Essay by Eric Worrall
The once in a century floods which happen every 10-20 years.
Vermont Was Supposed to Be a Climate Haven
I thought my home was safe from extreme weather. Then the rain came.
Lamoille County, Vermont, is home to 26,000 people living in small towns nestled among the woods and mountains. It’s known for two ski resorts—Stowe and Smugglers’ Notch—and a winding river where locals and tourists fly-fish and canoe. In 2020, a ProPublica analysis identified Lamoille as the one county, across the entire United States, that could be most protected from the combined effects of climate change, including sea-level rise, wildfires, crop damage, and economic impact. But that was before the floods.
Earlier this month, five to 10 inches of rain fell in Morrisville, near the center of the county. Roads were destroyed in nearby Wolcott. Thirty people were evacuated as floodwaters from the Lamoille River swirled around Cambridge. Entire harvests were wiped out, and major roads became impassable. Jennifer Morrison, Vermont’s public-safety commissioner, called Lamoille County “the hardest-hit area” in the state.
July’s flood is just the latest in a string of extreme weather events in Vermont this year. After a historically warm January, a late-May frost may have destroyed more than half of the state’s commercial apple crop. By summer, smoke from Canadian wildfires choked the once-clean air. Then, during the week of July 10, heavy rains flooded the state capital, Montpelier, and washed out homes and businesses across the state. It was the worst flooding since Hurricane Irene, a “100-year” storm that struck only 12 years ago.
…
Around the country, in climate havens and known risk zones, families are terrified of losing that tie to home. Farmers in Georgia are grieving the lost peach crop. Homeowners in Florida are eyeing the 90-degree sea, waiting for the day it laps their front lawn. Folks in Louisiana are watching the ocean rush underneath the stilts of a family cottage, coming ever closer to carrying it away.
…
Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/07/climate-change-safe-states-vermont-floods/674780/
Megan spins a great narrative, but ignores the reality that Vermont, like other land locked mountainous regions of the world, is prone to severe flooding.
The following is from Worst Flood Events in Vermont’s History.
- The Great Vermont Flood of 1927, Nov. 3-4, 1927 On November 3 and 4, 1927, heavy rains on frozen ground … Eighty-four people were killed …
- Rainfall, Sept. 21, 1938 … the tempest that devastated Vermont in 1938 is the only storm in the state’s history to arrive as a hurricane. …
- Rainfall, July 6, 1973 A combination of a west-moving frontal system and a moist, southeasterly flow from the Atlantic Ocean resulted in heavy rainfall in some parts of Vermont that was not seen since 1927. …
- Remnants of Hurricane Belle, Aug. 9-10, 1976 In 1976, Long Island was struck by a Category 1 hurricane, which skirted the Vermont/New Hampshire border. …
- Spring storms, April 4-6, 1987 On April 4 to 6, 1987, snowmelt and rainfall caused reservoirs in the Winooski River basin at East Barre, Wrightsville, and Waterbury to spill over for the first time in their history, …
- Ice Jam, March 11, 1992 The flooding on March 11, 1992, was caused by a massive ice jam on the Winooski River. Blocking the flow and raising the river into the city, downtown Montpelier was inundated to a depth of 2-5 feet within less than an hour. …
- Rainfall, June 27-July 13, 1998 … On June 27, 1998, heavy rainfall of 3-6 inches fell in Vermont, causing flash flooding along the Connecticut River basins in central Vermont. …
- Tropical Storm Floyd, Sept. 16-21, 1999 … Vermont endured major flooding and damage from heavy rain and strong winds from September 16 to 21, 1999, when Hurricane Floyd struck the East Coast …
- Severe storms, April 15-21, 2007 … Severe storms caused heavy rain, snow, and high winds in Vermont on April 15-21, 2007, leading to flooding in the region due to combined rain and snowmelt. Snowfall of 4 to 7 …
- Rainfall flash flood, July 9-11, 2007 … From July 9 to July 11, 2007, a major storm system swept through Orange and Windsor Counties, resulting in high winds, lightning, hail, and heavy rains. …
- Rainfall flash flood, June 14, 2008 … Localized heavy rainfall up to 7 inches occurred in Ripton, which is located in Addison County, and 3-5 inches in Rutland. …
- Rainfall, July 24- Aug 12, 2008 … Widespread rainfall of 1-2 inches occurred during the afternoon and evening of July 24, with localized amounts that exceeded 3 inches …
- Snowmelt & rainfall, April, May, 2011 2011 was an especially bad year for flooding in Vermont. Four disaster declarations were issued over the course of the year, all attributed to flooding.
