Yes, in our area as well it had been quite wet before the storm came. Apparently when hurricane Bob (I think that was the one) passed through Vermont, it came into the state during a severe drought. I get the impression that late summer and early fall are usually quite dry, so again, we are looking at bad luck and/or climate changes.
We were worried about the wind also. The wind almost completely failed to materialize in the Middlebury area, especially considering that last November we had a wind even with somewhere near 100 MPH wind gusts, and over the winter we had several nor'easters with much more wind than Irene. We also recently had a severe thunderstorm with much higher winds and tree damage than Irene (as well as 2 inches of rain, probably adding to Irene's flooding later). It's true that the soils were wet (not frozen) and the deciduous trees were fully leafed out, but still, we had virtually no tree damage here. On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 9:07 AM, Ann Poole <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, Charlie, > > Also contributing to the flooding during Irene (here, anyway) is the fact > that the ground was already saturated from several weeks of rain. We had 5+ > inches here and, with no storage available, it ran off in a flash. Brooks > rose feet in a matter of minutes taking out historic structures that had > stood for 100+ years or more. Thank goodness there was plenty of advance > warning though I think most people living on hillsides above the floodplains > battened down against wind, not really thinking about flooding. > > Ann > ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ > E. Ann Poole, MSc, CWS, Principal > Poole Ecological & Environmental Consultancy > PO Box 890, 741 Beard Rd > Hillsborough, NH 03244 > (603)478-1178 > [email protected] > www.eannpoole.com > ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ > > -- ============================ Charlie Hohn Recent Graduate Field Naturalist Program, Department of Plant Biology University of Vermont [email protected] slowwatermovement.blogspot.com
