The "Slow Water" Movement

Tiny Examples of Water's Effects on the Landscape

2012-02-08T13:58:00.000-08:00

With all the thaws we've been having this winter in Vermont, there's been a lot more water movement than we usually see in winter. While I'd rather have snow to play in, I've found some very neat things happening along waterways as liquid water, ice, and air interact. One of the neatest things about flowing water is that it works the same way on many scales - from that of a trickle through sand to that of the Earth's largest rivers.

While walking along the river during a thaw, I encountered a small trickle of water flowing into a hole in the ice. I'd found a tiny moulin! "Real" moulins form on glaciers, when melting water pooling on their surface plunges straight down into a hole, right to the bottom of the glacier. Sometimes these plunge downward with such force they erode potholes in the ground underneath the glacier - a process that probably has influenced the terrain of Vermont as glaciers melted away during the end of the Ice Age(s).

My moulin was not nearly as impressive, as seen above (i should have remembered my food coloring!). In contrast, this photo below, from NASA, shows a picture of a moulin in Greenland as viewed from above.

A little bit downhill from where my moulin had formed, the little trickle reemerged, flowing on top of ice and bringing with it sediment.

Although it was a bit odd in that it was flowing on top of yet more ice (and even seems to enter another moulin in the background as it flows away from the camera), this little trickle had essentially formed a braided channel just like the ones that form when water emerges from within real glaciers:

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Later on my walk I found something else very neat. A 'delta' had formed where a small trickle of water flowed into the river during our late January rain. Because the soil was frozen beneath the sand, the water was not able to soak in and instead carried away some of the top layer of sand. When the trickle met the river the water slowed down and it deposited this delta. Later, the river level dropped as the rains ended, and the delta was left in this odd perched form:

In fact, this little delta is very similar to larger deltas that formed when rivers flowed into glacial Lake Vermont, the Champlain Sea, and other now-receded bodies of water that formed as the last Ice Age ended. East Middlebury may be built on one, and Bristol, just to our north, definitely is. While the New Haven River has since eroded a big gully right through it, you can still make it out on the topographic/shaded map below:

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Today, while walking along Lake Champlain in Burlington, I came across one of my favorite things - water flowing through sand. I diverted a bit of the water to watch it cut a little channel and took this video of 'backcutting' - another feature that can also occur in large rivers.

While backcutting can happen when people lower part of a river (for instance, if they dredge or channelize it), it can also happen in natural settings. A very prominent example is Niagara Falls, which is in fact eroding backwards very quickly (geologically speaking). Eventually the waterfall will probably erode backwards far enough to drain Lake Erie - but we won't get to see it unless we live 25,000 years.

Incidentally, I also added quite a few plants to iNaturalist while I explored the abandoned port along Lake Champlain's waterfront in Burlington. Last winter I visited the same area and used Project Noah to do the same - but I have come to prefer iNaturalist, which has many more useful features both for tracking occurrences by species, and for tracking observations by date or location. Not that Project Noah doesn't have its upsides and advantages - it's great for casual nature observation, but I am of the opinion that for more serious citizen science and professional scientists, iNaturalist offers more.

And finally, an unwelcome sort of flowing liquid - I noticed that a maple tree in my neighborhood actually had flowing sap dripping from some of its branches today. This is very early for the trees to be 'awake', and this weekend may see an arctic blast with temperatures right back to zero degrees, so the trees may be damaged. Hopefully I'm wrong. Either way, I made sure to eat the sapsickle - as they form evaporation concentrates the sap a bit, giving the ice formation a mild syrup taste.

On Minecraft Landscapes and the Crumbling Riverbank Outside

2012-02-06T09:34:00.000-08:00

Ever since I started playing Minecraft, and experimenting with how water flows within the in-game landscape, I've wondered about the possibilities of using Minecraft as a tool to demonstrate features found in the natural world. So, a while back I created a new world to test out some ideas, and turned on 'creative mode' (a cheat mode where it is possible to fly and create/destroy anything at whim). I spent a while creating explosives, blowing huge holes in the procedurally generated landscape, and dropping zombies in lava, but when the novelty of doing so wore off, I set off to see if I could use the Minecraft world to create and model realistic-looking waterways and terrain.

Because erosion does not happen naturally in Minecraft, I dug some stream channels in a dendritic watershed pattern and filled them with water. I was able to create some interesting looking waterways, but since the water will only flow seven squares horizontally for each square of vertical drop, much of the water in the flatter channels laid still and had to be filled with water manually.

The vegetation in Minecraft also does not change on its own when the landscape changes, so I manually created a little meadow area along this 'creek' as it flowed through the desert.

It is pretty, but doesn't tell us very much about how waterways or riparian zones work.

To understand why rivers and streams generated or created in Minecraft don't quite look 'right', we have to think about the factors that influence real waterways. Earth has been around for 5 billion years and has had water flowing over its surface for most of that time. As mountains and even continents form and are eroded away, water continually influences their shape. Except in extremely disturbed 'new' landscapes or places like sand dunes where water soaks immediately into the ground, water has carved paths from every bit of Earth's land to large-scale low points - usually the ocean, but sometimes large salt lakes or dry lakes in the middle of continents. Localized low areas tend to fill with water - forming lakes - and then over time these lakes fill in with sediment and become flat valleys. Lakes are generally found in situations such as recently-glaciated areas, very deep basins have not had time to fill in with sediment, rift zones, or places where humans or beavers have intentionally blocked water flow. Landscapes are covered by a very complex, fractal network of waterways, much like the veins and capillaries in humans, or the branches of trees, that offer a continuous path downhill from any point on the surface of the planet. You can demonstrate this by loading Google Earth, traveling downhill from any given point on the 3d landscape, and seeing where you end up. Then, load up 'Google Moon' and try the same thing. The moon has never experienced flowing water or other liquids and has not had actively uplifting mountains or volcanos for billions of years, and thus the terrain is VERY different! (Keep in mind - the Moon has not experienced more meteor impacts than the Earth, but without flowing water, wind, or tectonic forces craters just don't erode away there.)

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Minecraft's worlds are not formed over billions of years, but created in place; once this happens they do not usually change significantly unless the user changes them. Thus, instead of elaborate watersheds, Minecraft's worlds consist of many small basins and low spots, which do not fill with water or sediment.

On Earth, it is possible that a crack like the one above might form, but water from the lake nearby would soon break the small dirt wall separating it from the crack, and fill it with water. Over time, sediment eroding from the hillside to the left would fill the crack, and unless the crack were continually enlarging due to very active geologic processes, it would eventually fill in.

The point of Minecraft is to create a fun environment to manipulate and to build things on. It is more fun to have unrealistic but neat-looking mountains and waterfalls than to spend hours waiting for 'realistic' terrain to be generated.

(don't ask where that water is coming from, just appreciate that it is neat looking...)

Adding erosion and sediment deposition to Minecraft, or creating a world where trees grow, die, and evolve, might slow the game down far too much for it to be fun. This may change as computing power increases, but for now, it probably isn't feasible. I learned this when I created Buckthorn Bash, a very simple example game where trees and invasive species grow and compete for space. I think more could be done with Buckthorn Bash but even in its current extremely simple form the game runs quite slowly if a large number of plants are present. Minecraft does allow people with more programming ability than I to 'mod' (modify) the game quite extensively, and people are working on different sorts of 'mods' that add different effects, such as seasons, and the developers are also actively expanding the game (soon jungles and huge trees will be added!). I do expect to see much more realism and complexity in Minecraft and other virtual worlds as time goes on.

Today, while thinking about this blog post, I took my usual walk down to the river. I came across an interesting scene - one of the actively eroding banks of the river was thawing in the sun, and rocks, gravel, sand, and mud were periodically plummeting down the slope into the river.

The complexity of this seemingly insignificant event is incredible. The clay at the base of this bank was deposited when a lake filled the valley after the Ice Age; the sand above it was deposited as the river flowed into and began filling in the lake, and then the larger rocks were deposited after the lake drained away, as the river deposited cobbles just like those in the riverbed today. The cobbles have eroded down from the Green Mountains; they formed deep underground by geologic processes many millions of years ago. Some even contain remnants of layers that were deposited in an ancient sea an incredibly long time ago - layers that may have looked much like those in the riverbank today. The soil at the top of the bank was formed through the life and death and interactions of countless organisms since the lake receded 10,000 years ago. This little riverbank exists due to an incomprehensibly complex set of interactions between matter and energy spanning billions of years. I can't imagine, even with advances of technology far beyond what we have now, that we could ever simulate anything even close to the complexity and beauty found along the eroding banks of the Middlebury River.

It is for this reason that many people in my field dismiss virtual worlds like Minecraft as a useless distraction from the 'real world'. I think they are missing the point. The simplicity of the rules in a world like Minecraft, and the surprising complexity that DOES emerge even in this simplified world, highlight rather than detract from the much greater complexity and beauty of the natural world. For instance, just by dumping 'water' and 'lava' on top of each other sequentially within Minecraft, it is possible to generate a very realistic-looking "cinder cone" volcano. Imagine how many more factors, on so many more scales, there are to discover when you explore a real cinder cone!

The idea of such complexity arising from very simple rules has led to the study of complex systems. This mode of thinking originated with simulations a bit like Minecraft, only even simpler. The ability to create simplistic worlds with a fraction of the complexity of a riverbank in Vermont has given us insight into of the deepest aspects of seemingly chaotic phenomena such as water flow, weather, and even interactions in ecosystems. While we can't accurately model all elements of the real world outside, simple models are able to add to our awareness of how our vast and complicated world works. We just all need to remember to step away from our models from time to time and get outside, where we can experience our world firsthand.

And who knows. Maybe if we ever really understand the universe, we'll find that the base of all we see around us comes from an incredibly simple ruleset too - albeit one that has had many billions of years to work with.

In The Darkest Places: Life in a Torrance Ditch

2012-02-01T09:28:00.000-08:00

For most of the last week, I have been visiting family and friends in Torrance, a suburb of Los Angeles and the place I grew up.

I have a love-hate relationship with California, but my feelings about Torrance have always been more straightforward - there are some people there who are incredibly important to me, but Torrance itself I have always hated.

There isn't much gained in hating a place though, especially one I will end up visiting again, so during this visit I decided to "get curious", as one person has advised me; to try to understand WHY Torrance is how it is, how its past influences it, what wild plants and free water are hiding in the cracks and forgotten places of the present, and what is possible in the future. During my latest trip I found several interesting things, which I'll be writing about in a mini-series of blog posts called "In The Darkest Places"

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I've always struggled a bit with the concept of 'home'. When I was growing up, my house and immediate surroundings were 'home', but the city around me was not. Yet, to others close to me, Torrance was and is truly home, the only place they would ever want to live. It's taken me years to realize that they don't all secretly hate it and need to be 'rescued'. They instead are looking for something different than I am. Vermont is not for everyone either - it is very dark and can be brutally cold (or not cold enough to be fun) in winter, is muddy and messy in spring, the summers are buggy, humid, and sometimes very rainy, and 'stick season' in late fall is a trying time for everyone except deer hunters. The state is also predominantly rural, and those who want to live in a city (or suburban) environment will not like it here. But for me, it is everything I want, and right now the idea of moving back west seems absurd.

I've always envied the people who found 'home' where they were born; who started out in a place that was right for them and were able to cultivate a life-long relationship with one community and landscape. They strike me as incredibly lucky - like those who marry and happily spend their entire life with their first high school love. Still, there is also strength found in having to search many years for the right place (or person) before you find a good fit. It creates a different sort of connection to the land, but one I feel is no less strong.

The title "In The Darkest Places" comes from the Cloud Cult song "Everybody Here is a Cloud", which contains the lyrics "there's so much more to see in the darkest places". While Torrance is home to some, to me, and also to any plants trying to live on their own in an incredibly controlled and altered environment, it fits the bill: a dark place, but one with much more hiding in the cracks than I realized during the many years I lived there.

During my short week in Torrance, I took some time to explore, peek under things, follow water, and look closely at things I'd never seen before. This included poking around near a dirt-bottom ditch (the one pictured above) that passes under a power line along a road right-of-way in the northern part of the city.

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I had noticed this little area on Google Maps, including a little line of green. There had to be SOMETHING living here that wasn't planted, watered, and manicured, right?

What I found was a place of incredible potential, but a dismal present state. The area appears to have been left undeveloped in case Casimir Avenue is ever extended. It makes sense to keep an opening so vehicles can pass through in an emergency, but it does not make sense to leave the area as a weedy field and spray the weeds with pesticides constantly, which is what is happening (and, to my memory, has always happened here). It would be very easy to expand the little swale a bit, plant a few native rain garden plants, and use it to slow down and absorb rainwater entering it from the streets to the south. A tree or two, a few benches... people would probably start picking up their dogs' feces, and a couple of mugwort plants would overpower that smell anyway. There would still be plenty of space for passage by emergency vehicles. Water would be appreciated by people and plants instead of rushing straight into a drain.

A very small 'side channel' enters the ditch from the nursery nearby, and also holds some small potential:

I found one weedy native plant - a willow-herb (Epilobium ciliatum) plant that seems to have been able to produce seed before being sprayed ( see below). Nearby another possible native plant, a Chamaesyce, also clung to life.

As we wandered this little area on a Friday morning, several people passed by, walking, jogging, or walking dogs. This little place has the potential to be a community centerpiece - something Torrance sorely needs - as well as a pleasant place to sit and watch birds flit about in some sedges. Instead, it is dripping with Round-Up (or who knows what else), smells of dog pee, and is unnoticed by the community. The potential is tremendous, but the community seems to lack the will to take initiative with such things (prove me wrong!) and the city doesn't have the money nor the interest to do anything. These are hard economic times, and it shows in the wear, tear, and abandoned yards of my 'home town' (the uncared for yards also may hold a few surprise species, but I lack the heartlessness to poke around still-occupied homes of economically-troubled people for weeds). Still, I know this place is capable of more. Perhaps someday we will get there, but for now, we are left with this dusty little path and aging gutter.

As usual, I uploaded the results of my informal plant survey on iNaturalist. You can see what I found here. I'll have a few more posts about Torrance in the next few weeks.

"Snow Monster" Survival Update; Ice Rearranges River Flow

2012-01-25T12:40:00.000-08:00

So earlier this week I had a post about the coming thaw and whether or not my 'snow monster would survive. It was a long, drawn out thaw, and there isn't any snow to speak of in town anymore. Still, the snow monster was able to pull through and now exists as a sorry pile of icy snow outside my back door.

Temperatures are back around freezing, and some snow may occur tomorrow night, so the snow monster will be sticking around for now.

(more below)

Not surprisingly, the thaw caused the level of the Middlebury River to rise and moved around a lot of the ice that had formed over the last few cold spells.

In this area, ice stuck against a downed log has backed up and water is flowing down the new oxbow cut (to the right), pouring through the eroding area that will eventually break through and 'cut the oxbow' as mentioned in this previous post.

We'd speculated that this might happen, and it is part of the natural process that leads to the large bend being cut off, but right now the ground is frozen and erosion is minimal. The shift in the river will probably have to wait until spring.

Meanwhile, I've got another project in the works, that will address past and future nature hiding in what I see as a very harsh place (for some, at least) - a suburb of Los Angeles. More about that in the weeks to come.

Thaws and Tribulations of the Snow Monster (January Thaw)

2012-01-23T12:12:00.000-08:00

The January Thaw is a well-known weather event that occurs during most winters. After weeks or even months of almost entirely below freezing temperatures, the weather warms for a couple of days, usually around this time of year, it often rains, and all of the life in the forest (and the city) that has trouble getting through the winter gets a little breather. The phenomena is strong enough to show up as a blip on average temperature charts in some areas, a slight warming in the coldest part of the year. Last year the most significant January thaw happened at the start of the month. The year before, the thaw came as a howling gusty downpour from the south, temperatures in the 50s, and enough rain to form ice jams. Countless other January thaws are remembered in stories told by the old-timers. Whether you hate them (due to ruined snow or ice jams) or love them (if you hate the cold), these thaws are a part of Vermont's weather and hydrology.

This January's thaw, though, is a tricky one to a put a finger on. Why? We've already had several thaws, complete with rain and temperatures reaching above 40. We've also had several respectable if not unusual cold snaps, with temperatures below zero throughout the state. In fact, just two days ago I was up in Hyde Park and the temperature got down to -16. The Lamoille River was steaming as if it was boiling, because the contrast between flowing water and subzero temperatures was so great. Now? It's in the mid 30s, the temperature is still rising, and the radar (and my earlier walk by the river) tells me it will be raining soon. The rain will not be able to soak into the ground (despite the several thaws of this month, the ground is frozen deeply due to lack of snow cover, and will not thaw from this warm spell) and the river will undoubtedly rise. Although 36 hours of temperatures in the mid to upper 30s is not enough to melt all the ice formations around the river, the raising water will be enough to rip much of the ice loose and perhaps create some small ice jams. This storm isn't nearly as strong as the one two years ago, so I doubt any ice jams will be big enough to cause problems.

(above: the little Snow Monster, more on its fate to follow...)

So, is this the January Thaw? It's at the right time of the year, so I'm tempted to call it that, even though these thaws and subsequent ice-ups are all too familiar this year. The thaw will probably do what all the other thaws have done so far - remove the inch of snow outside (it's already half gone), create puddles, then turn to ice and maybe drop a bit of snow as colder air moves in. This time the transition to cold air won't be as fast, so it won't be as icy as last week, hopefully.

And this brings me to the snow monster. Last year was very snowy, and I spent a bit of time shoveling a walkway in Middlebury. Much of what I shoveled ended up on top of a pile of snow that had slid off the roof, leading to a huge mound of snow. Before the first big thaw, I gave it arms and eyes and declared it the Snow Monster. I wanted to see if the snow monster would survive this thaw. It did... barely:

Before

After

Despite all the snow last year, that snow monster had the misfortune of being created both next to a south-facing wall and under the eaves where warm rainwater dripped all over it. This year's snow monster is smaller than last year's snow monster, but it's in a shady area away from rooftop runoff. It was created in late December and has not completely melted during any of the other thaws, so I think it will survive this thaw too.

Then again, there is an off chance of a thunderstorm moving through tonight, and a warm downpour from a thunderstorm could be enough to do the snow monster in. We'll see!

What do you think? I'll post the results when temperatures drop below freezing again.

Voices For The Lake Exhibit at Burlington's Echo Museum

2012-01-20T09:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I met up with Bridget Butler, Conservation Education Specialist at the ECHO science center in Burlington, Vermont, to discuss Vermont watershed issues. She showed me a very neat exhibit at ECHO called Voices for the Lake, which allows museum visitors (and home Internet visitors) to use technology and art to share stories about Lake Champlain and its associated waterways.

(above: Bridget Butler shows off the Voices for the Lake exhibit)

Voices for the Lake is a neat exhibit, because it combines new technology, storytelling, and a sense of place (you can see the lake while you add your story).

You can enter stories at the above console, or draw and write on a small piece of paper and attach it manually to the exhibit. Then, you can peruse other stories and pictures at two large touchscreen exhibits, pictured below (or online, here):

The screens are large, the touchscreen responsive, the exhibit is colorful and fun, and I even like the little chairs. The only (admittedly tiny) downside was that the sun was blazing in through the windows and it was a bit hard to see the screens. But, being Vermont in the winter, sun of that intensity is very rare, and I can't really complain about it (in fact, two hours later a small snowstorm was moving in)!

The ECHO center is filled with neat stuff, including aquariums showing off Lake Champlain's fish, a touch tank of tidepool life (yes, Vermont is far from the ocean but the justification for this is that Lake Champlain was previously a bay in a post-ice age inland sea), frogs, and historic lake information.

There's an exhibit where I was able to make a silly fake weather report, and ideally download it later, though I was only able to figure out how to access a picture:

There is also a really neat water exhibit for kids (including myself) to play with:

I was wishing it included some sand, but that would probably lead to a huge mess. Still, I think it would be amazing if ECHO someday had a stream table for kids to play with (maybe accompanied by a staff member/volunteer to reduce the inevitable throwing of sand or other medium all over the place). Rumor has it the State of Vermont has some 'flumes' (similar to stream tables) used for demonstration purposes, but no one has invited me to come see them yet! (hint, hint...)

In any event, if you are in Burlington, it's definitely worth checking out the ECHO Center. It's right by the waterfront so you can also take a walk along the lake if it isn't too cold (it gets VERY cold and windy there sometimes!) If not, the Voices for the Lake website is worth checking out, and there are also Twitter and Facebook pages for the exhibit.

Say No to SOPA

2012-01-18T07:49:00.000-08:00

I had neat posts lined up about forcing Minecraft to create realistic waterways and volcanos, and about Vermont turning to a sheet of ice. However, I'm not going to post them today because Big Lawn would probably accuse me of copyright infringement and shut down this page.

Or, at least, they could, if this SOPA law passes (even if I didn't infringe on copyright. I don't support doing that).

It's a dumb law... almost as stupid as getting rid of stream gages that protect people from flash floods. The US government seems to be on a roll with bipartisan support of dumb laws lately. It's well past time to demand changes. Free speech is one of our fundamental rights, but still one we need to fight for, as those who would censor us try to chip away at them every day.

You should go here and sign this petition, or read this.

Later this week I'll be back to posting about the river or my new ideas about Minecraft water.

Icy Blast Hits New England; Some Stream Gages Spared Funding Cuts

2012-01-16T08:20:00.000-08:00

This winter has been a mostly mild one for Vermont so far, but over the weekend a blast of frigid air moved into the New England area, spreading low temperatures below zero (F) in nearly all of Vermont, and pushing single digit temperatures as far southwest as Boston.

I was in Boston for part of the weekend, and while temperatures weren't quite as cold as in Vermont, they felt in a sense colder. Icy air blasting through skyscrapers and over concrete have a special sort of cold to them, especially considering that this was a 'brown freeze' for Boston (there was no snow). The cold blast came right after a rainstorm, with temperatures dropping from 52F to 6F over two days, causing ice to form in unexpected places. As below-freezing temperatures seeped into the subway stations, residual rainwater found its way through ceiling cracks and created these bizarre, stalactite-like icicles.

