Your RI Weather Today – July 9, 2021

by Jack Donnelly, meteorologist

Moisture-laden Tropical Storm Elsa will roll through and dump copious amounts of rain during the morning hours to the tune of 2 inches plus! Most of it falling between the hours of 7am to 12 pm, so local flooding is almost a guarantee. Elsa is approaching from an inland trajectory, so wind is not the main issue, although there could be some southeasterly gusts shifting to westerly past 30 mph in locations during and just after Elsa’s passage, helping to drive the rain into loose and ordinarily hidden nooks and crannies of structures. An obviously tropical feel to the air, saturated with a fairly small temperature range, morning lows in the upper 60’s and highs in the upper 70’s. Dense cloud cover may break slightly in the afternoon as Elsa tracks to new land once she’s done with us.