MAP: Here's where the December 2023 river flooding, rainfall hit hardest in Vermont

As temperatures rose and rain fell Sunday night and into Monday, snow melted from Vermont’s mountains, and rivers swelled.

Five of those rivers reached major or moderate flood stage, according to the National Weather Service.

Over the course of Monday and into Tuesday, the Lamoille River in Johnson and the Winooski River in Essex Junction reached major flood stage, the highest designation the NWS uses. Meanwhile the Winooski River in Waterbury and Montpelier, the Mad River in Moretown, Otter Creek in Rutland and the Passumpsic River in Barnet all reached moderate flood stage.

As for rainfall, the heaviest was recorded in the southern part of the state on Monday, with Guilford receiving nearly 3.5 inches, Stamford and Wilmington getting 3.1 inches, and Marlboro just under 3 inches.

Marlon Verasamy with NWS says total rainfall wasn’t anywhere close to what the state experienced in July.

“We saw 2-3 [inches], 2-4 [inches] across the southern parts of the state, we saw a little less than that across the northern half of the state,” he said of the event this week. That compares to the 5-9 inches that fell over two days in July.

But snowmelt did exceed expectations during this storm, according to Conor Lahiff, also with NWS.

“I think originally we were thinking on the order of about an inch or so was going to … come out of the snowpack and come into the the rivers,” Lahiff said. “And now looking back at, it probably was more closer to 2 inches, and maybe even more.”

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