Puddles froze over before they could dry up.

Driving back to Vermont, the roadcuts along the interstates were blanketed in dramatic ice formations that formed with the flash freeze. Unfortunately I was driving and was not able to take photos.

East Middlebury dropped below zero last night after a very cold weekend, and the Middlebury River was socked in with ice.

Ice formed anywhere water slowed down and touched a surface (or the air), leading to dramatic formations as side channels froze and were blocked. At times ice clogged up frozen up sections, leading water to flow over the ice layers.

In some places, the ice formations looked like solidified lava or the terraces of travertine springs, freezing on contact with the air and forming dramatic formations.

The imminent oxbow cut channel was mostly sealed by the ice, and had all but dried up.

Areas that were filled with floating frazil ice last week had frozen over completely.

Little 'frost flowers' formed on ice or near pockets of open water:

Also, a bit of positive news this weekend, as 18 stream gages in Vermont and northern New York that were slated for decommissioning were have been spared, for now. These stream gages are essential for obtaining sufficient warning to save lives during floods, and probably saved more than a few lives during Irene's floods. Sadly, stream gages in other parts of the country may still be decommissioned - part of a sickening move to sacrifice human lives and homes in an attempt to "shrink the government" by eradicating some of the cheapest and most effective government programs that save the most lives (see also attacks on climate forecasts used by farmers, and attempts to cut funding for hurricane, tsunami, and volcano forecasts and monitoring). This stuff is too stupid to make up... seriously. If you think sacrificing people to terrifying death by drowning or hurricane is somehow a 'necessary' step that will 'save' our country from debt or 'protect our freedoms' (to die in hurricanes and floods? I'll pass)... please see this chart and try to find the NWS or stream gages on it. Seriously.

As for Vermont's weather... well, expect more of the same. Wet snow, rain, and unseasonable thaws fluctuating with subzero temperatures and frigid mornings. This is pathetic weather for snow sports, but great weather for building up more ice formations along the river. The subzero temperatures above scant or nonexistent snowpack is also very hard on the roots of plants. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the winter plays out.

"Snow Drought" and the Arctic Oscillation

2012-01-11T07:33:00.000-08:00

(This post is a pseudo-repost from my weather blog, so the writing style is a bit different from most.)

Over the last two months, most of the United States and southern Canada have been locked into a “snow drought”, but for Vermont, at least, some significant snow may be on the way.

Snow has been hard to come by this winter in East Middlebury, and it seems that each time we pick up an inch or two, a thaw or rainstorm comes along and melts it. The seasonably cold temperatures and lack of snow have meant ice, and lots of it, and the icy rivers and streams seem out of place flowing through the snowless forests. The lack of snow cover has also led to solidly frozen ground, which could translate into a soggy mud season this spring.

Vermont is not alone in its lack of snow so far this winter. Most of the “lower 48” states have picked up little or no snow thus far this winter, a dramatic difference from last year. Oddly, southern New Mexico and western Texas have been snowy, which is great news for this drought stricken region. California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, on the other hand, are still nearly snow-free this winter. Most of California experiences little or no summer precipitation, and relies on Sierra snowmelt for summer water, so if significant snowfall does not occur in the next few months, the area will be in for a difficult summer.

Where is the snow? Parts of coastal Alaska have been absolutely buried in the stuff. The Austrian Alps have also been receiving dumpings of snow. This winter has played out as an almost exact opposite of last winter, and the reason may be a poorly-understood jet stream phenomena known as the Arctic Oscillation. As described in this blog post by meteorologist Jeff Masters, the “negative” phase of the Arctic Oscillation that occurred last year favored heavy snow in much of the United States, while the current “positive” phase favors warmer, dry conditions.

The lack of snow in Vermont has been hard on snow lovers, especially those who depend on snow sports to make a living. Not everyone is disappointed by the winter, however - a friend who works for CVPS has told me that the thus-far mild winter has been very helpful for finishing up repairs from Irene’s devastation last summer.

Snow is finally in the forecast for Vermont - perhaps 8 or 10 inches by the weekend. However, there is a chance of some rain and wintry mix on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, which could cut down on snow accumulation. As for California, some of the computer models have been indicating a switch to more stormy conditions by the end of the month, but this is a long way off. There is still a chance for my forecast of above average snow in Vermont to come true this winter, but at this point it is not looking likely. Maybe I should have stuck with looking at the woolly bears. As for California, always trust the oaks. Somehow they knew a dry year was coming.

Weatherswarm: Crowdsourced Weather Data

2012-01-09T08:43:00.000-08:00

It's a seasonably cold but snowless morning in Vermont, and the computer models can't decide if the weather this Thursday will feature a warm rain, an ice storm, a blizzard, a mix of all three, or cold and dry conditions. The computer models used to forecast weather are among the most powerful weather tools we have available to us, despite their fickle nature. They aren't the only thing that computer-based technology brings to the weather forecasting table, however. This week I've also been checking out a very different new weather tool, but one which could be the next big thing in weather data collection, or at least a vital aid to National Weather Service offices stricken by ridiculous funding cuts.

(above: the Middlebury River has plenty of ice, but it looks out of place without any snow. The weather forecast is indecisive as to whether or not we'll pick some up this week)

WeatherSwarm is a beta (still in development) version of what could become a huge distributed system of realtime amateur weather reporters. Think iNaturalist, but for weather. The site includes a map that displays realtime reports of weather phenomena - drawn from Twitter or entered directly into the site. Even more exciting, there is a mobile app in development that will allow weather to be reported directly from the field. It's currently being tested (I'm helping!) but hopefully will be available to the general public soon.

Like all crowdsourced citizen science data, what this data may lack in precision it could potentially make up for in quantity and timeliness. I don't see this as a replacement for trained weather spotters such as CoCoRaHS - but it could be an aid to these groups, and perhaps NWS would be interested in integrating this sort of technology into their reporting network. (I hope some day i am settled in a location and financially secure enough to set up a web-linked weather station and become an 'official' spotter...) With photographs and GPS data available through smartphones, many weather phenomena such as hail, blizzards, etc, could be reported by amateurs. I could also see a tie-in with hydrological events such as floods, droughts, and ice jams.

As one of my friends pointed out recently, many of us are carrying around little censors that can collect a phenomenal amount of data (he pointed out that his smartphone has a BAROMETER! Why does mine not?) As computers become smaller and smaller, and the technology spreads, there is the potential for roving vehicles such as supertanker ships, big rigs and USPS trucks to also act as localized, precise sensors of weather conditions and other important data (I am not the one who came up with this idea, and I don't remember where I heard it, but I think it was someone from the CMU Human-Computer Interface Institute, which is doing some reeeeallllly neat stuff with this technology). One of the reasons the computer models we use to forecast weather are at times unreliable is simply due to lack of data. As recording devices become more powerful, we can feed more data into the models, which in turn will provide better forecasts. At this point crowdsourced data isn't at the level it can be inputted into these models, but I think we will get there.

This is the future! Isn't it much more awesome than sitting in air-traffic?

The main challenge to crowdsourced data gathering like this is that the quality is directly proportional to the number of people using the service. In rural areas such as Vermont, there may not be very many people able or interested in participating, and in cities, where weather stations and reports are already abundant, the service is less necessary. I'm hoping this takes off. Give the website a try (be patient since it is new and still being developed) and when the app is ready for public use I'll post that info in this blog. Meanwhile, go try iNaturalist if you haven't already. I can't wait to get more plant distribution data on there to play with!

Dry Times in California

2012-01-06T09:42:00.000-08:00

Vermont has finally picked up a little bit of snow, but California is not faring as well. After a relatively wet start to fall in at least southern California, conditions have become extremely dry across the entire state.

(Above map from the Western Regional Climate Center)

Rainfall in southern California is rather fickle. In Los Angeles over the last 100 years, yearly precipitation (as measured from July 1 to June 30) has ranged from over 35 inches- around the average precipitation of Portland, Oregon... to around 4 inches - which is around the average precipitation of Las Vegas, Nevada. There have been Decembers in southern California with little or no precipitation. Besides, the few storms in the last 60 days (mostly in November) actually targeted extreme southern California, mostly missing the northern part of the state. Northern California, on the other hand, generally picks up more reliable winter precipitation and this shortage is rather extreme. The mountains of northern California - the Sierras, the Klamath Mountains, the Trinity Alps, and the Mount Shasta area - provide most of the drinking and irrigation water for the state. We've got a lot of catching up to do if we are to pick up average snowfall in these areas!

(National Weather Service image, as posted on Weather West blog)

The reason for the dry conditions in California as well as the lack of snow in much of the rest of the US appears to be a rare and extremely amplified jet stream position - the opposite of an equally extreme jet stream pattern that occurred last year and brought heavy snow to most of the same areas. As mentioned in this same article, last year's extreme jet stream layout may have been associated with a lack of Arctic sea ice - whereas this year's jet stream may be more related to activity associated with the sun - but no one knows for sure.

While some disasters, like hurricanes, tornados, and earthquakes, are clearly acts of nature, droughts are a bit more complex. People are ready to declare a drought any time there is not as much water as people want. In truth, California and the rest of the US Southwest suffer more from a water shortage than a drought. As seen in the graph in that link, the main issue is increasing demand, rather than decreasing supply. There is no evidence that average precipitation in California is decreasing - stories of springs drying up and creeks that used to flow and are now dry are very likely true, but are due to watershed degradation and groundwater extraction rather than decreases in precipitation. A few years back I talked to an expert on California's pre-colonization climate, and he told me something terrifying - California is actually experiencing much wetter weather than it has over the last few thousand years. There is evidence that extremely severe droughts have impacted the area in the last few thousand years. Were one of these droughts to occur today, life as we know it in California would end. At best, there would be very dramatic lifestyle changes, and at worst the area would descend into immediate depopulation, a dust-bowl type scenario and probably civil unrest or perhaps even war.

The worst case scenario hopefully won't happen in our lifetimes, but between natural climate variability and changes caused by humans (both to the climate and to watersheds), it makes sense to prepare now for times of sparsity ahead. If you live in the area, the single best thing you can do is GET RID OF YOUR LAWN and other thirsty plants in your landscaping. Lawns will probably vanish from most of California in the next couple of decades anyway. Removing some or all of your lawn and replacing it with native plants or non-invasive cacti and succulents will save an amazing amount of water. Or, replace your lawn with a vegetable garden. You'll need to water it more than native plants or cacti, but you will be taking a bit of the burden off of the food system that also requires a lot of water. Local parks can retain their lawns for sports and picnics, ideally using reclaimed water.

If you have a pool you don't use much, consider getting rid of it, or at least putting a cover on it. Evaporation from pools also wastes a lot of water. Instead, visit a community pool or go to the beach!

Also, don't forget that rain barrels and cisterns can collect a huge amount of water, even during dry winters. Depending on what your roof is made of the water may not be usable for irrigating food crops, but it's great for keeping other landscape plants alive.

And, hope for the best - a soggy, snowy remainder of the winter! There is some evidence that the persistent climate pattern of the past few months may be changing, which could bring more precipitation to California (and possibly extreme cold to Vermont) after the next 10 days or so. But, long range forecasts are iffy, and it may not happen. We'll see.

Frazil Ice on a Frigid Day

2012-01-04T09:59:00.000-08:00

Winter has finally come to Vermont. There isn't a lot of snow in East Middlebury, but temperatures have plunged. Last night it was in the single digits. Plummeting temperatures have frozen many waterways, but fast moving, clean water does not freeze even if cooled below its freezing point. The Middlebury River has been freezing on its edges and in slow spots, but there is still lots of open water in places.

When temperatures are very cold, but water is moving too much to freeze normally, frazil ice formation can occur. Frazil ice is a mass of ice crystals, resembling slush, that often forms in fast-moving water, especially downstream from rapids and waterfalls that splash mist and water into the frigid air where it can freeze. It then falls back into the river and moves along, creating an effect that resembles a watery 'slushie'.

In extreme situations, as found at the base of Yosemite Falls in the mountains of California, frazil ice can accumulate in huge amounts. It can shift the course of rivers and destroy human-created structures as it accumulates and freezes to any stationary surface. There isn't much risk of frazil ice related flooding in the Middlebury River right now because the water level is quite low, but it does lead to some fascinating formations and has a definite influence on the way the river moves through its channel.

Frazil ice forms in fast-moving waters at temperatures below around 20 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit - both of which are often present along the Middlebury River in the winter. The lack of snowfall this year also makes the frazil ice easy to observe (snow can also fall into water and create formations similar to frazil ice). As time passes, some of the frazil ice flowing by downed trees and riverbanks freezes to their edge, allowing for a slow buildup of ice in the river. After extended cold spells, most of the river ends up covered with unmoving frazil ice, but short thaws may dislodge or melt much of these fragile formations. The fluctuating temperatures that have occurred this winter have created good conditions for observing this process.

I poked the ice in the foreground here with a very long stick. Under the surface it was soft, like cotton candy or jelly. At the surface it was crusty, but even a small cobble tossed into the surface would 'splat' and sink in. It's never safe to walk on deposits of frazil ice, no matter how cold the weather gets. Also note the little 'pancakes' of frazil ice in the background floating down the river.

Here are two pictures taken before and after last night's cold snap:

Note that by this morning, there was only a small channel of open water left. It's supposed to remain quite cold tonight, though not as cold as last night, and I suspect by tomorrow morning this part of the river may be completely covered with frazil ice.

This area of slow-moving water froze over in the night and created little 'frost flowers':

There may be another thaw on the way for Saturday, but it won't be warm enough to get rid of all this ice. In general, the ice formations on the river should be increasing in cover for the next couple of months, and it will be fascinating to watch this process.

Looking Back on a Soggy Vermont Year

2011-12-31T09:13:00.000-08:00

The weather the last few weeks has been a roller coaster - temperatures ranging from well above normal to below normal, light snow, hard deep freezes, then warm winds from the south and rain. Yesterday it was in the low 20s and today the dusting of snow on the ground is melting off, though the ground remains frozen. After a couple more warm days, the temperatures are forecast to plunge below zero next week.

The temperature may not be consistent, but one thing has been consistent this year in Vermont. It has been WET. This year has seen the most precipitation Vermont has experienced in a very long time, and in many parts of Vermont this has been the wettest year on record.

(above: rain melts holes in snow; a wet end to a very wet year.)

2011 started with snow, and lots of it. Deep cold in January led to many icicles to color, marking the start of my icicle coloring project. February brought heavy wet snow, dry powdery snow, even a bout of thunder-snow. By spring, the snow switched to rain, and a mix of heavy rain and melting snow brought flooding to many areas of the state, especially along Lake Champlain which reached its highest level on record. Summer brought several bouts of severe thunderstorms with damaging wind, heavy downpours, stunning nighttime lightning displays, and even large hail in some places.

The big weather story of the year, of course, was the massive flooding in much of Vermont from Tropical Storm Irene. In Addison County, the worst flooding was in or near the mountains - Hancock and Granville were devastated, Lincoln and Ripton sustained significant damage, and here in East Middlebury we experienced a very frightening afternoon when we evacuated town shortly before the river started running down East Main Street (our home was not damaged). This flooding was the worst in memory in many areas, and repairs are still ongoing, especially in central parts of the state.

After Irene, the weather in Vermont calmed down a bit, but wet conditions continued. By Halloween, occasional snow started mixing in, though it never accumulated very deeply. November was relatively dry, but December has brought successive waves of rain and snow. It seemed like every time snow started to accumulate, a warm rainstorm would come along and melt it away. By late December, storms with rain were still making it into the area, but icy conditions at the start of storms, and flash-freezes as they ended have caused roads to often become dangerously slick.

While this year was the wettest in history, other recent years have also tended wetter than average. According to long-term weather data, Addison County as well as much of the rest of New England have tended significantly wetter in the last 100 years. While storms like Irene have been moving into New England since the last Ice Age (and probably in many other warm periods before it), one of the reasons Irene caused so many problems was because it moved into a state that was already very soggy due to a very wet spring and early summer. If the trend towards wetter weather continues, we unfortunately may be facing more situations like Irene in the future. Surviving and thriving in a wetter Vermont will mean changing how we interact with rivers and our landscape.

At least we won't be desperately short on water like much of the Southwest may be... as there are indications that the other side of the country may be heading towards a long-term cyclical drought.

Happy Holidays! And, Finally Coloring More Icicles

2011-12-27T07:09:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays! I hope everyone who is reading this is enjoying their holiday season. White Christmases are in short supply this year, and New England is no exception - only the higher ground has any significant snow. The Interior West is socked in with cold and snow, but Vermont is expecting yet another rainy, slushy, icy mess tomorrow. Burlington is expected to pick up enough rain and wet snow to make this the wettest year on record... and the same is true for most of the rest of Vermont. It's been an eventful year for watershed issues in Vermont, especially during and after Hurricane Irene, but also with heavy spring melt floods in many areas. However, so far this winter it has not been a good year for one of my favorite side projects - making colorful icicles. It's been quite cold at times, but the storms have come with warm air and brought mostly rain and few icicles. Still, I've managed to find a few to color.

At one point I took matters into my own hands and created icicles using a milk carton with holes in it.

It worked! Unfortunately this little shed is in a sunny south-facing location so by mid-morning on a sunny day the icicles fall off even if it is well below freezing.

And, lastly, here's water diffusing on an icy gravel road.

There's been lots of discussion on salt application to icy roads lately, but that's a subject for another post. Meanwhile, enjoy the holidays!

December Drenching Brings Ice Cobbles to River

2011-12-22T10:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a rainy day, as forecast, and as anticipated (dreaded?) in my last post. It went about as forecast - some icing and freezing rain in the morning, followed by surprisingly heavy rain, for this time of year at least, that lasted several hours. The headwaters of the Middlebury River picked up more than half an inch of rain - which would be insubstantial for a summer thunderstorm, but is rather unusual for late December. Much of the ground was frozen, and the water ran off fast. The river is running high right now.

As i expected, most of the ice in the river was ripped out. What I did not expect was to find piles of ice, rounded like river cobbles, laying where the high water left it.

Ice is lighter than liquid water, of course, but quite hard. I suspect that a combination of melting and smashing against rocks and other ice created these ice chunks... melting alone often accentuates corners rather than smoothing them.

These rounded 'ice cobbles' are scattered along the riverbank right now.

In some places the ice remained mostly in place:

The excessively warm weather this fall has been brought to us by an unusual jet stream pattern. Last year at this time the jet stream was in a somewhat similar pattern, but with very different results, which I wrote about in this blog entry. This year, so far, the jet stream has been almost as convoluted, but it has dived straight south through the Interior west, bringing dry conditions to the Pacific Northwest, unusually cold conditions from southern California through the Southwest, and far more snow to Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Kansas than to Vermont. The jet stream then is picking up Gulf of Mexico moisture and warmth and rushing it up the East Coast into Vermont. The forecast is for this to change to a more normal pattern, bringing small storms and average temperatures from west to east into Vermont. This has been in the forecast several times, though, and hasn't happened, so we will see if tomorrow's forecast of 2 inches of snow holds true, and if so, if the pattern persists or if we go back to more rain, or perhaps a pattern more similar to that of last year.

We'll see!

Winter Rain on Opposite Coasts

2011-12-20T08:01:00.000-08:00

It rained last night.

We have a metal roof and I woke up in the middle of the night to the tapping and plopping of raindrops. My heart sank a little bit.

Seeing those words on this blog are a bit of a surprise, really. For most of my 'previous' life in southern California, waking up to December rain would have brought excitement and anticipation. Essential life-giving water, absent for much of the year, was being poured into the hills and canyons. In California, rain means green hills that later erupt in a rainbow of flower colors... silent, cobble-strewn creekbeds again filled with the rush of bubbling water, a temporary but impeccable cleanness to the air. Winter rain in California brings life.

After a winter rain on Boney Ridge in southern California, every dip and gully in these rocks is filled with tiny streams. A few days after the rain, they are again dry.

It's hard to be excited about winter rain in Vermont, though.

Snowless fields and overcast skies in Vermont - the crows appreciate the bare mud as their food is not buried in the snow.

We've had a warm few months here in Vermont. It's not that it hasn't been cold at all, of course, and we were in the single digits just a few nights ago. But, the storm track has been howling up from the southwest, right up from the Gulf of Mexico. This means the storms have mostly brought south wind, and rain instead of snow.

A dusting of snow means only tiny icicles.

Summer rain in Vermont is a miracle of life - it still amazes me that rain can fall from such a warm sky (it does not rain in the summer where I am from - summer rain is so rare it makes the nightly news if there is enough to wet the roads). Everything is green, from the moss on the rocks to the tops of the tall maples. The lightning that cuts through a Vermont thunderstorm almost seems out of place, an interjection of violent harshness in a deluge of life and fertility. Spring rain is a bit harder to love, but it melts away the old crusty snow and wakes up the salamanders and frogs. Fall rain brings with it clean Canadian air and the smell of woodsmoke and wet leaves. Winter rain... well, it mostly just brings trouble.

Ice melts and refreezes on a car skylight, due to Vermont temperatures meandering above and below the freezing point.

I was, as always, excited about the start of snow season. Except, this year, it keeps raining on the snow. There's no snow outside right now, as last night's rain melted the last of it. It's below freezing, of course, as it usually is this time of year, because the south wind has stopped. Ice has formed on the puddles and on roads not warmed by the sun. The roads are still treacherous, but the hills aren't draped in white. I can't try out my new cross country skiis. The animals and plants can't use the water from the rain, because it's still below freezing in between storms. The one upside is the dramatic ice formations in the streams, as they are still flowing well due to the rain.

Ice along the Middlebury River

There is beauty in every natural event, even those that cause us trouble, and it seems ridiculous for me to complain about flowing water. Last year was one of the snowiest on record in Vermont, because the jet stream was a bit further east and brought us Gulf Stream moisture on top of cold Canadian air. We had two years worth of snow last year, so climate issues aside it means we 'need' years with below average snowfall to balance things out. And, the weather could shift at any time. The computer models used to predict weather haven't been to reliable this year.

