Massachusetts

Heavy Rains Today; Some Improvement Sunday

Expect a Mixed Bag of Weather in the Week Ahead

What to Know

  • Severe storms are gone for the day; but there may be periods of heavy rain in some areas.
  • Rainfall totals could range between 1 and 3 inches in some areas.
  • Easter Sunday looks promising as most of the rains will move away in time for the holiday.

It’s New England‘s turn for the heavy rain today. The good news is that most of the severe storms are done. It was a three day outbreak from Texas to the middle Atlantic states beginning on Wednesday. We are getting the leftovers from those storms in New England today. An upper level low pressure system and a front were very slow to arrive, and rather slow to depart.

We have rain, heavy at times today, a chance of sunny breaks, high temperatures near 70 degrees. It is still windy from the south, and humid. When it does rain it can really pour, but other times it might brighten up. We have a flood watch in effect for the combination of heavy rain and melting snow, so areas where there is still snow in the mountains are most vulnerable to floods.

In any thunderstorm, there is always the danger of lightning, and perhaps a damaging wind gust, especially in southern New England from late morning until mid afternoon.

The heaviest rain will shut off in western New England this evening, but will continue overnight for most of Rhode Island, eastern Massachusetts, much of New Hampshire, and Maine.

Rainfall totals generally between 1 and 3 inches. There can be a very sharp cut off with one town getting a couple of inches and those in a few towns over seeing very little. That is the complicated part of trying to predict who’s going to get the worst rain.

Also, with the full moon last night we have high astronomical tides, and there could be some cost of the erosion and minor coastal flooding at the high tide near midnight tonight.

The best news is that the worst of the weather is gone tomorrow and Sunday will be a mostly dry Easter. The exception is eastern Massachusetts and the state of Maine where showers will continue through noon Sunday. In western New England it should be a mostly dry day with breaks of sun and highs in the lower 70s.

The upper level low, combined with some new energy coming out of Canada, will bring us another batch of rain on Monday. At this time it does not look too heavy, but the ground is saturated and rivers are already out of their banks - so it will not be helpful. Expect perhaps a half inch of rain in spots with temperatures still warm in the 60s.

It turns cooler in mid-week but may not be much drier, spring showers continue throughout most of our first alert 10 day forecast.

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