Missisquoi NWR

As heat and humidity grip much of the country over the next few months, those of us in the Midwest and Southeast will look for escapes to cooler, northern climes.  For naturalists, one option is a visit to Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge, in northwest Vermont.

The Missisquoi River rises in the uplands of northeast Vermont, loops westward through southern Canada and then returns to Vermont to enter Lake Champlain along its northeastern shore.  There it has created a delta of marshlands, channels, mudflats and islets, providing ideal nesting and feeding grounds for migrant and resident waterfowl, shorebirds, waders, rails and wetland songbirds.  Established in 1943, the Missisquoi NWR now protects the delta, the adjacent Big Marsh Slough and parcels of northern forest.  At least 300 species of birds visit the refuge throughout the year and nesting species include ospreys, great blue herons, least bitterns, black terns, common goldeneyes, soras and Virginia rails, among many others.

Missisquoi NWR is located NNW of Swanton, Vermont, which is just west of I-89 (Exit 21).  Like most of our National Wildlife Refuges, it is accessible from dawn to dusk every day of the year; the refuge Visitor Center is open M-F and most Saturdays from mid May through October.  Adventurous visitors might want to rent a canoe in Swanton and explore the refuge marshlands from the cool waters of Lake Champlain.

Mt. Washington, NH

When I climbed Mt. Washington with a group of friends, in 1974, it was my first experience with mountain hiking. Standing atop the treeless summit, raked by a cold wind and looking out over the surrounding landscape of peaks and valleys, I enjoyed both a sense of accomplishment and the reward of magnificent vistas. We had ascended from Pinkham Notch, east of Mt. Washington, camping below Tuckerman Ravine for the night before a boulder-climbing assault on the summit the following day.

Anchoring the Presidential Range of northern New Hampshire's White Mountains, Mt. Washington tops out at 6288 feet, the highest summit in the northeastern U.S. The Presidential Range, trending southwest to northeast, catches both Canadian storm fronts and nor'easters from the Atlantic Seaboard, bringing copious precipitation to this high wall of Precambrian rock; Mt. Washington receives over 100 inches of precipitation each year, most of which arrives as snowfall (usually exceeding 300 inches). North and northeastward from Mt. Washington are, in sequence, Mt. Clay, Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Adams and Mt. Madison while, to its southwest, are Mounts Monroe, Franklin, Eisenhower, Pierce and Jackson. While the terrain climbs gradually across the western flank of the Range, Pleistocene glaciers carved steep cliffs and ravines along its eastern side; the Grand Gulf curves northeastward from Mt. Washington, Huntington Ravine drops across its eastern flank and Tuckerman Ravine forms a steep wall on its southeast edge.

The alpine summit and its Weather Observatory, which still holds the world record for a human-recorded surface wind speed of 231 mph in 1934 (eclipsed by an automated measurement of 253 mph from Cyclone Olivia, in Australia, 1996) can also be reached via a cog railway or via an auto road that winds up from Pinkham Notch. Whether visitors hike or ride to the summit, they are treated to spectacular mountain scenery and have a chance to observe a wide variety of Northwoods wildlife, including black bears, moose, white-tailed deer and a host of north country birds.

Carrabassett Flashbacks

In 1981, after a hot, humid summer in Arkansas, I flew to Maine to look at a practice opportunity. The town was rather small but the medical community was welcoming and, of course, the prospect of living amidst the rugged mountains, glacial lakes, deep woods and spectacular seascapes of that State was surely appealing.

During my visit, one of the older physicians, sensing my enthusiasm for the local geography, took me for a drive up the Carrabassett River Valley, through the fragrant Northwoods, studded with ponds and bogs. The air was cool, mountains loomed in the distance and signs warning of wayward moose were spaced along the roadway. In contrast to the sluggish, muddy streams of the Deep South, the clear, chilly waters of the Carrabassett rushed above gravel beds and splashed among ancient boulders, dropped by the Pleistocene ice sheets.

For a variety of reasons, we declined the opportunity in Maine and ended up in the dry, sunny climate of the Front Range. Though I have no regrets, I often recall that drive along the Carrabassett River, especially when summer heat saps my enthusiasm for outdoor adventure. Over the past week, those flashbacks have come in steady waves.

New England Tornadoes

While we usually associate tornadoes with the Great Plains and Southeast, as we observed yesterday, they can occur in any region of the lower 48 States. Coming on the heels of tragic storms in Missouri and Alabama, the deadly tornadoes in Massachusetts seemed to suggest a doomsday scenario but their occurrence was merely a reflection of the typical weather patterns that produce such storms.

For the past few days, a dome of hot, humid air dominated the eastern U.S., from the Gulf of Mexico to New England; this atmospheric ridge was the product of an active, late spring jet stream, which dipped through the West and then looped northward across the Great Lakes and southern New England. To its north, Canadian high pressure was dropping southward, producing a clash zone across Massachusetts that was further energized by the turbulent jet stream. As typically occurs, severe thunderstorms ignited when the cold air undercut the hot, humid air and intersecting winds(the westerly jet and strong, southerly surface winds) produced rotation within these storms, spawning the deadly tornadoes.

When tornadic storms sweep across the vast plains, destroying barns and uprooting trees, we pay little attention to their power. Unfortunately, we have witnessed a series of direct hits on urban centers, raising our awareness of their destructive force and leading to the false assumption that a major change has occurred in our planet's atmosphere. Once again, our brief life spans and the relatively short period of recorded weather history produce this false conclusion and will lead some to blame these tragic events on global warming or divine intervention.