Parts Of Vermont Still Snowbound, With No Electricity After "Wet Cement Snow"

A foot of cement like snow crushing a lilac bush and other
trees around my St. Albans, Vermont house this morning.
At least the power lines stayed up! 

The snow had mostly stopped falling across northern Vermont as of 10 a.m. Thursday after a two-day battle with heavy, wet snow.

I call it wet cement snow, and my sore back can attest to why I call it that after a couple days of shoveling this mess. And bonus! I've got plenty more shoveling to do today!

I shouldn't complain. Some people in Vermont have been without electricity for up to two days because of the storm's damage to power lines. Countless branches and trees have snapped under the weight of the snow, and many power lines fell with them.

As of 10 a.m. Thursday, more than 20,000 homes and businesses across Vermont were still without electricity, according to Vermont Outage Map.  It will take days for everyone to get their power back.

That particularly sucks in the winter, when it's chilly. Several Vermont communities have opened warming shelters for all those cold, electricity-starved residents.

The power stayed on at my St. Albans, house, but the trees are not doing so well. My Korean lilac is flattened. I hope it recovers. While I was shoveling snow yesterday, I could hear branches snapping in the woods, and occasionally in my yard. A few snaps sounded like pretty big branches. It's just warming up as of mid-morning, so the snow is starting to fall off the trees, thank goodness.

There's a brief video at the bottom of this post that shows how crushed and burdened the trees looked around my house this morning.

Storm totals included 24.1 inches in Rochester, Vemront, 17.7 inches in Greensboro and 16.5 inches in Westfield.

Snow depths on the ground are also pretty impressive in parts of Vermont for so early in the season. Rochester has 29 inches on the ground, and Westfield has 24 inches.

Trees sag under the weight of heavy, wet snow in my St. Albans, Vermont
yard this morning. Somewhere under that snow a Korean lilac is
being crushed by the weight. I hope it survives!

Yeah, like I keep saying, winter is early.

After a couple days break, we have another storm to contend with on Saturday night and Sunday. It'll be another sloppy mix of snow, sleet, ice and rain, going completely over to a cold rain for most of us by Sunday afternoon.

Yuck.

Normally, with all this snow on the ground and the prospect of rain, I'd worry a bit about flooding.

At this point, it doesn't look like it will rain hard enough to cause that kind of problem, though I'm sure we'll have nuisance water problems from snow-clogged drains and the like.

For you winter sports enthusiasts, the rain might be a bit of a bummer, but the warmth won't last long and not all the snow will melt. Especially in the mountains. Think of this upcoming unpleasantness as base-building.

It will turn chillier again starting next Monday. It's hard to say how much or when or even if it will snow next week, but knock on wood, I don't see any more blockbuster snowstorms for a little while. But that's uncertain, and things could change!

ROUGH WEATHER ELSEWHERE

It's not just Vermont that's having weather trouble this week. The same storm that got us here in the Green Mountain State is raising havoc in Nova Scotia, Canada. At last check 245,000 people there were without power due to high winds and wet snow.

The storm also cut power to at least 25,000 people in Maine.

The next tempest that will get us on Sunday - and other storms are causing problems across much on the United States. Winter storm watches extend in an arc through Montana, northeastern Wyoming and on into parts of Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and southern Minnesota as this storm gets cranking.

Those areas can expect snow, blowing snow, high winds and in some areas, ice.

The same storm is raising the risk of severe thunderstorms and maybe some tornadoes in and around Arkansas tomorrow.

Very welcome rain is falling on California, all the way into southern portions of the state. The only drawback to that is there's a risk of debris flows in places that had all those fires. There's nothing left to hold in the soil.

Ah, yes. Deal with it. Winter is definitely the season of stormy weather.

Here's the video of the snow trying to crush the trees around my St. Albans, Vermont house: