley benefitted at times from southerly winds that warmed that region more than other parts of Vermont.  Also, most of the time, deeper snow cover means chillier nights, dragging down the average temperature for the month.  Snow cover was definitely thicker away from the Champlain Valley, and that refrigerated other parts of the state.

For instance, Montpelier's March is coming in around three degrees chillier than average. St. Johnsbury had a shivery month, coming in a little more than four degrees colder than normal.

Looking ahead into April, we can definitely say winter is over. I know that sounds like an April Fool's Day joke, given that there's a coating of fresh snow on the ground in many places across northern Vermont this morning. (We had nearly an inch of new snow at my place in St. Albans last night.)

It was so wintry during this opening dawn of April that Vermont State Police reported that a number of cars slid off icy Interstate 89 between Montpelier and Richmond this morning.

There will probably be some wintry reminders this month, for sure. For instance, normal April snowfall in Burlington is 4.1 inches.

Still, we can finally say goodbye to any extended periods of wintry weather.

Unlike last April, when we had to endure frequent bursts of snow, ice and chill during the first three weeks of the month, forecasts for the first half of April, 2019 seem OK.

There's still what will be an intense nor'easter to watch around Tuesday night and Wednesday that still looks promisingly like it will completely miss Vermont.  If it were to hug the coast, we'd probably get another fairly significant wet snowstorm.  But so far, all the guidance has it much too far to the east to do us any harm. By that I mean, no snow.

While wintry surprises can certainly happen, it's still looking like temperatures during at least the first half of April will be near or above normal, which is nice.  Again, though things can change, I also don't see any blockbuster storms in the near future, so major flooding is pretty much out of the question for now.

However, there's still a lot of snow left in the mountains yet to melt, so we'll need to keep an eye on that.

Time to watch the landscape slowly wake up and turn greener this month after a long, long winter.