Flooding Concerns Tonight; Damaging Winds, Additional Flooding Concerns & Accumulating Snow For Monday & Tuesday...
JRWeather FLOOD WATCH
JRWeather Has Issued A Flood Watch For Orleans, Essex, Lamoille, Caledonia, Washington, Orange, Windsor, Bennington, Windham, Eastern Franklin, Eastern Chittenden, Eastern Addison, and Eastern Rutland Counties in Vermont, and Southeastern St. Lawrence, Southern Franklin, Western Clinton, and Western Essex Counties Until Noontime Saturday.
Significant rainfall, combined with higher elevation snowmelt today could result in the potential of Flooding overnight and into early Saturday morning.
Temperatures in the low to mid 50'sF across the higher elevations has resulted in snowmelt and runoff, this combined with half to one inch of rain today, will likely result in rapid rises on area rivers, and resultant minor flooding. Additional rainfall of a tenth to locally a half inch is possible overnight, especially across Northern New York.
The rivers that are at an elevated risk of flooding right now are the Missisquoi River in Orleans County, The Otter Creek in Rutland County, The Batten Kill, and Walloomsac River in Bennington County, The Williams River in Windham, and Windsor Counties, and The East Branch of the Ausable river in Essex and Clinton Counties in New York.
Any flooding that does occur should remain minor.
A Flood watch is issued when there is the potential for flooding to occur, but not imminent. If you experience rapidly rising water, or nearby flooding, then move immediatly to higher ground. Stay tuned for further updates.
DISCUSSION
Its been a bit since I have posted, there hasnt been anything to significant, but things will continue to change over the next several days.
For tonight, rain showers will coninue across Vermont, with a more steady rain across Northern New York. Additional rainfall amounts of as little as a tenth of an inch to as much as one half inch are possible. This additional rain will likely aid in rapid rises on area rivers, and some minor flooding. Read the above Flood Watch for details on rivers that are at an elevated risk of flooding. Any remaining steady rain should tapper off tomorrow, and eventually mix with and change to snow across the higher elevations. Localized accumulations up to 2 inches are possible across the highest of elevations, such as Jay Peak. Mountains Valleys, and deeper lake, and river vallyes will only see a trace at best, during Saturday evening and overnight.
We will have a very breif break in the action on Sunday, before things get very interesting for Sunday Night to Tuesday. Medium, and long range models have been in very good agreement with this next system, and now thats its approaching the time frame for the short term models, it will be interesting to see what happens. Right now GFS, ECMWF, JMA, Canadian, and DGEX models all shows a significant strom system is expected to form. Each model has small discrepencies, but are overall in similar agreement. The most recent 18Z GFS model is the most robust showing a negative tilted 976mb low pressure center over Central New York, and an extremly tight pressure gradient, across much of the Northeast US. The gradient is impressivley tight across Vermont, and New Hampshire, slightly tighter then over Western New York, and Pennsylvania. If the 18Z GFS model were to verify with this incredibly tight southeast to northwest flow pressure gradient, this may be devistating to areas along the Western slopes of the Green mountains, especially from Cambridge, VT to Rutland, VT. Southeast winds have been known to funnel through mountain passes, and gaps, producing significantly strong winds to this specific area. The pressure gradient being shown by the 18Z GFS would be capable of producing locally devestating wind gusts in the 80 to perhaps 90MPH range in areas such as Cambrige, and Rutland VT. At this point I feel that the GFS is a bit overdone with its 976mb low over central NY, however I do feel that significant winds will occur, with a low pressure center from the 980-985mb range, which is still very significant. Even if the weaker low pressure system that I am forecasting is to verify, that would still result in isolated 70MPH wind gusts in areas such as Cambridge, and Rutland, with widespread 50MPH wind gusts across the entire region. I feel this storm will be mostly noted for its wind, rather then the potential flooding, or snowfall it may cause. The rain and snow aspect will be covered in the next paragraph.
Besides the potentially damaging winds with this system, the potential will result in potential flooding, and snowfall accumulations. This storm will tap into copious amounts of Atlantic, and even Gulf of Mexico moisture. This moisture will be rung out across the terrain of Vermont, and New York, as moderate to heavy rain, and possibly snow across the higher elevations, especially in Northern New York. Widespread rainfall totals in excess of an inch are possible. There may also be enough cold air dragged into this system to change the wind blown rain to mainly wind blown snow across portions of Northern New York. Early indications indicate that 4-8 inches of snow could accumulate across the higher elevations of the Northern and Central Adirondack mountains in Northern New York by Tuesday night. Across the Northern Green mountains, it will take longer for cold air to push in here, but with significant wrap around moisture expected, 3-6 inches is also likely in this area, by Wednesday. Localized amounts to near 9 inches could be possible near Jay Peak.
I would like to urge, this forecast is based on current indications, things have more then enough time to change, and likely will. Whether its for the better or worse, is not yet known. JRWeather will continue to monitor this storm system, and update you as soon as more data becomes available, if models continue to be in good agreement, then High Wind Watches, Flood Watches, and Perhaps a Winter Storm Watch may be needed as early as Saturday Night. Stay tunned to JRWeather, and your local media, and weather outlets for further updates on this upcoming storm.
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