Large wildfires in Southern Quebec are creating enough smoke that it is being advected into the New England area. The latest satellite image above (Courtesy RAP) shows the smoke being transfered from the source of the fire towards northern Maine and New Hampshire. Winds are strong and from the northwest, which means that the smoke will continue to move through the rest of New Hampshire and Maine overnight. Please be careful if you have any breathing issues.
Temperatures in New England are already creeping into the upper 80′s (and even 90 at Boston’s Logan Airport). This is creating an unstable airmass that could produce scattered thunderstorms for the area this afternoon.
All that is needed is a lifting mechanism to trigger these storms. A cold front is typically the culprit in New England summers, but normally it comes from the the west. Today it’s a different story:
This phenomenon, known as a “backdoor” cold front, typically occurs once or twice every year. Why does it happen? Well it is because of an upper level low to the EAST of the area. Normally, these storms move from west to east due to vorticity within the system. However if the vorticity is too weak, the system begins to move slightly from east to west, otherwise known as “retrogression.” Since cold air is located to the west of these upper level lows, cold air is advected over New England.
If the area is unstable enough during a backdoor cold front event (like today) there is a chance for the production of storms that move towards the south or southwest. So while it seems like a nice day now, don’t be surprised if you hear thunder rumbling today.
This is the second time in the past 9 days that the midwest, especially Oklahoma, has seen a major tornado outbreak. Both times the Storm Prediction Center has put the area in a High Risk, and issued a tornado watch box that was classified as a “Particularly Dangerous Situation.”
In order to remove myself from the Plymouth website and make everything exclusive to the Human METAR, I have added two pages here for your enjoyment
- removed resume page and replaced it with a curriculum vitae page
- added a research page with links to all my presentations / papers from my undergraduate and graduate career at Plymouth State
Also made some minor changes to the site, including something creative. See if you can find it (or perhaps it is a page that doesn’t exist yet 
)
