A potent storm is on the way tonight and there’s very little “winter” with this one, after the last one dropped a foot and a half of snow in spots. That said, this one will have juuuust enough cold air to work with that it’ll start off as a brief period of snow in the higher terrain. There’s actually a winter weather advisory in effect for the higher elevations because it could drop a quick couple inches of snow and lead to slick travel. But it won’t last long, it’ll flip to rain and wash all that snow away and then some.
The storm will generate a strong southeast wind that will pull in warm air and change this over to rain for everyone overnight, and a lot of it. Most of us should pick up at least 2″ of rain tonight with some spots knocking on the door of 3 inches.
For that reason, combined with the melting snow, a flood watch is in effect for most of New England. That’s a lot of water in a short amount of time, so unfortunately we’ll likely see river, stream, poor drainage, street, and basement flooding. If your basement is susceptible to flooding, get that sump pump working tonight and move the snow away from your foundation. You might also benefit from digging a few “trenches” in the snow to encourage the water to flow away from your house. Also make sure the storm drain on the road in front of your house is free of snow and ice so the water can freely flow away.
Like I said earlier, the rainfall alone is a lot of water, but there’s also water locked up in the snow that’s on the ground. There’s about 1-2″ of water in the snow that’s on the ground so add that to the water that needs to flow away overnight into Wednesday morning.
This storm is more than just rain, it’s also bringing a lot of wind. There’s a high wind warning in effect for the Seacoast of New Hampshire, coastal Essex County, and all of Southeastern Massachusetts, the Cape and Islands. These areas will likely see wind gusts over 60 mph, which is enough for scattered tree damage and power outages. Make sure your generators are outside and working tonight and your devices are charged up. Boston and the rest of the area are under a wind advisory. Wind here will be slightly less, but still strong enough to cause isolated tree damage and power outages.
Peak gusts are timed along with the heaviest rain and will peak after midnight into early Wednesday morning.
As mentioned, power outages are possible everywhere tonight, but most likely closer to the water’s edge.
The persistent onshore wind does increase our coastal flooding potential tonight and Wednesday morning, but thankfully the strongest wind is not times with high tide. We have a coastal flood advisory for the Wednesday morning high tide. It’s mainly for the shore and low-lying roads that typically see flooding, but you may see 1-2 feet of inundation tomorrow morning around high tide. High tide is between 9-10am so watch for flooding a few hours on either side of that, say 8am-noon tomorrow.
Astronomical tides are higher than Sunday’s storm which is why coastal flooding is more concerning, but even looking at Wednesday morning’s high tide we’re still about 2 feet shy of minor flood stage (the 10.6′ assumes flat water, which we know won’t be the case with the wind mentioned above). But the extra 2 feet of water only gets us to minor flood stage, so nothing more than that is expected.
