Recent New England Tornado Satellite-Based Insights (credit: Scott Bachmeier via UW-CIMSS Satellite Blog)

DISCUSSION: As meteorologists working at the National Weather Service office in Portland, Maine geared up to prepare and deliver their first forecasts for the month of July, they quickly had quite a heavy workload to contend with.  More specifically, a warm/moist air mass approaching portions of the interior Northeast on the final day of June set the stage for a convective threat across many parts of the interior Northeastern United States.  As various favorable convective parameters came into place during the overnight and early morning hours on 1 July, there was increasing confidence for strong/severe thunderstorms to erupt during the late morning to early afternoon hours back on 1 July.  

As noted above and as it would ultimately verify, severe thunderstorms kept the National Weather Service busy over the weekend, especially the NWS office in Portland Maine where a record number of tornado warning were issued on July 1st. You can see the storms evolution in this animation of GOES-16 satellite imagery.  In the dual visible/infrared GOES-R satellite imagery loop attached above (as non-operational and preliminary data only), there were only subtle indications based on infrared cloud-top temperatures that there were severe thunderstorms developing at the time which would be capable of generating tornadoes in the near future.  Despite the couple of tornadoes which did end up touching down, there fortunately were no recorded fatalities as a consequence of these severe storms which impacted portions of northern New Hampshire and western Maine.  To learn more about this recent severe weather event, click on the following link.

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©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz