The first tropical system of the hurricane season is headed toward Southern New England.
Tropical Storm Andrea is expected to make landfall in Florida Thursday evening before speeding up the coast to New England on Friday.
Andrea is bringing tropical downpours and lightning to the Gulf region though the winds are not packing much of a punch at this point, according to Channel 7 meteorologist Pete Bouchard.
The current forecast shows Andrea hitting the Cape Cod area from Friday afternoon to Saturday morning. Wind gusts are expected to reach between 20 to 30 MPH. Southern New England could get up to three inches of rain out of Andrea.
“I'm thinking that this early in the season, Andrea will lose much of her (wind) punch as she travels outside her comfort zone (that being the warm waters of the Gulf). That leaves the rain as the biggest threat to New England. That's when we start to squirm a bit. A track like the one shown would put most of the heavy rain offshore, sparing us a 1-3" deluge. My current thinking is to nudge this a bit farther west, putting us in the hot zone for tropical downpours. That said, this is hardly the last word on the track and rainfall forecast,” Bouchard wrote in his weather blog.