Today was the calm before the storm if you will as morning sunshine gave way to afternoon cloud cover. And overnight more changes will occur. We’ll get a few isolated, light showers, but the main event will roll in just in time for the Friday morning commute. Heavy pockets of rain with a few rumbles of thunder will start during the morning drive and last on-and-off all the way through the evening drive. After the evening commute, the heavy rain will exit, but scattered, light activity will linger into Saturday morning.
As this system pushes through, it’s really a two-pronged system, bringing in both the threat of wind and the threat of rain. The rain threat will be for all of Massachusetts with most of the area picking up 1-2″, but an isolated backyard rain gauge getting 2.5-3″ is certainly not out of the question. Heavier amounts will generally be to the west, while lighter amounts fall to the east. There no doubt will be flooding concerns on some streets and backyard streams. The South Coast and Cape Cod are also under a Coastal Flood Advisory where ocean waters could climb to 1 foot above ground level with splash over, closing some coastal roadways along with some beach erosion.
The second threat will be wind — likely damaging and leading to power outages in some areas. Unlike the rain/flood threat, the wind threat will be greatest to the east and lesser to the west. Cape Cod is under a High Wind Warning, where winds could gust to 60 mph. Most of Southeastern Mass and inside 95 (including downtown Boston) is under a Wind Advisory where winds will gust to 50 mph at times Friday. Winds will begin to die off Friday evening, but will this is just in comparison to what we’ll see during the daylight hours. Friday night and Saturday will still be windy. It might be a good idea to go out tonight and bring in or secure your outside Christmas decorations.
Unless you’re waiting for that first huge snowstorm, the good news is we’re warm enough where this is all rain. In fact, we’ll be so warm that we’ll be challenging records in both Boston and Worcester. The current record is 62° at Logan set back in 1952. With a wind off the cold ocean waters, that might be a little harder to reach. Our forecast high is 60°. Worcester, on the other hand, has a better shot of at least tying the record. The current record high is 58° set back in 1973, and our forecast is just that, 58°. Say goodbye to this warmth by Saturday. It will be one of those days where our high will occur before sunrise, in the middle 50s, and we’ll spend the evening hours in the 30s with a brisk northwest wind.
