Vermont Flash Flood Threat Much Lower Now With Forecast Updates

Newest National Weather Service forecast rainfall
map is much different than yesterday's. Instead of
two to three inches of expected rainfall along and
north of Route 2, roughly an inch is expected there.
Southern Vermont should get some rain, but
nothing extreme. Not shown on this map are the
isolated spots that will see much more in
local torrential downpours. 

This morning brings us one of those cases in which the weather forecast for Vermont has shifted dramatically over the past 24 hours. 

This time, in a good way.

Turns out the chances of flash flooding this weekend in Vermont have gone down quite a bit, though those chances have not entirely gone away. 

A slight shift north in the expected path of weather systems today through Saturday have created the big re-thinking of the weather forecast.  

Though the chances of anybody in the Green Mountain State seeing flash flooding Saturday have greatly diminished, those small chances are now statewide, not just in the north.

FORECAST CHANGES

We're still going to have a warm front lift up into our region today. Moisture won't really begin to invade Vermont with this thing until tonight, so it looks like we'll get through most of the day without any rain. Some showers might finally arrive this evening. 

The warm front should eventually make it pretty much all the way through Vermont before stalling in far southern Quebec. That's different from previous forecast, which suggested the front would struggle to make it that far north. 

We've known that disturbances riding west to east along and north of that warm front would set up a corresponding west to east band of heavy rain. Heavy enough to risk flash flooding. 

The target area for this area of particularly heavy rain had been far northern parts of  New York, Vermont and New Hampshire, along with southern Quebec.

Everything has shifted north with the forecast, so now that heavy rain band is almost exclusively a southern Quebec thing.  Vermont towns immediately adjacent to the border might get some good downpours with this late tonight and before dawn Saturday, but if they do they'll be on the outer edges of the torrents. 

Environment Canada has released a special weather statement alerting residents to the risk of some minor flooding in southern Quebec due to the expected heavy rain there. 

BUT THE DOWNPOURS.,,,

The shift north with this forecast changes the Saturday scenario for the entire state of Vermont. It's going to be a somewhat warmer, and much more humid day than originally forecast. That humidity sets the stage for some locally torrential rain with showers and thunderstorms.  

There could be just isolated instances of flash flooding anywhere in the state if one or two towns get nailed by a couple torrential storms. But the vast majority of us should be fine. Nowadays we're always on edge for a big flood, given recent experience. We're not in for it this time. 

It will rain pretty much everywhere in Vermont Saturday. But it won't rain all day, so you'll get some precipitation-free breaks thrown in. 

As is almost always the case in the summer, rainfall amounts will be highly variable. On average, expect maybe half inch of rain, except more near the Canadian border and in places that really get bullseyed by any Saturday thunderstorms. 

This will make it the 28th weekend in a row with at least a trace of precipitation. The record number of consecutive weekends with precipitation in Burlington is 30, so we're getting close. 

BEYOND SATURDAY

Recent weekends have featured one of the two days turning out pretty nice. Same is expected this weekend. Sunday will be a pretty typical pleasant Vermont summer day with partly sunny skies, moderate humidity and highs in the 75 to 82 degree range. 

Monday will probably give us a quick squirt of heat and humidity. Hotter valleys could get to 90 degrees, and the heat index will probably get into the 90s. This won't be as bad as early this week, but still noticeably uncomfortable.

That high humidity will probably lead to a bunch of shower and storms Monday night and Tuesday, but it's still too soon to figure out how much rain we'd get out of that. The early guess on the opening days of July suggests nothing outlandish, which is a good thing.