Severe storm, flash flood threat to target mid-Atlantic on Thursday

By Alex Sosnowski, AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist

June 22,2016; 10:21PM,EDT

 

 

The potential for severe thunderstorms and the risk of flash flooding will focus on the mid-Atlantic states on Thursday. The danger will also extend westward to southeastern Missouri.
"The same places that got hit hard [by severe thunderstorms in the mid-Atlantic] on Tuesday might be in line for another round of nasty thunderstorms on Thursday," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dave Dombek said.
Violent thunderstorms focused on northern Virginia, Maryland and Delaware on Tuesday, slamming the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., areas.
"The greatest threat from the storms on Thursday will be for pockets of flash flooding," AccuWeather Storm Warning Meteorologist Alex Avalos said. "However, the strongest storms could bring localized damaging wind gusts."

A small number of the storms could also produce hail.
"Right now, the tornado risk is pretty isolated," Dombek said.
The pending severe weather on Thursday will be part of the same weather system targeting the Midwest on Wednesday.
"Thursday will start with a band of heavy and gusty thunderstorms from the Midwest reaching Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and disrupting the morning commute," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Kristina Pydynowski said.
"Additional severe thunderstorms will erupt over the rest of the southern mid-Atlantic and back to Kentucky and southeastern Missouri as Thursday progresses," she said.
Other cities at risk for the severe thunderstorms on Thursday include Charlottesville, Roanoke and Richmond, Virginia; Charleston, West Virginia; and Lexington, Kentucky.
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An isolated severe thunderstorm may even drop southward into Nashville, Tennessee, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on Thursday evening.
While people spending time outdoors will have to be alert for changing weather conditions, motorists should be on the lookout for flooded roadways and sudden low visibility.
As is often the case when thunderstorms affect the densely-populated mid-Atlantic, motorists and airline passengers may face travel disruptions.
"Philadelphia is the far northern extent of the severe weather threat zone on Thursday," Dombek said. "Once you get north of central New Jersey, the chance for strong to severe thunderstorms drops off significantly with only the threat of downpours for Trenton, New Jersey, and Allentown, Pennsylvania."
The New York City area and parts of southern New England, including Boston, Providence, Rhode Island, and Hartford, Connecticut, will be grazed by rain with the heaviest rain remaining to the south. Only spotty showers will dot northern New England.
"If there is any more of a trend southward with this system, places from I-78 northward may not even get rain that is actually needed," Dombek said.

Many areas of the Northeast could stand a thorough soaking as a significant part of the region has developed abnormally dry conditions with isolated pockets of moderate drought in recent weeks.
Even where rain is needed, too much rain could fall at too fast of a pace for the ground to absorb and result in flash flooding.
"Another stretch of dry weather will follow Thursday's severe weather across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic spanning Friday and this weekend," Pydynowski said.