Severe threat

One round of showers and thunderstorms down, more expected later.

Today:  Periods of hazy sun, showers and thunderstorms possible at times, especially this afternoon.  Some storms could be severe with gusty winds and large hail.  Highs in the 90s south, 80s north.

Tonight:  Showers and thunderstorms diminish in the evening, becoming partly cloudy, lows in the 60s south, 50s north.

Tomorrow:  Partly sunny, cooler, highs in the 70s.

Tomorrow night:  Increasing clouds, lows in the 50s south, upper 30s north.

Saturday:  Cloudy with showers possible, highs in the upper 60s to near 70.

Discussion:

I will focus on today as the weather should impact just about everyone.  We've already had some rain and thunderstorms move through.  Some are still on-going across parts of Northern and Central New England.  Starting early this afternoon a new line of showers and thunderstorms will develop.  It appears that this will be a long line of storms that will cover nearly all of New England.  The biggest threat today will be damaging wind gusts primarily and secondary will be large hail.  It's going to be very warm so the threat of large hail is lower as the hail should be melting as it falls.  As the line of thunderstorms develop, I'm expecting to see the line bow out in a few places.  This is where the greatest threat of straight line wind gusts will be.  The timing of this should be after 2 PM in Western MA and then after 4 PM closer to the coast.  There will likely be a severe thunderstorm watch issued later today.

After today our weather will get cooler and also a bit more wet.  This weekend really isn't looking very good right now.  We won't have rain all the time, but on and off rain showers appear to be what we are going to see.  I'm not expecting a complete washout, but it's going to be hard to get any outdoor activities completed without seeing some raindrops.  I'm hoping that we will be able to salvage half of a day.  If that happens it is going to be on Sunday afternoon, we'll see.

Keep tabs on updated weather alerts and develops on facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/Jontheweatherman.  I'll update this as I can today with warnings and better timing of when the storms will arrive.

Thanks for reading!

-Jon K.