Wet & Warm...
All are on board with a warm and wet solution for Friday...the GFS has finally blinked. A potent shortwave will eject out of the Mid-Mississippi Valley and a fast moving surface low will pass over Southern New England on Friday. Overrunning precip will break out well ahead of the surface low late tomorrow night but it will be falling through a marginally cold enough atmosphere so that at the start while there may be a brief period of wet snow mixing in with the rain no accumulation is expected. The warming will continue Friday morning with a southerly wind component and the rain intensity will increase by late morning...this will continue through mid-afternoon before winding down in the evening...there's a slight chance that some areas north and west of Boston finish off the storm with a dusting of snow. Rain, however is the bigger concern here and it's time to start thinking about flooding possibilities. We are looking at 1-1.5" of rain which seems like a lot for a fairly short duration storm but convective elements are quite possible with this storm especially with the warm sector getting close to the region and the potent shortwave passing overhead in the afternoon...flashes of lightning may be seen again! The rain from this storm along with the snowmelt will likely lead to some poor drainage flooding but the rivers and streams should be OK...in fact our flash flooding thresholds are greater than 3".
Following this storm, we get fairly cold for the weekend with a sunny day on Saturday and light snow for the majority of Sunday that will only amount to some coatings. Then we will have to monitor the rivers and streams with the next storm delivering convective type rains Monday and Monday night along with temps that could exceed 50 leading to a lot of melting compounding the flooding concern. Lots to follow these next several days...and a lot of it will be wet...hopefully we can keep our basements dry!
