Santa Needs a Raincoat as Pre-Christmas Storm Likely to Be Wet

It's beginning to lot a lot like a green but very cold Christmas from the end-of-the week storm that was threatening holiday travel plans on the Seacoast and around the northeast.

There is still room for the forecast to change, but meteorologist Jon Palmer at the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, is confident that the storm will draw in warm air, making it a mostly rain weather event.

"For the Seacoast, the thing that we're most certain about is the precip type from this system, and it's going to be all rain. Maybe parts of interior Rockingham County could start as snow. But eventually this is going to be something where everyone's supposed to be going to rain. All the models seem to be pretty confident on that," Palmer told Seacoast Current.

The models also agree it could be a heavy rain, with potentially 2-3 inches falling between Thursday night and Saturday morning.

Palmer is less certain of how windy it could get, especially along the immediate coast. Winds could blow at between 40 and 50 mph, creating the potential for isolated power outages.

"On top of that, we also have record high tides coming in as well, which poses a threat for coastal flooding. That's the type of that's more of the type of stuff that's up in the air, as well as rainfall amounts," Palmer said.

Temperatures will rise into the 50s on Friday throughout the Seacoast region. And then the bottom falls as temperatures drop Friday night, which could bring some light snow as the storm tapers off.

Hot Chocolate for Santa

Palmer expects high temperatures on Saturday, Christmas Eve, to be only in the 30s and mid-teens as Santa makes his rounds at night, while cold air is dragged across the country from west to east.

"There's going to be this very, very large funnel of extremely cold air that's going to rush down into the northern plains," Palmer said. "That cold air is going to kind of nudge down through most of the country."

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com or via Twitter @DanAlexanderNH