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| For a change, sunny skies in Vermont today, but as you can see in the photo, the haze from Canadian wildfire smoke also returned. |
So it's a good chance to hit on a few things that have been interesting with our Flood Summer Of Discontent.
By the way, we're under yet ANOTHER flood watch, which is just unbelievable. More details on Tuesday's risks further down in this post.
ANOTHER VERMONT FLOOD DEATH
I don't know if this qualifies as a second death caused by Vermont's flood, but no matter how you look at it, this is really tragic.
Katie Hartnett, 25, of Burlington died Friday after she fell into the Huntington River in Richmond, Vermont, just upstream from the notorious Huntington Gorge.
She apparently slipped on rocks and fell in sometime Friday. Her body was recovered Saturday. The river was running quite high on Friday, both from Monday's historic flood and torrential thunderstorms on Thursday evening that reinforced the power of the river's water.
Not that it matters all that much, but Hartnett's passing might or might not be declared a disaster-related death. Much depends on the result of an autopsy and how FEMA defines the time period of the flood disaster, says VTDigger.
The popular Huntington Gorge is infamous for its treacherous currents. No fewer than 26 people have died there since 1950.
The other Vermont Summer Flood of '23 death was a 63 year old man who drowned in his Barre home.
AN AWESOME FACEBOOK FLOOD HELP PAGE
Lots of people want to help with Vermont's flood recovery. Volunteers have been showing up in droves to help. It's heartwarming to see.
However, well-intentioned people sometimes don't have the experience to help in the way they want, and can just innocently get in the way. Or they donate stuff that's not needed. Or the stuff is needed, but not in the location where people want to donate. Or somebody in some remote town or back road needs tons of help but nobody knows about the need.
Vermont Public's "Vermont Edition" noontime talk and call in show today highlighted an awesome resource. It's a Facebook page called VT Flooding 2023 Response and Recovery Mutual Aid.
The beauty of this new and now huge resource is it allows people to specifically target how and where help is needed. People can go on the page and ask for help. Such as "Hey, I live on such and such back road and need the mud dug out of my basement. Can anyone help?"
It's also great for people who have specific ways to help. "Hey, I have three dehumidifiers lying around my house in X Town. Anyone down the road want to borrow them? If so, contact me."
And so forth.
The Facebook page also has a whole bunch of local chat pages for specific towns and organizations. So if you live in, say Cabot and either want or need help, go to that chat page and find what you need.
The Response and Recovery Mutual Aid Facebook page already had 7,300 members (including me!) as of mid-afternoon Monday. What a great idea this is!
AIR QUALITY
The air in Vermont has been getting steadily worse all day and I can see out my windows in St. Albans, Vermont the smoke and haze .
The air quality index was in the 90s around noon, which is considered "moderate" and just under the threshold of "unhealthy for sensitive people"
By 1:30 pm. it was firmly in the 120s and indeed unhealthy for those sensitive folks. It kind of leveled off from there.
This smoke will probably last well into Tuesday. Luckily, it won't get nearly as bad as the June 25-26 smoke attack in Vermont. That one brought the air quality index to around 200, which is quite unhealthy for everyone and arguably the worst pollution in Vermont history.
THE BURLINGTON RAIN HOLE
There appears to be just one place in Vermont that's gotten an unremarkable amount of rain so far this month That's Burlington.
Through Sunday, Burlington had received 3.69 inches of rain so far this month. For this point in the month, that's still less than an inch above normal. Judging by maps I saw total, I would say at the very least 95 percent of Vermont has seen four or more inches of rain so far this month.
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| Click on map to make it bigger and easier to see. Yellow on map depicts four inches or less of rain so far this month. Only the Burlington, Vermont area is in that category. Pink dots are areas with a whopping 10 inches or more of rain so far this month. |
Burlington received 0.97 inches of rain Sunday. Williston, just one town over, reported 2.42 inches. As a torrential thunderstorm approached Chittenden County last night, the National Weather Service in South Burlington promptly issued a flood warning for the area, including Burlington.
They knew this storm would be trouble. They were right. Except the trouble came everywhere except where they measure rainfall at the Burlington International Airport.
The airport only got 0.23 inches out of that storm. Meanwhile, less than two miles away, Shelburne Road in South Burlington was swamped by flooding. And pretty serious flash flooding hit places like Richmond and Bolton from that evening storm.
Compare Burlington to Montpelier: The Capital city has been drowned under 9.85 inches of rain so far this month, compared to the 2.22 inches they should have gotten by this point in July.
There's actually a very small but real chance that Burlington will come in below its normal July precipitation total of 4.06 inches.
I don't have a great explanation as to why that happened. Although very humid air smacking into the Green Mountains is forced to go up and over the mountains, which wrings out extra moisture and heavier rain.
UGH! NEW FLOOD WATCH!
The rain returns Tuesday. So does the risk of at least a few pockets of flash floods. A new flood watch is in effect for all of Vermont, going from early Tuesday afternoon through late night.
Expected rainfall rates could reach one inch per hour. That's a helluva lot, but less than the two inch per hour rates we saw in parts of Chittenden County Sunday evening.
Still, one inch per hour can cause a lot of havoc when the ground is so saturated it can't absorb any more rain. Any rain we get Tuesday and Tuesday evening will just run off.
We also do have a possibility of some severe storms Tuesday as well. They won't be as widespread as they were Thursday. However some towns could experience damaging winds and some hail. Not everyone will get nailed, but a handful of people might.
It's way too soon to figure out who gets the potential severe weather and who doesn't. It's just like the potential flooding. The luck of the draw, basically.
Much like Sunday, it looks like some downpours could come through Vermont between 1 a.m and a little after dawn Tuesday. Those early rains will only cause at most very isolated flood trouble. Then we get a break, only to see more scattered downpours break out in the late afternoon and lasting well into the evening.
Those late day storms are the ones we have to watch for localized flash floods. Computer models have trended a little upward since this morning regarding the amount of rain in the forecast.
There are some actual glimmers of hope in the forecast beyond tomorrow night.
One forecast I saw had something I have seen in ages: Two consecutive days in Vermont without rain. If that holds, and that's a big if, the dry period would come Wednesday and Thursday, before we run into the risk of heavy rain Friday.
There could be another dry period Sunday or Monday. It's a long way off, so don't count on it. Still, nice to see!
Another happy thing: We might, maybe, could be in for a bit of a break in the constant humidity. Wednesday won't be too bad, humidity wise. But i'll still get up into the low 80s. That's still warm-ish.
We have a shot at a brief period of near or even slightly below normal temperatures over the weekend. Highs in many areas could stay below 80, and the humidity looks manageable then, too.
Burlington has a chance of dipping below 60 degrees for the first time since June 23. We've had 245 consecutive days in which it's constantly been above 60 degrees.
That's 24 day stretch isn't the longest on record, but it's probably in the top 10 longest streak.
Long range forecast suggest that any coolish period will be brief, and it will then turn very warm and probably humid again. Those long range forecasts still call for some above normal rainfall, but those same forecasts are less bullish on those rain chances than they have been lately.
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