forecast

FIRST ALERT: Thunderstorms Threaten Torrential Rain, Damaging Wind Wednesday

Spot showers or thunderstorms are possible just about anywhere at any time today, but it looks like we will have a more organized severe weather threat for Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island after lunch

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The same weather front that generated widespread thunderstorm activity, with heavy rain, lightning, and wind damage last night, is only slowly pressing to the south and east today.

Areas that got the worst of the weather last night and early this morning, in western and northern New England, get off a little bit easier today.

The remains of last night's rain is now pressing through Maine with welcome rain for the Crown of Maine region, where it’s been kind of dry so far this month. But for most of us we do not need any more downpours, yet here they come again.

Overnight rain cleared the smoke out of the sky somewhat, but we still have some haze with a mix of sun and clouds for a few hours this morning. It is less humid with a high temperature closer to 80° this afternoon. Wind is fairly light and variable, outside of any thunderstorms.

Spot showers or thunderstorms are possible just about anywhere at any time today, but it looks like we will have a more organized severe weather threat for Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island after lunch.

Storms will fire up and then move toward the east with possible wind gusts past 55 miles an hour, torrential rain, and intense lightning. The threat looks greatest between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. for southern New England.

After that, we have high pressure over the Great Lakes that should push cleaner air into New England later tonight and tomorrow. By cleaner, we mean less smoky, as the new air is coming from eastern Canada instead of Western Canada and the western United States.

It is a relatively cool air mass (for the peak of summertime heat).

The average high temperature in Boston starts going down for the season tomorrow. Mother nature is going to comply with temperatures mostly in the 60s to low 70s north and 70s to low 80s south with a good amount of sunshine to start the day.

But there is a cool pool of air aloft, so we will see instability and cumulus develop. There’s a slight chance for some showers and sprinkles in the higher elevations of central and northern and New England. We have a breeze from the north and northwest at 10 to 20 mph, with lower humidity.

A warm front approaches Friday with increasing clouds and chance of a few showers, possibly a thunderstorm, and high temperatures in the 70s.

Another batch of relatively clean and low humidity air should move in Saturday, with a good amount of sunshine and temperatures again in the 70s to near 80°.

Clouds increase on Sunday when we may end up rather gray with possible showers or thunderstorms. The timing is still rough but it looks like Saturday should be the pick of the weekend.

Next week looks a little more tranquil than the past couple of weeks, but we still have a threat for a few afternoon thunderstorms each day with temperatures tending to be a little bit cool for this time of year, as seen in our First Alert 10-day forecast.

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