It was an active weather day for parts of New England on Monday. Showers and thunderstorms turned severe in northern New England around noontime. Thunderstorms were most numerous in northern Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
By 1 p.m., thunderstorms moved into the Berkshires. A cluster of severe storms moved east on route 2. Those thunderstorms packed a punch with numerous damaging wind reports. Haverhill was the area hardest hit with a microburst. Judging by the damage, the National Weather Service estimated those winds at 80 mph.
This storm also caused significant damage in Plaistow, New Hampshire. The storm weakened as it moved toward the coast.
Around 3 p.m. a thunderstorm developed over the Worcester hills and quickly became severe. That storm caused significant damage in the Boston metro area. Numerous trees came down in Wellesley, Needham, Weymouth, Boston and Hingham. Wind speeds ranged from 60-80 mph in this area. The weather service believes there was a macroburst in this area.
There were approximately 160 damage reports between Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut (there were no reports in Rhode Island).
Farther north in northern New England there were several rounds of severe weather. You can actually look at the total amount of precipitation and see the tracks of the thunderstorms.Since the storms were fast movers (with a forward speeds up to 50 mph) - they didn't produce a lot of rain in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. However in northern New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine they received several rounds of thunderstorms and that's where we saw the most rain.
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If you look at the precipitation map, there is a gap between the route 2 and the metro storm. This is the part of Massachusetts that is experiencing the severe drought. Unfortunately we aren't expecting a soaking rain anytime soon.
Our weather turns active again on Friday and we could see additional hit-or-miss thunderstorms all the way through next week. Stay tuned!
