Vermont Gets Flurried To Death, Tons Of Snow In Northern Mountains Results

The latest National Weather Service snow forecast map.
Parts of the northern Green Mountains should continue
to pile up the snow, while low elevations in
southern Vermont continue with their snow drought.

 This is one of those winter periods we have so often in Vermont in which nor'easters and big dumps of snow completely pass us by. 

But some of us get our share of snow, anyway, in the form of sporadic snow showers, light snow and random snowflakes in the cold, damp northwest winds of winter. 

Basically, Vermont gets flurried to death. 

The long siege of snow flurries in Vermont that started last Thursday and will pretty much continue all this week is one of the most impressive I've seen. 

It's true that this type of regime brings big snow winners and snow losers.  Deep valleys miss out, while the central and northern Green Mountains practically drown in powder. That type of situation is writ large this week.

Our latest installment of this phenomenon has been going on since last Thursday and will continue pretty much the rest of this week.

Under this regime, valleys don't get all that much snow, but eventually, he ground whitens even there. The mountains, get creamed, though. 

So far, since Thursday. Westfield, Vermont has received a little over two feet of snow. Montgomery has had nearly a foot and a half. Jay Peak, which always does best in this type of situation, has had three feet of snow in the past week. 

Meanwhile, it pretty much didn't snow at all in the Champlain Valley until Saturday and Sunday. The wind shifted and relaxed a little, so the snow didn't bypass the valley. And Lake Champlain offered its second installment of lake effect snow this winter. 

Deepest new snow on Sunday morning included 4.7 inches in Shelburne, 4.6 inches in Huntington and 4.2 inches in Charlotte.

ANOTHER SNOW BLITZ COMING

We get a break from the snow today, as a little bit of high pressure from the west is interfering with the cold, wet north flow of air. 

But that snowy northwest wind is about to re-establish itself big time for parts of Vermont for the rest of the week.  Some of the snow totals we'll hear about by the end of the week will be impressive, but those big totals will probably be limited to the central and northern Green Mountains. 

This will be  enough that the National Weather Service has issued a long-lasting winter weather advisory from a little after midnight Tuesday morning to at least Wednesday evening for the northern Green Mountains of Vermont and parts of the Adirondacks and other sections of northern New York.

That snow will probably keep falling beyond Wednesday. 

The snowfall in the advisory zone will probably never fall all that heavily, but the persistence is what will pile up the fluff. 

If you're near the Green Mountains in northern Vermont, you can generally expected a good three to eight inches of snow, with locally higher amounts. If you're way up high, near the summits, at elevations of 2,000 feet or more, expect one to two feet of snow by Friday. 

A note that all of Franklin County, Vermont is under the advisory, but sections of the county closest to Lake Champlain probably won't receive a boatload of snow. The National Weather Service in South Burlington says the heavier snow will probably be east of a line from Fairfax to Highgate.

Much of Vermont will receive a little snow, it'll be a dusting to a couple inches.  Parts of the southern Champlain Valley, low elevations in western Rutland County and lower Connecticut Valley might not get any snow at all, or if they do, just a few occasional lonely snowflakes. 

By the time you get down to places like Springfield and Brattleboro this week, the sun will be out much of the day during this whole thing. 

Everyone will be windy and cold during this whole week, though.   Winds will gust to 30 to 35 mph, Tuesday, Wednesday and probably Thursday. High temperatures will only be in the teens to around 20, so wind chills are going to be a problem.

Where there's a bunch of snow, blowing snow is going to be a big problem. The snow that falls will be very light and fluffy, which means the wind will pick it up easily. Expect some big drifts on some of the roads exposed to the wind, whiteout conditions at times, and lift holds at the some of the ski areas due to the gusts. 

Toward the end of the week and early next weekend, those of us who will have gotten snow will see it tapering off. Temperatures will moderate a bit, getting up into the 20s, which actually is fairly comfortable for this time of year. 

Satellite Photo Shows Vermont Snow Melt Progress

Visible satellite view of Vermont on Wednesday shows
many valley areas have lost their snow. Some interesting
areas in there, too. Click on the photo to make it 
bigger and easier to pick out details. 

 I came across an interesting visible satellite photo on the Burlington National Weather Service office web page yesterday, before the clouds rolled in. 

