Major Early Season Snowstorm in Northeastern US?

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.

Plants: Nature's Riverbank Stabilizers

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.

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

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

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.

An Illustrated Story of an Oxbow Cut

In the weeks since East Middlebury experienced flooding caused by Tropical Storm 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, often leaving a lake or wetland in the abandoned river channel.

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 at lower right.

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 cut towards west, and on the downstream side of the bend erosion from water that spilled over the flood plain began eroding backwards and creating a new channel.  The result was a small new branch of the river that cuts across the 'neck' of the bend, with a deep pool in its upstream portion, and a chunk of dirt about 30 feet long that keeps the main force of the river out of its potential new channel... for now.

Below is a sketch I made to illustrate the current status of the cut.  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 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

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!

October 10 Meeting to Address Pittsburgh Flooding Issues

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

Neat Archived Weather Radar Animations from Past Storms

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

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!