Flood — Franklin, Vermont

2023-12-18 to 2023-12-19 · near Missisquoi, Franklin, Vermont

Event narrative

Widespread heavy rainfall and substantial snow melt led to saturated soils and ponding of water and runoff across roads into streams and rivers with some gaged rivers reaching moderate flood, including the Missisquoi, Lamoille and Trout river watersheds where several roads and homes were flooded. Many communities were impacted with some of the hardest hit communities included; Montgomery, Fairfax and East Berkshire.

Wider weather episode

A very deep trough across the eastern seaboard allowed a deep, mild, moist flow from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic ocean to feed into the northeast United States, including VT and NY on December 17th and 18th.

Surface low pressure across Florida on December 17th moved north along the eastern seaboard into New England on December 18th. Mild, moist air delivered 1.5 to 3+ inches of rainfall to northeast NY along with temperatures in the 40s that promoted snowmelt of approximately 1-1.5 inches. Widespread saturated soil inundation flooding such as flooded fields, yards, spilling (flowing) into basements, low-lying roads and streams, eventually into small rivers and into the larger rivers of the Winooski, Passumpsic, Lamoille and Otter Creek watersheds.

The following rivers reached major flood stage; Winooski, Mad and Lamoille with Moderate flood stage levels observed along the Passumpsic, Missisquoi and Otter Creek.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (45.0035, -72.5491)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1154981. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.