Vermont meteorologist blames wet snow on global warming

A Vermont meteorologist is blaming wet and snowy weather on global warming after a recent snowstorm caused thousands of Vermonters to lose power.

Last week, Green Mountain Power crews faced high winds and snow as they ventured out in dangerous travel conditions to restore power to more than 37,000 customers.

WET SNOW EQUALS GLOBAL WARMING?: A meteorologist working for the power utilities says global warming is the cause for recent snowstorms.

To Roger Hill, a meteorologist and Bernie Sanders fan from Worcester who offers forecasts for utilities across the state, the storms were a sign of something more than weather just being weather.

“As the climate gets warmer the changes in temperatures aloft and at ground level of a few degrees warmer, contribute to storms more like the one we are currently seeing today. They cause infrastructure problems as the snow is heavy and water loaded. This has been modeled to occur more often in our future with a warming climate,” Hill is quoted as saying in a Green Mountain Power press release.

Hill’s comments come not long after the latest International Panel on Climate Change put out yet another report predicting new gloomy scenarios for the climate unless measures such as carbon taxes and green energy quotas are enacted. The report dominated national news, prompting world leaders to declare climate change “the key challenge of our time.”

RELATED: Vermont storms have been a boon to our winter sports industry

In an April 2017 op-ed for the Caledonia Record, Hill expressed the same sentiment.

“Climate change is an existential threat to all,” he wrote. “Eventually, there will be no hiding, no planet B, C, D, no FEMA grants for flooding, food, water, health and ‘quality of life’ and the negative impacts from the weather will force the issue. Pay now or pay later.

“This existential threat will be with you for the rest of your life, and will exponentially increase in the months and years ahead due to poor choices brought on by ‘so-called’ leaders, their moneyed donors and their lies to support inaction.”

Not all climate reports suggest a warming scenario. Weather.com reports that Thanksgiving was one of the coldest on record, and some forecasts predict an upcoming global cooling trend with predictions of reduced sun activity for years to come.

Meteorologist and Northern Vermont University professor Jason Shafer told True North that while he thinks there is a trend of changing weather patterns, it’s difficult to draw conclusions based on any single weather event.

“I think [Hill is] overstating it a little bit. But storms like this that are generally wetter in the cold season around freezing temperatures are more likely as the climate warms,” he said.

“I would say that any one storm you cannot attribute to the climate changing or global warming, but a series of storms being warmer or perhaps more likely to produce wet snow, that could provide more evidence of a climate shift,” he continued.

According to Shafer, wet snow storms are more connected to the overall temperature and not any specific combination of low and high elevation temperature variations.

“Essentially it’s just snow that’s falling at closer to freezing — [that’s] the simple explanation,” he said. “It’s partially melted or may have some water on its edges because of that partial melting because the temperatures are right around freezing.”

Shafer said he’s not into seasonal predictions, but he noted that it has been a cold start this winter in Vermont, and he largely attributes that to an early snow build-up across the northern border in Canada, especially during in October. Snow build-up affects the subsequent weather.

“Snow on the ground over land can create colder temperatures, even months later,” he said. He added that this means probably it will continue to be a cold December. But as for the big picture, this mostly “means nothing for the rest of the winter.”

Northern Vermont University is working with Green Mountain Power in a research partnership to help the power company predict weather patterns and plan resources accordingly.

Michael Bielawski is a reporter for True North Reports. Send him news tips at bielawski82@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @TrueNorthMikeB.

Image courtesy of Bruce Parker/TNR

20 thoughts on “Vermont meteorologist blames wet snow on global warming

  1. That is absurd. When in the history of this planet has the climate ever been constant over days, years, decades, centuries and etc? As Roland wrote above ” Change is the only constant”.
    Little Ice Age, Medieval Warm Period, Roman Climate Optimum……how about 30 to 40 glaciations in the past 2.8 million years. During the warm periods life flourished….during the cold periods–not so much (Think Dark Ages).
    Believe it or not we are living in an Ice Age. One of at least five in the history of this planet. Ice Ages are roughly defined as periods when glaciers exist/expand. During the last glaciation we had two miles of ice right here in VT. My geology books in college said we are living in an Inter-Glacial Period, meaning between glaciers. We know when the last glaciation took place…the question is…when is the next one?
    Can anyone name one time when mans existence has been threatened by it being too warm?
    Merry Christmas!

  2. If the weather is getting warmer…it’s global warming. If the weather is getting cooler…that too is global warming?!

  3. Wet snow is an existential threat, because it clogs my snowblower instantly, and is backbreaking to shovel.
    It’s not “climate change” that causes snow to fall when it is 40 F. Those aren’t snowflakes, they are icy little nodules.
    I saw the heaviest, stickiest snow of my life late last winter. It just kept building and building, until big old trees and limbs fell to the ground, with no wind to help them. If you can’t see them, you can hear the jets the whole time.
    I observed that here, and in Massachusetts.
    They had serious avalanches in Smuggler’s Notch, and people were injured.
    So much unprecedented weather, so much evidence of meddling, so much to be made off the “global warming” narrative…so many people who may never realize the “official” story is bunk…it’s an endless road for the seeker of truth and justice, but it must be taken.

