Don’t know why, there’s no sun up in the sky

Stormy weather

By Will Collette

The remnants of the season’s first tropical storm, Andrea, will pass very close to our shoreline. In fact, the current National Hurricane Center map shows the center of it almost directly over Charlestown at 8 AM on Saturday.

I think our experiences with major storms over the past three years makes it important to pay attention to each storm for its potential to do harm to our community. Weather forecasters say they have gotten very good at predicting storm tracks, but still have trouble accurately predicting storm intensity. 

Rain from Andrea will start tonight and continue until Saturday night. The NOAA forecast says Andrea will be a rain event for us, not so much a wind problem. The highest predicted wind gusts are 30 mph on Saturday.

But the rain will be the issue.

NOAA’s forecast calls for half to three-quarters of an inch on Friday, another one to two inches on Friday night and another quarter to a half-inch on Saturday, for a total of between two to three inches. However, they warn the storm could drop four inches or more.

There is a chance of flooding and NOAA says there might be a high surf advisory on Saturday.