The severe weather threat continues this afternoon, with upward vertical motion increasing ahead of the potent shortwave trough that's digging across the Northeast. With all of the heat and humidity in place, this will continue to spark severe thunderstorms. Some storms fired along a boundary that I expected to be more active - one that extends from interior Eastern MA through NH and into ME - though it's been mostly the northern half of this boundary that has stayed active as of this writing. Winds are light on the southern side of the boundary for several thousand feet into the atmosphere and this hampered evacuation of air aloft, meaning the few storms that developed pulsed then died. Having said that, the cap (inversion) will weaken in the coming hours, and ascent of air will increase...with tons of heat and humidity still in place...so I believe Eastern MA/Southern NH rides a very fine line between thunderstorm initiation or not, and if anything breaks the cap, it will grow quickly in an environment that features backed winds on the east side of the boundary, yielding the potential for rotating storms if we get storms to pop. Multiple lines of storms will continue developing out of New York State in the meantime.
Second front Wed afternoon brings chance of thunder to North Country with vorticity maximum riding the border, but rest of New England should stay dry with fair weather clouds amidst dewpoints closer to 60 - feeling a lot drier to the body. The next front brings drier air, still, and that means great stuff for Thu and Fri. The weekend brings a challenge of timing of precipitation that's dependent upon the ridge axis and where it sets up - the GFS looked to be a slow outlier and I leaned toward the Canadian Ensemble/Operational Canadian/ECMWF solution of a Saturday evening ridge axis over Eastern ME, which means the rest of New England finds increased humidity and an increased chance of thunderstorms.
Quick updated today due to severe weather coverage. Thanks for checking in!
Matt,
Don't get me wrong. I don't wish severe wx on anyone but this has been a most disappointing storm season to date for a t'storm photgrapher on the coast. Dating myself, I remember when thunderstorms were common on the coast - 1970s. This was the transitioning from the cool regime that was the 1960s - also lackluster. Now in the hot regime which began about 1990, storms have still not measured up to the numbers and strength of the 1970s and 80s
Posted by: Thundertom | Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 07:17 PM
There were two cumulonimbus last eve approaching the coast. I got a pic of one well to the north. I'm fairly certain those were seabreeze initiated as warmer air pushed east against a feeble ocean wind. Isolated, nice looking clouds.
As to todays fiasco, most it rests with the NWS Just looking at the radar this afternoon showed that the squall line was limited to Northern New England, not New York state. All the dynamics again to the north as in many previous thunderstorm seasons bypassing eastern MA. More of the same, weakening cold fronts - Global warming lives! and there can be no doubt humans are contributing
Posted by: Thundertom | Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 06:55 PM
Matt, I am totally underwhelmed by today's/tonight's severe wx potential especially after your forecast of afternoon thunderstorms for just inland of the MA coast went poof! Oh well; better luck next time. What model(s) showed that seabreeze convection, anyway?
Posted by: Thundertom | Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 05:25 PM