Some Cautious Optimism This Morning Regarding Debby, Flooding And Vermont

 I'll make one thing clear: 

Expected rainfall with Debby. One to two inches expected
in most of eastern Vermont, with two to four
inches northwest and mountains. Note that this is
a broad brush map. Locally higher amounts could
be embedded in some areas. 

There's definitely still a flood risk here in Vermont as we await the arrival of what will then be former Tropical Storm Debby.  Chances are more than decent there will be at least some damage around somewhere in Vermont. 

But - fingers and toes crossed big time - this is looking less like the wholesale new big disaster for Vermont than it did two or three days ago.

OVERALL TRENDS/NEWS

Forecast trends continue to keep remnant Debby zipping by and heading to Canada really quickly, which would limit the time the storm has to dump torrential downpours. And while those downpours are likely in at least part of Vermont, the biggest focus for them should be in the Adirondacks.

Not that I want that to happen. I'd  hate to see the kind of destruction in New York that we saw in Vermont earlier this summer.  But Vermont can sure live without another big flood, too. 

NOAA's Weather Prediction Center still has almost all of Vermont in a moderate risk zone for flooding with this. That's level 3 of 4 on the risk scale and definitely a sign of potential trouble. That said. it's possible that moderate risk in Vermont might be trimmed back later today in some areas if relatively happy forecast trends continue. We shall see! 

We're not completely out of the woods, of course. As mentioned, we're going to get some pretty stiff downpours. And there's still a few question marks regarding the exact track of what will be former Debby. 

For now, the National Weather Service in South Burlington is confident enough about heavy rain in the Adirondacks to issue a flood watch there.  No flood watch is in Vermont, at least not yet. There's some high resolution data that was just coming in early this morning they wisely want to take a look at first before making any decisions on whether to hoist any flood watches in the Green Mountain State. 

I notice flood-spooked Vermonters are taking no chances, which is a smart move. The city of Barre, repeatedly hit hard by recent floods, is making sandbags available for residents and businesses. 

Let's walk you through what meteorologists think will unfold as this thing goes by. As you're reading, remember, the forecast is subject to change. The paths of tropical storms and former tropical storms can be really unpredictable.

TODAY

Another nice one as the humidity remains low and bright sunshine bathes the state. At least for awhile. You'll notice increasing high cloudiness this afternoon, as what will be former Debby begins its charge toward us. 

It'll be a seasonably warm day with highs in the 77 to 83 degree range most valleys

TONIGHT

The burst of high humidity that tropical systems always bring along with them will ooze quickly in, turning the night from refreshing to muggy by morning. This blast of humidity will trigger a band of rain with a few embedded heavy downpours and thunderstorms. 

This won't be enough to trigger any flooding, but could prime the pump for flooding that might come with later bursts of downpours from Debby.

FRIDAY

It's going to be kind of a weird, tropical day. That band of initial rain will move out.  You'll notice the oppressive, awful humidity we had through most of July and the opening days of August will be back. Don't worry, this outbreak of air you can wear will be brief.

Especially on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain, there could be fairly long periods during the day with no rain at all. Or, there will be fitful, quick hitting showers that might not amount to all that much.

At first.

But especially if we see a fair number of breaks in the clouds, that could destabilize the air and trigger some torrential thunderstorms. We'll have to watch those for the risk of any isolated instances of afternoon and evening local flash floods. There won't be anything widespread, if anything at all, but it will be worth watching.

FRIDAY NIGHT

The heart of the storm, and when the greatest risk of flash flooding might happen. The steady, heavy rain should continue all night in the Adirondacks. Debby is actually using Vermont as sort of a meet up spot with a cold front coming in from the west.  

The two will team up to come through Vermont probably with a band of heavy downpours. (Latest projections from the National Hurricane Center has the center of former Tropical Storm Debby about over Morrisville at 2 a.m. Saturday). 

The band of storms will be moving fairly fast, but since the rain will come down so hard, in many cases on already sopping wet soil, the risk of flash flooding goes up. Note that nighttime flash floods are dangerous, as they're hard to see and you might be sleeping when warnings go up. Have a way to wake up to warnings if you live in a flood-prone area.

 There's cautious optimism on main rivers like the Mad, Winooski and Lamoille, and the Otter Creek. All those waterways will have sharp rises, but so far, only minor flooding at worst is in the forecast. That could change if rainfall amounts and patterns change from what is now in the forecast, but for now, again, fingers crossed. 

