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| Strong winds early this morning ripped siding off my St. Albans, Vermont house near the front door and cut power to the house, too. (It was still too dark early this morning to get photos of more dramatic damage.) |
Damage is extensive. This blog will just have a few examples, but the bottom line is, take your time getting to work this morning.
There's lots of power failures, lots of traffic lights not working, lots of debris on the roads in Vermont and throughout the Northeast.
Many major roads in Vermont are closed, or were at least closed earlier this morning due to fallen trees, power lines and debris. These routes include Vermont 116 in Hinesburg, U.S 2 in East Montpelier, Calais and Plainfield; Vermont 15 in Jericho and Underhill, and several main roads in Colchester, says Vermont Public Radio
The heavily traveled commuter route I live on Route 36 is closed between St. Albans, just above my house, all the way to Bakersfield.
At my St. Albans, Vermont house, I would say several gusts exceeded 60 mph, which was common to the west of the Green Mountains. My power is out, and was out for most of the rest of St. Albans earlier.
Siding has been ripped off my house, and trees are down everywhere.
Since the power is out, I'm doing this blog from a convenience store in St. Albans, which does have power, for now. I'm overhearing plenty of customers saying they had to take long detours to get around roads blocked by trees and power lines. The gas pumps aren't working here.
Elsewhere in the region, fallen trees had blocked southbound lanes of Interstate 89 in Georgia, Vermont earlier, and the town of Milton is advising no travel through that town because of trees and debris in the streets.
Winds gusted to 63 mph at the National Weather Service office in South Burlington, Vermont. Wells, Vermont reported a gust to 78 mph and the top of Mount Mansfield gusted to 115 mph.
Many schools are closed. No fewer than 58,000 homes and businesses in Vermont were without power early this morning, affecting more than 100,000 people.
This is easily Vermont's worst wind storm since December, 2012, if not longer.
Elsewhere in New England, 270,000 people were without power in Massachusetts. In and around Boston, several roads and closed by fallen trees. Several homes have been hit by falling trees. In Portland, Maine, power flashes were going off everywhere as trees and limbs collapsed onto power lines in the gales.
In the White Mountains of New Hampshire, a serious flash flood situation was evolving this morning. The strong upslope winds wrung out heavy rains. Radars estimate that six inches of rain has fallen there.
As of 6 a.m., the wind has tapered off slightly in Vermont, but is still strong, and will remain a threat for a few more hours. The wind will shift from southeasterly to westerly. That will diminish the strength of the winds somewhat on the western slopes of the Green Mountains, but could increase the gusts in places that have largely escaped the worst of the winds.
It could take days to restore power in some areas of Vermont and surrounding states because the damage is so extensive. And the wind gusts will cause more power lines to fail in Vermont and the rest of the Northeast today, slowing the recovery efforts.
It's been an extreme autumn in the weather department here in Vermont and this was another example. But it was just the most destructive example of the oddball weather we've had.
As testimony of how strong the wind is, barometric pressures are near record lows in northern New York and western Vermont. I noticed the sea level pressure at Burlington was at 28.84 inches this morning, the lowest I've seen in many years. The pressure was down to 28.77 in Saranac Lake, closer to the storm's center.
I'll update as time and circumstances allow. Be careful out there this morning, even if the wind has tapered off where you are. You might still encounter fallen trees debris, power lines and such for the rest of the day.
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