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NAM Simulated Severe

Severe thunderstorms possible Saturday afternoon!

Good evening and happy Friday!

Hot, but mostly calm conditions remain in place across much of the Northeast today. Things may “spark up” a bit tomorrow afternoon with the development of strong to potentially severe thunderstorms.

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Showers and storms with gusty winds, small hail today

3:00pm Update: Showers and embedded thunderstorms continue to approach the area, now in Western New Jersey and shifting eastward. While radar presentation isn’t necessarily eye-grabbing, the winds just above the surface that are mixing down to the surface are impressive.

Philadelphia International Airport recently gusted to 71 miles per hour as thunderstorms passed through. Multiple gusts over 45 miles per hour have been reported in Eastern Pennsylvania. As storms continue to shift eastward toward the axis of more favorable instability and lapse rates, expect these gusts to continue.

None of these storms are currently producing sustained severe-level winds, but we are continuing to monitor the situation. Stay tuned for future updates over the next few hours.

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Hail, waterspouts and rainbows all made an appearance today

A developing coastal system produced an array of weather conditions throughout the area today. Beginning in the morning, showers and thunderstorms developed as a result of daytime heating at the surface and cold air moving in aloft. The developing system aided in lift which allowed for these storms to form. The cold air aloft, meanwhile, aided in not only the storms development, but the threat for some hail. As the storms progressed through parts of New Jersey and then out to sea, some low level shear allowed for waterspouts to develop.

When colder than normal air exists in the mid levels of the atmosphere, developing thunderstorms will often produce hail as the ice in the cloud becomes much more thick than usual due to the colder temperatures. This often occurs in the transitional seasons of Spring and Autumn in our area, when cold pools move overhead and the surface can still become unstable.

Meanwhile, scattered showers and storms continued to develop throughout the area during the afternoon hours. Multiple rainbows were seen throughout the area. Currently, a convective system south of Long Island is moving northward toward the Central and Eastern parts of the Island. Stay tuned to our Twitter account for up to the minute information on these storms.

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Incredible photos of hail accumulation from Colorado supercell

A large supercell, which formed and moved near Denver eastward past Aurora earlier on Wednesday, produced tremendous amounts of hail which accumulated in many areas. The storm also produced a lowering wall cloud, which was observed by many storm chasers, and a possible tornado touchdown east of Denver. The variety of pictures received via social media showed the accumulating hail (a relatively rare occurrence, but more common out west due to colder air aloft) for the second straight day in Colorado. 5″ (yes, 5 inches) of hail fell in parts of Denver.

The maturing supercell also tracked nearly directly over the radar site at KFTG and the Terminal Doppler radar site at TDEN. The “shadowing” effect and the black hole/circle in the middle of the storm is a phenomenon not too often observed. When heavier precipitation moves directly over a radar site, the radar beam cannot register precipitation which is immediately near it’s location. In essence, the precipitation is falling below the radar beams, which shoot outward and upward from the radar site.

Featured image courtesy Mike Oblinsky (Twitter).

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