Nor'easter Recap: A Memorable Humdinger Could Have Been Worse

A road washout after heavy rains from yesterday's nor'easter near
Lincoln, Vermont. Photo from WPTZ-TV

It was damp and still a little gusty outdoors in St. Albans, Vermont when I let the dogs out before dawn, but the persistent and strong nor'easter is getting out of our  hair after creating a very, very storm New England day Thursday.

One surefire way to measure a storm's relative strength is to measure its lowest air pressure.  (Storms are always areas of lower pressure.  By this measure, Thursday's storm in many areas of New England was the strongest October one on record.) 

For instance, the pressure at Boston fell to 975.3 millibars or 28.80 inches.  That's a very low pressure, and is something you might get if a dying hurricane from the south came across New England. Pretty impressive.

As noted yesterday, these kinds of storms produce lots of wind, and more than a half million people in the Northeast lost power during the storm.

Here in Vermont, Green Mountain Power, easily the state's largest utility, reported 25,000 homes and businesses without power.

Things were a lot better early this morning. Vermont Outage Map reported about 1,100 homes and other Vermont buildings without electricity just before dawn today.

Aside from lots of fallen trees and branches and broken power lines, the storm wasn't as damaging in Vermont as it could have been. In most places, the highest wind gusts stayed under 50 mph. (There were several exceptions, with less than a dozen Vermont towns reporting gusts higher than 50 mph.

Burlington looked like a mess yesterday, with tons and tons of small twigs and branches down, and minor street flooding from leaf-clogged storm drains. But as chaotic as the Queen City looked, there wasn't a whole lot of damage. Only a few trees came down and there was very little structural damage. if any.

We dodged a bullet with flooding, too. The heaviest rain fell in southern and western Vermont, mostly from  Burlington south.  Several towns reported well over three inches of rain, which a LOT for a single storm in Vermont.

Springfield had 4.4 inches, Rutland clocked in with 3.78 inches, Bridport was close with 3.72 inches and Bethel had 3.2 inches.

The heaviest rain seemed to fall on the parts of Vermont that before the storm were the driest. (northern and especially northeastern Vermont were drier than further south and west before the storm. And the nor'easter dropped less rain in the Northeast Kingdom than elsewhere in the state.

Had it been very wet before this storm, there would have been significant flooding. This time, only minor flooding and relatively inconsequential washouts were reported. The Otter Creek hit minor flood stage and a couple roads near Middlebury closed due to high water.

WPTZ-TV also reported a road washout in Lincoln, high water on the New Haven River and water across the road along Route 116 in Bristol.

With this storm and others, October, 2019 is turning into a wet month in Vermont, especially in the north. Burlington has so far had just under four inches of rain so far this month. Normal for all of October is a little over three inches. The wettest October in Burlington was in 1918, with 6.75 inches.

Here at my house in St. Albans, I've unofficially collected 4.8 of rain this month, including 2.25 inches from the nor'easter yesterday.

On top of that, more rain is on the way. Possibly a fair amount, too. A messy system in the Gulf of Mexico is expected to become Tropical or Subtropical Storm Nestor later today and the weekend.

This will cause heavy rain, storm surges and other severe weather over the weekend near the Gulf Coast.. Meanwhile, another strong storm and cold front will start to march toward us from the Midwest early next week.

By Tuesday into Wednesday, moisture from the Atlantic, Gulf and maybe wannabe Nestor, and the dynamic cold front from the west  could dump a good bit of rain on us. Nobody knows precisely how much yet, but early indications are it won't be as much as we got yesterday.  Which is good, because a repeat of Thursday would bring us a flood problem.

Longer range forecasts are iffy, but for what they're worth, these forecasts predict wetter than normal conditions in Vermont through the end of October.

Storm Recap: No Tornadoes, But Definitely Scattered Vermont Damage

Flooding after a torrential thunderstorm in
Burlington, Vermont on Tuesday. 

As expected, several lines of storms swept through Vermont, New York and the rest of the Northeast on Tuesday.  

Seems like the hardest hit places were the western Adirondacks, Addison County, Vermont, northeastern Vermont and the far southern counties of the state.

There had been a tornado watch for northwestern Vermont and much of New York state.

I'm not aware of any twisters in Vermont, but meteorologists will inspect damage in central and western New York to determine if any tornadoes touched down.

There were quite a few reports of wind damage. Most of it involved trees and wires down, but in a couple places things got even more extreme.

In Vergennes, a barn roof blew off and other outbuildings were damaged. Green Mountain Power reported about 1,200 customers without power.

In Burlington, the wind wasn't too bad. It got windy and there were some small branches down. Winds at the National Weather Service office in South Burlington gusted to 47 mph, which is pretty decent for a summer storm.

But the highlight was the torrential rain. Given the high humidity in the air, the downpour was absolutely wild. Some streets were flooded and I saw at least one car stall out when the motorist foolishly tried to drive through deep water on Lakeside Avenue.

I made a rough cut video of the torrential Burlington rain and flooding. I didn't bother with nice production values, so excuse the amateur nature of the video, which you can see at the bottom of this post.

One interesting phenomenon I saw with these lines of storms was they'd be very powerful and severe as the got most of the way through Adirondacks of New York as they rumbled eastbound.

On the eastern slopes of the Adirondacks, the storms would all weaken incredibly rapidly to just broad areas of moderate to briefly heavy rain.

Taking some street flooding in Burlington, Vermont too
fast after a torrential thunderstorm Tuesday/ 

The storms would then start to quickly regenerate over Lake Champlain, and become locally severe again as they headed toward the western slopes of Vermont's Green Mountains and beyond.

I asked a National Weather Service meteorologist in South Burlington, who said when there's an overall southwesterly airflow, as there was Tuesday, thunderstorms will often weaken in the eastern Adirondacks.

As air flows over the mountains, in descends on the east slopes. Descending air is killer for storms as they need strong updrafts to survive.

Once the remnants of the storms got over Lake Champlain, the air was once again unstable and rising, so the storms could begin to form again.

The storms are obviously over, so we don't have to worry about more severe weather. We've now launched into an extended period of dry, cool weather. Basically a fall preview.

Temperatures will be near normal today, but several towns won't even break 70 degrees Thursday, Friday and maybe Saturday.

Humidity will be low, and nights will be noticeably chilly. Look for lots of 40s at night, with some upper 30s in the cold spots over the next few nights.

Autumn is on the way.

Here's the storm video from Burlington Tuesday: