While our weather around the Tuscarawas Valley is expected to remain dry during the day, mainly light rain and a borderline risk of a strong thunderstorm set up over east-central Ohio late in the day as a weak cold front moves through the region.
The heaviest rain from this system looks to keep south of our area but the atmosphere overhead will become a little unstable closer to evening. That could lead to an isolated thunderstorm late this afternoon into this evening. The Storm Prediction Center has placed our area in a low-end Marginal Risk for later today. The threat for a gusty storm in our area is pretty low but any storm that gets its act together could get rowdy enough to produce some hail and gusty wind.
Showers are likely to stick around for much of the overnight hours into early Wednesday morning as the front slides southward. We really don’t need any more rain and thankfully we shouldn’t see much with this system – maybe a tenth of an inch or two.
The severe weather setup on Thursday appears to be more substantial. A strengthening low pressure system will develop in the lower Mississippi Valley region and travel north into the Midwest on Thursday. A warm front out ahead of the low will lift south to north through Ohio. The east-central Ohio region will be firmly in the warm sector of this front by Thursday afternoon.
The atmosphere will become unstable and wind shear – the change of wind speed and direction as you travel upward through the air column overhead – will be the driver for potentially strong to severe storms in the afternoon. The SPC already has eastern and southern Ohio highlighted for a 15% – 30% risk of severe storms Thursday afternoon and evening.
At this point, damaging wind is the primary concern but with the amount of shear forecast to be present, the potential of isolated tornadoes will be something we’ll need to keep a close eye on. Better details on how this might play out should come into focus tomorrow.
Another piece of this system that needs close monitoring is the potential for rain in our area. As it stands now, the highest rain amounts appear to stay east of our area. If the current track of the system holds true, a couple of dry slots are projected to help hold rain amounts down locally.
Severe storms or not, a potent gradient from the strong low pressure will bring a few breezy days on Thursday through Saturday. The system also drags a cold front across eastern Ohio so temperatures on Friday and Saturday will be noticeably cooler. Temperatures locally will warm back to near 70° once again by Sunday.
Thanks for taking some time today to catch up with our local weather. Have a great day.