- Tropical Storm Irene, Aug. 28-Sept. 2, 2011 … As of the beginning of the 2023 storm season, Tropical Storm Irene was by far the most devastating weather event in Vermont’s history …
- Memorial Day Storms, May 22-26, 2013 … Flash flooding on Memorial Day Weekend in 2013 caused approximately $1.5 million in damage across Chittenden, Lamoille, and Essex Counties. …
- July 9-11, 2023 … A storm brought nearly 6 inches of rain to Vermont Monday, July 10. …
I’m guessing Vermont is full of houses which probably should never have been built due to flood risk. FEMA bought out 90 homes in Vermont in the wake of the 2011 floods and demolished them, but this is likely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to poorly sited housing developments. Perhaps the apparent break between severe flood events from 1938 – 1973 lulled politicians and planning officials into a false sense of security.
I found Megan’s search for a climate refuge intriguing, because I’m also a climate refugee – but I’m a refugee from government climate policy, not climate change.
I moved from Britain to a warm part of Australia a decade ago, because I foresaw that the green obsessed British political establishment were on the brink of messing up the energy supply. Today, in the middle of the southern hemisphere winter, we’ll turn the cooling fans on in the afternoon because the house will be slightly too warm.
If Australia’s madhouse climate policy drives energy prices so high even air conditioning is unaffordable, that would be inconvenient, but it would be a lot more survivable than trying to live in places like Vermont or Britain without home heating.
For more on extreme weather go to claimed dangers page at EverythingClimate.com.
“extreme weather events in Vermont”
EXTREME is getting to be the new buzz word for the climatista.
Yeah, that and CRISIS
we need to start talking about extreme climate pseudo-scientists
Everything and anything is described as a crisis or extreme, except the left
Crises can justify governments grabbing temporary power.
Luckily, we have honorable governments, so their propagandists never claim that the normal run of events is a string of crises to be fixed only by permanent total power. Ignore H. L. Mencken.
Wait for the glorious arrival of the term: ‘ultra’.
It is an alarmist article of faith that global warming will cause more weather extremes. There are just two problems.
Do we know a statistical distribution of floods? The “100 year flood” probably assumes a Gaussian distribution, but is it?
The process of coming up with these mean years for reoccurrence is quite subjective. Essentially – pick a period with a long record of the type of event (flood, drought, hurricane, etc.). Then pick some level of severity for an event to be counted. Also, pick a geographical area in which to count. Note, if the number of events is too high, increase the threshold for counting or reduce the area included or both. Then just divide the length of the record by the number of events. e.g. 9 major hurricanes in Key west in 90 years = a 10 year storm and a 10% chance of a major hurricane in any given year.
It’s pretty easy to come up with a scary “one in 100 year event” headline if you choose a small enough area when a severe weather event occurs.
LA times is now endorsing the occasional black out.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/la-times-article-peak-climate-idiocy-occasional-blackout-greater-good
Story Tip
The New Normal in California.
What a disaster California/Gavin Newsom is! All because of radical leftwing ideology.
You can Google “The Flood of 1900”, The Flood of 1901″, The Flood of 1902″ etc. and find a flood somewhere for every year for the past 123 years.
😎
Your local The National Weather Service site for a particular area probably has a “streams and rivers” selection.
From mine (https://www.weather.gov/iln/) I scrolled over to get Vermont’s.
(https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/07/16/dishonest-climate-fear-mongering-headline-of-the-week-goes-to-usa-today/#comment-3750594)
Looking at Montpelier’s gauge, I found this.
(https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/07/16/dishonest-climate-fear-mongering-headline-of-the-week-goes-to-usa-today/#comment-3750620)
PS Most, if not all, of the gauge readings are from the USGS.
One constant with climate alarmists is that none of them know the first thing about either weather or statistics.
