Heavy Rain, Flooding & Strong Winds Expected Tuesday & Tuesday Night Across Western & Central Mass

For The Rest Of Today: The first surge of moisture, which has brought rain to the area since late last night is now moving out. Any leftover rain will come to an end within the next couple of hours and we will be left with cloudy skies and areas of drizzle the rest of the day today. Temperatures today will remain in the low to mid 50s. Tonight: Weather analysis early this morning indicated that an area of low pressure is taking shape off of the Georgia coast. It is expected that this low pressure system will strengthen as it heads northward reaching the North Carolina this evening and then just south of Nantucket as a rapidly strengthening storm system by Tuesday morning. Rain is once again expected to rapidly overspread all of Western and Central Mass by about midnight or so tonight. Rain is then expected to continue throughout the rest of the night tonight and it will be heavy in intensity. In addition, some isolated thunderstorms are also expected to be embedded within the rainfall, so don’t be surprised to hear a rumble or two of thunder in some areas. Heavy Rain, Flooding & Strong Winds Expected Tuesday & Tuesday Night Across Western & Central Mass: A rapidly strengthening storm system will mill around near Nantucket throughout Tuesday and Tuesday night before it begins to move away on Wednesday. This storm system has the potential to bring heavy rainfall, flooding and strong easterly winds to the entire area throughout Tuesday and Tuesday night. Heavy Rainfall & Flood Potential: A strong easterly wind flow to the north of that low pressure system will pump in some very heavy rainfall across all of Western and Central Mass. Bands of heavy rain will rotate across the area throughout the day Tuesday and into much of, if not all of Tuesday night. Total rainfall amounts of 2 to 3 inches are expected across much of Western and Central Mass. The exception is likely to be the Worcester Hills and in the Berkshires where 3 to 4 inches of rainfall is expected due to the fact that the moist air will be lifted over the hills and extra moisture will wrung out as it does so. The heavy rainfall throughout Tuesday and Tuesday night will lead to extensive flooding of roads, especially where many storm drains will be clogged with leaves. Strong Winds Expected Tuesday & Tuesday Night: The combination of the rapidly strengthening storm system near Nantucket and a high pressure system located near Hudson Bay will cause a very tight pressure gradient to be positioned across the area. This means that some strong winds are likely across Western and Central Mass. East to northeast winds are expected to gust up to 35 mph across Western Mass and up to 40 to 45 mph or so across Central Mass throughout Tuesday and Tuesday night. I do have some concern where many trees are still fully leaved that some downed trees and thus some power outages are possible, especially in the Worcester Hills. Wednesday: That strong low pressure system is expected to slowly move away during Wednesday, however, it will still be close enough to bring quite a bit in the way of showers and continued gusty winds throughout Wednesday. High temperatures Wednesday will be between 50 and 55 Degrees. North winds will gust up to 35 mph at times throughout Wednesday. Even more rain is expected from Friday Night through Saturday, however, given how busy the weather is going to be the next couple of days, I’ll hold off on going into too much detail. I will say that an additional inch or so of rainfall is possible. Showers and cool weather is likely to then continue right through Halloween.