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After brief reprieve, rain may return

E-mail|Link|Comments () July 2, 2009 02:12 PM

A National Weather Service radar image this morning showed the storms over Eastern Massachusetts -- and another set of storms in the western part of the state.

By Matt Collette and Michaela Stanelun, Globe Correspondents

Don't pack up your umbrella and slicker just yet -- the storms that ravaged the state this morning are coming back tomorrow.

Eastern Massachusetts got a pounding from the rain today, with thunderstorms hurling lightning to the ground and dumping buckets of precipitation. Roads turned into ponds, and some small streams are expected to overtop their banks. But those storms are moving north and probably won't return again today, said Jeremiah Pyle, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Taunton.

While tomorrow will probably bring a return to storms, forecasters are holding out hope for a sunny Fourth of July.

“We have a little bit of hope for the weekend -- we still expect to see some sun," said Pyle. "But the chance of thunderstorms probably isn’t going to go away, and we may still get some rain.”

This morning, the Weather Service issued a flood advisory saying that the rain could produce ponding in low-lying areas, including the areas under highway overpasses, and push some small streams to their brims and even cause minor flooding. It remains in effect until 8 p.m. tonight.

The Weather Service said that just before 8 a.m. thunderstorms were moving northeast into Southeastern Massachusetts and the Boston area, while other thunderstorms were already sweeping through north Central Massachusetts. Boston got three-quarters of an inch of rain since midnight, Worcester got about double that, and the state's border with Rhode Island was soaked by several inches of rain, Pyle said.

The morning storm wreaked havoc in communties statewide: In Hopkinton, firefighters battled a two-alarm fire as a big storm rolled through. In Upton, a man was reported hit by lightning. In Medway, lightning started a fire at the Medway Community Church at 193 Main St., when it hit the steeple, a dispatcher said.

Sterling, where flooding has turned streets to canals and basements into ponds, appears to be the hardest-hit community in the state, said Scott MacLeod, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

"We went to a basement on Meeting House Hill Road, and 18 inches of water was rushing past the basement windows, said Rick Maypother, the public information officer for the Sterling Fire Department. "I felt like a fish inside an aquarium watching that window, hoping it did not break."

Trooper Thomas Murphy, a State Police spokesman, said this morning that Route 20 at the Route 122 overpass, just south of Worcester, was flooded, disabling cars. Otherwise, he said, there were no reports of fender benders caused by the deluges.

"There will be some slowdowns with the heavy rains, obviously, and the rush hour commute," said Murphy.

The forecasters warned that the storms were producing frequent cloud-to-ground lightning and urged people to get inside or in a car or, if caught outside, to stay away from isolated tall objects like trees and avoid open areas like ball fields or golf courses.

According to MEMA, there are scattered power outages across the state, caused by wind hitting utilities already battered by ongoing inclement weather..

"With all the rain we’ve had over the past month, it doesn’t take a lot -- just a little wind -- to knock some power lines down,” MacLeod said.

Residents of the South Shore, hit hard with flooding yesterday, enjoyed a change in the weather earlier this morning, when rain stopped and the clouds cleared.

“We did have some instances yesterday -- flooded intersections and manhole problems -- but things are looking up today. There’s blue skies down here," said Captain Maurice Reney of the Brockton Fire Department