Tropical Storm Watch For Cape Cod, Islands

Hurricane Local Statement Issued September 05 At 5:31am Edt  By Nws Boston

 This Product Covers Southern New England 

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*A Tropical Storm Watch Is In Effect For The Cape And Islands

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* New Information --------------- 

* Changes To Watches And Warnings: - A Tropical Storm Watch Has Been Issued For Barnstable Ma, Dukes Ma, And Nantucket Ma 

* Current Watches And Warnings: - A Tropical Storm Watch Is In Effect For Barnstable Ma, Dukes Ma, And Nantucket Ma 

* Storm Information: - About 840 Miles Southwest Of Nantucket Ma - 31.7n 79.5w - Storm Intensity 115 Mph - Movement North Or 10 Degrees At 8 Mph Situation Overview ------------------ Hurricane Dorian Is Forecast To Pass About 150 Miles South Of Nantucket Late Friday Night Before Moving Further Offshore Saturday.

Strong Winds, Heavy Rainfall And High Surf Will Be The Main Impacts, With The Strongest Wind And Heaviest Rain Occurring Late Friday Night Into Early Saturday. Tropical Storm Watches Have Been Issued For Cape Cod And Nantucket.

North Winds Will Increase To 30 To 40 Mph Late Friday Night Over Nantucket And The Outer Cape With Occasional Gusts To 60 Mph Possible.

Total Rainfall Of 2 To 4 Inches Is Possible With Minor Urban Poor Drainage Flooding. A Storm Surge Of 2 To 2.5 Feet Is Possible During The Saturday Morning High Tide Which May Bring Minor Coastal Flooding To Nantucket Harbor.

Potential Impacts ----------------- 

* Wind: Prepare For Dangerous Wind Having Possible Significant Impacts Across Cape Cod And The Islands. Potential Impacts In This Area Include: - Downed Trees And Power Lines.

- Some Roads Impassable From Large Debris, And More Within Urban Or Heavily Wooded Places.

- Scattered Power And Communications Outages, But More Prevalent In Areas With Above Ground Lines.

Also, Prepare For Hazardous Wind Having Possible Limited Impacts Across Southeast Ma.

* Surge: Minor Coastal Flooding Is Possible Along Nantucket Harbor During The High Tide Saturday Morning.

* Flooding Rain: Prepare For Locally Hazardous Rainfall Flooding Having Possible Limited Impacts Across Cape Cod And The Islands. Potential Impacts Include: - Flood Waters Can Enter A Few Structures, Especially In Usually Vulnerable Spots. A Few Places Where Rapid Ponding Of Water Occurs At Underpasses, Low-Lying Spots, And Poor Drainage Areas.

Several Storm Drains And Retention Ponds Become Near-Full And Begin To Overflow. Some Brief Road And Bridge Closures.

Elsewhere Across Southern New England, Little To No Impact Is Anticipated.

Precautionary/Preparedness Actions ---------------------------------- 

* Evacuations: Watch/Warning Phase - Listen To Local Official For Recommended Preparedness Actions.

* Other Preparedness Information: Now Is The Time To Check Your Emergency Plan And Emergency Supplies Kit And Take Necessary Actions To Protect Your Family And Secure Your Home Or Business.

Closely Monitor Weather.Gov, Noaa Weather Radio And Local News Outlets For Official Storm Information. Listen For Possible Changes To The Forecast.

* Additional Sources Of Information: - For Information On Appropriate Preparations See Ready.Gov - For Information On Creating An Emergency Plan See Getagameplan.Org - For Additional Disaster Preparedness Information See Redcross.Org Next Update ----------- The Next Local Statement Will Be Issued By The National Weather Service In Boston/Norton Ma Around Noon Edt, Or Sooner If Conditions Warrant.

Will Dorian Impact Massachusetts?

Hurricane Dorian is whipping up on the Bahamas as we write this. Afterwards, where it goes is the subject of some debate.

After her dance with the Bahama Mama, Dorian looks to move towards Florida. However, forecasters are now calling for the storm to take a hook and move north up the coastline.

Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia would be next on the menu before the storm moves out to sea. The "moving out to sea" section of the forecast is the tricky part, with the New England implications.

