Vermont weather geek's hodgepodge of weather and climate news and opinion. Often Vermont focused, but taking a national and global approach, with sometimes an appropriate dash of fun, outrage, cynicism and compassion.
An ice jam in Swanton, Vermont after a rainy, warm January thaw in 2018. This will be the first early spring in a few years in which ice jams are a real concern However, there's no evidence that there's anything imminent.
Rain and a spring thaw in parts of Pennsylvania last week caused several potential dangerous ice jams.
Luckily, the Pennsylvania jams either broke up fast enough to prevent serious damage or hit in rural areas where there was little to damage. But those jams last weekprompted some flash floods warnings and evacuations.
It was a reminder, though, that a winter with lots of cold and snow can really create trouble when the spring thaw arrives in earnest.
The same thing could happen here in Vermont later this spring.
After a bitterly cold late January and early February. the weather abruptly turned in western Pennsylvania last Thursday and Friday. Thunderstorms dumped bursts of heavy rain on that region last night. By noon Friday, Pittsburgh's temperature was up to 63 degrees.
That kind of late winter weather is a recipe for ice jams. Thick ice on rivers broke up in that weather, and the chunks of ice got stuck on river beds, bridge abutments and other obstacles.
It has temporarily gotten colder in Pennsylvania, so the risk of ice jam floods has eased. But if there are still frozen waterways there or anywhere else, there's a risk of ice jam floods as we head toward spring.
"Anywhere else" includes here in Vermont.
Pennsylvania's experience makes me wonder what might happen in Vermont later this spring. Ice on the rivers is thicker than it's been in years. There's a fair amount of snow on the ground ready to melt.
No real thaws or heavy rain is in the forecast. But a little more snow is in the pipeline. Thankfully no big storms, though. The later we get into March without a thaw, the more likely the weather could change abruptly to something warm and rainy. Which would set us up for ice jams.
As prepped as Vermont seems for ice jam floods, we have a more than decent chance of avoiding trouble. In Vermont's history, we've had winters that were much colder, much snowier and much icier than this one. After most of those winters, the spring melt was gradual enough to only give us the usual minor spring lowland flooding.
I'm only bringing this up because this is the first winter we've had in awhile in which river ice has gotten thick enough to build strong ice jams if the weather is right for them.
To avoid trouble, we'll want perfect sugaring weather. That means mild, thawing afternoon and chilly subfreezing nights with only light precipitation. Under those conditions, the snow and ice softens and gradually melt. .
If we have a sudden, rainy warmup later in March, and the ice jams do develop, we can still be just fine.
Much like in Pennsylvania, our ice chunks under this fast thaw scenario would get hung up on river bends and other obstacles. The ice jam would then create flooding just upstream fro where the stuck ice is.
Where these ice jams set up would spell the difference between slight inconveniences and real trouble. The unlikely but worst case scenario would be an ice jam just downstream from Montpelier. That would back the water up into the downtown, like it did so devastatingly in 1992.
Bottom line: Don't panic, since there's absolutely no reason to. Instead just be aware if we have a spell of warm, rainy weather coming up over the next month.
Storm damage near Pittsburgh, PA on Tuesday. Severe storms caused lots of damage from Texas to New York, but spared us in Vermont.
Tuesday was another wild day for weather across much of the United States.
Sure enough, as expected, destructive weather struck in a broad band from Texas to New York.
Vermont once again escaped the rough storms, but the weather nonetheless got a little interesting in the Green Mountain state.
More on that in a bit.
NATIONAL STORMS
It seemed like the bad weather had plenty of targets on Tuesday.
Tornadoes and straight line winds of up to 100 mph, mixed with baseball sized hail in parts of central Texas, That must have been fun.
Winds were almost as strong near Springfield and Branson, Missouri with straight line winds of 91 mph, along with embedded tornadoes.
Lots of property damaged there, too.
A particularly intense band of storms originated in eastern Indiana, crossed southern Ohio and then through western and central Pennsylvania, causing all sorts of damage, with trees into homes and buildings, on cars and across roads and power lines.
The storm wasparticularly intense around Pittsburgh, with two storm-related deaths reported in the region. Winds gusted to 71.3 mph at the Pittsburgh airport, the third strongest wind gust on record there.
Roofs were torn off some Pittsburgh businesses and dozens of homes suffered damage when trees fell on them.
The storms blustered all the way into central and northern New York. Winds gusted to 77 mph in Rome, New York. Severe thunderstorm warnings blared as far north as Massena, in the northwest tip of the state.
Though severe storms and possible tornadoes are expected over the next few days over scattered parts of the U.S., any kind of immense new outbreak of tornadoes will likely wait until at least next week.
