Yes, You Can Get Lake Effect Snows Off Lake Champlain

North winds created a band of lake effect snow off 
Lake Champlain this morning. Cold north winds picked up
moisture off the lake, and by the time those winds got
to a spot near Burlington, the snow began to fall a 
little over the lake.....

 The Great Lakes are famous for their lake effect snowstorms. Especially this time of year.

Cold air crosses the still relatively warm lakes. That warm lake water produces a lot of steam, which rises into clouds. The clouds head toward shore. 

The air once the cloud hit shore has to start rising to match the terrain. The rising air releases all that moisture in the clouds as snow. 

As we saw in Buffalo, New York last Christmas, these lake effect snow bands, when they're persistent, get quite scary. 

Smaller lakes can produce lake effect snows, too, if the wind is coming from the correct direction. Which is what was going on over Lake Champlain this morning.

The wind was coming out of the north, which is the same orientation as the long, skinny Lake Champlain. That kept the airflow over the lake long enough to produce those clouds, and eventually some lake effect snow.  A west wind wouldn't have worked. Lake Champlain is only 12 miles wide at its widest point. That's not a big enough fetch to create lake effect snows. A north wind is necessary.

You also need a pretty good sized contrast between the lake and air temperature. We had that this morning. The lake water temperature was 43 degrees and the air was close to 20 degrees. 

When the snow off Lake Champlain comes ashore, you rarely get those huge several foot deep storms. Lake Champlain lake effect is measured in just tenths of inches of snow, or sometimes a couple inches if you're lucky, 

The snow band kept getting a little stronger as you'd expect
as the clouds moved further south on the lake
and snow was falling over the lake and on the
shore. This is a view toward Shelburne. 

Radar images this morning showed lake effect snow falling from near Shelburne down into western Addison County.  

The people under the most intense - and that's being super generous - could see up to an inch of snow before the lake effect band breaks up by sometime this afternoon. 

There have been cases in which Lake Champlain lake effect snow has been impressive. 

On November 27, 1996, an oddly intense snow band of of Lake Champlain produced local snowfall rates of up to 1 or 2 inches per hour, with a total of 13 inches piling up in Cornwall, in Addison County. 

If you're going to see lake effect off Lake Champlain, it's most likely to happen in late November and December, and sometimes into January.  Later in the winter, much of the lake freezes over. The ice prevents that lake moisture from rising into the air to help produce our Champlain lake effect.

Floods, Thaw NOT Good For Vermont/New England Ski Areas And For Tourist Revenue

Flooding in Williston, Vermont Tuesday, part of which
was caused by snowmelt from mountains you see
in the background. Those mountains, and the ski
areas up there, need a return to winter fast, as the 
storm has also damaged prospect for crowds
during the important Christmas week holiday 

 The destructive flooding we had in Vermont was easily the worst aspect of the warm storm we endured this week. 

But there's another potentially substantial problem: We're on the cusp of an important holiday week that typically draws thousands to Vermont for winter sports. The bare ground, news of the flood and forecasts of continued warm weather aren't helping. 

Businesses need the tourist revenue, and Vermont needs the tax revenue.

Before this week, it seemed like the ski season would be off to a good start. 

Those heavy, wet snowstorms in late November and early December that kept causing power outages had a silver lining: They built up a base of snow at ski resorts and other places that host winter activities.

The weather was warmer than normal, but cold enough for resorts to also make snow. 

Then Monday's storm hit.

SKI AREA DAMAGE

The flooding caused a lot of damage, but I haven't heard of any of our major ski areas suffering major physical losses.  So we're lucky in that regard here in Vermont. 

Some New Hampshire and Maine resorts DID suffer damage. That there would be this much New England flood destruction in December is uncharted territory

The road leading up to the Sunday River ski area in Maine was entirely washed out by the storm.  That cut off the resort, and left some people stranded at condos at Sunday River.

A temporary bridge was being brought in to reopen access. But it will be a challenge. The ground floor of some condos at Sunday River reportedly suffered flood damage. 

Sunday River officials said they would reopen as soon as temporary repairs and snow making equipment could be brought up and running again, but they had no timetable. 

In New Hampshire, Loon Mountain, Attitash, Canmore and Wildcat Mountain were all closed on Tuesday due to flooding. They are expected to open soon. 

