There was not much moisture in the air mass. A low pressure system coming from the west developed a second center off the Carolina coast overnight. This center absorbed the remnants from the tropical storm and consolidated the moist air into the new low pressure system. It then directed the warm tropical air from the southeast over New England at 30 to 40 mph. When the air flow reached Vermont, it had two things standing in its way - the hills and mountains of Vermont, rising to three or four thousand feet in places and the dense cold front of the low pressure system already here.
Hot air rises.
The warm tropical air had to go up and over the mountains and the cold front and when it did so, the warm air was rapidly cooling. A contemporary meteorologist estimated that a cubic mile of water had been lifted off the Atlantic Ocean and deposited on Vermont. The water had nowhere to go. The ground, already saturated from heavy October rainfall, could not absorb any more and the water flowed into brooks, streams and rivers, swelling them beyond their banks. A rain gauge in Northfield at 4 a.m. had registered .3 inches.