However, serious flooding, which has been a scourge since winter in parts of the Midwest, seems to be making a comeback this week.
Flooding has been hitting Oklahoma for days, and that will continue through today and at least tomorrow. At least two people have died in recent days in the flooding. A section of amajor interstate highway in Oklahoma City was closed by flooding. Flash flood warnings were flashing through much of the state this morning.
Oklahoma City has had 11 inches of rain this month, compared to a normal of 3.5 inches.
Neighboring Arkansas, which has had severe floods this spring, is bracing for more.
VERMONT EFFECTS
The sky looked volatile as showers and thunderstorms approached St. Albans, Vermont Tuesday evening, but the storms were not severe.
The weather played out in Vermont just as expected Tuesday, except many spots ended up a little warmer than forecast. We had our first true taste of summer.
Burlington got to 83 degrees, just two degrees shy of the record for the date.
It was the first 80 degree reading of the year and the warmest it's been since September 18, 2024. Montpelier reached 82 degrees and Springfield, Vermont got to a toasty 86 degree.
As expected, the storms that eventually arrived from New York and into Vermont last evening weakened, though a few managed to stay fairly strong in northern Vermont, which again, was predicted.
A gusty storm with a torrential downpour blasted through St. Albans shortly after 10 p.m. The National Weather Servicehad warned that this storm could contain 50 mph winds. I don't see any reports of damage, though, so this wasn't severe.
The storms are over, skies are clearing and are temporary summer is definitely over. At least for awhile.
Today will feel completely different than Tuesday. The air will be fresh and cool, maybe even downright chilly in spots. A steady north wind will make it feel nippier, too.
The growing season has started in the Champlain Valley, so a frost advisory is up overnight and early Thursday in the Champlain Valley. Elsewhere in Vermont, it will be even colder than the Champlain Valley, with lows in the 20s in many spots far north. But the growing season isn't officially underway there, so no advisories.
The next storm system comes along Friday and, of course, Saturday. It's actually two storms. Neither will be that strong, but will spread showers our way.
The first one will arrive Thursday night and Friday. Friday will be warm and a bit humid, which means a couple thunderstorms might get thrown in. But they won't be severe.
It looks like a cold front will come through later Friday and a second storm will form along it and move northward for Saturday, which would give us our seventh rainy Saturday in a row. It's a little early to figure out exactly how Saturday will turn out, but the rain then looks more likely the further south and east you go in Vermont.
A potentially drier weather pattern could start next week. But that will be complicated by a stalled weather pattern. This stuck weather pattern looks like it will keep a storm spinning off the New England coast. It's unclear how close it will get to us.
Depending on what happens, next week could prove mild and sunny, or cool and showery. So that's no help. Stay tuned, I guess!
Firefighters and other municipal workers removing snow from an Erie County, Pennsylvania fire station that threatened to collapse under the weight of five feet of snow that fell in the past week. Rain in the forecast Monday will add weight to the snow, possibly triggering new collapses.
The long lake effect snow siege near Lakes Erie and Ontario in parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York are pretty much over as of this afternoon, but more trouble for that zone looms.
The snow has got to melt at some point, and that process should start Monday.
That's what's about to cause some new issues.
So much snow has come down in those lake effect snow zones in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York that buildings are starting to creak and crumble under the weight.
In Jefferson County, New York, two separate roof collapses destroyed a house and a barn. The barn collapse killed 20 cows. Jefferson County is the area around Watertown, New York. At least a couple businesses suffered roof failures in Erie County, Pennsylvania.
The lake effect snow machine is shutting down for now as a new weather pattern takes hold. But that new pattern threatens to cause new headaches in these hard hit, snow-buried towns.
Namely, forecast call for warmer temperatures and rain in the upcoming week.
At first, the rain will be bad for the snow blasted snowmelt towns near the Great Lakes, as the rain will soak into the deep snow, making it even heavier. That threatens more roof collapses.
Those big piles of snow on the ground will also block storm drains that accept water from rain and melting snow. That means street and basement flooding could easily become an issue in the worst-hit towns.
In Northeast Ohio, where up to five feet of snow from Lake Erie piled up, residents are being put on alert that if their basements are prone to getting wet, be prepared for a long week. Residents are being told to remove items they can from basementsto prevent damage. Water and restoration companies are gearing for a busy few days.
One saving grace: Early forecasts hint that the heaviest rain this coming week will hit east of the Great Lakes snow belt zones, mainly in New England. But up to an inch of rain could fall on northeast Ohio, northwest Pennsylvania and western New York by Wednesday night.