They actually believe that there should only be 1, once in 100 years flood, in any given 100 year period, anywhere on the planet.
How does anyone know what a “100 year flood” even looks like?
There is only one way, and that is for someone to take a wild ass guess at it.
What is obvious is that many of these guesses were badly guessed.
Just like the amount of water that can be expected to flow down certain rivers is way off because the estimates were made during an unusually wet period of time, so too are many estimates of the statistical likelihood of any particular sized flood event off because they were made using bad information, and possibly even faulty methodology.
Obviously if there are numerous 100 year floods in the same place in a short time, it needs to be looked at first of all from the point of view of revising the standard.
Such things are not chiseled in stone and passed down from on high in a sealed ark.
I can recall a number of years back that it was determined that standards for a whole slew of things from roofing to downspouts were badly miscalculated because the figures that were used for the maximum size of rain droplets was way wrong, having badly underestimated how big raindrops can be and commonly are.
Nowadays, instead of realizing bad assumptions were made when such things as the frequency of a given flood, and the location and limits of the 100 year flood plains, other conclusions are jumped to as if there can only be one possible explanation for numerous 100 year floods in a short span of time.
There are all kinds of possibilities, including what you are saying, Mark.
Anything like a stated size of a “100 year flood”, must be taken with a huge grain of salt, as it is simply a guess to begin with. Not a fact.
“ By summer, smoke from Canadian wildfires choked the once-clean air.”
I have a hard time grasping why she would include this. The only connection to weather or rain I can think of is had it rained in parts of Canada no fires.
Canada’s boreal forest is naturally shaped by extensive cyclic fires. This is just one of those years.
Maybe arsonist have upset the cycle?
I think we had more rain and a sucky summer so far, here in southern Ontario because the smoke has been seeding the clouds.
It’s amazing how much the temps can change before and after a big storm, in the same day, just a few hours later still in the warm and sunny part of the day.
Even if CO2 does 4C of warming the worst that’s going to happen is that it will be cloudier. Not guaranteed but hopefully it will also be wetter especially in currently desert areas. And most likely it will be greener.
I say that you will be a long time in the ground before there is a 4C degree warming.
It’s a very lot like the Lake District in Cumbria = The Place that records the highest annual rainfall in all of England. (Place name of: Seathwaite. I think)
And certainly one of Scotland’s rainiest places if not THE rainiest is barely 40 miles due North (Eskdalemuir)
I’ve asked the question before about the Lake District:
Did all the rain make the lakes or do the lakes create the rain?
No matter that for now but you can see Wolcott’s problem – they’ve nowhere to build on apart from the banks of the river.
The valley is steep sided, flat only at the bottom.
Fine OK that’s how it is but was it REALLY necessary to put the centre of your town on a river bend and just before its channel narrows to half what it was just a little further upstream?
Sorry peeps, you got nothing more than you had coming with that kind of idiotic thoughtlessness
When Vermont was settled in the late 17th/early 18th century rivers provided a means of transport as well as power. Also the valley floors were extremely fertile and the only place to start growing food during the short summers. The forests were still old growth and almost impenetrable so it’s no wonder they stuck to the river valleys.
Lamoille County – my Mom was born there, in Morrisville. Her mother’s family was from the Cambridge area to the west. My Dad was born in Waterbury Center, just south of Stowe. I have an aunt and uncle and cousin still there. I’ve been to the area numerous times.
So I come from a family of real Vermonters. They loved Vermont, but never once did any of them say they thought it would be a safe haven from severe weather, including floods.
Megan is just off the rails.
I love New England, but aside from certain aspects of coastal life, I don’t think the words “climate haven” have ever been spoken there. Obviously, no coast for Vermont. Megan might not know that. She might be mistaking it for Georgia or Virginia. Writers for the Atlantic might not even be able to identify the Atlantic on a map.
“Megan is just off the rails.” I’m a bit less charitable, I think she’s working out how much compensation she can get if she screams loudly enough!
The author didn’t state what timeframe the rainfall in her area fell, other than it was “earlier this month” … be it 1 hour, 1 day, 2 days, 10 days, etc.? That storm data duration matters a LOT in determining the probabilistic rainfall depth for a particular return period (10 year, 25 year, 50 year, 100 year, etc.).
