Monitoring Severe Weather Threat For Tuesday
Aside from some locally dense fog this morning and a spot shower during the afternoon, our weather will be fairly quiet today. Expect muggy conditions with highs in the 80s inland, 70s at the coast with sea breezes kicking in. Meanwhile, a disturbance over the Midwest will bring severe weather to that region today – and will approach the Northeast tomorrow.
Not everyone will see a severe storm tomorrow…in fact, not everyone will even see a thunderstorm. But the atmosphere is primed for some of the storms to become damaging. The timeframe of biggest concern is between 2-8 PM as a cold front slides through, triggering the thunderstorm activity.
The primary threats are for damaging wind gusts, large hail, torrential downpours and frequent lightning. There is a good amount of wind shear tomorrow too (essentially a change in wind direction with height in the atmosphere) which may result in some rotating thunderstorms. In other words, there is a secondary threat for an isolated tornado in southern New England.
I wouldn't be surprised if a severe thunderstorm or tornado WATCH is issued tomorrow around midday. Keep in mind, a watch means conditions are favorable for severe weather to develop, whereas a warning means a severe storm is occurring or imminent.
See the graphics below for a few snapshots of the projected radar tomorrow afternoon. Don't focus on the exact placement of the storms since they're such small scale weather events...any tiny shift in the location of storms will have big implications on who is impacted.
Of course we'll be monitoring the severe weather threat closely over the next 24 hours and will update you on any changes to our thinking. What can you do in the meantime? Download our CBS Boston Weather App – it's a great tool to have, especially when severe weather strikes. You can set up alerts to notify you when severe storms pop in your area and warnings are issued, so you'll know when to seek shelter immediately.
-Danielle