Forecast for additional accumulation around Vermont for this Alberta Clipper. More than six inches in some of the mountains, but little in the Champlain Valley Still, travel should get tricky again later today.
I think we ought to start this post in Erie, Pennsylvania, which is taking the cake for some of the most intense lake effect scariness of this whole episode, that's lasted nearly a week now.
Erie County, Pennsylvania, home to nearly a million people, has had three to four feet of snow since Friday. It's gotten to the point where buildings are starting to collapse.
Interstate 90 through that region has been closed intermittently, and when it opens, it keeps becoming thescene of multi-vehicle pileups.
Now, today, Erie County is under a blizzard warning. Another 10 to 20 inches of snow is forecast from more lake effect snows. Winds could gust to 50 mph, or even 65 mph closer to the lake today. The National Weather Service says travel will become impossible today.
There's concern more homes and buildings could collapse under the weight of the snow. Trial by snow indeed!
A blizzard warningis also up for the mountains of West Virginia and the extreme western tip of Maryland, too.
Meanwhile other areas around the Great Lakes, including Michigan, Ohio, New York and Ontario up in Canada are also being blinded by lake effect squalls this morning. That state of affairs will continue all day.
What a mess!
VERMONT EFFECTS:
Here in Vermont, things are much more reasonable than they are around the Great Lakes.
The first round of snow came through overnight as expected. Much of the Champlain Valley was "shadowed" by the Adirondacks. Moisture was captured by those mountains, so little snow fell in places like Burlington.
For the first time this season, my yard in St. Albans, Vermont looked truely wintry after a little more than two inches of new snow last night.
The far northern part of the Champlain Valley did escape that shadow, as I measured 2.4 inches of new snow at my place in St. Albans.
Also as expected, the snow picked up again in the Green Mountains, with mostly two or three inch reports so far.
There was a lull in the activity this morning as some dry air has worked its way into our Alberta Clipper ahead of its cold front.
Most main roads toward the tail end of this morning's commute looked like they were in pretty good shape, according to traffic cameras set up around the state.
Temperatures should creep up to slightly above freezing in the broader valleys later this morning, which will help melt remaining slush of the highways.
But Round 2 is coming.
The clipper's cold front will come through this afternoon with batches of snow showers, some of them locally heavy, dropping temperatures quickly below freezing. Winds will pick up, so there should be plenty of blowing snow later today and tonight, too
Today's evening commute is probably going to be on the tricky side in many areas.
Just like last night, the Champlain Valley probably won't see much additional snow. Many spots there should see less than an inch. But it doesn't take much snow to ice up the roads if temperatures are falling below freezing. Take your time headed home this evening.
Elsewhere, a few inches of snow should pile up overnight, with a good six or more inches up at the ski areas on top of what has already fallen. It should be a noisy night, too with winds gusting to 40 mph in the valleys and more than that in the mountains.
On the bright side, it should be a great early season ski weekend before the warmer air inevitably arrives next week.
Bits of snow will fall Saturday and Sunday as weak disturbances slip through. It might get warm enough for rain drops in the Champlain Valley Sunday afternoon.
A modest, warm storm should give us mostly light rain Monday and Tuesday before the forecast gets questionable again. We don't know whether a second storm will come up the East Coast Thursday or not. And if it does, we don't know yet whether enough cold air will blow in to give us snow instead of rain.
So if you're looking ahead toward a week from now, keep guessing. We'll figure that out within a few days from now.
Intense lake effect snow squalls stalled traffic along Interstate 90 in Ripley, New York.
I don't know if the Great Lakes effect snowstorms this weekend were the biggest on record, but damn, they were pretty big. And awfully widespread.
After a warm autumn, all of the lakes are warm, and the first big cold push of the season really cranked that snow, starting Thursday and going through today. g
Some of the biggest totals by state so far include:
New York: 46 inches at Barnes Corners and Copenhagen
Pennsylvania 42.3 inches at North East
Ohio: 39 inches at Ashtabula,
Michigan: 34 inches at Otsego Lake State Park.
Mind you, this was at 10 a.m. Sunday. It was still snowing at a good clip in many locations this afternoon.
Parts of Canada weren't immune. Highway 11, a major thoroughfare north of Toronto,was shut down by blinding snow squalls that dumped two feet of snow within a day and a half.
The storms caused havoc on Friday and over the weekend in some of the hardest hit towns. The New York State Thruway was shut down roughly between Buffalo and the Pennsylvania line Friday, and hundreds of vehicles were stranded overnight along the highway.
