Vermont’s raging rivers began to fall late Tuesday after exacting catastrophic damage across the state.
“They are all coming down or cresting right now,” National Weather Service meteorologist Rebecca Duell said around 9:30 p.m. “We are not expecting additional rises on the rivers at this point.”
After more than 36 hours of rainfall and widespread flash floods on Monday, the greatest threat to Vermont on Tuesday became the state’s mainstem rivers, which gathered force as they drained the Green Mountains into Lake Champlain and the Connecticut River. They jumped their banks and poured into towns and cities — and, for a time, threatened to spill over dams.
Several rivers reached record highs, while others came close to matching those set in 2011 during Tropical Storm Irene, Duell said. The Lamoille River exceeded Irene levels in Johnson and Jeffersonville, as did the Barton River in Coventry. The Winooski River ran higher in Montpelier than during Irene, but lower in Waterbury and elsewhere downstream.
“This is definitely comparable to some of the biggest events in our history,” Duell said, noting that the data was hard to compare to the Great Flood of 1927 due to changes in methodology.
By Tuesday morning, the Winooski had crested in Montpelier, where it flooded the streets and threatened the nearby Wrightsville Dam. (Officials later said that crisis had been averted.) By Tuesday night, the river was cresting downstream in Essex Junction, according to National Weather Service readings.
Levels on the Lamoille, Missisquoi, White, West and Wells rivers, along with the Otter Creek, were also dropping.
The flooding was precipitated by nearly unprecedented rainfall. New data released by the National Weather Service Tuesday afternoon summed up for the first time the extent of the downpour over the preceding 38 hours.
Some of the greatest rainfall was recorded in Calais (9.2 inches), Plymouth (9.05), Mt. Holly (8.66), Andover (8.65), Randolph (8.06) and Middlesex (8.03), according to the weather service.
“It was incredibly impressive in terms of rainfall amounts and rainfall intensity,” Duell said, adding that she’d “never seen anything like this” in her 15 years in the profession.
Duell said the state could expect drier conditions on Wednesday, as rescue and recovery work continues. But on Thursday and especially Friday, the chance of thunderstorms and showers is expected to increase, she said.
Any storms that arise later in the week are likely to be localized, not widespread, Duell said.
“But the main concern is that there’s nowhere for the water to go,” she continued. Not only are soils saturated and rivers high, but culverts and other water control mechanisms are washed out.
As temperatures remain warm and muggy, Duell said, Vermonters should continue to avoid fast-flowing waters.
“A lot of people are going to want to go outside and cool off,” she said. “But local swimming holes with all the recent rainfall are pretty dangerous right now. … It may look calm on the surface, but your best bet is to stick to the swimming pools right now until this calms down.”
