Stubborn Power Outages Continue In Vermont Post-Storm; Watching Potential Danger End Of Wee

Was too busy working to clear much snow from my St.
Albans, Vermont driveway today, so I have to get my
butt in gear today to finish it off. 

 Power outages from the big wet snowstorm we just had remained disturbingly high in Vermont this Sunday morning. 

As of 8:30 a.m. Sunday, about 24,500 outages remained, mostly in central and southeastern Vermont, according to Vermont Outages.  The only part of Vermont that was now totally in the clear was the five most northwesterly counties in Vermont.

This is by no means a dig at the crews working to restore power were doing a heroic job amid tons of snow, cold temperatures, and a tangle of fallen trees, branches and wires. 

As of last evening, Green Mountain Power said it had restored power to about 62,000 customers but had about 33,000 to go. They warned that some outages in more remote areas could last for days. 

So yes, this does easily rank as Vermont's most destructive snowstorm since December, 2014. This storm was kind of sleeper mini-disaster, as it has not gotten much publicity.  Of course, the storm did a lot of good as well. Ski areas got a huge boost ahead of the Christmas holiday, and the snow is pretty.

As I mentioned last night, I hope the hardest hit towns are establishing places for people to go to warm up.  I'm sure a lot of houses are cold and dark, something especially dangerous for the elderly and ill. 

We should be thankful it's only seasonably cold out there. Low temperatures over the next few nights will be in the upper teens an 20s with high temperatures near 32 degrees. Temperatures this time of year can go into the teens below zero at night, which would be really horrible in this situation. I think it will be warm enough in most houses without power that the pipes won't freeze. 

Although the weather in Vermont will remain pretty mellow today through Thursday morning, danger still lurks at the end of the week. 

Forecasts still call for a terrible Arctic outbreak to plunge into the middle of the United States and blast all the way down through Texas, then spread east.

On the front side of that Arctic blast, a huge storm is still forecast to blossom and cause plenty of pre-Christmas havoc.

We still have lots of questions about how that storm will play out, but similar to last night, the current forecast has a powerhouse of a storm forming somewhere in the vicinity of Tennessee, intensifying and roaring up into the eastern Great Lakes.

That would cause a blizzard in the Midwest and Great Lakes, and strong, potentially damaging winds in most of the eastern United States.

For us in Vermont, we'd be at risk for mixed precipitation, then rain and possible flooding. Strong winds would also be an issue. With trees weakened by our recent snowstorm, powerful winds would cause additional power outages.

A strong cold front with the storm would also cause a flash freeze, which is kind of ugly.

That said, since the storm's nascent energy is still somewhere up near Alaska, the computer models won't have a great handle on how this storm will shape up until at least a couple days from now.  The scenario on this storm I just outlined has a huge potential to change radically. 

Basically, expect something Thursday, Friday and into Christmas Eve, but exactly what is a little hard to tell at this point.