The snow squalls were so intense they were punctuated by thunder and lightning, and waterspouts were reported offshore of Buffalo over Lake Erie.
Not much snow fell in Buffalo, which was north of the main band of snow, but the Buffalo Bills' stadium in Orchard Park, south of Buffalo, wasburied by at least 20 inches of snow. The Bills requested help from fans to help shovel out the stand-in time for the game today.
Erie, Pennsylvania endured its biggest snowstorm on recordover the weekend with 31 inches, with possibly another foot on the way. After a brief break in the snow Saturday afternoon and evening heavy snow returned to Erie again Sunday.
It's getting bad enough there that people were up on roofs shoveling, fearful the weight would be too much for some homes and buildings.
The snow is becoming somewhat lighter and more scattered near the Great Lakes starting tonight and into the first half of the week. But an Arctic cold front due later in the week is likely to restart the intense squalls again.
Vermont Effects
Radar image from the National Weather Service in South Burlington shortly after 10 a.m. today shows a band of snow from Lake Ontario fading in the Adirondacks, then getting reinvigorated over northern Lake Champlain. A narrow area around Swanton and Highgate had briefly heavy snow,
The bands of lake effect snow were powerful enough Friday through Sunday to them to make it all the way to Vermont, but in a much milder fashion than seen in western New York.
Sunday morning, the Lake Ontario band picked up some additional moisture from northern Lake Champlain. That was enough to reinvigorate the snow for awhile to dump two or three inches in a narrow zone around Swanton and Highgate. Meanwhile, in nearby St. Albans, there was barely a dusting of new snow.
Snow showers through the first half of the week should add some light accumulations to the higher elevations, but likely an inch or less in the valleys.
Video:
This shows how localized these lake effect snow squalls are Television station WGRZ did a time lapse video of a drive from downtown Buffalo, New York to the suburbs to the south.
Buffalo was a bit too far north this time to get the squalls. Downtown streets were clear of snow, green grass in parks had absolutely no snow. Drive a few miles and it was a practically a blizzard. You can see the thick snow squalls as the driver approached the snow zone.Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.
Various scenes from the storm from the Associated Press, including the city of Erie, Pennsylvania buried beneath the snow. Again, click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.
Vermont mostly avoided flood damage from former Tropical Storm Debby. Further west in New York, some of the damage was extreme, such as in this photo of Canisteo, New York. Photo by Bob Lonsberry via Facebook.
I was playing pick up sticks in my yard Saturday evening.
There are so many small and medium sized branches down from those strong winds we had Friday evening from former Tropical Storm Debby. It's a project that probably will continue for days.
Count myself very lucky, though. I have no damage. And bonus: The gales knocked down a pretty good sized dead tree that I was planning on cutting down. Saved me work, and the dead tree didn't land on anything I care about.
Meanwhile, more than 8,000 homes and businesses, almost all of them in northwestern Vermont, were still without power as of 7 a.m. this morning. That's 36 hours after the winds arrived. With all the trees and wires down, it's going to take awhile to fix everything.
People are also dealing with homes with roof and other damage either from high winds or falling trees. Cars have been damaged or destroyed, too. Large trees are a real mess to clean up.
But notice I haven't mentioned flooding so far.
Vermont really dodged a bullet on that one, given there were only a handful of reports of minor water damage here and there. No big deal at all.
That's awesome for us, as early forecast had us getting battered by inches and inches of rain. We braced for another flood disaster.
But, as forecasts became clear on Thursday, former Debby's path was taking a jog to the west. That meant the torrential rain would become somebody else's disaster.
Sadly, there were many thousands of somebody elses who dealt with flooding - in many cases catastrophic - from Sarasota, Florida to Montreal and the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec, Canada.
There were some impressive rainfall totals in Vermont, so I imagine there is some flood problems that haven't been reported in the media. But nothing catastrophic.
The rain in Vermont apparently stopped just in time, right before anything really bad happened. Elmore and Corinth, Vermont reported just under four inches of rain from former Debby. There were many, many Vermont reports of between two and three inches of rain.
Head a little west into New York State, though, and things got seriously worse. In northwestern New York, North Lawrence reported 7.35 inches of rain. North Emeryville and Fort Covington, New York also saw more than seven inches of rain. There were many reports of four to six inches. Flooding got pretty bad in and near New York's St. Lawrence Valley.
The epicenter of the worst flooding was in southwestern New York and northern Pennsylvania. Video showed water roaring through a neighborhood in Canisteo, New York, uprooting trees and sheds. Other towns were devastated as well. Small communities across northern Pennsylvania were inundated, reminiscent of the floods Vermont endured back in July.
