Locally severe thunderstorms to threaten travel disruptions in DC, Philadelphia and Charlotte

Locally potent storms will bring the risk of travel disruptions and power outages in parts of the Midwest and East into Thursday.

AccuWeather meteorologists say cities from Indianapolis to Pittsburgh, Charlotte, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and others along the Interstate 70, 80, 85 and 95 corridors will be at risk for drenching and disruptive thunderstorms that could trigger substantial travel delays before less humid air settles in later in the week.

Thunderstorms will erupt in a zone of warm and humid air and along an approaching cold front from parts of the Midwest to the central Appalachians and New England into Wednesday evening and the mid-Atlantic region into Thursday.

Some airlines are struggling to catch up following a security software glitch that affected some worldwide computer systems earlier in July. Thousands of flights were still being delayed and canceled into midweek.

The weather may not help matters. When thunderstorms pass through the airports, ground stops will result, triggering more delays and threatening some flight cancellations in the major hub-heavy northeastern United States.

The thunderstorms do not have to be severe to cause travel delays.

Into Wednesday evening, the heaviest and locally severe storms will align in two zones.

One zone of thunderstorms will exist in the steamy air from central South Carolina to Maryland into Wednesday evening.

As these storms erupt from the day’s heating, they can bring drenching downpours and gusty winds. In a few locations, the storms can cause lightning strikes to cluster, downpours leading to flash flooding and strong enough winds to down trees and power lines.

Farther to the northwest, showers and thunderstorms will focus along and ahead of a cool front from Maine to Illinois. Within this zone, once again, the heating of the day will cause the storms to peak during the late afternoon and evening, where some may bring damaging wind gusts, localized flash flooding and a clustering of lightning strikes. A couple of thunderstorms that extend miles high to freezing levels in the atmosphere may produce brief hail.

On Thursday, the risk of severe weather will huddle along a portion of the zone from Virginia and the Delmarva Peninsula to southeastern New England.

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The major metro areas of Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City and Boston are currently in the zone where thunderstorms may go above and beyond garden-variety intensity with frequent lightning, damaging wind gusts and downpours heavy enough to lead to flash flooding.

As less humid air advances from the Great Lakes and the central Appalachians on Thursday to parts of the Ohio Valley, New England and the mid-Atlantic coast on Friday, the risk of showers and thunderstorms will be slashed. Most of these areas will be free of rain for several days.

A wedge of dry air with no thunderstorm activity may push southward into parts of the Carolinas this weekend. As this occurs, a return flow of moisture will return to the Midwest, and random shower and thunderstorm activity will propagate northeastward over the region by Sunday.

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