Storm Brings Strong Winds, Heavy Rain, Power Outages and Some Snow to Midwest, Northeast

http://www.wunderground.com/news/eastern-storm-rain-wind-snow


Chris Dolce
Published: October 29, 2015

One spiraling low-pressure system will continue to deliver a trifecta of inclement weather to portions of the Great Lakes and Northeast through Thursday. Those impacts include strong winds, locally heavy rainfall that will trigger localized flooding, and for some in the Midwest, the first flakes of snow this season.
Strong winds from the storm system have already caused scattered power outages in several states, including parts of Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut and Virginia.
Let's break down the impacts below starting with the winds.

A tree is downed due to high winds overnight on Oct. 29, 2015. Over 4,000 Eversource customers were without power in Connecticut as of early Thursday morning.
(nbcconnecticut.com)

Strong Winds Downing Tree Limbs, Causing Power Outages

The main threat of strong winds Thursday will come from two different sources.
First, bands of rain and thunderstorms are producing strong wind gusts ahead of a cold front across parts of eastern New England. The strong wind gusts over 50 mph led to some power outages and downed trees and limbs Thursday morning.
Wind gusts Wednesday night and early Thursday morning had reached 63 mph near Nayatt, Rhode Island, 53 mph at Huntington, Vermont and 51 mph at Bar Harbor, Maine.
Trees and wires were downed in several locations in eastern Massachusetts, including New Bedford, Fall River, Acushnet and Barrington, as well as in Lamoine and Stonington, Maine.
In addition, the pressure gradient around the large-scale low pressure system in eastern Canada produced strong winds over a larger area of the Plains, Midwest and Great Lakes Wednesday and Wednesday night.
Winds gusted over 62 mph at Dunkirk, New York, and to 69 mph at Fort Drum Airfield in Upstate New York, thanks to south-southeast winds channeling through the Black River Valley, according to winter weather expert, Tom Niziol. Trees and powerlines were downed thanks to these strong southeast winds ahead of the cold front off the Allegheny Plateau, according to Niziol.
Those strong winds will persist over and downwind of the Great Lakes through Thursday.
Most locations will see sustained winds of 20 to 30 mph with higher gusts. However, even stronger winds with gusts up to 55 mph are possible along the east and southeast shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario. The National Weather Service continues wind advisories downwind of those Great Lakes. Tree damage, power outages and lakeshore flooding are possible.
(INTERACTIVE: Wind Alerts Map)

Current Winds

Rainfall Threat Dwindling

Current Radar

The heaviest rain Thursday exited New England Thursday morning as the cold front pushed toward the East Coast.
(CITIES: Boston | Providence)
Numerous locations in the Midwest and Northeast picked up over an inch of rainfall ahead of the cold front.
Over three inches of rain soaked parts of eastern Pennsylvania and Connecticut, including Mt. Pocono, Pennsylvania (4 inches), and Burlington, Connecticut (4.15 inches). Flooding was reported on a couple of streets early Thursday in Fall River, Massachusetts.
A few additional showers will move through portions of Maine into early Thursday evening. Lake-effect rain or snow bands are possible in the northern and eastern Great Lakes.

Season's First Snow For Some in the Midwest

The powerful low-pressure system dragged down just enough cold air to produce the first flakes of the season for some in the Upper Midwest Wednesday into early Thursday.
As of Wednesday night, as much as 2 inches of snow was measured near Hillman, Minnesota. Other parts of the North Star State were also coated with an inch or two of fresh powder on Wednesday. Accumulations were noted as far south as Rochester, Minnesota (0.2 inch).

While not accumulating, the season's first flakes also fell in the Twin Cities and in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Wednesday.

The cold air behind the Canadian low-pressure system is not an unusually cold air mass for late October, with high temperatures about 5 to 10 degrees below average in most spots across the region.
However, the combination of strong winds and chilly temperatures produced wind chill values in the 10s and 20s across parts of the Upper Midwest and northern Plains early Thursday.
Temperatures will quickly turn milder by this weekend across the Midwest, with high temperatures rising above average, thanks to a pronounced pattern change over the U.S. as the calendar flips to November.