We’re watching an active weather day across southern New England, especially this morning. The first thing I want to point out is an important word in the title — scattered. Not every person or every town will see storms today, but where they do move through, they have the potential to be strong or even severe. The storm risk will come in two waves: one this morning, the second later this evening.
Like so many times this summer, our biggest threat today is not necessarily the strong or severe criteria for the storm, but rather the rain. As a reminder, an official severe storm requires wind gusts to 60 mph, hail over 1″ in diameter, or a tornado. There’s a lot of water locked up in our atmosphere this morning and you’ll feel that in the humidity as you step out the door. As the warm front moves through this morning, it will squeeze all of that moisture out of the atmosphere. So any of these storms could produce a quick inch or two of rain, then imagine getting a couple or few storms back-to-back, that’s where the flood risk comes in. For that reason, we have a flood watch out in effect for the day today.
While the heavy rain is our biggest risk and threat, it is possible to get a few storms that could show signs of what would constitute a severe storm. If that were to happen, our most likely reason would be strong wind gusts, but we cannot rule out the tornado risk today if these storms try to spin a bit. It’s more likely the rotation risk would be with the morning batch of storms than the evening batch.
The biggest question of the forecast today with the storms is what happens in between the two rounds. The drier it is, the more sun we see, would re-energize the atmosphere before the storms this evening. If we keep a few showers and a lot of clouds around, that would lessen the severe chances. Below are future radar shots for the day today. A few things to note on the storms and future radar shots:
– Notice the scattered nature of the storms this morning. Not everyone will see rain and storms this morning.
– The main window of time for the strong to severe potential is until noon.
– The drier window this afternoon will dictate the strength of the storms this evening (after 4pm)
– Note: the afternoon hours aren’t 100% dry but they’ll be the driest hours of the day.
