Many parts of Vermont have been under flood warning and watch from late this spring until last week.
And many parts of Vermont have seen significant flooding during that time, with severe road washouts, culverts displaced or destroyed, driveways washed out and buildings flooded.
Luckily, flooding in The Valley has been less than it has in Jericho or Underhill or Williamstown or along Route 100 from Warren to Granville and along Lake Champlain.
While we've been spared the actual flooding, we have not been spared the angst of dire predictions, shoulder-tightening stomach-clenching worry and fear that the worst might happen – or it might not.
That's a hard and tense way to live. It's one thing to hear the weather forecast in the morning and get word that it might rain that afternoon, or even that a mighty thunderstorm is headed your way. It's another thing to have your iPhone go off in your pocket unexpectedly, blaring the National Weather Service imminent danger noise, urging you to seek higher ground. (That alert can be turned off, by the way, at the bottom of notifications in settings.)
It's another thing entirely to be checking the radar and the NWS website every hour and trying to guess whether that big thunderstorm cell is coming your way or whether it might miss you.
And who isn't tired of opening and shutting the windows throughout the house multiple times a day anyway?
And surely the power crews are tired of repairing the downed lines and poles and surely the road crews are tired of repairing the roads over and over again. FEMA representatives must either be sick of Vermont or contemplating moving here.
But this extreme weather may very well be here to stay. These episodes of long slow moving lines of storms full of rain, hail, thunder, wind, etc. are most likely part of our new normal.
And as great as it felt to have the yoke of that watchfulness lifted from our necks last week when we dodged that last flash flood bullet, we, along with Vermonters everywhere, are keeping a watchful eye on the radar and the forecast. It's our new normal.
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