VERMONT RESORTS

Here in Vermont, Mad River Glen was forced to close temporarily. It sits above the hard-hit Mad River Valley and suffered from water runoff and a loss of snow.  However, Mad River Glen reopened today with freshly groomed trails.  

Jay Peak and Killington, and probably other ski areas in Vermont, closed during the height of the storm Monday due to heavy rains and high wind, but they are now operating normally. 

As temperatures dropped Tuesday, the resorts surely fired up their snow making machines. At least the snow making operations have plentiful supply of water at the moment. 

Resorts are putting the best spin on this: "We are continuing to make snow and groom out our terrain nicely, so we expect conditions to get better and better as we make our way through the week," Killington Resort said on its web site on Wednesday. 

In Stowe, damage to a privately owned culvert reduced Route 108, which leads to the resort, down to one lane.  As of Wednesday, a temporary traffic signal had been installed to deal with the problem.  The resort, like pretty much all of them in Vermont, reported it was making snow and grooming trails to fix damage from the storm.

Slightly below normal temperatures are forecast today and tomorrow, which will favor snow making. It'll warm up over the holiday weekend, but most resorts will still be able to make snow.

The forecast turns problematic toward the middle of next week. As it stands now, it looks like we might see another rain storm. It won't be nearly the scale of what we had Monday, but any rain would dampen skier enthusiasm at the very least. 

Another issue is publicity.  I'm sure the vast majority of avid skiers know that northern New England was hit by a major December storm and flood, so that could discourage people from coming here. 

Meanwhile, cross country ski centers and snowmobile trails surely took a hit. First of all, there's no snow. So no skiing and no snowmobiling. Additionally, the flooding might have caused some damage to snowmobile trails, just after the Vermont  Association of Snow Travelers spend months fixing the trails after the summer floods. 

I haven't heard  how much damage there is to VAST trails, but it's likely not as serious as it was in the summer.

There's always hope for the rest of the winter sports season, of course. It could turn gloriously snowy in January and February for all we know, and that could make the overall winter of 2023-24 not so bad after all.  

Some long range forecasts call for winter to finally arrive at or just after the New Year, but I'll believe it when I see it. 

 

 

Not Just Vermont: Severe Storms In Argentina, Australia, California

If you think the flooding recently in Vermont has been
bad, check out Australia. Bonus: Vermont floodwaters
weren't infested with crocodiles like those Down Under

 If misery loves company, we in Vermont - as usual - have plenty. 

While we've been dealing with another major flood and its aftermaths, storms have been continuing around the world, often with terrible results. 

Here are a few this week:

ARGENTINA 

Much of South America, including Argentina, is having a hot summer hemisphere summer, and that heat can be fuel for severe thunderstorms. 

That kind of thing happens in Argentina pretty frequently, but a storm this week was way beyond what they usually see. 

The storm struck the city of Bahia Blanca, about 355 miles south of Buenos Aires on Saturday. The storm collapsed a sports center that was hosting a roller skating competition, killing 13 people, the BBC reported.

Two additional deaths were reported in nearby Uruguay. 

Many buildings were damaged in Bahia Blanca before the storm moved north into Bueno Aires. Video shows  parked passenger jet being buffeted and moved by the wind, forcing it to collide with other objects. A set of boarding stairs can be see blowing across a tarmac before smashing into other equipment. 

Other video showed a stage at an outdoor concert collapsing in the wind as festival goes fled. The video also shows glass from shattered windows blowing around in the wind at a horse racing center. 

Winds gusted to 93 mph in the storms. 

AUSTRALIA

Bad weather surprises are always awful, as we learned here in Vermont on Monday when the flooding turned out to be worse than expected. 

In northeastern Australia, a surprise storm proved much worse than we experienced here, 

The Washington Post explains: 

"Remnants of a tropical cyclone unexpectedly dropped 30 to 40 inches of rain across a swath of Australia's northeastern coast in recent days, inundating an area known as the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and at least briefly threatening drinking water supples."

Even worse for flood victims, the storm has brought crocodiles into populated areas hit by the storm. 

At least one area had close to an incredible 80 inches of rain, near Cairns which might threaten the national record for largest single storm.  That amount is roughly what the region should expect in an entire year. 

The storm started when Tropical Cyclone Jasper moved inland and then rapidly weakened. But it then sat over the same region for five days, unleashing those incredible amounts of rain. 

