Tornado Watches for New England Thursday, but No Tornadoes Reported

June 18th saw Tornado Watches across New England as severe thunderstorms moved through the region. The result: no reported tornado touchdowns.

Tornado Watch issued for New Hampshire, and portions of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maine. Image provided by NOAA

The difference between a watch and a warning may not be immediately clear. As an example, if you were going to a cookout or other event, and someone issued a “Taco Watch”, what they mean is that all of the ingredients for tacos are present, though you might not have them. A “Taco Warning,” on the other hand, would mean that you should expect tacos to be served at the event. For the Tornado Watch on June 18th, all the ingredients for tornadoes were present. CAPE, or upward atmospheric instability, low CIN, or atmospheric stability, a high dew point, and moderate lower and upper level wind shear. The final ingredient is a lifting mechanism, usually warm ground or a front. For the tornado watches that were issued in New England on the 18th, there was not enough lifting action and CAPE for tornadoes to develop into significant systems.

Cross section of a supercell with a tornado, showing the interaction between the updraft and downdraft. Image provided by UCAR and Paul Markowski, Penn State University

The current most significant tornado threat on the weekend of the 19th to the 21st is on the 20th. With severe weather moving through the Central Plains, all of the ingredients are looking to be in place for strong tornadoes in Kansas and Nebraska. Warm, moist air is expected to move northward, interacting with denser cool air from the north. The upward motion helps to start severe storms, while wind shear creates the necessary components of tornado genesis. In Nebraska and Kansas, the conditions for tornadoes are somewhat favorable (currently 5-9% chance of a tornado within 25 miles of a point in the red), but there is enough vertical atmospheric motion that in the level 1 conditional hatched region, a tornado has a 30% chance of being EF2+, meaning if a tornado does form, it has a 1.5-2.7% chance of being EF2+ strength.

Tornado probabilities for SPC Day 2 outlook from June 19th for June 20th, 2026. Image provided by NOAA.

Tornado watches might be issued throughout the day in the region as these severe storms move through. Severe thunderstorm warnings will lead storm fronts as they move inside larger tornado watches. If rotation is seen on radar or a tornado is reported, a warning gets issued for the expected path.