A First Alert has been declared for New England on NECN, focused especially on an afternoon severe weather threat between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., which is most pronounced for New Hampshire, Maine and northern and western Massachusetts. People throughout the region will surely remain on guard with plenty of heat and humidity available to fuel any storms that develop.
Heavy rain and lightning are a given with any storms today, but what makes a storm severe by definition is damaging wind gusts and large hail.
Our Tuesday afternoon storms erupt in advance of a cold front that is a well-defined and sharp change in air. A northwest wind will gust to 30 mph much of the overnight Tuesday night as new, cool, less-humid air streams in and temperatures fall to the 40s in the North Country by dawn Wednesday, the 50s in the central part of the region and around 60 south.
The crisp start Wednesday will be accompanied by ample sunshine – the feature of the day Wednesday – with comfortable high temperatures in the 70s and exceptionally dry air.
Wednesday night low temperatures may dip into the 30s for some northern New England valleys, with widespread 40s reaching all the way into interior Massachusetts.
Heading into the late week and weekend, a dynamic weather setup unfolds that increases forecast uncertainty and also may deliver fluctuations in temperatures.
Thursday, an energetic disturbance at the jet stream level, high in the sky, drops southeast into New England and will prompt developing rain from northwest to southeast.
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This will also set up a rather large discrepancy in temperature from daytime highs as cool as the upper 50s possible in parts of Maine, to the 80s in southern Connecticut!
On Friday, a wedge of dry air will attempt to keep showers away, though a chance still lingers in southern New England, and how warm any given spot in New England is depends heavily on how much sunshine emerges.
As we’ve mentioned on air the last few days, an approaching storm center this weekend seems likely to scoop up moisture from Hurricane Laura – now predicted to make landfall near the Louisiana-Texas border as a catastrophic Category 3 hurricane early Thursday morning – and enhance incoming showers and downpours late Saturday through Saturday night.
Though it’s possible some showers linger early Sunday morning, our First Alert team remains hopeful they’ll move out early and allow for emerging sun and a pleasant Sunday. Next week is likely to bring temperatures very close to normal for this time of the year in the upper 70s to around 80 degrees.
