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| Floodwater from Lake Champlain surrounds a mobile home in Alburgh, Vermont on Thursday. |
Some of the issues are here in Vermont, others are relatively far from home. So let's get into it:
LAKE CHAMPLAIN: Minor flooding continues on the lake, but the water is high enough to cause some trouble and damage. I've noticed some erosion of back yards that touch the lake in some areas of the shoreline.
The lake level this morning was right around 100.7 feet, or 7/10ths of a foot above flood stage. Some gusty southeast winds could cause erosion on the New York side of the lake today. Plus those persistent winds will "tilt" the lake, pushing water higher into the north end. Flooding will get a little worse, temporarily at least, up north by Alburgh and those areas.
Saturday, relatively gusty winds will switch around to the west, causing some wave action to screw around with the Vermont shore. Luckily, so far, we're not anticipating any huge, tremendous wind storms which would make shoreline damage a lot worse. But the expected one to two foot waves can still cause trouble.
The storm today and tonight will drop between a half inch to an inch of rain. River flooding isn't expected here in Vermont from this, but the water in those rivers will probably rise enough to keep Lake Champlain going up for a few days, possibly reaching 101 feet. At the very least, it won't recede anytime soon.
THOSE WINDS: The winds on the western slopes of the Green Mountains today will become pretty strong, especially this afternoon. Gusts could reach 50 mph or higher, so there will be a few power outages and tree branches down in those regions.
Elsewhere, winds could gust over 30 mph, making for a raw, chilly day, with highs in the 40s east, low 50s west.
THAT RAIN: As mentioned, aside from Lake Champlain, today and tonight's storm won't cause renewed flood trouble in Vermont, but might well do so in New Hampshire and Maine.
Up there, it will rain harder and there is still more snow to melt in the mountains. One to three inches of rain is expected in central and northern New Hampshire and western Maine. That's where the most mountain snow still remains, making it a double whammy. They've already had flooding this month, and flood watches are up again, as it looks like another round of high water is in the offing in northeastern New England.
SAY IT AIN'T SNOW
Here in northern New England, a pretty nasty chunk of chilly air will follow today's storm. In the mountains, high temperatures Saturday won't get out of the 30s. Valleys will be in the chilly 40s. The higher elevations could get a dusting to a few inches of snow Saturday. A few rogue flakes could easily reach valley floors.
This isn't unheard of this time of year, obviously, but it's still unwelcome.
And it's not as bad as southern Minnesota, Wisconsin and northern Iowa are under a winter storm watch for Saturday. These areas could get four to nine inches of snow out of a storm scooting through. That's pretty far south for a winter storm this time of year, and I'm sure they're hating it out there.
This storm will eventually affect mostly southern Vermont, but it will bring some rain, but not much snow. There could be a mix of rain and snow in some mountains Sunday, we'll see.
SEVERE WEATHER
Today's storm system brings the risk of severe thunderstorms and maybe some tornadoes to the Mid-Atlantic States. This continues a trend that seems to have started last year, in which tornadoes are touching down with seemingly greater frequency on the East Coast.
There have already been damaging tornadoes this year from Pennsylvania through Virginia down into the Southeast. Today's threat is from southeastern Pennsylvania down through Delaware, eastern Maryland, Virginia and into eastern South Carolina.
Obviously, no severe storms are expected up here in Vermont, but there's a chance we could hear a rumble of thunder overnight.
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