Tuesday Forecast

160 Comments

7:18AM

DAYS 1-5 (JULY 23-27)
We’re in the midst of an unsettled stretch and getting a decent soaking, which was needed as it had been fairly dry in July so far. Last night the first wave of 3 passed by and maximized its potential with quite a light show and some wind damage along the South Coast, especially parts of Cape Cod, where severe weather is a little more rare than elsewhere in southern New England. NWS will investigate damage to determine if it was straight-line, down burst, or tornado. Moving on, the second wave brings a fairly widespread soaker this morning before it moves off to the east and takes the rain with it this afternoon, although the clouds and cool temperatures with general onshore flow will continue through the day. The third wave of low pressure will bring yet another round of rain into the region, favoring southeastern areas, later tonight and first thing Wednesday, before we finally see a clearing trend as drier air arrives from Canada. High pressure then moves in with fabulous summer weather Thursday through Saturday.
Forecast details…
TODAY: Cloudy with widespread showers and possible embedded thunderstorms this morning. Mostly cloudy with isolated showers this afternoon. Humid. Highs 68-75. Wind NE 5-15 MPH.
TONIGHT: Cloudy. Chance of rain, favoring southern and eastern MA, eastern CT, and RI. Humid. Lows 55-62. Wind light NE.
WEDNESDAY: Mostly cloudy. Chance of rain early, favoring RI and southeastern MA. Drying out. Highs 70-77. Wind NE to N 5-15 MPH.
WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy. Lows 55-62. Wind light NW.
THURSDAY: Mostly sunny to partly cloudy. Highs 80-87 but may cool back to 70s coast. Wind W 5-15 MPH but coastal sea breezes possible.
THURSDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 60-67. Wind light variable.
FRIDAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 82-89 but a little cooler coast. Wind light variable with sea breezes.
FRIDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 62-69. Wind light SW.
SATURDAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 83-90. Wind SW 5-15 MPH.

DAYS 6-10 (JULY 28-AUGUST 1)
High pressure brings fair and warm to hot, more humid weather July 28. A front gets close and gradually washes out in the region with very warm, somewhat humid weather July 29-31 along with a risk of a few showers and thunderstorms popping up at least a couple of those days. Jet stream lifts north with more heat/humidity to start August.

DAYS 11-15 (AUGUST 2-6)
Jet stream to north, flat ridge to south and southwest, a recipe for hot, humid early August weather with limited thunderstorm chances. A front may get closer later in the period to increase the thunderstorm risk.

160 thoughts on “Tuesday Forecast”

  4. Good morning and thank you TK.

    Nice light show last evening. It was raining harder on our way home
    last evening than it was going out.

    I have to say everything looks lush out there. Oh so green!!
    Not may times can we say that on July 23rd as often times things are rather brown.

    I haven’t had to water once this season. Not a single time. It was getting close this past weekend, but the soil was still moist and I knew we were about to get soaked.

    1. Quite a night for the cape.

      We did have to water for maybe a week. We were awfully dry. I like having not to water as much as we normally do.

  7. The Nantucket Sound ob plus a few of the Cape obs show them back into the warm sector and I see that marine warning out over the waters. May be an interesting next hour or 2 on the southern part of the Cape, MV and Nantucket.

    1. Falmouth, Nantucket and MV all with S winds, dp of 70.

      Looking at that radar, it won’t surprise me if we see a tornado warning due to radar indicated rotation for MV or Nantucket in the next hour.

        1. And the special marine warning is for a thunderstorm capable of producing waterspouts, so if that maintains, I would think it would transition to a tornado warning as it approaches the land of the vineyard and Nantucket.

      1. Yes. Two systems traveling pretty close to the same path with the triple point/warm front draped along the same areas.

  8. I have no idea if this is correct.

    I understand we have a wave of low pressure coming by, this thing on radar looks like a meso-low. I don’t even know if those 2 things are the same or different, but I think they are different.

  9. I also wonder if Fall River and New Bedford are having water issues because marshfield is on the edge of the dark green and yellow echos and it is heavy rain.

    Meanwhile, those 2 cities are under yellow and even orange echos and have been for a bit.

    I tend to recall seeing them on the news before for having flooding issues.

      1. Hopefully radar indicated rotation will weaken soon, because it’s going to get to land soon on its current path.

    1. Is this traveling SW to NE right across arm of cape? Not that it will necessarily remain tornado warned.

  18. Rotation looks to be redeveloping now over land, near Seabrook, after the previous circulation weakened.

  20. Last night and today are good examples of the things we would have missed with older radars.

  22. Until 1215 this afternoon.
    I know the NWS team is doing survey damage from last nights storm to see if it was straight line wind damage or tornado. The SREF was highlighting the CAPE yesterday as possible area where a tornado could happen.

  23. With the rotation over land now, I’m eyeing the correlation coefficient for any tornado debris signature. Haven’t seen anything yet. Even if no tornado, very strong wind gusts are likely in the warning area.

