With a flood watch up yesterday for the potential of slow moving storms, and rain rates of 2-3″/hr, unfortunately the flooding rains did come into fruition. As the same storms trained over the same locations, dumping locally up to 6-8″+ of rain, flooding became serious very quickly. Some of the higher totals landed in Leominster, and with all the rushing water cascading down the hilly terrain, life threatening, damaging flooding occurred. That prompted the National Weather Service to issue a flash flood emergency.
In the wake of the flooding rains, today is a relatively quieter day with just a few pop-up showers from time to time. They won’t last nearly as long, nor produce nearly as much rain, as the storms of yesterday did. Still, it’ll be another muggy and murky day overall with highs in the 70s.
Scattered showers and storms slide through tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow night. A few of those storms will be locally strong and we’ll also track the potential of localized downpours producing localized flooding again. As that front that produces those showers and storms slide through, it may still linger Thursday morning across Southeast Mass, producing early morning downpours there, before clearing the coast. Once it clears the coast, sunshine and lower humidity return Thursday afternoon into Friday.
Thereafter, our attention turns to Hurricane Lee and how close it’ll pass to us. Lee this morning is well south of Bermuda with max sustained winds of 115mph. It’s moving northwest and expected to turn more to the north over that next few days, passing just west of Bermuda as it does. Thereafter, it’ll move just southeast of New England by Saturday.
The question is, does it stay a few hundred miles offshore, or bend back, much closer to our coast? The graph above shows the cone from the National Hurricane Center. That cone indicates where the center/eye may pass. At our latitude, as max sustain winds decrease and hurricanes start to transition from tropical systems to mid latitude storms, the wind fields expand. That means, even a path 100miles offshore for the eye/center, would have significant impacts here. At minimal, even a pass a few hundred miles offshore, we’d still get a breezy Saturday, but dry. It be windy at the coast, with large waves, rip currents and even some beach erosion.
A pass much closer (about 100 miles offshore or closer) to our coast would allow for more extensive beach erosion, coastal flooding, strong coastal winds and rain across much of the area. Being 5 days out, we have plenty of time to watch Lee’s path, but certainly something we’ll keep a close eye on.
