Coudonc... Une menace qu m'était inconnue jusqu'à maintenant, l'histoire des downs drafts.... du blogue du Burlington Freetown Press... By the time Irene gets near us, it will be a tropical storm. But its a weird one. First, its huge in area, so it will cover more territory than usual, and take longer to pass by. Also, wind normally increases with height in a tropical system, but in Irene, it increases faster with height than it normally would Thats why the National Weather Service is worried about wicked strong gusts. Some downdrafts in the storm might briefly ###### some of that super fast air a few thousand feet above us down to the surface, causing gusts to maybe even reach 75 mph in parts of eastern Vermont and 60-65 mph elsewhere in the state. So yeah, the power is going to go out for a long time for some of us.