Vermonters dodged another bullet, too. Former Debby prompted tornado watches up and down the East Coast from Florida to Vermont.
There ended up being close to three dozen tornadoes associated with Debby from Florida to the lower Hudson Valley in New York. Despite the tornado watch in the southern half of Vermont Friday, there were no twisters in the Green Mountain State.
Now that Debby's gone, much quieter, though at times unsettled weather is moving into the Northeast for several days at least. No extreme are in the forecast for now. But give it time. I'm sure more trouble will brew soon enough.
Republican Congressman Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania hated President Biden's climate spending, but his business dipped right into it to the tune of $315,000
Not a lot of Republicans did. And that's their right, the loyal opposition and all that.
That is until the hypocrisy sets in. There's plenty of examples, but Kelly's is the latest and one of the more over the top of all the examples. Kelly used the climate portion of the act to receive a grant to install solar panels at one of his car dealerships.
"The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave a Uniontown dealership owned by Mike Kelly Automotive Group a nearly $315,000 grant to install a 261.9 kilowatt solar panel array, according to the Erie Times-News, the local news outlet that first reported the grant on Monday. The grant is set to save the firm $23,700 per year in energy costs, according to the USDA."
After the Inflation Reduction Bill was signed into law, Kelly said it was "loaded with bad policy and wasteful spending that will ultimately worsen inflation, expand government and hurt the middle class.
He really hated the law's climate provisions, at least supposedly. Kelly said in a statement at about the time the Inflation Reduction Act became law that the climate change portion of the spending package was wasteful and elitist.
I guess Kelly forgot to mention he was one of those "elitists."
Responding to all this, a Kelly spokesman said:
"Representative Kelly's energy policy has always supported an all-of-the-above approach.... Additionally, Rep. Kelly does not have an active role in the day-to-day operations of his family's business. "
Ya, sure he's invested in the business but has no idea what's going on with it. Tell me another one.
Today's the third day in a row we're contending with "backwards" showers here in Vermont.
Shower clouds fighting with the sun over St. Albans, Vermont Saturday. That's the pattern we've had all month. It's the pattern we'll see on Mother's Day today, and also what we'll see in much of the upcoming week.
They're moving generally east to west, instead of the usual opposite direction. Upper level low pressure kind of near Buffalo is pulling those showers westward.
Like in past days, the closer you are to that sort of storm near Buffalo, the more likely it is to rain.
Which is why Adirondacks have been wet the past few days, western Vermont has had hit and miss showers, and folks east of the Greens have been mostly dry.
The upper low near Buffalo meant business: It spun off atornado that struck a church occupied by 60 peoplein Finleyville, a town in western Pennsylvania. Only minor injuries were reported. By the way, absolutely we'll see absolutely no severe weather from this thing here in Vermont.
You'll be dodging rain drops today. The showers are more numerous than they were the previous couple of days.
Not everyone will get wet - they're still hit and miss - but there probably will be more hits than misses. Especially west of the Greens.
Some of you who get wet will get very wet. The showers are just inching along westward. I swear the most lethargic turtle in the world can outpace them. If you get caught under a shower, it might last a good hour in spots.
The bottom line is, the rainiest places could get more than a half inch of rain, while places a dozen or fewer miles up the road from those soggy spots might end up staying dry.
Which means this year's iteration of Mother's Day is pretty typical.
The National Weather Service notes that at least a trace of snow has fallen on five Mother's Days since 1914, the most recent being in 2020.
I'm happy to report it will NOT snow anywhere in Vermont today.
LOOKING AHEAD
We'll revert back to the more general west to east flow of weather starting tomorrow. The storm in the eastern Great Lakes will fade, replaced by a new system coming in from the west. It'll push a sort of warm front through Monday night with some showers and maybe a rumble of thunder.
We're almost guaranteed some rain in at least parts of Vermont Tuesday, but I'm not sure if there will be a lot or a little. Some computer models push things through slowly, and allow a little warmth and humidity to build up. If that happens, it would be far from oppressively warm, but we'd have lots of showers and scattered thunderstorms. There would be some heavy downpours.
However, if things zip right on through, as some models indicate, it won't rain all that much. Stay tuned.
All month so far, we've been in a pattern that features lots of weak systems coming through with frequent but generally not dramatic showers, and temperatures that have been more or less close to normal for the season.
That pattern looks like it will continue for the foreseeable future. It's hard to time out when the showers will come through and how heavy they might be over the next week or two. But we'll keep dodging raindrops here and there.
And avoiding an early introduction to summer heat, something we've had in most springs in recent years.
