A slow area of low pressure will move out of the Great Lakes and make its way across New England the next few days. Where have we heard that before? Oh yeah, literally all month long! Well, we’re back in this pattern which will keep us in an unsettled pattern all week long. But, like most days this month, these will be isolated or scattered in nature and no day will be a total washout. It’s not just the storm chance that will be with us all week, but the mild and HUMID air will be with us through the weekend too.
Out the door this morning it’s warm and humid. The dew points are near 70° which is a tropical-like air mass and that’s where temperatures are too. When the temperature and the dew point get close together, that’s when we develop the fog and low cloud cover that many of us are waking up to. There’s a dense fog advisory for Buzzard’s Bay, Cape, and Islands until 10am for visibility down to a quarter-mile in spots. I do think everyone has the potential to see morning fog, but it will be most widespread and more dense where there’s the advisory. While the warm and humid air is creating fog this morning, it will fuel storms this afternoon.
Today, it’s possible that a few of the storms we see are on the strong or even severe side. I don’t think the risk it widespread, but it’s also not zero. Notice we’re on the lowest category of the severe weather scale.
For a storm to be severe, you need wind gusts to clock 58 mph, hail to grow to 1″ in diameter, or of course a tornado. Of the three, I think the risk for this afternoon is strong wind gust potential. Lightning and downpours aren’t qualifiers for a storm to be severe but I do think we’ll see both of those too. Of course with storms there’s always the risk of lightning. Today, with all the humidity in the air, the chance for tropical downpours is pretty high in any of the storms that do develop and that could lead to poor drainage flooding. Think of the storms as wringing out a towel. The wetter the towel (i.e. the more humidity in the air), the more water that can be squeezed out (i.e. rained out).
While the storms could be strong or severe, that doesn’t mean they’ll be widespread, and not making today a washout as I said earlier. Below is future radar showing how widely scattered the storms will be. I think storm potential will be any time after noon today. The on and off storms will continue through the afternoon and evening. We’ll keep a few showers and thunderstorms in the forecast overnight tonight too.
Today, the shower and storm threat is after the noon hour as mentioned above. Tomorrow, I don’t necessarily think will be a wetter day, but the storm threat is spread throughout the day, including the morning. So while they’ll still be widely scattered, those scattered storms could move through at about any time tomorrow versus the afternoon today.
