Tuesday Evening Update: Vermont Dodges Another Flood Bullet

Breaks in the clouds appearing to the west of St. Albans
after a day with much less rain than expected. Rainfall
was much heavier over the Green Mountains, but
it wasn't enough to trigger flash flooding. 

 Early afternoon radar looked ominous today. 

It appeared heavy storms and showers were starting to train - hit the same places over and over again - along the western slopes of the Green Mountains from about Bolton south.  

Some of these areas had already had excessive rains. 

As of Tuesday morning, some towns in the Green Mountains, like Hancock and Warren, had received over three inches of rain.  Although most places hadn't gotten that much, the soil was getting increasingly wet, and the new rains seemed to make flooding almost inevitable. 

A flood warning was issued for the western Green Mountains between Rutland and Bolton because of today's renewed heavy rains. 

But the downpours diminished fairly abruptly in the mid to late afternoon. Places along the western slopes got another soaking rain, but as far as I'm aware, no flooding developed. The flood warning quietly expired late this afternoon

Another bullet dodged.  But I imagine it was close, given how torrential some of the showers were. I got a report of 1.6 inches of rain  in Poultney within an hour, which is pretty impressive. 

In fact, some areas of Vermont are surprisingly dry, given how much rain was predicted this week. After torrential downpours on Saturday, my place in St. Albans has gotten just 0.10 inches of rain. If it doesn't rain tomorrow, I might have to consider irrigating some gardens. 

But that's an exception to the rule.  Most places are pretty wet. 

Still, I think we're out of the woods for tonight. Torrential downpours were still going on in the Northeast Kingdom as of 6 p.m., but those would move out soon.

Some thunderstorms developed in northern New York, but I think they will largely fade by the time they get to Vermont. 

Tomorrow is yet another literal rinse and repeat. Widely scattered showers in the morning will develop into numerous showers and storms by afternoon.  Once again, some will have locally torrential rain.  Since soils are much wetter now in much of the state, that somewhat increases the chances of local flash floods. 

If that happens, the flash floods would be pretty localized. Forecasts will be updated tomorrow, but at this point, it looks like if any flooding happens on Wednesday, the most likely zone would be the central and southern Green Mountains. 

It still looks like showers and storms will still roam Vermont Thursday and Friday, but they will be somewhat fewer and far between.  A few more heavy rainers look like they might be in the forecast Saturday through Monday, which could cause issues, but we'll jump  off that bridge when we get to it.