Bands Of Rain, Which Will Be Heavy At Times, & Wind Gusts Of Up To 40 To 50 mph Are Expected This Afternoon Through Tonight & Sunday Across Western & Central Mass

Weather analysis as of midday showed a strong low pressure system that’s located to the east of the Delmarva Peninsula. This storm is most certainly producing some pretty windy conditions across the entire area with reports of downed trees and power outages already, and we’re not even into the worst part of the winds yet. The rain portion of this storm hasn’t quite reached our area as of yet. Bands of rain, some of it moderate to heavy in intensity are gradually pushing their way northward from southern Connecticut, southern Rhode Island and the Cape. These bands of rain are expected to gradually push their way into Western & Central Mass from south to north as we progress through this afternoon and this evening. The heaviest of the rain with this storm is expected from later this afternoon through tonight and Sunday.

Let’s break this storm down again in terms of what to expect across Western and Central Mass:

Rain: Bands of rain, some of it moderate to heavy in intensity, will rotate their way northward into Western and Central Mass during this afternoon. These bands of rain, some of it moderate to heavy in intensity, will continue to rotate through our area during tonight and during all day Sunday. Additionally, this storm is a bit more convectively active than what was previously expected. Because of this, an isolated thunderstorm or two is a possibility during late this afternoon and during tonight.

Given the fact that it appears likely now that we are going to see bands of rain, it means that it will not rain steadily the whole time this afternoon, tonight and Sunday. But when these bands of rain rotate through, it’s going to rain hard for somewhere between a couple of hours and a few hours at a time.

The rain is still expected to continue through Sunday night, all of Monday and all of Monday night. The rain looks to finally come to an end by Tuesday morning.

Bottom line is that the rain portion of this storm hasn’t even begun yet, but it will most definitely get underway during this afternoon.

Total Rainfall Amounts With This Storm still looks to range from 1 to 2 inches across Western Mass to 2 to 3 inches of total rainfall across Central Mass. I do think that there will be locally higher rainfall amounts across areas of Worcester County that are near and east of I-190 and near and east of I-395. In these areas, I expect to see much more frequent bands of moderate to heavy rain to rotate through.

Given the long-duration that the rain will be falling, I don’t think that we’re looking at any sort of flood concerns across the region. There could, however, be areas where street, highway and poor drainage flooding could be an issue when any bands of heavy rain rotate through.

Wind: The wind portion of this storm has already been causing problems across the entire region with reports of downed trees and power lines & we are not even into the worst part of the winds yet.

Northeast winds of 20 to 30 mph with gusts of 40 to 45 mph are expected throughout this afternoon.

A period of stronger northeast winds of 20 to 35 mph with gusts of 40 to 50 mph are expected during tonight with these strong winds persisting through all of Sunday morning. This is when the worst part of the storm, in terms of winds will be.

During Sunday afternoon and Sunday night, expect northeast winds of 20 to 30 mph with gusts to 40 mph. These winds should decrease on Monday with north winds of 10 to 20 mph expected all day long.

These strong winds combined with trees that are still fully leafed will lead to both broken tree limbs and some downed trees. This, in turn, will lead to the likelihood of even more scattered power outages throughout this weekend. I think the time frame that may see the highest concentration of broken tree limbs, downed trees and scattered power outages will be from about 4 pm this afternoon through all of tonight and until about 11 am Sunday morning.

Many more updates on this storm will be posted as needed.