The cleanup continues today after a band of "super cell" thunderstorms roared through parts of Vermont, knocking out power and leaving a tangled mess of tree limbs, leaves and debris in their wake.
With winds reported at up to 90 miles per hour, last night’s storms felled hundreds of trees, some on houses or power lines.
Bill Champagne is a business owner in Grand Isle. He says some areas were hit much harder than others.
(Champagne) "Yeah, there’s quite a few barns where the roofs, the tin roofs have com off. I saw a big huge house on the West Shore Road of Grand Isle with a copper roof that flew off – part of it had flown off and trees into houses, trees into cars, things like that. And the corn fields – some of them are just absolutely devastated. The hail came through, pretty good-sized hail and just tore the cornfields up. It was a beautiful crop of corn, best we’ve seen in years. And some of the fields are just devastated."
The National Weather Service, which had posted tornado watches based on satellite imagery showing the potential for funnel clouds, sent out teams of meteorologists to determine whether any had touched down.
Brooke Taber, a national Weather Service meteorologist in South Burlington says it’s rare to see super-cell thunderstorms in Vermont, or the Champlain Valley. He says they are more common in the central plains of the U.S…