A massive storm system will hammer virtually the entire East Coast this Wednesday, with flash floods possible in multiple major cities.
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00:00John, this is a powerful storm that's going to be rapidly intensifying as it rolls up the East Coast here, so a very high-impact Wednesday is in the cards.
00:08And, Jeff, and a wide variety of impacts, from the damaging winds to the flooding rainfall, power outages, and this is going to be a very, very challenging travel day, both on the ground and also at all the airports tomorrow,
00:22across the I-95 corridor, major airports from Washington to Baltimore, Philadelphia, right up into the New York City area.
00:30So if you can avoid travel tomorrow, this is one of those days to adjust your plans in order to avoid it.
00:36Yeah, the current delays associated with low clouds and ceilings, this is just a precursor to the bigger event tomorrow.
00:42And, John, there is quite a stripe of really abundant moisture coming all the way up from the Caribbean into this area.
00:48That's right. We often talk about atmospheric rivers. These are these channeled areas that transport and focus moisture in the atmosphere, sometimes thousands of miles in length.
00:58We talk about that often on the West Coast, but it happens on the East Coast as well.
01:02Take a look at all these yellows and oranges up into New England. That's deep levels of atmospheric moisture.
01:08And watch when I trace it back all the way through Florida, southward, all the way down to the Caribbean, see some 2,000 miles of direct feed of tropical moisture.
01:19This is one of the reasons that we're so concerned about the risk for heavy rainfall and flooding.
01:24Yeah, it's going to be very impressive to watch all this play out here.
01:27And some areas are going to face not just heavy rain, but a variety of different conditions as well.
01:32So here we've got the wind stream lines. We have the rain and a hint of something to come off to the west there in blue.
01:38A little bit of everything here on this map. And this is at 730 on Wednesday morning.
01:42Heavy rain from Baltimore and Washington, northern Virginia up to New York City and also southern New England.
01:48So it's going to be going right away here during the day on Wednesday.
01:53And then that heavy rainfall is going to amplify.
01:55I want to pause this here at 530 and look at this line of thunderstorms that we'll have from parts of western New England, eastern New York, right through to New York City area.
02:05Philadelphia down to Baltimore and Washington, poorly timed with the evening commute.
02:10Gusty winds with some wind gusts to 60 or 65 miles per hour in those areas and very heavy rainfall.
02:17A very difficult evening commute as we mentioned in those particular areas.
02:21And then notice we get some more blues involved in this in the far interior sections of New York and Pennsylvania where that rain will change over to snow.
02:30And there'll be some accumulation in the higher terrain.
02:32Yeah, this is going to be adding to that surplus there in places like Erie, PA and especially just northeast of there.
02:36So as we kind of dial this down issue by issue, the rain is a huge concern, John, as areas like southeast New England are going to be dealing with very heavy rain.
02:46But central New England's had a lot of snow to melt away as well.
02:49It has and that's a big problem.
02:51That's why we're concerned about the risk for significant flooding across parts of Vermont, New Hampshire and also Maine in areas where we have several inches of snow on the ground.
03:00That's going to melt quickly.
03:02That coupled with two to four inches of rain, we could get another one to two inches of that liquid equivalent in that snow melt when it melts down.
03:11So that's why we're concerned about significant flooding risks in those areas, especially near creeks and streams.
03:18There will also be a significant flooding risk across parts of Long Island up into southern New England as well where there's not a snow melt concern, but that rain can come fast and furious.
03:27Again, that's going to be a dangerous aspect with this as well.
03:30And, John, the last thing I wanted to talk about with you was the wind.
03:34And this is going to be a screaming wind in places like coastal Long Island, even up and down the Jersey Shore, but especially into southeast New England.
03:41Wind swept, heavy rain, and those winds are going to be damaging in some spots.
03:45Wind gusts 50 to 70 miles per hour from down east Maine through southern New England all the way down I-95 to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington.
03:55Expect the risk for significant power outages in some of these areas.
03:59All right.
04:00We'll be closely tracking all this tomorrow as the outage numbers are going to undoubtedly be rising.
04:04Thanks for your insight, as always, there.
04:06AccuWeather chief meteorologist John Porter.
04:08All right, John, thank you.