As we head into the day on Monday we will see the threat for severe weather enter the Twin Tiers. One thing to understand, although some thunderstorms have the threat for damaging winds, the wind threat we see Monday is a separate event from the severe weather we could happen tomorrow. So, in this article, we will break down our threat for severe weather into the categories of; damaging winds, hail, and tornado chances for the Twin Tiers. Before we begin however, I do want to stress this is NOT going to be an outbreak, but a few discrete thunderstorms Monday afternoon could pose a severe weather threat.

Let's start off with the wind threat for the Twin Tiers. So, like I said, the wind threat that will move into the region late tonight and through Monday IS separate from the severe weather, but we do need to talk about it. As of Sunday morning, a High Wind Watch will go into effect for Steuben, Schuyler, Tioga (PA), and Potter counties starting Monday morning and lasting into Monday evening. We are expecting wind gusts up to 60 MPH across the entire Twin Tiers, mainly during the morning hours on Monday, and these strong gusts could leave a few without power. Also, it will not shock me to see the rest of the region be under some sort of wind advisory or high wind watch by the end of the day. The players for this event will be key, and these players include a strong low level jet (LLJ) accompanied by a sting jet (SJ). So, around 2500 feet above the surface we will have winds 50 MPH-70 MPH (LLJ) and up around 5000 feet we will have winds 90 MPH-120 MPH (SJ). This is a recipe for strong winds to reach the surface, NO, we are not going to see gusts up to 100 MPH. What we will see though is winds at the surface mixing with the 2500 ft level and this will create the chance to see gusts upwards of 60 MPH. That's the wind threat for Monday, but still separate from the severe thunderstorm wind threat. The severe thunderstorm wind threat is simple. As thunderstorms grow they have updrafts and downdrafts and because the winds are so fast relatively near the surface, the taller these thunderstorms grow, the greater chance these thunderstorms will have of latching onto the strong winds and bringing them down to the surface. That's the wind threat, now lets take a look at the hail threat.

Our hail threat is slim, if any at all, but still worth noting. With the strong winds in the upper levels, as said above, we can expect strong updrafts with these storms. This will give the opportunity for the ice particles in the clouds to fall and then lifted back up by these strong updrafts, allowing them to grow in size, but here's the downfall. Monday's thunderstorms will be very low capped, meaning they won't be as tall as we would typically see during the summer, and this means the hail stones won't have the best environment to grow hence why our damaging hail threat is low but small has is still possible. Now, onto tornadoes.

Our tornado threat is interesting to say the least, and like at the beginning of this article, this will NOT be an outbreak. Although no outbreak, the chance of a cell or two becoming tornado warned or even producing a tornado exists. The ingredients are there, strong upper levels, winds increasing with height and even shear. At the surface on Monday winds will be coming out of the south and in the upper levels they will be veering from the west. this implies that we have wind shear across the region and the drastic increase in speed with height implies we have the spin needed to create rotation.

-Alex