TWO MORE BOUTS OF SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS THROUGH MID-WEEK, THEN HEAVY RAIN THREATS DIMINISH FOR AT LEAST A FEW DAYS… 7:20PM MONDAY…
Good evening everybody, just a quick evening update for you. We saw some showers and downpours today, but none that contained lightning best I could tell, but I wasn’t scanning every radar sweep to ascertain that as an absolute truth.

Did you hear thunder or see lightning?

Our system slowly is wafting away, but still popped a few thunderstorms over eastern NY, and I think those should stay there, but a few more showers might cycle through tonight.

Lows will drop into the low to mid 60s, and some patchy fog will form in spots late tonight.

For Tuesday, we should enjoy a mostly sunny day, and it will be quite warm and humid. Highs will reach the low to mid 80s, with maybe some upper 80s possible.

An isolated shower is possible late in the day, but it’s the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday, and the Wednesday evening hours that represent two additional potential heavy rainfalls for us to get through before we step a little deeper into at least a temporary (and hopefully longer-lasting) drier and sunnier pattern, or sub-pattern.

Lows Tuesday night will drop into the low to mid 60s with patchy fog again expected late at night.

However we’ll have a frontal boundary near by, and a wave of low pressure looks to ripple along it and bring a period of showers, and possibly some downpours and thunderstorms after midnight and into the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday morning (see attached chart), so a few of us and our pets may get rocked again overnight, mostly no fun for folks, except for a few freaks like me who like night time storms.

That clears up by mid Wednesday morning or so, and we should end up with highs in the mid 70s to low 80s and muggy conditions.

A cold front will then be pressing towards the region, and will take the available final surge of tropical moisture that has been wafting around these parts for weeks, lift it, and generate scattered showers and thunderstorms by the early evening.

While SPC doesn’t have any threat for severe thunderstorms, I would be surprised if we don’t see at least a Marginal Risk posted by tomorrow night for parts of our area, so I will keep you updated on that.

After that front clears the region to the east, we’ll clear skies out late, and enjoy cooler lows in the mid to upper 50s, yahoo!

Thursday looks gorgeous, dry, mostly sunny, highs in the 70s, and lows in the 50s.

Another front approaches Friday, but I’ll have to update the timing of any potential scattered showers. Right now, expect at least a partly sunny day with a chance of showers with highs in the mid to upper 70s and lows again in the mid to upper 50s, my kind of temps!

Saturday looks like another winner at this point (nice trend, huh?) with mostly sunny skies and highs in the 75-80º range with lows near 60º as clouds increase.

Another frontal boundary may pass Saturday night into Sunday with some showers, but we should end up partly sunny, and early next week doesn’t look like a washout at the moment either.

Now, I get that this could change, and I’m not holding my breath, but I’m still hopeful that this drying trend will continue and that after we get past Wednesday evening, we should start to get into some deeper drying and sunnification activities, even if we do get some showers at times given frontal boundary passages.

Anyway, that’s the news from Lake Wobegon, have a great night!
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CONFIRMED WEAK TORNADO BRIEFLY TOUCHED DOWN IN SOMERS, CT YESTERDAY EVENING… SCATTERED LIGHTER SHOWERS TODAY AT TIMES, DRY PERIODS OTHERS… CAN’T RULE OUT A DOWNPOUR OR A THUNDERSTORM… MORE SUNSHINE TOMORROW WITH AN ISOLATED SHOWER OR STORM POSSIBLE, MOSTLY DRY… WEDNESDAY A FRONT COMES THROUGH WITH POTENTIAL FOR STRONG/SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS… BEAUTIFUL THURSDAY, THEN A MIX FRIDAY THROUGH THE WEEKEND OF SUNSHINE WITH A PERIOD OR TWO OF SCATTERED SHOWERS… 7:10AM MON…

Good morning everybody, rise and slog, let us trudge through the sopping soaked ground, lift our heads to the sky, reach our arms up and hope that we’re bestowed with more sunshine through the end of this month and into August. We have suffered a substantial amount of flooding damage sporadically through the region, and I won’t be posting anymore damage photos at this point. I am sure Millers Falls got hammered again last evening, and there were many flooding problems reported in the Berkshires.

And as you know, I’m a 7-10 day guy, which is hard enough to track and attempt to understand and convey properly what’s (literally) coming down the Pike.

In other words, I don’t know when we FULLY shift this pattern, but I do see periods of sunshine mixing into our days, vs. the the 17 or 18 straight days of at least a trace of rainfall that has comprised our July 2021 thus far, so I’m hanging on any glimmer of hope I can surmise at this point.

But to be clear, I don’t think we’re going to be swinging into stretches of 3-5 days of full, dry sunshine and northwesterly breezes, or its opposite under full summer heat with heat waves – I don’t see either in the short/medium term, but it does look like more sunshine will mix in, and less flooding rains, so basically a mixed salad weather-wise.

