A Few Strong To Severe Thunderstorms Are Possible Friday Afternoon Into Friday Evening

For Tonight: An area of high pressure will move to the east while a frontal boundary approaches from the west. This will set up a southwesterly wind flow across our area leading to a warm and humid night. Skies tonight will be partly cloudy with low temperatures near 65 Degrees. Winds will be Southwest at 5 to 10 mph. Friday: A frontal boundary is expected to push through the area during Friday afternoon and Friday evening. Ahead of this front, expect a hot and humid day across Western and Central Mass with high temperatures of 85 to 90 Degrees and dew point temperatures of 65 to 70 Degrees. These hot and humid conditions will lead to an unstable atmosphere that will be capable of producing scattered thunderstorms during the afternoon and evening hours. The question is, however, is whether any of the thunderstorms will be strong to severe. At this point, the amount of unstable air and wind shear looks to be modest and thus I could see a few of the thunderstorms becoming strong to severe. That said, a widespread severe weather event looks very unlikely. Scattered thunderstorms look to overspread the entire area by about the 1 to 3 pm time frame with at least a couple of rounds of thunderstorms expected from mid-afternoon until early evening Friday. The greatest threat for thunderstorm activity looks to be from about 1-3 pm until about 8-10 pm or so. The main threat from the scattered thunderstorm activity is going to be locally heavy downpours that’ll bring a threat for street and highway flooding, as well as frequent lightning strikes. As I already mentioned though, a few of the thunderstorms could be strong to severe with wind gusts of 40-60 mph. I’ll be watching the thunderstorm activity closely on Friday and will have updates for you as needed.