Clean Up From Ferocious Storms In Franklin County. So Far, No Signs Of Any Tornado Touchdowns

Large trees snapped off in this yard along Maquam
Shore road in Swanton this morning. 

 The song of today in St. Albans and Swanton was the buzz of chainsaws. 

Large fallen trees and branches were everywhere, especially in St. Albans City and along Maquam shore in Swanton. 

Tree crews filled the streets cleaning up the mess. Homeowners in the two towns spent a good part of the day playing pick up sticks in their yards. 

The National Weather Service in South Burlington, in a Facebook post this afternoon, said they have not dispatched anyone to determine whether there was a tornado or not.

Part of the statement said, "There was brief radar indicated rotation between St. Albans and Fairfield, VT that prompted the tornado warning at 7:35 p.m. However, we have not received any reports of damage near Fairfield, nor anything to prompt us to go survey, so we will stand down on sending any teams out at this time."

As I noted this morning, I clearly saw rotation in the clouds last evening, but no sign of any real funnels or tornadoes. I live on the east side of St. Albans, kind of on the way to Fairfield, so I would have been close to the most intense rotation.

The National Weather Service noted that strong straight line winds of 60 mph, and locally in excess of 70 mph hit in some areas.  

I did my own little storm survey this morning. It seems like there were two concentrated areas of wind damage. One right through St. Albans City, and another worse one along Maquam Shore in Swanton.That area had many, many downed trees, mostly in a two-mile wide band near and north of Cohen Park, 

Almost all the trees along Maquam Shore fell in basically the same direction, so I'd assume that area got hit by a microburst. My guesstimate is winds in St. Albans City reached maybe 60 to as much as 70 mph in the most intense gust

The worst hit area of Maquam Shore easily had 70 mph winds. Probably more than that in isolated spots. I wouldn't be surprised if there was an isolated gust to 80 mph or more. I didn't go out to North Hero to look at the damage there. 

I'm glad the storms moved right along because the rainfall out of them was incredibly torrential. Jeffersonville picked up 2.09 inches of rain. Smuggler Notch reported 1.85 inches. Derby Line reported 1.59 inches. At my unofficial rain gauge in St, Albans, we collected 1.38 inches 

WHAT'S NEXT

I'll have a full report in the morning, but a couple things to point out. There were some thundershowers up near Montreal this afternoon moving generally southeast toward Vermont. Those storms were pretty much garden variety, and showed a weakening trend as they headed south toward the border. 

As of 5:30 p.m., those now light to moderate showers were on the Vermont border between Richford and Newport. Nothing scary will come out of these. 

It's now looking like some scattered showers and thunderstorms might develop tomorrow after all, mostly north. So far, it doesn't look like anything severe will get going,.

More showers and possible thunderstorms see like they're in the cards Thursday. Again, so far anyway, it doesn't look like we'll have anything dreadful like last evening.