Moving on, a weak tornado did touch down yesterday to add insult to injury, though luckily no injuries or fatalities were reported, as it was a brief 7 minute spin-up that was very underwhelming-looking velocity radar scans. I’ve seen far more intense rotation that produced nothing on the ground, so this was a freak occurrence for sure. Top winds reached 75-80mph, and if you want more info, I have pasted in the entire NWS post-mortem on that cell at the bottom of this post, so be sure to check it out if interested.

WEATHER REPORT SUMMARY
–Patchy dense fog east of the I-91 corridor will burn off with time, and we’ll be left with a mostly cloudy day
–A surface low over southwest New England, and a mid level low over VT will both track east and lift out of the region – SLOWLY
–This means clouds, and additional periods of lighter scattered showers, and a couple of downpours or sub-severe t-storms may kick up too
–Highs will reach the low to mid 70s, and lows will dip into a refreshing range of upper 50s to low 60s as the cloud deck breaks up revealing some stars overhead
–For Tuesday, we’ll have a mostly beautiful day with mostly sunny skies, and quite warm with highs in the low to mid 80s and continued humid conditions
–By late in the day, a few isolated showers or thunderstorms will be possible, but I think most of us stay dry
–Lows will be in the low to mid 60s with a few showers overnight
–On Wednesday, a cold front approaches, and it may come through during the day
–This means we can expect a partly sunny day with highs in the mid 70s to low 80s, with scattered showers and thunderstorms, some of which may become strong to severe in the early to mid afternoon, hopefully clearing out of here by evening
–Lows will bottom out into the mid to upper 50s(!) with clearing skies and LOWERED HUMIDITY
–Thursday is the pick of 2021 for cripes sake, with mostly sunny skies, dry, low humidity, and highs in the mid to upper 70s and light northwest flow, yay!
–Lows will drop into the 55-60º range with clouds building as another cold front will work through the region likely during the first half of Friday, and some showers will be possible early Friday morning
–Looks like some Friday morning showers associated with the cold front, will give way to an increasingly sunny day with highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s
–Saturday is also looking beautiful with sunshine and highs in the 70s
–Similar to Thursday night into Friday, we should see clouds build back in with another frontal boundary, this time a warm front
–Showers will be possible Saturday night into Sunday with a thunderstorm possible, but hopefully Sunday won’t be filled with showers, and we’ll dry out second half of the day

More to come, stay tuned, stay safe, and have a great day!

OFFICIAL NWS TORNADO DAMAGE REPORT
…NWS DAMAGE REPORT FOR JULY 18 2021 TORNADO IN SOMERS CONNECTICUT… START LOCATION…SOMERS IN TOLLAND COUNTY CT END LOCATION…SOMERS IN TOLLAND COUNTY CT DATE…JULY 18 2021
–ESTIMATED TIME…611 TO 618 PM EDT
–MAXIMUM EF-SCALE RATING…EF0
–ESTIMATED MAXIMUM WIND SPEED…80 MPH
–MAXIMUM PATH WIDTH…75 YARDS
–PATH LENGTH…1.9 MILES
–BEGINNING LAT/LON…41.9758/-72.4474
–ENDING LAT/LON…41.9997/-72.4292
* FATALITIES…0
* INJURIES…0

…SUMMARY…
A weak tornado touched down this evening in the town of Somers in northern Tolland County, Connecticut. Amateur radio operators followed up on a tip from a trained Skywarn weather spotter via social media and then uncovered many reports. We then spoke with Somers Fire Department officials, an eyewitness who observed the tornado, and viewed several videos online. The following information summarizes all of these reports.

The tornado touched down on Colonial Drive, then tracked to the north-northeast, impacting lake drive just south of Shady Lake, Kibee Drive, a portion of Main Street (Route 190), Battle Street, and ended in the vicinity of Hickory Hill Drive. This is a path length of 1.9 miles. The approximate path width was 75 yards. Damage photos led to estimates of maximum wind speeds of 75 to 80 mph, which puts this on the mid to upper end of the EF0 category of the Enhanced Fujita Scale. The time, based on radar, fire department logs, and an eyewitness account, was from 611 pm to 618 pm EDT.

Several large pine trees were downed on Colonial Drive and two cars were destroyed by the falling trees. Approximately 19 trees were snapped, twisted, and uprooted on Lake Drive. A resident of Lake Drive heard a loud whirring noise and observed the tops of trees flying by the house. Shingles were missing on a house next door. A playscape was lifted up and landed approximately 50 feet away. On Main Street, a small corner of a roof was exposed with additional damage along the length of the gutter. Farther to the northeast, a few large oak trees were snapped on Hickory Hill Drive.

This storm was low-topped and did not possess any lightning…only heavy rain. However, atmospheric conditions…high humidity and just enough wind shear aloft…were strong enough to cause this isolated spin-up.