Hurricane Nicole officially made landfall in Florida overnight (3am) and has since weakened to a tropical storm as it heads north.
The storm will quickly weaken further to tropical depression and then just area of low pressure. But that rain will get sucked up into a second area of low pressure in the Great Lakes and bring rain and wind to New England Friday night and Saturday morning. When this happens and the tropical systems get absorbed into another low pressure they typically split their impacts into two sides, the wind side and the rain side. Thankfully the worst of both will stay east and west of us, respectively, and we’ll get a little of each.
For us, the bigger impact will be the wind over the rain. Wind gusts will be strongest across Buzzard’s Bay, the Cape, and the Island where gusts could hit 50 mph Friday night into Saturday morning.
The areas with the strongest wind gusts are under a wind advisory for the possibility of some isolated tree damage.
As far as rain, the heaviest rain will be to our west in New York. That’s where there’s a higher risk of flash flooding. We’re under a marginal risk meaning it’s possible but not likely nor widespread.
Most of us are in line for .5 – 1.5″ of rain. A few backyard rain gauges may get closer to 2″ if several downpours happen to hit the same areas over and over again. The lower number really reduces our flash flood risk, however we will have to look for localized street flooding with leaves down and likely some clogged storm drains. If you can get out tonight or tomorrow morning and make sure storm grates are free of debris, it’ll help you out Saturday.
