I spoke too soon. Just after I posted this, the first flash flood warning of the day was posted in part of north central Vermont. Watch out in areas like Morrisville, Stowe, Worcester, Eden.
I'm sure more flash flood warning are coming. This is just the start.
PREVIOUS DISCUSSION
It's already a wild day in eastern New England, especially in New Hampshire, where numerous flash flood warnings are in effect, there's also a tornado watch for that state and rest of eastern New England, and I've seen at least one tornado warning on the New Hampshire/Massachusetts border.
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| Lots of warnings today in Northeast. Green is flood watch, yellow is tornado watch, dark red is flash flood warning, and hard to see, but bright red is tornado warning. That grey in the Midwest is this summer's ever-present wildfire smoke. Ugh. |
In Vermont, it's so far quite a bit quieter, but everybody is still on a high state of alert for possible new flooding today. I'll get to that in a minute.
But first, our eastern and southern neighbors:
WEEKEND IN NEW ENGLAND
Today is not the peaceful stuff of that old Barry Manilow song. that's for sure. All of southern New Hampshire was under a flash flood warning as of 9:15 this morning. Rainfall rates of two to three inches per hour were reported.
Western Connecticut if under a flash flood warning, too. I've seen photos on social media of water rescues from flooded homes in and around Waterbury. Connecticut
Additional thunderstorms should last most of the day in central and southern New England and on into New Hampshire. Some areas win this danger zone could see four to six inches of rain today, with possibly higher amounts.
The heavy rain will be in streaks, where storms train, or line up like box cars. There will be some towns that get six inches of rain and terrible flash flooding, while communities a few miles to the northwest or southeast just see a couple inches.
To make matters worse, there's enough spin the air in southern New England, southern and central New Hampshire and southwestern Maine to raise the risk of tornadoes through this morning and early afternoon.).
More spinups were showing up on radar in central Massachusetts as of 10 a.m.
VERMONT VIGILANCE
We're not out of the woods. As of 9:30 a.m. locally heavy rain was reported in parts of the state, especially east of the Green Mountains. So far, it hasn't been enough to create any reported new floods, but the alert is up. Way up.
All of Vermont except the immediate Champlain Valley remains under a flood watch today. Local flash floods could happen anywhere in the state today, but seem most likely along and east of the Green Mountains.
This first batch was still crossing Vermont as of 10 a.m, but was looking like it would at least temporarily need soon in western parts of the state.
There are embedded areas with rainfall rates of more than one inch an hour. That's more than enough to set off some flash flooding as early as within the next couple of hours in parts of the state.
After this first area of rain mostly moves out of Vermont by noon or a little after, we're not done.
New thunderstorms will develop this afternoon. They will be somewhat hit and miss, but potent in terms of rainfall. The air is as humid as it can possibly get this far north. It's basically like Florida.
There is so much water available for torrential downpours. Any of these storms can produce flash flooding. The ground is so saturated that pretty much anything that falls will run off. It's hard to say who will get a new flash flood in Vermont today, but someone will. That's almost a guarantee.
Main stem rivers will be more behaved than last week. However, some like the Otter Creek and Winooski River will probably reach flood stage.
It won't be as bad as the historic floods of last week, and downtown Montpelier is still looking safe from a new inundation.
As for the tornado threat, I suppose there's a non-zero chance in far southeastern parts of the state, but it's unlikely. We had our own tornado up in Benson and Sudbury Thursday, so don't feel left out.
One or two of the storms this afternoon could produce a microburst, which would mean severe winds in a couple of spots, but that is fairly low and pretty isolated.
I'll have updates later today as warranted. This is just a quick overview to get you started this mid morning Sunday.
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