The latest data and guidance regarding Henri is not good news at all.
It is looking quite likely now that Henri will probably make landfall as a hurricane either on the Rhode Island coast or in southeastern Mass on Sunday afternoon and then head north-northwest across Southern New England later Sunday afternoon to Monday morning.
Since it is so late & I want to get to bed because I'll be awake again in just a couple of hours, I'll keep the forecast impacts short. A much, much longer writeup will be posted later this morning.
WIND: Hurricane force winds are possible along coastal Rhode Island into the Cape and Southeastern Mass during Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening. Tropical storm force winds with gusts of up to 50 to 65 mph are expected as far north as the Mass Pike in Central Mass and across all of Eastern Mass during Sunday afternoon and Sunday night.
RAIN: The highest rainfall totals are expected on the western side of the storm track and this potentially means much of Central and Western Mass may see many, many inches of rainfall during Sunday afternoon, Sunday night and into Monday. At this point, I'm thinking upwards of 5 to 10 inches of rainfall, however, higher totals are certainly possible as Henri is expected to be a slow moving storm when it crosses Southern New England. This means that flash flooding is extremely likely across all of Western and Central Mass.
STORM SURGE & COASTAL FLOODING: The onshore wind flow is likely to lead to moderate to even severe coastal flooding across eastern Mass, the Cape and along the south coast of Rhode Island and Mass.
TORNADO THREAT: There is the possibility for a few spin up tornadoes as Henri makes landfall on Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening, especially across Central and Eastern Mass.
If you are reading this and live along the coast of Southern New England - Take today (Friday) to prepare for a hurricane landfall, which is expected on Sunday afternoon. If you live in an evacuation zone and are asked to evacuate, please do so.
Given the expected hurricane force winds along the Rhode Island coast, the Cape and across Southeast Mass, expect power outages and downed trees.
Even inland, any gusty winds on Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening will likely bring down trees and lead to power outages as the ground is extremely saturated and tree roots aren't as firmly in the ground as they would be if the ground was dry.
I continue to closely watch Henri and I promise that I'll be with you every step of the way to guide you through this storm.
Mother Nature is on one Hell of a roll when it comes to the weather being pretty crazy & super active!! Thursdays T-storm started as no biggie. And then it turned into a severe storm after a few. But just in case that wasn't enough.....
....a tornado warning was issued after radar indicated an area with possible rotation! Now we're getting a hurricane too!! All in a 4~5 day period!!! It is summer in New England afterall! I hope this might mean that this winter will be an active one! Lots of snow covered trees please!!!