Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Severe thunderstorms possible today

It seems I quietly went over 1000 posts this past week. Thank you so much for reading... SB

The weather is unsettled this morning in southern Quebec. A frontal boundary lies to our south with extremely hot air south of it and warm and increasingly humid air over our region and north of us. Already this morning a few sprinkles have been reported. Meanwhile an upper air disturbance in the atmosphere is moving into the region from the northwest. This will be the focus for thunderstorm development this afternoon. Already this morning heavy storms are forming in the upper Ottawa Valley and west Quebec. Severe thunderstorm warnings have been issued at this early morning hour. The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma has the entire northeast under a slight risk of severe weather today. The main threat will be gusty winds and torrential rains. If this summer has shown us anything so far, it is that the storms have plenty of moisture with them. The threat will increase after the noon hour today in Montreal and slightly earlier across eastern Ontario. Temperatures will be near 27C (80F) today. It will remain warm and muggy for the foreseeable future with no really cool weather anywhere in sight.

Tropical Atlantic (Updates on the left side of the blog)
Meanwhile the tropics are becoming active (see Accuweather map above) with a low pressure area off the coast of Puerto Rico expected to develop into a depression over the next 24 hours. The forecast models take the storm into south Florida by Friday. What is not clear at this time is if the storm will be named. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Centre have given the system a rather high 60% chance of development. The water is warm and conditions are favorable for further intensification. If the low reaches tropical storm strength (39mph or greater), it will be named Bonnie. A Hurricane Hunter recon flight is scheduled for tomorrow morning.

No comments: