Vermont Minor Flood Threat Edges Up For Tonight, Tomorrow

The Otter Creek in Center Rutland is forecast to go
into minor, almost moderate flood stage Thursday
morning due to expected drenching rains overnight. 

Just a quick Wednesday evening update on the rain that's drenching Vermont today and tonight. 

It looks like the threat of flooding in a few parts of the Green Mountain State has edged up slightly, but we still are safe from any serious problems. 

Most of the steady rain has stayed in northern and central Vermont today as a steady feed of moisture has gone southwest to northeast over the region.

That band of steady rain will continue on into this evening, intensifying some as it slowly slips south. That puts central and parts of southern Vermont in the bullseye for heaviest rain.

These areas can expect at least an inch of rain, and possibly two inches out of this by morning. That could get some rivers and streams into flood stage.

The Otter Creek at Center Rutland is forecast to peak at 9.4 feet Thursday morning, solidly in minor flood stage. That could be enough to put parts of some low lying roads in Rutland County under water.

The Mad River at Moretown is forecast to peak at 8.9 feet, just a smidge under minor flood stage.

There is no flood watch in Vermont because any high water is likely to be relatively tame and pretty isolated.  Flood watches continue in southeastern New England, and those watches have been extended into all but far northern New Hampshire.  Southwestern Maine is under a flood watch, too.

Of course you'll want to stay away from dirt and gravel roads if you can. They are absolutely mud season quagmires and this rain is making it all so much worse. 

 National Weather Service radar late this afternoon showed
a persistent band of rain moving southwest to northeast
across northern and central Vermont. This band is 
forecast to drift slowly southward across the state overnight.

We're lucky there isn't much snow on the ground like there often is this time of year. A bunch of snow melt would have really added to the runoff.  As it stands there's not much snow even at mid elevations. 

That's not to say higher elevations don''t have snow in their near future.  

Meteorologists are still watching what promises to be a fairly good sized storm starting Saturday night and going on into Monday. 

There's still a lot of question marks as to how much rain and snow this thing might produce. 

But there is the potential for a lot of snow in higher elevations - we don't know for sure yet, though. Lower elevations at this point look like they'll receive mostly rain, at least until Sunday night when it will turn colder.

But the storm is a few days away so much can change, as is always the case with these types of storms. Just keep on your toes for that potential storm.