This morning a line of “severe” thunderstorms rolled through all of New England. At some point, every state in New England was under a “severe” thunderstorm warning.
I put “severe” in quotes in this case because the National Weather Service (NWS) criteria for a “severe” thunderstorm is a storm that produces hail at least 1″ in diameter and/or winds at least 58 mph. The NWS admitted there were no indications that this morning’s storms were actually producing any hail whatsoever or any wind gusts that strong. The wind gusts were more like 40-50 mph. So why was a warning issued?!? Because drought stricken trees that are still full of leaves are easy to topple! So, even though the winds weren’t technically strong enough to qualify as “severe,” they were strong enough to do a LOT of tree damage in this case. The NWS does have the discretion to issue warnings if damage has been reported and in this case there were widespread damage reports, all wind/tree damage…
And in many cases, the toppled trees took out power lines. As I write this, there are apparently over 17,000 homes without power across MA. Good news for those folks…you won’t need the A/C again for awhile!
Now that the storms are out of the way, the weather turns VERY pleasant! In their Boston area forecast discussion this morning, the NWS said “hints of autumn during these last weeks of summer
[will] make pumpkin-spiced products seem reasonably acceptable rather than utterly absurd.” I couldn’t sum it up any better myself!
So, if drinking your favorite fall beverage seemed a bit out of place on Friday when it was a record tying 93 degrees, fear not, it will feel just right Monday morning! For the record, I still enjoyed my Octoberfest on Friday, but will enjoy it even more now that the weather is quiet and cool.
