Tuesday Morning Vermont Flood Forecast: Threat Has Actually Decreased Some

A big towering thunderstorm cloud in the distance back
on July 6.  Updated forecasts suggests fewer of these
very wet storms today in Vermont than originally 
thought, so that reduces, but does not eliminate
the flash flood threat today. 

I won't say Vermont is out of the woods, but there were some changes to the weather forecast overnight that suggest today's flood threat might not be nearly as dire as the predictions that were issued Monday evening. 

It's not that a nasty flood won't occur somewhere. the but the epicenter of any problems today has largely shifted into New Hampshire and Maine. 

A persistent band of deep moisture was predicted to keep intense rainfall moving south to north over much of New England, including Vermont.

That forecast has shifted eastward, so it appears most of that intense rainfall will instead hit Maine and a good chunk of New Hampshire instead. 

That said, rain last night  pre-soaked the ground in the Green Mountain State, as expected. 

And, if any torrential storms can get going this afternoon, then a local flash flood could still easily occur.  The threat doesn't look as widespread as we thought last evening, except perhaps in the far Northeast Kingdom.

Rainfall did come through as expected last night. Some areas received a little less than forecast, which is good. The heaviest downpours seemed to focus on New York.  There's been no reports of any notable flooding. 

Today's downpours will focus on New Hampshire and Maine, so you can see how Vermont is threading the needle a little bit. 

There was still a decent band of rain coming through northwestern Vermont as of 8 a.m..  It's pretty persistent, and  I'm watching it. But so far, I'm not especially worried about it. Unless it intensifies, but it doesn't look like it will.

Otherwise, the rain has mostly stopped for now. Again, as previously forecast.

The questions come for this afternoon.   The original fear was we'd see quite a bit of sun this morning, which would greatly destabilize the atmosphere, setting off afternoon thunderstorms with intense rainfall. That, in turn would create quite a few areas of flash flooding around the Green Mountain State.

It appears we'll have more clouds than forecast this morning and early afternoon, keeping the atmosphere more stable. That northwestern Vermont rain this morning might actually contribute a little more to that stability. 

This all leaves us struggling to figure out how many thunderstorms do get going this afternoon and where. All indications are they'll be less widespread and less intense than earlier feared, That's why NOAA's Weather Prediction Center has downgraded what had been a somewhat dire moderate risk of flash flooding in Vermont down to a slight risk.

That means we still need to keep an eye out for local flooding issues this afternoon. We've been surprised by flooding on other days this summer, so we can't completely erase our vigilance here. 

But I do feel better about things this morning than I did last evening, 

Looking ahead, the forecast looks unsettled for the foreseeable future, at least into mid-August.  However, areas of showers and storms due Thursday and again on the weekend so far at least do not look like they pose much of a flood threat around here.