Ice Storm Pretty Much Over In Vermont, Temperatures To Bounce All Over The Place. Still A Minor Flood Risk

Chair lift at Killington Resort coated in ice
today. The resort had to close due to
damage from this morning's ice storm,
but is expected to reopen Monday. 

 As of late Sunday afternoon we can say Hurray!

That's because all winter weather warnings and advisories in Vermont have been dropped. 

Except for maybe some small isolated areas in eastern parts of the state, the freezing rain is over. It hasn't been a nice Sunday afternoon - raw, sometimes rainy, overcast and in the Champlain Valley getting a little windy. But the ice problem is over.

Except the cleanup of course.

It seems like Rutland and Windsor counties, and areas immediately to the north and south of those counties suffered the bulk of the ice issues.

The number of homes and businesses without power in Vermont held roughly steady in the 11,000 range from around 8:30 this morning to mid-afternoon, but were starting to decline late this afternoon, vtoutages.org indicated.

If I had to pick a town that suffered the worst, I'd say Killington. They still had the most outages of any community in Vermont

The gigantic Killington Resort was forced to shut down Sunday. Power was out at much of the resort. Trees along the roads leading to the resort  were collapsing, and blocking traffic. "Trees are continuing to fall around the mountain and trails are beginning to refreeze, creating unsafe conditions for guests and staff," the resort said in a statement. 

Killington expects to reopen for business tomorrow.  At least it will be warm for skiers.

TONIGHT/MONDAY

For most places, the temperature will actually slowly continue to warm overnight. We'll occasionally be harassed by showers, but they won't amount to much, really.

Monday continues to look quite mild, and windy in the Champlain Valley. Most of us valley dwellers should see temperatures reach the low to mid 60s, a huge change from this weekend. Most of the day will feature just scattered showers. 

During the mid to late afternoon a line or broken line of briefly heavy showers and even some thunderstorms will come through Vermont. (This will be the relatively harmless northern extension of a severe weather outbreak expected up and down the East Coast tomorrow).

Any heavy rainfall will be brief. We've already seen the heaviest precipitation with this storm, so we won't have much addition. However, between the melting snow and ice, plus whatever rain we get, I still expect minor flooding Monday and into Tuesday on some Vermont rivers, or at least something close to it. 

Don't worry about major flooding, though.

BEYOND MONDAY, NEW STORM?

We're still looking at a BIG temperature crash Monday night behind the cold front as lows get into the 20s and highs just make it into the 30s Tuesday. 

That sets the stage for the next storm, which frankly still looks similar to the one we had this weekend. 

Lingering cold air will mean the next storm Wednesday night. It's looking like we will once again start off with snow and freezing rain. Before you get too scared, it won't be as bad as this weekend. Probably enough to mess up the roads, but that's it. 

And it will quickly go over to rain by Thursday. 

There's still not a lot of details on the next storm to share. We'll get updates as we get closer.

But I will depress you with one other bit of news. Long range forecasts call for a series of sharp, wintry cold snaps here in Vermont during the first half of April. I hope that's wrong, but I'm throwing that out there! 

Quick Sunday Evening Snow Update: For Most Of Vermont, A Small, Quick Cold Storm

The snow has gotten at least into southern Vermont.
Route 7 in Shaftsbury was looking pretty snowy
at 5:15 p.m. today as this traffic cam shows.

 As of late Sunday afternoon, everything remained on track for a mostly small, cold snowfall in Vermont, as the best area for snow slides just to our south. 

Bennington and Windham counties in the far south are still in play, as they should manage to see five to seven inches. 

Forecasts for elsewhere in Vermont haven't changed much, maybe having backed off a smidge since this morning, but that will be barely noticeable. 

It looks like the storm will track maybe a dozen or two miles further east than forecast this morning, which could cut down on those southern Vermont totals just slightly. 

The wild card is the central and especially northern Champlain Valley which will be in a battle ground between very dry, Arctic air heading south from Canada, and moisture streaming north from the storm. 

We know the cold air will at least mostly win out, and prospects for more than an inch or two near Lake Champlain seem slim. There's a possibility that so much dry, bitter air comes in that nothing comes down up near St. Albans, North Hero, Swanton and Alburgh. 

