Big Blast Of Wind/Snow Did Its Vermont Damage; Worst Is Over Now, Until Next Storm

One of numerous toppled trees this morning
in and around St Albans, Vermont after
last night's wild winter storm. 

Right on schedule last night, a big thump of wet, gusty snow in the evening was the opening act for a brief but wild wee hour windstorm.  

The worst of the winds probably only lasted no more than three hours in any one location in Vermont, but boy did they blow in many spots!

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington reported a wind gust of 69 mph at 1:53 a.m. today. 

That's the fourth highest wind gust on record for NWS in Vermont. This comes a little more than a year after their second highest wind gust of 71 mph in December, 2022.

We told you this storm would rival the December '22 storm in many respects so there you go.

Snowfall on some south and east facing slopes was impressive last evening. Randolph Center had 7.5 inches, Stowe 7.3 inches and Ludlow, 7.0 inches. It was a wet snow, as expected, so that contributed to the power outages overnight, again, as expected. 

Power outages across the state peaked at about 29,000 homes and businesses early this morning. The outages stuck stubbornly to near that level starting before 4 a.m. and going past 7 a.m. Even so, that's not as bad as the 70,000 in the December, 2022 storm, but still bad. It will take time to get everybody back on the juice.

I once again got lucky. My power in St. Albans stayed on all night and is still fine.  Large swaths of other areas in St. Albans were not so lucky early this morning, They were in the dark.  

The VT Outages map was ugly this morning, with
widespread power outages, especially in
western Vermont. Near 29,000 total early today.

 Lots of Vermont schools are either closed or having delayed openings today, so check your local listings. 

Trees and branches are down everywhere, especially in western Vermont. Some roads, like Route 116 in Middlebury and Route 73 in Brandon were closed early this morning because of fallen trees and wires.  

I took a quick tour through parts of St. Albans City this morning. I saw several trees down. Pretty much every street was littered with branches. Power and internet cables wee down everywhere. 

I'm sure other local roads had the same problem. I'm not sure if these roads are reopened as you read this.

Be prepared to take detours if you're out and about today.

WHAT'S NEXT

Luckily, the rest of this weather event will not be nearly as dramatic as the December, 2022 storm.  It still looks like there will be no serious flooding. There won't be a big flash freeze and snowstorm. We'll still have hassles, but today's weather will not be that terrible, really 

The strong winds are over and done with. National Weather Service has dropped the high wind warning.  It'll still be breezy today. Gusts could go as high as 35 mph or so during the day, but that's not too bad.

A slug of rain was still coming through this morning. I'm sure there will be rises on area rivers, but as of early this morning, they all seem to be behaving themselves. At least in Vermont. There's a lot of flooding once again in southern New England and southeastern New Hampshire and southern Maine, where rain was much heavier early today. 

We'll just go to scattered showers this afternoon, with temperatures holding steady or slow falling into the upper 30s.  At least conditions will be tolerable for crews trying to restore power. 

Some water might freeze on untreated surfaces tonight as we go below freezing, but this also won't be a huge deal other. 

But there's always a "However"....

NEXT STORM 

A new, powerful storm is still due Friday night and Saturday. It'll essentially be a twin of the one we just had.  It'll take the same basic path of the one we just had, and give us the same kind of weather: Snow to rain, with a burst of strong winds.

The slightly good news, though, is the wind will probably be a little less wild than what parts of Vermont experienced early today.  But it still looks like the gusts will be powerful enough overnight Friday and early Saturday to cause more power outages. 

It's too soon to say precisely how much snow we might get Friday night before the changeover. It's also too soon to know exactly how strong the winds will blow

But expect the National Weather Service to start issuing a variety of new storm alerts as we get closer to that event. 

There's even the possibility of a third storm next Tuesday, but that one is extremely iffy at this point. 

BOTTOM LINE

As bad as this storm was in Vermont, it could have been worse. And it was worse for many people up and down the East Coast. I'll describe the effects outside Vermont in a separate post, probably later today. 

And yes, I have to bring up climate change. I can't tell whether and how much climate change influenced this particular storm.  I imagine El Nino also gave this storm an added boost.

But storms are getting super charged by a warmer atmosphere. I'm sure you've noticed by now that overall, storms are getting more severe than they once were. The frequency of storms that actually cause damage in Vermont is increasing. 

Heavier rain, heavier snow, stronger winds. 

Get used to it. The storms aren't going to go away when El Nino does. We might have some lucky break years here and there where not much happens. But then again, awful years in Vermont like 2023, and the way this year is starting, is becoming the norm.

Unfortunately, watch this space in the coming months and years for more news of destructive storms in Vermont.