Power Failures Hit As Surprising Amounts Of Snow Fall In Vermont High Spots

From Twitter: Rina Knapp snapped this
midwinter looking photo at Mad River Glen
in Vermont on Friday. 

It snowed again Friday in parts of Vermont and surrounding states, and some of the high elevations picked up some incredible amounts of snow in one week.

At least by October standards.

Jay Peak had about 30 inches of new snow since last Saturday. The Bolton Valley Ski Area had at least 19 inches.

That would represent a pretty golden week in the middle of winter, never mind October.

Although only one Vermont ski area has officially opened (Killington) a lot of people hiked up to the the summits to enjoy some very early season skiing.

The snow came at a price for some people. At mid elevations, the latest dump of snow deposited three to six inches of slush in some spots.

Due to what had been a very warm autumn up until a week ago, there's still a lot more leaves on the trees than there normally are at the end of October.

I can't believe how many colorful sugar maple leaves are still up around my St. Albans, Vermont house at the cusp of Halloween, though only traces of snow fell on my relatively low elevation property over the past week. I've never seen such decent fall foliage so late in the season.

Generally, lower elevations across the North Country did not receive any unusual amounts of snow for October. Just typical Vermont stuff.

Higher up in elevation, the wet snow collected on all those remaining leaves, and that tugged down trees, branches and power lines.

Green Mountain Power reported as many as 32,000 homes and businesses in Vermont without power at various times Thursday night and Friday.

Had the leaves been off the trees, I'm sure the power failures would have been much fewer and farther between.

We're now about to get into a warmer and somewhat drier pattern, so this early shot of love for snow enthusiasts is just about over. (There might have been a little snow falling on the mountain peaks this morning, but it would change to rain.)

The snow lovers will cry to see all their high elevation snow melt, but they'll surely get their chance later this winter.

With the weather turning a bit milder again, it looks like we can finish putting our gardens to bed and buttoning up for the winter without battling snow and bone chilling winds. That will be a nice reprieve.