Severe Thunderstorm Warning Issued for Central Massachusetts
This alert is no longer in effect.
NOAA issued it on May 31, 2026, 2 months ago. Warnings of this kind stay in effect for hours to a few days, so this page is a historical record of what was issued, not a current warning. For conditions where you are right now, check weather.gov (US), weather.gc.ca (Canada), the Met Office (UK), or the Bureau of Meteorology (Australia).
Areazine synthesizes this NWS weather alert directly from NOAA's official public data feed. See our methodology for full source attribution and refresh cadence.
NWS Boston/Norton has issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for parts of Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire, and Worcester counties until 6:15 PM EDT.
Read this weather record in 30 seconds
- Record type
- Severe Thunderstorm Warning
- Affected area
- Central Massachusetts
- Issued
- May 31, 2026
- Issuing authority
- NWS Boston/Norton MA
Storm notices can cover different combinations of wind, hail, lightning, and rainfall. Use the original notice for the hazards and boundaries attached to this specific record.
Record status: historical. It was issued 2 months ago; use the issuing agency's live warning service for current conditions in Central Massachusetts.
Alert Details
A Severe Thunderstorm Warning (SV.W) has been issued by the National Weather Service Boston/Norton MA. The alert is effective from May 19 at 5:15 PM EDT until May 19 at 6:15 PM EDT.
Affected Areas
The warning covers Franklin, MA; Hampden, MA; Hampshire, MA; and Worcester, MA. Specific areas include Central Worcester County, Southeastern Hampshire County, Southeastern Franklin County, and East central Hampden County. Impacted locations include Worcester, Leominster, Shrewsbury, Westborough, Grafton, Holden, Auburn, Belchertown, Northborough, Clinton, Millbury, Charlton, Palmer, Spencer, Leicester, Ware, Sturbridge, Monson, Lancaster, and Rutland.
What You Should Do
For your protection move to an interior room on the lowest floor of a building.
Expected Conditions
At 5:15 PM EDT, a severe thunderstorm was located near West Brookfield, or 16 miles east of Amherst, moving east at 40 mph. Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail (1.00 inch). Hail damage to vehicles is expected along with wind damage to trees and power lines.
Timeline
The alert is in effect from May 19 at 5:15 PM EDT until May 19 at 6:15 PM EDT.
Original source: NOAA Official Notice ↗
Related Weather Alerts
All Weather Alerts →Nationwide notices with similar length or severity timing 8
Two Areazine-derived peer sets for this NWS weather alert: nearest notices by body length and by same severity near the same agency date. Peers come from other categories so they are not the same-feed Related list above.
Similar body length
Nearest notices by article body length (1,171 characters here).
Similar severity timing
Same severity (high) notices issued closest in time to May 31, 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about this NWS weather alert.