Outdoors: Looking back at extreme weather of 2019

The year 2019 was unforgettable for extreme weather events that greatly impacted our outdoor lives around the globe. Uncontrollable fires from Australia to New Zealand reflected the hottest yearly temperatures ever recorded there. Local fishermen and deer hunters didn't need the rest of the world to tell them that our outdoors was changing.

New Year's Day ushered in 54-degree temperatures and heavy winds here. Gusts up to 55-mph downed limbs, causing scattered power outages. Sea duck hunters and ocean ground fishermen all too often couldn't leave the docks. There would be no waiting for a January thaw, though, nor our first fishing fatality.

On Jan. 1, the Mistress, out of Point Judith, capsized in one of our winter-fishing hot spots 2½ miles southeast of Block Island. One fisherman was miraculously rescued, but two others were lost as brutal winds churned up lethal 10-foot seas. The event gave us pause to respectfully consider our commercial fishing fleet that regularly risks danger to bring us their catch of fish, lobsters and scallops during the New England winter -- especially considering that weather conditions are becoming more frequently treacherous.

Ice fishermen again took a big hit. The abnormally warm weather melted ice in just about every Eastern Massachusetts lake and pond. Tilts and jigs were on hold.

Birders who ventured out in Ipswich were rewarded with the sighting of a golden eagle, a western species that's rare here. Each winter, a couple of goldens -- usually juveniles exploring -- excitingly find their way to Massachusetts. Meanwhile, an out-of-range Leconte's sparrow and painted bunting further thrilled observers.

While winter migrants like pipits and snow buntings arrived here from the north, flocks of grackles, which should have been much to our south, appeared on our bare lawns and fields -- composing a scene more like March than January. But right on time, pairs of great horned owls -- the first species to breed here every year -- could be heard hooting their deep, hollow, five-syllable "WHO who-who -- WHO WHO" each clear evening just after dark.

Cold weather soon brought crippling snow from Virginia to Missouri, and the deep chill of near-zero temperatures brutally returned here in mid-January, rapidly putting a skim coat of ice on most of our waters and rejuvenating hopes for a solid ice fishing season. Many ponds, however, were still deceptively treacherous.

An ice skater on Westboro's Mill Pond fell through the thin ice and had to be rescued by a fire department team wearing cold-water immersion suits. All were subsequently brought to shore with an inflatable rescue boat. Meanwhile, in Australia, abnormally high ocean temperatures resulted in jellyfish blooms that stung more than 13,000 victims. Birds showed confusion here with a confused, far-out-of-range sand hill crane showing up.

January ended with a historical cold blast stretching across the entire country, an amazing 75% of which experienced freezing temperatures. The Midwest was especially brutalized. As pre-dawn hours dramatically showcased Jupiter and Venus on each side of the moon, local temperatures dropped as low as minus 6 here, benefiting only ice fishermen, while Cotton, Minnesota, experienced 56-below-zero temperatures.

An increasingly unstable, once-in-a-generation shift in and splitting of the polar vortex, attributed by scientists to ocean warming in the Arctic, proved punishing and lethal. We're sluggishly learning that we can't continue to heat up the oceans without severe consequences -- in this case, the destabilizing of the polar vortex. The more the Arctic warms, the more radically we can expect the polar vortex to behave, resulting in erratic shifts of hot and cold. Instead of containing the most brutal cold in the polar regions, the destabilized vortex should be expected to continue to unpredictably let brutal cold air dip deep into our temperate latitudes.

Meanwhile, the Southern Hemisphere abnormally baked. Temperatures in Australia reached 116 degrees, stressing and jeopardizing wildlife populations. My penguin-filming team and I spent January in the Antarctic Peninsula, where for several days it was astoundingly warmer than Massachusetts.

We alarmingly witnessed West Antarctica glaciers melting from vast ocean waters that have over the years quietly absorbed enormous amounts of heat. Those of us who had been to the Antarctic Peninsula couldn't recognize some of the spectacular, once-glacier-covered coastal mountains that were now black and bare rock. Alarmingly, the melting is accelerating, chronologically paralleling the ocean warming that elsewhere has killed one-quarter of the world's coral reefs in just the last 30 years.

When our filming team flew home from Buenos Aires, it was 100 degrees there. With erratic weather everywhere on the planet, February hit 60 degrees here, and a rare trumpeter swan took up residence at Milford Pond among several feral mute swans.

