weatherwiz

Hasn't rained here in like 20 minutes, time to raise the drought monitor index

def a good drink here. took a drive to Enfield/back and ran into some heavy downpours on the way there and again on the way back. cloud tops warming quickly though on the back end...lets get some sun. won't take much to get temps to jump

Might actually be encouraging for some breaks in the clouds

Yeah real tough to tell. Looks like there may be some breaks behind this stuff so we’ll see. Probably going to struggle to get enough CAPE though unless we can really pump the dews

Ramping up the elevated instability…not a bad sign. Just have to see if we can muster up enough surface instability. It’s going to be a short window but not impossible. Some of the bigger events happen when you’re rapidly increasing instability just out ahead of the approaching activity

yup...that's the stuff to watch for this evening. As that activity approaches we may see some discrete develop out ahead of it.

I think our window for discrete may be smaller and probably would be timed closer to when the line arrives. Probably looking at 5-7 for discrete with the line rolling through shortly after. I think the overall progression of the warm front has slowed to what it was looking like yesterday. It will be some time before we can get in some sfc instability

Definitely going to be interesting early evening, guidance increases instability just out ahead of the main activity moving in. If we can get upwards of 1500 J of MLCAPE to build in like some guidance shows there will be some wind damage for sure. Of course given the directional shear there would be the risk for a few tornadoes. Won't be getting much sun today but our instability is going to be coming from increasing dewpoints...if we get dews 73-74-75 in...watch out

yeah certainly could see some flash flooding

To our west but also within CT along the warm front during the afternoon with potential for supercells/isolated tornado risk. Then a line moving through during the evening with localized wind damage threat

18z HRRR pretty ominous

An unseasonably strong shortwave trough amplifies as it swings across the Great Lakes region on Saturday as it advances towards the Northeast Saturday evening/overnight. As it does so, a cold front will push across the Great Lakes region during the day with a warm front lifting across the Northeast during the day on Saturday ushering in a warmer and more moist low-level airmass. Ahead of the trough features 40-45 knots of westerly mid-level flow with 30-40 knots of southwesterly flow in the lower-levels of the atmosphere which will contribute to 30-40+ knots of bulk shear, sufficient for storm organization. With the warm front approaching and a relatively uncapped airmass, extensive cloud cover along with scattered showers and thunderstorms are expected throughout the day and this does raise concerns about how much surface heating can occur and how much instability can build. Secondly, the timing of the rain and thunderstorms associated with a pre-frontal trough will be during the early evening, after peak heating. While instability would be a concern moving out of peak heating, as the warm front continues lifting through the region, the advection of higher theta-e air should help maintain what instability we have in place or even boost instability values a bit. CAMS are rather bullish in developing multiple rounds of thunderstorms across NY and PA with potential for multiple and concentrated swaths of damaging wind gusts and even potential for a few tornadoes given high helicity values. CAMS weaken this activity as it propagates across New England during the evening, however, given strong dynamics, increasing height falls, and at least weak instability (MLCAPE ~1000 JKG), localized damaging wind gusts and perhaps even an embedded tornado would remain possible as this activity crosses the region. As usual, the best potential for damaging winds or a tornado would be western sections. If instability turns out greater than forecast, there would be potential for a greater damaging wind threat across western MA and western CT.

Should be. Overall best severe threat will be off to the west but should still see some localized wind threat across the region during the evening.

Certainly may be a brief window for something to become a bit organized before shear increases some

Understanding smokes impact on convective potential is extremely complicated. If you're talking about convective potential which is extremely dependent on instability, then smoke is going to have a large negative impact on convective potential because its going to inhibit the convective temperature from being reached and of course lead to a reduction in instability. If you have a setup though in which forcing and dynamics are strong and you don't have to rely on large CAPE, smoke is probably not going to inhibit convection from developing (but of course may negatively impact strength). In the case of what happened across western Maine the other day, you already had capping in place from a stout EML so the dense smoke further enhanced capping and of course prevented convective temperature from being reached. Forcing for any afternoon storm development was always weak, which also increased tornado potential. So adding smoke into things just add another level of complexity but the impact of smoke on potential is going to vary based on the mechanisms involved in convective development.

may fire one up after 12z

Nastiness moving through tomorrow night. Probably some violence western areas

I am so ready to rip a squall line through Saturday night

Pretty crazy how this happens. There is research too about damage paths in the South contributing to local enhancement of thunderstorm activity because of the temperature gradient which becomes established between the vegetation and the damage path. I think even some research with burn scars in the West with rain/storms

but is that a snap shot from a general pattern or is that a pattern post front? If the formal, then yeah I would tend to agree.

I think we're back in action with goes 19

that looks probably isn't terrible for severe wx potential...would probably mean strong fronts moving through with good shear...probably not good for EML potential

No EMLs but outside of Saturday night, Tuesday looks decent too for storms. Good shortwave and shear...just have to see how timing works out and what instability is like

Saturday evening/night looking quite interesting. Good shortwave, strong height falls, good shear, increasing instability

Maybe it got hit by an asteroid or an alien spaceship