An odd little storm is expect to create a severe weather outbreak today mostly in the yellow and orange zone. The same storm will spoil Vermont's sunny start to Sunday with light rain and cooler temperatures this afternoon.
Usually when there's severe weather outbreaks this time of year, a large scale storm will move through the middle of the nation.
That type of storm draws big plumes of warm, humid air northward, setting the stage for wild thunderstorms and tornadoes somewhere in the Plains or even eastern United States.
We expect an outbreak of severe weather today in a smaller area due to just one weird little storm. It's a storm that will affect us in Vermont, but with dreary tame showers and nothing scary.
It's a small cute little thing compared to a lot of storms. It was near Lake Huron this morning, and will zip through central New York and central New England today and tonight.
Normally, we expect just scattered light showers out of something like this, but the little storm has a surprising amount of oomph to it.
It was gorgeously sunny to start today here in Vermont, but clouds will rapidly fill in. It will be raining in most places by the first half of the afternoon. We won't get a lot of rain - a tenth to a quarter inch - but the promise is another sunny Sunday we saw this morning won't happen.
We're just lucky this little storm is either going by just to Vermont's south or maybe nearly overhead if you're in far southern Vermont. We're just in for a chilly light rain, we'll survive that.
A band from eastern Ohio, through Pennsylvania and maybe just into the southwestern Catskills of New York is in for a day of severe thunderstorms with powerful winds and maybe a few tornadoes.
Cold air aloft, moisture pooling near the Earth's surface and a cold front with this little storm seem destined to power up a line of big thunderstorms. Straight line winds with a squall line seem like the biggest threat in Pennsylvania. But a few storms might get going ahead of the squall line, which could produce a tornado risk.
Kinks in the line of storms later today might be spots where tornadoes can spin up, too.
Ohio and western Pennsylvania seem to be ground zero for severe weather so far this spring. Which is odd, as March and April storm and tornado outbreaks are usually further south this time of year.
Ohio has had 29 tornadoes so far this year. Their average for an entire year is 21 twisters. Most of Ohio's tornadoes hit on February 27, March 14 and April 2. May and June are usually Ohio's big tornado season.
Western Pennsylvania has been hit by two big flood events in the past few weeks. Luckily, this latest storm should move too fast to renew the flooding there.
NEW OUTBREAK
A more traditional larger springtime storm is set to power up in the Plainstomorrow and Tuesday, which will create more tornadoes and hail storms across much of the Plains and Midwest.
That bigger storm will eventually affect us here in Vermont, but it will be falling apart on its way here. We can just expect fairly light showers late this week from that system.
Elmira, New York during Tropical Storm Agnes flooding, June, 1972
At this point 50 years ago today, the Middle Atlantic States were just beginning to pick up the pieces of what was easily among the worst floods the region had ever experienced.
The culprit was ex-Hurricane Agnes, an early season tropical system that seemed like not that big a deal until it got halfway up the U.S. East Coast.
Agnes dumped up to two feet of rain on eastern Pennsylvania. The storm killed 128 people - 48 in Pennsylvania alone. More than 115,000 houses were destroyed or damaged, and more than 360,000 people were forced to evacuate.
Tropical Storm Agnes was more proof that a hurricane need not be strong to unleash havoc. And, former hurricanes can stir up major trouble long after the winds associated with them have died down.
The spring of 1972 had been wet in the Middle Atlantic region. That primed the pump for what would happen next.
Hurricane Agnes splashed ashore as barely a hurricane on June 19,1972. It caused the usual damage from storm surges, and spun off a couple dozen tornadoes that damaged at least 2,000 structures.
As tropical systems do after landfall, Agnes weakened quickly and the worst seemed over. However, the stage was being set. A cold front over the Great Lakes pulled in some moisture from Agnes, prompting more heavy rains ahead of the main show. That was enough to completely saturate the ground ahead of the main show.
Which was a bit of a surprise.
When tropical storms moves off the Southeast Coast, especially early in the hurricane season, they usually continue on to the northeast, out to sea, no longer being a bother to anybody. Agnes, though, got pulled northwestward by a trough of low pressure pushing southeastward from the southern Great Lakes through Ohio and into Virginia.
Then, there was nothing coming in from the west to push the remnants of Agnes out. It sat and spun pretty much over Pennsylvania and southwestern New York and just rained itself out.
With such a wide area receiving 8 to 15 inches of rain, with, as noted, amounts up to two feet, rivers went on a rampage.
Ground zero was the Susquehanna River, especially around the State Capitol of Harrisburg and the city of Wilkes-Barre. The river crested at 32.8 feet, a full 15 feet above flood state. Of that $3.1 billion in damage from Agnes, $2 billion of that was in the Susquehanna River basin.
