The Dark Side Of All This Vermont White Snow

No signs of thawing yet as of today along my St. Albans,
Vermont driveway. I've decided to rename the path
Snow Canyon Drive for obvious reasons. 

 It's pretty out there in Vermont today, that deep snow glistening in today's' bright, cold February sunshine.  

The winter sports industry - skiing riding, cross country, snowshoe, snowmobiling, ice climbing, ice fishing and anything else winter - is thriving this President's Week. 

The spring melt will wipe away the last vestiges of last autumn's drought. 

Plus, it's a rare, old fashioned winter. The kind we don't often see nowadays in this age of climate change. It's a bit of a throwback to the 1970s, when the snow was always super deep and the air was always frigid.

True, this year isn't nearly as extreme as some of those in the 1970s but you get the idea. 

However, being a glass half empty kind of guy, I do have to point out the dark side of this blinding outdoor winter whiteness out there. 

This stuff can cause trouble. 

ROOF TROUBLE

It's been years since snow has gotten this deep, and some weaker structures might be in trouble with all this snow loading. 

A barn in Williamstown, Vermont collapsed under the weight of the snow Monday evening, killing at least six cows.  It was the first major structure collapse I've heard of in Vermont this year, but who knows? There might be others coming. 

In my drives around northwest Vermont, I'm noticing a lot of ice dams on roofs for the first time in a few years. That will surely lead to water leaks and interior water damage to who knows how many houses. I'm lucky at my house. Ever since we installed a standing seam roof in 2017, the snow slides off and we don't get ice dams.

However, the snow that slides off puts a LOT of weight on our back deck and that entails another rigorous shoveling job to keep the deck standing.  

It's been much worse this winter in parts of western and central New York, where the lake effect snow squalls have really been working overtime since late November, really. 

Just yesterday, the roof a a wire factory in Williamstown, New York, which is within the Lake Ontario snow belt collapsed under the weight of snow and ice.  Workers heard cracking noises in the ceiling early Tuesday and evacuated, so nobody got hurt. 

A short distance down the road from the wire factory, a church roof collapsed.

Elsewhere in New York, a business collapsed under the snow near Rome, New York. A Walmart Super Store in Central Square New York temporarily closed over concerns regarding snow on the roof. They hope to reopen once the snow is removed. 

SALT SHORTAGE

Expect Vermont roads to be even worse than usual during and after any remaining snowfalls and mixed precipitation episodes we see before spring sets in.

Vermont is among a number of states facing a road salt shortage. 

The town of Lyndon is almost completely out of salt. St. Johnsbury is reserving what little salt they have and only treating roads once storms have ended, reports WPTZ.

No word yet on how that will affect the Vermont highway department and other towns. But I bet they're conserving salt. 

CLEARING SNOW

If you have a fire hydrant near your house, head out and clear away a big patch of snow away from the hydrant if you have not done so already. Shovel a path from the road to the hydrant, and push the snow at least three feet away from the hydrant in every direction, 

Go around your house to see if there are vents or other equipment that are blocked by snow or nearly blocked. Vents especially can back up dangerous carbon monoxide into a house if the snow if blocking them. 

Got a mailbox out front? This is hard because of all the rock solid stuff plowed from the road, but try to clear an indentation so the mail vehicle can reach your mailbox without getting stuck.  Try to make it so they can move forward without getting stuck after dropping off your mail. 

Do you heat your house with heating oil?  Or propane?  Getting low on fuel and need a delivery? Make sure you've cleared a path so that the delivery person can make it to the intake easily to fill your fuel tank. 

My brother in law is a former fuel delivery driver and he has nightmare stories of trying to drag the hose through snow a few feet deep to reach the intake. Do them a favor. 

SPRING FLOOD?

Believe it or not, as of last Thursday, most of Vermont was considered "abnormally dry" and a small portion of southern Vermont was still regarded as in drought. 

I think that' mostly because it has pretty much just snowed and sleeted in recent weeks. Moisture from all snow is yet to make it into the ground and our rivers and streams.

This weekly drought monitor will be updated tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see if there are any changes. The National Weather Service in South Burlington will also update their biweekly late winter/early spring outlook tomorrow. 

