Flood Forecast Update: Northern Vermont Targeted Most, We Think

The National Weather Service in South Burlington, Vermont has
this rain forecast out. Areas in dark green are expected to get
at least an inch of rain. Yellow areas can expect at least 1.5 inches.

The forecast hasn't changed much since yesterday, and there remains a definite concern over flooding in and near Vermont, especially overnight and into Saturday. 

Right now at least, the risk of flooding seems highest over northern New York and Vermont north of Route 2 tonight and tomorrow morning, but people south of those locations need to keep their eyes out for high water, too.

In fact, flood watches cover a vast area from northern Maine, through most of New England and down through eastern Pennsylvania, Maryland and northern Virginia because of this potent storm.

Further south, there's a pretty good risk of severe thunderstorms with high winds and a few tornadoes in Virginia and the Carolinas today. At least there will be no severe thunderstorms, just a bunch of rain up in our neck of the woods.

Most of the rain during the day today will be in northern New York and edging into far northwestern Vermont. Lots of wet air streaming north from the storm to our south and west is feeding into a cold front that's coming into the northern reaches of New York.  You can feel that warm, humid-ish air in much of Vermont this morning.

At dawn, temperatures in the Champlain Valley were in the upper 50s, which wouldn't be far from normal at dawn in July.

That front is slowly sagging southeastward, and with it, the rain.

The question overnight is how far south the cold front gets.  Rain will be be focused near the cold front, and rain will be heavy at times along it If the front goes further south than expected, then the rain goes further south, too.

The steady rain and mountain snow melt will feed into rivers and most of them in the region, especially in the northern half of the state, are likely to go into at least minor flood stage.

I mentioned there will be no severe thunderstorms, but there might well be embedded heavy downpours and local peals of thunder late today and overnight.  This would create pockets of sharp flash flooding, much like we saw in parts of Rutland and Windsor counties early Monday.

The best chances of this happening are over the Adirondacks, the northern Green Mountains and perhaps the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Overall, the National Weather Service in South Burlington is thinking many areas of Vermont and northern New York will get an inch of rain, with a few pockets getting two or even more inches of rain. That's plenty to create flooding, especially with already high water levels, snowmelt and wet ground

By the way, things look really bad up in northern Maine, where there's still a ton of snow on the ground and forecasts call for two to three inches of rain up there. Expect major flooding in northern and central Maine out of this one.

As mentioned Saturday, forecasters are watching a new surge of moisture that could touch off heavy downpours with showers and thunderstorms Saturday afternoon. At this point, most of those look like they will head through southern New England and probably on into New Hampshire and Maine.

But that will be watched, in case they back up into Vermont after all.

Lake Champlain, which is now under a flood warning, was interesting yesterday. Strong south winds actually tilted the lake on Thursday, pushing water to the northern end. Up at Rousses Point in the north, the lake rose to around its 100 foot flood stage. Much further south in Burlington, the lake level actually fell about a tenth of a foot because the water had been pushed north.

Overall, the lake is going to reach its 100-foot flood stage this weekend, so if you have property along the lake, you'll want to protect it as much as you can from waves, erosion and such.

I'm not sure if the lake will get to a more serious 101-foot level. It all depends on how much rain falls in the coming couple of weeks and how heavy any downpours are.

Easter Sunday, after the likely floods of Saturday, actually looks quite nice. It'll be warm, with temperatures well up into the 60s. Skies will be partly sunny and there's only a low chance of scatterered showers.

More showers will pop up Monday and Tuesday, but at the moment, they don't look especially heavy.