There might also be a problem with wind in spots overnight Friday. Even though former Debby will be rather weak by the time it gets here, there will still be a fair amount of energy with it. Strong winds aloft could mix down to the surface overnight. That's especially true perhaps along the western slopes of the Green Mountains and maybe the Champlain Valley.

We won't have any ferocious windstorms like we did this past January, but gusty winds hitting trees on soggy, unstable soil could topple a few of them, causing some scattered power outages.

SATURDAY AND BEYOND

The remnants of Debbie should quickly scoot away, so most of the day should be rain-free. We'll need to watch how high main rivers get during the day, but as noted, I think we might be OK. We could really end up with a nice summer day on Saturday. 

Beyond that, a weak dip in the jet stream might promote scattered showers and rumbles of thunder, mixed with periods of sun Sunday through Tuesday. The showers will be light and widely scattered, and pose no flood threat. 

Vermont Already Anticipating and Bracing For April Eclipse Impacts

The path of the total eclipse of the sun on April 8.
We can hope for clear skies, but our track record
for sun in Vermont isn't great for that time of year.

Vermont attracts a lot of tourists. 

Northern Vermont, in particular, will draw more tourists than ever on April 8. 

That's when the rare, once in a lifetime total eclipse of the sun hits.  

The partial eclipse will begin around 2:15 p.m. April 8 and the total eclipse will last for a few minutes just before 3:30 p.m.  The total eclipse will cross northern Vermont, very roughly along and north of Route 2. 

Given our recent track record, I don't know why anyone would come to Vermont to view the total eclipse. It's really a cloudy state. But I guess we're convenient to populated areas of southern Canada and the northeastern United States.  And I suppose it's cool that day turns into night in the middle of the day, cloudy or not. 

The sunshine of the past couple days does run counter to our track record so far this year. It's mostly been cloudy.   I have to wonder if it will be mostly gloomy and dark and overcast right through the big eclipse day.  

Glass half empty me expects dense fog, drizzle or freezing drizzle by the time the eclipse arrives. A dark day will just get darker.   By the way, the eclipse path from southwestern Texas to northwestern Vermont and southern Quebec is a fairly common storm track for that time of year, which also makes me think "cloudy." 

For no rational reason other than thinking with our luck we'll have the unlikely experience of a a storm moving in tandem with the eclipse that day. 

Nevertheless, hope springs eternal. It's alway possible the sky will at least partly clear up on the afternoon on April 8. 

THE CROWDS

With that hope in mind, thousands of people will invade the path of the eclipse.  Vermont officials are expecting something like 200,000 visitors in Vermont for the big day. 

St, Albans lies right in the center of the eclipse path, meaning that area will be among those that will be the darkest for longest during the event. 

The population of combined St. Albans City and Town  has a combined population of about 14,000, split roughly evenly between the two municipalities. 

I'm one of about 7,000 people who live in St. Albans Town. On April 8, projections are the town's population will temporarily rise to about 60,000.  

I'm told I should make preparations as if I'm getting ready for a really, really bad storm. A few days before the event, I should stock up on groceries, gas for the truck and maybe booze to party with the rest of the eclipse crowd. 

I shouldn't drive anywhere that afternoon because the roads will be hopelessly jammed up.  Cell service might go down. 

The city of St. Albans is hosting an eclipse event downtown in Taylor Park.  They've ordered 5,000 eclipse glasses to hand out, so yeah, they're expecting quite a crowd.  (The Ryan Sneezy Band will entertain and 14th Star beer will be available, so that probably help attendance even a little more.)

WEATHER 

Hotels and inns around the region are fully booked. People have been asking if they camp in tents in northern Vermont, probably unaware of how cold it can be that time of year. 

The record low for the date in Burlington is 11 degrees, and the lowest high temperature on record for the date is 28 degrees, so yeah, it can get mighty chilly.  The normal high temperature for April 8 is around 50 degrees. The normal low is just around the freezing mark.

April 8 is just after the peak of sugaring season, so out of town visitors might be able to stock up on fresh maple syrup to take home. Keep in mind, supplies might be limited because a lot of people will want to get their hands on that stuff. 

It will be neat to track temperatures during the eclipse, especially if skies are mostly clear. The eclipse hits near the time of day when the high temperature is normally reached.    I would expect temperatures to climb in that late morning an early afternoon. Then the temperatures would fall around the time of the eclipse, as the sun disappears, then perhaps recover a bit when the skies brighten again.

I'm interested to see how far temperatures will fall during the eclipse. 

I'm also interested to see how wildlife reacts, too. Robins are usually back in force by April 8.  In the evenings as it's getting dark, I usually hear them belting out alarm calls. I wonder if that will happen during the eclipse. 