It gave a very clear view of how the snow has melted out of the Champlain Valley, and some of the lowlands in the Connecticut River Valley. 

The photo is in this post. Click on the image to make it bigger and easier to pick details out. 

One thing I noticed is the sharp line between no snow and snow in eastern Bennington, Rutland and Addison counties. 

The valley floors are virtually free of snow, but go up just a tiny bit in elevation along the western slopes of the Green Mountains, and you encounter solid snowpack. 

I noticed this as I drove through parts of Addison and Rutland counties on Sunday. Often during the spring thaw, the snow cover somewhat gradually goes from bare ground, to patchy to mostly snow to complete snow. On Sunday's trip,  I could see the abrupt change from no snow to complete snow cover,

This probably has a lot to do with the snowstorm on March 14-15. It was highly elevation dependent. The lowest elevations got modest amounts of snow, while elevations from about 900 feet and up got clobbered. That's probably part of what you see along those western slopes. 

If you also look closely, you can see the snow on the Taconic mountains in northwestern Bennington and western Rutland County. Again, you can discern the valleys. The little gap in the snow cover heading southeast to northwest in northern Bennington County and southwestern Rutland County is the Route 30 corridor in the Mettawee Valley.

By the way, that Mettawee Valley area of Route 30 is in my opinion the prettiest stretch of road in Vermont. Definitely worth a trip. 

Along another stretch of Route 30 in southeastern Vermont, you can see the snow free valley it travels heading northwest from Brattleboro, until the road encounters higher elevations and snow cover somewhere near Townshend or Jamaica. 

You can also see a gap in the snow cover in west-central Rutland County, with just a patch of snow to the north. That gap is the valley Route 4 takes toward Whitehall, New York. The small white patch to the north of Route 4 is Grandpa's Knob, and probably one or two higher peaks before the Taconics dwindle to nothing west of Brandon. 

A also think Grandpa's Knob is a wonderful name for a mountain. Or a senior citizen rock band. 

Looking much further north, if you squint your eyes,  you can sort of detect a narrow "crack" in the snow cover from far eastern Chittenden County through much of central Washington County. That's the Winooski River valley. The valley floor has little snow, but just slightly uphill from the river, you encounter a decent snow cover, 

Even further north, that patch of snow in central Franklin County just east of St. Albans is St. Albans Hill, just to the south of where I live.  My house is a third of the way up an adjacent, slightly smaller hill.  

I can attest that yesterday the bottom of the hill was snow free, my  yard still had patches of snow, and the top of the hill was almost totally snow covered. My hill is the tiny white dot north of the patch of white that is St. Albans Hill. 

You can also see that Lake Champlain is largely clear of ice, except the eastern part of the Lake from Malletts Bay in Colchester on up to St. Albans Bay.  The bays in the northern parts of the lake are usually the last to lose their ice in the spring. 

As we go through the next several weeks, on clear days, you'll see satellite images showing the snow cover retreating from both western and eastern Vermont, until only the summits of the Green Mountains. 

Interesting Weather Sunday Afternoon In Vermont Mountains

Towering clouds, soon to be showers and storms begin to 
erupt early this afternoon well east of St. Albans over the
Green Mountains. Storms will tend to sit over the 
mountains the rest of the day while the Champlain Valley
looks like it will mostly stay sunny and hot and humid

 I'm sure you all noticed, but it's pretty stuffy out there in Vermont today. 

It's humid, and and the air is just not stirring. You'd think the air is just begging to unleash a late afternoon thunderstorm.  It is, but only depending on where you are.   

That still, windless air extends at least up to 24,000 feet overhead, which is quite unusual. There's really not much in the way of weak boundaries or wind shifts to trigger storms, since, um, there's no wind. 

There's only one way to force an updraft that could be a trigger for thunderstorms. That's the sun creating updrafts up the sides of mountains. Once it starts, the air in the updraft goes up and up and up, forming those billowing thunderhead clouds. Eventually a thunderstorm gets going.

That's a really typical scenario for a humid Vermont summer day. What isn't typical is the lack of wind through a thick layer of the atmosphere. Normally, wind would take those mountain thunderstorms out over the adjacent valleys, where they'd either continue on toward New Hampshire or dissipate.

With no wind to speak of that would move anything today's storms will hug the mountains. By that I mean mostly the Green Mountains, the Taconics of southwestern Vermont, along with the White Mountains of New Hampshire and New York's Adirondacks. 

The biggest risk of these stationary storms are along and south of Route 4 this afternoon. The remnants of a weak boundary that came through last evening is draped across that area. It's not creating any wind, but it is giving just a wee bit of extra lift to the atmosphere, which helps create storms. 

It already started late this morning and will continue on into the evening. Storms will continuously bubble up over the mountains, unleash torrential downpours. Then they'll dissipate, only to reform in basically the same spots again. 

That raises the risk of flash flooding. The air is humid enough to ensure any storms that do form unleash torrential downpours. Since the storms aren't moving much, the downpours last longer than usual in any given spot. 

The result is the continued risk of flash flooding, especially in the southern half of the region. 

Already, as of early afternoon, a couple flood advisories had been issued for southern Vermont, mostly around West Brattleboro and western Guilford, and around Jamaica and Wardsboro.  I'm sure new flood advisories and possible flash flood warnings will flash during the rest of the day in the mountains. 

Any flash flooding will be highly localized in just a few towns or even just neighborhoods caught under a persistent, stationary storm.  The vast majority of us will see no flooding. Many of us will see no rain at all today. Water might gush across a road in flash flood at one spot, while a mile or two up the road it's dusty and rain-free. 

Broad valleys like the Champlain Valley have the lowest chance of any rain today.  Local effects could push an isolated storm into the valley, but don't count on any rain at all today in places like Burlington, St. Albans, or west of Middlebury. If you're at a Lake Champlain beach, you'll keep getting plenthy of sun for the rest of the afternoon. 

It'll be interesting to see rainfall reports from the region tomorrow. You'll probably see many towns having received no rain at all today, a few will get modest amounts and a couple will just get slammed. 

If you live in or near the mountains today, keep away from small streams and creeks. Those can go nuts in no time at all.  Even if it's not raining where you are. It could be raining buckets at the stream's headwaters, and all that water could come rushing downhill. If you've set up camp right next to a stream, consider moving it uphill aways, so you don't have to scramble later.

It looks like the atmosphere, though remaining hot and humid, won't really be conducive to thunderstorms tomorrow and Tuesday, so there will probably be just isolated activity.  Thunderstorms could blossom again mid and late week over Vermont, but by then, it seems like there will be some wind to push them along. 

Sunday Evening: Flash Flooding Breaking Out In Southern Vermont AGAIN

Flash flood damage in southern Vermont as 
seen on Friday. Parts of that region are under
flash flood warnings again this 
Sunday evening

 Flash flood warnings are flying again for parts of the southern Green Mountains of Vermont. 

Thunderstorms with torrential rain just went through areas hit hard with heavy rain and flooding Thursday night.  The flash flood warning as of 6:45 p.m.  is concentrated on steep terrain between roughly Arlington and Bellows Falls, Vermont.  

Radar returns look like there's a little gap in the rain going through there now, but residents of that area be warned. It ain't over! 

There was more torrential rain entering Bennington County from the west, and some of that looks like it will go through some of the same areas hit Thursday, and the same areas that got nailed late this afternoon.

Further north, an area of heavy rain looks like it went by just south of Burlington and is heading into the Northeast Kingdom. I really doubt this will be enough to cause significant flooding, but there could be sharp rises on creeks and small streams, and there could be some washouts on back roads.

Of course, the (Not So) Great Champlain Desert of far northwestern Vermont is missing out on the rain again. St. Albans has had just 0.12 inches of rain so far, and it looks like only a little more will fall

But that little rain free zone is not the issue here. If you're in the areas that are under flash flood warnings, or even lower level flood advisories in southern Vermont, my advice is to just stay home tonight unless you live in a spot that can flood.

Back roads can wash out awfully fast. The heavy rains of July have left the area really, really prone to quick flooding with surprisingly little rain. 

If you ARE in a flood prone house or building or camp or whatever, be ready to move this evening at the drop of a hat. This is a situation in which everything will seem fine one moment, and the next, you have torrents of water.

And for Gawd's sake don't drive through a flooded street or road. You don't know how deep the water is, and you don't know if the roadbed underneath has been washed away.

This flood threat in southern Vermont will continue for the next several hours at least until the heaviest rain pushes to the east by or after midnight.