This gully in the riverbed filled with water after winter rain, formed ice on its surface after the cold front passed, then left these odd formations as the rest of the water soaked into the sand.

So maybe tomorrow's storm won't start as snow, but turn to sleet and then rain and end in a muddy mess. Maybe we'll get six inches of fresh powder instead. If it does rain, I resolve to go to the river and watch the ice formations snap off and float downstream in the rising waters. There is beauty in ice and mud, even if it's harder to see than the beauty in snow.

Virtual Water Movement: Water Flow in Minecraft and Other Digital Worlds

2011-12-16T12:36:00.000-08:00

I've recently become rather addicted to Minecraft, a computer game with a highly modified world of blocks of different types that you can modify and move to build structures and search for resources in an effort to survive. By day (for about 10 minutes) you can wander the huge, complex, randomly generated world, gather resources, cut and plant trees and crops, and explore, but for the 10 minute night zombies and other monsters emerge and you must retreat to your fortress or go underground to mine for minerals.

When I first started playing this game, my friend told me that I'd probably really enjoy it, except for how the water works. He's right - modeling water flow is incredibly complex, and it doesn't make sense for a game like this to try to develop a realistic model as it would be a huge drain on computing power. To someone like me obsessed with water flow, the way water is modeled is silly and a bit frustrating - but not enough so to detract from the enjoyment of the game.

Virtual worlds and computer games have long struggled with how to represent flowing water in a way that creates an immersive environment but doesn't take up so much computing power that it slows everything else down. SimCity 2000 allowed you to place water anywhere, and created waterfalls when the water dropped in level. As a consequence, I remember covering huge areas with waterfalls and building dams on them for free hydroelectric power. The Civilization series generally did a good job generating rivers on their random maps, but sometimes created irrational rivers that split randomly or flowed out of one ocean into another (later versions seem to do a better job with rivers). Most of the waterways on World of Warcraft make absolutely no sense, but there is a nice looking delta on the eastern continent. The goal of these waterways is to create a backdrop for gaming, of course, and most people won't care if a river is flowing uphill when they are killing night elves, but I still always notice and wonder how much harder it would be to create realistic rivers in a game world.

Minecraft strikes a compromise between simplicity and realism when modeling flowing water. The rules? Water can flow laterally up to 7 tiles for each tile of downward drop, after which time it 'soaks in' and the flow progresses no further. If water encounters a drop of at least 1 tile, it can flow 7 horizontal spaces further (but does not add up momentum with consecutive drops).

Above, there is a source of water in the middle of the 'water pile', and it can be seen flowing outward.

Below, I dug a trench with sufficient drop, allowing a stream to flow off into the distance.

If trenches and gullies are created, and the terrain is steep enough, realistic streams and even a network of tributaries can be created, as seen in the first image in this post. However, if water pours down a hill without a defined path, it flows widely, creating unrealistic and bizarre structures.

It can be fun creating a path for water and watching the stream flow... (people use Minecraft to create anything from models of fictional spaceships to small working in-game computers, but I'm probably one of the first people to try to create realistic watersheds in the game). By starting at the base of a saddle and working downhill, I created this realistic stream:

However, once the water finds its way to flat land, I had to dig a deeper and deeper trench to keep the water moving and the creek eventually ended up below 'sea level'.

It's too bad that a long trough won't fill with water, but there are good reasons for the water in the game to work this way. With a bucket of water, you can create a permanent spring (imagine how different the Desert Southwest would be if this worked in real life!). If water would fill any depression, vast areas of the map could be flooded with one bucket. This is especially a problem on multiplayer servers, where one 'griefer' looking for trouble could flood entire cities. The computing power involved with creating huge lakes and reservoirs would probably also slow the game significantly.

One of the most interesting things about Minecraft is how it creates a microcosm of human nature and our actions that were, perhaps, fully justified at the time, but have caused so many long-term problems. You start the game with nothing, cut down a few trees to make tools, mine to get coal so you have light to keep the monsters away. You have to build a structure for shelter by nightfall or you will die. Over time you find you want more - more iron so you can build mine cart tracks so you can dig deeper and find diamonds you need to create stronger tools; a larger base so you can store supplies; farms and livestock paddocks and tree plantations so you don't have to roam in the dangerous wilderness hunting for food. Soon, the beautiful, randomly generated world starts turning into something else - a combination of the starting conditions of the world and the products of your labor and design. The game doesn't, so far, model long-term environmental issues - erosion or drought caused by removing too many trees at once; rising sea levels caused by climate change due to burning too much coal; runoff from mines ruining water supplies... I find myself channelizing streams in-game, even though in real life such an approach is fraught with trouble. In a simplified sense, Minecraft is a simulation of the progression of humanity, from when we first started using tools to when we criss-crossed the world with mines and roads and pushed the 'wilderness' to the verges and least inhabitable areas. Perhaps the next version of Minecraft, or some other similar game, will address what we do next - how we reclaim the beauty, emergence, richness, diversity of the world we first started out in, without throwing away the creativity of billions of hard working, inspired people, without having to hide inside at night for fear of zombies. Or, perhaps it is impossible to create such a simulation before we first figure it out in the real world. Either way, I look forward to the future and the increasingly complex virtual worlds where we can experiment and, in their reflection, realize truths about the one real, vast, powerful, and in some ways surprisingly fragile planet we now call home.

***Update: I did figure out a way to continue waterways through flat areas. It works pretty well and looks fine but it doesn't flow any longer so you can't use it to transport things. Still, it does make my task of installing realistic tributaries a bit more feasible.***

Beautiful Ice Formations and Snow on the Middlebury River

2011-12-12T13:13:00.000-08:00

It's been an unusually warm late fall, but cold weather is still making its way into Vermont, albeit not as quickly as it did last year. I've been out watching the seasons change and enjoying the patterns made by snow and ice along the river.

The snow that fell last week wasn't heavier than the snow we picked up just before Thanksgiving, but the weather was a bit colder so it stuck around a bit longer. The first morning after the snow was especially beautiful, as the snow was not as slushy as previous storms and everything was coated with a layer of soft white powder. I was struck by the way that snow covers everything in the same way - flood debris from Irene, the pile of debris left by the City of Middlebury after the flood, the place where the oxbow cut is forming. A lot has happened in the last six months, and I still don't know what to make of some of it, but after a couple of inches of snow falls on something, it's easier to set it aside for a while. This snowy morning wasn't a time to worry about what the city would do to the river next spring, what the river would do to the city next spring, or where all the uncertainty in my life and that of my close friends will take us. It was a time to pause, watch the last few snowflakes fall, and let things sit where they are for a while.

After a few days, the warm sun and above-freezing midday temperatures had melted away much of the snow, but nights in the teens and low 20s brought complex ice formations to the river each morning. It appeared that as the coldest temperatures set in and slowed flow into the river, its level dropped, causing odd ice crystals to jut out of the sandy shores and sit shattered in the slow pools.

One of the neatest things I found were these little 'bells' of ice dangling over the river. They formed on little roots that were dangling near the water, and grew as the river splashed on them and they swayed into the cold air. I'd imagine eventually they grew large enough to snap off the roots, perhaps shortly after I found them. Much like many 'sculptures' of ice, these lasted only a short time, and I was lucky to be able to see them.

If you liked these pictures of ice formations, you can see more in this flickr set.

Water Updates Across the Planet (and beyond!)

2011-12-08T05:49:00.001-08:00

There are lots of things going on right now in the world of water, so I'm going to address a few subjects here.

Much of Vermont got some snow last night - only an inch or two here, more in the mountains and points east. It's already snowed twice, but both times it quickly melted due to warm temperatures associated with the unusually warm fall. It's supposed to be much colder now, though not unusually cold, which means the snow should stick around a bit longer. We have some other chances of light snow in the forecast, but nothing major. Some small icicles have formed, and I already colored a few of them (see here for colored icicle photos from last year).

My friend Nadine's facebook 'stream' included this interesting article from the Pruned blog about the plan to create a huge clean swimmable area on one branch of Berlin's Spree River. I am both intrigued and a bit dismayed by this - intrigued by the giant reed filtration system and the idea of getting people back in an urban river, but dismayed to see so much concrete (steps instead of a sand beach? really?) and apparently few riparian trees. I'm not sure what is in the space now so maybe there is no net increase of concrete but I'm not sure I am a fan of modifying a river this heavily. It reminds me a bit of the San Antonio Riverwalk which is very pretty and pleasant but a bit sterile as well...

In any event if the choice is between the giant swimming pool and even larger constructed wetland and a polluted river, I'd take the former, of course.

Finally, the still-active Opportunity rover has found a vein of calcite on Mars! The only known method for calcite vein formation is liquid water moving through rocks, and this is almost certainly proof of liquid water being present and moving through rocks on Mars in the past. Calcite veins are common on Earth, where liquid water is of course quite abundant.

Can we Heat Vermont Homes with Invasive Buckthorn?

2011-12-05T07:40:00.001-08:00

Vermont has had a warm fall, but winter is coming. Cold rain and wet snow are in the forecast for this week, with much colder temperatures a near certainty later in the month. With a weak economy, rising fossil fuel prices, and reductions in federal heating aid, many poor Vermonters are uncertain how they will survive the winter. Heating oil, used by many to heat their homes, is increasingly expensive and unlikely to get cheaper any time soon.

Meanwhile, many of the forests in Vermont, especially young woodlands that are growing in abandoned fields, have become heavily infested with introduced plants such as glossy buckthorn and common buckthorn. These invasive plants, which I've talked about before and even made a little video game about, have few or no natural predators. For this reason it forms dense thickets in open areas and stops trees like maples from returning to these areas. While the long term effects are uncertain, at the current time we are seeing the formation of thickets of buckthorn with little other plant life. Removing buckthorn has been shown to allow tree saplings to grow, but removal can be expensive and money is in short supply right now. There is a movement to reduce the numbers of invasive species by eating them, but buckthorn isn't edible. Even the beavers don't seem to like it. Most landowners and land managers don't like it either, but can't afford to remove it themselves.

While testing out a citizen science iPhone app called What's Invasive, I mapped some of the buckthorn in the Champlain Valley area. This map is by no means complete, and simply represents places I've seen buckthorn when testing the app. Go to the main website linked above and select the 'Champlain Valley of Vermont' park for more info and photos.

What do invasive plants have to do with keeping people warm? Potentially a lot! Buckthorn wood is fairly hard, but as a shrub or small tree is not useful as a commercial timber wood. I don't see any reason why we can't burn it, though. The larger limbs and trunks could be burned directly, in most cases without having to split them. The smaller stems could be useful too, but tossing handfuls of twigs into a woodstove is not a realistic option. One friend suggested that perhaps the twigs could be bundled together like straw was in Laura Ingalls Wilder's book The Long Winter. Another friend mentioned that smaller twigs could possibly be converted to wood pellet fuel - much less labor intensive and perhaps more realistic, though it requires processing. I'm not all that familiar with the process of making wood pellets though, and the site above claims that including bark in wood pellets causes them to be of lower quality. Removing bark from twigs is definitely not realistic. I'm not also sure if it would be possible for a small grassroots project would be able to manufacture these pellets.

One thing that is important to remember is that our goal would not be to initiate sustainable long term removal of buckthorn. Our goal would be to find a short-term solution to solve an ecological and economic problem while moving on to something better in the long term. If we can get a handle on buckthorn, our next task is to transition into longer-term sustainable forestry, which would mean transitioning to using sustainably-harvested products of healthy forests in the places where we remove buckthorn. After all, native hardwood trees DO make better firewood than buckthorn, and restoring a more natural ecosystem as a working landscape is a better prospect in the long run.

So, here's where YOU come in. I haven't done extensive research on this idea, and I thought it would make sense to ask people in Vermont (and other cold areas of eastern North America) what they think. How many of you use a wood stove as a major part of your winter heating, or would be able to do so? What is the smallest diameter 'log' that is feasible to use in a wood stove? Can wood stoves be designed to burn smaller-diameter wood more efficiently? Do any of you heat with wood pellets? If so, where do you get them from? Are there local people making wood pellets, or do they require a difficult process to create and require a huge factory? If you're a landowner or land manager, would you 'donate' your unwanted buckthorn to keep people warm? Can a snowmobile be used to tow wood out of the forest during times when the ground is frozen? I'd love to start a discussion about this if anyone is interested or has ideas. Please leave comments here or visit the Slow Water Movement Facebook page or Google+ page and share your thoughts! If the idea gathers any interest at all, I may try to push it along further - it may be too late for this winter, but winter is a great time to harvest wood to be used next year.

Logs, Clogs, Shifting Rivers, an Uncertain Future (a sentimental post)

2011-12-02T05:57:00.001-08:00

Winter is trying to build in to Vermont and displace the second warmest fall on record. There is a chance of snow squalls today, perhaps mixed with rain, and tonight the temperatures will plunge to the teens and low 20s. The battle with the warmth isn't over yet, though. It will warm up a bit by the end of the weekend, and the forecast is for a VERY SLOW MOVING cold front to pass over the area over the next few days, bringing rain, becoming colder and colder and colder until the rain is BARELY not snow. Then, we may get a quick inch or two of snow and hopefully the storm will be gone. Maybe by the time it leaves we will have set the record for the wettest Vermont year on record too.

While the season hangs dangling on loose hinges, repetition and slowness seem to be a theme all around me. The river has risen and fallen, and ice has formed around its edges. The oxbow cut erodes a few inches every time the water rises, but it still appears unlikely that the river will make its big jump before the big spring thaw. It keeps trying to snow or freeze, but keeps thawing. There are changes in the lives of my friends, of various sorts, that ripple through my life as well. But, in my own life, I am still waiting.

(note the rock in the water, nearing the edge as erosion slowly eats backwards)

I love this place, the river, the people, the mountains, the way thunderstorms ripple down the front face of the Greens in the summer. I would love to stay here, but I don't know if that is in our future beyond spring. I'm not leaving Vermont, unless someone physically drags me out, but I am starting to face the fact that I may not be able to remain in this little town. Do I accept a job that is totally unrelated to my field and try to keep this blog going? Or do I accept a job an hour or two away, that would require moving? There are many, many exciting prospects in my life right now, but many of them are blocked by financial issues - I have so many projects I'd love to work on, but ultimately I can't work on them forever, without a more solid job. I don't know what the future holds and I am trying not to overplan. It's too uncertain. But, I do need to wrap my head around what may be necessary to survive winters beyond this one. It may be that at some point in the next year or two, I end up in Montpelier, the Burlington area, or somewhere else in Central Vermont. My hope is to stay right here, but we will see.

Meanwhile, the same water issues seem to pop up everywhere. The LA Creek Freak blog had a very interesting post about a massive flood in the Los Angeles area in the 1800s that brought piles and piles of huge logs, and a dead grizzly, down from the mountains into the flood plains. I'm fascinated with the past natural history of the mountains and canyons around LA, and there is very little accurate information about what the ecosystems there were like before the Americans came in. This article mentions vast quantities of huge logs in the river - hemlock (probably Bigcone douglas-fir) and cedar (actually incense-cedar, not a true cedar). These days the bigcone douglas-fir trees are in retreat due to changes in fire frequency, invasive plant distribution, and perhaps climate. The Incense-cedar trees are mostly restricted to higher elevations but a few hang on in wet places on the lower slopes - a hint of perhaps a forest from centuries ago that extended further down the slope. The chaparral still blankets the lower slopes, but is threatened by the same changes that threaten the bigcone douglas-fir. The old ecosystems are in retreat, and new ecosystems to replace or act as companions or blend with the old have not developed yet. We don't know how long that takes - it could be thousands of years - but that is a topic for another day.

In any event, the LA Creek Freak blog post came with this link - a collection of scientific studies cautioning against overzealous log removal from rivers. As I mentioned in a past post, sometimes log removal is necessary for safety or infrastructure protection, but in many (if not most) cases it causes more harm than good. The rivers of southern California are very different than the ones in Vermont, but some things are the same everywhere. And, if it is true what some people say and we are heading into a period of more severe storms and increased precipitation in Vermont, it will be important to pay attention to what was done under the auspices of flood control in southern California. Not as an example mind you, but as a precautionary tale as to why overengineering, sprawl, and lack of good science lead to increasing problems in the long term.

In the short term, however, I will put my worries aside for the time being. I'm heading out on an explore with a friend, and I am hoping we pick up a dusting of snow rather than a slushy mess of wet wintry mix. Either way, though, I'll make it a point to enjoy what comes, because ultimately things will get 'unstuck' again. They always do.

iNaturalist Mapping Project for Middlebury Area Land Trust

2011-11-29T13:44:00.001-08:00

I spent a lot of time working on a new project today, and while it isn't directly related to watershed issues, it is related to technology and natural science so I thought I'd mention it here.

I've posted before about iNaturalist, a website and smartphone app that allows people to upload sightings of different living things found in nature, along with photos and location (located by GPS in the case of smartphones). There are a lot of neat potential applications for this program, and I decided to set up a project to help gather data on the organisms living around Middlebury, Vermont; especially land managed by the Middlebury Area Land Trust and/or along the Trail Around Middlebury.

This project allows anyone who downloads the iNaturalist app or registers for the website to upload sightings found in the area. I haven't gotten anyone else involved in this project yet, but I've been doing informal surveys of the vegetation when on solo explores, and have gathered quite a bit of data. You can see what I've found so far by visiting the project website here. While you can't view all the data at once, you can view up to 200 occurrences at once at this link, or navigate to a particular location and refresh to get data on a more local level. Yet, this data is only the tip of the iceberg compared to what is possible using this program. If I can get a few students at Middlebury College or a few of my friends into using this program, we can gather a nearly unlimited amount of data - and with the photo and GPS capability with smartphones, even people who aren't sure of IDs can participate.

One of the funnest parts of this project is that it is possible to create range maps of different species in the area (and throughout the continent if enough people participate!) For example, you can see locations of white pine here (this is a very common species - it's really everywhere - but that means I've documented it many times)... you can see the distribution of white oak (a more restricted species in Vermont) here, and you can look for occurrences of invasive Glossy Buckthorn here (though I have also mapped some on What's Invasive and may make a new 'park' for this area also).

I've also included a Google map below. Note that it is a work in progress - for some reason it is not displaying the occurrences in Battell Woods and I haven't yet figured out why.

View iNaturalist MALT Project in a larger map

A Few Cold Days in a Warm November on the Middlebury River

2011-11-27T11:45:00.001-08:00

This November has been a warmer than average one so far in Vermont. The temperature has been above 50 on quite a few days, and many overnight lows have been above freezing. The warm weather wasn't consistent throughout the month, though. Earlier this week we had a cold snap - with temperatures in the mid teens - followed by several inches of wet snow.

The cold weather caused a bit of ice to form on the Middlebury River, but not as much as I'd expected. Despite how cold the river seems to be in the summer, it still holds a lot of heat this time of year, relative to the air temperature. Ice only formed in slow spots and backwaters, and on a few branches sticking into the water.

The little stream flowing through the incipient oxbow cut is slow-moving enough that icicles formed near the little cascade in the channel. The pool downstream did ice over.

(I kicked a few leaves onto the ice because I found the contrast between the leaves beneath and above the ice interesting).

The next day, a snowstorm moved into the state. Most areas of Vermont got 6 to 10 inches of snow, but in this case the mountains that usually increase precipitation in our area actually sheltered us from some of the storm, and the air warmed and dried as it approached the area from the east. This meant lighter precipitation and a mix of rain at times. The snow was quite slushy, but still very beautiful.

I followed these tracks for a while.

I think they are fox tracks - this summer there was a family of foxes in the area; I haven't seen them in a few months but apparently at least one of them is still around.

They definitely aren't dog tracks, and they looked a bit big for house cat tracks (also I've never seen cats in this area). But, I do need to brush up on my winter tracking. This fox, or whatever it was, was heading downstream, but sat in the snow for a bit, near the river, and later stopped to sniff around near some squirrel tracks.

Later we drove through the Ludlow, Vermont area and I was surprised at how much more snow was in the mountains!

The warm weather returned over the weekend, and now all the snow along this part of the river is gone. The snow must still be melting in the mountains, because the river is running higher today.

In the longer term, it looks like we'll get a few more warm days, a rainstorm, and then around the start of December our streak of warm weather will be over, and we may actually get something Vermont hasn't seen in a long time - colder than average, dry wintry weather. We'll see! If Burlington gets at least 2 more inches of precipitation (rain or melted snow equivalent), it will end up being their wettest year on record. I think the record will be broken, even if we get a streak of dry days in December.

A Cold Autumn Visit to the Lower Middlebury River

2011-11-21T13:30:00.001-08:00

This November has been an unusually mild one in Vermont so far, but today was an exception. Despite clear skies, the temperature never made it out of the 30s (and now that the sun has set, it is dropping fast). I decided to take a visit to the lower Middlebury River on my way in to town today, because I'd heard news that the City (make that town) of Middlebury was planning to remove some logs from this section from the river, and as I mentioned in the past, this is not always a good idea.

Click below for what I found.

Rivers are quite complicated, and something that may do more harm than good in one area may be necessary in another. This seems to be one of those cases. I'm not sure exactly where the city wants to do work, but the photo above illustrates a case where removing logs is a good idea. These logs are stuck just downstream from a VAST snowmobile bridge, and span almost the entire river. This area also has very little undeveloped floodplain. Since the water is forced under this bridge here, high water and ice jams could cause the water to back up and destroy the bridge, potentially creating a danger to snowmobilers or causing water to flood onto Three Mile Bridge Road. Furthermore, the road is very close to the river and the logs could be removed with little or no impact to the banks and bed of the river.

The lower Middlebury River is very different from areas upstream, including the portion of the river in East Middlebury and the Middlebury Gorge. The lower river is slow-moving, shallow, meandering, and mostly free of larger cobbles and boulders. For the most part, there is very little floodplain forest between the river and nearby farms, with a few notable exceptions. Sycamores and cottonwoods become less abundant, and are largely replaced by lowland flood plain species such as ash trees and silver and sugar maples. Red oaks occur higher on the banks.