The snow has been creeping northward late this afternoon. It started snowing in Bennington around 3 p.m. Traffic cameras appeared to show heavy snow falling on Route 9 in the mountains between Bennington and Brattleboro as of 5 p.m.  It looked like it was just starting to snow in Mount Holly, a little southeast of Rutland, as of 5:15 p.m. 

Traffic cam shows heavy snow and poor visibility along
high elevation Route 9 in Searsburg at around 5:30 p.m.
Sunday. High elevations of far southern Vermont will
see the most snow out of this. The Champlain 
Valley will see almost nothing. 

Travel will be not great overnight and early tomorrow, especially in the southeastern half of Vermont. Up in the Champlain Valley, if a little snow falls, it'll be deceptive. 

It won't look like much but the low temperatures will make that dusting of snow compact on highways into a visually imperceptible black ice. 

Careful overnight and during your commute tomorrow morning. Or just stay home. 

The snow will be over by dawn, but if you have to travel, especially south, consider waiting until later in the morning if possible. 

Note that the bad roads extend through central and southern New England and on down into the Middle Atlantic States. 

The anticipated cold wave will be in place Monday through Wednesday, with little change in the forecast. However, after this storm passes, it looks like we'll see no real storms for at least a week, maybe more. 

The only question would be if the storm that's prompting rare winter storm warnings along the Gulf Coast come much closer to New England than forecast toward the end of the week.  Odds are against that, at least at this point. 

Sunday Evening Vermont Storm Update: Rainfall Totals Tick Up A Bit, Wind Threat (Maybe) Down A Little

Late afternoon Sunday updates from the National Weather
Service office in South Burlington, Vermont has slightly'
increased rain totals from tonight and Monday's storm.
A large portion of the state can expect at least two
inches of rain. Click on the map to make it 
bigger and easier to see.

 As I start to write this at 5:15 p.m. Sunday, the rain from the long awaited storm is just moving into Vermont in earnest. 

It will be a very wet night. That will continue on Monday. The flood watch for the entire state is very much still in effect. 

As of this evening, the track of the storm has ticked a little bit east. Sound familiar? That's what last Monday's storm ended up doing. 

In that case last week, the little bit of an eastward shift allowed more cold air to infiltrate the storm, which resulted in more snow and less rain.

That definitely won't happen this time. 

There is really no cold air for this storm to work with. And the dynamic system is bringing a big surge of wet, warm air northward from the subtropics. So, we definitely have no snow-friendly air to work with. 

That means a LOT of rain. The only snow will be at the very back end of the storm, and that snow won't amount to much. 

Very much like last week's storm, a lot of thunderstorms south and east of the storm center this afternoon is affecting its track. Those storms tend to push the track of the storm a little more eastward than if those storms didn't really exist. 

FLOOD THEAT ASSESSMENT

This evening, the storm was over eastern South Carolina. It's forecast to move due north, which would take it right up the Champlain Valley around late morning or early afternoon Monday. 

On that path, the heaviest rain would come closer to Vermont, hence the higher rainfall expectations; Most of us in Vermont under this scenario would get 1.5 to 3 inches of rain, with the highest amounts along the eastern slopes of the Green Mountains and in far southeastern Vermont around Brattleboro.

For the third time this month, this amounts to a storm that's extremely wet by December standards. Winter rain and melted snowfall tends to be lighter in the winter than in the summer. That's because colder air can hold less moisture than warmer air. 

But since so much warm air has been entrained into this storm, and the two previous ones, these systems have been very wet. 

As mentioned this morning, very warm temperatures and high humidity would melt the snow rapidly in higher elevations, adding to the runoff. 

The expected flood crest along the Winooski River at Essex Junction has been increased to a crest of 15.8 feet, solidly in the moderate flood range. At those levels, North Williston Road goes way under water. Also, at that level, expect the water to close Route 2 in Jonesville, Bridge Street in Richmond, Poor Farm Road in South Burlington, and a good chunk of the Intervale in Burlington. 

The good news is at this time of year, unlike in July, there's no crops to destroy. And moderate flood stage won't flood houses along the Winooski River Valley. 

