Storm brings the good, the bad, the beautiful
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Shoppers make their way down Main Street in Montpelier Sunday. Kyle Martel/Times Argus |
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Staff, wire reports - Published: December 22, 2008
The second major snowstorm in three days swept into Vermont on Sunday, sending cars sliding off roads and putting a crimp on late-starting holiday shoppers but bringing smiles to the faces of ski area operators.
White, fluffy snow — expected to accumulate to up to a foot in many areas by Monday morning — was added to another storm the state got on Friday and early Saturday, all but assuring a white Christmas despite mixed precipitation in the forecast for Wednesday.
"It's magical, the snow is magical," said Davis Sutherland, Nordic skiing manager at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center in northern Vermont. The center had about 80 percent of its 85 kilometers of trails open as of Sunday, the exceptions being those trail sections crossing lakes still in the early stages of freezing, Sutherland said.
Eric Friedman wasn't complaining about slick road conditions Sunday either.
Friedman, marketing director for Mad River Glen, was basking in the white wake of the two storms systems that dumped better than a foot of snow this weekend.
"This is huge for us," Friedman said. "The holiday weeks are just critical to having a good season financially, and we could not have asked for a better scenario."
Worcester meteorologist Roger Hill credited a "bona fide Nor'easter" for the glut of fluffy snow Sunday.
"There are so many storms coming at us," Hill said. "It's busy for everybody, from people who have to deal with snow removal to folks who forecast it."
Between Friday night and Saturday, Vermonters saw anywhere between 5 inches and a foot of snow hit the ground. Sunday's storm, expected to continue until early Monday afternoon, should add another foot or so to the base. High winds will accompany the back edge of that system, according to Hill, which could result in sporadic whiteout conditions.
"It's not probably high enough wind speeds to cause power outages," Hill said. "But it's enough to kick up that dry, fluffy snow and blow it around, and that's where we see a lot of whiteouts."
At Killington Resort in south central Vermont, spokesman Tom Horrocks echoed Friedman's comments, saying the weekend's double slug of fresh powder, on top of a machine-made base, was setting Vermont's biggest ski area up for an excellent holiday season.
"The snow couldn't have come at a better time, right before the Christmas holiday rush," Horrocks said. "It's going to make for a great holiday season."
Even if things warm up and precipitation is mixed Christmas Eve, Horrocks said Killington had enough of a base built up that it would recover quickly. He added that travel to and from the mountain on Sunday was helped by a strong performance turned in by state highway crews.
"So far the Agency of Transportation is doing a great job clearing roads," he said. "I'm not sure what's happening down in Massachusetts and New York, I can't vouch for that, but in Vermont it's been pretty good so far."
For Vermont Emergency Management, the spate of storms has meant overtime duty at the Waterbury headquarters. Ross Nagy, deputy director of VEM, said common-sense behavior by weather-wise Vermonters has thus far avoided any serious incidents.
"Folks have been taking it fairly easy out there on the roads," Nagy said Sunday. "There hasn't been anything crazy to this point.
Nagy said officials were monitoring sporadic power outages in Addison County and Windham County. VEM is keeping an eye on the high winds expected to arrive Monday.
"We continue to watch the power outage situation and make sure nothing spikes there," he said.
Nagy said motorists for the most part stayed in Sunday, as evidenced by the desolate afternoon roads. Residents apparently heeded a state police request that they stay off the roads unless travel was truly necessary But with the work week on tap, Nagy anticipated potential traveling difficulties.
"This biggest concern right now is watching things for the commute on Monday," he said.
While area ski resorts might have cheering on the weekend snowfall, central Vermont retailers were in many cases less enthusiastic. The weekend before Christmas is traditionally one of the most lucrative of the year, but slippery roads kept many would-be consumers from leaving the driveway.
"It's not a perfect thing for the retail community," said George Malek, executive director of the Central Vermont Chamber of Commerce. "It's bordering on too much of good thing for the retail community."
Snow is good for area stores, as white Christmases generally evoke the buying spirit. When bad weather conditions keep shoppers off the roads, though, snow can have the opposite effect.
"As the weather wore on, there were fewer and fewer cars around," Malek said. "It does have an effect."
At midday in downtown Montpelier, the normal holiday season rush of creeping traffic and hard-to-find parking places appeared to have abated.
The state's utilities were still breathing easily on Sunday afternoon, with a Web site that reports outages showing just 57 customers without power at about 4 p.m. — 50 of them in Rutland County. Utility crews spent all last week trying to restore power knocked out from the ice storm that hit Dec. 12 and finished up just as the latest storm blew in.
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