The hardest hit area was around Cairns, which often has tropical cyclones and is well prepared for such storms. But they weren't ready for the unprecedented heavy rains. It's probably another case of a turbo-charged climate changed atmosphere dumping more torrential downpours than we remember or designed or towns and cities for. 

CALIFORNIA BRACING

El Nino winters generally make California wet, but their winter rainy season has been off to a fairly slow start.

Until now.

A very wet storm is moving in promising to bring inches upon inches of rain to southern California. The valleys and coastline are expecting two to five inches and the foothills a whopping six to 12 inches of rain. Some spots could get over a foot of rain. 

The long-lasting storm is sure to cause debris flows, especially in areas burned over by wildfires in recent years.  Flash flooding, mudslides and wind damage are all in the cards now through Friday. 

A years-long drought ended in California during a very wet winter a year ago. Still, things could get bad again if winter rains were to fail.  

Los Angeles only got about a tenth of an inch of rain in November. No rain fell in December until Monday and Tuesday, and even then it was super light.

Overall, the oncoming storm is a good thing for California, if only it wasn't coming so fast and hard. 

The California storm is expected to slowly trudge across the southern United States over the next several days. The storm could eventually turn north and affect us here in New England in about a week but we don't know what form that storm would take, if even does hit us. 

Will Vermonters Join The Ranks Of 3.2 Million "Climate Refugees"?

Homes damaged by flooding back in July in Cambridge,
Vermont being flooded again on Tuesday.  How many
floods like this can people take before they give up?

Just in the past week, a report came out showing that 3.2 million Americans have fled "climate abandonment" areas - places where an increased risk of more and more severe flooding has forced them to move.   

Given the serious flooding we had this week, I have to wonder if some Vermonters will soon join the ranks of those climate refugees.  Monday's flood was an agonizing setback. 

As climate-related disasters swirled around the United States and the world, Vermont felt at least temporarily safe from all that.

 We seemed to blissfully escape the scary, dangerous stuff as the decade of the 2020s opened.

Maybe after the disastrous flood and windstorm of Halloween, 2019, we'd be safe for awhile. 

Sure, we had our extremes. Record heat, some droughts, some wind storms hit in 2020, 2021 and for most of 2022. But it wasn't anything to get too worked up about. We felt safe.

But I had a feeling the other shoe would drop. And it definitely has in the past 12 months. 

A storm on December 23, 2022 brought historic wind gusts that caused extensive damage through wide swaths of Vermont. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington recorded a wind gust of 70 mph, its second highest gust on record. Power was cut to more than 70,000 homes and businesses. 

Flooding also closed roads and damaged property. Then a flash freeze and mini-blizzard halted travel on Vermont roads that evening. 

On May 18 of this year, after what had been a remarkably warm spring that prematurely allowed crops and blossoms to sprout, a hard freeze hit.  The one-night frost decimated much of Vermont's apple and strawberry crops, and caused extensive damage in the vineyards of the state's burgeoning wine industry.

Those two events weren't primarily flood disasters, but they were unsettling.  

Then the summer floods hit. As we know, the worst of it hit on July 10 and 11 with communities from Ludlow to Barre and Montpelier to Johnson suffering devastating blows.

This wasn't a one shot deal either, Repeated localized flash floods from the end of June into mid-Augusts expanded the destruction. 

Each of these events resulted in disaster declarations for different parts of Vermont. I have a feeling this latest storm will also put the Green Mountain State under a disaster declaration. 

SO NOW WHAT?

Although the storms have varied, flooding is the biggest risk here in Vermont.  One has to wonder how much more people can take,  Some homeowner and business owners have now suffered damage twice in five months. 

Monday night's flood crest of 17.58 feet on the Lamoille River in Johnson means half of the top 10 worst floods there have occurred just since 2011. 

Who would want to deal with that?

We are already seeing signs that the repeated floods are eroding the sense of community as much as they eroded riverbanks and streets. After being inundated several times,  owners of the grocery store in Johnson opted not to reopen the business, which had five or six feet of water inside it on July 10-11. (At last report, another brave business person might open a store in that location, we'll see).

WPTZ-TV last night aired an interview with two women whose house in Cambridge was trashed in the July flood. They were almost done fixing things when the latest flood damaged their home again. They looked tired. The two said they are staying in Cambridge. But will all their neighbors do the same?

