Weather for New England and the Northeast

**Area Forecast Discussion**
National Weather Service Boston/Norton MA
213 AM EDT Tue Jul 7 2026

**What Has Changed**
Cancelled the flood watch for Connecticut and lowered rainfall totals across Connecticut and Central Massachusetts to 1 to 2 inches. Otherwise, no significant changes to the forecast.

**Key Messages**
Periods of rain, heavy at times continues through much of the day today. Chance for thunderstorms and isolated flooding, mainly across the Cape and Islands.

Mainly dry with a warming trend through midweek followed by an increased chance for scattered showers and thunderstorms later in the week.

**Discussion**
The main theme of the last 12 hours has been to reduce the scope and intensity of the flooding threat for much of the area. That being said, we cannot fully rule out at least isolated instances of flooding through this afternoon, especially across Rhode Island and much of Eastern Massachusetts.

Current radar shows areas of tropical rain rates offshore in the higher precipitable water, which is a measure of total atmospheric moisture, airmass. Further north, it is a mostly stratiform, meaning flat and steady, cool-season type rainfall regime with cloud tops less than 15,000 feet and specific radar moisture signatures that are relatively low. As a result, rain totals have, so far, underperformed across much of Southern New England.

The environment becomes increasingly favorable for heavy rain into the early morning hours as a low-level jet, which is a fast-moving ribbon of air about 3,000 feet above the ground, increases to 30 knots around weak low pressure and pushes higher moisture index values northward. Atmospheric soundings, or vertical weather profiles, across Rhode Island and Southeast Massachusetts show warm cloud depths approaching 13,000 feet and precipitable water values increasing to 2.00 inches in the predawn hours.

Thus, we are thinking the highest chance for flooding will be in these areas. This is looking like a mostly beneficial rainfall event elsewhere with much of the forecast area experiencing moderate to severe drought conditions. Precipitation totals between 1 to 3 inches are still expected over much of southern New England, with lighter totals expected closer to the New Hampshire border.
Locally higher totals between 2 to 4 inches are possible in parts of Rhode Island, and Southeast Massachusetts. Even with the reduction in precipitation among computer models, a chance for training showers, which are storms that move over the same areas repeatedly like train cars, and thunderstorms means the flood watch will remain in effect across Rhode Island and Southeast Massachusetts.

Rainy conditions continue through much of the day today mainly in eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island as the low pressure continues northeastward and its associated shortwave, or atmospheric disturbance, moves east from the Great Lakes. The bulk of the heavy rain is expected to remain offshore.

The low passes offshore overnight with the upper level disturbance moving over Maine, and high pressure to the north continues spreading southward over southern New England as it departs. Showers may persist into overnight across eastern Massachusetts and the Islands, but these are not expected to be nearly as impactful as this morning rain.

A ridge of high pressure builds across the eastern United States Wednesday and Thursday allowing for a warming and drying trend. Closer to the surface, temperatures around 3,000 feet aloft rise to near 68 degrees, allowing for surface temperatures to begin to creep up above seasonable norms, likely near 90 degrees across most of southern New England Wednesday and Thursday.

Another atmospheric disturbance and cold front pushing through sometime Thursday may bring chances for showers and thunderstorms Friday. Depending on the timing of the frontal passage, showers could linger into Friday. Weather models currently show the frontal passage occurring sometime later Thursday and well after peak afternoon heating. Future forecasts will monitor the threat for storm development as we get closer to the late week period.