One storm is gone and the next one already has its eyes set on New England.
The is one, however, is a warmer storm. So while it may bring a few snowflakes in higher terrain on the onset, this one is about the rain and the wind. Already, this storm has prompted weather alerts and warnings spanning most of the country.
The cold side of the storm has winter storm and blizzard warnings while the warm side features wind and flood warnings.
Locally, we are on the warm side of the storm so it’s all about the rain and wind. That said, while it may not be snow, for many of us this will be a higher impact storm than the one we just dealt with Sunday. We have a flood watch and a high wind watch already posted for parts of the area.
The high wind watch for the coast is for the potential of wind gusts of 50-60 mph. It’s possible to even see a few gusts over 60 mph on the Cape and Islands.
The damaging wind potential extends all the way to the 95-corridor and expect some strong wind, though not quite as strong, across our inland spots as well. I don’t think this will be quite to the level of the mid December storm but still I expect tree damage and power outages to come out of this storm.
The rain that falls will be measured in inches. For most of us, we’re looking at about 1-2″ of rainfall with isolated reports up to 3″. In southwest Massachusetts and Connecticut, there’s a signal for 2-3″ of rain with isolated 4″ reports. That alone would be concerning for flooding, but it’s only half the problem.
Keep in mind all of the snow on the ground from Sunday’s storm is water that’s locked up in the form of snow. So when that snow melts under rain and warm temperatures, even more water is released from that.
And mentally we first think of the spots that picked up over a foot of snow, but this is really the case for everyone. The lighter and fluffier snow is the stuff that stacks up faster, but is lower in water content. So even if you only picked up 5, 6, 7″ of snow, it was the sloppier snow, meaning more water.
The snow-water equivalent or “how much water is in the snow” is pretty uniform across eastern Massachusetts — about 2″ of water just in the snow alone, let alone the rain that falls from the storm.
So between today and tomorrow, make sure you shovel any snow away from your foundation, especially if your basement is susceptible to flooding. Clear the storm drain in front of your house from snow and ice so the water that does fall and melt has somewhere to go. And make sure your generators and sump pumps are working.
The storm gets going tomorrow evening, so most of the day is fine.
Initially as the storm comes in, it will snow in the higher terrain but only for an hour or two then flip over to rain. And it will rain (at times pour) all evening and night but exiting by early Wednesday morning. The wind will ramp up along with the rain, peaking overnight Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning. The strongest wind will exit as the rain does, but expect Wednesday to stay on the windy side all day.
