Strong Storms Possible This Afternoon, Some Severe

JAMESTOWN – The weather will be getting active once again with a threat for thunderstorms this afternoon with some potentially becoming strong to severe.

In the wake of a Warm front passage that moved through late this morning, a strong Cold front will be moving through this afternoon with a band of showers and thunderstorms flaring out ahead of that front.

Temperatures have already spiked into the lower to upper 60’s as of 11 a.m. across much of the region thanks to that Warm front. Erie is already up to 70 degrees.

It’s also feeling a bit muggy as dew points are in the upper 50’s to lower 60’s. Keep in mind that dew point measures the moisture content in the air. The closer together the air temperature and the dew point temperature are, the more humid it feels as the human body cannot evaporate liquid off of it as quickly.

Given the current dynamics support, the NOAA Storm Prediction Center has placed all of Western New York and Northwestern Pennsylvania under a standard Slight Risk (level 2/5) for severe thunderstorms this afternoon.

The primary threats will be from damaging winds and possibly some hail. Localized flooding is also a possibility with heavy rainfall at times along with a brief, isolated tornado. However, upper-air data suggests a rather weak environment for tornadic activity but a small potential does exist.

Based on the newest high resolution modeling, storms will enter the western-most Southern Tier by around 1 p.m. this afternoon and continue to work their way eastward through the afternoon.

The strongest storms will be out of the region and into Central New York by 4 p.m. These storms should help to stabilize the atmosphere for any leftover showers or thundershowers through the rest of the day to be well below severe limits.

As noted by our exclusive Storm Potential product within our FutureScan model, there will be enough atmospheric instability for these storms to work with to become strong to severe (darker colors indicate higher thunderstorm chances).

Make sure you have a way of getting warnings should they be issued this afternoon. EVERY home and business needs to have a NOAA Weather Radio. They are relatively inexpensive and can be purchased from a wide variety of retailers.

Beyond the Weather Radio, we highly recommend an app on your smartphone that is designed to push severe weather warnings. The apps we like are: