Flood in Norfolk County, Massachusetts

Four to six inches of rain fell across Norfolk County, resulting in the Charles River at Dover and the Neponset River at Norwood rising to major flood.

Several small streams rose above flood stage across Norfolk County, including the Charles River at Medway which set a record, the Monatiquot River at East Braintree, and the Old Swamp River at South Weymouth.

Many basements were flooded in Norfolk and Westwood. Numerous streets were closed due to flooding in Holbrook, Medfield, Bellingham, Franklin, Westwood, Medway, Norfolk, Walpole, Quincy, Weymouth, and Millis.

In Bellingham, one family was evacuated from a house on Pine Grove Avenue. The Primavera School on Harpin Street also had some flooding.

A low pressure system sat just south of Long Island for two days, bringing heavy rain to much of Southern New England during that time. A persistent southerly low level jet brought very moist air into the area, which resulted in high rainfall rates. A coastal front along the I-95 corridor enhanced rainfall in that area. This event followed a heavy rainfall and record flooding event in mid-March as well as a second lesser rain event about a week prior. Rivers across much of Massachusetts and Rhode Island were still high from those events and warm temperatures in northern Vermont and New Hampshire resulted in a period of snowmelt, that resulted in rises on both the mainstem Connecticut and Merrimack Rivers. All of these factors led to a second record rainfall and flooding event.

Two day rainfall totals across Southern New England ranged from an inch to ten inches. Though concentrated in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, all of Southern New England was affected by the flooding. In Massachusetts, two day rainfall totals ranged from one and a half inches on Cape Cod to nearly eight inches in Bristol County. Providence, Boston, and Blue Hill Observatory in Milton, MA set record monthly precipitation totals during the month of March. Providence also set the record for the wettest month ever in the period of record. Both the Pawtuxet River in Rhode Island and the Sudbury River in Massachusetts set floods of record. Nearly 1000 Massachusetts National Guardsmen were activated to aid in sandbagging and evacuations. President Obama issued federal disaster declarations for seven counties in Massachusetts following the mid-March flooding. After this second round of flooding, residents of the seven counties (Bristol, Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Plymouth, Suffolk, and Worcester) received an automatic extension for filing their state and federal taxes.