Flooding This Morning In Vermont; Big Storm Looms This Weekend

 There's quite a bit of flooding to report in Vermont this Thursday morning.

Forecasts for minor flooding along the Otter Creek
in Rutland County are turning out to be pretty 
accurate. Minor flooding is going on in many
areas of Vermont this morning.

Luckily, unlike the episodes we endured last summer and in December this round of flooding is pretty much just nuisance stuff.  

Flood warnings were up this Thursday morning for minor flooding along the Winooski River around Waterbury and Richmond, the Mad River in Moretown, the East Branch of the Passumpsic River in and around Lyndon, the Otter Creek in Rutland County, and the Williams River in and around Rockingham.

There's also scattered instances of flooding along streams and small rivers, especially in central and southern Vermont. 

In all of these cases, homes don't appear to be threatened, though it's a close call in the Northeast Kingdom Mobile Home Park in Lyndon. Otherwise, we see a lot of field flooding and some low lying roads are either under water or soon will be.

Yes, this is a minor flood, but still, safety first! If you see water across a road, don't drive through it. You've heard it a million times: Turn around, don't drown. 

This is turning out to be a long, miserable mud season.  Record warmth in February thawed the ground at least partly.  And soil moisture is high from the heavy precipitation we had last fall and through January. 

It's been above freezing in many places since last Friday afternoon, and now we've had that heavy rain. 

The dirt roads are either impassable and close to it. 

It's only early March, so we'll have freezes. Tonight, for example, will get below 32 in most places. Those repeated freezes, followed by more thaws, will keep the mud going. 

Plus, we have more precipitation to get to. Possibly quite a lot of it. The bulk of it should come in what is shaping up to be a pretty substantial storm this weekend. 

THE STORM 

The upcoming system will feature plenty of rain, snow and wind, but this far ahead of the event, the amount of all the above is still open to question.

This could well be another storm that causes yet more power outages in Vermont. As if we haven't had enough of them in recent months. 

Forecast weather map for Sunday morning shows
a strong storm in the Northeast, so it will
likely be a stormy day here in Vermont. 

The broad brush idea is coming into focus. It'll be sort of a double barrel sort of thing with one storm heading off toward the Great Lakes and another one simultaneously starting to take over along the Middle Atlantic coast Saturday night. 

What happens to us depends on how fast the coastal storm turns dominate, how much warm air can sneak in, and just general marginal temperatures. 

It also gets tricky now that we are into March.  The increased sun angle can force a little warmth through the clouds, turning snow to rain, especially in lower elevations. 

The orientation of the storm could cause some strong downslope winds along the western slopes of the Green Mountains Saturday night and early Sunday. How strong those might get are still open to question but I kinda doubt it will be nearly as awful as those two storms we had in January. 

Since it's so soggy out, heavy rain could renew flooding in the Green Mountain State. But only if the rain extends fairly high up in elevation.

Which it may not.  Areas above 2,000 feet stand a chance of seeing several inches at least of wet snow. Combined with wind, that would be another threat to trees and power lines

Higher up, above 2,500 feet in the central and northern Green Mountains, there's the potential for over a foot of snow to give a last minute boost to some of the suffering ski areas. 

The coastal low will eventually take over as king, and push some strong, wet northwest winds through New England Sunday night and Monday. If that happens, it would mean snow showers everywhere. The northern and central Green Mountains could pick up quite a bit of additional snow from that. 

All of this is open to change, so we'll keep you updated. 

Next week will probably be relatively mild in the valleys, but not as warm as it has been. Still, if some snow accumulates in the valleys Sunday and Monday, it will probably mostly melt during the week.

However, the weather pattern will remain active, and trend somewhat colder as we go further into March. That means more snow chances. Maybe not blockbuster storms, but snow. 

Winter isn't quite over yet. But you knew that. It's Vermont.