The forecast remains the same with greatest impacts from Henri west of the area. Even with the higher impacts west, there are still a few things we need to keep an eye on for tomorrow.
The main impacts for our area will be 3-5 ft storm surge for south facing beaches, tropical rainbands that could produce an isolated tornado, and wind gusts between 40-50mph for southern Bristol/Plymouth Counties & the Cape and the Islands.
We’ll start with the storm surge. The areas more likely to see flooding along the immediate coastline from the push of water from Henri will be Naragansett Bay and Buzzards Bay. These locations are closest to the center of the tropical system. The Cape could see minor flooding, but the Islands likely protect the area from any significant storm surge. The Islands could potentially see flooding from storm surge, but it is less likely with the storm center well west of the area.
The good news is Henri will be making landfall west of us mid-day, and that puts Narragansett and Buzzards Bay at low tide, instead of high tide.
Now to the tropical rainbands from Henri tomorrow. The heaviest rain will fall west of the center, putting the significant flooding potential into Connecticut and western Massachusetts. With that said we will still get tropical downpours from the rainbands east of the storm. These could drop a quick 1-2″ of rain inside of I-495. Parts of Worcester County (mainly south and west within the county) could get more consistent downpours, leading to 2-3″ of rain.
Worcester County is under a Flash Flood Watch from this evening – Monday morning for the potential of higher isolated amounts.
The other thing to note with the these bands is that they can produce isolated tornadoes. The bands will arrive early in the morning between 5-7 AM Sunday, and we will see a few rounds of them through the afternoon.
The greatest concern for power outages tomorrow is along the Connecticut and Rhode Island coastline where gusts could be as high as 60mph. In our area, there could be scattered power outages with the occasional gusts of 40-50mph in southern Bristol/Plymouth Counties and the Cape and the Islands.
For the rest of the area (green on power outage map), there could be isolated tree damage with gusty winds from the rainbands that will lead to isolated power outages.