But it’s rather easy to look up for northern Vermont or anywhere else in the USA. Just go to the NOAA Precipitation Frequency Data Server (PFDS) located online at https://hdsc.nws.noaa.gov/pfds/
5-10 inches (a very broad range!) in 10 days would be somewhere between a 24-hour storm event and a 20 day storm with a 100 year return period. Or around a 200 year return period for a 12 hour to 10 day storm duration.
Very high, yes, of course. Unusually high, but not, as indicated by these tables, an unlikely storm.
Eric stated the following in the headline:
But to understand these published rainfall data, it’s important to understand that they are based upon an actual long term series of measured daily rainfall amounts at a specific location going back a minimum of 30 years, but far longer in most locations in the US, and they are the result of probability calculations.
So yes, you can get 100 year storms occurring only 20 years apart. Just like one can come up heads on a coin 5 times in a row. Or you can make your point 10 times in a row on a craps table. But they’re still low probability events.
What it means to experience a 100 year storm is that it is a storm that has a 1% chance of occuring every year with a 90% confidence level. But that same storm can certainly happen three years in a row. That doesn’t invalidate the probability prediction.
Just like we are living in a post constitutional period in our respective nations; we are also living in a post scientific method period in our society. We have gone backwards in time. I do not know how this gets reversed with out some sort of calamitous “ learning experience “
Why would anyone think of Vermont as a “climate haven”?
I remember a week-long ski vacation in January at Smuggler’s Notch ski resort in this same county. The first day was cloudy and unusually mild, followed by heavy rain overnight with temperatures near 60 F. The second day, rain turned to snow around noon, then continued for another day (about 15 inches) with temperatures falling to around 15 F. The fourth day was finally sunny with highs around 35 F, and another storm was approaching on the fifth day.
We couldn’t blame it on “global warming”–this was 1978 when major magazines were announcing an ice age.
But this inclement weather is why ski resorts are there–lots of snow in winter! This area is also downwind (east) of Lake Champlain, which is bound to contribute lake-effect snow. People who like sunshine should live elsewhere.
As newly weds, my wife and I went skiing at Mount Snow, Vermont, in January 1977. It was brutally cold with temps falling to more than minus 20 degrees F. I had to wake up during the night every couple of hours to go start my car and let it warm up so the oil wouldn’t freeze. One day it reached minus 35 degrees F with high winds so hardly anyone ventured out onto the slopes as you would get pushed sideways as you tried to descend the hill. Our last day, the temperature rose to 0 Degrees F with no wind and it felt like a heat wave.
As newly weds, I would not have been skiing in 0F weather.
I would be in bed with my new wife, trying out all the hills and valleys.
I live in Woodstock, VT.
First started skiing in Vermont, in 1963.
Taught skiing until I was 80.
Good report by Eric, from down-under? Geologists commonly determine hundred year flood terraces, for reasons of building structures, constructing additional flood control, or working in the civil engineering sector. The flood terrace is where the overbank flood waters have a more sheet-flow pattern and less of the turbulent water marks of the mainstream. The planar flow is usually marked by pseudo-Bouma cycles (graded stratification as waters slow down and lose their lode-carrying capacity) and even climbing ripples, where water speeds up some. Working in the Neuquen Basin in Argentina, looking at Cretaceous fluvial gravels, etc, I found the best dinosaur fossils on these overbank settings, where their floating bodies got stranded. Looks like the people of Vermont never learned anything from the dinosaurs.
Thanks for that short course in geology, Ron! 🙂
Send the bill to China and the rest of the ‘developing’ world, see if they’ll respond.
Hopeless to commit energy/CO2 suicide in the US expecting anything to change climate-wise when ‘carbon’ emissions will still be going up for decades to come – if we pretend that CO2 has a significant affect on temperature and climate.
Trillions of dollars will be spent on reducing the rounding error on CO2 emissions – what a waste considering all the people living on the street and just about everyone else suffering under ‘socialist paradises’.
I think in the decades to come there will be climate-emergency scammer war crimes type trials to bring to justice all the truly evil people who lie to line their pockets, puff-up their resume, and attain undeserved political power by pushing the climate emergency agenda without any regard to the massive suffering it is causing.
