Vermont Flooding Subsiding, Winter Is Back, Too!

UPDATE:

Last report is Route 105 near Enosburg, Vermont and Route 15 near the Wrong Way Bridge in Cambridge have reopened because of receding water.

A few locations in Vermont got as much as 2.80 inches of rain out of that last storm, which is extraordinary for February.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

It's been quite an active week in the weather department here in Vermont.

From television station WCAX: Damaging
floods in Hardwick, Vermont Thursday. This
flood was made worse by an ice jam
on the nearby Lamoille River. 

We had that extraordinarily heavy rain with the latest storm midweek, which set off quite a bit of flooding across the Green Mountain State.

That flooding is subsiding as temperatures have plunged well below freezing. The rain has changed to snow and tapered off to flurries.

The reason for the flooding was that the strong storm system, the same one that touched off all the tornadoes across the eastern and southern United States this week, was able to tap into oodles and oodles of tropical moisture and send it north.

For much of the storm, Vermont was in a zone in which that highly unusual amount of moisture was forced to ride up and over a layer of relatively cool air.

The rising air squeezed a lot of the moisture out of the atmosphere, and dumped it as downpours on Vermont.   Getting two inches of rain in 24 hours in February is extremely rare in Vermont this time of year.

Ice jam on the Lamoille River near Johnson, Vermont
Thursday.  

Many places, including Burlington, had more precipitation in 24 hours than is normal for the entire month of February.

If no more rain or snow comes down on Burlington in the waning days of the month, this will be the seventh wettest February on record, with 3.14 inches.

The flooding in northern Vermont was complicated by ice jams. The surge of water from the rain coming into rivers broke up river ice, and some of it jammed against obstructions in the waterways.

One such jam caused a damaging flood in Hardwick, which forced evacuations and flooded homes and businesses.

The flooding also closed many roads in Vermont. Most, but not all of them, have reopened.

Another ice jam formed just downstream from Johnson, Vermont. I was there, It was huge, but thankfully didn't cause major flooding. Both me and meteorologists at the National Weather Service who saw photos I took of the jam were surprised by how thick some of the ice chunks were.

After all, it's been a warm winter, probably the warmest on record,  so you'd think the ice wouldn't thicken up that fast. My theory is there was very little snow covering new ice when it formed. So in the rare cold snaps that we did have, the ice was able to thicken because it wasn't insulated by cold.

High water cascades over a falls near
Fairfax, Vermont Thursday.  

Flood warnings were still up this morning for the lower reaches of many of the state's rivers as the crests moved downstream.

These included the Winooski, Missisquoi and Lamoille Rivers, and the Otter Creek. Water should slowly subside in those stretches of river today.

Still, there's trouble spots. I notice Route 15 in Cambridge is closed near the "Wrong Way Bridge" because water is still over the road.

Plus, with the one to three inches of snow and rapidly falling temperatures last night, a lot of roads in Vermont are slippery this morning, whether or not they were affected by flooding.

The weather pattern is still active. Another storm will probably come through Sunday night and Monday with some snow, rain and mixed precipitation again, but it won't be super heavy.

Another storm, very similar to the one we had this week that caused the flooding seems like it might come through Wednesday or Thursday, those this forecast is still very iffy.

One main difference between the possible storm next week and the one we just had: There won't be as much moisture available to it. Which means we might still get quite a bit of snow, ice and rain, it won't be as heavy as the last one, so the chances of renewed flooding don't look as great.

That's how it stands now anyway. We'll keep you posted.