A line of heavy downpours and thunderstorms was crossing many sections of Upstate and Central New York late Sunday afternoon into early evening, with severe thunderstorm alerts in effect for portions of Central New York through Sunday evening. The latest alerts covered much of upstate and CNY, along with the immediate CNY area, as forecasters warned of dangerous weather moving through the region.
A severe thunderstorm warning means a particular storm is much more likely to produce damaging wind and hail in the warned area. In plain terms, that means the strongest part of the storm can bring large hail, damaging winds, lightning and torrential rain, with severe storms defined by winds of at least 58 MPH or quarter-sized hail or larger. Destructive hail damage is associated with baseball-sized hail, while wind damage becomes destructive at 80+ MPH.
Those warnings matter because the hazards can arrive fast. A flash flood warning means rapid, life-threatening flooding is occurring or is about to begin, while a flood advisory points to heavy rain runoff that can push small creeks and streams out of their banks. The setup also leaves room for power outages, since lightning strikes can knock out service if they hit poles or substations.
The practical advice is simple and immediate. If an Emergency Alert sounds on a phone or TV for a severe thunderstorm warning, people should get shelter right away. Boaters should head to shore immediately, and drivers should pull over and wait until the storm passes. That is the difference between a warning that stays on a screen and one that turns into injuries, flooded roads or broken power lines.
The one thing not spelled out in the alerts was exactly which counties or towns were included in every warning area, beyond the broad coverage across upstate and Central New York. Even so, the message for Sunday evening was clear: the worst of the storm threat was still in motion, and anyone under a warning needed to treat it as a direct danger, not just another burst of rain and thunder.
