Another shot at thunderstorms?

For today and tomorrow I am working with Meteorologist Steve Cascione while Fred Campagna is out for a few days. My work with Fred will continue next week!

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Severe Thunderstorms!!??

Since earlier this morning the National Weather Service has issued a Severe Thunderstorm Watch until about 8pm this evening. RI until recently was not involved in this forecast, but was still calling for pop up showers and thunderstorms as we entered into the late afternoon/evening hours. Exactly half an hour before I made my way to the ABC6 Weather Center however, the National Weather Service did indeed extend their Severe Thunderstorm Watch to the RI area. I was very excited when I first arrived and met up with Steve. However, a little lesson about RI was shared with me and put a sort of damper on my hopes for a severe storm in my area. Steve explained to me that because of the Narragansett Bay, when we experience winds/strong winds coming from the South, that will actually stabilize conditions around the RI area and cause the storms to dissipate. He then explained that if RI was to experience strong thunderstorms, we would need a strong Westerly wind to keep the atmosphere unstable. So far this day has been very informative.

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Today in Providence the high temperature (which is also the current temperature) is 87° but with the oppresive humidity that we have been experiencing, it feels more like 90°. Right now a warm front is passing through the area followed by a trailing cold front. Ahead of the cold front is where we are seeing these strong, gusty thunderstorms popping up which puts us into the Severe Thunderstorm Watch until 8pm this evening. The cold front however, is not expected to reach our area until later tonight, most likely after midnight. This will lead to possible showers for RI through to Thursday morning. Overnight lows expected to be in the upper 60's to low 70's.

For Tomorrow, a great beach day! Temperatures will reach the lower 90's because of a pretty gusty North/Northwest wind of about 10-15 mph. in our area.

Overnight the temperature will dip into the lower 70's. A more extensive forecast for the expected story weekend weekend weather will come when I am in the ABC6 Weather Center tomorrow afternoon!

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And for the Tropical Update...

We have been looking at 97L for the past few days. As of yesterday, the big hype was that it may develop into a TD or a TS by today/Thursday. However, as we have seen today, 97L has been disrupted by the mountainous topography of Hispaniola, causing this wave to become disorganized. Therefore, conditions for this storm strengthening are not exactly favorable. We will keep a watch on this wave however, but The Weather Channel this morning has explained that although 97L may not turn into much, the "pipeline" across Africa is showing lots of activity, making conditions very favorable for Tropical Weather over the next week or so.