I also wonder how residents and businesses owners in communities like Ludlow, Barre, Montpelier and Waterbury will keep sticking it out with the threat of more and more frequent, destructive floods.

If people abandon these communities, it would be part of a national, and probably worldwide trend, judging from that report about 3.2 million Americans moving to new locations due to climate disasters.  

As CBS News reports:

"Many of those areas are in parts of the country that also have seen a surge of migration during the past two decades, including Sun Belt states such as Florida and Texas. Such communities risk an economic downward spiral as population loss causes a decline in property values and local services, the group found."

 Vermont is regarded as sort of a "climate refuge," but as I wrote in July during our flood siege, that might be a bit of an illusion.  

Many of our nicest, most cohesive towns and small cities are in flood plains. Which makes the risk of people abandoning Vermont town centers even more fraught than in other areas. That downward economic spiral CBS mentioned could hit all of our wallets here in the Green Mountain State.

One of Vermont's signature images is its tight knit towns and relative lack of commercial sprawl.   It's one of the main reason lots of tourists are drawn to the state.

Unfortunately, many of these beautiful old towns and small cities were built in flood plains. When they were built, their location was one of necessity, as the rivers helped supply power and served as commercial routes. 

These towns generally have stopped needing rivers for these purposes long ago. So is the repeated floods brought on by climate change worth the risk? 

Likely channeling all of us, Gov. Phil Scott during his press conferences about the latest flood used words like "gut punch" and "heartbreaking."   How many gut punches can people endure before they give up on their downtown/flood plain businesses and homes?

We're going to find out in the coming years and decades, and the end result might not be pretty. As these floods keep coming, Vermont will become a much less familiar place. 

To me, anyway, as a lifelong Vermonter, that would be a tragedy. 

Tuesday Evening Vermont Flood Update: Rivers Receding, Cleanup Begins, Disaster Declaration, Maybe?

The Lamoille River at Fairfax Falls near Cambridge,
Vermont rages amid snow flurries on Tuesday. 

Assessments of Monday's flooding are coming in, and the bottom line seems to look like this:

This flood was quite damaging, and caused a huge boatload of headaches. But the rain stopped just in time to prevent things from going completely off the rails as they did in July.

 The best news is that there have been no reports of deaths or serious injuries. 

Honestly, I think had it rained like it did for another two, three maybe four hours on Monday, we would have had another July. 

LATEST UPDATES

As evening drew close today, roads were reopening, though a few remain closed. The flood crests on the larger rivers had emptied into Lake Champlain or the Connecticut River, or were getting close to that point. 

For those who suffered flood damage again this time, or came close to it, this event was mostly an emotional, and sometimes physical trauma. 

"Seeing homes and businesses surrounded by water again is heartbreaking," Vermont Gov. Phil Scott said during a Tuesday afternoon press briefing. "I can't imagine the toll the has on anyone."

 Lots of Vermont municipalities, businesses and homeowners had close calls with Monday's flood, and they still brought headaches. There's plenty of examples. 

From Vermont Public:  

"In Londonderry, the West River got close to Mike and Tammy's Main Street Deli but didn't cause widespread damage like this summer. 

The Winooski River, at major flood stage, rages past
buildings in Winooski, Vermont on Tuesday. 

Store owner Tammy Clough says the staff still had to move everything up off the floor Monday, and then move it back down in time to open up Tuesday morning. 'I'm exhaused, but what are you going to do,' Clough said. 'I was exhausted before yesterday. What are you going to do? We all just pull together and get it done.'"

Vermont Public also reported the Johnson Post Office just reopened last week having recently completed repairs from the July flood. It got flooded again, but not as badly as in July.  They hope to reopen fairly quickly.  

Most of the flooding in Johnson was confined to basements, despite the Lamolle River reaching its fourth highest crest on record, Some houses in Johnson and elsewhere affected by this week's flooding had not yet been re-occupied since the July inundations.

Judging from the comments from state officials at this afternoon's presser about the flood, it looks like Vermont will be angling for another federal disaster declaration with this latest storm. 

State officials urged people who suffered fresh flood damage to take pictures, note everything that was damaged and save receipts. They should then report these damages online to vermont211.org.

That information will help state officials aggregate damage estimates to report to FEMA and other federal agencies.  

