Severe Storm Climatology for Southern New England From 1993 to 1999

The National Weather Service (NWS) Forecast Office in Taunton, Massachusetts has spent considerable resources in spotter training in association with the NWS modernization. The spotter population in southern New England has tripled during the period from 1994 to 1999.

For this research, severe weather is considered as hail greater than 0.75 inches, damaging wind gusts, wind gusts measured greater than 50 knots, and tornado occurrence. It is believed that with the increase in trained spotter population, an improved basis for severe weather climatology has been gained since 1994.

This article will report the results of an updated severe storm climatology for southern New England. The climatology will be broken down by county, month and time-of-day. Additionally, the climatology will include favored synoptic settings for those days when widespread severe weather occurred.