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Tropical Storm Jose Still Churning In Waters Off New England

Tropical storm Jose remains stuck off the coast of Cape Cod, and according to weather experts, doesn’t appear to be in a hurry to move.

While it’s far enough away for Maine to avoid lots of rainfall, the coast will still feel its effects with unusually high surf.

“These are what we call long period swells,” says Meteorologist Tom Hawley with the National Weather Service. “They’re 5-10 footers, probably 12-15 seconds between waves.”

Hawley says as tempting as it may be to go stand at the shore to watch the waves, doing so could be very dangerous.

“They’re fairly high-energy waves — they have a lot of water with them versus a wave that’s just wind wave,” he says. “These are swells that have been radiating out from Jose over a long period of time. People standing on the rocks taking pictures, if they’re too close, they could certainly get hit with — walloped — with one of these things and get pulled right out into the ocean.”

Hawley says at the moment, Hurricane Maria is expected to follow a path similar to Jose, and with Jose very slow to move off, the two could both wind up stuck off Cape Cod, with both affecting the New England coast well into next week.