Here’s what the Weather Underground blog had to say this morning about T.S. Noel under the heading of “Noel dumping torrential rains on the Dominican Republic”:
“Tropical Storm Noel hit Haiti this morning just south of the capital of Port-a-Prince, dumping prodigious rains of over one inch per hour over some regions of the island of Hispaniola. The storm’s slow forward speed means that heavy rains will affect the island for several more days. Long range radar out of Puerto Rico shows heavy rains affecting the Dominican Republic. These rains have already exceeded eight inches over a wide area of ocean to the east of Noel’s center, according to rainfall estimates from the Puerto Rico radar. Rainfall amounts of 4-7 inches over southern Puerto Rico have triggered numerous flash floods and landslides.
This morning’s QuikSCAT pass showed top winds of about 50 mph over a small region north of Hispaniola. Wind and storm surge damage should be minimal on Hispaniola from Noel.
The Dominican Republic
The worst of the rains for Puerto Rico are now over, but the flooding situation on Hispaniola today will be extremely serious, particularly in the Dominican Republic. Satellite loops show very vigorous thunderstorms reaching high into the atmosphere roiling over Hispaniola. Early this morning, these thunderstorms dumped about 150 mm (6 inches) of rain in just six hours in a region southwest of the capital of the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo reported a visibility of zero at 2am local time during this heavy rain. Rainfall amount of about 12 inches have fallen over the Dominican Republic’s southernmost point, the Barahona Peninsula, according to satellite estimates. The region’s only airport weather station stopped transmitting data at 8pm last night.”
So, it appears we have a couple more days of rain ahead of us, and, yes, it’s been raining all morning. The coaches, however, had the pitchers out throwing under one of the large covered sheds that are there for just that purpose, I guess. They were out for about an hour during the rain, which was falling almost horizontally due to the wind. I’m sure they must have gotten a wee bit wet.
I suppose none of my friends who are Red Sox fans will be reading this too soon, since they were probably up late last night celebrating.
As I’m writing this, it has started to rain as hard as I’ve seen so far. This must be the “inch per hour” type of rainfall that the weather blog was talking about. Actually, the fields are handling all of this pretty well, draining much of the water off before it can form a lake. 
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