Drought-Busting Rain Coming This Weekend
BOSTON (CBS) - January 12-13 - do you remember what you were doing back then?
Probably not.
But believe it or not, that was the last time we had a widespread, significant rainfall event in southern New England - more than three months ago!
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Since then, our drought has gone from bad to worse and we have officially been placed in what experts call a "moderate to severe drought."
While most reservoirs are still at normal levels due to an abundance of rainfall last year, many of our rivers and streams are at record low levels for this time of year.
Boston has had just 0.56" of rain this April, about 2" below the normal.
Since March 1, Boston is more than 5" below normal.
And for 2012, Boston has received 5.44" of precipitation, a whopping 8" below the normal amount.
There is growing concern among climate experts, as well as homeowners, that if this drought lasts into the summer there will be major ramifications for all of us.
But today there is finally some good news, a "drought buster" may be on the way!
A large and potent storm system will gather in the Deep South over the weekend and ride northward up the East Coast on Sunday.
It will link up with a cold front scheduled to pass through New England late Saturday night and bring copious amounts of much needed rainfall for our entire area.
We are expecting just a few showers with the cold front Saturday night, certainly not enough on its own to put a dent in our drought.
On Sunday, there will likely be some bands of rainfall rotating hundreds of miles northward for the center of the storm located over the southeastern United States.
This storm will become so large it will have the look of a tropical system on satellite and radar late this weekend.
As it rides up the coast late on Sunday there will likely be a band of very heavy rainfall which will set up somewhere in the Northeast.
Right now it look like that may happen just to our west, over portions of western Massachusetts and New York State. Where this band sets up, we will see a jackpot for rain totals with many in excess of 3-4".
No worries, there will be plenty of rain to go around even if you don't live right underneath the heaviest band.
We are expecting a widespread 1-3" of rain for all of New England. The heaviest of which will fall Sunday night through Monday morning.
The winds will be quite strong as well with this system, gusting 20-40mph or higher late Sunday and early on Monday out of the east-southeast.
Wind advisories or warnings may eventually be issued by the National Weather Service, especially for elevated and coastal locations.
Seas will build well over 10 feet in open waters and there could be some minor coastal flooding/splashover during the high tide just after midnight on Monday morning and again early Monday afternoon.
Thankfully the tides are not as astronomically high as they were earlier this month, in fact they are nearly 2 feet lower now.
Our weather team will be providing important updates all weekend long on WBZ as well as Facebook and Twitter, be sure to check in for the latest.
You can follow Terry on Twitter at @TerryWBZ.