  30. A tornado debris signature has now been observed. A tornado is on the ground and doing damage on the Cape.

  38. Anyone within that warning should be underground if possible. Again, even if there’s not a tornado, I suspect there is a sizable area of 60-90+mph winds within that core. You won’t really notice the difference.

  39. We have friends staying in Harwich in a cottage with no basement.
    We’ll be checking with them. YIKES!!!

  44. While a tornado was observed, I expect most of the damage with that storm is going to be associated with straight line winds in the so-called “rear flank downdraft”. That’s where radar, for an extended time, was indicating potential 80-90mph winds.

    What a storm though. That was the real deal.

  50. From Ryan Hanrahan
    85 mph gust in Chatham and 90mph gust in Hyannis from this afternoon’s severe storm and tornado. The weather service is heading out to figure out where the tornado started, ended, and how strong it was.

    There was a tornado last year in Woods Hole and today in Yarmouth/Dennis. Prior to that the last tornado on Cape Cod was in 1977!

    https://twitter.com/ryanhanrahan/status/1153711400772145152

  51. The Cape went 41 years without a tornado until last year and now back to back years with one.

  52. Thanks for the kind words re: our friend in Harwich
    They got an alert on their phone, but didn’t heed it at all.
    They were very lucky. Tree down in the yard and leaves all over the place.
    And power out.

    We are supposed to visit them tomorrow. I am wondering if roads will be passable
    by tomorrow PM??? And we are supposed to have dinner at
    Bucas Tuscan Roadhouse in Harwichport.

    https://www.bucasroadhouse.com/

    I’ll be calling the restaurant a little later as they don’t open till 5, but I imagine
    the owner is there now.

    I see that a roof was blown off the Cape Sands Inn in Yarmouth.

    1. Thanks JJ. Pretty impressive.

      That Rt 124 is not far at all from where our friends are located. Not far at all.

      1. Looking at the pictures on twitter I would say EF1 tornado. Some of the pictures look similar to the tornado damage in CT I saw last year when I drove through Oxford and Southbury a couple days after the tornado hit.

        1. Radar signature and damage I have seen Plus the photo,
          I would venture to say it was an EF-2. We shall see.

  54. The Cape Sands Inn on Rt. 28 in West Yarmouth lost the roof on one side of its motel.

  56. 39,000+ without power, including 84% of Harwich, according to Terry Eliasen.
    Many agencies (fire, state police, power companies) sending resources to the Cape.

    1. JPDave looking at the picture you just posted it you may be right and it may end being EF2 with the damage done to that roof.

  58. Tweet from Harwich Police Department
    Please stay home! We have extensive damage from downed trees and wires. It is not safe to be out driving or walking around.

  59. Great tweets from Meteorologist Ryan Hanrahan
    The environment near the Vineyard is supportive of supercells with nearly 300 m2/s2 of 0-3km helicity and a nose of some 0-3km CAPE just southwest of there. The fields aren’t perfectly juxtaposed but they’re not too far apart.

    Bumping this from earlier. Pretty typical severe setup for a “south coast special” with a nose of instability along coast with high low level shear near (not pictured) triple point.

    10 years ago these were almost always a surprise now we almost always see them coming.

  60. Tanker rolled over in Harwich

    Harwich Police Dept.
    ‏

    @HarwichPolice
    Jul 18
    More
    Traffic Alert:
    Due to a tanker rollover Sisson Road will be closed between Rt 28 and Gilbert Road

  62. We also have friends in Harwich and they said they got slammed. Thankfully everyone is safe but their yard is a complete disaster.

  63. Thankfully so far not hearing any injuries or fatalities and lets hope that does not change.

    1. Imagine being in one of those rooms during the storm??? YIKES!!!
      Amazing no one was injured.

  65. A fellow meteorologist friend of mine “joked” not long ago after the Cape had a tornado last year for the first time since 1977 something to the effect of “watch, these events tend to cluster, they’ll get another one this year…” And there you go. Just more proof that intervals are based on averages and can’t really be relied upon to predict things. Just like going over the average amount of time between hurricane landfalls in New England. We are now approaching 3 decades since the last one.

  66. Terry Eliasen is tweeting out (as of about an hour ago) that more than 45,000 customers are without power on the Cape, Martha’s Vineyard and New Bedford. 88% of Harwich has no power.

    TK, some of the wind gusts from the Cape Cod storm were recorded by Mesonet. What is Mesonet?
    Is there a website where their data is?

    1. What is the “MesoNet”?
      MesoNet is a nearly full collection of observations from many sources, put together in one easy map. From the map, access the last 48 hours of data for a site.

            1. I am curious to know what station at Kalmus Beach in Hyannis recorded 90 mph during the storm.

    1. Ah crap!! I have not been able to reach the restaurant where we have
      reservations for tomorrow PM. I presume they are without power. I can’t imagine all of the food being good for much longer. What a nightmare.
      If I can’t reach anyone to see what is going on, we’re going to bag this and
      stay home tomorrow.

