Thunderstorms expected to clear for Red Sox game

By Globe Staff

The gusty thunderstorms that rumbled across Massachusetts today downed tree limbs from Franklin to Plymouth. But much of the rain should be swept out to sea by early evening, leaving cloudy skies for the first pitch of the Red Sox first-place showdown with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

"The show should go on," said Bill Simpson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton.

There does, however, remain a possibility for one heavy shower sometime between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. The forecast for tonight's game at Fenway Park calls for cloudy skies that should gradually clear, with low temperatures near 58 degrees. An 11- to 15-mile per hour wind is expected from the west, blowing in from right field.

A severe thunderstorm watch expired at 4 p.m. for an area that included Bristol, Norfolk, Worcester, Essex, Plymouth, Middlesex, and Suffolk counties. The storms brought potential for lightning strikes, tornadoes, and urban and small stream flooding because the ground was saturated over the weekend by Tropical Storm Hanna. Weather radar showed a line of thunderstorms running up the Eastern Seaboard from Virginia up to Maine.

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