Is Massachusetts going to get it?

We'll do our best to give you the If, When, Where and How Bad.

Please note, while freaking out about that one track with the Bourne landfall, that Bourne is about 1 of 100 places that the spaghetti calls a shot for. 99 other pastas take it out to sea nowhere near Massachusetts.

You don't need a direct hit from the hurricane to inflict massive damage to the coastline. However, every move to the east with this storm as it nears us gets us a little further from the truly dangerous stuff.

While the out to sea spaghetti forecasts have been moving closer to Cape Cod, even now we are only in an area of "10-30% chance of sustained >39 mph winds." The South Coast and Cape Cod are in the more ominous 40-50% range.

30% means that it is more than twice as likely that we don't get tropical storm force winds. That's the good news.

The bad news is that previous forecasts didn't even give it that much of a chance over the weekend. The trend is becoming more Massachusettsish.

Just made up a word there...

While the trend is not aiming towards a direct hit, it is moving us closer to some interaction with this powerful storm. That can make for a very bad scene.

Dorian is presently forecast to be in our area later Friday and Saturday.

We will not be getting 185 mph, Category 5 Dorian. Presently, we are not forecasted to have a direct hit from a Category 1 version of Dorian. Even a weakened Tropical Storm Dorian most likely will pass south and east of us.

Nothing is set in stone, however.

We do all of this warning-you stuff just to make money keep you informed in case the forecast takes a turn for the worse.

New England is unique with hurricanes in that we might look doomed as the storm approaches, but then it does a turn to the east and we instead get golfing weather.

This could break that way. If someone offered a blood money bet on this or any storm, bet on that.

Just keep part of your brain open to the possibility of something like this:

We'll be back later in the week with more updates. Stay dry.

Hurricane Michael Could Impact SE Massachusetts

Remnants of powerful storm to approach New England...

Tropical Storm Michael is expected to become Hurricane Michael later today. It could hit the Florida panhandle as a major hurricane, move inland, then head back to sea off the Mid-Atlantic states later in the week.

Where it goes after that is why we have the weather desk working at 5 AM.

It will likely head out to sea south of us, harmlessly... at least harmlessly to us. However, there is a chance that we get in on her northern fringe, which changes the game somewhat.

Let's use a paragraph here to say that no weather model I have seen shows anything even approaching a direct hit. We can take that off the table.

A complete miss is more likely, and remember that you're hearing this from a guy who makes more money if you're frightened.

You may be able to golf happily on both Thursday and Friday. It could still rain, but the rain would be from a different area of low pressure that saps some of Big Mike's tropical rain.

However, there is a worst case scenario where Michael emerges off of Delaware as a strong tropical storm. She (I have a conflict with my tendency to refer to storms as "she," even if they have a male name) maintains/gains/only loses a little strength, and we get her northern fringe. That would mean tropical storm conditions for Cape Cod, the Islands, the South Coast and even parts of the South Shore.

This would mean soaking, windswept rain, gusts high enough to disrupt electrical service and moderate-to-major coastal flooding.

The storm surge would happen during the astronomically high tides of a waning new moon.

The winds could screw up the SE Massachusetts fall foliage season, as the leaves would get blown off the trees.

The storm is still sitting between Cuba and Mexico, and a lot can happen between now and Friday. The storm's track could change wildly, in a game where even a wobble makes a big difference.

Just don't say that we didn't get you an early warning. We will be back later in the week with an update if the situation merits it.

Our graphics are borrowed from the National Hurricane Center .

Cape Cod Surf Check, 9/20/18

Former Hurricane Florence was nice enough to kick some surf back at us as she went back out to sea. We sent our people to the Outer Cape on Thursday to see what was what.

Not this person, she just got into one of our shots. We needed someone in the foreground for scale, as Hooper once told Brody.

We started at Coast Guard Beach, in Eastham.

We got out there way after high tide, so the pics have a bit less drama.

The surf on Cape Cod was about a foot higher than the South Shore surf.

Outer Cape seawall 

"The path of the righteous man..."

Surf always.looks better from an angle until it gets really big.

My kid calls this "Potato Chip light"

After Nauset, we were off to Marconi Beach, in Wellfleet. 

