Tuesday Evening Vermont Flood Update: I Wanna Say We Dodged A Bullet But Don't Wanna Jinx It

After yet another unsettled, rainy, humid, Vermont day,
but mercifully without much in the way of flooding,
new storm clouds loomed over St. Albans, 
Vermont Tuesday evening. 

 Figure I owe an update to the lowering but still real flood threat in Vermont this evening. 

KINDA IFFY

As of 5:30 p.m. it was just kind of weird out there in Vermont. Areas of rain, some relatively heavy, developed late this afternoon in scattered spots. These areas of rain don't seem to have a direction in mind, and are sort of drifting. 

A flood warning was issued for beleaguered Addison County, Vermont as one area of sort of heavy rain lingered there for awhile. It looks one to two inches of rain  have fallen in parts of the county, and another inch or so could fall.

Given the wet soils, that's enough to set off flooding, maybe, though things don't look as wild as they did in Middlebury last Thursday.  So far, as of 6 p.m., I've seen no reports of flood damage or roads under water in Addison County, or anywhere else in Vermont for that matter. 

Another area of downpours has lingered in the extreme northeast corner of New York. I'm almost surprised there's no flood advisories there. I also don't know if these kinda heavy showers will get their act together and move into Vermont. They keep trying to, but so far haven't made it across Lake Champlain.

It looks like we have just a few more hours of this weirdness, and relatively low but still real flash flood risk. After sunset, things should really die down. A weak cold front approaching us grudgingly will also come through this evening, which should also help really shut things down. 

So, fingers crossed, we might have finally dodged a bullet, especially considering how dire the forecasts were 24 hours ago. That said, I could be jinxing it, and we could still be in for a surprise in the next few hours. 

I'm as indecisive as the weather has been this afternoon. 

Really, nobody got all that much rain, at least compared to some of the bigger storms this summer. Most of Vermont managed somewhere in the ballpark of an inch of rain, give or take. A couple places, like Waterbury, got close to two inches. 

That band of rain I mentioned in northwestern Vermont this morning more or less hung in there, though in weakened. It did rain off and on all day here in St. Albans. But so far, my storm total has been a manageable 1.1 inches or so. And, as of 6 p.m. this evening, it was starting to rain here again. 

Wet, soggy, humid and icky, but no disaster.  

REALLY BAD EAST

While Vermont might have dodged a bullet (I think!) the same can't be said for eastern New England, which got the storms that yesterday we feared might hit us. 

One problem was tornadoes, or at least tornado warnings. We know at least one tornado touched down in Mattapoisett, in southeastern Massachusetts. The twister had top winds of 95 mph and had a damage path of about a mile long.

Much worse was the flooding. Two to as much as seven inches of rain fell on southeastern New England earlier today, causing a LOT of flooding. 

Up in New Hampshire and especially Maine, it was the same story.  Three to six inches of rain fell on western and central Maine today, and widespread flooding is ongoing. 

WHAT'S NEXT

Wednesday looks actually pretty decent in Vermont, with seasonable temperatures. We'll be virtually rain-free. 

Looking ahead, it still looks like we'll see frequent showers pretty much every other day for the next week or so, and possibly beyond. None of these wet spells at this point look dangerous, though. 

Maybe we can look on the bright side: When was the last time you had to irrigate your garden?