Midnight Friday Night Weather Update On Expected Thunderstorm Activity Later Saturday Afternoon & Evening

I wanted to update everyone on the thunderstorm threat for Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening & let you know what I'm currently seeing.

Cloudy skies are expected throughout the rest of tonight right through Saturday morning. How long this cloud cover hangs on is going to be important in determining how widespread the thunderstorm activity will be Saturday afternoon & whether the storms will be strong to severe or not.

A cold front is expected to pass through the region during the late afternoon and evening hours of Saturday. This front will be the lifting mechanism for shower and thunderstorm development.

The latest weather forecast guidance seems to be pointing towards skies to become partly sunny by early Saturday afternoon and remain a mixture of sunshine and clouds for much of the afternoon on Saturday. This should lead to temperatures Saturday afternoon to top out at between 75 and 80 Degrees.

Should we see partial sunshine with 75-80 degree temperatures, it could lead to an atmosphere that becomes unstable enough and favorable enough to produce thunderstorms across the region by late Saturday afternoon.

My thinking as of right now is for scattered thunderstorms to begin to affect Western Mass by about 4-5 pm Saturday afternoon and then begin to affect Central Mass by 5-6 pm Saturday afternoon. These storms should remain a threat until about 10 pm-midnight Saturday evening.

I do think that a few of the thunderstorms might be strong to possibly severe & be capable of producing wind gusts of up to 45-60 mph, hail up to the size of peas to perhaps pennies, torrential downpours and frequent lightning. At this time, I am not anticipated a widespread severe weather event, but instead a very isolated strong to severe weather event.

I will continue to keep an eye on things in terms of thunderstorms for Saturday afternoon & evening & will have more updates for you as needed.

I know that there are a ton of events going on during Saturday afternoon & evening. Because of this, my advice to you is to keep close tabs on the weather for later Saturday afternoon & evening & be prepared to take sturdy shelter should thunderstorms threaten.