We were there hours after high tide, but we did our level best for you.

My phone keeps auto-correcting Marconi Beach into Macaroni Beach... and when I spam it around Facebook, it keeps changing it to Missy Marconi, some girl I went to high school with.

Either way, that's all for today's Cape Cod surf check.

We also did a South Shore Surf Check.

South Shore Surf Check, 9/20/18

Hurricane Florence, in remnant form, gave us some rain before going back out to sea. As an extra parting gift, she sent some surf back to us, bolstered by an East wind. 

This wasn't the kind of surf that tears down cottages or drowns Carolinians, but it made for a good road trip Thursday.

We started in Duxbury, mostly to check on the seawall. The waves were good, but the tide was astronomically low. We saw no chance of damages, but we did take some video.

We then headed to Marshfield. We usually park at the former Charlie's, but decided to try the Ocean Bluff seawall instead. In the background, you can see the tower from which Denzel tossed that terrorist guy in Equalizer II. 

By the time we got there, the worst of high tide had passed. I did get hit by some spray, but I managed to turn away at the last second, so I was totally soaked on the left and perfectly dry on the right.

We were in road trip mode, so we aimed for Scituate. We decided not to stop for pics until we saw a woman collecting sea glass. Fortunately, God shall provide.

We were past high tide, and everywhere in Scituate is a long drive, so we went to Humarock.

I would look up how Humarock got her name, but I am afraid that the answer isn't "Some guy in 1640 set a village boundary by how far he could hum a rock." Any different answer, other than "It's really 'Hummer Rock,' but the Pilgrims changed it" would be a disappointment.

Scituate is always a good show during a storm. I'd do more storm chasing there, but I don't know the nooks and crannies of Scituate like I do with Duxbury. You can perish because of stuff like that in a bad storm, or at least get really drenched and ruin a camera.

Humarock is cool because, if you park well, you can film out of your car window.

We were just warming up... next up, Plymouth. 

Manomet is rocky, and very few locals saw that boulder in the former Bert's and wondered how it got there. Some may ask which storm did it.

My chances of getting hit by a wave were pretty low up by The Lobster Pound, 

Next stop... Sagamore Beach 

Sagamore Beach is either South Shore or Cape Cod, depending on how you define several different areas. She's South Shore today, because we had a lot of Cape Cod pics. You can see that article here in some form.

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South Coast Surf Check, 9/14/18

South Coast Surf Check is back...

Hurricane Florence was still sending surf at us Friday, so we immediately dispatched teams to Westport, Falmouth and even Little Compton, Rhode Island to get to the bottom of this.

Every day of summer is a Dog Day when you're at the beach.

We started in Westport, at Horseneck Beach.

Horseneck Beach is good for shooting just-missed-us hurricane surf, as the Cape and Islands blocks the rest of the South Coast from a storm that is hitting, say, Carolina.

If I try shooting storm surf anywhere else on the South Coast, I come back with Nathan. See the shot of Falmouth (not South Coast, but island-protected) for an example at the end of the article). Horseneck Beach will be in every South Coast Surf Check article that we do.

It is also a popular beach with surfers, although I watched a bunch of surfers yesterday for an hour and didn't see one worthy ride. It was more of a wetsuit social club out there.

Time for the next town...

Little Compton, Rhode Island

We hit South Shore Beach. Note that in Rhodey, the South Shore is actually the southern shore of the state. In Massachusetts, it is the eastern shore because... well, because f*** you.

As if the bus wasn't cool enough, he had two cages in there, one with a giant tropical bird and one with what appeared to be a falcon. I would have hung around and got shots of that, but I didn't feel like talking to a hippy. Nothing against hippies, I just had a lot of ground to cover.

(Straight Outta) Little Compton should have a NWA museum, as well as a guy from NWA as a Selectman.  I bet that MC Ren works cheap these days.

We generally don't get to Rhode Island much, as it is just out of our coverage area. There are those who count Little Compton and Tiverton, which are in Rhode Island, as being part of the South Coast region of Massachusetts.  I am not one of those people... unless the surf is up.

Business took us to Falmouth next, so they snuck into the article. The lighthouse below, which is the next thing that we plan to do an article on, sort of snuck into this article as a preview .