Lee Looks To Bring Some Very Gusty Winds With Perhaps Some Rain On Saturday

Latest On Hurricane Lee: The forecast track of Lee for later this week and this weekend is becoming a little more certain. Because of this, we are starting to get a little more certainty as to what impacts the storm will have on Western and Central Mass. It appears that Lee will track on a northerly course through Thursday, but by Friday it appears that a bend towards the northwest should occur. This should bring the center of Lee about 150 miles to the east of the Cape during Saturday morning and then make landfall somewhere between about far eastern Maine near about Calais and Eastport and southwestern Nova Scotia near about Yarmouth on Saturday evening. I think that the main impact on our area from Lee will be the possibility of some very gusty winds thanks to a tight pressure gradient between the center of Lee and a high pressure ridge located to the west. I still think that Lee will stay far enough offshore so that any significant rainfall should stay just to our east. Still though, some rain looks possible during late Friday night and Saturday morning, especially across Central Mass. Detailed Forecast For Late Friday Night Through Saturday: Cloudy and windy everywhere across Western and Central Mass. Some periods of light to moderate rain is possible across mainly Central Mass late Friday night and during Saturday morning which looks to amount to less than one quarter of an inch of rainfall (0.25”). Across Western Mass, things may actually stay dry all day long Saturday. As for winds, northerly winds look to gust up to 25 to 35 mph at times across Western Mass and up to 30 to 50 mph at times across Central Mass throughout the day on Saturday. These very gusty winds could definitely be a big issue due to the combination of trees still being fully leafed and the ground being super saturated. This means that trees will be pretty susceptible to being blown down leading to the potential for isolated power outages across Western Mass and scattered power outages across Central Mass. Bottom line, this storm is going to be much more like an offshore fall Nor’easter than a tropical system. As I mentioned previously, strong gusty winds could be the big story across the area, which given that trees are still fully leafed and the ground is very wet, power outages seem likely.