Dangerous weather on tap for Thursday 6/13
Friends,
The actual baby praying mantis I found bounded away before I could snap his picture. This is a picture I found online, but that's the spitting image. This is not my finger.I met a baby praying mantis this evening whilst doing the yardwork. He was somewhat more skittish than the adult praying mantises I have known (like Manny, who used to hang out in our yard back in Adamstown). Picture a teeny, translucent praying mantis. Adorable!
But I have digressed even before I have begun. Serious weather is in our immediate future. Here are the deets:
The storm headed for our area is hammering the midwest right now. It will be a strong Nor'easter marked by a deep low and warm weather convection. In plain language, that means we will be at an elevated risk of severe weather.
Expect showers to arrive overnight, becoming steadier by 8 or 9am Thursday. The heaviest rain will be from late morning to about 8pm. Rain will taper overnight into early Friday morning.
Many places will see two inches of rain, and isolated areas will approach three inches. The composition of the storm will bring several complications:
- The aforementioned heavy rain will bring the potential for street and small-stream flooding.
- The potential development of derechos (thanks to Megan King for bringing this term to my attention), which are downbursts of destructive straight-line winds. A damaging swath of hurricane-force winds can accompany a line a severe thunderstorms. The most serious risk for this type of event is downed trees and power lines (due to the ground saturation). Again, this is not inevitable, but conditions will be favorable for derecho development.
- The potential development of tornadoes.
- Severe thunderstorms, some of which could feature hail, most likely in the late afternoon or evening.
- Zombies.
Expect highs in the 70s and high humidity tomorrow.
Friday will be partly cloudy and breezy with a slight risk of thunderstorms in the evening.
The weekend looks really nice: highs around 80, plenty of sunshine.
Another front comes through Monday and Tuesday, bringing with it some thunderstorms.