Note that the sediment here consists of much smaller pebbles than the area upstream I more frequently post pictures of. The river is rather shallow, though this is in part due to the fact that November has been relatively dry this year.

The river slows down more and more as you travel east, and begins to meander extensively. (sorry for the reflection, as some of the pictures were taken through a car window. It was COLD and I didn't want to roll down the window!)

Many of the whitish 'leaves' on the trees above are seeds on ash trees that line the river here.

Just downstream from the Shard Villa Road bridge is a rock outcropping (pardon the car mirror!). I read in one hydrologic report that this outcropping represents the only place where the lower Middlebury River encounters bedrock (and thus is restricted in its downward and lateral erosion) There are some riffles here and a small deeper spot as the water rushes over the small outcropping.

Near the junction of the river with Otter Creek (the ultimate destination of and a much larger river than the Middlebury), I encountered a place where logs had been cut and removed from the river.

I doubt this will do much to reduce erosion or flooding, but whoever did this left the root ball in the bank, and apparently was able to remove the logs without any contact with the river or bank (there is a nearby road), so it probably didn't increase erosion risk either. In any event it will make it easier for kayakers and canoers to explore this area in the spring, but may slightly decrease the quality of the river's fish habitat.

Below are a few photos of Otter Creek along Creek Road. This is a much larger river than the Middlebury River, despite its name, and is the river that passes over the falls in Middlebury.

(small inlet)

A map of where these photos were taken is available here. I recommend switching to 'hybrid' mode, zooming in, and checking out the many meanders of the river.

From Mammatus to Graupel: This November's Wandering Vermont Weather

2011-11-17T13:31:00.001-08:00

After a soaking wet and seasonably cold October with a few frosts and some light snow, the onset of November brought an odd weather change to Vermont. The weather dried out, the sun came out, and warmer than average conditions spread over the state.

Above: sun lights up bare deciduous trees along the Middlebury River as it peeks through a gap in the clouds low on the western horizon. You can't see the river from this photo, but the water level is the lowest it has been since before Irene.

In true Vermont form, there were still plenty of clouds floating about, and temperatures did occasionally dip low enough for non-accumulating snow showers.

Nighttime freezes also allowed for me to use my 'experimental icicle generator' (a plastic milk jug with a hole poked in it) to create a couple of colored icicles.

Yet, for the most part, temperatures were well above average, on a few days reaching into the 60s in the Middlebury area. While I am ready for winter at this point, and look forward to enjoying the snow, I still managed to enjoy the warm sunny days outdoors. The sky continued to be beautiful, as always.

At one point I noticed something very rarely seen in November in Vermont: mammatus clouds. These clouds, which are associated with humid air sinking out of a high cloud bank, can form in a variety of conditions, but usually form in warm weather and are often associated with thunderstorms. Thunderstorms in November are quite rare, and it's safe to say that viewing mammatus clouds in Vermont through the branches of bare deciduous trees is a rare event.

As it turned out, the storm that came a few hours after these clouds were spotted did not include thunder and lightning, though areas to the south and west of Vermont did experience thunderstorms. We did, however, pick up a warm, relatively heavy nighttime rain... very different from a normal November rainstorm, which is generally a hypothermia-inducing barrage of windblown rain (yes, the wind chill can be well below freezing when it rains, even though the actual temperature is usually not - and wind chill doesn't even take into account being soaking wet!).

Of course, the warm weather can't last. Today was a much more typical November day. It is about as cold as it looks...

About an hour after this photo was taken, a graupel shower moved through Middlebury.

The thanksgiving weekend could hold anything from a nor'easter with some snow, to sunny warm weather... but it does seem increasingly likely that it will be at least seasonably cold on Thanksgiving in Vermont.

Over The River: Can Waterway-Themed Demonstration Art be Harmful?

2011-11-14T07:51:00.001-08:00

If you drive north from Los Angeles on Highway 5, you drive through a remarkable pass. After meandering upward past the Santa Clara River and hillsides of chaparral, you enter a wide valley, a 'triple-point' of sorts where the Mojave Desert, the chaparral-covered coastal mountains, and the foothills around the Central Valley all come together. After cresting the Tejon pass at just over 4000 feet of elevation, you plunge into an extremely steep and narrow canyon known as 'The Grapevine' - both because wild grape vines carpet the canyon walls, and because the road itself twists up the canyon like a giant vine. Approaching the area from the north at night, from the flat Central Valley, the row of taillights ahead appears to ascend, in a wide bend, straight into the sky.

A lot of people funnel through this pass every year, and the passage isn't easy. The wide Central Valley to the north creates a giant funnel, channeling not only travelers, but also north winds, straight into the pass. Winds near hurricane force are not uncommon in the winter. Clouds often form as the air rises over the pass, creating dense fog. Worst of all, because the pass captures winds and moisture from the colder north, blizzards often rage on the north side of the pass, even when Los Angeles, 50 miles to the south, is sunny and warm. Meanwhile, in the summer, dry heat from the Mojave Desert and Central Valley build in, leading to temperatures well over 100 degrees, and dozens of overheating cars on any summer day. Because of the unique climate, blue oaks and buckeye trees normally found further north grow on the north side of the pass, while a few miles to the south Joshua trees are clumped in the gullies. It is a place of convergence, but not a gentle place. Even today, passing through The Grapevine can be treacherous, and the pass is known for its road closures and chain-reaction accidents.

The pass is a prominent and important place, and in 1991, two artists - Christo and Jeanne-Claude - decided to fill the pass with giant umbrellas as part of a giant art exhibit. The effect was visually fascinating, but I can't help but speculate that if the artists thought this was a good idea, they had never tried to drive through this pass during a winter storm. Sure enough, by late October a windstorm swept into the area. One of the umbrellas was ripped from the ground and tossed at several people looking at the art exhibit... and a woman was crushed and killed by the umbrella.

Christo is now planning to stretch 7 miles of fabric over the Arkansas River in Colorado.

(above - approaching the Tejon Pass from the south. Clouds banked up against the mountains in winter sometimes warn of a localized blizzard just around the corner)

I feel torn when thinking about this project. I was 12 when the umbrella tragedy occurred, and still remember hearing about it. I'm very concerned that stretching fabric over a wild river could cause a similar tragedy. On the other hand, I a very interested in demonstration-based art, and if this art project draws attention to the river, perhaps it will have some benefit as well. Still, I can't help but think this project isn't a good idea.

There seem to be many possible concerns. How will all of the noise and disturbance along the river, with this feature installed, affect humans and animal use of the river? What if a repeat of the Tejon Pass incident occurs, and wind from a summer thunderstorm rips the fabric off of its support system? It seems unlikely to kill anyone, but the fabric could be ripped to shreds in the river, creating various problems. The area is prone to thunderstorms with torrential rain and hail.. I am assuming the fabric is porous but would it hold up to an inch or two of hail piled on it? Will the canopy frighten animals away from the river, depriving them of water? Will eagles and osprey (are there osprey there?) be unable to fish in the area? Will insects that normally access the river avoid it, causing starvation of fish? Will the loss of sunlight from the translucent canopy harm the trees along the river? Also, on a political note, will allowing this project set the precedent that a rich person can do whatever they want to a river, regardless if it is harmful ecologically or culturally to the region? The only possible upside I can see to this project is that it may attract people to the area who may spend money in local towns... but how many people would go to look at fabric stretched over a river, who wouldn't just go to see the river in the first place? Setting up the project may create temporary jobs, but what about doing something else that creates jobs, like removing tamarisk or restoring damaged riverbanks?

I guess i just don't 'get' it. I haven't been to this river, but I have been to several over rivers in the Rockies, such as the Cache de la Poudre and the upper Colorado. These rivers are beautiful on their own, and I don't see how some shiny fabric would make them more appealing. I've already witnessed a bunch of artificial material inserted into rivers, ranging from garbage to concrete channel liners to debris from structures destroyed in floods. Unnatural 'stuff' in or around rivers doesn't strike me as art. It strikes me as litter.

The point of this post isn't to slander an artist. Christo has made some interesting and neat art, and I think the idea behind the art (getting people to look at a landscape in a different way) is an admirable one. I just think this particular project, like the umbrellas project, is horribly misplaced. Instead of defacing a relatively wild and recreationally popular river, why doesn't Christo call attention to rivers impacted by humans? This could be a very neat project stretched over the concrete channel lining much of the LA river. Even better, what about placing river-colored canopies over Pittsburgh's lost channels or the historic creeks around San Marino in southern California? I know it isn't my place to tell an artist what to create, but I also think we have the right as a country and as local residents of a place to tell an artist 'no' if their large-scale art project could be harmful, dangerous, or destructive.

I know the project is controversial, and for it to be controversial, it must have its supporters as well. If any come across this blog, I'd love to hear from you. Perhaps there is something about this project I don't know... Do the 'mitigations' to make up for damage caused by this project seem sufficient? Is it really likely that thousands of people will make a trip just to see this feature? What do you think?

It's Time To Wear Orange! (Deer Hunting and Slow Water)

2011-11-11T06:01:00.001-08:00

In many parts of the country, different seasons brings different fashion styles. While I was never very good at figuring out how these work in the city, there is one 'fashion season' in rural parts of the country that is very important, if a bit silly looking.

That's right - it's that time of year where most people outside in Vermont are going to start wearing clothes that are brighter orange than the few maple leaves still clinging to the trees. Rifle season for deer hunting starts tomorrow. Most people heading out into the woods wear a bright orange hat and/or vest, so they aren't accidentally mistaken for a deer. If you're heading out for the next few weeks, you should wear a silly orange hat, too. The last day of rifle season in Vermont is November 27th. Muzzleloader season in Vermont is December 3 - 11. Because these guns have a much shorter range than rifles, mistaken identity issues are less likely, but it's still a good idea to wear orange just in case.

Each state has a somewhat different hunting season, so check with your local fish and wildlife department for more info, if you don't already know.

See below for more thoughts on deer hunting and watershed health.

Hunting season doesn't seem like something particularly relevant to 'slow water', but in fact it can be very relevant, albeit indirectly. I recently posted about how important plants (especially trees) are to maintaining healthy, meandering river channels. The number of deer is strongly linked to whether or not forests are able to regenerate. Since the ice age, the main predators for deer in most of North America were wolves, mountain lions, and humans. These days, wolves and mountain lions have been extirpated from much of their historic range, and in many cases, humans aren't having as much an effect on the deer population either, at least not as hunters. Instead, many deer die of starvation, or in collisions with vehicles that also can result in injury or death to the human vehicle occupants. Deer overpopulation may also be leading to an explosion in the tick population and thus an increase in Lyme disease. Overpopulated deer may also be vulnerable to diseases such as chronic wasting disease (the deer version of mad cow disease)

I'm not sure if deer overpopulation is an issue in Vermont, but there are some indications it may be in some areas, particularly the Champlain Valley. Other areas further to the south and west, such as Pennsylvania, are experiencing severe deer overpopulation. The areas with the biggest problem are those where there aren't humans hunting deer either - such as in and around cities and suburbs. For instance, the four large, forested parks in Pittsburgh are having an issue with overpopulated deer decreasing seedling survival and diversity. These changes in turn can result in loss of forest cover, soil erosion, and other issues that can negatively affect forest health.

Unfortunately, most hunting regulations were designed to increase deer population, something that was important in the past but is now detrimental. Hunters tend to go after big bucks, but since it takes only one remaining buck to impregnate many dozens of does, hunting bucks doesn't have a strong effect on deer population. In many places, however, doe tags are now being offered. While some hunters are reluctant to shoot does for a variety of reasons, doing so will help control deer population, while still providing high-quality meat. Most meat consumed in this country comes from stockyards, and its production requires a large expenditure of resources, but in this case, you will be having a net positive benefit instead!

So, if you live in an area with too many deer, consider getting a doe tag. I haven't tried deer hunting, and don't own a rifle or bow, so I won't be out there this year... but some of my friends will be and I hope someone gives me some venison (hint, hint...)

In areas of very dense human habitation, such as Schenley Park in Pittsburgh, it isn't a good idea to have people out with rifles hunting deer. However, other cities have implemented short bowhunting seasons (where parts of parks were closed to the public), and meat harvested by skilled bowhunters is often donated to homeless shelters. It can be hard for local residents to support hunting of deer they have watched living around their homes (unless they are losing their gardens to the deer...) but if you're one of these people, consider that starving to death or being crippled by a car, likely alternatives for overpopulated deer, are much more inhumane than an arrow to the heart.

Also, while it isn't directly relevant to this post, it's Veteran's Day, so I do want to thank our veterans for fighting to protect us so we experience free speech as in the case of this blog... regardless of our personal views on the current government/system, I still feel that it's important to remember and thank our veterans. Thanks!

Vermont Updates: Middlebury River Management Planning Task Force; Lake Champlain Meetings

2011-11-09T08:18:00.000-08:00

At last night's Town of Middlebury Select Board meeting (which I did not attend this time), plans were laid out to create a task force to deal with river and flooding issues in East Middlebury. From the text of the Selectboard Meeting Highlights:

Middlebury River Management Planning Task Force to be Formed. Following the model of the successful river management planning effort in Ripton, the Board endorsed forming a Task Force to develop a plan for on-going management of the Middlebury River as it flows through East Middlebury.

The specialized, focused group could include representatives from the Agency of Natural Resources, the Planning Commission, the Addison County Regional Planning Commission and a river scientist in an effort led by the Town Manager, with technical experts, including engineers with river science experience and hydrologists, retained as needed. The Board emphasized the need to engage residents of East Middlebury in the process by keeping them informed of the group's efforts and soliciting input during the process.

The river management plan is one component of a Hazard Mitigation Plan. The mitigation plan is a pre-requisite for Federal Emergency Management Hazard Mitigation funding, which is the leading source of funding to implement measures to reduce flood hazards.

Town Manager Bill Finger will meet with East Middlebury resident and river scientist Amy Sheldon to develop a strategy for moving ahead with the Task Force and seeking funding for the planning initiative. Pending negotiation of a scope of work, Amy will be retained on a professional basis to serve as the project manager for the effort.

I hope to be involved, at least as a resident of East Middlebury... and also plan to post updates on this blog, which hopefully will provide a balanced, layperson-focused view on what is happening along the river. In general, I think this is excellent news, and I hope this ends up as an entire-watershed effort and includes working with people in Ripton upstream. It's great that Amy Sheldon is involved as she is both a resident and a great river scientist...

The rest of the highlights from the meeting should be posted here soon.

In other Vermont water news, the Poultney Mettowee Natural Resources Conservation District will be holding public meetings about Lake Champlain on November 17th to discuss issues with phosphorous pollution in the lake, and EPA requirements (apparently they have rejected Vermont's current plan). For more info, see here.

Downed Trees in the River: Burden or Benefit?

2011-11-07T11:30:00.000-08:00

When Irene came raging through Vermont, a lot of trees met their demise. Some of them were done in by wind, which was fairly strong in some places, but many more were sucked into raging rivers and tossed into matchstick-like piles on sandbars.

Scenes like the one above are now common in Vermont, and are particularly common along the Middlebury River near where I live. Some are glad to see the logs in the river - they can provide habitat for various animals, including trout and the species they eat. Others are concerned that the logs in the river could cause future problems - causing ice jams or collecting under bridges and causing washouts.

So, who's 'right'?

Well, I will start out with my normal disclaimer. Rivers are very complex, and when they flow through human occupied areas, normal river phenomena such as shifting channels become disasters, even though these events are actually beneficial when in an intact flood plain away from people. It's very hard for even an expert to predict future river conditions, and I'm not making any 'official' recommendations to anyone. However, I can share my observations as well as thoughts expressed by others with knowledge in the subject.

There's no doubt that tree trunks and other debris in a river during a flood can sometimes add to damage to structures. I've witnessed quite a few floods, and watched debris of all sorts hurtling down a river channel. What I am uncertain of is how much relative risk preexisting logs in the river pose to structures. Any flood of significant size will bring many trees falling into a Vermont river. By the time the next flood comes, some of the logs currently in the river will hopefully be quite rotten... it seems that new trees falling into the river cause the greatest risk. However, there's no way of keeping lots out of the river short of deforesting riverbanks, which would cause much, much more trouble than it would solve.

In some cases, as above, woody debris was deposited in the flood plain. These logs will decompose, add to the soil in the area, and nurture the trees still standing along the river. Since these trees offer flood control, this already-rotting debris is an asset, not a liability.

But what about when an extreme flood like Irene creates extreme conditions - dams of flood debris that threaten to shift the course of the river and endanger structures? Such a situation occurred in East Middlebury after Irene when a log jam was said to be part of the reason the river backed up and flooded down East Main Street. I didn't get a chance to see this log jam... because it was quickly removed... but it seems reasonable that in that sort of situation debris may need to be removed from the river.

There has been calls to continue work downstream, and remove more logs and debris from the Middlebury River upstream from Route 7. I've walked this section of river, and I have noticed quite a few downed logs, but not any that seem to be creating a dam or a risk for diverting water into populated areas. It's possible that such conditions exist somewhere and I did not see them, but I'm quite reluctant to say that removing downed trees will increase flood safety. In fact, removal of some trees would reduce flood safety:

The trees above are wedged up against a bank where erosion is occurring. The trees, especially their tangled root balls, appear to be REDUCING erosion. If these trees were dug out of the slope and removed, the result could be heavy erosion.

These trees are mostly stuck in a sand bar, which they seem to be helping stabilize.

There's also understandable concern about ice jams.

Above is Lewis Creek, with a solid ice cover, two winters ago. Ice jams occur when ice like this breaks up and collects near obstructions in the river (or when newly-forming ice does the same thing). They can cause sudden, dramatic flooding of frigid water filled with blocks of hard, heavy ice. Ice jams can be terrifying, and we want to do everything we can to avoid them. I'm not an expert on ice jams, but I didn't see any logs in the river that seemed to be at risk of causing an ice jam. There is probably a risk of ice jams at the Highway 7 bridge but honestly, having seen one ice jam and the aftermath of a second... it appears that ice jams completely shred logs, and the real danger is mainly posed by the ice. The best way to avoid ice jams is by building bridges with lots of room under them, and by doing a good job of maintaining flood walls and levees, like the one below (which has been partially repaired since Irene but needs more work!)

My biggest concern about tree removal in the Middlebury River does not stem from removal of the trees, but rather access to the river. It's highly unlikely that the city will have access to a helicopter to remove the debris, so removal would require driving heavy machinery into the river, a process which could cause disturbance and thus erosion to river banks. At this point I am skeptical that removal of logs from the Middlebury River in East Middlebury will provide more benefit than detriment, though I'm certainly open to listening to anyone who disagrees (and already have done so, and have learned quite a bit about the river in the process.) There are, however some cases where debris such as bent culverts, garbage and pieces of broken road and structures are in the river, and if there is a non-destructive way to get these out, it would be a good idea.

What about sustainably harvesting downed wood to use for heating, construction, or other tasks? It's a valid point, and hopefully the debris that was already removed was used for something of that sort. By now, however, I'd imagine most of the logs that have been sitting in the river or are half buried in wet sand aren't going to be terribly useful as firewood or for construction. If any trees are removed that are still in good enough shape for these uses, I'm all for it.

Not to sound like a broken record here... but the main flood risks to Vermont communities aren't logs in the river or the cessation of gravel removal. The main flood risks are caused by poor conditions in upper watersheds, loss of wetlands and flood plains to slow down floodwaters, improperly built bridges, improperly placed structures, and poorly maintained (or non-maintained) flood control structures. In the end, ignoring or removing the logs in the Middlebury River won't be what determines how bad the next flood is... that will be determined instead by how we treat the river and watershed as a whole. Hopefully we now make good decisions, so that the next flood is less destructive than Irene.

Stories Told by the First Snow

2011-11-03T09:45:00.000-07:00

Last weekend East Middlebury picked up its first snow - about an inch, but a few miles north it was a dusting and to the south an unseasonable nor'easter raged. We happened to be just on the edge of the storm.

The light early snow settled on the town and the woods, providing a temporary preview of winter months to come. In a few hours, most of the snow had melted. Between the storm's end and the emergence of the sun, however, the snow sat in place for a couple of hours, slowly melting and dripping down from the trees. At this time, the early season snow told me a lot about how the earth holds the summer's heat long after it is gone from the air.

During this snow event, the temperature was near or just above freezing. It was cold enough for snow to stick to surfaces that were as cold as the air, but too warm for it to stick to anything that held any heat. This picnic bench, below, accumulated about an inch of snow, as did the cars parked outside.

Snow piled on this dead flower stock of Queen Anne's Lace:

accumulated on this still-attached sycamore leaf:

and piled up on these blackberry bushes and nearby grass:

Along the river, little pillows of snow were piled on each cobble.

Note that between the small rocks, the ground was bare. The ground holds warmth much longer than the smaller rocks do, and seepage of groundwater near the river may also keep this area snow free. Seeps and springs often remain snow-free well into the winter, because water seeping out of the ground is always near the average yearly temperature, which is above freezing (if it were not, we would have permafrost here). The urban seeps in Burlington remain open for most of the winter (much to the dismay of nearby travelers, because the water currently runs onto walkways and roads and freezes). During the coldest and snowiest periods, they may be buried, but the ground never freezes and an unlucky step here can plunge you into deep mud - no minor thing when it is below zero outside.

The Middlebury River is cold, and even in midsummer the water holds quite a chill. Still, in fall, the river is often warmer than the air temperature, and pure running water does not drop below freezing. The water temperature at this time is probably in the upper 40s or lower 50s - much wamer than freezing. Thus, the river held enough heat to keep the areas next to it ice-free:

Later in the winter, of course, a lot of ice will form in and around the river. A river of this size will not freeze solid, though, and there will be at least some open water even during the coldest nights (in fact, to my knowledge, even the smaller creeks retain some liquid water under the snow all year).

One of the most welcome features of this early-season snow? No snow or ice built up on roads or paths.

Last year's fall snow and cold temperatures brought some interesting features to Middlebury, described in this old blog post.