We won't have any idea what the weather and sky conditions will be on April 8 until a few days before the event.  Don't even pay attention to any weather forecast that's more than a week before the event 

The idea meteorological set up would be a strong high pressure system parked overhead or just to our west or northwest. 

That would make clear skies most likely.  If the high is to our west, we'd get a light air flow from the north out of Canada. That would limit haze.  April 8 should be too early in the season for wildfires in Canada, so it wouldn't be smoky.  

Although April is often stormy, another common weather feature is those super dry high pressure systems from Canada that bring blue skies and very low humidity. We should all pray for that. 

Just for laughs and giggles, here's what the weather was like on April 8 on recent years in northwestern Vermont. Temperatures measured in Burlington, weather conditions as observed in St. Albans.  As you can see, there's a lot of variability year to year, and anything could happen. 

2023:  High 45, low 28, mostly cloudy, flurries, afternoon clearing. 

2022:  High 53 low 38. Overcast, rain mixed with sleet in morning, tapered to scattered afternoon showers.   

2021: High 73, low 39. Sunny 

2020: High 53 low 37. Increasing clouds

2019: High 49, low 34. Cloudy, showers 

2018: High 36 low 23. Mostly cloudy to overcast. Snow showers. 

Friday Evening Vermont Storm Update: More Damage Due In Saturday Morning Wind Blast

Expected gusts early Saturday in a map produced by
the National Weather Service office in South Burlington.
Dark read is 60 mph or more. Very dark red is 70 mph or
more. Click on the map to make it bigger
and easier to read.

 With sunny skies in all but northwest Vermont this afternoon, it does seem strange that we have that big storm looming.  

But we do!

And boy is in big. In intensity and especially size.

Axios noted that all 50 states had some sort of weather warning in effect as of Friday morning. That included 5.2 million people under a blizzard warning; 167 million under high wind alerts; 28 million dealing with wind chill alerts and 57 million confronting winter storms and heavy snow. 

So yeah, it's a mess out there. 

Overall, here in Vermont I think the impacts of the storm late tonight and Saturday morning will be similar in scope to the storm we had Wednesday. 

I'm pretty sure we'll go over 10,000 Vermont homes and businesses without power once again. 

The dynamics of this storm feature very slightly more tame winds than the last one. But the orientation of the wind direction, the damage left behind from the last storm, and an expected lull in the precipitation just when the potential for higher winds hit make this storm as nasty as the last.

I've still got my eyes on the Rutland area, where the orientation of the wind favors stronger gusts in the city than the last storm.  I can easily see 60 to 65 mph gusts in and near downtown. That's not a guarantee, but it's definitely a good possibility. 

Heavy precipitation can form a bit of an inversion that prevents some strong gusts from mixing down to the surface. The biggest burst of snow will come through in the hours before the strongest winds aloft with this storm are due.  We're talking roughly between  4 and 8 a.m. Saturday.

 So winds could get very strong, especially along the western slopes for two or three hours, just as they did early Wednesday. It doesn't take long for these winds to do their damage.

For us, the forecast has gone through a few small adjustments.

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington expanded the high wind warning to include all of Chittenden County, not just the eastern half of it. High winds there might extend a little further west than first thought.  Especially along and east of Route 2A. 

Elsewhere the high wind warning remains up for north central and western Vermont, except near the shores of northern Lake Champlain. Even in the slightly lower end wind advisory zone in the far northwest, winds could gust locally into the 55 to 60 mph range, enough to tear down trees, branches and power lines. 

We're still expecting three to seven inches of snow along the Green Mountains and the eastern slopes. There could be a little more than that in the southern Greens. That added weight of wet snow will just make power outages worse, just like last time. 

The worst of the snow - and a mix to rain in the Champlain Valley, should arrive after 10 p.m. tonight.

WHAT TO DO

You know the drill by now. 

Charge your devices this evening, and get those LED candles ready to go.

We got REALLY lucky in the last storm as trees crashed through roofs of occupied houses, but didn't injure anyone. We have that risk again coming up, so we'll want to be careful.

Also, I'd say we'll want to stay off the roads, especially in the strongest wind zones, between 11 p.m tonight and 9 a.m. Saturday. 

If you're in a very gust prone area covered by the high wind warning, and you have a lot of trees around your house, you might want to sleep on the ground floor, center of the building, away from windows. 

The worst of the storm should be done by mid to late morning, though gusty winds and scattered rain and snow showers will continue. Winds toward evening could peak at about 35 mph in stronger gusts. That will be a pain in the neck for power crews working to restore power, even if it causes little additional damage