Big Rains Expected Throughout Week

Tropical Storm Joaquin could hit area this weekend.

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Big rains are coming, starting today, and building to the weekend when Tropical Storm Joaquin could hit the region.

“Two potential time frames for heavy rainfall,” the National Weather Service reports. “The first one is late Tuesday into Wednesday. Another round of heavy rainfall is possible late this week.”

“Showers build through the evening. Late tonight, heavy rain arrives,” 6ABC reports in its AccuWeather Forecast. On Saturday, “we’ll be watching the coast Tropical Storm Joaquin, which will likely track close to the coast as it loses strength, but remains a significant rain and wind maker.” There could be coastal flooding.

“Joaquin will struggle to strengthen, even though it’s over very warm ocean,” adds NBC10’s Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz. “But with massive high pressure to the north, the pressure difference (or “gradient”) will be big, leading to strong east winds up and down the coast. They’ll be piling water up to the coast. The stronger the winds and the larger stretch of ocean they cover (the “fetch”) will determine how much coastal flooding and beach erosion will result. And it doesn’t help that we’ve had already huge amounts of coastal flooding and beach erosion in some parts of the East Coast in the past week.”

At the very least, carry a good umbrella.