Town Neck Beach in Sandwich
HYANNIS – Tropical Storm Jose continued to lash Cape Cod and the Islands with rain and wind Thursday, as the storm stalled nearly 200 miles off Nantucket.
Pounding surf and strong winds have been the hallmark of the storm since it first arrived on Wednesday.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami downgraded Jose to a post-tropical system early Friday morning, as peak winds relaxed to 50 mph. The storm was actually drifting slowly to the west and was expected to completely dissipate by early in the weekend.
National Weather Service Meteorologist Bill Simpson expected to see the wind gusts die down and the rain continue into the weekend.
“It’s been playing out pretty much as we anticipated. There could be showers even into the first part of Monday, but that will be very light compared to what we’ve had over the past couple of days,” Simpson said.
While keeping an eye on the possible effects that Hurricane Maria could have on the region next week, Simpson said it’s been an active hurricane season.
“Climatically we’re past the peak (of hurricane season) by the end of the month. It’s still a possibility, but with that cooler ocean water, it usually helps degrade the system if it moves up here,” said Simpson.
There were scattered power outages throughout the day Thursday, with the largest happening in Sandwich, where more than 2,000 customers were in the dark at one point.
There were also outages reported in Falmouth, Barnstable, Yarmouth and Bourne.
The Barnstable County Regional Emergency Planning Committee held its last conference call associated with Jose at 4 p.m. Thursday.
Officials said that because Jose’s impact on the power grid has been minimal, and forecasts call for continued weakening, their Multi-Agency Coordination Center ceased operations Thursday afternoon.
Over the course of the event, the BCREPC worked closely with electric utility Eversource and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
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