The New England area is experiencing one of its worst Nor’easter storms in a century, with torrential rains, gale force winds, and states of emergency throughout much of the northeast. The storm is the same one we saw in Atlanta over the weekend, but it intensified as it moved up the East coast, and is indirectly causing all the wind gusts we’re seeing in Atlanta.

The satellite image above shows the hurricane-like pattern of the storm when it was taken about noon today. The small numbers are wind speeds in knots, so multiply those numbers by 1.15 to get MPH. In Albany, New York, they recorded a record low barometric pressure reading of 28.84 inches of mercury — the lowest ever recorded in April. This is in addition to a record daily rainfall of 2.26 inches of rain. That’s nothing — in New York City, they had 7.45 inches of rainfall on Sunday — an all time record.

Other rainfall amounts from the area for the entire storm, through 5 PM include:
New Hartford, CT: 7.35 inches
Exeter, NH: 5.7 inches
Poughkeepsie, NY: 4.93 inches
Kingston, NY: 6.99 inches
Newark, DE: 4.77 inches
Glassboro, NJ 6.02 inches
Somerset, NJ: 6.66 inches
Norristown, PA: 5.63 inches
Philadelphia, PA 5.82 inches

Further west, around a foot of snow fell in many areas, including:
Randolph, VT: 12.5 inches
Andover, VT: 11 inches

Locally, today should he the last of the heavy winds, which has caused some damage in the area. We could have also used some of the rain from the northeast — last month was the 12th driest March in Georgia ever recorded. Interestingly enough, it was the wettest March ever recorded in Texas, but the fourth driest just to the east, in both Louisiana and Arkansas. But - there’s a chance of rain again on Wednesday.

This weekend’s nor’Easter blizzard has made the record books. New York City’s Central Park reported 26.9 inches of snow as of 4 PM, making it the snowiest day since records began being kept in 1869. The previous record of 26.4 inches was set almost 50 years ago, in 1947.

The storm is expected to move off of the the New England coast tonight, but it left blizzard conditions, blowing snow, thundersnow, and up to 4 foot drifts in its wake.

Here are some snowfall amounts reported through this afternoon:

Fairfax, VA: 14 inches
Baltimore, MD: 15 inches
Owings Mills, MD: 20 inches
Wilmington, DE: 14.4 inches
Allentown, PA: 15.2 inches
Philadelphia, PA: 1.5 inches
Lawrenceville, NJ: 18.7 inches
East Brunswick, NJ: 21 inches
Newark, NJ: 21.3 inches
Saddle Brook, NJ: 20 inches
La Guardia Airport, NY: 21.4 inches
Islip, Long Island: 19.9 inches
Fairfield, CT: 27.8 inches
Danbury, CT: 24.2 inches
Hyannis, MA: 10 inches
Cambridge, MA: 18.2 inches
Foxboro, MA: 14.5 inches
Boston Logan Airport: 13.5 inches
Nashua, NH: 11 inches
Londonderry, NH: 13.5 inches
Kennebunk. ME: 12 inches

Keep in mind that many of these readings were taking in mid-afternoon, with more snow to come. The good news is that much like the rest of the eastern half of the country, the affected areas are expected to warm above freezing over the next few days, which will allow some of the snow to melt. On the other hand, if you were planning to travel to one of these areas soon, you might be better off rethinking your plans.

North Georgia gets its first real chance of rain in a long time from a tropical disturbance now located over South Florida. Although it’s not officially a tropical storm, the low pressure system is expected to move slowly north over Florida today and tomorrow, then pick up speed, and connect with a low pressure system that is now bringing snow to North Dakota and Minnesota. The result is a nor’easter likely to bring 8 to 9 inches of rain to the Carolina coast, and up to 4 inches of rain to New England.

The amount of rain we’ll see in metro Atlanta is dependent on how far west the center of the storm travels. Right now, it looks like the best chance of rain will be from Thursday morning through Friday night, with likely rainfall of half an inch. This assumes that the storm’s center will move up the coast. However, a few models bring the storm’s center as far west as I-75. If that’s the case, we could see quite a bit more rain.

Once the storm does pass through, we’re likely to see some of the first real cool weather of the season, starting with low temperatures around 50 degrees by Sunday. National Weather Service guidance through the next two weeks keeps the cooler than normal temperatures in the forecast - after today, I don’t see it getting above 80 degrees in the medium term.