States along the Atlantic Coast and beyond are bracing for a major Nor’easter expected to pound the region in the coming days with damaging winds, heavy rain and snow and severe flooding.
Meteorologists warn that the storm — the result of a system moving eastward across the Midwest Thursday that will collide with a coastal low off the coast in the Atlantic — will cause damage from the Carolinas to Portland, Maine through Friday and into Saturday. That collision is expected to lead to “bombogenesis,” a cyclone effect that will strengthen the storm to dangerous levels as it moves north over open water.
“The reason this storm is particularly notable and particularly dangerous is that there are numerous impacts that will affect millions of people,” said NBC News meteorologist Sherri Pugh.
“This isn’t a forecast with a question of if these impacts are coming, it’s how bad are they going to be.”
Winds are expected to gust up to 40 to 60 miles an hour along the northeast coast Friday, hitting as high as 75 miles an hour in Cape Cod, stoking fears of power failures from downed trees.
Heavy rain of one to four inches is expected across parts of New Jersey, Long Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts. That deluge will cause coastal flooding at high tide in places like the Jersey Shore and the Massachusetts coast, as well as river and stream overflow further inland. Pugh said up to 10 inches of snow from the storm is expected further into the interior and in upstate New York.
For those least affected, Friday will be a messy commute. For many others, however, it will be much, much worse.
The forecast is nearly as grim on the other side of the country, where a second powerful storm threatened much of the West.
The National Weather Service advised of both blanketing snow that will particularly hit hard the Sierra Nevada mountains and flash flooding along the California coast.Those worries prompted Santa Barbara County authorities to order mandatory evacuations Thursday for residents in Montecito and other areas previously devastated by wildfires in December and deadly mudflow a month later. Memories of the twenty one people who died in Montecito on January 9, when rains washed a torrent of mud and debris through the region.
“Due to the size and breadth of the evacuation area, we will not be able to notify everyone in person,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown warned residents during a press conference hours before landfall, according to NBC Los Angeles. “Tell your neighbors, family members and friends. Do not wait for someone to contact you in person in order to leave.
“We just don’t know how our watershed is going to react to this.”
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