BREAKING: St. Albans Vermont Reeling From Wind Storm: Houses Suffer Severe Damage

This house on Pearl Street in St. Albans, Vermont when
a huge tree fell on it during last night's windstorm

 I had a good look around my home town of St. Albans, Vermont this morning and early afternoon, and geez, Louise!  

I'm sure St. Albans will come in as perhaps the worst hit community from last night's severe windstorm. 

Two large houses on Pearl Street in St. Albans City are either extensive damaged or destroyed. Each house had a large tree fall  on it. In a separate case just off Pearl Street, a mobile home was crushed by a falling tree. 

One of the two large houses appears to have the back half of its roof and second floor crushed by the immense fallen poplar tree.  

Parts of the tree shattered, flinging branches onto an adjacent home, which appears to have minor damage.

A tree trimmer at the severely damaged house said all occupants escaped unharmed. It is unclear how many people were inside at the time. 

Just up the street, The back end of what appears to be an apartment building had his back end smashed in by another immense poplar. Behind a separate parking lot a mobile home was crushed beneath a tree,

The back end of this apartment building on Pearl
Street in St. Albans Vermont was crushed by
a falling tree during last night's wind storm

On Barlow Street, a large, uprooted spruce tree rested against a two story home. That structure appears to have only minor damage. 

Along High Street, several large trees toppled, but appeared to either miss homes in the neighborhood or just brush past them. 

Tree trimmers, Green Mountain Power and Vermont Gas were on the street as of noon, making safety inspections, repairing electrical lines and cutting up the trees. 

Trees are down all over town. It appears mostly large poplars, spruces and maple trees fell. Side streets are littered with branches. As of 12:30 the traffic lights downtown at the intersection of Main and Fairfield streets were not working. 

Green Mountain Power crews were also on Upper Newton Street near the Franklin County Senior Center repairing lines after an immense spruce street fell on them. The spruce appears to have caused minor damage to a house on the way down. 

Update: Some Scattered Damage From Wind, And Vermont Weekend Snow Update

Water droplets glisten on a spruce tree in St. Albans,
Vermont just before sunset as skies cleared briefly
behind a strong weather front. 

 Today's storm behaved pretty much as expected, leaving behind power outages here and there, downed trees and a few reports of flooding in southeastern Vermont and in New Hampshire. 

Peak winds reported included 52 mph in East Berkshire, 47 mph in Underhill and 45 mph in Jeffersonville. All these areas are along the western slopes of the Green Mountains, and are prone to winds in this morning's type of weather situation.

Based on a few scattered damage reports that came in, there were probably very localized areas were downslope winds were even stronger than the reports above. One large tree and four small ones came down along North Cambridge Road in Cambridge.  There were also tree limb and power line issues in Underhill.  A tree and wires were reported down in Springfield, as well. 

The number of power outages in Vermont was dwindling as winds calmed down amid the rains that came with the storm's weather front. More than 6,000 homes and business were without power in the Green Mountain State this morning, but by mid-afternoon, that number was down to about 2,000.

Some of the rain with the front was pretty heavy, especially in southeastern Vermont and on into New Hampshire and southern New England. A flood advisory was up for far southeastern Vermont for much of the afternoon.

The big parent storm still over the Great Lakes has what is known as a "dry slot" which is pretty typical of these large, lumbering November storms.  A dry slot is a narrow punch of dry air immediately behind the storm's cold front.

Once the front goes through, those dry slots can result in very quick clearing, which is what happened late this afternoon in western Vermont.  Nice sunset! 

SATURDAY SNOW AND BEYOND

The people that run mountain ski areas are going to like the next few days. It'll be generally cold enough to make snow, and in the high elevations, several modest but accumulating snowfalls are in the offing. 

The first storm, which I mentioned this morning, is going to be rather small, but quick moving and very dynamic. That means we'll get a burst of rain, with likely measurable snow at elevations above 1,000 feet.  Mountain peaks could get two to five inches of snow.

This will be a short-lived event, but rather exciting while it's here. Rain will quickly change to snow down to 1,000 feet Saturday evening, and a few flakes or even a brief slushy accumulation could hit the valleys. 

Another system comes through Monday with another few inches of snow for the peaks and minor accumulations at mid-elevations.  More wet snowflakes look like a good bet in the valleys. 

At this point, Monday night and Tuesday morning look cold enough to produce possibly light, but measurable accumulations of snow all the way down into the valleys. We'll see!