It wasn't flooding we should have worried about.
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| Surf was really up in St. Albans Bay Friday evening during our surprise high winds from former Tropical Storm Debby. |
As we now know this Saturday morning, it wasn't the rain we should have worried about. At least not in Vermont. There was very little flooding in the Green Mountain State. It was mostly in New York, Pennsylvania and Quebec
But former Tropical Storm Debby had one big surprise parting shot for Vermont as it lifted into Quebec Friday evening:
Debby was quite a blowhard in the end. The wind nailed us. Big time. Especially in the Champlain Valley.
It was quite a surprise.
DAMAGE REPORTS
Forecasters knew well ahead of time there would be strong winds, especially in western Vermont. A wind advisory issued well in advance warned of wind gusts up to 50 mph that could knock down a few trees and power lines.
The wind, however, was stronger, and more widespread than anybody thought. The wind gusted to 62 mph at the National Weather Service office in South Burlington. I can't ever recall wind speeds that strong in the summer, outside of severe thunderstorms of course.
Other areas in the Champlain Valley also had gusts to near 60 mph, possibly more in some spots, judging from damage reports.
Following is just a few incidents I ran across. (Some might be unofficial reports, but they are reliable). Also, it's just a sampling of the trouble the high winds caused. It's definitely not a complete accounting.
A tree apparently crushed a house in Alburgh, trapping a resident inside. Colchester Technical Rescue had to go up and get the person out, and the Red Cross was helping with displaced residents.
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| Debris blowing from this house in St. Albans, Vermont Friday evening after strong winds tore off a metal roof. |
Another tree fell on a car in Fairfax and there were reports of injuries. I don't know how serious. Trees were also reported down on houses in Swanton and Williston. Probably other towns, too.
In St. Albans Bay, I witnessed the wind rip a metal roof off of a house. Roads in St. Albans - like so many other spots in Vermont, were littered with fallen branches and trees.
Middlebury Police advised residents to stay off the roads, as many of the town's streets were blocked by fallen trees and wires. Milton Police issues similar warnings. Route 116 was closed near Middlebury and Bristol due to fallen trees. Route 116 in the middle of Starksboro was also blocked by fallen trees.
A traffic signal was seen dangling dangerously low and broken on busy Williston Road in South Burlington.
It was dangerous out there, as you'd imagine. I was removing a large branch from the middle of Georgia Shore Road near the Georgia/St. Albans line. A big gust came up and I heard a large tree cracking next to me. And I was under power lines. So I decided to abandon that little project and move on.
At its worse last evening, more than 49,000 Vermont homes and businesses were without power. As of 6:15 a.m today, more than 26,000 customers were still out. The outages were distributed statewide, but were most numerous in the Champlain Valley.
If there was any saving grace, the high winds really last only a couple of hours before quickly diminishing.
FLOODING AVOIDS VERMONT, BUT....
Another good thing, of course, was the lack of new flooding in Vermont. The initial band of rain Friday morning was heavier than expected, so that raised some fears.
A new band of torrential rains arrived in Vermont in the late afternoon and evening, just as expected. But that line of downpours cosplayed and Olympic sprinter, and raced in and out of Vermont before it could linger enough to do any harm.
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| This small branch got stabbed into my St. Albans, Vermont lawn when it was blown off a tree in Friday evening's strong winds. (My property sustained no damage other than small branches blown down). |
The heaviest rain fell to our west and southwest, in New York and Pennsylvania, where the flooding was described as catastrophic in some areas.
More than six inches of rain hammered parts of the Montreal, Quebec area, causing severe flooding there, too.
Back here in Vermont, meteorologists will definitely spend a lot of time examining how they missed anticipating the strong winds - nobody, not any meteorologist I know if, not any computer models I know of - predicted it would get that bad.
That's not at all a slam against the National Weather Service office in South Burlington or any other Vermont meteorologist. A storm transitioning from tropical to non-tropical, moving pretty much overhead over complex terrain is a nightmare to forecast.
UP NEXT
Quieter weather is on top in Vermont for the foreseeable future. Debby is way out of our hair now. Today will actually be quite nice, with partly sunny skies, a nice breeze and warm temperatures near 80.
A dip in the jet stream and a cool pool of air aloft will keep things unsettled tomorrow, Monday and perhaps beyond.
The cool air in the upper atmosphere will encourage instability. That will turn on the scattered shower activity Sunday afternoon through at least Monday. It won't rain continuously, and any rain won't be nearly heavy enough to cause flood problems.
I also don't see signs of any temperature extremes for at least the next week.
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