As a rapidly intensifying storm moved into New England overnight, so did heavy rain and powerful wind gusts. Gusts peaked along the coastline between 1-4am, pushing past 70mph in many coastal communities. A peak gust of 90mph was recorded in Provincetown and Boston hit 70mph at 2:42am. Rain totals ran 1-3″, with some of the higher totals coming in through Central Mass.
Obviously, with wind gusts so strong, tree damage and power outages are fairly widespread this morning. As of 5:30am, nearly 200,000 folks are in the dark as power restorations are now underway. The morning commute will likely be a slow one as big puddles, a ton of wet leaves and even tree branches/tree limbs litter the secondary roads. Don’t be surprised if some secondary roads have detours thanks to downed trees/wires.
With the pressure falling to around 975mb this morning, this will go down as the new record lowest pressure measured in many towns and cities for the month of October. Ears pop this morning, the pressure may be why?
While the height of the storm has passed us, it’ll continue to be an unsettled day with scattered light showers and patchy drizzle. The temps fade back to near 50 this afternoon and with a wind that gusts 40-50mph out of the west to southwest, it’ll be a chilly and blustery afternoon. While gusts 40-50mph aren’t as damaging as the gusts we had overnight, they are still strong enough to down some more tree limbs and slow power restoration efforts a bit.
Fortunately we’ll see improvements tomorrow and dry air prevail through the weekend a temps in the 60s return.