LEOMINSTER, Massachusetts (AP) — Hurricane Lee barrelled north toward New England on Wednesday and threatened to unleash violent storms on the region just as communities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island dealt with tornado warnings and a second-straight day of heavy rain that opened up sinkholes and brought devastating flooding to several communities.
Late Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch for portions of Maine. A tropical storm watch also was issued for a large area of coastal New England from parts of Rhode Island to Stonington, Maine, including Block Island, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.
The National Weather Service said Wednesday it’s looking into reports of strong winds that toppled trees and knocked down power lines in Rhode Island and Connecticut but is unable to say whether they were the result of tornadoes.
Rob Megnia, a meteorologist with the weather service, said they have received reports of about 20 trees down in Killingly, Connecticut, and trees and power lines down in Foster, Rhode Island.
“Typically, we would have to go out and do a survey to determine if it’s a tornado unless there’s visual confirmation, but we don’t have that yet,” Megnia said.
Emergency sirens could be heard late Wednesday afternoon in parts of Providence, Rhode Island, as cell phones pinged with a tornado warning. By early evening, the weather service said a severe thunderstorm capable of producing tornadoes was moving quickly east toward the Massachusetts border, from Cumberland, Rhode Island. The weather service also issued a flash flood warning for parts of Connecticut until 9:45 p.m.
New England has experienced its share of flooding this summer, including a storm that dumped up to two months of rain in two days in Vermont in July, resulting in two deaths.
Scientists are finding that storms around the world are forming in a warmer atmosphere, making extreme rainfall a more frequent reality now.
A warming world will only make that worse.