Rain, wind pummel Hampshire County throughout Monday
Published: 12-18-2023 4:21 PM |
NORTHAMPTON — Hampshire County faced several road closures, power outages and flooding after strong winds and heavy rainfall that began on Sunday night and continued through much of Monday.
In Northampton, at least two streets, West Street and Meadow Street, were closed due to flooding, according to the Northampton Police Department. Portions of other roads, such as Meadow Street, Reservoir Road, Mulberry Street and Main Street in Leeds, also faced partial closings due to the flooding.
In Williamsburg, a bridge on North Street also closed due to flooding, according to that town’s fire department. In Southampton, Cook Road and Maple Street were temporarily closed before reopening Monday around noon, and the bridge located on Gilbert Road was also closed due to flooding, according to the town’s police department.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, on Monday morning the section of the Mill River in Northampton experienced a gage height of more than 13 feet and a discharge of more than 4,500 cubic feet per second — the second highest levels recorded this year, only behind the levels recorded on July 10, when heavy flooding damaged more than 2,000 acres of crops at more than a hundred farms across the county, leading the county to be declared a disaster area by the federal government.
“Its a 10-year flood that has happened twice in six months,” said Diego Irizarry-Gerould, a board member of Grow Food Northampton, where community gardens were flooded during Monday’s storm. “It will be a ton of clean up but fortunately it’s not during the main growing season.”
Matt Doody, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Boston, said that Hampshire County experienced between 2½ to 3 inches of rainfall as of Monday morning, with Westhampton receiving the highest amount with more than 3.39 inches. Winds ranged between 40-50 mph across the area, with winds reaching as high as 63 mph in Goshen, according to the NWS.
Several towns also experienced power outages as a result of the storm. In Belchertown, more than 1,000 households were without power, while in Westhampton there were more than 250 outages, affecting more than a quarter of all households.
The heavy rainfall battered communities all across the state on Monday, with more than 200,000 outages, according to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, the worst hit municipalities being in the South Shore region and near the Rhode Island border.
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Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.