1:55 PM | **Here we go again...strong storms firing up and headed towards the big cities**

[Latest NEXRAD radar image; courtesy AOS-Wisconsin]

Discussion

A backdoor cold front is headed our way from New England and this will cause some big changes in the temperature department as we progress through the rest of the week. Much cooler air will move into the I-95 corridor over the next couple of days and the transition from today’s warmth and humidity to an ocean flow of noticeably cooler air will be accompanied by showers and thunderstorms. In fact, strong thunderstorms are now starting to fire up in higher terrain locations from southern New York to West Virginia and these storms are racing south and east right towards the Philly, DC and New York City metro regions and will likely reach in the time period between 3 and 9pm. There is no "severe thunderstorm watch" yet issued by the National Weather Service for the I-95 corridor, but I would expect that to develop as we progress through the mid-afternoon hours. Any storm that reaches the big cities later today and early tonight can include some heavy rainfall, damaging wind gusts, frequent lightning and, yes, possibly even some large hail. It’ll remain on the unsettled side tomorrow despite cooler conditions with showers and thunderstorms still a threat for much of the Mid-Atlantic region. Thursday is likely to turn out to be the coolest day of the week with a well-established ocean flow of cool air by then (i.e. E-NE low-level winds) and lots of clouds are likely across the Philly and DC metro regions (New York City may have more in the way of sunshine). Occasional showers are likely on Thursday south of the PA/MD border across the DC metro and Delmarva Peninsula regions and these showers could even extend as far north as southeastern Pennsylvania.