Oddly, A Bit Of A Tornado Threat Today In Parts Of Northeast

Area in yellow has a slight, but definite chance of
severe storms today. There's even a very slight
chance of a tornado or two in this area.  

Today's going to be a rather interesting day for weather in New England, with bouts of heavy rain, and maybe some severe thunderstorms, and even maybe a couple of supercells and tornadoes

Yes, tornadoes.  But just a very slight risk of them.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has most of Pennsylvania, New York and the southwestern half of New England in a slight risk zone for severe storms today. '

A warm front will sweep north through New England today. It will be accompanied by a swath of rain, heavy at times.

If the front moves to the north fast enough, some sun might break out in its wake, and destabilize the atmosphere. Winds will veer with height, which could set off some rotating supercell thunderstorms, capable of producing brief tornadoes

Whether this happens or not is very, very iffy, as conditions have to be just right. Also, if the warm front doesn't move as far north as predicted, or as quickly, the severe storm risk would be further south of New England.

Also, if there's no breaks of sun in the wake of the warm front passage, that would lessen the chance of storms later today.

As of early Tuesday morning, the best chances of a spin up, according to the Storm Prediction Center, is much of central and eastern New York, especially the Hudson Valley, southern Vermont, southwestern New Hampshire, western Massachusetts and Connecticut

The chances of a twister even there are admittably quite low. Anyone in the area I just described has a  five percent chance of having a tornado within 25 miles of their location. So it's not as if the whole area is going to be flattened.

But just be aware of the weather, and take shelter, as any storm can produce strong, damaging winds, hail, dangerous lightning and torrential downpours.

That warm front will get hung up near the International border, so the heaviest rain generally will be up in northern New York, Vermont and New Hampshire where one to as much as two inches of still-needed rain could fall.

 Even more might fall in southern Ontario and southern Quebec, so there could be localized flash flood problems north fo the border.

Because of the proximity of the front in northern areas, and the fact there will be lots of clouds all day, northern areas have almost no chance of getting severe storms later. There could be rumbles of thunder up there, but nothing scary.

It's possible a torrential downpour associated with the thunderstorms in the Northeast could touch off localized flash floods, but those won't cover a huge area.

Things will settle down Wednesday as weather disturbances and the warm front move off to the east and north.