06/06/10 DISC: MA

[Isaac Pato]

A healthy supercell had its sights set on Boston earlier today. The storm had several disorganized areas of rotation and was probably cycling before it began to ingest cold marine air.

Upon suddenly encountering a very stable airmass, I believe that the updraft died abruptly. As a result, all of the precipitation that was suspended in it suddenly fell straight down over downtown Boston.

This negatively buoyant air hit the ground with extreme force and spread out as a macroburst, causing widespread severe wind damage (>50kts) over downtown Boston. Logan airport reported a max gust to 59kts.

Although the damage was significant, parts of Boston may have been saved from even worse damage. The updraft was very healthy within 20 miles of downtown and showed signs of being more than capable of producing tornadoes. The environment around the storm was more than sufficient to support a strong/violent tornado.

Wind damage was reported west of rte. 128 while the storm still had strong low-level rotation. Although this may have been RFD wind damage, I would not be surprised if the NWS damage survey finds (weak) tornado damage in this area.

I have posted this on an radar image album on facebook that I will link to here.

 

[Dave Kaplow]

Yep, an interesting day in New England, although all the tornado predictions don't seem to have panned out... Nevertheless, today I chased something I thought I'd never see in CT ever: a genuine LP supercell updraft that formed out ahead of the main line of storms. I chased it from Branford to Middletown... I know I should really have played the warm front up in MA, but storm motions were ridiculous, there's just no way to chase a cell that's moving at 75 mph, as one potential target was doing! My LP updraft was zipping along at only about 50, and I was more than happy to be on it for as long as I was. So not a bad day at all for me, even if it didn't quite live up to expectations. The real question is why there weren't any tornadoes, and only a few real supercells, despite all the ingredients seemingly being present... Supercell Index at 20, Sig Tor at 6, LCLs quite reasonable, and yet cells in that area were, with only one or two exceptions, barely rotating. The magic ingredient, whatever it may be, was clearly missing.

 

[Scott Nelson]

Got a bit lucky on this 6/6/10 New England event. Coaching soccer game in Southbridge, MA (MA/CT line) so actual chasing the storm was out for me. That aside, the 1:00pm game start combined with the 80 minute game length set me up timing wise for the 3:00pm ish fast moving storm line to chase me back home towards Worcester county. It's been a while since I've had such an impressive wall of water, ugly skies and a good lightning show bite at my back bumper for that long and yet not hit me until I made it to my driveway. I was literally able to stay in front it purely due to lucky New England road direction. A rarity in this area. Second line of storms passing through an hour and a half later was actually more impressive and fun to me as I was able to position myself in an a better visability area and capture some good low cloud rotation on video. Seemed like the little train saying "I think I can, I think I can" but just couldn't. So, what most would consider a total bust... for me a fun day to due to situational luck on a day I expected to get nothing.

 

[Isaac Pato]

Very cool, did you get pictures of the LP? I'd love to see them.

I agree that it's a little odd that there weren't many tornado reports. Even in the plains, these parameters are on the high side. I think that everyone was expecting tornadoes, but in a densely populated area like New England, it's good that nothing major happened.