Strong winds
The strongest winds will be near the coast. The peak gusts should not be as strong as they were during Sandy or the February 8-9 Blizzard. However, there is likely to be a prolonged period of strong sustained winds with higher gusts. Cape Cod may experience 30+ mph sustained winds, and 45+ mph gusts for 42-48 consecutive hours from late-Wednesday through Friday afternoon. Near Buzzards Bay, the RI coast, and the east coast of MA from Plymouth to the North Shore including Boston, winds are expected to be sustained over 25 mph, with 40-50 mph gusts in that same timeframe. This kind of long-duration wind event can eventually take its toll, and it would have a major impact on the utility crews’ ability to promptly restore power if there are outages due to heavy snow and/or wind Wednesday night.
Coastal flooding
Tides are not quite at their astronomical peak in the next few days, but a consistent strong wind from basically the same direction (northeast) combined with a large storm in the Atlantic Ocean will lead to coastal flooding and huge breaking waves that will cause beach erosion. Many area beaches have had a rough stretch with several powerful ocean storms in the past six months, beginning with Sandy in late-October. This storm should be strong enough to further change the coastline in some areas.
Everyday life impacts
The storm is likely to be fairly disruptive and may lead to yet another snow day or two for some area schools. It’s possible school could be impacted both Thursday and Friday, with the best chance of the Friday impact coming well away from the coast. The roads should not be in as bad condition as they are during a mid-winter storm, especially during the day. The high sun angle and pre-treating should be enough to get to bare pavement on the major roads. At night, it could be a different story, especially in areas where the temperature falls to 32 degrees F or lower. The strong winds and driving rain near the coast on Thursday could make travel tough.
Air travel will most likely be impacted because the storm is expected to bring accumulating snow to most airports from Washington DC to Portland, ME. The combination of strong winds and heavy snow/rain could really slow things down at both Logan and TF Green.
Stay with rightweather.net for continuing coverage of this late-winter Nor’easter. Even at this late stage of the game, this forecast is still subject to change. There is a very fine line between an inch of rain and a foot of snow with late-winter storms, and the accumulation map may need to be adjusted in the next day or two.
