A Few Strong To Severe Thunderstorms Are Expected This Afternoon Into Early This Evening Across Western & Central Mass

A Few Strong To Severe Thunderstorms Are Expected This Afternoon Into Early This Evening: It looks like we are in for an active afternoon in terms of a few strong to severe thunderstorms as a strong cold front moves through the region. These storms will have the capability of producing wind gusts of up to 45-65 mph, small hail, frequent lightning, torrential downpours and even perhaps a tornado or two.

Conditions out there right now are warm and quite humid and it is expected that temperatures will top out in the upper 70s to low 80s. Dew point temperatures throughout the rest of today will hover around 70 Degrees, so definitely, a quite muggy day.

Now, to discuss the potential for strong to severe thunderstorms this afternoon into early this evening.

The combination of lift and energy from the strong cold front with moderate amounts of unstable air & a very humid air mass will lead to an environment that is favorable for thunderstorm production this afternoon. The question becomes how severe will the thunderstorms be when they move through. While the atmosphere looks quite favorable for strong to severe storms, one impediment to seeing quite a bit in the way of severe weather looks to be the morning clouds & the hazy, smoky skies that are expected this afternoon. This smoke layer could put a cap of sorts on how unstable the atmosphere becomes & thus, it’s possible that this afternoon’s thunderstorm event could under perform.

Overall, I’m not expecting a severe weather outbreak this afternoon, but I do think that a few of the thunderstorms will be on the strong to severe side.

Current indications seem to suggest that scattered thunderstorms will move from eastern New York State into the Berkshires by about 1-2 pm or so this afternoon. These thunderstorms will then overspread the rest of Western Mass during the 2-4 pm time frame & then overspread Central Mass once we get into the 3-5 pm time frame. These thunderstorms will then continue until about 5-7 pm across Western Mass and until about 6-8 pm across Central Mass.

As I have already mentioned, I do think that a few of the thunderstorms will be on the strong to severe side. This means that these storms will be capable of producing wind gusts of up to 45-65 mph, small hail, frequent lightning and torrential downpours that may produce localized areas of urban and poor drainage flooding. Finally, there is a small chance that some of the most severe of storms could produce a tornado or two. The area that I’m most concerned about in terms of tornado risk is across the Pioneer Valley of Western Mass, the Berkshires and near and north of Route 2 across northern Worcester County. Again though, the tornado risk looks low, but it is still something to keep an eye on.

I will be keeping a very close eye on this afternoon’s thunderstorm situation and I’ll have many more updates as needed.

Finally, be sure to keep very close attention to the weather throughout the rest of today (it is one of those days where you really should pay close attention to the weather) & have multiple ways of receiving weather warnings, including checking in with me often.

Sunday: I wanted to cover Sunday’s weather really quickly since there will be rain for a large amount of the day.

That cold front is expected to stall just to our south and east during Sunday & this will lead to a cloudy, cool and wet day across the entire area.

Widespread showers can be expected throughout Sunday morning across all of Western and Central Mass. As we get into the afternoon, it appears that the showers will end across Western Mass by midday, but the showers looks to continue across Central Mass during the early and mid-afternoon hours. These showers will be done across much of Central Mass by mid-afternoon. The exception looks to be across southeastern Worcester County (areas near and east of Route 146) where the showers persist right into late afternoon before ending by early evening.

High temperatures Sunday will be near 65 Degrees.