Meanwhile, state and local officials are cleaning up streets, unclogging culverts and catch basins to prepare for the next big rainstorm, whenever that might hit. (Spoiler: Nothing coming through Christmas Day at least).

Flood warnings remained in effect along several Vermont rivers, but they were all receding. The flood warnings should be all gone by tomorrow. 

RAINFALL TOTALS AND FORECAST

Map of rainfall from the storm in Vermont and northern
New York from the National Weather Service office
in South Burlington. Heaviest rainfall as across
southeastern and central Vermont. Click on the 
map to make it bigger and easier to se. 

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington compiled a comprehensive list and map of rainfall totals across Vermont and surrounding areas from this storm. 

The heaviest rain fell in and around Brattleboro, with more than four inches there. Other reports include 4.27 inches in Quechee, 4.17 in West Bridgewater and 3.96 inches in Worcester. 

Overall, the heaviest rain fell precisely where the National Weather Service office in South Burlington predicted it would. Same with the lighter totals in far northern Vermont and in a pocket around central Rutland County. 

 It's just that the rainfall totals were somewhat higher than predicted. That, and a lot of snow melt, made the flooding worse than anticipated.  

The weather forecast remains quiet through Christmas and quite possibly beyond. The snow showers today didn't amount to much, if you got them at all. Some spots in northern Vermont saw a dusting to an inch. 

Tomorrow will be seasonable and dry. Wednesday and Thursday look kind of on the chilly side and dry, followed by a warming trend for the Christmas weekend. There might be a bit of very light snow Saturday, but that's about it. 

Our next shot at any kind of storminess is at least a week away. 

Vermont Flood: Picking Up The Pieces Once Again And Why It Happened

The city of Montpelier, Vermont posted to Facebook this
 photo of rising water in the downtown Montpelier. The
water stopped short of flooding ground floor shops this 
time, but I'm sure many businesses suffered flooded
and damaged basements. 

The storm that caused our latest Vermont flood disaster is pretty much over early this Tuesday morning. We're waiting for the last of the rivers to reach major flood crest, and then it's time to once again, start cleaning up. 

That's true in Vermont and in nearby areas. Other areas, like New Hampshire, western Maine and parts of New York also had devastating floods Monday. 

Pretty disheartening, huh?

The extent of the damage from this flood is just starting to be assessed, but there's a lot of it, judging just from the photos I've seen from Vermont news outlets and in social media. 

Some examples: WPTZ TV had video last night of inundated Elm and Randall streets in Waterbury last evening. The houses in that neighborhood were damaged in July's flood. They've just barely cleaned up and now Winooski River water reached similar heights, damaging those homes again. 

I suspect there might have been some additional damage in homes along Route 2 between Waterbury and Richmond.

Some businesses along Main Street in Barre which were damaged in July's flood got hit again, too. I don't think the damage is as had this time, but how the hell do you recover from floods that hit twice in five months?

Early this morning, the Winooski River at Essex Junction was just about reaching its major flood crest of 21 feet, just two feet lower than the epic floods of July. This will be the sixth highest crest on record along the Winooski River at that spot. 

The Lamoille River in Johnson reached major flood
stage overnight, achieving its fourth highest 
crest on record. 

Montpelier had a better time at it with this storm than in July, which basically destroyed the downtown. 

This time, the Winooski River flooded parking lots near downtown and probably got into downtown basements, But the streets of downtown Montpelier stayed above water, except near the Bailey Avenue and Taylor Street bridges.  

The Mad and Lamoille Rivers also achieved major flood stage. The Lamoille River at Johnson crested overnight at 17.58 feet, the fourth highest level on record there. Minor to at most moderate flooding had been forecast. Clearly, things really took a turn for the worse Monday. 

 WHY IT HAPPENED

All possible forces came together to make Monday's Vermont flood as bad as possible. The storm's orientation was elongated south to north, an arrangement that ensured heavy rain would fall for many hours. More hours than you'd expect from such a fast-moving storm. 

Complete data is not in yet, but many, many spots in Vermont had more than two inches of rain, with some areas up over three inches. I see reports of 3.3 inches in Johnson, 3.13 inches in Bolton, 2.9 inches in Quechee and 2.8 inches in Waitsfield.

It seems that much like in July, the heaviest rain was oriented along the Green Mountains, ensuring that water would rush downhill along the steep terrain to flood the valleys below.