The ground holds its heat... for now. In a couple of months, the ground will freeze (unless, like last year, it is insulated by heavy snow before the weather gets cold). In the spring, the ground holds the chill as the air temperatures warm up, and the above trends are reversed - snow and ice hide in the hollows - and on the roads - when the trees and rooftops are released from the snow.

Environmental Action 2011 in Vermont; Thoughts on Gravel Mining in Rivers

2011-10-31T09:14:00.000-07:00

As briefly mentioned last week, I was invited to be on a panel at the Environmental Action Conference in Randolph, Vermont last Saturday. The panel was about river repairs in Vermont after hurricane Irene, and the problems associated with removal of gravel and other sediment from waterways. The other people on this panel were Louis Porter of the Conservation Law Foundation and Kim Greenwood of the Vermont National Resources Council.

The session seemed very short, but I did get to show my video demonstrating the perils of improperly channelized rivers, which was a big hit. There was time for some good conversation. In particular, one person wondered whether it were possible to continue 'sustainable' gravel mining at a modest level, similar to what has been done in the past. I find the idea intriguing, but am very skeptical that it is a good idea. Unlike the trees in a well-managed woodlot, gravel in a river is not 'growing' in place, but rather is moving downstream during floods. Removing gravel from one spot can lead to erosion both upstream and downstream, and if gravel removal destroys a house or causes rampant erosion, I would not classify it as sustainable. There were cases after Irene where sediment was removed to protect structures as a lesser of two evils, but there were also cases where overzealous river work may have actually increased future flood risk. Now that the storm is gone we need to think long and hard about our next steps.

The idea that gravel mining can reduce flood risk is widespread in the minds of old-time Vermonters, and while I think the balance of evidence leans strongly towards not removing gravel from rivers, there is a lot of validity to the concern that some rivers in Vermont are building up increasing amounts of sediment. Vermonters know their rivers, and if they notice changes, policymakers should spend the time to listen (as many have). Excessive sediment in Vermont rivers is almost always linked to problems in the upper watershed. Improperly built roads channel and speed up water, and small, improperly placed culverts concentrate water and can wash out, leading to massive amounts of erosion. As many rural areas of Vermont become more populated, and long driveways are built across hillsides, many problems are appearing downstream. Digging gravel out of a river, however, is the hydrologic equivalent of running into a house fully engulfed in flame and tossing burning wood out of the house - towards other homes. Anyone who's ever dug a hole in saturated sand can tell you that the hole quickly caves in, and the same happens with river channels cut into gravel or sand. The real solution is in addressing the 'root' of the problem. What we need to see is more watershed associations, more awareness in upstream residents, and accountability if someone upstream is causing harm to someone downstream.

Also important: policymakers are quick to explain why gravel mining is a bad idea, and very willing to use the legal structure to enforce that gravel mining doesn't occur. What I'd like to see more of is people demonstrating WHY gravel mining is a bad idea. Most people don't want to hurt others, and won't do something willingly that will endanger someone else... but people are also skeptical of outsiders telling them that their well-established actions are wrong. I'd like to see more outreach about the issue in Vermont and other areas, and more honest and open dialog. It's also important to recognizes that there are exceptions to every rule, especially in the case of rivers, and that there were cases after Irene where gravel really did need to be removed from a river.

So, in short, the conference reinforced my belief that efforts to share information with the general public, such as this blog, are important.

To those people who attended the conference and the session (and the later session about the health of Lake Champlain), thanks so much for attending, participating, listening, and sharing your ideas! I enjoyed meeting a lot of neat people, and hope to see many of you around Vermont in the future. I was sad to miss the last part of the conference, but I was quite nervous about driving over two passes on storm-damaged roads in the snow. Thankfully, I made it home before the storm. East Middlebury, by the way, only picked up an inch or two of snow.

Major Early Season Snowstorm in Northeastern US?

2011-10-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

My most recent Addison County Independent weather blog post was about the computer models used to create weather forecasts, and about how they often were the cause of 'busted' forecasts or last-minute forecast changes. Specifically, early-week forecasts called for snow in Addison County last night, but by midweek the snow was removed from the forecast in most areas. In the end, the truth fell somewhere between these two forecast extremes - snow fell in my location but did not 'stick' except on a few especially cold surfaces like the tops of cars and dry logs. In the mountains, and to the south in Rutland County, more substantial snow fell - several inches in some places.

Above: light snow accumulation on some stacked wood in East Middlebury. For the most part, no measurable snow fell here.

Well, the computer models are at it again. For the last week, the GFS computer model, later joined at times by the NAM computer model, predicted that a strong nor'easter style storm would form, but would pass by offshore without doing much on land. The ECMWF weather model, an European model, predicted a heavy storm would move up the coast and dump snow over much of the Mid Atlantic and New England. Since the latter is quite unlikely this time of year, and because the ECMWF was an outlier, it was believed that it would eventually 'change its mind' and match the other forecasts. Instead, the opposite seems to have happened. The GFS and NAM now are predicting possible heavy snow along the interior Mid Atlantic and New England.

If things happen exactly how the models now predict, which is unlikely, some areas would get a dumping of snow, but central Vermont would only get about an inch - but significantly more would fall in the mountains of southern Vermont. Of course, the models keep shifting the storm further west, and if that continues, central Vermont could get several inches. Or, the storm could end up further east, as the initial prediction called for, and there would be no snow at all.

Heavy October snow could cause serious problems, especially closer to the coast where it is uncommon. In places like Connecticut, the deciduous trees still have most of their leaves, and heavy snow would break branches, bring down trees, and cut off power to many people. In Vermont, where the trees have less leaves still attached, heavy snow would cause some damage, but it would not be as significant.

The storm is being discussed by The Weather Channel, Accu-Weather, and Burlington Free Press's Weather Rapport blog.

The longer term outlook does seem to hold the potential for more strong storms to move through the New England area in early November. It's too early to say how big, or if the precipitation would be mostly rain or snow.

Here's a few pictures from this morning, after a hard freeze of 27 degrees:

Time to empty the rain barrel!

Beaded water frozen on sumac

Icy puddle

and yesterday:

snow on Mt Moosalamoo

Plants: Nature's Riverbank Stabilizers

2011-10-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

Last week I wrote a post speculating about possible effects of autumn leaves on the flow of rivers and streams. I noticed that the leaves were forming small dams in slow water and decreasing flow rate, but that during a flood, the leaves would quickly be washed away. Since that time, I have come across some new research on much more profound effects that trees and other plants have on rivers. Recent evidence suggests that plants offer much more than just a minor role in affecting river flow. In fact, when plants like ferns, trees, and grasses colonized the land many millions of years ago, they changed the very nature of how rivers flow.

When rivers are in an open area and not bound by topography, they often take on one of two forms.

Braided rivers, like the one above (the Cuyama River in California, seen during a rare period of high water), tend to form in areas where there are very large amounts of sediment, such as usually-dry washes that contain heavy sediment loads during flash floods (the Cuyama River is almost always dry in the above section), and rivers flowing out of glaciers. Braided rivers are also sometimes seen downstream from highly degraded watersheds. Usually there is not dense vegetation along these rivers, and one might surmise that this is due to the unstable nature of the river, but as described in the link above the photo, the opposite may be true, at least in part.

Braided rivers are always changing, laying down and replacing sediment, and wandering over their flood plain. They are not good rivers to live near, and are extremely difficult to control.

Meandering rivers, like the East River near Crested Butte, Colorado, seen above, generally stick to one channel, but that channel wanders widely. As described in this previous blog post, erosion happens on the outside of the bends, and sediment is deposited on the inside of the bends, until a bend cuts back upon itself, the river jumps to its new path, and the process begins again.

Recent evidence shows that before land plants were abundant, most rivers were braided. Now, most meander.

People working to simulate river processes with stream tables have noted that it is very difficult to create a miniature meandering river - stream tables usually result in braided streams. While some of this has to do with the size and weight of particles in the stream table, it largely has to do with the fact that areas of sediment deposition are not stabilized by plants. One group of researchers realized this and were finally able to simulate a meandering river - by using alfalfa sprouts to stabilize the stream table soil!

The take-home message? The relationship between a river and its riparian vegetation is not a one-way relationship. These plant species are specifically adapted to conditions along rivers and streams, and often only occur in these areas. However, rivers as we know them today can only exist with this vegetation intact. Without vegetation, many rivers would take over their entire flood plain, replacing farm fields and bottomland forest with a complex of shifting, braided channels. They would flood more often and more severely, and dry up more readily during drier periods. There is often the temptation to remove vegetation along rivers to reduce 'flood risk' and get rid of vegetation that is 'clogging' the river. But, with the exception of a few invasive plants, this is not actually the case. By removing riparian vegetation we are not only aesthetically impairing the river, but also creating many more problems for ourselves.

So, next time you are near a meandering river, find a cottonwood tree to hug, and thank it for helping to create a slow-flowing, rich, clean, beautiful waterway.

A Few Fall Slow Water Updates: Cold Weather and River Discussion

2011-10-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

October has been warmer than average in Vermont so far, but the month is going to leave us with a chill. Later this week a cold storm will come blasting through Vermont, and as it leaves the state it may blast us with some snow - one or two slushy inches in the lowlands, several inches in the mountains. Light snow is not all that unusual for late October, but because it has been warmer than average, it will seem like an abrupt change. One way or another, the storm will usher us into a time known by some as 'stick season'... once the light snow melts away, the trees will mostly be left bare, a forest of sticks over a layer of leaves, with the only color in the woods provided by the bright orange worn to prevent humans and dogs from being mistaken for deer during hunting season.

Above: This late October color, as seen from Snake Mountain near Virgennes, will soon be stripped from the trees by wind or wet snow.

Speaking of weather, I've been invited to write occasional blog posts about Addison County's weather for the Addison County Independent online page. You can see my posts here.

I also may be on a panel at the Environmental Action 2011 conference in Randolph, VT this Saturday. I'd be discussing issues associated with gravel removal from rivers and post-Irene flood repairs, along with Kim Greenwood of VNRC and Louis Porter, the Lake Champlain Lakekeeper. I hope to have some discussion about how channelization and dredging of rivers is not only an environmental issue but also a threat to safety and a cause of increased flooding in the long term. I may also talk a bit about my experiences during Irene. I was very lucky, unlike many others in Vermont, in that I did not experience property damage... but I still experienced a very discomforting afternoon and night where I had to leave our home without warning, and spent time in a shelter wondering if our home was damaged or destroyed. After returning home, I experienced quite a bit of concern when a knee-jerk river channelization effort possibly increased the risk of flood wall failure near my home (the flood wall has since been fixed, but significant issues remain and are undergoing long-term community discussion). In any event, if you're at the conference, come by - see here for more info.

Autumn on the Middlebury River - Leaves in the Water

2011-10-17T14:34:00.000-07:00

Autumn has come to Addison County. Many of the trees along the Middlebury River are covered in colorful leaves.

Some of the leaves find their way into the river, where they float downstream, occasionally finding themselves clogged in 'leaf jams'. I found myself wondering if this has an effect on water flow.

I've definitely seen large accumulations of leaves blocking some of the slower side channels of the river, as well as smaller brooks in nearby areas. In the case seen to the right, the leaves had accumulated at a fork in the side channel, and seemed to be diverting flow from one channel to the other.

The little leaf dams do seem to slow down the water a bit, but when the water rises during storms, they are washed away. In smaller streams the accumulated leaves probably do have an effect during high water, but its hard to say whether the little dams do much to slow floods. The leaves probably do a better job reducing runoff when they are still attached to the tree.

In urban settings, autumn leaves have a much more detrimental effect - they tend to get caught in drains and cause localized street flooding.

There is another factor that can increase water flow when trees lose their leaves.

When leaves change color and fall off in the fall, the tree becomes dormant for the winter. Each tree uses quite a bit of water every day when it is leafed out, and it can make a big difference when all the trees in a watershed 'shut down' for the winter. In fact, in parts of California with very dry summers, some creeks can start flowing in November when the trees along them become dormant, even if no winter rains have fallen yet. With more 'base flow' in the creeks and rivers, flood crests can be a bit higher. This is one way Vermont was lucky with Irene's flooding - if the storm had come in November, like the 1927 hurricane, damage could have been even worse.

Soon all the leaves will have fallen from the deciduous trees along the river, and I'll get to watch ice start to form. Meanwhile, you can click here to see more photos of this year's fall color in Vermont.

An Illustrated Story of an Oxbow Cut

2011-10-12T09:34:00.001-07:00

In the weeks since the flooding caused by Irene, I've been watching a geologic and hydrologic event in progress on the Middlebury River.

When rivers flow through relatively flat areas, they tend to meander. Meanders grow in size as the river erodes away the 'outside' part of the bend (the side that momentum directs the water towards) and deposits sediment on the 'inside' part of the bend. Over time, the meanders become more and more convoluted, until the meander grows so large that it cuts back towards itself. The river then shifts course to 'cut off' the majority of the meander, leaving a lake or wetland.

The meanders are called oxbows, and are commonly found on natural, slow-moving watercourses of all sorts. There is a good description of the process here on Wikipedia.

Below is a Google aerial photo of part of the Middlebury River (not the part I have photos and drawings of, but in this area it is easier to make out the river bends).

View Larger Map

You can see many bends including one that has recently cut off, which is in the lower right part of the map.

Click below for more!

With the bend near my home, Irene was able to ALMOST cut through the bend, but didn't quite finish the job. On the upstream side, the bend is cutting west, and on the downstream side erosion from water that was in the flood plain began backcutting and creating a new channel. The result is a deep pool, a small branch of a stream that flows across the new cut, and a chunk of land about 30 feet long that stands between the river and its new route.

Below is a sketch I made, and colored on the iPad. The river flows from the background and bends towards the right, and on the lower left you can see the new river path forming.

Here's a photo of the new river channel, taken when the river was still running very high after Irene:

After several dry days, the water has dropped a lot in the river, but even when the river is low there is a small amount of flow in the channel:

Notice all the tree roots in the eroding area. They are doing an excellent job of holding the soil in place, and since the river has not risen much since Irene, very little additional erosion has occurred here. I think it will be surprisingly resilient to erosion, but I think the next big flush of water (perhaps the spring thaw) will probably cause most or all of the river to divert down this path.

See here for an album of photos. I'll be adding more over time.

Here's an illustrated overview of the oxbow cut:

Here are two more sketches from that day:

I'll keep watching the oxbow. Hopefully I can catch it right after it breaks and get good photos of the river in action! Further forward in time, the abandoned stretch of river will turn into floodplain forest, and will continue to absorb and slow down floodwaters and act as a filter to remove sediment from the river.

Long-Range Winter Weather Outlook: California and Vermont

2011-10-10T08:40:00.000-07:00

Despite the warm temperatures in Vermont in the last few days, winter is coming. The warm weather is a good time to prepare for winter - but what is it we are preparing for?

Long range seasonal weather forecasts are very difficult to make, and often wrong. Both the most modern computer models and the oldest knowledge of long-time residents (both human and otherwise) can offer us some insight - but in many cases the forecasts still don't end up much more accurate than flipping a coin. Still, forecasts are fun, and since I'm most familiar with Vermont and southern California, I'll take a look at what some people are saying about these areas, and offer my own thoughts.

As with all long-term forecasts, please don't make plans solely on this post. Do feel free to share your own thoughts, and next spring I'll check in and see how close these forecasts came to what really happened.

Click below for the forecasts!

Weather has some 'momentum' to it, so one thing to look at is what is happening right now. Vermont has been VERY WET over most of the last year including heavy winter snow and summer rain. Last winter was cold, but not freakishly so, and last summer was not particularly hot, but was quite stormy, with Irene, several strong fronts, and a sprinkling of several severe thunderstorm outbreaks. In southern California, where winter is the wet season and summer the dry season, last winter was a bit above average in precipitation, mostly due to very heavy December storms. The summer was mostly dry, as usual, but was punctuated by a few rather unusual thunderstorm outbreaks. Temperatures were not particularly extreme one way or the other, at least from what I noticed (I don't live there anymore!).

The La Nina conditions of last winter looked like they were going to fizzle out, but instead have strengthened over the last month or two, and actually look to possibly be stronger than last year. Click here for the effects that La Nina conditions generally have on North American weather. In Vermont, La Nina generally brings near-average winter temperatures, and sometimes wetter (snowier) than average weather. In southern California, the connection is less straightforward. Because some El Nino years bring as much as double the average winter rainfall, anything other than El Nino generally brings 'below average' precipitation. However, some La Nina years have actually brought flooding (such as that during the heavy storms last December). La Nina does not seem to have a strong effect on winter temperatures in southern California, but some La Nina years have been known to bring cold snaps and unusual low elevation snowfall.

The US government is understandably reluctant to offer detailed long-term forecasts, so the NOAA climate forecasts are often less 'dramatic' than other forecast sources. This year is no exception. In Vermont, the forecast is for average temperatures (or, more specifically, an equal chance of warmer or colder temperatures than average. and somewhat above average precipitation, especially for the second half of winter. In California, the forecast is for somewhat below average temperatures, with drier than average conditions possible in the far southern and eastern edge of the state (most of which is desert that is quite dry to start with).

Two other groups that offer winter weather forecasts are the Farmer's Almanac and Accu-Weather (click for link to forecasts). Both of these forecasts are very similar for Vermont and southern California, and the forecasts are also similar to those of NOAA, albeit worded a bit more emphatically. The Vermont forecast is for weather similar to last year - average temperatures (that still means cold!) and STORMY weather with a lot of snow. Last year was one of the snowiest years on record in northern and central Vermont, and if this forecast is correct, this winter will be quite similar. In southern New England, this forecast calls for wintry mix, slushy snow, and cold rain, rather than the heavy snows of last year, but here in central Vermont, we'd get snow (except the inevitable January thaw, which can be rainy). The Accu-Weather forecast calls for more snow in early winter, while the NOAA forecast predicts wetter conditions in February and March. In southern California, both Accu-Weather and the Farmer's Almanac predict drier than average weather. This is a safe forecast to make - because the wet years can be so extreme, most years are technically 'drier than average'.

What do I think? I largely agree with the other forecasts. Vermont has been so wet and stormy for the past year, and in general the past decade has been a snowy one for the state. It seems likely that this trend will continue this year, and we will experience above average snowfall. The forecasts seem to call for 'clipper' type storms rather than nor'easters, which seems reasonable. This might mean that instead of a few dumpings, we'd get many smaller storms that keep piling on the snow. It also means that far southern Vermont might get less snow. We can probably expect one period of subzero temperatures in January or February, because a brief period of such cold weather is common even during 'average' years. I also expect at least two or three thaws with rain on snow events that could cause ice jam flooding, or ice storms that can cause tree damage and shut down roads. I've already tossed out October 28th as the first 'sticking' snow in East Middlebury, and one long-term computer model calls for a chance of light snow a bit earlier than that, perhaps the 24th.

Above: Scene from last year in Vermont - this year may be much the same. Lots of snow, with temperatures just below freezing, would be great for creating more icicle art this winter.

As for southern California, I have an additional index I look at in addition to those listed above. I ask the oaks (or have friends do it for me). The oaks seem to think there will be a period of dry weather this winter. However, there has been some October rain already, and drought years rarely have much October rain. I expect precipitation will be below average, but also that there will be a decent snowpack in the mountains due to slightly colder than average weather. I don't think this will be an extreme drought year, because I do think there will be one or two periods of heavy rain. I'm going to take a blind guess - late December-early January, and early March. I'd also guess there may be some low elevation snow - perhaps on Boney Ridge in the Santa Monica Mountains, in Newhall, in Redlands, or somewhere else of that sort. Just for fun, let's say... early December.

As for Pittsburgh... well, I don't have that much experience watching the weather there, but I would guess there will be a stormy year, but not as cold as last year, which would mean a lot of sloppy, slushy, messy storms. Hopefully I'm wrong about that.

In any event, it will be fun to look back in the spring and see if I was right about any of this... if you have a prediction, post it in the comments.

October 10 Meeting to Address Pittsburgh Flooding Issues

2011-10-08T06:20:00.000-07:00

Pittsburgh residents, in case you've missed this post in the comments section of my blog, I am re-posting it here. I won't be able to attend, since I am in Vermont, but you should if you have an interest in this matter (and anyone in the area does!)

Councilman Shields is holding a Community Meeting re: the water/flooding issues in the district. Date: Oct. 10 Time: 6 p.m. Location: Jewish Community Center, Forbes & Murray in Squirrel Hill

If you are unable to attend, please email your comments to: gloria.forouzan@city.pittsburgh.pa.us

Thank you, Gloria Forouzan
Office of Councilman Shields

October 7, 2011 12:28 PM

A Winter Sampler: Early Season Winter Storm in California, Freeze in Vermont

2011-10-05T12:33:00.000-07:00

It's a beautiful, sunny, blustery day here in Addison County, Vermont. However, tonight we are going to experience a taste of winter as temperatures are expected to dip into the high 20s. I won't say more because I may have a post in a different blog about the subject... except that if you still have sensitive plants outside or remnant garden crops to pick, now is the time to do so.

Above: fall color near Ripton, Vermont last week. This week's frost will speed up foliage color change at lower elevations of Vermont.

Meanwhile, a strong early-season winter storm is currently impacting all of California. On average, the first rains generally come to southern California around Halloween, so this storm is a bit earlier. Further north the rainy season starts earlier, but the storm has still been stronger than average, with several areas reporting more than an inch of rain. The Sierras are getting early season snowfall.

The storm seems to be dousing much of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties and Malibu, with over an inch of rain in the last 24 hours in much of these areas. I expect the Los Angeles area will get much the same or a bit less. Snow is possible in the mountains. Here's a map of 24 hour rain totals in the area, but note that it updates automatically so if you click on this a few days after the storm, you should scroll to the bottom of the picture and select '7 day totals' (no other rainfall is likely in this area this week).

Because Southern California gets little or no rain over the summer, the first cold-season storm encounters filthy, oily roads. The first storm creates VERY slippery conditions on roads, and also unfortunately washes a lot of pollution into local waterways and the ocean. Rain barrels and rain gardens are especially useful in these conditions - the dry soil will soak up runoff if it gets a chance, and an inch of rain will usually completely fill any rain barrel. If the rest of the fall is dry, you will need that water for your plants.

