Super Cold Front Legacy: Lots Of Power Outages

Looks nice outside in St. Albans, Vermont this morning
but a stiff, frigid north wind was still tossing the
pine branches around. 

 Boy, the wind surged big time along and behind that big cold front last night. 

High winds were expected with this thing and they certainly delivered. Lots of power outages were reported throughout New York, New England and Quebec. 

About 180,000 outages were reported in Quebec and another 30,000 at least in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. 

Here in Vermont, the outages peaked at about 13,600 homes and businesses at around midnight last night. As of 8:45 a.m. there were still a good 6,000 in the dark. 

Some roads overnight in Vermont were blocked by fallen trees, wires and branches, and that has pretty much been cleaned up. 

We had several reports of wind gusts exceeding 50 mph in Vermont. Since you can't have a wind gauge everywhere, I'm sure there were a few spots that got to 60 mph. Especially in favored downslope areas in far northern Vermont and the eastern slopes of the Green Mountains. 

I did notice a gust to 72 mph in Ticonderoga, New York, just over the Vermont border.  Wind damage was worse in eastern New York than in Vermont because of downslope winds off the Adirondacks. 

Vermont has had a rough go of it over the past few months with storms and the electrical grid. This is the fifth time since late November in which a storm caused 10,000 or more power outages in the Green Mountain State. 

As you noticed, it's cold out there, also as expected. Just a 24-hour return to winter.  Most of the main roads are cleared up and fine as of 9 a.m. today. A lot of sidewalks, back roads and such are still icy after water quickly froze overnight. 

Nobody got much snow to speak of. Looks like about a quarter inch outside my door in St. Albans, Vermont. A trace was reported in Burlington. 

Also, I bet a lot of dirt and gravel roads are a mess today.  They were mud bogs yesterday. The big ruts left behind by cars and trucks trying to get through that mud are now frozen hard. So that will be a challenge for anybody trying to navigate a back road. 

Today will remain gusty and cold, but bright, with sun and some clouds. Temperatures in the teens this morning will barely rise to near 20. Gusts to 25 mph will make it feel like zero. 

Thawing returns tomorrow afternoon.  Forecasts continue to call for a long stretch of much warmer than normal weather starting Saturday and lasting at least through Wednesday.