The 8 a.m. update from the National Hurricane Center has Henri as strong Tropical Storm south of the Rhode Island coast, poised to make landfall by midday. While it’s no longer a hurricane, the drop of 5 mph wind speeds does not make a bit of difference for impact to the forecast from our area.
The track is a bit farther east this morning, which will bring some of the strongest winds into the Rhode Island coast, up Narragansett Bay. Below is a map of project max gusts, peaking late morning/early afternoon.
While 35-45mph winds for a wide swath of Southern New England doesn’t seem overly impressive, the ground is saturate and the trees have full canopies, so pockets of tree damage/power outages will be more common in this set-up vs a winter nor’easter when there’s no foliage and the roots are more established into the soil.
Additionally, there’s quite a bit of spin to the atmosphere today just like what we saw with the remnants of Fred. That’ll keep us on guard for an isolated brief tornado or two, similar to what the region saw on Thursday. The highest risk for this is this morning, through the early afternoon.
What is also a major concern for New England is the potential flooding from rain. The highest risk for widespread flooding is across western New England and eastern New York, when rain totals will be highest through tonight. Even in Worcester County, a quick 1-3″ of rain on a saturated ground will promote pockets of street/poor drainage areas flooding. Additionally, we’ll likely see another round of localized downpours, especially northwest of 495 tomorrow afternoon, renewing the threat of flash flooding as more tropical downpours move back through. Lot’s to track the next couple days for sure.
Along the south coast, the tides and storm surge will be watched closely, especially along the Rhode Island coast, Narragansett Bay, and Buzzards Bay. The max storm surge in landfalling tropical storms is at the time of landfall, along and just east of the track. The potential for a 3-5′ storm surge is there, however if the max surge occurs near the time of low tide vs. high tide, then the impact is mitigated somewhat because of the timing. High tide to watch in and around the South Coast is 8-9pm, as south to southwesterly winds will still be pushing water toward the coast, although at that point, the winds won’t be as strong as they were midday. Westport high tide is at 8:30pm and low tide around 2:30pm.
We’ll keep you posted through the day.
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