Very warm and humid air has primed the atmosphere over western New England for thunderstorms this afternoon and evening. There is a severe thunderstorm watch posted for the areas in pink on the image below.

The best chance of storms will be between 4pm and 10pm in the western half of the region. Some of these storms could hold together to bring a brief shower or weakened storm near the coastline. The image below shows where the storms were during the 3pm hour.

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The lack of rain continues to be a problem with roughly most place 50% below typical rainfall. While it’s still early in the spring-summer period, the ground is rapidly drying.

The trend this afternoon has been for the chance of storms to shift a bit further east than was thought this morning. Even with this in mind, I don’t expect any significant rain east of roughly the Maine Turnpike. Temperatures are hot for late May and dew points are in the July-like range.

Tomorrow, the chance for showers and perhaps a thunderstorm will increase over the eastern part of the region, but I wouldn’t count on much. These patterns tend to feed on themselves and once we go into drought mode, showery patterns are tough to come by.

If you haven’t been outside since this morning it has become very humid as well. Our dew points have climbed well into the 60s with a few 70 degree readings showing up. This is getting into the oppressive range and thus why it feels like the middle of summer.

Sunday brings our next chance of showers. This looks like the highest risk of rain most of the area has seem this month. While it won’t be an all-day rain, it does appear most areas should see some water.

It’s hard to believe June hasn’t even arrived yet after seeing so many warm days already this early in the season. The next drought report is issued tomorrow. I don’t suspect the status of the drought has changed, but it certainly hasn’t been alleviated either.