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Bill Delivers High Surf and Heavy Rain
The center of Hurricane Bill missed the Southern New England coast by about 200 miles – and it’s a very good thing it did. The storm still came close enough to deliver over 2 inches of rain to Southeastern Massachusetts. Most of the rain came from one heavy band that set up in the Buzzards Bay area around midnight and slowly drifted east through the night.
********************STORM TOTAL RAINFALL********************
LOCATION STORM TOTAL TIME/DATE COMMENTS
RAINFALL OF
(INCHES) MEASUREMENT
MASSACHUSETTS
...BRISTOL COUNTY...
ACUSHNET 2.91 615 AM 8/23 SPOTTER
NEW BEDFORD 2.45 625 AM 8/23 ASOS SINCE MIDNIGHT
...PLYMOUTH COUNTY...
KINGSTON 3.74 700 AM 8/23 COCORAHS
PEMBROKE 3.09 415 AM 8/23 AMATEUR RADIO
MARSHFIELD 2.78 453 AM 8/23 AMATEUR RADIO
SCITUATE 2.76 415 AM 8/23 AMATEUR RADIO
HALIFAX 2.52 654 AM 8/23 SPOTTER
The storm did not feature strong winds, as the highest gusts on land were still less than tropical storm force. The stronger side of a fast-moving hurricane like Bill is the eastern side – thanks to the forward momentum of the storm and the counter-clockwise turning of the wind.
The storm brought rough seas and pounding surf a day before its arrival, and it looks like the show of high surf will continue on the day it departs.
- Here is a webcam view of the surf from Wellfleet.
- Coast Guard Beach Cam
- Surf Cam in Narragansett
- More Southern New England Wave Cameras
Notice the temperature graph below. Bill definitely churned up the water. The water temperature fell by almost 10° in a few days at this buoy 15 miles east of Boston.
The water temperature dipped from the mid 70s to the mid 60s
Bill is going to pound Nova Scotia and Newfoundland today. If you want to keep track of some of the buoy observations near Bill – just click here.