Sunshine to Increase from South to North, T-Storm Risk Remains

All of New Jersey remains under a slight risk for severe thunderstorms this afternoon and this evening by the Storm Prediction Center.

The risk for damaging winds is the primary risk, although the hail parameter guidance I use does suggest the potential for marginally severe hail.

We see very good sunshine breaking our within the warm sector in Southern New Jersey and I suspect this will lift northward throughout the afternoon, although some cloudiness from the west may tend to make things partly sunny when the sun breaks out for the remainder of Central and Southern New Jersey. The guidance continues to suggest a 20-30 degree temperature rise within a couple of hours which would drastically increase the instability needed for strong to severe thunderstorm initiation.

However, despite the given instability, there are STILL legitimate questions about whether there will be really a breakout of severe thunderstorms. Yes, we have a cold front which will act as a triggering mechanism to initiate thunderstorms. But the North American model and Global Forecast System model show weak convergence and lacks well organized and widespread thunderstorm initiation. In fact, the 12z NAM agrees with the previous two runs of the model and shows 0.00” of measurable precipitation in just about the entire New Jersey area.

So, this leads me to the forecast for the event. Thunderstorms will be isolated to scattered in nature. Due to the instability, where they develop, they could quickly become severe with the potential for damaging winds and possible hail. The higher resolution modeling is a bit more robust with the development of thunderstorms for this afternoon across our region...but even these models have trended towards scattered development. At this present time, I am leaning with the modeling indicating less explosive and widespread development. This does not mean we will not have some pretty significant events with notable damage, it just means some areas could be bone dry and cloudy while others are getting hammered just 20 miles from where you reside.