Another Weird Vermont Super Soaker Appears To Have Not Caused Much Flooding

Thick, heavy clouds in St. Albans, Vermont Monday
amid the drizzle and repeated downpours that 
swept through all day. 

 Flood and flash flood alerts crackled over the airwaves in Vermont during Monday's downpours, but based on the lack of reports, I don't think there was any serious issues.  

Still, given the rainfall rates in some areas, I'm sure there were pockets of back road washouts, water collecting in low spots, that kind of thing. As expected, larger rivers rose by two to five feet, but since they were low before the storm, they didn't flood. 

I think what saved the day from any bigger flooding were the odd breaks in between the downpours. There were a lot of them, but they zipped right along. So you'd get a five to fifteen minute dump of heavy rain, then a half hour of just light rain or drizzle, rinse and repeat all day. 

Those little calm periods between the downpours likely kept things in check.

I don't have too many rainfall reports as of yet, they'll come in later this morning.  I know Burlington received 1.71 inches of rain, the second time in a week they established a new rainfall record for the date.

Burlington received 4.4 inches of rain in just a week.  So the month will certainly end with above normal rainfall, which was needed. It very likely won't score in the top ten list of wettest Septembers, and certainly won't be number one. 

(The wettest September was in 1999, with 10.26 inches of rain).

Montpelier set a record for the date for rainfall, too, with 1.37 inches.

A map posted by Vermont weather guru Roger Hill on Twitter shows storm totals since Sunday in parts of Vermont exceeding three inches in a few spots, especially in and near the Green Mountains along Interstate 89 in the Bolton area. 

Tuesday's storm was another weird one, with a weather front draped over the region and energy running generally west to east along it.  Lightning strikes were recorded at least somewhere in Vermont from early morning into the evening. It's really odd to have such a long period of thunderstorms around here this late in the season. 

I'll be interested to see rainfall totals along the western slopes of the Green Mountains, as it seems like the wet air flow, going up and over the mountains seemed to enhance the brief downpours.

Here in St. Albans, I must have seen about two dozen downpours from Sunday afternoon to late last evening. Almost all of them  lasted five minutes or less.  On radar, I noticed these little downpours formed overhead of where I am or less than a mile to my west. I think the effects of relatively small St. Albans Hill managed to contribute to these little storms. 

In the end. my very unofficial rain gauge in St. Albans collected 2.1 inches of rain since Sunday. 

The real heavy rain is over, but showers continue. I actually just had a surprisingly heavy shower around 7:35 a.m. this morning in St. Albans as I write this.  These showers are part of an upper level low that is lumbering across Vermont this morning.  The showers will tend to taper off later today. 

As I noted yesterday, the active weather isn't finished with us. 

A strong cold front will come through Wednesday night with a new batch of showers and maybe some rumbles of thunder. Though the rain could be briefly heavy with this system, it'll be moving so quickly that the rain won't linger long enough to cause any new flood threat.

Thursday and Friday will be blustery and cold. Canadian high pressure will be coming in from the northwest. Meanwhile, Hurricane Fiona will be making a beeline for the Canadian Maritimes. We'll be in the squeeze play between the two systems, so the wind will be gusty and noticeable. Not damaging, but you'll feel it. 

We still have the possibility of a few snowflakes atop the northern Green Mountains Thursday night as well. 

The gusty winds might prevent any frost from forming Thursday and possibly Friday night. Toward Sunday, it will warm up a little, out ahead of our next anticipated rainy cold front.