You are hopeful, I suppose, that there will come a day when “Law and Order” and “Justice” reappear. I am not that optimistic.
“,,,,,but I’m a refugee from government climate policy, not climate change.”
Tony Heller found his refuge from government climate policy up in Wyoming after it became insane in Boulder, CO.
If you can ignore the crazies, Boulder is a nice but expensive place.
The Heatwave And Flooding Of October, 1927 | Real Climate Science
On October 28, 1927 almost 40% of the US was over 80 degrees, including 90 degree temperatures as far north as Illinois.
Oh! And BTW the Lt. Gov drowned in the 1927 flood. And 1927 was the worst year in the history of the Red Cross for disaster relief.
That looks mean!
It really is amazing how the left manages to convince themselves that virtue signaling should protect them from the vagaries of reality.
The Atlantic, and every other left-wing media, are going berserk with their climate panic porn. I’ve never seen anything like it. Just the other day, another woos from The Atlantic wrote a very ridiculous article about his(?) life in Tucson AZ and his headline was “How soon will the southwest become uninhabitable?” These people are all start-raving mad.
When power is made unreliable and AC and portable generators are outlawed, people will leave the Southwest in droves.
They’re all gearing up for the (expected) high temperatures after the El Nino – they’ve done it before but this time is particularly frantic. If you want to see stark raving mad, wait until after the El Nino season – there’ll be screams of “We/I told you so, now we’ll all burn” and “It’s much worse than ever before, we must do something now!” This too shall pass.
The ironic answer being, “As soon as the government makes air conditioning unavailable, by making electricity too unreliable, too expensive, and/or by regulating air conditioners that actually work out of existence.”
Won’t have anything to do with the weather, it’s the same as it always was.
Thirty years ago we got a 4 inch/hr rain fall [as stated by the evening news, i think we got more] I have no idea what it was close to my house, that lasted about two hours. We live across the road of and about two hundred yards down the street from the lowest portion of a 40 acre corn field. The center of that field is at 1200 ft above sea level and that low spot is at 1150 ft. less than 15 acres of that corn field drains toward my house which sits at 1100 tt. The water flow from that storm left a water mark 4 inches on the side of my house which is 60 ft away from and about 8 inches above the two lane street. We live miles away from any “Flood Zone” and it is an up hill drive, up about a 2% slope from either direction to get to my house. every house down the street from that runoff got at least an inch of water and/or debris carried by the water within two feet of their home. Luckly we got little water in the basement of the house. Builders did a good job of waterproofing. If you live in any area where the land slopes toward your house keep your fingers crossed and your insurance up to date. I you do not live in a flood zone it is not expensive BUT your neighbors must suffer flood damage also to collect
Little known fact: In response to worries that Nile flooding was a response to climate change caused by burning bushes and other artifacts, the Pyramids were created as giant batteries to store energy.
Greta Thunberg is a direct descendant of Cleopatra herself, who was thought to have a form of asp-something.
She could be the living incarnation of the goddess Nut for all I care – she still acts like an entitled, spoilt little brat.
Eric:
Just give blackout Bowen time and you will find even the ceiling fan illegal.
Then it will be time to find a new haven from stupidity.
Both gas and electricity are starting to go up way past inflation. Its all in the name of something, climate change, global warming, or political stupidity..
“Climate havens”!!!!!
These people really are nuts.
Yesterday I got some of that EXTREME rain and loved it. I’m not far from VT. I recall as a kid having many such EXTREME storms most summers- not so many in recent years- so now that we have a HEAVY rain- the “youngins” think it’s EXTREME. Measured about 5 inches. My lawn, garden, trees and shrubs just LOVE all this EXTREME rain. I enjoy the thunder and lightning- reminds me of back in ’74 when I rented a metal fishing boat down in the Okefinokee. You get into that swamp via the Suwannee River. Got about 10 miles in when a truly EXTREME storm started. Being in the water in a metal boat in a lightning storm isn’t a good idea. We saw lightning hit trees maybe 100 meters from us and held our breath to see if we were going to be cooked, fall into the river, and be eaten by the ‘gators. It was very frightening. Being in an “enhanced” mental state made it even more exciting. A few days later, driving back north, stopped in DC and attended the Watergate Cover Up Trial.
