Vermont Wednesday Evening Storm Update: Welcome Quiet Until Next Big Blow Friday Night

A large tree fell into this home in St. Albans, Vermont
during a severe windstorm early Wednesday. The
home suffered extensive damage.

 Vermont is in recovery mode from last night's storm. 

The weather - thankfully - is going to be on the quiet side until Friday night when the next big storm arrives. 

We need the brief quiet.

There's still a ton of cleanup to do. 

As of 4:45 p.m. today, roughly 14,500 Vermont homes and businesses were still without power, says VTOutages. That's about half the peak number this morning. But it's going to take awhile to get everybody back in the juice.

I think the power companies took care of the "low hanging fruit" today; getting main power lines in relatively populated areas back up and running.

A lot of the remaining power outages are on rural back roads. It's a painstaking job to get all that sort of stuff fixed.

The main zone of power outages is still western Vermont, especially along and near the west slopes of the Green Mountains. The destruction extended pretty much to the Lake Champlain shores. St. Albans was still a mess late this afternoon, with trees still down, and a few badly damaged homes not protected from any incoming cold and light snow. 

A large uprooted spruce tree leans against a home on
Barlow Street in St. Albans, Vermont after the
severe wind storm early Wednesday. 

Cambridge, always a target of downslope windstorms, also suffered serious damage. Much of the roof of a large barn owned by Vermont State Sen. Richard Westman, R-Lamoille blew away, exposing hay, antique cars and other items to the weather, reports VTDigger. 

A farm near Westman's property also suffered major damage as three hoop houses collapsed in the wind. 

Up in the Northeast Kingdom, the wind was destructive, too. The roof blew off the Holland town garage, sending it crashing into and destroying power poles and wires, reports Vermont Public. Some homes up there should be without power well into Friday.

THE FORECAST

At least it's not that cold for people struggling without electricity. But cold enough. 

It'll get below freezing tonight, and stay in the low 30s tomorrow. A weak disturbance should squeeze out a period of light snow Thursday afternoon and evening in at least parts of Vermont. The northern and central Green Mountains could get two or three inches of fresh powder, while valleys could see a dusting to an inch. 

Friday looks seasonably cold ahead of the next big storm.

Yes, it's going to be a big storm. But early indications are it won't be quite as big as the one we just had.

It will generally be a repeat of what we just had. Snow should develop Friday evening, possible accumulating a few inches before changing to rain in most spots. 

This will be another windy system, with strong southeast winds enhanced by downsloping on the western slopes of the Green Mountains. 

However, it still looks like it won't be quite as windy as it was early today. Still, expect more power outages, especially since some trees and power poles were weakened by the powerful gusts early today. I'm also not convinced all the power will be restored in Vermont by Friday night. The new storm will just delay things further. 

On the slightly bright side, the Vermont mountains and hills had a net gain of snow today, despite the thawing that set in early this morning and lasted all day. 

The storm Friday night and Saturday should do the same, creating a net gain of snow in the mountains despite some rain. And after Saturday's storm, it looks like sustained sub-freezing cold will arrive for the first time this winter.