The areas around Corning and Elmira, New York were just as hard hit.
That water was unbelievable. At the time, I remember news footage of people shoveling mud left behind from flood waters out of second floor windows.
Flood control efforts since Agnes has spared much of the region from similar or worse storms than that 1972 deluge. Flood walls were raised substantially along the Susquehanna River.
As the Washington Post notes,Tropical Storm Lee in 2011 caused a crest along that river at Wilkes-Barre even higher than that of Agnes. But flood walls installed after Agnes spared that city and Harrisburg from too much damage.
Other towns aren't so lucky. In the age of climate change, deluges like that from Agnes become more likely.
Ellicott City, Maryland was devastated by Tropical Storm Agnes floods in 1972. Turns out that was just a preview of what was to come a few decades later. Six big floods followed in Ellicott City after 1972, includingtwo even stronger inundations in 2016 and 2018. (Just on Wednesday, Ellicott City narrowly escaped another big flood).
I also recall at the time that Agnes gave Vermont a good scare. Many forecasts had it moving further north and east, putting the Green Mountain State in a huge flood danger But, as we know now, Agnes set its sights on Pennsylvania, southwestern New York and other states in that region.
Since it had been quite a wet month in the Green Mountain State, we were lucky that the rains from Agnes weren't that bad. We only had a few tropical showers in Vermont from Agnes. Rutland and Burlingtom ended up picking up about an inch of rain over three days from Agnes. Woodstock got about 1.5 inches of rain.
Vermont's turn for severe flooding would come just a year later. On June 30, 1973, after a wet month, up to 7.5 inches of rain poured down on central and southern parts of the state, causing one of the worst floods in history.
Record or near record flood crests hit the Black, Ottaquechee, White and Ompmpanoosac rivers. Total flood damage in 1973's Vermont flood was $64 million or $421 million in 2022 dollars.
Videos
This video is pretty cheesy, but still gives you a glimpse of how bad Agnes got in Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley.Click on this link if you don't see the video image on your device:
Some good still pictures in this vide of the flooding from Agnes in Pennsylvania. Click on this link to view, or see below:
Super 8 mm footage of the flood and aftermath of the Agnes flood around Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Notice the mud lines up to the eaves of single floor houses in some neighborhoods. Click on this link or view below:
Members of the Bethel Park, Pennsylvania in the midst of "Workout Monday," which consisted of clearing snow from neighbors' driveways. Photo from Bethel Park School District via the Washington Post.
An elderly woman in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania was at first a bit puzzled when two teenagers wielding shovels showed up on her front porch during that big snowstorm last week.
The two teens were there for football practice. There is now football field or workout room at the woman's house. But she did have a driveway with 11 inches of snow on it.
It turns out the teens' football coach had a creative way to compensate for a team workout being canceled because of the snowstorm. As the Washington Post tells usin a very nice story, the coach sent this email and Tweet:
"Due to expected severe weather, Monday's weightlifting workout has been cancelled. Find an elderly or disabled neighbor and shovel their driveway. Don't accept any money - that's our Monday workout."
This is one of the most creative and best ways I've ever seen to work around an inconvenience. Just turn bad weather into something great.
The elderly woman at the top of this story was certainly grateful. She recently had shoulder surgery so she couldn't clear her driveway. She had no relatives close by who could swing by and shovel. So the football players were a godsend.
It turns out this is a tradition in Bethel Park when it snows. If the storm is a biggie, the high school football team comes to the rescue.
As the Washington Post describes it, the football players liked the assignment, too. One of the football players, David Shelpman, 16, grabbed some teammates and were outside for eight hours shoveling. They even forgot to stop for lunch.
"It was a fun way to spend the day...We just kept going until we'd done six houses," Shelpman told the Washington Post. "It made me feel like I was a part of something bigger than myself."
I really hope this idea for a high school team "workouts" spread
The amount of rain that poured down in parts of the Northeast from the remains of Hurricane Ida were truly off the charts.
Central Park in New York City got 3.1 inches of rain in an hour and 4.65 in two hours. That two hour rainfall is more than normally falls in a month.
Newark, New Jersey had 0.5 inches of rain in just SIX MINUTES. Newark also 3.24 inches in an hour and a storm total of 8.31 inches. At Brooklyn College, 1.23 inches fell in just 15 minutes.
