[H]eavy rains swept through the state on Thursday, taking out parts of a road in Greensboro Bend and leaving almost everybody else damp.
Worcester-based meteorologist Roger Hill, who reports the weather for Radio Vermont, said that the storm took almost exactly the trajectory predicted.
“The models did a very good job on this,” he said. “To me, it looks like it followed kind of the general idea.”
The rain hit Rutland and Addison the hardest, with smaller effects in Chittenden County and the Northeast Kingdom. There were also some power outages and road closures, especially in the Hardwick area.
Thursday’s storm comes a little over two months after a more serious weather event caused statewide flooding in April. According to Vermont Emergency Management officer Mark Bosma, towns are still in the process of rebuilding.
President Donald Trump recently declared a major disaster in six Vermont counties because of the April flooding. They are now entitled to federal reimbursement for 75% of their rebuilding costs. The counties in question are Bennington, Essex, Orange, Rutland, Washington and Windsor.
“Federal funding is critical simply because it mitigates the cost of repairs to a town’s bottom line,” Bosma wrote in an emailed statement. “Towns budget what they need for regular maintenance, a storm that leaves behind, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages is devastating to the bottom line, and quite often, money the town doesn’t have.”
This time around, the flooding damage was less destructive than in April. According to Hill, however, Vermont’s pattern of flooding is linked to the broader effects of climate change — and it could be a sign of more extreme weather to come.
“How do you not talk about climate?” he asked. “That’s what we’re seeing here. If anything, Vermont is prone to flooding issues, and that’s going to be the future, unfortunately.”
He added that changes to the climate will also mean more clouds than sunshine. “So,” he said, “get ready for the jungle in Vermont.”