Friday Evening Vermont Storm Update: More Damage Due In Saturday Morning Wind Blast

Expected gusts early Saturday in a map produced by
the National Weather Service office in South Burlington.
Dark read is 60 mph or more. Very dark red is 70 mph or
more. Click on the map to make it bigger
and easier to read.

 With sunny skies in all but northwest Vermont this afternoon, it does seem strange that we have that big storm looming.  

But we do!

And boy is in big. In intensity and especially size.

Axios noted that all 50 states had some sort of weather warning in effect as of Friday morning. That included 5.2 million people under a blizzard warning; 167 million under high wind alerts; 28 million dealing with wind chill alerts and 57 million confronting winter storms and heavy snow. 

So yeah, it's a mess out there. 

Overall, here in Vermont I think the impacts of the storm late tonight and Saturday morning will be similar in scope to the storm we had Wednesday. 

I'm pretty sure we'll go over 10,000 Vermont homes and businesses without power once again. 

The dynamics of this storm feature very slightly more tame winds than the last one. But the orientation of the wind direction, the damage left behind from the last storm, and an expected lull in the precipitation just when the potential for higher winds hit make this storm as nasty as the last.

I've still got my eyes on the Rutland area, where the orientation of the wind favors stronger gusts in the city than the last storm.  I can easily see 60 to 65 mph gusts in and near downtown. That's not a guarantee, but it's definitely a good possibility. 

Heavy precipitation can form a bit of an inversion that prevents some strong gusts from mixing down to the surface. The biggest burst of snow will come through in the hours before the strongest winds aloft with this storm are due.  We're talking roughly between  4 and 8 a.m. Saturday.

 So winds could get very strong, especially along the western slopes for two or three hours, just as they did early Wednesday. It doesn't take long for these winds to do their damage.

For us, the forecast has gone through a few small adjustments.

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington expanded the high wind warning to include all of Chittenden County, not just the eastern half of it. High winds there might extend a little further west than first thought.  Especially along and east of Route 2A. 

Elsewhere the high wind warning remains up for north central and western Vermont, except near the shores of northern Lake Champlain. Even in the slightly lower end wind advisory zone in the far northwest, winds could gust locally into the 55 to 60 mph range, enough to tear down trees, branches and power lines. 

We're still expecting three to seven inches of snow along the Green Mountains and the eastern slopes. There could be a little more than that in the southern Greens. That added weight of wet snow will just make power outages worse, just like last time. 

The worst of the snow - and a mix to rain in the Champlain Valley, should arrive after 10 p.m. tonight.

WHAT TO DO

You know the drill by now. 

Charge your devices this evening, and get those LED candles ready to go.

We got REALLY lucky in the last storm as trees crashed through roofs of occupied houses, but didn't injure anyone. We have that risk again coming up, so we'll want to be careful.

Also, I'd say we'll want to stay off the roads, especially in the strongest wind zones, between 11 p.m tonight and 9 a.m. Saturday. 

If you're in a very gust prone area covered by the high wind warning, and you have a lot of trees around your house, you might want to sleep on the ground floor, center of the building, away from windows. 

The worst of the storm should be done by mid to late morning, though gusty winds and scattered rain and snow showers will continue. Winds toward evening could peak at about 35 mph in stronger gusts. That will be a pain in the neck for power crews working to restore power, even if it causes little additional damage