February was also memorable for the retirement of endangered species champion, MassWildlife's Dr. Tom French. The soft-spoken, nationally acclaimed wildlife scientist, one of our most brilliant conservation assets, had devoted 35 years of his life helping the recovery of our region's threatened species.

While most will remember French for climbing daringly up tall trees or skyscraper ledges to band eagles and peregrine falcons, he just as passionately and sympathetically stooped equally low to save Massachusetts' plants, amphibians and reptiles. Our oft-attacked rattlesnake, which has nearly vanished, was his last hope to preserve. While he inspired many of us to help save that overly feared and little-understood species, he never got the political support needed to properly educate the public and protect them with a sanctuary island in Quabbin. Despite so many victories for wildlife, he left wishing he could have done more for our rattlesnakes.

On the birding scene, the rare great black hawk that migrated from South America through Texas and finally to Maine -- astounding birders who came from all over the country to see it in our region -- succumbed to frost bite in its legs as it couldn't endure our harsh winter. The magnificent but hopelessly crippled raptor had to be euthanized.

Expressing noteworthy scientific savvy and economic reality, Gov. Charlie Baker showed that a Republican can lead us in addressing climate change. Baker boldly called for the Trump administration to take significant action against the threat. Many of us following the science started to think of him in future presidential terms as he acknowledged that we certainly know that the science of climate change is real -- because our state already has experienced the effects.

Baker exhorted us to "create federal emissions targets that could vary by region, invest in research related to emissions reduction and climate change adaptation, and to generally incorporate climate change risk into federal planning decisions."

Feb. 12 gave us a major snowstorm, just as several species of birds were triggered to begin early morning singing. The subtle increase in the daily hours of sunlight was beginning to have its effect, stimulating the earliest stages of wildlife reproduction.

Every year, the mid-February increase of sunlight dependably stimulates avian hormone production and initiates the first bird migration in the tropics as far south as the Amazon. Changing light impacts mammals, too. By Feb. 18, the perfume of skunks was in the air as they began emerging, hormonally driven to look for love. The road-kill season had begun. By then, local maple tappers already had begun drilling for sap.

As early as Feb. 19, early-migrating red-winged blackbirds had arrived in Princeton just as word came from Australia of the world's first mammal victim, extinct because of climate change. The Bramble Cay melomys had just vanished, a tragic casualty of rising seas.

Feb. 25 brought further chilling temperatures and wind gusts near 60 mph. Just as power outages struck 60,000 residents, there was renewed hope for safe ice fishing conditions.

February ended with cold and snow. Disappointingly, Trump appointed instead of a scientist a coal lobbyist to head our Environmental Protection Agency. Promisingly, big flocks of migrating red-winged black birds reappeared across the state.

As March began, song sparrows, also impacted by increases in sunlight, began to live up to their name, sweetly and emphatically repeating their first note three times before ending with an indescribably variable buzz and trill. But then came vicious storms that ravaged us from coast to coast.

Flooding and deadly tornadoes hit the South while Montana hit minus 23. Fifteen inches of snow covered my Grafton driveway. A week of below-freezing temperatures solidified deferred ice fishing plans.

March again had morphed into the new February. But temperatures surged to near 60 degrees on the 14th, rapidly melting snow packs on lawns, and mercifully inviting returning woodcock, red-shouldered hawks, fox sparrows, rusty blackbirds and big flocks of robins just as male goldfinches were beginning to turn bright yellow and male turkeys began strutting. All were signs that increasing light -- not temperatures -- was the initiator of the mating season.

Amazingly, fresh out of hibernation, a few spring peepers peeped, and the first emerging wood frogs began hazardously crossing roads as they sought vernal pools to mate. Surprisingly, a small flock of sand hill cranes flew into Bolton Flats -- just as striper spawning was peaking to our south around Chesapeake Bay. A day before spring officially started, piping plovers showed up on a Sandwich beach.

In contrast, perfect conditions -- freezing nights followed by 40 degree days -- produced excellent flows of maple sap for local tappers.

Winter was officially over. It always takes a toll on us here. Being relatively snow-free, it caused fewer snowblower injuries. But hospitals had more than their normal share of broken wrists from black ice. All but hard-core skiers and ice fishermen were ready for spring's gentle warmth and rejuvenation.

--Contact Mark Blazis at [email protected].

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