powderfreak

Another rainy day. About to swallow an Uzi if I can't get outside again. We've had a month's worth of rain since Thursday.

There’s just debris everywhere. This is along RT 100 in Stowe heading to Morrisville… I’m not even sure where the waterway is but there’s just trees littered throughout the fields. Still water and mud flowing out of the hillsides. That escalated so fast yesterday. Still crazy to me how sitting at the mountain it was fine, fine, fine, then every waterway exploded at once and it was very not fine. It felt like in 30 seconds every single creek went from routine to holy crap.

It’s interesting that despite the high-end severe risk, with wind and TORs possible, the rainfall was by far the most impactful element. It rained hard. It was a “this is going to be a problem” type rainfall. I was in a vehicle at 1800ft at work during it… and after watching weather on this mountain for 15 years, this rainfall was a sign of problems in lower elevations if it was flashing like this up high. I alerted BTV to the situation at the mountain and they issued the first Flash Flood Warning immediately. WGUS51 KBTV 232044 FFWBTV VTC005-007-015-023-232345- /O.NEW.KBTV.FF.W.0001.240623T2044Z-240623T2345Z/ /00000.0.ER.000000T0000Z.000000T0000Z.000000T0000Z.OO/ BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED Flash Flood Warning National Weather Service Burlington VT 444 PM EDT Sun Jun 23 2024 The National Weather Service in Burlington has issued a * Flash Flood Warning for... Northern Washington County in central Vermont... Western Caledonia County in northeastern Vermont... East Central Chittenden County in northwestern Vermont... Southern Lamoille County in northwestern Vermont... * Until 745 PM EDT. * At 444 PM EDT, Thunderstorms producing heavy rain in steep terrain is driving flash flooding in the vicinity of Mount Mansfield. Between 1 and 2 inches of rain have fallen. The expected rainfall rate is 1 to 2 inches in 30 minutes. Flash flooding is already occurring. HAZARD...Flash flooding caused by thunderstorms. SOURCE...Public reported. IMPACT...Flash flooding of small creeks and streams, urban areas, highways, streets and underpasses as well as other poor drainage and low-lying areas. * Some locations that will experience flash flooding include... Morrisville, Worcester, Stowe, Middlesex, Morristown, Elmore, Morrisville Village, Waterbury, Waterbury Village, Calais, East Montpelier, Moretown, Hyde Park, Woodbury, Wolcott, Underhill State Park, Duxbury, Bolton, Cambridge and Underhill. This warning was soon updated with law enforcement reporting multiple washouts and roads out across the area. I give BTV credit for accepting my observations as fact in the moment (that the rainfall was going to be a problem) and they acted on it. Subsequent downstream flooding in Stowe and the Worcester Range was severe, but they were able to get the warnings out quick. I don’t think flash flooding was the primary concern but it’ll be the most costly part of these storms.

It’s been a topic of conversation up here. The flash floods and larger river flooding has been a lot more frequent than anyone can remember. A couple widespread flooding events have set all-time river levels across a large chuck of real estate in recent years. On top of that there has been a propensity for locally high-end destructive flash flood events in many New England towns. The warm departures have consequences, if you could call it that. Naturally more heat and moisture (higher temps and dews) in the means will lead to more precipitation. And more acute, tropical style rainfall. We can’t keep pumping 70F sfc dews into the mountains, add synoptic lift with the low level orographics as the low level jet gets excited… and expect any different outcome than torrential rain somewhere in New England. The departures the past 10 years have been healthy. It has not been a gradual rise. It’s accelerated and has produced numerous acute rainfall events across New England.

This stuff is pretty nuts. North Hollow Road in Stowe. This is such a small waterway that just got smoked with torrential rainfall. Normally it’s barely got water in it, a trickle.

From wife’s best friend's house… they had high and swift water moving through their backyard where the true creek is located (usually like a couple feet across type creek). But it was so overwhelmed with water, it had jumped the bank upstream and raged down the road. Local stations maxed at around 5-6”/hr rainfall rates… and some spots had as much as 2-3” in a very short period of time. Also happened after several days of good rains primed the environment for maximizing run-off. Bailing off the island with deep swift water behind the house, and a road cut flowing in the front. With more rain moving in at the time.

Here we go again. Torrential rain at a 2.50”/hr rate. Gonna push 3” on the day here shortly.

We do flash flooding well. Going to Moss Glens Falls in Stowe.

2.28” today including the morning round.

Holy crap at that rain.

Dews went from 61F to 68F at MVL ASOS after the warm front. Getting some juice in here now.

Think the front is through here. Ceilings just lifted over 1,000ft up the mountain rapidly with some clearing and it’s noticeably more humid/warm than it was just a half hour ago.

Its 85/73 at DDH… that seems warm and juicy.

Another 0.46” rain this morning in the low 60s. Great weekend, yikes.

I think I’d like to be on an axis of NW CT through C MA and especially in S NH to adjacent SW ME between 18-00z tomorrow. Warmth and moisture surging ahead of height falls, prime timing, and less earlier clouds/precip limiting instability (compared to areas N/NW)… good swath to watch there through C NE. Area of concern is just SE of these radar echoes… where things would blow up.

Thats a lot of white. The two that have smoked my dog in her life were largely black with a narrow white stripe down them.

Cool graphical look at how wild that 96/80 max/min was at BTV compared to the record books. Red dot is Wednesday’s temps compared to the data set going back to 1883. The purple dot next to it is 7/2/2018 when it was 97/80.

Another half inch drink late last night and this morning. We've had around 2" the past couple days.

We TOR tomorrow?

Before this heater we were seeing dews of 30s and 40s for a stretch. 61F to me is still humid. Pretty wild it was like 36F at 5am before this heater, then it was 80F at 5am during it.

73/61. Only the last few days can make a dew of 61F feel dry.

Was April the only month sort of like normal in the past like 8 months? Just the baseline right now seems so high. Not sure what needs to change but I’d put my money on high minimums at the very least each summer now… those overnight temps really pump the departures each summer now.

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch. I’d bet top 5 is likely most years now. At least through high minimums.

We got lucky with a nice soak here along the river and Stowe CC. One final round moving through, might get to 1.5”? A couple cells maxed out overhead, maybe feeding on the warmth/moisture pooling in the valley.

Just barely over an inch as the stratus is slightly over flowing. We needed it. Looks like we may have one more round to go.