Rain, Wind, Hail, even Tornadoes? In Connecticut?

"Probable Rain, Wind, Hail, possible Tornado or Tornadoes" - That's what I feared would happen Sunday. There were so many things in place. Instability (1000-2000+ J/kg), very strong shear at such low levels (like 60 MPH winds under 12 miles), lift brought in by a notably dense cold front... You would expect these kinds of textbook setup along Tornado Alley, not here in Connecticut.

Instead, what we got today was considerably nicer (Well... "considerably nicer" compared to the alternative). So what killed it?

Let's start at the beginning of the day, specifically relating to sunshine. If you remember, there wasn't that much. Quite the opposite, it was mostly cloudy skies for the majority of the day until the storms blew over. This essentially lessened the instability that existed to begin the day. Very generally speaking, the more cloud cover, the less heating of the air. The cooler the air, the less the instability. That's one substantial problem.

Then there was wind shear, ironically. At lower heights, a strong wind can actually take storms that would remain mostly isolated, or with only a few moderate hotspots and instead propagate them, making it notably more uniform, more consistent and, generally speaking, stronger overall. Here's the kicker though: Although we had that low level wind in place, there were also strong winds further up which pushed against and severely hampered updrafts necessary to allow for hail and other highly directly damaging aspects of storms.

There were two notably apparent exception to this... In Massachusetts, at roughly 4:00 PM, one spot near Boston came under some unusually strong winds (60 MPH+!), possibly due to a downburst.
However, back in Connecticut, at roughly 2:30 PM, a storm system entered Litchfield County, already with some notable rotation in place. By 3:00, it intensified, leading to a Tornado Warning for most of Hartford County, due to strong proof from Doppler Radar.

The above is a picture showing wind speed estimated by movement of precipitation. (Click here or the image for the full view.) Look just ESE of Litchfield, where the green (-10, -20 kts) is directly against the oranges and dark red (+10, to +36 kts). That specific negative to positive gradient was rather persistent for upwards of a couple hours, and minutes later after that pic was taken, the tornado warning was issued. (I sadly didn't get a chance to grab any more screencaps at the time).

That cell went on, dropping hail (some places in excess of 1 inch), and had two separate reports of a funnel cloud within the tornado warning area. Remember, a funnel cloud is essentially a tornado that has not touched the ground (or has not apparently made contact when viewing directly at it). It's currently not known if it made contact with the ground.

What we got in its place outside of that system though was heavy, but brief, and overall minimal rainfall. Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks only saw 0.34" of rain, even though it was in the path of the storm that triggered the tornado warning (and near where a spotter reported a funnel cloud). Other areas saw similar low levels of precipitation overall, even though it was brief and moderately windy. Generally speaking, winds in storms were about 10, 15 MPH with gusts that approached or exceeded 30 MPH... Nothing exceptional.

Overall, Sunday was a rather interesting day to follow. There was plenty of potential for some very severe weather, but fortunately, Connecticut avoided most of it.

Footer Fun Fact: The NWS issued 9 Tornado Warnings in 2009 for Connecticut- 7 from OKX (Southern CT), 1 from ALY (Litchfield County), and 1 from BOX (Remaining Northern CT counties).