Gonzalo To Slam Bermuda; Is Helping Make New England Wetter

Visible satellite view of Hurricane Gonzalo this morning.  

UPDATE NOON:

Rainfall with this weather situation is going to be more intense than I thought in eastern Massachusetts.

The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood watch in southeastern New England because of the possibility of super intense downpours that could cause significant urban flooding.

There's also a flash flood watch in central and northern New Hampshire, and western Maine. 

The downpours will coincide in Boston and nearby cities with the evening rush hour. We all know how much fun flooded roads are during rush hour, don't we?

If the road is flooded anywhere in New England today, heed the National Weather Service's cheesy but very wise warning: "Turn around, don't drown."

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Hurricane Gonzalo, as you might have heard on the news, is steaming toward Bermuda. It's the most powerful hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean since 2011.

As of this morning, sustained winds with Gonzalo were up to 140 mph, so this is a scary storm.

Forecasts are pretty consistent that Gonzalo will pass very close to Bermuda, though it will have weakened slightly. Still, Bermuda can expect a huge blow from this thing.

Once it gets passed Bermuda, it will probably clip Newfoundland, but by then it will be weakening somewhat.

Gonzalo, as we've noted already, is completely missing the United States East Coast, but it's still having an influence, especially in New England.

A big cold front is trudging into New England, ending a spate of record October heat that set temperatures as high as 80 degrees Wednesday in Burlington, Vermont, and kept overnight "low" temperatures warmer than they normally are in July.

It's raining pretty hard in the Northeast as the cold front is being fed by a plume of moisture from deep in the tropics. This cold front's tropical feed is also partly coming from Hurricane Gonzalo.

Water vapor imagery shows moisture (in white and blue,
mostly) streaming north into New England, with
a contribution from Hurricane Gonzalo
(Gonzalo is the pink circle off the East Coast)  

It's been dry in much of New England and New York State recently, so we could use the rain.

I was taking advantage of the record heat to do autumn clean up in my St. Albans, Vermont garden yesterday and I encountered lots and lots of dust.

Parts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine might get up to three inches of rain with this very wet cold front.

The fact that it's been dry means the heavy rain, even with Gonzalo's contribution, won't result in much flooding.

It occasionally will rain hard enough today to cause some urban or small stream flooding in spot, but I really don't think at this point it will amount to anything extreme.

Also, anybody in New England who has been enjoying the record heat will feel a sting by Sunday. It will turn much colder, with daytime highs in northern New England by then only in the 40s. It will also snow a little bit on the mountain tops.

But such weather is pretty common in New England in mid to late October. The 80 degree, high humidity warmth we just experienced certainly is not common.

Anyway, here's a message to Hurricane Gonzalo: Please don't trash Bermuda, but thanks for the rain contribution here in the Northeast. We needed it.