After Vermont Storms, Chances Of Renewed Flooding Not Worrisome. At Least For Now

Flooding in Winooski, Vermont on December 19, 2023,
The National Weather Service in South Burlington releases
bi-weekly flood outlooks in the winter and early spring. Today's
updated outlook offer not much to worry about. 

 Those bi-weekly flood outlooks the National Weather Service office in South Burlington puts out every other Thursday take on an added importance after all the extreme weather we'v'e had.  

I think a lot of us Vermonters are still feeling pretty raw after the epic floods last summer and the renewed, destructive floods in December. 

The latest flood outlook came out today and continues to show near normal flood potential for the next two weeks. That really means that we won't have any flooding, unless an unusually heavy rain storm wanders through. 

These bi-weekly flood outlooks take into consideration snowpack, soil moisture, water levels and weather forecasts. 

Opposing factors - some that enhance flood potential, others that diminish the chances - are competing against each other. 

We've had a wicked stormy weather pattern for weeks, months, really. So the ground is saturated, and stream flows are running a little high. 

But it's also been warm. That means there's not much river ice that could eventually cause ice jams.  Mountain snow cover and the amount of water in that snow is below normal.  Which reduces the chances that a lot of melting snow would add to runoff if we had a big rain storm. 

It's going to be cold the next few days, which means river ice will increase. But not all that much, because the cold weather doesn't look like it will last long. The deepest cold should just run from today through Sunday before an another warmup starts. 

We've also started a rather dry weather pattern yesterday, but forecasters think it will start to get a little wetter next week. Light snows are hitting some northern areas today, and more very light snow might fall Saturday. But that will add very little to the snow cover and potential runoff in the mountains. 

However, that warmer weather pattern expected to begin next week will be fairly active once again.  That means frequent chances of precipitation. The good news is at this point at least, I don't see signs of any kind of mega-storm sweeping through Vermont. So that will be a welcome break. 

There is, however, an elevated chance of flooding in southeastern New England, mostly because they have been even wetter than Vermont has over the past couple of weeks. 

There's also a somewhat higher than average chance of flooding out by Buffalo, New York and surrounding areas. They've been getting buried in lake effect snow this week. When it warms up, rain and thawing could produce flooding out there.