Power Outages Slam Vermont In Destructive Wet Snowstorm; Precip Finally Tapering Off

A winter wonderland in my St. Albans, Vermont backyard 
this morning, but that wet snow cut power to tens of
thousands of Vermonters. 

UPDATE 2 P.M SATURDAY

The snow in Vermont continues to slowly wind down and the winter storm warnins have been dropped.

Light additional accumulations are still expected, especially in the mountains.

It was still snowing lightly here in St. Albans, Vermont as of 1:30 p.m. with additional accumulations since 7 a.m. of 1.1 inches. That brings the storm total here to a respectable 9.3 inches

As we know, accumulations elsewhere in Vermont were more than respectable, as a list compiled by the National Weather Service office in South Burlington indicates.

 

So far, the towns on the leader board for most accumulation include 26 inches in Landgrove, 25 inches in Rochester and Ludlow, 24 inches in Wilmington and West Windsor, and 22.5 inches in Shrewsbury.

Power outages remain a huge problem this afternoon. Vermont Outages had 42,000 or so customers without power as of 2 p.m.  This is just a snap shot of the people currently without power. It doesn't represent the total number. 

I'll pull together another update early this evening

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

So far, the power has remained on here in St. Albans, Vermont, with just a few flickers, so yay! It looks like I can update my post from 5:30 this morning.  

That I have power is an accomplishment. According the Vermont Outages, the number of outages peaked at about 50,000 across the state at around 6:45 a.m. They had ticked down ever so slightly to about 49,000 as of 8:30 a.m.  

But with some snow, still wet and heavy falling, and increasing winds, the power outages should continue. 

This is likely the most damaging snowstorm in Vermont since December, 2014 when another big, wet, soggy storm cut power to 100,000 customers in Green Mountain State.

The power problems were pretty much limited to southern Vermont yesterday, but as expected, heavy wet snow spread into northern Vermont. That includes the Champlain Valley, which had only an inch or two of snow through early last evening, which partly melted.

To give you an idea of the "perfect conditions" for wet snow take a look at the National Weather Service office in Burlington. The temperature stayed at 33 degrees from noon Friday through at least 8 a.m. today. 

The NWS office had 0.79 inches of melted precipitation and eight inches of new snow. That's a 10-1 ratio.  Usually in winter storms are snow ratio is something like 15 to 1.

As for some of the more spectacular snowfall totals so far, there's 22.1 inches in Shrewsbury; 21.5 inches in Northfield;  20 inches in Moretown; 19.5 inches in Warren and 18.5 inches in East Barre. I saw quite a few reports of between a foot and 18 inches of snow. 

At my place in St. Albans, I had 1.8 inches of snow yesterday, but at least half of that melted. Overnight, I had 6.4 inches of new, wet snow through 7 a.m. for a storm total of 8.2 inches. It was still snowing a little at that hour. 

If anybody lost out on the snow, it would have to be right along the immediate shore of Lake Champlain. The web cam from the Route 2 Causeway near Milton over Lake Champlain shows what looks like only a couple inches of slush on the ground.  But only a mile or two inland from the lake, web cams show several inches of snow covering everything. 

The snow is tapering, though many of us could get another inch or two.  Road conditions on the main highways are starting to improve, but traffic cams show they weren't great as of 7:30 a.m. Things should improve as we go through the day. 

However, more rural roads are problematic still. Besides the snow and ice, branches, trees and potentially live wires are down in spots. 

During the day yesterday, some roads, like Route 14 in Royalton and Route 5 in Ascutney had to close temporarily due to fallen trees and wires. Early this morning, part of Route 11 in Londonderry was closed because a fallen live wire was energizing the guardrails. 

I'm sure there were more roads like that this morning. 

On the roads, Vermont State Police said they responded to 85 crashes on snow covered Vermont highways. Nineteen of those crashes resulted in injuries.  There will probably be more incidents today. 

THE FORECAST

The heaviest snow is pretty much over, though many areas will still see an inch or two of additional accumulation, with maybe a little more in the mountains. 

Even as the snow drops back to light snow and flurries, new power outages will probably crop up all day.  In the valleys, temperatures will climb into the mid-30s.  This will cause trees to shed their heavy snow loads. Branches will pop up back into place, possibly shearing wires off poles in the process.

Snow showers will continue off and on into early next week.

Just a heads up, there's a potential real mess coming toward the end of the upcoming week. Computer models are suggesting another big storm. The American model is hinting at another coastal storm with snow, while other models have a storm going to our west, which would mean an ugly mess of mixed precipitation, then rain. 

Since the disturbance that would contribute to that storm is barely making it to Alaska today, the computer models obviously don't have a good grasp on what might happen.  Stay tuned on that one.