2026 Mid-Atlantic Severe Storm General Discussion

[Eskimo Joe]

13 minutes ago, high risk said:

No, I actually did mean 2011 when there were destructive tornadoes in western Massachusetts. 

Ah that day was legit. I remember watching the radar and was quite impressed. That event is proof positive we can get several major tornadoes on the same day in the northeast and mid atlantic.

[vortex95]

9 hours ago, high risk said:

   June 1, 2011 also comes to mind when looking at this setup.   You're absolutely correct that a Day 6 outlook for this part of the country is a rare thing, and there certainly is high end potential.    Verbatim, I think that the overnight solutions would really favor New England for the greatest potential, but we'll see how the synoptic evolve over the next few days.

When I posted, I thought of it this way, in a overall synoptic sense, you don't track a 990 mb or deeper sfc low across southern Ontario/Quebec this time of year, and *not* have something big happen convectively!  What that is exactly is and where?  Way too early, but all the main pieces are there, so that's the first step.  Work from there.

What is really cool now is that modelling and knowledge have come to the point we now can reasonably see high-end/record-setting events potential well in advance.  The first time I really took l note of this was a couple days before the Oct 29-30, 2011 snowstorm.  I noticed how cold the short-range ensembles were showing the 850 mb temps, and I said, "this is going to be epic/really bad," and look what happened.  Then a year later, we saw what the ECMWF was doing w/ Sandy (even before the system was named Sandy!) 9 days out, and again, look what happened!

Now we had advanced enough to see high-end svr convective potential days 4-8.

From a wx passion standpoint, it's really cool to know such things in advance now.  Growing up, I recall the uncertainty factor seemed always so high, and so many surprises (snowstorms over-performing was a biggie).  And from a societal POV, us knowing ahead of time is a tremendous benefit so we can prepare for them and mitigate impacts.
 

[vortex95]

10 hours ago, Eskimo Joe said:

You mean June 1, 2012? The moderate risk day that almost went full gang busters?

June 1, 2011 was the New England tor event w/ the EF3 Springfield-Monson MA.  This is the last high-end tor event for New England,  About every 10-15 years New England gets a high-end tor event, so one could say, "they're due!" 

[vortex95]

5 hours ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Ah that day was legit. I remember watching the radar and was quite impressed. That event is proof positive we can get several major tornadoes on the same day in the northeast and mid atlantic.

I'm originally from just NW of BOS, and the biggest thing I recall locally from that 6/1/11 was the nasty +CGs coming out of the supercell anvils overhead.  The storm cores were 30 mi to my W.  Don't see that too often in New England!

Then another supercell just missed me in the evening that crushed BOS. Here is video (not mine) taken about 10 mi to my N in Lowell MA. This is telltale supercell lightning.  Very frequent, quick flickering pulses in the upper part of the CB. You can actually see short cloud-to-cloud bolts at times, known in chaser slang as, "anvil zits!"

 

[Nomz]

Since I'm back home in Boston, I've mostly been following our weather, but I wanted to stop by here. Obviously, insanely potent jet for this time of year, with 100+ kt on Wednesday over the Midwest and nearly 100kt as it takes on a negative tilt on Thursday over NE, both per 00z euro. The GooFuS solution favors you all with the trough swinging down a little bit more and overspreading the region with 40-50kt flow, which is good for this time of year. It should be noted that with these super-fast (speed and translation) punching jets, you don't need to be right in the centroid to see good storms. Deep-layer shear should be pretty good due to the strength of the jet, although it remains to be seen whether the LLJ and associated SRH will reach down to MA. Attached is a model sounding at BWI at 18z from the 00z GFS. 41 EBWD supportive of supercells, but, as you can see, it's mostly speed shear with no real turning with height due to a very modest 850mb jet. CAPE is skinny on this sounding in particular, but I wouldn't worry, as many others were 1000-1500+, and globals tend to underestimate thermos anyways. We will have to wait for the SVWX king, the NAM, to bring us the goods. 

[dailylurker]

Crickets in here. Models don't look super interesting for today. Hrrr develops a line of storm over DC and moves east. It looks pretty strong down near oc. It has the line coming through the lowlands around 9pm. I love a nice evening storm. Hopefully everyone gets a good soaking. NAM is congrats PA line and north.

[Eskimo Joe]

46 minutes ago, dailylurker said:

Crickets in here. Models don't look super interesting for today. Hrrr develops a line of storm over DC and moves east. It looks pretty strong down near oc. It has the line coming through the lowlands around 9pm. I love a nice evening storm. Hopefully everyone gets a good soaking. NAM is congrats PA line and north.

Looks like a Delmarva special today 

[TSSN+]

51 minutes ago, dailylurker said:

Crickets in here. Models don't look super interesting for today. Hrrr develops a line of storm over DC and moves east. It looks pretty strong down near oc. It has the line coming through the lowlands around 9pm. I love a nice evening storm. Hopefully everyone gets a good soaking. NAM is congrats PA line and north.

Could be a decent storm day. Looks like could put a damper on the White House ufc event lol 

[high risk]

1 hour ago, dailylurker said:

Crickets in here. Models don't look super interesting for today. Hrrr develops a line of storm over DC and moves east. It looks pretty strong down near oc. It has the line coming through the lowlands around 9pm. I love a nice evening storm. Hopefully everyone gets a good soaking. NAM is congrats PA line and north.

       I'm still pretty bullish on today, especially for those east of Route 15.    I'll be watching dew point this afternoon closely, as a number of models really mix out for a while and lower the dews significantly.      That said, I'm not sure that I buy it to the extent that some guidance has most guidance recovers moisture ahead of development, and shear will be very good later today.    If moisture really does mix out for a while, the threat will then be more focused east of the Potomac.

[high risk]

4 hours ago, Nomz said:

Since I'm back home in Boston, I've mostly been following our weather, but I wanted to stop by here. Obviously, insanely potent jet for this time of year, with 100+ kt on Wednesday over the Midwest and nearly 100kt as it takes on a negative tilt on Thursday over NE, both per 00z euro. The GooFuS solution favors you all with the trough swinging down a little bit more and overspreading the region with 40-50kt flow, which is good for this time of year. It should be noted that with these super-fast (speed and translation) punching jets, you don't need to be right in the centroid to see good storms. Deep-layer shear should be pretty good due to the strength of the jet, although it remains to be seen whether the LLJ and associated SRH will reach down to MA. Attached is a model sounding at BWI at 18z from the 00z GFS. 41 EBWD supportive of supercells, but, as you can see, it's mostly speed shear with no real turning with height due to a very modest 850mb jet. CAPE is skinny on this sounding in particular, but I wouldn't worry, as many others were 1000-1500+, and globals tend to underestimate thermos anyways. We will have to wait for the SVWX king, the NAM, to bring us the goods. 

              The synoptics definitely scream big event for someone, but the sounding you showed highlights the possible fail mechanism here.   The strong mid-level flow develops a sharp lee trough on the east side of the Appalachians early in the day which blasts across the Mid-Atlantic by lunchtime.   We then downslope big time ahead of the cold front.    That's why there is no directional shear in that sounding - the low-level flow has shifted to westerly.       Still plenty of time for sure, though, to sort out the synoptic details.