Before the storm, an unusually high amount of snow for this early in the season had accumulated at mid and high elevations. The snow was wet and heavy, with an abnormally high water content. 

The storm was accompanied by record high temperatures. Montpelier, for instance, had a high Monday of 59 degrees, shattering the old record high for the date of 50 degrees.  

The Winooski River at Essex Junction reaching a major
flood crest early this morning. It looks like it will
be the sixth highest flood there on record.

Worse, the air was very humid.  The higher the dew point, the more humid the air. 

Dew points were in the 50s for much of Monday.  Such a dew point is often seen in July, not December, and these are some of the highest winter dew points I've ever seen. 

The higher the dew point, the more readily and easily snow melts. As it was raining hard, the snow was rapidly melting.  It basically added an inch or so to the rainfall that did occur.

The rain couldn't soak into the ground, either. In some places, the ground was partly frozen, so the water couldn't percolate into the ground. 

 In many other places, the ground was saturated after our ultra wet summer, a soggy October, and a very wet December leading up to Monday's storm. 

And of course there's climate change. It's making storms stronger and more erratic.  It's obviously warming the atmosphere. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water. Under the right conditions, like on Monday, that extra atmospheric moisture can be released as downpours. Storms are becoming wetter, which helps explain the increasing frequency of floods in Vermont. 

After Sunday night and Monday's storm, which dumped 2.45 inches of rain on Burlington, the total for the month so far there is 5.09 inches. So far, that makes it the fourth wettest December on record   Those records go back to the 1880s. 

Also, if not one more raindrop or snowflake lands on Burlington, this year will have produced 44.09 inches of rain in Burlington, which would make it the seventh wettest year on record. (There's no chance of Burlington reaching a record wet year, because that mark is 50.92 inches in 2011).

The year 2011 was also marked with repeated flood disasters in Vermont, including Tropical Storm Irene.

 WHAT'S NEXT?

A welcome break, to be blunt. 

Some rain was again moving into parts of Vermont before dawn, but don't worry. It's light, harmless stuff. And it's going to change to snow.

There might be some snow showers around that briefly come down sort of heavily. The snow showers won't last long enough to pile up to any great depth, but could cause slick roads and poor visibility at times. Especially since temperatures will be slowly falling all day. Temperatures will dip below freezing in many areas by mid-afternoon.

The weather is looking mercifully quiet through Christmas. A weak system could dust us with snow showers, or dampen us with light rain showers on Saturday, but it will be no big deal. Temperatures will be near normal, but trending upward toward milder than average by Christmas Day.

To add insult to injury after this latest Vermont weather disaster, much of the state will not see a white Christmas this year. 

The next chance of any kind of larger storm is around December 27 or 28, but of course that is a very iffy forecast. If a storm does come along then, I have no idea whether it would be snow, rain or a mix, or how much precipitation we get out of it. 

 ,  . 

Monday Evening Storm Update: Vermont Finds Itself Once Again In A Nasty Flood Disaster

Flooding in Waitsfield today. Photo via X by@SidMyNBC5

Once again, Vermont is dealing with yet another over-performing storm, with serious flooding ongoing this evening. It's clearly another climate disaster, as if we haven't had enough of them lately. 

WIDESPREAD DAMAGE

True, today's flooding is not as bad as the cataclysmic July flooding, but it's still really, really bad.  Lots of roads are closed, there's evacuations going on, we've had water rescues, there's plenty of property damage,  and it's not over yet.  

"It's a real gut punch," said Gov. Phil Scott during a late afternoon press briefing. He noted that many flooded areas are the same spots hardest hit in July.

Pretty much every corner of Vermont is being affected by this.  River levels and predicted crests are far above what had been expected as recently as dawn today. Scott said that although the water levels aren't as high as in July, the flooding is more widespread than it was in July.

Take beleaguered Montpelier, for instance. The city, as you know, was completely trashed by the devastating July floods. Everybody there was relaxing last night, as the Winooski River was expected to crest at 9.7 feet. That's far below flood stage.

Now, the river is forecast to crest this evening at 16.7 feet. That's a little less than a foot below major flood stage. Montpelier officials have asked residents to move their cars to higher ground. The area around the Bailey Avenue bridge and the approach to the Taylor Street bridge will go under water, if it hasn't already.

