Good morning everybody, well the wind will certainly blowing last night, it had that “roar” sound to it, and while Bradley Airport gusted to 62mph a few hours ago, and other places saw tree and line damage in Monson, the Berkshires and several other places, this storm underachieved compared to what it looked like it was going to do ahead of time.
It appears the top winds aloft decelerated roughly north of the CT/MA line, and so while we saw gusts in the 40s and 50s in WMass and CMass, they weren’t enough to knock power out for most of us, thankfully.
In addition, thunderstorms stayed well southeast of our region and will pass over the Cape and Islands.
Rain will continue through the morning, and temps are MILD, way up into the upper 50s to low 60s.
The rain certainly wiped out the snow pack for many, but even rainfall was a little less than expected, coming in around .75″-2″ for most, with some amounts north of 2″ received, mostly in northern CT.
We will have some minor river flooding across the region, but given that a little less rain fell, the flooding concern is not going to maximize either.
We basically dodged a really bad weather outcome, despite still suffering some outages, some damage, some flooding, and some inconveniences for folks, which I don’t want to minimize.
Overall, though, we came through it better than expected, which is good news!
RAIN CONTINUES
The rain will continue, moderate to heavy at times, through the morning, and into the early afternoon. It should start to abate between 1-4pm from west to east (Berkshires through Worcester Metro).
There is a chance that the cold front (now over central NY), when it passes, will kick up a final round of convection and stronger winds as it moves through, a thin downpour lightning with a rumble of thunder could happen in early afternoon.
WINDS
Winds will continue to gust this morning at times, but should be mostly in the 20-40mph range, possibly exceeding 40mph if that afternoon downpour line forms.
TEMPS
Otherwise, temps in the 50s and low 60s this morning, will fall through the 50s and 40s during the afternoon, passing through the 30s this evening, and landing in the low to mid 20s with some black ice patches early tomorrow morning.
SNOW SHOWERS/BLACK ICE
In addition, some lake effect and upslope snow showers will form over the Litchfields, Berkshires, Taconics, southern Greens and western hilltowns, and a few coatings are possible, maybe up into 1″ in the mountains of SVT.
WEEKEND AND BEYOND
The weekend looks fair and cold, with partly sunny skies Saturday and highs in the upper 20s to low 30s with lows in the teens, and mostly sunny skies on Sunday with highs in the low to mid 30s and lows in the low 20s.
Next week briefly looks like some mixed rain/show showers Monday and Monday night, with another New Year’s Eve storm possible, but I will cover more of those details in tomorrow’s report.
For now, I’m off to do some Christmas soup cooking and enjoy the day, and I hope you have a very Merry Christmas if you’re celebrating!!