50 To 55 mph Wind Gusts Are Expected For A Few Hours Starting Around Midnight Tonight Across Western & Central Mass

For This Afternoon: Cloudy skies are expected throughout this afternoon & it’ll turn increasingly more windy. Temperatures will be near 55 Degrees. Winds will be Southwest and increase to 15 to 20 mph with gusts to 30-35 mph by mid to late afternoon.

50 To 55 mph Wind Gusts Are Expected For A Few Hours Starting Around Midnight Tonight: An area of low pressure is expected to rapidly strengthen as it moves across northern New England tonight. As it does so, it’ll lead to rapid barometric pressure rises on the backside of the storm causing a period of windy to very windy conditions across Western and Central Mass for a few hours tonight starting around midnight. Additionally, on the front side of the low pressure system, it is expected that a fast moving line of heavy showers and a few thunderstorms will cross Western and Central Mass between 9 pm and 11 pm this evening.

If there is a piece of good news, it is that the winds on the backside of the low pressure system do not look quite as strong as they did yesterday. That said, I still think that we’ll probably see 50 to 55 mph wind gusts out of the west and northwest starting around midnight tonight and lasting until about sunrise Thursday morning.

So, let me go into more detail into what I think tonight might be like across the region:

Heavy Showers & A Few Thunderstorms This Evening: A narrow line of heavy showers and a few thunderstorms is expected to rapidly move from west to east across the region this evening.

Current indications are that this line of showers and thunderstorms will move through between about 9 pm and 11 pm this evening. Given the fast moving nature of these showers and storms (probably will be moving at a forward speed of 50-60 mph), I do think that there will be some wind gusts of 40 to 60 mph that accompany this convective line. Additionally, a few rumbles of thunder look pretty likely when this line of showers and thunderstorms move through.

Windy To Very Windy Conditions Expected From About Midnight Tonight Until Sunrise Thursday Morning (Wind Gusts Of 50-55 mph Expected): Once that line of showers and thunderstorms move through, the winds are expected to rapidly increase by about midnight tonight across the entire area. This is due to the rapid barometric pressure rises on the backside of that low pressure system as it rapidly strengthens over northern New England.

I do think that we’ll probably see West to Northwest winds of 20 to 30 mph with gusts to 50 to 55 mph occur across the entire area from midnight tonight until about sunrise Thursday morning. That said, it would not surprise me to see some isolated 60 mph wind gusts in the Berkshires and on the hilltops in the Worcester Hills.

These windy to very windy conditions will likely lead to some downed tree limbs and some downed power lines. Isolated power outages look likely across the region.

Turning To Thursday – Sunny to partly sunny skies and windy conditions are expected throughout the day on Thursday. High temperatures will be between 45 and 50 Degrees. Winds will be West to Northwest at 15 to 25 mph with gusts to 35 mph.