  4. OK, so here I go again. The only constant is change. If it were not getting warmer it would be getting colder. Colder is something we can’t live with. Ask the people that were living after 1816. There is a plan being proposed to release aerosols in the atmosphere to block sunlight now at a time when solar output is declining. Surely the Government will be involved, What can possibly go wrong?

  5. The existential threats are geoengineering, and freezing to death with no money, on account of the carbon tax racket.
    Funny how every now and then another mention of “stratospheric aerosol injection” floats in the media, as if it was not already going on, as it has been for years.
    Why, just the other day I took a look at Middlebury College’s website, which contained an interesting link to this page: http://ceassessment.org/SRMreport/
    You can download their reports here. All about “solar radiation management” AS IF it was just an idea being floated, “in case” global warming got out of control.
    Roger Hill was talking on WDEV about Superstorm Sandy as it was happening, mentioning how odd it was and that it was about to “hook” inland around Sandy Hook, Connecticut…
    Then something happened there, not long after.
    Do these things not make you go hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?????

    • On the radio program Coast to Coast AM it’s often mentioned about “Chem Trails” to modify atmospheric conditions. One day while in Newark VT, there was so many “contrails” (jet exhaust developed at high altitudes 50,000 ft+). But these weren’t contrails. The Trails covered the sky and the upper atmosphere didn’t have much wind so they weren’t disbursed rapidly. The trails were North to South. Wish I had my camera. Chemtrail Chemicals Confirmed: Barium & Aluminium. On this search page, the sky looked like the pic on the right. There are many deniers, but who really knows. The web page: https://www.google.com/search?q=chemical+trails&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1

      I’m an Air Force vet and have flown in KC-135 & B-5’s a lot up to 50,000 ft + and have seen the usual contrails, but nothing like the search page pic or what I saw in Newark. Wasn’t there cloud seeding over the Antarctic due to a ozone hole a few years ago? The Gov was concerned about the Earth getting a dose of radiation with “possible” consequences. Ain’t heard noth’in since. What “non-news” is being covered up? . Here’s an 8:34 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqATQtwOY34

      It’s established that weather modification has been attempted. I’m not talking about Indian rain dancing, Gov involvement. People must have heard about cloud seeding to produce rain. The technology isn’t new. Is the facts about Global Warming being manipulated as well? Has there been an increase of illness-cancer?

  6. If he got out of VT he might see reality. Go to UNH and see the ice cores there taken from Greenland’s ice pack. The cores expose climate changes a few million years past and see the various cycles. But he won’t, easier to get notoriety by running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off yelling doom and gloom. He’s been reading too many Gov publications of late (there seems to be a sudden abundance of them), a Liberal drive. He just falling in goosestep line. This article illustrates the exposure he got. Is cabin fever affecting the mind? So, when the weather gets colder and snowier, that means global warming. Yup!.

  7. Benny Peiser, a British economist, has complied a list of nine hundred different claimed negative consequences of global warming. It includes about every human affliction other than the heartbreak of psoriasis…

  8. Frauds like Mr. Hill, who have no hope of proving their silly fantasies, are praying that if they repeat their lies often enough, the unthinking masses will believe, and will voluntarily become economic slaves to the global warming religion.

  9. I have listened to Roger Hill’s GW pridictions for decades. what else would we expect from a Lyndon State College graduate?

    • The founding head of the LSC Meteorology program, Prof. Joe D’Aleo, convinced me in 1997 that the arguments for AGW were insupportable. He had a dazzling slide show, at the Fairbanks Museum, to back up his argument. Unfortunately the LSC program now features Prof. Janis Hanrahan, whose chosen mission in life is to prepare students to go forth and urge drastic action to fend off the menace of global warming. I offered to meet with her students and present the arguments that they would have to counter in that mission, and she was having none of it. She should really transfer to the political science department….

  10. Maybe it’s global warming that causes so many nutty liberals to be elected? Global warning is a convenient con game and extremely useful for the progressive liberal left, particularly during election cycles. It allows them to scare the population into believing the end of the planet is upon us in days. So just elect them, and they will immediately figure out how to legislate and regulate us to death instead. Think about it. ( this comment is intended to be ironic satire, if sadly still a bit true sometimes)

  11. So, a Vermont meteorologist is blaming wet and snowy weather on global warming ??

    As they would know, are they are the same ones that tell us daily about the weather
    and get it wrong 50% of the time …………………….

    Yeah, they’d know, just another Liberal !!

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