So “Megan” is not intelligent enough to do basic research before moving to a place she knows absolutely nothing about. I guess when a Nor’easter dumps 8 feet of snow on her she will be screeching climate crisis yet again.
Megan did do some research:
“In 2020, a ProPublica analysis identified Lamoille as the one county, across the entire United States, that could be most protected from the combined effects of climate change, including sea-level rise, wildfires, crop damage, and economic impact. But that was before the floods.”
But I couldn’t find any reference to Lamoille, Vermont in the links provided.
I would like to see that study that claims Lamoille is the best place to ride out the climate crisis.
x
Tom,
Here’s the link:
https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/
Put in Lamoille County in the search bar at the top of the page.
“The projections are for 2040-2060 under RCP 8.5.”
Hahahahaha!
No wonder she is so clueless, propublica. What a joke. May as well have believed wiki.
Well, her research failed, had she been intelligent enough to actually read she would have known these type of events are not all that rare, having it be rain instead of snow is really the only difference.
What people in Florida are actually doing is what people everywhere have always done and still do when a natural disaster strikes: Rebuild and hope it is several decades before another one like that hits.
The water around Florida has always been very warm in the Summer.
On the East coast it is warm in Winter too.
And just in case anyone is wondering…the ocean is right where it has always been…at the edge of the beaches.
If it had been called a once-in-a-decade event would she not have complained?
Valleys are made by erosion by water, lots of it. If you live in a place made by water you should not be surprised by sometimes having more water than you expected.
I’ve lived in Northern VT since 2005, and here’s what I see:
First, knuckleheads have been building homes near rivers. Having talked with a building contractor who had a riverside project, he claimed that in the history of VT that particular river in Waterbury… and I pointed out that just looking around the river had been at least ten times wider and deeper than now. He laughed, pretty much mocking me. The State of VT had even built an Asylum and hospital nearby back 100 years ago or so, which at the time housed state offices, including VT Emergency Management and critical state computer mainframes in the basements.
Two years later Irene came, destroyed the three houses he had bult (and sold to stupid people). The flood destroyed a few million dollars of state property and computers, and displaced the VT Emergency Management offices that had such a beautiful view of the river. Computers were down for over a week, and took months to get up to capacity.
I have a stream running right through my property, which also has 1800′ of frontage on the Mississquoi River – and anyone with half a brain can see the absolute limits of flooding from the past. And so, I built my house not where I wanted near the stream, but 30′ above the common water line. If I ever get flooded, it’s time to look for that guy building an Ark.
I’ve noticed several other things locally. As the up-stream projects divert water impacts from building directly into the stream and river, the river has jumped higher and more quickly. So bad development practices have contributed.
I’ve noticed if we get light rain off an on before a marginal rainstorm, flooding happens as the ground is too saturated to take any more, So a storm that normally wouldn’t have much impact does huge damage, washing away low river aligned roads in ‘the flats’.
Also, it seemed to flood every year back in the 70’s, so much so that people built houses on the flood plains not with basements but on stone and cement pilings 36″ to 42″ to groundfloor – with the expectation of flooding. Check out Lyndonville along the river. The river would peak high, then go down in hours. Almost every year until millions were spent in flood management. But whoever built those places back in the 1920’s had a sense of environmental impact.
And my apples are doing fantastic this year, as are the raspberries, blackberries, and blueberry. Most of the damage is along the rivers more South 60 miles, or West 60 miles. So all of Vermont isn’t below water, or damaged as a lot of these reports say. Media hype.
Except for the blatantly stupid liberal policies, like not allowing your truck frame to be welded for repair or the very subjective Act 250, Vermont is still a climate haven, for me anyhow. I have one beautiful day after another, no matter the weather. I live in a pretty temperate valley. It gets cold, it gets hot, but both of that gets over quick. This area is the best place I’ve lived in all my 58 years when it comes to climate and weather. I have not seen any extreme weather beyond Irene, just regular weather that transplanted pampered city people whine about.
But then, I’m not a complainer and I don’t build stupid.
“The Atlantic” – its a blog, by just post-high schoolers chronicling their experiences in the real world as would-be adults … change my mind.