Light rain has overspread southeastern Massachusetts this morning and that rain will continue to move northward over the next few hours. Today is just a taste of what’s to come. We’ll have scattered light rain and breezy conditions with winds now between 15 and 25 mph for most today. But later tonight we’ll start to see both the wind and the rain ramp up.
While the storm slowly gets going today, the bulk of the storm will be here on your Thursday. As a general rule of thumb, the further south and east you are, the worse impacts will be. The further north and west you are, the better off you’ll be. In fact our far northwestern spots will probably have a breezy few days with a few scattered showers. Southern and eastern spots will be soaked through with rain, whipped with wind, and deal with flooded streets.
Let’s start with the rain. Rainfall amounts will vary greatly from northwest to southeast. Areas south of Route 44 could see 3-5″ of rain, with isolated areas picking up 6 or 7″. While most of this is Wednesday night into Thursday morning — it’s fairly long duration which helps our flood risk, rather than picking up the same amount of rain in just a few short hours. With most of the trees starting to shed their leaves (and of course the strong winds won’t help). Try to get out and clear the storm drain outside of your house. The flash flood watch (dark green) is for street flooding over the next few days. The Coastal Flood Watch (lighter green) is for coastal flooding during high tide cycles. Most of our coastal areas will deal with minor impacts, with moderate impacts on Nantucket.
The other “arm” of this storm is of course the wind. And like the rain, the wind will vary greatly from the northwest to the southeast. Strong winds gusting 50 to 60 mph will impact our south and eastern spots from Buzzard’s Bay to the Cape and the South Shore. The leaves on the trees will act like sails and catch the wind so I do expect tree damage and power outages over the next few days. While the worst will be across the Cape and Islands, the South Shore will also have a strong northeast wind as well. Metro Boston and Cape Ann will have a noticeable wind, but less than the Cape and South Shore.
