Today is a First Alert Day on the coast of southeastern New England as a powerful ocean storm spins out at sea. The storm has actually been slowly creeping westward due to the blocking pattern, so it is closer to us this Friday morning. The coast will be battered by damaging wind gusts, heavy rain and powerful waves.
RAIN: Waves of heavy rain will continue to move across the northeast. The rain remains heavy through Friday night, then tapers off from northeast to southwest Saturday morning for all of New England. Rainfall will be around half an inch across inland locations, while the coast could see 1-2" and isolated spots across the Cape & Islands could see over two inches.
WIND: The strongest winds will be Friday morning through the evening. Most of New England will have gusts from the northeast, north between 20 and 30 mph. Northeast gusts of 30-40 mph will be possible along the coast. Cape Ann, Cape Cod and the islands may will see gusts around 50 mph with isolated peak wind speeds pushing 60 mph.
COASTAL FLOODING: The highest waves will be coinciding with this morning's high tide. Flooding occurs a couple hours before and after high tide for low lying areas and coastal roads. Wave heights are 15-25 feet offshore and will bring in a surge of 1-3' for coastal towns, Nantucket being in the higher end of surge. Minor coastal flooding is expected all along the eastern coastline, Nantucket may see moderate flooding. This evening high tide levels will be a tad lower, but we will see splashover. Saturday morning wave heights decrease a bit, but there may be some pockets of splashover again.
10-DAY OUTLOOK: Our weekend brings much-needed improvement to our forecast. Saturday begins rainy and breezy, but by afternoon the sun breaks out and highs reach the 50s away from the coast. Highs on Sunday will near 60 degrees with a light breeze and partly cloudy skies. Monday may be our pick of the week with highs in the low 60s and more sun than clouds before a system brings in scattered rain by midweek.
