As Expected, Messy Icy Morning In Vermont; Ice, Wind, Power Outages, Flash Freeze

Interstate 89 at the bridge over the Lamoille River in 
Milton didn't look so great after the flash freeze early this 
morning. You can also see water levels starting to
rise and crack the ice in the river beneath the bridge.

 As we anticipated, it was a messy overnight in Vermont and it continues to be a messy one this morning. 

By the way, we have more "interesting" weather coming up tomorrow, and early next week. We'll get to that in a bit. 

First, let's deal with this morning. 

At dawn, a sharp cold front was almost finished clearing Vermont. It was still warm in Springfield and Bennington, but that will have changed very soon.

It's a bit deceptive out there at first glance. Where you are, it might not be snowing very hard, but the flash freeze did its job. We had lots of standing water from the rain last night, and then temperatures crashed.

The roads this morning are atrocious, so is everything underfoot.   Take lots of extra time if you're driving anywhere this morning. We have tons of school closures and/or delayed openings today because of the weather. Chances are your kids' schools are affected, so keep that in mind. 

As of 7:30 a.m. power was out to about  5,000 Vermont homes and businesses, mostly in southern Vermont. Winds gusted this morning to 45 mph in Montpelier and 52 mph in Bennington, and I'm sure other places in central and southern Vermont had stronger gusts than that early today. 

The cold front's squall line extended southward from Vermont through southern New England, southern New York and New Jersey, causing a lot of wind damage and power outages in all those areas. 

Even though temperatures either have dropped or are dropping sharply, there's still a flood threat from the runoff of last night's heavy showers. Ice jams can still form, too. 

River gauges on the Mad River at Moretown have been fluctuating a lot early this morning, indicating there's probably issues with ice jams anywhere between Warren and Moretown, so a flood warning was in effect in that area. 

In New York's Adirondacks, the Ausable River was rising rapidly early this morning.  I wouldn't be the least bit surprise if other flood warnings or advisories pop up this morning in Vermont and New York. 

How things played out last night was very close to what the National Weather Service in South Burlington had warned us about, so kudos to them. 

It was still interesting. The sharp cold front swept down into the Champlain Valley a little before midnight, then stalled in Addison County, and along the west slopes of the Green Mountains all the way to the Canadian border.

At Burlington, it was 50 degrees at 11 p.m. last night then 35 at midnight, then 32 at 1 a.m. As expected, freezing rain and sleet iced things up in most of the Champlain Valley. Also as anticipated, it wasn't enough to wreck the trees and wires. The thickest ice reported so far was at the National Weather Service office in South Burlington, with 0.13 inches.

The cold front stayed put for a few hours, enabling it to be the focus of heavy rain in much of Vermont, but heavy mixed precipitation in the Champlain Valley.

When the storm center moved into northern New Hampshire before dawn, that cold front was finally able to start moving east across Vermont.

The flash freeze spread. At Montpelier, it was 52 degrees at 4 a.m., 34 degrees at 5 a.m. and 28 at 6 a.m.  The change was even more pronounced in Rutland. There, it was a balmy 59 degrees at 4 a.m., but down to 37 by 5 a.m. and 31 by 6 a.m. 

Light snow is falling behind the front in Vermont, but it won't amount to much more.  The sun will actually come out in many areas this afternoon, but it will remain blustery and cold as we try to chip the ice off everything. 

And as noted above, we're not with the interesting weather yet. 

Saturday:

A compact little storm and cold front will come in from the west tomorrow. It has a pretty dynamic cold front with it. Which means scattered areas of Vermont could see some heavy snow squalls with this. Overall accumulations won't be much as most areas will receive one to three inches at most.

But the squalls create brief white out conditions on the roads, and also turn dry pavement into glare ice in a flash. (Again!). So be careful out there tomorrow, and if your area receives a snow squall warning, wait it out, and don't drive anywhere until it passes and road crews get a chance to clean it up. 

Tuesday-Wednesday

A new storm seems to want to get going for us during this time frame.  It will be a similar set up to the one we're just now getting through, with a sharp cold front and a possible mix of precipitation.

This one doesn't look as strong as the one we've experienced overnight, but it does have potential to cause some issues on the roads again. Computer models haven't settled yet on the track of the storm, so it's unclear still if this will be mostly rain, mostly snow, or an ugly mix of snow, rain and ice. Stay tuned! 

Next Friday

Some computer models bring yet another storm through here in a week, as the weather pattern stays active. It's way too soon to know if that storm will actually affect us, and if so, how. It does seem as if the dry pattern we had in January is over, at least for now