Elsewhere in Vermont, the Hoosick River will come close to moderate flood stage. Most other rivers will either go into minor flood or come close to it. That means field flooding, some low-lying roads closed, ponding of water on other roads, and a hydroplaning on wet highways if you're out there driving tonight and Monday. 

The bottom line, as I said this morning, I still believe downtown Montpelier, Barre, Johnson, Ludlow and other towns smashed by July flooding should fare much better this time. Though I'd still remove items from basements to be on the safe side. 

HIGH WINDS

The threat from damage due to high winds in Vermont have gone down somewhat in Vermont. The western slopes of the Green Mountains are under a wind advisory for gusts to 55 mph. That could  cause a smattering of power outages. 

In general, the highest winds from a storm like this hit east of the storm's path. That puts the eastern half of Vermont in the zone for stronger winds, sort of. The National Weather Service is forecasting highest gusts in the 45 to 50 mph range east of the Green Mountains.

This won't be like the powerhouse wind storm that caused so much damage in Vermont last December. 

CAVEATS

As always, we already know the storm won't play out exactly as we outlined above. There will always be surprises. Probably minor surprises, but there's a slight chance of big surprises, too.

If the storm veers well to the west of the forecast track, say over central New York and the middle or western Adirondacks, the wind threat would be much worse. If it goes a little further east than what I've outlined, rainfall will be slightly lighter, but still substantial, and the flood threat would remain. 

Some late breaking new data from around 5 or 6 p.m. this evening doesn't show much shift in the storm's forecast track compared to forecasts earlier this afternoon.

The new data shows heavy rain in Vermont, with that flood threat. But also similar to forecasts earlier today, the heaviest downpours look like they will go through western Massachusetts and Connecticut, western and central New Hampshire and far southeastern Vermont, and western Maine.

I expect to hear news of fairly substantial flooding in New Hampshire and Maine, probably worse than what Vermont sees. 

I don't think this will be a historic storm, at least around here, but will have quite a few impacts. We should take it seriously. 

Sunday Evening Vermont Snow Update: Not Much Accumulation, But Roads Slick

Just a tiny bit of snow was making Route 36 on 
Fairfield Hill in St. Albans pretty slick late this afternoon.

The light snow we've been seeing in Vermont is the type that's pretty deceptive.  

There's not much of it, with pretty much everyone having an inch or less of accumulation so far. But the snow consists of small, icy snowflakes, that tend to compact into ice beneath car tires. Even though it's cold, road temperatures were still close to the freezing mark

The ground is still warmish from the balmy opening week of this month. This is causing the snow to melt a little bit, then re-freeze. Then a dusting of snow accumulates on that ice, making it even more slick.  

The roads are nasty. I've seen cars sliding a bit on the steep hill along Route 36 in front of my house in St. Albans. Traffic cams across much of the state are showing highways that don't look that great, to be honest. There was already one crash on Interstate 89 in Colchester this afternoon, but I'm not 100 percent sure yet whether it was weather related.

Since it's such a small storm, we also don't really take this seriously. I haven't seen many salt trucks out yet, as of 4:30 p.m. The fact that this seems like a nothingburger snowfall gives us a false sense of security. It's worse out than you'd think. 

Light snow will continue into the evening, so if you have travel plans, keep that in mind.  If anything, the snow might intensify a little for awhile early this evening, say before 8 or 9 p.m. before starting to diminish.

Snow accumulations  might over-perform compared to forecasts just a little. Early forecasts of a dusting to two inches seem pretty sound, but I suspect a few more places will come close to two inches than at least I previously thought.

Even so, it's not accumulating fast in northern Vermont. Here in St. Albans, it started snowing at around 2:15 p.m, and as of 5 p.m. we managed only 0.3 inches of new snow. 

Roads should be pretty good by tomorrow morning's commute, but expect some slick spots as temperatures stay well below freezing. It IS December after all. 

People are talking about the end of the week storm that meteorologists are monitoring.  The most recent forecasts seem to be upping the chances of us getting a substantial snow. That said, it's still super iffy and I'm not totally buying it yet. More on that in tomorrow morning's post.