Severe Storm Risk - Waterbury, CT

There is a Marginal Severe Storm Risk for your location. Continue reading for today's outlook from the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center. -------------------- National Severe Storm Outlook THERE IS A SLIGHT RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS LATE THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING ACROSS PARTS OF NORTHERN MINNESOTA INTO ADJACENT PORTIONS OF THE EASTERN DAKOTAS SUMMARY Strong to severe thunderstorm development appears possible today across parts of northern Minnesota into adjacent portions of the eastern Dakotas, as well as across the eastern Arizona international border vicinity and parts of the northern Mid Atlantic through western New England. Discussion A compact, but fairly deep, lower/mid-tropospheric cyclone over the Canadian Prairies is forecast to migrate across northern Manitoba into western Hudson Bay today through tonight. One initial trailing cold front is already advancing into the northern Great Plains, with a more substantive cold front approaching the international border and forecast to overtake it by mid afternoon, roughly across the northwestern Minnesota through southeastern North Dakota, central South Dakota, and western Nebraska vicinity. As a notable upstream mid-level short wave trough accelerates across the northern U.S. Rockies, toward northwestern Ontario, it appears that a secondary surface low emerging from Wyoming will weaken while migrating northeast of the Black Hills through the adjacent middle Missouri Valley early today. Another surface low may form along the front across northern Minnesota into northwestern Ontario this evening, but it appears that the most rapid deepening will occur north of Lake Superior overnight. To the south and southwest of the mid-level wave, models indicate that mid-level ridging will build across the Southwest during the day, with highest heights becoming centered along an axis across southwestern through central Arizona into north central New Mexico by late afternoon. Within the downstream westerlies, a notable mid-level trough is forecast to pivot east and northeast of the lower Great Lakes through New England. As it does, a remnant perturbation digging toward the southern Appalachians may evolve into a weak mid-level low across the Southeast, cut off from the westerlies. Northern Great Plains into Upper Midwest The influence of possible early period convection and associated cloud cover on destabilization and convective potential later today across parts of the central and eastern Dakotas into Minnesota remains a bit unclear. However, by mid to late afternoon, guidance generally indicates that a fairly sharp quasi-stationary near-surface baroclinic zone will evolve across northwestern Minnesota through southeastern North Dakota. It appears that this may become a focus for at least a narrow corridor of modest boundary-layer destabilization, coincident with strengthening south to southwesterly lower/mid-tropospheric wind fields (including 30-40+ kt around 850 mb and 50-70 kt around 500 mb). This may provide a window of opportunity for strong to severe storm development, including a couple of supercells, by this evening, before the front overtakes the instability axis with the passage of the frontal wave. Southeastern Arizona/adjacent New Mexico Low-level moisture appears likely to remain relatively modest across central and southern Arizona, with strong daytime heating and mixing lowering surface dew points through the mid to lower 50s F by late afternoon. However, along the southern periphery of the stronger mid-level ridging, it appears that this may support at least moderate boundary layer CAPE near the international border vicinity, beneath 25+ kt east-northeasterly mid-level steering flow. The higher terrain either side of the southern Arizona/New Mexico state border will provide potential for a more substantive clustering of convection, which may propagate across and south of the international border by early this evening. If preceding thunderstorm development, initially developing in the unstable environment near the international border, does not generate too much stabilizing outflow, it is possible that this could become supportive of a swath of strong to severe wind gusts, aided by evaporative cooling in a deeply mixed sub-cloud layer with 40-50 F temperature/dew point spreads. Northern Mid Atlantic through western New England Along and ahead of a weak cold front, trailing a deepening surface low migrating northeastward toward the lower St. Lawrence Valley, boundary-layer destabilization will probably be slowed, if not inhibited, by weak mid-level lapse rates and early day cloud cover/precipitation, However, strengthening deep-layer wind fields and shear will potentially become more supportive of organized thunderstorm development with a risk for damaging wind gusts and perhaps a tornado or two, if pre-frontal breaks in cloud cover can allow for sufficient destabilization with daytime heating.