Vermont Flash Flood Threat To Grow In Coming Days

Flash flood damage in Waitsfield, 
Vermont, June 1998. The 
upcoming week's weather pattern
reminds me a bit of conditions
in the early summer of 1998

 The forecast for locally  heavy rain over the next several days here in northern New England is causing growing concern for the risk of flash flooding as we go into next week. 

Daily chances of torrential downpours from slow moving showers and thunderstorms start today and last probably into Thursday. 

 As for today, a lot of us will see bursts of heavy rain, with most places seeing at least three quarter of an inch. However, meteorologists are concerned that a handful of places will be hit by a series of slow moving storms that would dump two inches or more of rain in a short period of time. 

That would be enough to cause ponding of water in low lying areas, and perhaps a few small areas seeing some flash flooding. 

Remember, even a small zone of flash flooding can be dangerous. If there's water on the road ahead of you, just turn around. You don't know how deep the water is, or if the road beneath the water has been washed out.

UPCOMING WEEK

As the rain comes each day, the ground gets wetter and wetter, and less able to absorb the runoff. 

Any flash flooding that develops in and around Vermont during the next week will be pretty localized.  Some counties could have real trouble, and others will get off almost scot free.

It's also pretty much impossible to know when and if any flash floods start until just before it happens or while it has already started. 

Because of the scattered nature of the heaviest storms, total rainfall for the next seven days in Vermont will range from as little as two or three inches in the very "driest" locations to well over five inches in other spots  Each day, there's a risk of two inches or more of rain in just a few hours in some towns. 

This is beginning to remind me of the late spring and early summer of 1998 in Vermont. Back then, and today, we're in the opening phases of a global El Nino weather pattern.

In 1998, just as in 2023 the spring was on the dry side.  Then in June, 1998, a series of torrential storms caused some serious flash flooding, especially in central Vermont.  Flooding was especially intense and destructive along the Mad River in Warren and Waitsfield, and the New Haven River in and near Bristol.

The 1998 Vermont flood was part of a bout of widespread severe weather and flooding in the Northeast. In the upcoming week, it'll be the similar to that. Vermont is not the only place facing a flood risk.  Most of New England and parts of the Middle Atlantic States that will get drenched, too.

I don't mean to be overly alarming.  The 1998 floods is just a gnarly example of what a worst case scenario for the upcoming week would look like.  Things probably won't get as bad as they did during that summer weekend a quarter century ago.

Still, the weather over the week needs to be watched carefully. "Everyone, but especially decision makers and residents of known poor drainage and flash flooding areas need to monitor future forecasts," meteorologists wrote in this morning's forecast discussion page from the National Weather Service office in South Burlington.

The extent of the heavy rain will vary day to day over the next week, with some days being real soakers and some not so bad. On some days it might be southern Vermont that gets the real blast of rain, other days in might be the north. 

The only real consistency is that the heaviest rain and the larger threats of flash flooding would come in the afternoons and evenings. That said, trouble could still come at any time of day or night, so you'll need to stay on your toes.

Video:

Images of the June, 1998 flood in and near Bristol, Vermont.  Turn the sound down a little as the background music might be a bit much. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that: