HURRICANE ARTHUR UPDATE AND COLD FRONTAL INTERACTION IMPACTS FOR WESTERN MASS - 4TH OF JULY FORECAST: Good morning folks, no rest for the weaTHEry, as the interaction between Arthur and the cold front still lollygagging to our west has already begun, and I cant sleep. A very long and steady plume of rain has formed along the cold front, stretching all the way from Washington DC, up to North Adams, MA, and into Vermont this morning. This plume is training southwest to northeast, resulting in what appears to be a steady rain for the locales in its path. This is part of that PRE, or Predecessor Rain Event, I was alluding to the other day. This plume will slowly migrate east, and like a hose, will direct rain over Western Mass later this morning and into the afternoon. Well have to watch and see how this interaction develops, whether it waxes or wanes. Showers and thunderstorms will make their appearance one more time today, although I do not expect storms to be anywhere near the severity of the past two days, and especially last nights piece de resistance, which was one of the nastier storms Ive seen in a while. TROPICAL STORM WARNING in effect for all of Cape Cod and the Islands now (the Cape proper was not originally under the warning), as Hurricane Arthur will be passing closer to Nantucket than expected. Arthur is now a Category 2 hurricane, with sustained winds at 100mph with higher gusts, and a pressure of 973mb. At this point, the National Hurricane Center has Arthur passing near The Benchmark (40N/70W), and some models have it passing right over Nantucket. While the strongest winds will be focused to the south and east of the storm center, the Cape and Islands could experience Tropical Storm force winds for a time tonight, reaching up to 40mph sustained, and over 50mph in gusts, with the highest clocked winds over Nantucket, and/or the Chatham area. PEOPLE ON THE CAPE SHOULD COMPLETE ALL PREPARATIONS BY NOON TODAY, BEFORE TROPICAL WEATHER MOVES IN LATER THIS AFTERNOON AND TONIGHT. Heavy tropical downpours will be experienced mostly in southeastern MA, and could extend north and west to a line from New London, CT to Worcester, MA, to Fitchburg, MA, on east to the coast, with rainfall amounts on the order of 1.5 to 4 inches, heaviest in extreme southeastern MA, Cape and Islands. Embedded thunderstorms will occur, and a spin up of a quick, isolated tornado is not out of the question, but not likely. For Western Mass, we will see showers and thunderstorms, but not as heavy as back east will experience, but rain could be steady as the plume moves over us, and then become more scattered into the evening and night. Arthur makes its closest pass to Nantucket Island around midnight tonight, and then tomorrow morning the cold front and tropical system will begin to pull away into the Canadian maritimes, leaving us with a beautiful weekend after some possible showers very early Saturday morning before clearing, which will happen quickest over Western Mass, and may linger until noon on the outer Cape and islands. Nova Scotians should be expecting a full-on hurricane Saturday morning. After all of this severe and tropical weather, well be rewarded with a beautiful weekend around 80 degrees, mostly sunny, dry, so we can enjoy our holiday weekend, and do some clean up as necessary. Thank you, and if youve appreciated my work and gotten value from it over the past few days, and wish to support me so I can keep going as over 350 people have so far, you can use the donate app on this page, or visit gofundme/supportDHTWN (link below) to contribute to my work there. Thanks very much to the 10 contributors who supported me over the past few days, I really appreciate it. Have a great 4th of July, and even though its not going to be very 4th-y today, save it up for tomorrow, and youll be well rewarded for that decision. Ok, back to get some sleep, and Ill update as I can today.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Jul 2014 09:09:12 +0000