Click here for a radar loop of the storm thus far, if I get a chance I'll update later with one that will show later rain as well.

West Coast Post: The Insanity of Lawns

2011-10-03T08:14:00.000-07:00

This isn't really relevant to anyone in the US east of the 100th meridian (except Texas) but for those of you who live in dry areas, please watch this video, as shared by Karen Russ on Google+:

So.... we dam up or dry up mountain streams, ship water hundreds of miles, devastate aquifers, kill salmon and render thousands of farmers unemployed for our urban water. We transport and filter it using an extremely energy-intensive process, then we dump millions of gallons of potable water (something most in the world don't even have access to) all over a 'crop' we don't eat, burn, or feed to animals. We maintain our lawns using machines that create a great deal of air pollution and consume fossil fuels. Then, irrigation water and other runoff from lawns ends up in local waterways, bringing with it fertilizers, pesticides, and other pollution. I remember hearing once that in the summer, most of the water in lower Malibu Creek in California can be tagged via isotope analysis as water from SNOWMELT - snow in the Malibu Creek watershed is a once in a decade event and generally amounts to a dusting to one inch. The water in the creek is from the Sierras, the Rockies, the southern Cascades... shipped hundreds of miles to end up, polluted, in a creek populated by species that are adapted to dry conditions and can't even use the water.

Lawns are wholly irrational and ridiculous, enact large social and environmental costs, and waste space that could be used for other things - vegetable gardens, micro-habitat patches of native plants, stream restoration, you name it! Oddly, it's done entirely via an odd form of adult peer pressure (sometimes legally enforced via ridiculous HOA regulations).

I understand it often isn't legally or socially possible to rip out your lawn. That being the case, we need to address this on a large scale, all at once. There needs to be a movement to remove all of the lawns of the West, except for shared sports fields and parks. If we don't do it now, we surely will have to do it later, during the next drought - and we'll end up with a bunch of brown, flammable grass everywhere instead of something better.

If you live in southern California, here's one resource for removing your lawn. Native plants are one great choice - cacti and succulents, or a vegetable garden, are also excellent choices. Replacing your lawn with pavement or a 'rock garden' of crushed gravel isn't really much of an improvement, as it creates severe runoff problems. You want soil... just not lawn.

Out east, there's plenty of water for lawns, but they still require a lot of maintenance and are a cause of water and air pollution. Consider a vegetable garden, a rain garden, wildflowers, or conversion back to a (managed) forest understory system. With the latter, you will have wildlife using your yard and can even generate a bit of sustainable firewood and perhaps maple syrup.

Where the Runoff Goes: East Middlebury Edition

2011-10-02T10:38:00.000-07:00

I've noticed some unusual runoff patterns in East Middlebury, VT. Rather than flowing into drains, or behind houses, runoff water in East Middlebury runs west along the main roads for long distances, often puddling on sidewalks or in the road. During Hurricane Irene, the water flowing down East Main and Ossie streets was not only fed by local runoff, but by the overflowing Middlebury River as well. Hopefully that does not happen again, but even when the river is not on the road, small 'creeks' form in places when the rain is heavy. When it gets below freezing, puddles on the sidewalk and street freeze, causing problems.

The soil in East Middlebury is old sand from a glacial delta as well as newer sand and cobble deposits from the river. As such, it is very well drained - aside from the river and a few larger streams, you don't see surface runoff in areas of uncompacted soil, even during downpours (an exception is in early spring when the ground is frozen, of course). Water running off of drainspouts soaks into the ground almost immediately, is filtered as it passes through the sand to an underlying clay layer, and makes it into the river long after the rain has stopped. Rain gardens on drainspouts aren't really necessary here, but when it comes to water channeled down the road (there are no gutters so it runs right down the road and sidewalk), I can see a lot of value in diversion of this water into small rain gardens or swales.

In trying to figure out where the need is greatest, I went out during two rainy days and documented how the water flows through town. Here's a Google map of what I found:

View East Middlebury Runoff in a larger map

All of the water flows roughly from east to west (from right to left). Brown lines represent water running down pavement or sidewalk, the green line is a soft-bottomed ditch that does allow some water to soak in (but would work better if it were a bit wider), and the blue line is a small creek that drains the area north of town. In a few places the water runs into drains, but mostly these are blocked.

The areas of water flowing down the road are quite substantial. The 'stream' flowing down Ossie Road is almost a half mile long! This water flows down the road, picking up pollutants, rushing towards the river, and possibly flooding basements, and at one point branching off and wandering down a driveway (not pictured), instead of being diverted to where it can soak in. There is clearly the potential to do something better with this water.

I also took lots of pictures. A map including these pictures is here (unfortunately I don't have an easy way to get them onto Google Earth). Take a virtual tour!

Fish VS. People: A "Red Herring" Washed In by Irene Floods

2011-09-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

When talking to people in person and online about Vermont's flooding damage from Irene, I keep coming across an odd concept that seems to have washed in with the floods. Some people are viewing the skepticism about gravel mining and channelizing rivers as an effort to 'put the interests of fish in front of those of people'.

Obviously the idea of people with such and agenda elicits concerns from residents... no one wants to lose their home in a flood to protect fish habitat. The thing is... the 'fish/human trade-off' is a myth. People aren't trying to stop the use of destructive methods of 'flood control' just to help fish. They are doing so because these obsolete methods don't control floods! All too often, they involve damaging river ecosystems, while not increasing (and sometimes decreasing) flood safety!

Some people think the mainstream environmental movement has gone awry in considering 'nature' as something that exists at the whim of, and needs protection from, us humans. I happen to be one of them. This is an outdated and illogical view. We don't need to save the rivers from us, nor do we need to over-engineer the rivers to save us from them. We need to understand the rivers and their watersheds, and use a combination of science, smart engineering, and local knowledge to come up with long-term solutions. We need to avoid knee-jerk, fear based reactions. Crews have been doing a great job of fixing infrastructure... an amazing job, in fact. When it comes to making major modifications to the rivers, though, we need to take a long-term view.

The idea behind channelizing and gravel-mining of rivers is an old one. The Army Corps of Engineers spent a lot of time in the early 20th century channelizing and dredging rivers, and we are now spending a lot of time dealing with the long term effects of these practices, which include increased sedimentation and erosion, increased flood crest height, and decreased river flow during droughts. As is so often the case, people were doing what seemed best at the time... but we have learned a lot since that time. If you became sick, would you want to go to a doctor who would only use medicines and techniques developed before 1930? Some of these older practices are still very important today, but many have been proven to be ineffective or even harmful. The same is true with river management practices. Let's not apply bloodletting leaches and snake-oil treatments to our rivers, just out of stubbornness. Instead, let's use techniques that acknowledge the effects of the entire watershed and take all we now know into account.

On the flip side, I've also run across a few people who have been advocating rivers who walk into town meetings filled with concerned residents and say things like "I have as much stake in the river as you do - I fish there!". As someone who very much loves 'my' river (as does everyone I've met in town) and also was threatened by it during flooding, I didn't feel very good when I hear these comments. I can't imagine how people who don't have as much background in the importance of river conservation feel about these comments, especially people less lucky than I am who spent the week after Irene shoveling mud out of their basements. YES, we all depend on the rivers, and yes, we should all have our say, since we are all dependent on the health of rivers. But, please understand that people directly impacted by floods do have a higher stake in the matter, because they are the ones at risk of losing their homes or even their lives when floods occur. Please do share ideas, speak your mind, and share your thoughts on why some techniques of river 'control' are counterproductive... but please also be respectful of those most impacted by the floods!

Above all, thanks to everyone who cares about our communities and rivers! There have been some frustrations, but overall, Vermont's response to the Irene floods has been inspirational. This event will change how we look at and interact with our waterways, and it's looking like, despite a few challenges, the changes will be positive ones.

"Adventures of Junior Raindrop" - Some Things Just Don't Change

2011-09-26T09:47:00.000-07:00

Today I found this silly video from the 1940s, shared on Facebook by Julia Gifford:

It's outdated, cheesy, silly, perhaps mildly inappropriate (the rain is starting gang wars?) but also a tiny bit discouraging. People knew that they were degrading watersheds in the 1940s, and people tried to stop it from happening, but in so many cases it still did.

Things are changing, but very slowly.

The Perils of River Channelization: A Tin Bucket Simulation

2011-09-25T09:41:00.000-07:00

I wanted to create a demonstration on why channelizing and dredging rivers can cause bigger flooding problems than it solves. But, I don't have a stream table so I had to improvise. Instead I used a sloped sandy beach, a tin bucket, and a bin with a hole in it.

Disclaimer: these 'simulations' are in no way scientific... they are heavily biased... very subjective... and can't actually represent any specific river conditions. But, rivers are incredibly complex and even the best of models often fail to predict river activity. This at least offers a visual demonstration of some of the concerns around dredging and channelizing rivers.

The setup:

The following videos simulate a flood passing through the above channelized river with a bend in it. A 'flood wall' (in this case made of clay) protects the village of 'West Centerbury'. The city has channelized the river to 'speed up the flow' in an effort to reduce flood risk. But, in this case, the channelization directs the flow right into the flood wall, increasing erosion. Each 'flood' is about 3 small tin buckets worth of water. Sorry for the shakiness of the video!

(see below)

Flood 1:

The raging waters eat away at the flood wall, especially on its downstream end. Thankfully, the walls hold... for now.

Flood 2:

The second rush of water quickly erodes the damaged flood wall. The river shifts course through 'town', raging down the little main street. The little pebbles that represent houses roll over and are submerged. Actual houses would not fare so well. Note, in particular, that the whole river shifts outside the channel. Once a river jumps out of an unnatural channel, it often has no way to get back in, especially if there are also levees.

I went back to the river and did a 'restoration project': I widened the river bank and put some pebbles ('boulders') and leaves and roots ('riparian vegetation') in the channel. Then I put the same amount of water down the 'river' again. The 'restoration project' was pretty sorry, since tossing stuff in the riverbed is a lot less effective than protecting trees with deep roots, but, it still made a difference in this case. I also put more effort into shoring up the flood wall itself... rather than trying to alter the river. The point is that it is very important to protect, maintain, and reinforce structures that protect us from floods, but isn't a good idea to try to engineer the whole river. Adding to my point, I didn't really shore up the little bridge, and after these three 'floods' it washed away.

Then I unleashed a second flood:

While there was erosion along the banks, the water was moving slower, and did not rampage through the town like the first series of floods did. One 'home' had a close call, but it was not destroyed.

I also tried a larger-scale channelization experiment:

This is just a straight channel, flowing downhill, with some changes in steepness along the way. I wanted to see how long the river stayed within the channel.

Things went well at first:

Still, notice the area below the little ledge, where the water slows down a bit. There is a lot of deposition here...

After a bit more water:

The upper part of the channel works great, though the walls are getting a bit eroded. Downstream, it's a whole different story. At the point where the water slows down a bit, it dumps sediment in the channel. No matter how deep it is, there isn't much space here to store sediment, so it quickly fills. Once it is fully, the water fans out, creating an alluvial fan. Presumably this fan would be dumping muck and sediment in homes and farms.

Just for fun I sent more water down and the alluvial fan became quite extensive:

Next I tried to set up a simulation where a river had a large floodplain with a levee on only one side:

Not only did the water not threaten the levee, it didn't even flow towards it. It ignored my meandering channel and flowed instead to the left.

I don't think this is a good illustration of why large floodplains are better, because I think i misjudged the slope. But, you can see that the water did not flow nearly as far or as fast as the channelized flow did.

I even tried testing fate by building homes in the flood plain:

The 'river' had so much space to roam that it didn't erode the levee at all (not pictured).

So what's my point in all of this? There are a lot of people claiming that if more rivers were channelized or dredged, the Irene floods in Vermont wouldn't have been as bad. I find this highly unlikely. It is possible that channelizing and dredging would have MOVED floods - from one home to another. But, it isn't possible to stop floods of that magnitude with this type of channel alteration. If you don't believe me, think about southern California where I grew up. Most of the rivers there are channelized, and some to the point that they are totally ruined. Yet, floods there are still quite commonplace. For instance, if you click here, you can see a map that indicates during an 100 year flood (which Irene probably represented in many parts of Vermont), huge areas of Long Beach and other parts of the LA basin would still flood. Los Angeles has ruined its rivers, but hasn't won flood safety in the exchange. If Olmstead's plan had been adopted instead, the rivers could have been saved, without any increased flood risk, and the only tradeoff would have been a bit less suburban sprawl.

As in many places, towns and homes in Vermont are close to rivers and streams. There are often no easy answers, and some floods will cause devastation regardless of what we do. My point is simply that the more space we can give the rivers, and the more we can avoid tampering with them, the better. We should strive to keep flood plains as intact as possible, and work very hard to make sure levees, bridges, roads, flood walls, and other structures near rivers are well-maintained and don't do more harm than good. In short, we should make our river management decisions based on science and evidence, rather than 'we've done this before and it seemed like it was OK'.

As we rebuild from Irene, we have the choice of doing what we did last time (which obviously did not stop the floods), or trying something new that could work much better.

Neat Archived Weather Radar Animations from Past Storms

2011-09-22T13:51:00.000-07:00

I recently discovered the website Weatherspark.com , when it was posted on Google+ . This website allows you to obtain very neat graphs of historic weather, average weather, and forecast weather, as well as large maps showing temperatures and radar over large areas. While Wunderground.com , one of my favorite weather sites, had this information, it is much easier to see on WeatherSpark and also loads faster (I still prefer wunderground.com for its forecasts, conditions from user-established weather stations, and smartphone app).

It's also possible to view archived radar images and conditions (temperature, wind, etc), though the method of finding them is not yet intuitive (I basically had to back-program the URLs). Here's a few fun radar videos from past storms. You can scroll around, zoom in and out, or switch between readings such as temperature or wind direction:

Recent severe thunderstorms in southern California (see this blog post). The coastal storms come in about half way through the animation, so if you want you can skip to those.

Radar and wind speed as Irene moves up the US East Coast . You can also zoom into Vermont or other areas for more detail.

August flash flooding in Pittsburgh (wait for the second storm cell!) as described in this blog entry.

June 19, 2009 in Pittsburgh, another day when Junction Hollow had sewage-stormwater overflows.

August 10 thunderstorms that caused large hail and flash flooding in East Middlebury, Vermont. (see here)

July 7, 2011 thunderstorms in Vermont (see this blog post)

May 26, 2011 severe thunderstorms in Vermont (see this blog post)

March 6, 2011 cold front - the radar itself isn't too exciting but watch the temperatures plummet when the cold front passes! (see also this post). This storm started as an unseasonably warm rain that we were worried would cause flooding due to the deep snowpack - but it soon turned into a brief ice storm, and then a record-breaking dump of March snow.

These are just a few memorable weather events, and I'm sure I will think of more later. If you have one you'd like to see, either check out the URL and 'reverse-engineer' it or leave a comment and I'll do it for you. In the future I'll be able to include these maps with descriptions of weather and flood events.

Radar

2011-09-17T16:05:00.000-07:00

My friend Neahga took these fun animated GIF pictures of the waterfall on Otter Creek in Middlebury. They only 'work' as animations if displayed at full size, so I've put them behind the cut so they don't clutter up the blog for people looking for other posts. Click below to see them!

It gives you an idea of the force of the water pouring over the falls.

He also used the technique to take a pseudo-3d picture of these wild grapes:

For more of Neahga's photos, see his flickr page here.

Wilderness On The Flooded Middlebury River

2011-09-15T12:29:00.000-07:00

To some, wilderness is a place 'untouched by man'. Myself, I don't buy into that idealistic and somewhat problematic idea. To me, wilderness is something else - wilderness is a place, a state of mind -where the impact and significance of humans is truly seen for the pitifully tiny thing it is. Our cities and farms and levees and homes are not replacing wilderness, they are simply distracting us from it.

That isn't to say we shouldn't preserve wild, open spaces. We should. Nevertheless, I've felt and seen more wilderness on the Burlington, Vermont waterfront during a raging blizzard than I've felt walking trails in Yosemite in the summer.

Lately there's been a controversy in actions the city of Middlebury has taken along the Middlebury River. I started making an upset blog post about it a few days ago, then deleted it, because the situation was too fast moving, and too politically charged, and I was feeling irrational and emotional. I may post about it in the future, but for now, here's the newspaper article about the controversy. I'm quoted here, as are others living in East Middlebury. In any event, I was feeling frustrated with the whole thing, and at the same time others in town had expressed concern about the condition of the river downstream from where this all happened. So, I set out to explore a new section of the Middlebury River. I set out, and what I found, was a wilderness.

(click below)

My trip involved wading right through the river, and I am clumsy and prone to falling in the river (I didn't this time) so I kept my iPhone in a waterproof bag. Unfortunately, this gave the photos a weird, hazy, 'fake-vintage-hipstamatic' look.

This heap of rock sits where the construction activities mentioned above stopped. I'm not sure what its fate will be, but at the current time it stands as a monument to the whole event. Moving downstream, though, it was quickly forgotten.

Above, the river is getting ready to cut a new course. The right now flows from right to left, with a little water spilling into the background. You can see that the background is much lower than the river is, and with a bit more erosion, the river should shift into a new course. Luckily, the new course will not result in flooding - if anything it will reduce flooding where the old river path was causing erosion.

Huge stacks of debris and tree trunks litter the riverbed. Some are concerned they may obstruct flow and cause flood problems. I am not really sure whether removing them would help, or would speed up the water more and increase erosion.

This debris pile is probably decreasing erosion, since it lines an eroding riverbank.

In this area, there are houses not much higher up than the river. This is one of the areas where there will hopefully be levee work or other forms of management to keep the river away from homes.

This island of trees was untouched by the flood. Imagine being a squirrel in one of these trees as water washed around and between the tree trunks!

This appears to be a piece of the flood wall, washed down at least a half mile from Grist Mill Road.

There are eroding clay banks in several sections of the river. This clay was deposited in the area as the Ice Age ended and a lake filled the valley for a while.

The river actually jogs sideways to follow these power lines for a while. I think the river more quickly eroded banks where trees and vegetation were removed, causing it to make this bend. This is a lesson that should be sent upstream to areas where vegetation was removed during the aforementioned project.

The river seems to have gotten into farm fields and removed some corn stalks.

These interesting sand formations were left in the riverbed as water receded. The second one appears to be a 'delta' built into a puddle that later drained. The terrace that the city of Bristol, Vermont is built on was formed in a similar way in the old glacial lake.

Humans are not the only mammal altering the ecosystem. There were some beaver chews near the Route 7 Bridge and I have also seen some upstream. This river is too fast and large to dam, and probably not deep enough to support resident beavers without dams, so they probably just pass through from time to time.

The Route 7 bridge, looking downstream. Here the river dramatically changes character, becoming slower and meandering through farm fields. I need to explore this section of the river further, although sections are not easily accessible and I don't want to trespass in farm fields.

Repeated, Preventable Flooding in Pittsburgh's Junction Hollow Neighborhood

2011-09-13T18:46:00.000-07:00

While much of the dialog about Pittsburgh's combined sewage-stormwater system centers around sewage discharges into the nearby rivers, for some residents and businesses in the Junction Hollow neighborhood the problem literally strikes much closer to home. Sewage and stormwater from the Four Mile Run sewer line has, on several occasions, erupted from manhole covers and flooded the neighborhood, dumping raw sewage into basements and flooding streets with many feet of filthy water.

Yes - that's right - raw sewage. I've spent a bit of time helping clean up flood damage in Vermont and even the silt from Vermont's relatively clean floodwaters becomes a health risk after flooding. I can't even imagine what it would be like to have this filthy water flowing into my home:

The remarkable video above, taken by local resident Michael Vincent, shows the explosive power experienced when aging combined stormwater-sewage lines are overloaded with water from a summer thunderstorm. This water is probably coming from the sewer line that channels the runoff - and sewage - from most of the historic Junction Hollow Watershed.

click below for more...

The above video was taken in the summer of 2007 but this flooding was unfortunately not an isolated event. Similar floods happened in 2004, 2009, and during the recent severe flooding of this summer.

Here's a view of the Junction Hollow area (foreground, where the historic creek channels merge) and the historic watershed. The current sewage lines follow a similar path:

Click here for an interactive Google map with more info on the historic watershed.

You can see that Junction Hollow is in a low-lying area where two creeks converged (and two sewer lines now converge). The situation here is very similar to that in Negley Run where tragic flash flooding claimed several lives last month.

The residents of Junction Hollow have sent me an information packet on the flooding, and with their permission, I am going to share a few photos and stories from this packet.

Above photos from Chaser's In The Run.

Above photos by Laura Shaffalo Vincent. She also reports "Nearly eight feet of [sewer] water in basement" in 2007 and 2009, as well as an inch of water on her first floor. Her car was drenched with four inches of filthy water, and a few inches of filthy debris filled her property and required several days to clean up after each occurrence.

Paul and Evelyn Matvey have experienced repeated flooding and now have unsanitary mold on their basement walls due to the flooding and other sustained water seepage.

Dennis and Denise Klein lost "a tremendous amount of tools, building material, from construction business" in 2011, after losing a classic car, christmas decorations, and more tools during the 2009 flood.

Susan Morrison lost construction and plumbing equipment vital to her job during the 2009 flood, and had to build an outdoor shed to store her tools so that they would not be ruined during the repeated flooding. Her washer, dryer, and water heater were ruined in 2009 and her furnace needed extensive repair.

The Slavonic Club reported a basement filled with water during 2011, and also said the flooding has been happening for 20 years, and is getting worse. Like many in the area, they are no longer to store anything in the basements, because of the repeated flooding.

These are just a few of the stories from Junction Hollow, a vibrant and unique little community of Pittsburgh that is trying to fight against a rising tide of urban runoff and sewage. Unfortunately, they can't stop the flooding on their own, and are seeing little support from the authorities or from other community members. In the long term, the sewer system needs to be rebuilt and changed, but in the short term, there are things the community can do to help prevent a recurrence of these floods. The residents of Junction Hollow would very much like to never have sewage in their homes again.

