Thursday Morning Vermont/New York Storm Update

Power blackouts and very snowy roads in
Vermont last evening. Photo by Philip Tortora,
@PhilipTortora, via Twitter.  

Well, the worst is over, but that doesn't mean it's completely over.

Late Wednesday afternoon and evening, an ill-timed band of heavier snow crossed Vermont and into eastern New York.

In Vermont, this band caused havoc, especially in and around Burlington, Vermont. The snow was wet and heavy and the roads became snow clogged nightmares.

Many people got stuck, mostly because they had bad tires, I think. Some of them were idiots who blew off getting decent tires to waste their money on, I don't know, stuff from the Nordstrom catalog.

Many others with bad tires were people who had gotten stuck at work at their low paying jobs, and can't afford decent tires. When they tried to drive home in last night's mess, they got stuck, too.

And everybody else had to wait behind them. There were epic traffic tie-ups. Worse, local bus service suspended runs because of the weather. Worse yet, there were renewed power failures. Traffic signals don't work well when there's no electricity, do they?

There were some impressive snow totals: 20 inches in Altona, N.Y.; 19 inches in Au Sable Forks, N.Y. and in Orwell and Bristol, Vermont. Underhill and North Pomphret Vermont got 17 inches.

Like I said, it's not quite over, but it won't be nearly as bad as yesterday.

The storm has, as expected, stalled over New England and is weakening. There will be periods of snow, maybe mixed with rain during the day across northern New England through Friday night.

Some of the ski areas could pick up another six to 12 inches over the next two or three days, on top of the big dumps they got with the main storm.

Valleys of northern New York, Vermont and New Hampshire might get 1 to 5 inches of additional snow between now and Friday night.

Roads are still bad out there, so take your time driving to work in those areas hit by the snow. This includes you, out there in Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester and other hard hit areas of New York.

In Vermont, the winter storm warning has been downgraded to a winter weather advisory because of the slick roads, and continuing spotty light snow and freezing drizzle.

Power failures are still a big problem. About 20,000 homes and businesses in Vermont were still without power as of 5:30 a.m. Thursday, says Vermont Outage Map.

Green Mountain Power, Vermont's largest utility, has more than 15,000 outages. Like their smaller counterparts in Vermont, GMP often restored power to one area, only to see power lines snap under the weight of wet snow and ice elsewhere. So the overall amount of power failures has stayed roughly the same since yesterday morning.

Since the snow is lighter today, the utilities will make progress restoring power. Despite their incredibly hard work in Vermont, though, I bet some places won't have power until Friday or Saturday. The damage from the wet snow is that bad.