A storm heading into Vermont on Christmas Eve could flood rivers and roads and down power lines, though it’s not expected to cause any disasters.
Precipitation is expected to start Thursday afternoon and increase steadily overnight and into Christmas morning. Winds could gust up to 50 miles an hour, with bursts of 35 to 45 miles an hour expected throughout the night, particularly on Vermont’s western slopes.
“But it looks like it’s going to be pretty steady throughout the day as far as breeziness and gustiness goes,” said Robert Haynes, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Burlington.
Haynes said isolated power outages are possible — but more likely, he said, is flooding. A flood watch was posted for Southern Vermont going into the storm, and has since been extended as far north as Washington, Chittenden and Orange counties.
One to 3 inches of rain is expected in much of the state, though some areas could get as much as 3 inches, Haynes said.
“Our main concern is Rutland and Windsor county, where they had all that snow just a week ago,” Haynes said. “As that melts, we’ll have a lot of water flowing into our major rivers.”
Otter Creek in Rutland could flood Door Drive, Park Street and even parts of Route 4, if the flooding is intense enough, Haynes said. The weather service is also watching the Mad River in Moretown and the Winooski River in Essex Junction and Waterbury for flooding.
The holiday is also expected to come just shy of breaking temperature records for most parts of the state. Temperatures are expected in the low 60s on Dec. 25 in much of Vermont, though it was even warmer on the Christmases of 1982 and 1964, Haynes said.
The unseasonably warm weather stems from moist tropical air making its way north through a “highly amplified jet pattern,” Haynes said. “When we get these big troughs that posit themselves just to our west and then linger for a few days, as this one has, temperatures tend to warm up.”
The one bright side of the storm, Haynes said, is that icy roads on the backside of the rain appear pretty unlikely.
“The 35- to 45-mile-per-hour winds should help dry the roadways just in time,” Haynes said. “So the potential for flash freeze as we head from Friday night into Saturday morning looks a little less likely — that’s the silver lining here.”
