Will Other Parts of Nation Burn, Blow Away Or Drown, Vermont Lately In Springtime Disaster Shield

The Lamoille River raging near Cambridge, Vermont on
April 27, 2011 during a serious, damaging spring flood.
In more recent years, spring flooding has been rather
tame in Vermont. 

 Springtime, while welcome by most everybody, usually brings lots of dangerous weather hazards across much of the United States.  

As we're seeing this week, flooding, tornadoes, fires, big hail and even winter weather are all sometimes scary things that spring brings. 

In Vermont, at least lately, we seem to have a shield that guards us from calamities like this. No guarantees on how long it will last, but we've been missing out on springtime disasters. Not that I'm complaining. 

Up here in Vermont, our greatest dangerous problem in the spring is flooding.  For the past few years, we in the Green Mountain State have mostly avoided high water as the snow melts.

  Though we've had problems with high water in other seasons, like last summer in southern Vermont and around Halloween of 2019 in northern and central areas, spring flooding has been almost absent since 2018. 

If current trends continue, it looks like this spring will be light in the flood department, too.   It did get bad and destructive last month during an ice jam along the Ausable River in northern New York. But in Vermont, there's been a handful of ice jams that didn't cause much damage. 

Rivers have gotten to near bankful or even spilled over a little into flood plains occasionally in the past few weeks. (I noticed this with the Otter Creek in Rutland County just yesterday). But the water hasn't gotten high enough to create much worry. 

The Lake Champlain lake level stood at 97.61 feet Sunday, which is more than two feet below flood stage. The lake will likely rise some more this spring, but unless we get a lot of heavy rain, it will fall short of 100 feet, which is when minor lakeshore flooding starts. 

At this point, the next storm to affect Vermont later this week appears as if it will fall short of producing any flooding as well. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, brush and wildfires are most likely in Vermont during the spring.  All the dead stuff from last summer has dried out.  There's not much new greenery yet in March and April  And in the spring, we often get spells of breezy, sunny weather with low humidity. 

With the drier weather of recent springs, we haven't fully escaped problems with these fires   Last May, for instance, a stubborn forest fire burned for over a week in Killington.

Even with those risks, Vermont isn't as prone to wildfires that race through neighborhoods as other parts of the country. 

The risk of severe thunderstorms in Vermont ramp up later in the spring. Last year it looked like we might be in for an early and bad spring storm season when the only known March tornado in Vermont history touched down in Middlebury. That twister severely damaged one house and caused minor damage to a few others. 

But the rest of the spring and early summer in 2021 was fairly quiet in the thunderstorm department. The last widespread damaging spring storm outbreak I can remember was on May 4, 2018. 

One thing this year that is worse than usual in Vermont this spring is mud season.  Though the thick mud on back roads causes real and frustrating travel trouble, and leads to damaged cars, it's hard to call the mud a bonafide disaster. Though I do sincerely empathize with anyone who lives on a dirt road this time of year. 

I also wonder how the maple sugaring season will turn out given the long spell of above freezing temperatures we've had. 

OTHER PARTS OF NATION

While we Vermonters blissfully escape weather doom, at least for now, trouble lurks big time in other parts of the nation. 

Warnings that Sunday would prove to be a horrible fire risk day in Texas and Oklahoma came true. Wildfires in Texas have killed one person, burned 140 or so structures so far and have eaten up at least 50,000 acres notes Texas Public Radio. 

Forecasts continue to call for large hails, severe thunderstorms and flooding in eastern Texas today and in the Gulf Coast states tomorrow. 

For us, that storm will eventually provide us Vermonters with a little ice (Again!) and some gloomy, chilly rainfall Thursday ad Friday.