      93% of Harwhich still out almost 5 hours after the event. Could be days or longer

      1. A lot of individual lines will need to be repaired. It will take several days to do that.

        1. I’d be surprised if it is clear by tomorrow. And if any of the power equipment leaked they will have to test, etc

      2. I believe Harwhich had the most damage and pretty much most of the town without power . Will take some time to clear roads and trees off of lines . I know the town declared a state of emergency

    2. Sure did just lift off. Clearly, the wind getting under it was too much but I’d think code would accommodate that

      1. Truthfully, the cape may not get a ton of tornadoes but it does stick out there for string hurricane winds

        1. And even more frequently for northeaster type storms that we know can produce wind gusts well over 50 MPH. Something wasn’t right with that roof.

          1. It sure seems that way. Unless an up draft of some sort hit it just right. I always hesitate to comment when I am not there…. But it still seems it should have gone in sections

            1. Eric Fisher said it was the “low pressure” in the tornado. But that’s completely wrong. That doesn’t cause roofs to lift, and there is also not video proof that the tornado actually went over that motel anyway. And even if it did, it was too small to be situated in such a way to do what he described, even if that was true. That was clearly wind getting under the roof, poorly connected to the structure, and lifting it. You can even see the point it starts to peel off. I’m going to tag expert Tim Marshall in a post about it and see what he has to say. He’s a construction engineer and veteran storm chaser.

  70. Not a good sign if you want power back . I saw headed 495 south flat bed with many generators headed to the cape . We have built a new house in a culdesac in Brewster -headed there tomorrow to inspect area. I fear power out for a few days .

  73. The first anniversary of the tornado that went from Douglas to Uxbridge to upton/hopkinton will be Thursday. Seems this is a tornado time of year for MA

    1. July & August are our climate peak months. Of course some of our most notable tornadoes have been outside of those months, but #-wise, these 2 months are the tops.

  74. I was told the motel was built early 1960s with truss roof construction.

    I’d bet money that it wasn’t retrofitted with hurricane straps after Hurricane Bob, and if it was, something wasn’t done correctly.

  75. I built my addition over my garage two years ago and every roof joist has to be connect to the wall headers with a h-clip. Inspector would have failed it with out them.

  78. Haha my friend and fellow met just posted the video of the motel along with this comment: “I get that winds were strong but this also appears to be some pretty shoddy construction work if you ask me.”

    Then another colleague of ours also agreed with that. So I guess we’re all kind of spotting something not quite right with that roof. 😉

    1. as I watch coverage, congratulations to NWS, all local authorities on cape and the people for listening …..it could have been so much worse.

      1. The NWS did an amazing job, yet they are taking a beating on their FB page for “not posting enough photos” etc. basically while the event was ongoing. They are also being criticized for not updating Facebook enough during the event. There’s a good reason they don’t use FB as their primary source. Twitter works better for time-sensitive info as far as social media goes, along with the improving warning to the phone system. NOAA weather radio still exists, not to mention local media will bombard you with info. If you choose to be blind to those obvious best sources, there is nobody to blame but yourself. MUCH praise to NWS for a most excellent job the last couple days.

  80. From Ryan Hanrahan
    EF-1 tornado confirmed on Cape Cod with winds up to 110 mph in Yarmouth and Harwich.
    The EF-1 tornado today in Harwich and Yarmouth is the strongest tornado on Cape Cod since 1977 when an F-1 tornado struck Yarmouth and destroyed an art gallery sending paintings into the Parker River.

  81. Well said above TK and Vicki about a great job by all involved with warnings and getting the word out this morning. NWS, broadcast mets, first responders, all rising to a very high level of performance when it was needed. TK is also spot on with his comments about FB. It is useless for warning dissemination.

    The motel with its roof blown off…. clearly construction issues there. Also, I tend to believe it was straight line winds, not the tornado, which caused that particular damage. I think we’ll get some more clarification on this tomorrow when we actually get a full path length and width of the tornado from NWS Boston with beginning and end points.

    1. I agree about that motel. Looking (as best as I could) at the surrounding area and lack of swirling action anywhere, that looked like straight line wind to me at that particular location. Granted we only had a few seconds of video to judge by.

    2. I think you are right about FB for overall communication. Maybe not so on personal basis. I reached multiple friends and family using FB. Younguns use multiple platforms. Olderuns seem to have FB first. People are going to complain no matter the outcome…..pictures?? Damn but we are beyond pathetic as a society.

      I’m hoping the motel is not the focus….another fault we have as a whole. The small picture. The hotel is such a small part that it is nearly insignificant.

      1. The problem with FB regarding warning type stuff…its algorithm will often skip things because they are “not of top interest” to you. IT decides.

        Facebook is a terrible warning platform. Twitter blows it away.

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