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all hell breaks loose When descending the narrow defiles of the upper slopes, the mass of water is given an irresistible force by gravity, causing extensive erosion of soil and ground cover. Fields of crops are covered and roadways washed away. c David M. Ludlum, The Vermont Weather Book when it comes to natural disasters, Vermont is fairly lucky. The state experiences very few tornadoes. Winds rarely top fifty miles per hour in the valleys. Summertime temperatures infrequently hit 100 degrees. And earthquakes—if they are felt—do little more than rattle the china cabinet. The most frequent statewide weather events worthy of note are snowstorms—Nor’easters that blow up the East Coast in winter and can dump feet of snow in the Green Mountains. With ten major ski resorts and at least nine smaller ski areas in Vermont, from tiny Coch­ ran’s in Richmond to giant Killington, the state drew more than 4.3 million skiers to the snowy pistes in winter 2010–11. Tourism dollars brought to the state by skiers account for $750 million a year in direct spending. So the storms are mostly welcome—except when Vermonters have to shovel the snow, or drive in it. The state does experience periodic flooding, but it tends to be localized . According to David M. Ludlum in The Vermont Weather Book, the first recorded flood—or freshet (a deceivingly appealing word), as it was called back then—in Vermont occurred in January 1770, when a rainstorm inundated all of New England. Details are few, but it was noted in the Annals of Brattleboro that an island in the Connecticut River was under water. Ludlum then describes twenty-three more floods that occurred in the state over the next two hundred years, ending with Hur4 Shinn - Deluge.indb 38 6/5/2013 1:04:17 PM All Hell Breaks Loose 39 ricane Belle’s flooding in August of 1976. It works out to an average of one devastating flood somewhere in the state once every 8.3 years. In the second half of the twentieth century, flood damage tallied at almost $17 million in the state. Often, damaging flooding in Vermont is caused by intense thunderstorms that travel across the state in the late spring or summer—as happened in towns from Cabot to Montpelier on the evening of May 26, 2011. On that warm, humid spring evening, a series of strong thunder cells paraded across Vermont. One of the largest stalled over Washington County and parts of Caledonia County in the north-central and northeastern parts of the state and dumped up to six inches of rain in six hours near the headwaters of the Winooski River. In Cabot, a stream overflowed a culvert that runs under the tiny downtown and washed out the town garage and the hardware store’s parking area. Up the street, trees washed up against a bridge, creating a dam that caused the torrent to overflow the road and erode it deeply. Twenty miles south, the town of Barre was buried in up to three feet of silt when the floodwater receded. Although devastating, the flooding was localized. The state also experiences less violent flooding, when ice jams in winter or runoff in spring may cause what is referred to as localized inundation flooding—especially after heavy snow years. In the spring of 2011, after the third snowiest winter on record (with 128.4 inches of snow recorded in Burlington) and record rainfall between March and May (24 inches), Lake Champlain rose to its highest recorded level. In Burlington , the lake hit 103.27 feet on May 6, more than three feet above flood stage. It did not drop below flood stage for well over a month (June 19). Flooding damaged lakeside houses, overflowed roads and the causeway leading to the Grand Isles, and closed marinas and beaches. Every few decades, the state experiences flooding on a more statewide basis. The worst such flood occurred in 1927. It hit unexpectedly over the course of two days in early November that year and became Vermont ’s worst statewide disaster. It all started after a very wet October, in which total rainfall was 50 percent higher than normal. By early November , locals were finally enjoying warm air and fair skies. On Wednesday, November 2, 1927, the Rutland Herald weather forecast called for fair weather, showers overnight, and a return to fair but colder conditions on Thursday. Shinn - Deluge.indb 39 6/5/2013 1...

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