I'm A Little More Relaxed About Vermont Rain And Storminess This Week

Sunflowers and a few big pink flowers try to brighten
up a foggy, murky Monday morning in St. Albans,
Vermont. Lots of moisture lingering in the air 
after the on and off rains from the past few days. 

 Yesterday's rainy system, while thoroughly soaking much of Vermont, ended up being pretty well behaved. 

There was for a time a flood advisory for the southeastern corner of Vermont once again on Sunday evening, but I don't have any reports of trouble.

I'm sure water is running high or at least high-ish in much of the state, especially in central and southern Vermont, but they're not flooding.  

One saving grace is that for several hours during the day, rather intense storms in southern New England were literally stealing our thunder.  Those storms to our south were robbing moisture that would have otherwise flowed easily into Vermont. 

The result was much lighter rains during the day than many anticipated. during the morning and early afternoon in Burlington, it rained continuously for six hours. But it was only a droning sprinkle, with a whopping 0.01 inches of rain falling in a six hour period, 

Rains did come earlier, and later in the evening, so Burlington clocked a respectable storm total of 0.72 inches, pretty much in line with forecasts. Some areas in central and southern Vermont probably got an inch or more of rain. 

It was still raining in much of the southern half of Vermont earlier this morning, but that should gradually taper off during the day

Tuesday will bring us a break in the action before the next round

NEXT STORM TO BEHAVE?

We're still expecting a soaker on Wednesday, but the good news is the system might end up moving through a little faster than earlier anticipated. That might limit rainfall some, which would in turn possibly limit flood potential.

There's still some questions, though, as to how hard it will rain on Wednesday. I expect the day to be a washout, but whether we get any flooding depends upon whether any torrential downpours develop, or whether it will be just a steady rain that will time to partly soak into the ground rather than run off and cause flooding.

That said, the ground has gotten pretty soggy again with the rain over the past few days, so we'll need to stay on our toes Wednesday. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center still has us in a slight risk zone for excessive rain and flooding Wednesday. 

HURRICANE LEE

NOT AN OFFICIAL FORECAST.  This only 
illustrates just some of the computer model
projections for the future path of 
Hurricane Lee.

It seems like we've been talking about this hurricane forever, since it's just slowly lurching through the Atlantic Ocean. It's still expected to take its northward turn Wednesday, but there's still a lot of questions as to how close to New England it comes. 

When a relatively slow moving hurricane like Lee move northward off the East Coast of the United States, winds tend to weaken, but the area of storminess associated with the hurricane expands. 

We still don't know how close the center of Hurricane Lee will come to the New England coast, so we don't know what the weather will be like anywhere in New England, frankly.

It's likely - but not guaranteed - Vermont will be luckier than most, since we're further west, of course. 

If Lee goes further east than forecast, we end up with a sunny and nice Sunday.  If it goes further west, we could have a gusty, even rainy Sunday, especially eastern Vermont. 

Of all the computer models, most have Lee hitting somewhere in western Nova Scotia or New Brunswick. But it could come as far east as Maine, or just go nearly harmlessly out to sea.