Round of thunderstorms Thursday; Saturday trends drier for New England

Another weak disturbance will rotate into New England today as a large-scale remains planted over eastern Canada. This will allow for another day of afternoon and evening showers and storms. With a deeper layer of cold air farther to the west in New England than on Wednesday, these showers will be much more widespread across all of New England compared to yesterday.

Isolated showers and storms will likely begin to bubble up around midday and continue to fill in and become more numerous as they drop southward later in the afternoon. Activity will likely reach its peak around mid to late afternoon. Without any strong feature to keep storms going, they will likely rapidly begin to fall apart after sunset.

GFS showing potential weather around late afternoon today:

Photo byGFS/Tropical Tidbits

The threat for severe storms remains low overall, but enough instability will likely allow for a couple storms to get on the stronger side. Most storms will likely remain sub-severe. Storms that do get stronger will bring gusty winds, especially later in the day as cells that are nearing their end begin to collapse. Freezing levels will also be lower, which could support small hail forming.

Photo byNew England Storm Center

Friday is still looking to to be a mainly quiet and warm day across New England. There will be a chance for some thunderstorm development across the northern third of New England as they will be closest to the overall trough across eastern Canada.

Heading into the weekend, a more organized frontal system will approach the region from the Great Lakes. While this storm was always looking to move slowly, its movement has slowed even more so in the last 24-36 hours. This has led to a drying trend in the forecast for Saturday, especially for eastern New England. It looks like eastern areas may stay dry for Saturday with only occasional afternoon showers across western New England.

Photo byNew England Storm Center

Sunday will likely see higher showers chances across New England as the system continues its slow push east. Still, Sunday May not be a washout of a day for anyone in New England. Scattered shower chances will continue through the day, with showers becoming less numerous the farther east you go in the region.

This slowing trend of the frontal system is thanks to what's now Hurricane Ernesto. Global models are in excellent agreement about this storm passing New England well offshore. The frontal system is playing a part in keeping Ernesto well offshore and actually Ernesto is helping to slow the frontal system to a crawl. So in a way, the two systems are working together to keep more impactful weather out of the region.

Photo byNational Hurricane Center