Since January, those updates have rated the risk of flooding below normal, mostly because no big thaws are in the offing. That's still true. But in January, snow and the water equivalent in the snow was below normal. Now I expect the snow depth and water equivalent to be at or above normal. We shall see.

So, as I mentioned earlier in this post, this snow is good news.

Unless it isn't. 

If the snow melts very fast toward spring and is accompanied by heavy rain, we'd end up with some pretty nasty flooding. That's especially true since river ice is thicker than it's been in a few years. A sudden thaw could break up the ice and create ice jams. Which cause flooding. 

The best scenario would be if we have a perfect maple sugaring March and April. That means warm, mostly dry days and hard overnight freezes. Preferably daily. 

 That would cause a gradual snow melt. The moisture would just soak into the ground and we'd start our growing season with plenty of water sitting there to keep our gardens and crops happy.  

First Of Vermont Spring Flood Outlooks Issued; This Early In Season, Really Too Early To Tell

Flooding in Richmond, Vermont, December 19, 2023,
Heavy rain and warm temperatures in December made
groundwater sopping wet, but got rid of most of
Vermont's mountain snow cover. As things stand now
that leaves this spring's flood potential as "normal"
But a LOT can happen to change that one way
or another by March and April 

 Every year, starting in early January, the National Weather Service office in South Burlington, and other NWS offices, start to issue spring flood outlooks. 

Yeah, it's a little early to worry about spring floods, but I guess these early outlooks give us a baseline to start following trends.  

A lot can happen between now and spring to affect our chances of yet another unwelcome inundation around Vermont when it warms up in a few months. But it's OK to keep tabs.

For the record, the outlook issued last Thursday for spring flooding works out to normal, all things considered. As you are probably well aware, December in Vermont was sopping wet, so groundwater is definitely above average.

However, snow cover was far below average when the flood forecast was issued last week, so there's not a lot of moisture built up in the mountains to unleash as floodwater when temperatures rise in March and April.

That's one of the big wild cards, though. We know snow cover will increase this month from the paltry levels we saw last week.  Snow cover has already gone up in the past week, and might tonight. But it's still well below normal.   However, if the rest of the winter proves snowy, which is actually possible, that would change the outlook. 

Longer range forecasts indicate that starting about next Sunday, a new somewhat colder, and maybe (or maybe not!) somewhat drier weather pattern will take hold. I don't know if that will last all winter, or just be a brief blip, or something in between.  If it does hold for the rest of the winter, chances are snow cover will finally build up in the mountains. 

Which is one of the many reasons forecasting spring flooding is difficult to say the least in early January. 

Ice jams are a big hazard with spring floods in Vermont. River ice can get pretty thick during colder winters,  If a thaw breaks up that ice, those big chunks of ice can get stuck at barriers like bridges, creating a dam that results in a nasty upstream flood.

After the flooding and extraordinary warmth of December, there's almost no ice on Vermont rivers. So there's obviously no immediate threat of ice jams.

River ice will form as we get through January, but we don't know how thick it will get. Depends upon how cold it gets. The thicker the river ice, the greater the chances of ice jams that hold in place. Thinner ice breaks up into more small, slushy chunks that doesn't jam up so easily. 

In the immediate future, over the next week or so,  it's generally expected to be warmer and wetter than normal in Vermont.  As mentioned this morning, there is some threat of flooding with our storm tonight and tomorrow, but mostly in far southern Vermont. 

It's too soon to say whether the large storm expected Saturday will be warm and wet enough to create a flood threat. After that, as mentioned,  a cooler, somewhat drier trend is expected to take over. 

Another interesting wildcard is the Lake Champlain water level. It's much above normal for this time of year - only about half a foot below record highs for January. It has started to recede a bit from its late December peak though.  

The lake level will probably take another bump upward after the storm tonight and tomorrow, and another one expected on Saturday. After that, the lake will probably slowly recede during the rest of January and February,  unless it stays oddly warm and rainy.   ss it's especially warm and rainy. 

Still, if lake levels are still above normal in the spring, and there's a lot of snow that somehow accumulates in the mountains by then, we could have some real problems along the shores of Lake Champlain.  Especially if it's also a rainy spring. 

At this point, I'd say the risk is still low, but you never know.