The flooding won't inundate downtown Montpelier, but could pour into basements in the business district, potentially causing a lot of damage to stock stored there. 

The Mad River in Moretown actually reached major flood stage. Residents of Moretown village were told to evacuate.  Residents of Waitsfield were told to stay home because so many town roads were under water. 

Mad River flooding was not particularly serious in July. This time, it's much worse.

An emergency shelter is opening at Memorial Auditorium in Barre. That's another city that was catastrophically damaged in July.  More damage is now occurring in Barre. Main Street between City Hall Park and Depot Square closed because flood waters were breaching storefronts as cars passed by, Vermont Public reported. 

Some businesses in Londonderry damaged by flooding in July are being damaged again today. 

The Whetstone Brook in West Brattleboro flooded several homes after four inches of rain fell on the area.

Mike Cannon with Vermont's Urban Search and Rescue Team said seven swift water rescue teams have been deployed around the state. 

 Vermont Department of Public Safety Commissioner Jennifer Morrison said swift water rescue teams have been deployed around the state. Three people were rescued from a flooded house in Jamaica, and another person was rescued from a car swept away by floodwaters in Waterbury. Another water rescue was ongoing as of 5 p.m. 

"What we are experiencing today is dangerous, and there will be damage," Morrison said. She said many people, including herself are suffering flashbacks to the July flood, and she perceptively worried about Vermonters' mental health. 

Amtrak has suspended operations in Vermont due to worries about damage from flooding. 

Good luck traveling along Route 2.  It was closed due to a mudslide in St. Johnsbury and due to high water in Marshfield, Plainfield, Middlesex, Waterbury, and Jonesville/Richmond. 

Parts of major highways like Route 12 in Berlin Route 100 Rochester and Granville, 128 in Essex Center, Route 100 in Rochester, Route 14 in Hardwick, Route 118 in Berkshire, Route 11 in Londonderry, Route 131 in southern Vermont,  among others. 

Gov. Scott said the extent of today's flooding took him by surprise, as it probably did with nearly everyone, including myself. 

WHAT HAPPENED AND FORECAST

This was a double-barreled storm, with the first wave being the worst. It spread torrential rains across Vermont this morning and early afternoon. Temperatures hit record high levels in all of Vermont except the northern Champlain Valley, and mountain snow melted immediately, adding to the runoff. 

Rainfall was heavier than pretty much anyone expected. I don't have a lot of figures, but I know a lot of places had more than three inches of rain. Some numbers as of 5 p.m. include 3.12 inches in Bolton, 2.4 inches in Burlington 

To add insult to injury, another wave of heavy rain moved through Vermont late this afternoon.  As of 5:30 p.m. the rain had largely stopped in southern Vermont. Heavy rain was ongoing in northern Vermont but that should mostly end by 7 p.m.

However, there's a lot of runoff to make it downstream. Small streams and creeks have probably crested by now, or will soon. 

Larger rivers will keep rising tonight, and will crest late tonight or early Tuesday. Flood warnings remain in effect all over Vermont. 

It's probably best to stay off the road this evening, as you never know where the flooding is hitting. I've noticed several town roads across the state that don't usually flood are under water. When you're driving at night, you often don't see floodwaters ahead of you until it's too late.

High winds hit parts of Vermont during today's storm, cutting power to as many as 10,000 homes and businesses late this morning. Although winds might be gusty through tomorrow, they won't be damaging, so that's a glimmer of good news.

If you can find any optimism in this, the good news is we're getting a break from the extreme weather for a little while. Quiet weather is forecast through Christmas.

IN PERSPECTIVE

It wasn't just us in Vermont that got nailed by another round of destructive weather. The entire eastern United States suffered through this. Flash flooding was especially severe in South Carolina, New York and New Hampshire.

This storm was unusually strong, and especially unusually wet. It's rare indeed to have this much rain fall in New England during December.

Climate change has made damaging storms more intense and more frequent, and we saw that today here in Vermont. Of course I'll have more on that in the coming days as we pick up the pieces once again. 

During his late afternoon press briefing, Gov. Scott said, "We'll get through this. Vermonters are tough."

He's right. But unfortunately we'll have to get learn to get through more and more dangerous and disheartening weather events in the age of climate change. 

I guess we're in a brave new world. By that I mean, we'll need to be brave to live in it. 

 wa"We'll get through this, Vermonters are tough," Scott said.