Three Weekends of Northeast U.S. Tornado’s- May 2009

Posted by Tim Kelley May 28, 2009 at 8:44 pm

Could we make it four for four with a tornado here in the northeastern United States this last weekend of May 2009?
On Saturday May 9th we had two tornadoes, one in Sunderland MA, the other in Washington VT. The National Weather Service team in Burlington has produced an incredibly detailed description of the weather that day with details of the tornado, see their post here. On Saturday May 16th an EF0 tornado touched down in Waverly NY, see the NWS Binghamton NY details of that one, here. This past Sunday we had the Eagle Lake ME tornado. So what’s next?
The upper level low (that ingested the first (unnamed) Tropical Storm of the Season out of Alabama), will pass New England Friday. This feature has the energy to produce Thunderstorms, especially in Western New England Friday Afternoon. The cool air stuck in Eastern New England should weaken any strong storms as they reach the CT river Valley late in the day. Then, finally, the sun comes out, the wind switches from east to west, and we warm up Saturday. Temperatures will push 80°, for a nice day here. Saturday night we are tracking another strong cold upper low crossing Ontario. That low will bring a surface front to New England Saturday Night into Sunday Morning. This low center will deepen to 996 millibars north of Maine Sunday.. very strong for this time of year. We will have gusty downpours with some lightning and hail possible with the front early Sunday. Missing from this scenario is low level heat and moisture.. prime ingredients for tornado development. On May 9th our dew point was 62°, on May 16th our dew point surged to 60° late in the day. On May 23rd, the dew point barely got to 52° at Eagle Lake. Usually we need a dew point in the 60s for tornado’s, but that Eagle Lake twister spun up due to heavy low level shear, and marginal heat and humidity. The forecast dew point for Sunday Morning is only in the 30s. So.. we probably will not see a fourth consecutive weekend tornado in the northeast, but we will have gusty weather with hail possible, we may even a have an hour or two of snow above 3000 feet as the freezing level comes right down late Sunday. The image below is the 850 millibar forecast for late Sunday, that’s -6° C at about 4600 feet. The temperature on Mount Washington Sunday evening will be around 22° with gusts to 95 mph. Brrrisk.
ps.. We should have some good clean chest/head high breakers south coast Friday AM low tide.. Surf’s Up

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