PORTLAND, Maine — The US East Coast is in for a whiplash-inducing period that will be rainy, windy and potentially dangerous, partly due to an atmospheric river and the developing bomb cyclone.
The storm is expected to bring heavy rain and strong winds in many areas from Tuesday night to Wednesday night, and flooding is possible in some places, forecasters said. Utilities also braced for possible power outages due to damage caused by wind speeds that could exceed 60 miles per hour (27 km/h) in some areas.
One of the most important factors that determine the weather is an atmospheric rivera long band of water vapor that can transport moisture from the tropics to more northern areas, said Derek Schroeter, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine.
The storm has the ability to hit New England hard because it can tap moisture from the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the southeastern U.S., and transport it to places like western Maine, where freezing rain, downpours, unusually high temperatures and damaging winds can all be seen in the span of a day, Schroeter said. The state was preparing for a “multi-sided storm” that could produce two to three inches of rain in some areas, Schroeter said.
Similar conditions were possible elsewhere Tuesday night into Wednesday night.
“We’re looking at the risk of slippery travel (Tuesday night) with the freezing rain,” Schroeter said, “and we’re going to watch for the possibility of flash flooding and sharp rises in streams as temperatures rise into the 50s (10-15 Celsius).”
Forecasters also said the storm had the potential to involve what meteorologists call a process bombogenesisor a ‘bomb cyclone’. That is the rapid intensification of a cyclone in a short period of time, and it has the potential to cause heavy rainfall.
Some parts of the Northeast were already preparing for bad weather. In Maine, some schools were delayed on Tuesday, which started with several inches of snow. A flood watch for Vermont runs from Wednesday afternoon through Thursday morning.
The city of Montpelier, Vermont, advised residents to prepare for mild floods in the area and to lift objects in basements and low areas prone to flooding. The city said Tuesday that it has been in contact with the National Weather Service and Vermont Dam Safety and will “actively monitor river levels as this storm passes.”
Ski resorts across the Northeast prepared visitors for a potentially messy day on Wednesday. Stratton Mountain Resort, in southern Vermont, posted on its website that customers should “make sure to pack your Gore-Tex gear because it will get wet.”
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Associated Press writer Lisa Rathke contributed to this story in Marshfield, Vermont.