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| An icy pine bough on my St. Albans, Vermont property this morning. Ice is much less thick than expected and I'm happy to see that so far, there's no storm damage at or near my home. |
It turns out, so far at least as of 6:30 a.m. , the freezing rain in northwest Vermont and northern New York is indeed bad, but not as bad as forecasts as recently as Saturday night said it would.
ICE SO FAR
Ice was definitely accumulating on the trees outside my St. Albans home as of 6:30 a.m., but so far at least, damage is very minor.
Power outages are not widespread yet in Vermont, with only scattered localized problems reported. Vermont Outage Map as of 8 a.m. had about 500 homes and businesses in Vermont without power, but that number has slowly been creeping up early this morning.
Most of the 30,000 or so outages in New York State as of 6 a.m. were in far western New York, where wind, not ice is the main problem.
We're not totally out of the woods yet, because many areas of northern New York and northern Vermont have a couple or few more hours of freezing rain to go. That will further weigh down trees and power lines that are already starting to sag, so we should still anticipate some problems as the morning and early afternoon wear on.
Winds have started to increase as of 8 a.m. and will continue to do so. That means some ice laden trees or branches might break, increasing the risk of power failures. But it still won't be as bad as we feared yesterday.
Ice is many areas is getting close to the point where it can start causing damage. Ice was 0.30 in hes thick in Clinton, New York; 0.22 inches thick in Plattsburgh, New York as of 6 a.m. and 0.17 inches thick in Burlington, Vermont. At 0.25 inches,you start to see minor damage, and damage becomes pretty widespread at 0.5 inches.
At my place in St. Albans, I was relieved to see ice only 0.15 inches thick on trees so far as of 7:30 a.m. Even if we get a little more ice, I don't anticipate much damage around my property. The worries I had for my trees before the storm yesterday turned out to be unnecessary.
Of course as conditions change this morning, I'll update this post, or put up additional breaking storm news.
Still, it looks like ice accumulations for most people in the ice storm zone have a good chance of turning out to be less than expected. The less ice the better, obviously.
Small differences in temperature made big differences as to what is happening out there. Saturday evening, temperatures crashed rapidly from the 50s to the 30s just as expected. But then, temperatures held just above freezing for a longer time period than anticipated. That delayed the onset of the freezing rain.
For instance, Plattsburgh, New York didn't touch 32 degrees until around 1 a.m. this morning. That was a good three or more hours later than expected. Which meant Plattsburgh "missed out" on three hours of freezing rain. I'm sure few people are disappointed by that.
The amount of precipitation was well forecast. As of 7 a.m. Plattsburgh had collected about 1.5 inches of rain and melted ice, which is exactly in line with forecasts.
Outside my house in St. Albans, Vermont, temperatures have hovered around 31 or 32 since after midnight. It's not that far below freezing, so things don't turn to ice quickly. As of 6 a.m., I was having a freezing rain downpour. It was coming down so hard that a lot of the water was running off trees and power lines before it could freeze.
It has since tapered off to a freezing sprinkle.
Needless to say, though, the roads are quite icy. Stay off them until the freezing rain stops and crews have a chance to clear them.
Not everybody seems to be escaping the ice. In parts of Ontario, Canada, there is an inch of ice on everything, and there's a LOT of damage as a result.
Maybe people will say this storm was hyped here in Vermont and New York and we were all crying wolf. But like I said, one or two degrees in temperature has so far made a big difference.
We'll see if things hold up well for the tail end of the storm.
FLOODING, RAIN, ODD TEMPERATURES
Flooding is still a concern as well, especially in northern and central Vermont. The hours of non-freeing rain was already pushing the Mississquoi River to flood stage early this morning. Many smaller creeks and streams are really high.
Other rivers, like the Lamoille, Winooski, Mad and Otter Creek, are still expected to reach flood stage, if they're not already there now.
The temperature contrast in southern Vermont continues to be amazing. At 6 a.m. Rutland was down to 34 degrees but Bennington was still at 62 degrees. And 62 degrees at dawn anywhere in Vermont in January is something to behold, for sure.
The rain and freezing rain in Vermont this morning will turn to a period of snow in many areas by or during this afternoon, but it won't amount to much. Maybe an inch or so here and there.
The weather will remain active through the upcoming week, but any systems that come through will be weak with only light precipitation.
A more substantial storm seems like it wants to hit around here next weekend, but it's too soon to say what that means for us.
DOWN SOUTH
While we might not have been hit as hard as expected with the storm in Vermont, the anticipated severe weather and tornadoes certainly hit the South. At least eight people died in the storms, and many homes and businesses were destroyed or damaged from Texas to Georgia.
At least 16 tornadoes touched down in the South since Friday although that number will probably rise as meteorologists inspect damage to determine if heavily hit areas had tornadoes or straight line winds.
A couple videos:
Damage from a violent tornado in Alabama Saturday. Notice how far debris and entire homes have been thrown:
More damage around Bossier City, Louisiana
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