Everyone who lives or owns a business in the watershed, which spans Squirrel Hill, eastern Oakland, and northern Greenfield, can help reduce stormwater flows. The problem is caused by too much water rushing into the system at once, so anything you can do to slow down runoff is helpful. Set up a rain barrel, and if you don't need the water for your plants, just drain the barrel the day after the storm has passed. Build a rain garden or swale, or install pervious pavement. Plant more trees, avoid pavement, and don't over-plant lawns (they are better than pavement at slowing down water, but worse at it than native vegetation, a vegetable garden, or an area with lots of trees). Check out the Rain Garden Alliance page for more info on how to help. Even if you don't live in the Junction Hollow or Negley Run watersheds, the above measures will help keep sewage out of the rivers.

A larger-scale way to help the residents of Junction Hollow is to support the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy in its restoration of the Panther Hollow watershed and daylighting of Four Mile Run. Panther Hollow in Schenley Park already does a great job of slowing down runoff, and restoring the watershed in the park will help it do its job more effectively, decreasing the amount of water rushing into the sewer system immediately following storms. The 'daylighting' of Four Mile Run would involve restoring a portion of the aboveground flow of Four Mile Run, a historic creek channel that once flowed through Junction Hollow. During storms, a portion of the runoff would flow down the creek instead of into the sewer line, greatly diminishing the chance of a sewage overflow. The addition of a daylighted stream would also increase the value of the largely unused section of Schenley Park in Four Mile Run and bring more park visitors to the area, which would also bring more business to the local restaurants in the Run.

You can help the Parks Conservancy fulfill their restoration and daylighting goals by making a donation, voluntering for restoration projects in the park (this not only helps the park directly but also helps the park get grants), and/or letting local policymakers know that you support the project. You can also help the residents of Junction Hollow by sharing this post with your friends in Pittsburgh.

It's Different when it is YOUR Home, and 'YOUR' River.

2011-09-12T11:43:00.000-07:00

Update: This situation is evolving very fast and appears to be much more complex and possibly problematic than I thought. For this reason I have removed this post for the time being, until it is more clear what is going on. I'll certainly have updates on the situation in East Middlebury soon.

Severe Thunderstorms in Southern California: Mini-Update

2011-09-10T09:12:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to make a mini-post about some unusual weather in southern California. A cutoff low has allowed some severe thunderstorms to form in coastal regions of Orange and Los Angeles counties. These areas very rarely experience severe thunderstorms, and when they do it is usually associated with winter storms. These storms are moving from the southeast and have already been associated with some hail in Long Beach.

The main hazard with severe thunderstorms in this part of California would probably be on the roads, especially the freeways. Check on the radar and consider altering your trip plans if you'd be on a freeway during one of these storms - visibility will be near zero and roads will be very slick, especially since it hasn't rained in a long time.

Unfortunately, most of this rain is falling in the ocean or on concrete so it probably won't get to soak into the ground or provide water to local ecosystems. There is also some rain up towards Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, though, and hopefully this will help increase fuel moisture and decrease fire hazards in this area. Despite fears to the contrary, these thunderstorms do have significant rain, rather than just dry lightning.

Defunding Stream Gauges: How Much are Lives and Homes Worth?

2011-09-09T07:59:00.000-07:00

During a year of some of the worst flooding the United States has ever seen, spanning just about every state except those in severe drought (such as Texas), the US federal government is planning to shut down 376 stream gages due to 'lack of funding' (Thanks to @wunderground on Twitter for this link). Apparently, a USGS stream gage costs around $15,700 a year to maintain, a minimal sum when compared to its benefits. Stream gages allow for accurate flood warnings, that save lives, livestock and property... allow for flood plans to be estimated more accurately... and provide information on water supply during times of drought.

I'm trying not to get into politics too deeply here, since it is a contentious issue and I feel that this is a non-partisan issue and need. But, when I think about other things our government and economy expend money and resources on, and how tiny a speck the cost of a stream gage is in the grand picture, I am disgusted. Are human lives, or our homes and everything in them, or our, businesses, crops, and livestock that are our livelihood... not worth $15,700 a year in each of these watersheds? Are we, the people of the United States, unable or unwilling to demand that our representative government provide cheap and effective services that protect us from loss of life, or is the system so broken that the government is not at all representative of us any more?

There should be many more stream gages being installed, none being removed, and many more rain gages also being added in upper watershed areas.

If our government is unwilling or unable to provide stream and rain gages, I think we need to look into alternatives. Perhaps a citizen-science type network of people could be assembled who are willing to invest a lesser sum in an automated weather station (probably under $500.00 - perhaps with a tax rebate or grant?) or some form of 'cheap and dirty' stream gage. Perhaps state governments or private industry could step in (I know I keep mentioning Google, but I know they could be a part of this). If all else fails, we need a watershed/flood smartphone/computer reporting network (as mentioned before in this blog I am partial to the iNaturalist / whatsinvasive format). Even a normal webcam aimed at a $3 yardstick in the creek would be better than nothing (though it was just pointed out to me that it would be impossible to see at night, when floods are most dangerous!)

The VTResponse people are doing an amazing job and helping organize flood recovery in Vermont. Who is going to step forward to protect us from the next flood? We have great people at the USGS already willing to process the data and inform the authorities of imminent flooding... but they can't do that without having the data in the first place.

Hurricane Irene Notebook

2011-09-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

During Hurricane Irene I recorded some observations in a notebook, along with a few little sketches. It's not the most detailed journal, and doesn't have all that much art (how do you draw a hurricane?) but I think it's interesting so I am posting it here. The most notable thing I observed, I think, is the fact that in many areas, such as East Middlebury, the storm didn't seem like THAT big of a deal... and I wrote something to that effect, and then minutes later the fire department came to our door and told us we had to evacuate before the river went down Main Street. This has been echoed by others in other areas, and speaks to the fact that flash flooding is dependent on what happens upstream, not just what happens where you are.

Also, I noticed an interesting smell when driving through the start of the storm, and have heard elsewhere that others observed the same thing... did anyone else smell anything interesting or out of place during the approach of the storm?

The journal starts in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, and then moves to East Middlebury, Vermont.

Food Coloring in Water: A Break from Irene

2011-09-05T08:10:00.000-07:00

I've mostly been using this blog to give updates on Irene, and before that information on Pittsburgh's recent flash flood. But, I figured that people are weary of only reading bad news and might like to see a project I've been working on instead.

Long-time readers of this blog (if there are any) as well as any real life friends in Vermont will remember how excited I got about coloring icicles, and later coloring small urban snowmelt streams, to help show people the path of urban runoff. Lately, I found a bunch of food coloring on sale, and decided to see if I could find water movement in unexpected places.

Because of diffusion, dye will move even through perfectly still water; the slight differences in the density of dye may also cause it to move. For the most part, though, the swirls and patterns created when food dye is placed in water are caused by otherwise invisible currents in the water.

Below is a rain barrel used to collect rainwater for our garden (though we have barely had to use it due to the wet conditions). Apparently, a light wind blowing at just the right angle had set most of the water column rotating. It could not be detected just by looking at the water, but the food coloring revealed an amazing amount of complexity in this 'standing' water.

(the 'falling mushroom' shapes are due to the food coloring sinking, due to density or temperature, and don't appear to be part of the currents).

After a while, the currents wrapped the dye into shapes resembling the spiral bands of a hurricane. After a while longer, the food dye dispersed completely, or was destroyed by sunlight, and was gone.

These currents below were found in water pooled in the back of my pickup truck after a storm.

I think these currents may have been caused by convection associated with different water temperatures. You can see in one of the pictures here that some of the water was in the shade. In the sunny areas, sunlight hitting the black truck bed liner was heating water, causing it to expand. Meanwhile, water in the shady area was relatively cooler, and sank relative to the warm water. This would cause cold water in the deeper areas (it was an inch or two deep) to move into the sun, while water at the surface would move towards the shady area. Meanwhile, wind added an element of randomness. While I'm not certain if this type of convective current was happening in the back of my truck, it is the driving factor of ocean currents and large weather systems (along with the Coreolis effect, which causes swirling and does not have any measurable effect on small bodies of water like my car.

Below, water flows across a dirt road after a storm. Note that the water is moving quickly and not soaking in, because the road surface is compacted. Dirt roads may absorb a bit more water than asphalt but they still lead to rapid runoff.

Two streams come together:

A small 'delta' in a puddle:

For more photos of food coloring in runoff, including the icicle photos from last winter, see here.

Technology-Based Irene Relief: Thanks VTResponse, Google, and Ushahidi

2011-09-04T07:01:00.000-07:00

One of the small bright spots of Irene hitting Vermont have been the innovative ways people have found to use technology to help out.

The group that is getting the most attention, and rightfully so, is VTResponse. This group, created by UVM student Sarah Waterman, has been helping connect volunteers with people who need help since shortly after the storm left. This group was the inspiration for us going to help in Brandon twice, and has brought help to a lot of people. There is also an unrelated website devoted to collecting donations for small businesses called VTIreneFund. I hope we see more things like this in the future, too.

I have a soft spot for Google because I love the Google Maps and Google Earth products, which I use to make watershed maps like these. Google has helped out by creating this interactive map of road closures and other problems. It has been incredibly helpful. It isn't perfect, as there has been some incorrect or outdated information, but this seems to be due to the difficulty of keeping up with Irene news, and a feature of the information source itself, not of Google. There is also crowd-sourced information (see below). In any event, I just think it is really neat that Google, a huge corporation with no offices in Vermont, has gone out of their way to help out like this.

Ushahidi is an app that allows for crowdsourced collection of info, especially during and after disasters. This app and associated website is the source for some of the info found on the Google Vermont Irene map. There is also an effort to map where flooding happened. I tried out Ushahidi on my iPhone last winter and it didn't seem to work well, so I deleted it and forgot about it. Now, it seems like the bugs have been worked out and the program is seeing more extensive use, so I'm going to give it a try again.

There have been a lot of groups using technology to help out, so if I missed you, don't feel bad, but leave a comment here instead.

On a less rosy note, Vermont residents should be aware that a storm containing moisture from Tropical Storm Lee will move through the state later today and Monday. There could be some flash flooding, especially in areas of unstable, eroded ground left over from Irene. Be very aware when using newly-repaired 'stopgap' roadways as these may be more vulnerable to washing out again. Keep an eye on the weather, evacuate if you see flooding that threatens your home, and just generally be safe! Hopefully this moves through fast and cleanup can continue.

Vermont Post-Irene Flooding Mini-Update

2011-09-03T06:44:00.000-07:00

The National Weather Service has issued a flood warning for all of Vermont. Worst potential for flooding will be Sunday night into Monday, but scattered strong to severe thunderstorms could cause flooding sooner.

This would normally only be enough rain to cause localized flash flooding. But most of the highway/bridge repairs around Vermont consist of soft, loose gravel and are not able to even withstand moderately high water.

If you live in an area that had become an 'island' or almost became an 'island' during Irene, and you want to go home, BUY LOTS OF SUPPLIES! Be ready to be alone there again. Or, stay with a friend in Burlington or somewhere else safe.

I think this flooding will be worse on mountain streams and small rivers, and less severe in places like the Winooski River and Otter Creek. There are no guarantees though. Please be safe!

Less Talk, More Rock (lined erosion areas) - Brandon, Vermont Irene Update

2011-09-02T10:50:00.000-07:00

Brand Aid

Yesterday I felt like I was doing a bit too much typing and talking and not being helpful enough, so I went with two friends to Brandon to see if any help was needed. We were sent to a rural road where a wood shop owner asked us to help direct cars away from undercut sections of road. The flood had heavily eroded this small country road, but there was a lot of traffic as people tried to find their way around. Apparently Brandon was totally out of traffic cones. So, this meant that we had to use what was available - rocks and flood debris - to mark off where the road was hazardous.

(more below on Brandon and Addison County)

Hopefully this prevented anyone from driving off the road. It may be a while since this is fixed, it's probably pretty low priority considering the extensive damage to major roads in the area.

We also visited downtown Brandon. As of yesterday, there was a detour on Highway 7, but it was possible to access downtown via Park Street. Rumor has it that 7 may be re-opened soon. Either way, many shops and restaurants are open, so if you were considering a trip to Brandon, please don't cancel it on account of the floods. The businesses could use your support! If you aren't planning to come to town, but still would like to help, you can donate to the Brand Aid fund.

When we visited Brandon we didn't find just destruction, but also a bunch of neat shops and restaurants that are only 20 minutes from our house. We're hoping to go check some of the restaurants out soon.

Salisbury Flooded Fields

These fields, in Salisbury along Highway 7, often flood in spring, but don't usually flood this time of year. I'm not certain if there will be crop damage, or if the field was laying fallow.

The flooded fields reminded me of some of my ideas about controlling floods - this water was slowed down on its way to Middlebury, decreasing the flood crest there. It also made me think of a Neko Case song called Fox Confessor Brings the Flood:

Driving home, i see those flooded fields
How can people not know what beauty this is?
I've taken it for granted my whole life,
since the day I was born.

It's amazing to me that even in a time of destruction, Vermont is possibly the most beautiful place on Earth. Some of the red maples on the edge of this field were turning red, perhaps stressed due to the unexpected water. The maples were reflected in the calm of the flood. I hope the farmer who grows food on this land was not harmed by the flood, but I also thought it was important to pause and notice the moment of beauty.

Incidentally, Neko Case lives in Vermont and has been offering information and support on her twitter feed.

Middlebury

Otter Creek in Middlebury is peaking, or just past peak, right now. Last I heard there was the possibility of some minor flooding at Jacksons By The River and in Frog Hollow, but the city will mostly avoid flood troubles. Here's what the river looked like yesterday:

East Middlebury

There was some heavy equipment working near the Grist Mill road in the riverbed today. The equipment is probably cleaning up/repairing the small flood wall in the area, which protects the town from floods. I'm glad they are doing this promptly since there is a chance of more fairly heavy rain on Monday and Tuesday. Thanks to work crews for their rapid response to this problem!

Above: the river under construction. Below you can see the concrete flood wall near Grist Mill Road. It's hard to see on the photo but there is some damage in need of repair, which is why there is work happening in the river.

Preparing for or Preventing the Next Vermont Flood

2011-08-31T14:38:00.000-07:00

Irene has come and gone from Vermont, but we are going to be dealing with her effects for a long time. Homes and businesses are destroyed, roads and bridges washed out, and people displaced and understandably concerned.

Irene was an 'almost-worst-case-scenario' for Vermont, and hopefully we won't see anything like it again in our lifetimes. However, floods are a part of Vermont life and we will certainly face other damaging floods in the years to come. While we can't completely stop them, there are things we can do to decrease their intensity and increase our preparedness when they do occur.

In some ways, reducing flooding in Vermont is harder than in many areas. Unlike Pittsburgh, with highly urbanized, modified watersheds, or California, with its channelized streams and massive habitat loss, Vermont is a mainly rural state with vast, healthy forests and small towns. Still, there is much we can do to reduce risk and impact of floods.

This post includes some ideas I have about how to reduce flooding risk, prepare for floods, and better cope when they do occur. If you think these ideas make sense, please share this with others. If you think they don't make sense, leave a comment and tell me why. The most important thing right now, aside from cleanup and repairs, is looking ahead together as a state to make sure nothing like this happens again.

Below are my ideas, in somewhat random order:

Create a High-Tech River, Stream, and Precipitation Monitoring Network
At the current time, there is data from a modest set of river gages available online. There is also someprecipitation data available at the NWS website, and a few other stations available on Wunderground.com. These are important, but they aren't enough. Not surprisingly, most gages are in cities. But, these can only detect flooding once it is already happening. We need a system of dozens of creek gaging stations high in watersheds, and a similar number of automated rain gages high in the mountains where most flash floods originate. The data needs to be available to the general public, ideally through an interactive map, a smartphone compatible site, and perhaps a phone notification service for those who can't or don't want to use the Internet. The Mad River Watch water quality monitoring website is an example of what it could look like. Google also has some of this info on their Vermont flooding map. These sorts of monitoring gages are relatively inexpensive these days, could be partially maintained by volunteers, and could definitely save lives and increase notification time when evacuations are necessary (so no one would have to be stuck in an isolated town for 3 days without enough food). We have detailed public maps for weather and traffic, why not for what our rivers are doing too? If the government can't do this, maybe Google or another tech-based group can.

Create a High-Tech Flood Damage Notification Network
Vermont residents are great at helping each other during times of need, but providing them with some extra info could help them do this. Not surprisingly, Google is already on this too, and has created this amazing map. We can do more, though, perhaps also through Google.

Locals know when a bridge is about to wash out, when a hillside could give way, when a neighbor is stuck in their home and needs medicine. During Irene, social networking was useful to many for contacting loved ones and obtaining updates during floods. Again, though, we can do better. Rather than having to sort through Twitter or Facebook for updates, it would be very helpful to have the info in one place, and associated with a map. Users would be able to report potential or current issues using a smartphone or the internet or perhaps over the phone, and they would be displayed on a map for others to see. This could include pre-flood issues (clogged culverts), during-flood issues (flooding as it happens, but stay safe when documenting!) and post-flood issues (road wash-outs and people in need of help). We don't have to design a system from scratch, either. There are a lot of websites being developed for non-flood-related reasons that could be adapted to do this. For instance, check out www.whatsinvasive.com - a site used to report occurrence invasive organisms. A similar website and smartphone app could easily and cheaply developed to help with floods, blizzards, fires, and other disasters and calamities.

Acknowledge and Prepare for Climate Change
Ok... I am not talking about why the climate changes, or our government's energy policy. Those are important topics but we'll leave them to another blog. Instead, let's just all agree that there has been a LOT of extreme weather lately. Climate can change, dramatically... for instance, 13,000 years ago most of Vermont was under a huge ice sheet. Right now we appear to be entering a period of extreme storms. We need to face the terrifying possibility that storms like Irene may happen again in our lifetimes, even though in the past these storms were a once in a lifetime event. We don't know for sure... and I sure hope it was a one time event... but we need to be prepared in case it isn't.

Manage for Healthy Forests
While dealing with the current flood, there has been reference to older floods, like the New England Flood of 1927 . That flood dropped similar amounts of rain to Irene but in many cases had much higher water flow. Why? Part of the reason may be that in 1927 the forests of Vermont were still recovering from clear cutting and hillside farming in the 1800s, and there was much less mature forest at that time than the current day. Our forests have recovered since then, which helped keep Irene's floods from being even worse.

Almost all of the water in a river during a flood comes from rain or snowmelt in the river's upper watershed, rather than water that falls directly into a creek or river. Most of our upper watersheds are forested, mountainous areas. These mountain forests protect us from floods, so we need to protect them. This doesn't mean we can't have sustainable logging, but it means we need to make sure logging roads don't unnecessarily increase erosion, make sure to leave enough trees along creeks when logging, avoid additional development and road building in upper watersheds when possible, and work to stop the spread of invasive forest pests and organisms that kill or displace trees, like the Emerald Ash Borer, the Asian Longhorned Beetle, glossy buckthorn, and Morrow's honeysuckle.

Preserve Wetlands and Flood Plains
Otter Creek inundated Rutland with record flows, causing massive destruction. The water all has to move through Middlebury before leaving the state via Lake Champlain. Yet, the Middlebury area is expecting only minor problems due to high water. A large part of the reason for this lies in the vast expanses of swamp, floodplain forest, and marsh along the river between Rutland and Middlebury. These swamps and marshes absorb floodwaters like a sponge and release them slowly. If we hadn't left these wetlands in place, Middlebury would probably be under water right now, and Virgennes soon would be as well.

Granted, upper mountain streams often are too steep for large swamps (see next section). But, along our mainstem rivers, maintaining, restoring, and creating wetlands and flood plains will help reduce flooding in the future.

Encourage Beavers
What? Beavers? Why? Because they construct wetlands for us, for free, and in a way that is beneficial to wildlife and waterways on a large scale. Beaver ponds hold back runoff during floods and release it later, decreasing the peak of flood flows. Since they thrive along small creeks in upper watersheds, they create wetlands (see above) in places that they would not otherwise exist. Sometimes beavers build dams in places that cause problems for humans, and they need to be managed. Installing flow control devices instead of killing the beaver and removing the dam allow for the beavers to still reduce flooding downstream while controlling flooding behind the dam.

Beavers were just being reintroduced to Vermont around the time of the 1927 flood, but were not very abundant yet. There were essentially no beaver dams or beaver meadows in the Green Mountains. This probably added to the magnitude of that flood.

Be Wary of Dams
Inevitably after a flood people call for construction of new dams. This isn't necessarily a good idea. While some of the large ACOE dams were vital in reducing Irene's flood lows, other dams possibly did more harm than good....

Dams alter the flow and erosion patterns of rivers, and can inhibit the passage of animals (like beavers). Large dams are massively expensive to build and maintain. The lakes behind dams become filled with sediment and debris and if not dredged become useless for flood control. Worse yet, an aging or poorly maintained dam can break during a flood, causing much worse conditions than if the dam weren't built. There was concern during Irene that the Marshfield Dam would break, inundating Montpelier and other towns along the Winooski River. This didn't happen, but it could have.

We need to devote sufficient funding to maintaining the dams we have. If they are unsafe, they need to be repaired or removed. We should, as much as possible, use 'flood control' dams that only hold water during floods, and allow the land to be used for other things (not habitation/structures!) when not flooded. We should not use dams as an excuse to build in flood plains. When we do, the dam operators are not able to release as much water as they should into the river during high water. Furthermore, we need to look very long and hard at construction of any new dams... and I think in many cases we will find that they just don't make sense, economically OR ecologically

Share Farmland with Water
Water has been making its way into lots of farmfields, homes, and other places where it is unwelcome. We don't ever want water in homes, but perhaps we should think about setting up a system where rare severe floods are actually 'encouraged' to fill up farm fields. Perhaps, in fields without structures in them, we should consider removing levees and allowing floods with a 10 or 20 year return interval to flood them. This would of course have to be accompanied with payment to the farmer for use of his/her land as a flood control area... payment at least as high as the crops they would have lost in the process. It is sad to lose crops, but rebuilding roads, bridges, homes, and business is much more resource intensive. Essentially, we should consider creating 'easements' where water is very infrequently stored in fields, and farmers are paid a fair price for the use of their land.

