Irene storm track moves west; timing, impact still uncertain

By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

Torrential rain? Screaming winds? Pounding surf?

Pick your poison.

All are potential impacts in New England being projected by weather forecasting supercomputers as Hurricane Irene whirls toward the East Coast.

With the storm still three days away, computer models are offering varying scenarios for where the storm will make landfall.

But one thing is certain, said Bill Simpson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton.

“We’re not getting out of this without some significant weather one way or the other,” he said. “This is not, like, ‘There it goes! Near miss.’”

The current consensus of the models (which has shifted west since Wednesday) would bring the storm ashore in the area of Connecticut and Long Island and then through Western Massachusetts. But there are outlying models that bring the storm ashore in Philadelphia or have it passing near Cape Cod and the islands.

If the eye of the storm does pass through Western Massachusetts, “significant damage” is likely across areas in Eastern Massachusetts, from strong southerly wind gusts and a “significant and destructive “ storm surge crashing on the south-facing coast, the service said in a forecast discussion posted on its website.

If the storm passes more to the east, there would be less wind and wave damage and more danger from heavy rain and inland flooding, forecasters said.

Simpson said the general rule on such counter-clockwise spinning storms is that if you’re on the west side of the center you will see more rain and if you’re on the east side you will see more wind.

“We still have to keep all these options open as Irene’s track remains uncertain. Despite the uncertainty ... This has the potential to be a very significant and damaging event in southern New England and people should be prepared,” the forecast discussion said.

The storm will “bring into play all of the Northeast Corridor for heavy rains, high winds, and coastal storm flooding,” Bill Read, director of the National Hurricane Center, said in a conference call with reporters this morning.

Read said the storm would weaken as it moves north, but it would still affect a large area. With the ground already soaked with rain -- 5.97 inches of rain have fallen in Boston so far this month, 3.3 inches more than normal -- trees’ roots may loosen and they may topple, causing power outages.

Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said, “The wind field of the storm is very large. You get 50- to-60-mile per hour winds blowing for hours. That’s going to cause a lot of damage.”

The consensus storm track issued by the National Hurricane Center on Wednesday had placed the center of the storm directly over Boston. But the track had been shifted into Western Massachusetts by 11 a.m. today.

Benjamin Sipprell, a meteorologist at the weather service office in Taunton, said this afternoon that that was no reason to breathe a sigh of relief. “The preparedness should still be ongoing,” he said. “Right now, because it’s so far out, [the changes] should just be considered inconsequential. The track itself is likely going to wobble.”

The hurricane is expected to hit Sunday into Sunday evening. But forecasters warned that a “predecessor rainfall event” will arrive on Saturday night caused by tropical moisture being sucked north ahead of the system, and that high surf and deadly rip currents will also begin well ahead of the storm.

They also warned of the possibility that “a few weak tornadoes” will be spawned on the north and northeast side of the hurricane.

As of 11 a.m., Irene was still 1,146 miles away from Springfield, with a maximum sustained wind speed of 115 miles per hour, crawling north-northwest at 13 miles per hour.

But New Englanders have already begun to react to news of the storm. Boaters pulled their boats out of the water, a concert by country star Kenny Chesney at Gillette stadium was canceled, and the Red Sox were considering rescheduling a game because of it, the Globe reports this morning.