A robust frontal system is expected to make its way across the region late Wednesday and Wednesday night and will bring with it the risk for severe thunderstorms.
A warm and humid day is expected on Wednesday with high temperatures near 85 Degrees expected under partial sunshine during the afternoon.
That cold front is expected to bump into that warm, humid and quite unstable atmosphere and will lead to the development of strong to severe thunderstorms first from northern Vermont into eastern and central New York State by mid-afternoon Wednesday.
These strong to severe thunderstorms are then expected to move to the southeast reaching far Northwestern Mass by about 5-6 pm and push into Northern and Western Mass during the 6 to 8 pm time frame. Strong to severe thunderstorms are then expected to commence across central Mass by about 8-9 pm or so Wednesday evening.
The threat for strong to severe thunderstorms will then continue across all of Western and Central Mass for several hours on Wednesday night before coming to an end from northwest to southeast around midnight Wednesday night.
After midnight Wednesday night, there is expected to be some scattered showers and thunderstorms around, but the severe risk should be quite low by then.
The overall main threat from any strong to severe thunderstorms between 5 pm and midnight Wednesday will be strong wind gusts of up to 50-65 mph. With that said, I do have quite a bit of concern that there could be a tornado threat for areas along and north of Route 2 where there's expected to be a lot more turning in the atmosphere.
In fact, southern Vermont, southern New Hampshire and southern Maine has a fairly decent risk of tornadoes late Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday evening. This includes Bennington, Brattleboro, Keene, Manchester, Concord, Portsmouth and Portland.
The severe weather risk late Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday evening is something that I'm watching very closely and I'll have updates for you as needed.