Inevitably, the flash flooding was intense. The National Weather Service office in New York declared its first flash flood emergencies ever. The results of the flash flooding were tragic. According to the Associated Press:
"Police in New York City reported seven deaths, including a 50 year old man, a 48 year old woman and two year old boy who were found unconscious and unresponsive inside a home. They were pronounced dead at the scene, police said. One death was reported in New Jersey."
That was at 8 a.m. this morning. By 11 am., the death toll had risen to 22. They're still finding bodies in this mega disaster. Eight people died in Queens, New York. They drowned in their basement apartments.
"New York's FDR Drive, a major artery on the east side of Manhattan, and the Bronx River Parkway were under water by late Wednesday evening. Subway stations and tracks became so flooded that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority suspended all service. Videos posted online showed subway riders standing on seats in cars filled with water.
Other videos showed vehicles submerged up to their windows on major roadways in and around the city and garbage bobbing down the streets."
I also saw video on social media of waist deep water in Queens and in Park Slope, Brooklyn. There were some real "Day After Tomorrow"scenes in Manhattan last night, too.
The scope of the flooding was immense, with countless towns and cities across New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania and the New York City area submerged. It seems like there's videos of every city in New Jersey with deep water or white water rapids racing through their downtowns.
Johnstown, Pennsylvania, known for enormous floods in 1889 and 1977, had a familiar scare as a dam upstream threatened to fail, prompting evacuations. This time, it wasn't nearly as bad as the 1889 disaster, thank goodness.
Some rivers in the Northeast are rising to major flood stage and could reach record crests. For instance, the National Weather Service says the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia will reach a record high crest. Already, homes and businesses along and near that river are deeply submerged.
Other rivers are still rising or just cresting this morning, causing additional destruction. MSNBC this morning was showing live footage of people being rescued from dozens of apartment buildings in Bridgeport, Pennsylvania. Parts of Hoboken, New Jersey, Philadelphia and other cities were still badly inundated as of late this morning.
The torrential thunderstorms also spun off tornadoes and set off tornado warnings. At least two substantial tornadoes touched down. One was in Annapolis, Maryland, which damaged or destroyed several homes and businesses.
Tornado damage in New Jersey
Another larger tornado struck southern New Jersey. It looked especially powerful on video. Many houses were severely damaged in this twister and a few were pretty much leveled.
The storms continued on into southern New England overnight, with damaging flash floods in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. A possible tornado might have touched down on Cape Cod.
We here in Vermont really dodged a bullet with this. If five or six inches of rain had fallen in a couple of hours on our steep mountain slopes, there would have been incredible rushes of water and debris that would have wiped out anything in their path. It would have almost made Irene in 2011 look like a picnic.
Instead, far southern Vermont got a decent slug of rain, but nothing nearly enough to cause real flooding. Bennington and Springfield each report about 1.5 inches of rain. Northern Vermont had nothing other than high clouds and a spectacular Wednesday evening sunset.
It's really remarkable, though, that we're only half way through hurricane season and New England has already suffered damage from four tropical systems this year - Elsa, Fred, Henri and Ida.
Yesterday's flooding and tornadoes cap a cataclysmic summer world wide, with big weather disasters and extreme temperatures and rainfall coming fast and furiously. This has all the fingerprints of climate change.
They've been saying right along that rainfall events will become more torrential and that has come to fruition. I noticed the governors and mayors from the Northeast who are dealing with the flooding keep bringing up climate change, so if nothing else these mega weather disasters are acting as a wakeup call.
"Global warming is upon us and it's going to get worse and worse and worse," New York Senator Chuck Schumer just said as I listen to the news while writing this.
Maybe too little too late?
Vermont lucked out again this time, but how long will it last? True, we've had our extremes this year, with damaging flash floods earlier this summer in southern parts of the state, along with bouts of record heat all year.
Vermont escaped the epic storm that unleashed the extreme floods and tornadoes further south. But clouds from the storm led to a spectacular but slightly scary sunset last night over St Albans, Vermont.
These Vermont weather events and extremes this year have been more or less manageable, but when will we get our next big disaster? They seem to be hitting everywhere, and often.
It's only a matter of when, not if, something awful will hit Vermont again, as it did 10 years ago this week with Irene's floods
In the short term, at least, the weather is going to be benign. Nothing major will happen with the weather for the next week at least in Vermont. The next hurricane, Larry, is going to be a huge one, but current forecasts indicate it will recurve harmlessly out in the open Atlantic and not hit the United States.
But large wildfires continue to burn out west, and pockets of flash flooding will continue all week in the Southwest and a few sections of the Midwest.
Weather has always been a challenge for humans. With climate change, the challenge is so much greater, and getting more vexing. As if we needed more proof, last night in the Northeast added to the evidence.
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