Re-Think Agricultural Drainage
Agricultural drainage systems generally focus on getting water away from fields as fast as possible. This is understandable, but we also don't want to rush water out of farm areas so fast that it floods villages. Features like drainage ditches are effective in channeling water, but would still do so, without such a rush of water, if they were a bit wider, less straight, and had some vegetation in them. Again, if this means the farmer loses some land, let's make sure they are fairly compensated. Vermont farmers have enough trouble without us adding additional costs. It's better than subsidizing high fructose corn syrup, right?

Agricultural culverts, when not well-maintained, can also clog, leading to road washouts and erosion. Let's keep track of our culverts (perhaps using the technology mentioned above) and maintain them properly. In the case of large culverts, consider replacing them with small bridges that block less water flow and allow animal passage.

Rebuild Appropriately
Vermont's towns and roads are based around our rivers and streams, because they are one of our greatest resources. I'm not advocating relocating our towns and removing historic structures. But if historic structures and roads are destroyed by a flood, perhaps we should build the new structures and roads a bit further from the river. This can sometimes be tricky with how land ownership works, but we can figure something out. The Kismet restaurant in Montpelier was devastated by floods this May. The community rallied and the restaurant was repaired and restarted. Unfortunately, Irene devastated the restaurant again. This local business is valued by the community and is important to Montpelier, so we should help it stick around. But let's not put it back in the same building where it will get flooded again. Likewise, a lot of roads keep washing out. Some roads, like Highway 125 near Ripton, are in narrow gorges and can't be moved... but other roads could be relocated further from the river. Bridges could be built to allow passage of more water.

Appreciate and Understand our Waterways
The more we appreciate and enjoy our waterways, the more we understand them. The more we understand them, the more we can anticipate issues, problems, and solutions. Besides, Vermont rivers and streams are amazing and are one of the best things about the state. Be familiar with your watershed and local rivers and streams, enjoy them, and make them a part of your life!

Share/Comment on This Post
I like to think these are good ideas. If you think so too, share these ideas. They are specific to Vermont but are relevant in other areas too. If you think I'm off base here, I'd like to know too. Post something here, or perhaps we can start a thread in a message board for one of the Vermont flood recovery websites. We need to stick together!

Thanks so much. I feel very privileged to be a Vermont resident and continue to be touched and awed by the generosity, love, and toughness of Vermonters. One way or another, we'll make sure we never have to go through something like this again.

Middlebury River After Irene

2011-08-30T06:34:00.000-07:00

After learning that East Middlebury largely escaped serious damage from the Irene floods, i set out to check on what had happened along the river. Like most areas of Vermont, the water rose higher than any of the residents I talked to remembered (I'm not sure how this area fared in the floods of the late 1920s). It seems that this was at least a '50 year flood' if not a '100 year flood'. (Note that these floods are named by their probability of occurrence, ie: a 100 year flood has a 1 in 100 year chance of happening. They don't necessarily happen every 100 years).

East Middlebury lies on a glacial delta that formed when glacial Lake Vermont filled the Champlain Valley. The river emerges from the mountains and changes from a steep, gorge-confined river, to a meandering, slow stream as it passes through East Middlebury. In the process, it drops sediment from the mountains. Larger rocks are dropped near the gorge, gravel and sand carried further, silt deposited in slow-water areas, and clay carried out of the area (and often all the way to Lake Champlain).

Anyway, back to Irene... the storm created a historic flood that had big effects on the river. But, in the rockbound gorge, very little changed. The gorge was at least in part cut when the river was much larger than now due to glacial dams diverting the New Haven River down its course as well. So, even this major flood is smaller than the floods that carved the gorge. While some rocks shifted, the river's course did not. It takes thousands of floods like this to carve a gorge like that, and it doesn't usually change very fast. See the comments on this post for more info on the glacial history of the area courtesy of Chris.

The river was RAGING the day after the Irene floods. I very carefully took this picture, making sure to avoid the banks of the river, which could have been eroded by the floods. If I fell into this, I'd be done for!

At the base of the mountains, the river passes through this even narrower gorge under the Highway 125 bridge:

Sometimes we go swimming here, but not today. (Note: After Irene, do NOT dive into swimming holes, even in areas that have always been safe, without checking if it is still OK first. Irene's flood moved some enormous boulders and changed where sand and gravel bars are located... previously safe areas may be deadly to divers now.)

After leaving the gorge, the river slows down a bit and passes through town. Here's the river from Grist Mill Road, looking downstream. As the name implies, there was once a mill here. You can see the features in place to protect the town from the river. They have worked well for many years, but this flood was too much for them. Upstream from here, the river jumped its banks and ran down Highway 125 for a while, flooding basements and eroding driveways. Note that the river is still rather confined by its banks and these levees.

Between Grist Mill Road and Route 7, the Middlebury River drops a lot of sediment. Its course begins to wander, and sycamores and cottonwoods, rare in Vermont, line its banks. This part of the river is very dynamic, and changed a LOT during the floods.

Both these areas are almost unrecognizable since the river has changed so much.

Trees from upstream are laying in piles everywhere. This looks like a lot of destruction, but trees in rivers provide habitats for lots of creatures, including trout and the species they eat.

Above, a side channel of the river erodes backwards towards the main stream. Eventually this channel may reach the main channel and 'steal' its water, causing the river to shift course. In this case, this happening would not endanger structures since it's in the undeveloped flood plain. The old river channel would become a wetland, then gradually fill in with cottonwood and sycamore trees. Over the thousands of years since the last Ice Age, this process has created a dynamic, diverse ecosystem along the river. The Middlebury Area Land Trust has obtained a conservation easement along part of the river in this section, which will allow the river to continue unrestrainted in its wanders.

Downstream from Highway 7, the Middlebury River has dropped most of its heavy sediment, and it slows down and meanders extensively. I didn't visit this section yesterday, because it was more heavily impacted by flooding and I didn't want to get in the way of residents dealing with flood damage. I'll visit the lower section of the river at a later date and see how it fared during the floods.

Here's a Google map of the Middlebury River at the gorge:

View Larger Map

Note: please respect private property rights and don't try to access the river through private property. There are places where you can see the river near the 125 and 7 bridges. The MALT parcel is not yet developed for public access, but may be in the future. This river is very sensitive to rainfall and rises fast during floods, so stay away from the river, especially in the gorge, during and after heavy rains!

East Middlebury Irene Flood Update Part 1

2011-08-29T06:49:00.000-07:00

After spending the night at a friend's house we returned to East Middlebury early this morning. Here's what we found:

Otter Creek leaving Middlebury... high but not dangerous. The crest hasn't arrived here yet, though. The sky looks nasty, but the clouds were clearing.

Sunrise.

East Main Street was not destroyed, or buried in mud. It was obvious that the river had run down the road, though. There was some debris:

Hard to see above, but there is a high water line near the sidewalk.

Goodrow Lumber was spared, except for some very minor parking area damage. Mac's Market across the street was also spared and was open. They told me they had to open a bit late, but everything was fine. Nearby, many people were pumping out their basements. Our home was undamaged, as it is a couple of feet above the road. Our garden was not damaged by flooding, but was damaged by the groundhog again. I was hoping it had drowned, but apparently not.

The river is raging, and is almost unrecognizable. Trees had been uprooted and existing logs have washed away. A 20' tall, 50' long section of vertical bank was created.

Here's what it looked like a few weeks ago, when the water was low:

Note that the young trees to the left were almost completely destroyed (there is a reason they were young... they are on a gravel bar. That area floods often). The leaning sycamore to the right somehow survived the flood.

The flood plain along the river had been buried in mud and debris.

Unlike human structures, floodplain forest is well adapted to frequent floods. This deposit of silt and sand will provide nutrients for the plants, and will benefit the flood-adapted plants in this area such as sycamore, cottonwood, and ostrich fern.

Later today I will check out the gorge and the bridges, and find where the river jumped its banks and flowed down the road. Unfortunately, homes in that area probably sustained more damage.

Also, if you want to see me as a soggy flood refugee, I was interviewed in Channel 3 news yesterday evening.

We are lucky, others not as much so...

2011-08-29T05:07:00.000-07:00

our house was not damaged in the flood. It's possible to see where water ran down the road but we are up high enough above it to have avoided damage. Many others in East Middlebury and elsewhere in Vermont are not as lucky.

More soon.

Evacuated.

2011-08-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

Vermont has been devastated by Irene's flooding. It ended up even worse than I thought it was.

We were evacuated from our home at 4:30 pm today. Soon after we left the river started flowing down the main street of our village. We are safe as are our friends and loved ones. We are staying with friends now. Hopefully we can go home tomorrow and hopefully our home is ok. We don't think the floodwaters got inside... But we don't know. It seems that the river jumped into an old channel that main street was built on.

There will be plenty more to post about this tomorrow, but as I am on my phone I can't say much more. I will say this flood will change our relationships with our Vermont rivers as dramatically as the floods in the 1920s... And hopefully in different ways. And hopefully our decisions back then don't end up making the flooding in Montpelier even worse than otherwise.

Sleep well, Vermont... Tomorrow is a day to start diging out.

Friday Vermont Hurricane Irene Update

2011-08-26T08:35:00.000-07:00

I've been watching Hurricane Irene closely, as have many people in the New England area. There is, as always, a lot of uncertainty in the track of the storm. There was some good news today in that the storm is not as strong as it could have been. However, I'm worried about the possible impacts of the rain on Vermont, though. In that same Jeff Masters post I noticed one total rainfall forecast:

So, that particular map seems to indicate that there could be 7 inches of rain in most of the Vermont side of the Champlain Valley, and at least as much in the southern Green Mountains. Most of that would be Sunday afternoon through Monday morning. The NWS is calling for 3 to 5 inches of rain in the Champlain Valley and up to 7 inches in the mountains. This is less than the scenario above, but still enough to cause flooding. My guess is we will see some roads washed out and flooding in some areas near rivers.

One important thing to note about that map, though, is just how narrow that predicted area of heavy rain is. There's a good chance any one spot will miss out. I don't want to wish that 7 inches of rain on New Hampshire or the Adirondacks, but I really hope it doesn't hit Vermont. I love big storms... but this is excessive.

(One interesting thought I just had was that if winter storms this intense formed in Vermont, this would be 6 or 7 FEET of snow out of one storm. Luckily, winter storms generally don't hold as much moisture and energy as hurricanes)

At this point it appears that the 'best case' scenario of the storm being pushed out to see is very, very unlikely.

I don't want to cause people to panic, and as long as you live on high ground, you will be quite safe. Just stay away from the rivers for a while, and most importantly, DO NOT DRIVE INTO FLOODWATERS. Sometimes it looks like the water flowing over a bridge is just a few inches deep... but in reality, the bridge is 100 yards downstream rather than still attached to the road.

Quick Vermont Hurricane Irene Update

2011-08-25T08:10:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of info on Hurricane Irene already out there but I thought a quick update on its effects on Vermont was appropriate.

There was a great update by Matt Suskoski on the Weather Rapport blog. This blog, at blogs.burlingtonfreepress.com/weather/, is a good place to get updates, as is the official NWS site at http://www.erh.noaa.gov/btv/ .

The storm has shifted west and slowed down a bit. This is a bit of good news for me personally, because I'm planning a trip to Western Massachusetts on Friday and it looks like by leaving early Sunday morning we'll avoid most of the storm. The bad news is it will follow us back to Vermont. And, since it is moving slower than expected, it may also stay in Vermont longer than expected. Right now, some computer models predict that the Irene will pass over Vermont still at tropical storm strength... and very wet. Most areas of Vermont would get at least 5 inches of rain if this model were correct! Of course, hurricanes are very hard to forecast, and it could still miss the state entirely. It's worth noting though that Otter Creek in Middlebury was noticeably higher than its normal summer level today, and that heavy rain may happen today with thunderstorms not associated with the hurricane... so the worst case scenario is a pretty nasty one that could leave us with significantly worse flooding than this year's nasty spring thaw or May thunderstorms.

Above: A model prediction of 4 to 8 inches of rain in Vermont from Irene. These models sometimes miss the local effects of mountains so it's not impossible that areas of the Green Mountains would get over 10 inches of rain if this model were correct. Yikes!

We're far from the river and in a very solid old building so I doubt we'll have flooding in our home, but there's a good chance that many bridges will be washed out, roads will be covered in mud, power will be out, and no one will be going anywhere for a few days. Luckily we've got a lot of food stored here. You should too. Make sure you have plenty of food, water, batteries, and other emergency supplies available, because you may need them! I'll try to post updates but for emergency info, you are better off checking the National Weather Service site above and listening to your local authorities. If you are in an area that flooded already this year (except lake flooding) or has flooded in the past you may consider staying at a friend's house Sunday night.

Update Thursday afternoon: Still definitely looks like Irene could have a big impact on Vermont. One recent computer model I looked held the brunt of the storm back until late Sunday night or Monday morning. There's also the chance it will miss us completely. We'll see!

Historic Channels of Negley Run, Site of Pittsburgh's Recent Flash Flood

2011-08-24T12:16:00.000-07:00

After writing earlier this week about Negley Run's flash flood on Washington Street in Pittsburgh, I became curious about the historic watershed. Since I hadn't heard anything about it before, I figured it would be a small one, so I started mapping the historic channels, based on topography and this map from the Darlington Digital Collection. Turns out it is a huge watershed - comparable to the Junction Hollow watershed in many ways. In fact, it once included a lake called Silver Lake that appears to have been similar to Panther Hollow Lake. Unlike Junction Hollow, however, this watershed does not have any intact streams present except very small ones in Highland Park and perhaps in other very steep areas.

Negley Run is the northern of these two watersheds, and Junction Hollow the southern. Note that the colors mean different things for each map (oops). For Negley Run, the dark blue lines are creeks that appeared on historic maps while the light blue lines are areas that probably had flow based on topography. The yellow/orange channels around Penn Hills appear to have drained into Negley Run but the water that falls in that area is now routed into the Nine Mile Run 'sewershed'. So, in a way, Negley Run is even 'beheaded' like Panther Hollow run is, although there is no aboveground stream to offer evidence of this.

Anyway, here's the Google Map:

View Negley Run Historic Channels in a larger map

Notice just how much area of dense urbanization drains down towards Washington Avenue. Imagine two inches of rain in an hour, over that whole area, being forced into old sewage pipes that were possibly build before all that development was in place. All of that sewage water was pouring towards the river, but the system got overwhelmed, or clogged, with horrible tragic results.

Negley Run doesn't have a visible creek, and to my knowledge doesn't have a watershed advocacy organization. It's still important to the people of Pittsburgh though, if for no other reason than the fact that in its current state it is dangerous. For that reason, the watershed health of Negley Run is every bit as important as that of Junction Hollow and Nine Mile runs.

On a side note, Junction Hollow was impacted by this flood as well. Check out these pictures, taken by Martha Riecks, of Panther Hollow Lake after the deluge.

I wonder if the water got high enough in the lake to overtop into the historic Four Mile Run channel beyond...

Technology Side Project: Creating an Invasive Species Computer Game

2011-08-23T07:03:00.001-07:00

Lately I've been working on a little side project, which involves figuring out how to make computer games with the game software GameMaker. The game I've come up with (which is in its early stages!) is called Buckthorn Bash.

The game is intended to consist of a little stand alone ecological simulator. It contains maples, which grow and try to spread, buckthorn, which grows and tries to spread, and robins, which spread buckthorn seeds but also need trees. The maple seeds/seedlings die if they touch buckthorn, so usually if left untouched for a while, the buckthorn spreads to the point that the trees can't reproduce, they die of old age, and then the birds die shortly after. (No one knows if this is exactly what will happen in areas infested with buckthorn, but there is evidence that it inhibits/alters seedling recruitment.) The simulation is unpredictable though, and every time it is played the results are different. Last time I loaded it up, the buckthorn in one of the levels died for no explicable reason. The model could use some tweaking, but I also like that it is emergent like that.

While I like tweaking ecological simulations, I wanted this to be a game, so I introduced this guy (or girl?):

The main character's goal is to manage the forest for maple trees. How he/she does that is up to you. But, since the game is under development, your only options so far are to kill the buckthorn with clippers, or to hope it leaves the trees alone long enough that you fulfill your goals without getting rid of it.

The game needs a lot of work, but it is playable right now. If people like it, I may do more with it, if I have time, so let me know if you like it (or don't like it) as it may influence whether or not I expand the game further. I have lots of ideas that I could integrate...

Here's a link to the download:

PC : http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/184440-buckthorn-bash-demo-for-pc
Mac: http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/184424-buckthorn-bash-demo

Flash Flood Tragedy in Pittsburgh - Let's Keep it from Happening Again

2011-08-22T08:33:00.000-07:00

Pittsburgh was faced with a tragedy last week when extreme downpours caused a flash flood that killed four people.

A torrential thunderstorm dumped two inches of rain in an hour, on top of already saturated ground. This caused a massive sewage-stormwater overflow that suddenly swamped Washington Boulevard, leading to the tragedy that claimed these four lives, including two small children.

I found this article about lessons learned from the flood. The point that life is precious and tenuous is a well-made point. But why not look beyond that? Why not look at the causes of this disaster and try to keep it from happening again? Warning systems and closures are on the right track, but may not be enough.

A quick glance at Google Earth shows why Washington Street is prone to flooding:

It's in a hollow, just like Panther Hollow, Junction Hollow, and the many other hollows of Pittsburgh. It's been a hollow since before the city was built. And, under the earth and concrete, in a sewer line, is the buried, modified path of what was once called Negley's Run.

(The above image comes from an 1850 map available online from the Darlington Digital Library, an amazing resource.)

When a waterway is put underground, it is out of sight and often out of mind, but it doesn't stop being a waterway. Negley's run has a rather large watershed, one that still captures massive amounts of water during summer downpours. In fact, runoff is faster now than it was before the city was built. Impervious substrates rush water into the drains, where it is funneled through pipes. Furthermore, without being able to easily see what is happening in the pipes, it is difficult to know if there are blockages in the flow, or to see water quickly rising.

Sewage-stormwater overflows happen often in Pittsburgh, but usually 'only' dump sewage into the rivers. During my project I did learn that overflows like this one do sometimes happen in the Junction Hollow neighborhood, where they fill the basements of unfortunate residents with sewer water. Overflows happen into Nine Mile Run at Frick Park as well.

I don't know if rain gardens, impervious substrates, additional trees, rain barrels, and daylighted streams could have stopped this flood. I do know that these measures have been proven to SLOW the movement of floodwaters (after all, that is what inspired the title of this blog). Water rose FAST during this flood - acting more like a flash flood in the Desert Southwest than a flood typical of Pennsylvania. If we could have slowed this flood down just a few minutes, it might have been enough to prevent these tragic deaths.

Watershed health isn't 'just' an environmental issue. Floods kill people each year, and ruin the homes and businesses of many more. As weather appears to be becoming more extreme, perhaps due to climate change, and as we degrade watersheds more and more, tragedies like this are going to become more and more common if we don't act to offset the damage. No single person's sewer-connected drainspout can be blamed for this tragedy, but if each drainspout in the watershed was disconnected, maybe these deaths could have been avoided.

Flooding and Hail along the Middlebury River

2011-08-16T09:02:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of weeks ago I had a blog post about how dry Vermont was. It's amazing how quickly things change.

The dry conditions continued for a while after I made that post, but last week it started raining. The rain started with an overnight drenching on the night of the 9th, amounting to an inch of rain around the Middlebury River watershed. On the 11th much of Vermont was relatively dry, with only a few scattered thunderstorms. However, a slow-moving severe storm formed near Middlebury and moved right up the Middlebury River, through East Middlebury and Ripton. The storm dumped an additional 2 to 3 inches of rain in the watershed, in about an hour!

In two days, the river went from looking like this:

To looking like this:

Water levels rose very close to the level we experienced during the heavy spring flood last May. And that's not all...

The storm came into town with a raging updraft that would have made me concerned about a tornado if it was rotating. I tried to take a video of the clouds sucking into the storm, but it didn't come out very impressive looking. Like many storms that move through this area, it appeared that the worst would go to the north of us, but when the storm hit the Green Mountains it shifted south. The updraft appeared directly over us, and after it passed by the rain started. Rain quickly became torrential, and appeared to be associated with a weak microburst - pouring rain blew sporadically around the area, the winds shifted quickly, and several tree limbs came down. After the wind died down, the heavy rain began to get louder... it was being accompanied by hail.

The hail started out fairly small and had an odd lens shape.

but it was increasing in size...

Note the rings of white and transparent ice. These indicate how the hailstone moved through the thunderstorm updraft, probably the same very strong one I had noticed a few minutes before.

The hail got bigger, and spiky-looking, perhaps due to smaller hailstones freezing together:

Some ended up larger than quarters, qualifying as large hail and a severe thunderstorm.

There was no damage to cars and minimal damage to our garden, though the farmers at Elmer Farm told me there may have been some crop damage there. I sent a picture and report to the National Weather Service, and others in the area did as well, as there were several reports of quarter sized hail east of Middlebury and up towards Ripton.

As the storm moved away, we were treated to a beautiful rainbow.

The clouds did not seem to turn as greenish or orangeish as I have observed during other hailstorms, but they sure looked nasty, even as the storm moved away.

From much further off, at the Addison County Fair that evening, the distant storm clouds were beautiful, and lit up in the evening sun...

After this thunderstorm dropped 2 inches of rain, we had an additional soaking over the last 3 days due to a slow moving and wet storm that drenched much of New England. As of yesterday evening we'd had an additional inch and a half of rain, but heavy rain continued well after I checked the rain gague. So, we may be near 6 inches of rain in the last week. Other areas of Vermont didn't get quite as wet, but needless to say the dry spell has ended.