118K With No Power, Flood Warnings Across MA In Fierce Storm's Wake

MASSACHUSETTS — While the sun was out bright Tuesday morning there were still plenty of power outages, severe storm damage and flood warnings across Massachusetts in the wake of Monday's wicked storm.

As temperatures soared into the 60s, the weather felt like something more out of a springtime socking as winds reached as high as 90 miles per hour at the Blue Hills Observatory, many cities and towns were flooded by more than 3 inches of rain, and power outages were found across the Bay State with more than 118,000 still without power as of Tuesday morning.

Most of the severe outages are on the South Shore 92 percent of Scituate remained in the dark as of 9:30 a.m., 70 percent of Norwell was without power, as well as 64 percent of Hanover, 64 percent of Duxbury and 53 percent of Pembroke.

The storm was deadly for one 89-year-old man on the South Shore when a tree crashed onto his camper — splitting it in half —while he was inside it. There was no school in several districts, including Scituate, on Tuesday because of unpassable roads and lack of electricity.

"During yesterday's storm, our day shift responded to 66 calls for 'Wires/Trees Down' across town," Hingham police said on Tuesday. "That number doesn't other include other non-storm calls for service calls we responded to."

Duxbury fire said they responded to more than 100 calls over the previous 24 hours with 4,000 residents still without power as of Tuesday morning.

National Grid and Eversource said on Tuesday morning that it could be until Thursday before power is fully restored across the region and that crews are working to speed up that timeline with the help of additional workers from New York and Canada.

"Our crews restored more than 20,000 customers overnight, and we're shifting crews to our hardest-hit MetroWest, South Shore, and Cape Cod communities," Eversource said in a statement on Tuesday. "With more crews arriving to help this morning, we're also focused on restoring power to schools and clearing tree-blocked roads."

There was plenty of wind to topple those trees with the highest gusts measured at 90 mph at Blue Hills in Milton, 68 mph at Logan Airport, 67 mph in Norwood, 67 mph on Nantucket, 66 mph in Dighton, 56 mph at Hansom Airport in Bedford, 55 mph in Beverly and 52 mph at Worcester Airport, according to National Weather Service observers.

The highest rain totals were in Bedford, which measured 3.41 inches, Norwell at 3.18 inches, Lawrence at 2.84 inches, Wakefield at 2.68, and Logan Airport at 2.1 inches.

All the rain, combined with some snow melt to the north, strained rivers and streams across Massachusetts with a flood warning still in effect for many waterways across the state on Tuesday.

Gale wind warnings also remained in effect for those on the waters off the coast of New England.

Those looking for good news ahead of the busy holiday travel week will find it in the forecast that is calling for clear and calm conditions through the weekend, including Christmas Day.

It will be on the chilly side through midweek with highs in the 30s to near 40. But warming a bit for the final holiday push with temperatures on Christmas Day heading toward 50 degrees.

White Christmas fans will be disappointed, however, with the next chance of significant rain or snow not expected until at least next Tuesday.