Thursday might start off sunny and bright, but that might be a bad thing weather-wise for Butler County.

A cloudless forecast in the morning might lead to thunderstorms with potentially damaging winds in the afternoon, according to the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh.

“If things line up right, there is a potential for severe weather,” said Chris Leonardi, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

A convective complex, a grouping of storms, was expected to form over Wisconsin Wednesday. Leonardi said this complex was expected to drop into Michigan and Ohio.

As it moves into Butler County, he said, it will encounter an upper-level disturbance.

“Depending on how quickly that activity moves out, it may hinder chances for a thunderstorm to develop,” Leonardi said.

That's because a lot of cloud cover in the morning will keep temperatures down and prevent conditions for thunderstorms to develop.

A warm, sunny morning could therefore be a harbinger of bad weather later in the day for Butler County.

The main threat of thunderstorms Thursday would come in the form of damaging winds in the 50 to 60 mph range, not heavy rainfall.

In fact, Leonardi said, according to figures gathered at Pittsburgh International Airport, rainfall for July, as of Wednesday, totaled 2.64 inches, which is about an inch below normal for the month.

For the whole area, rainfall has been below normal for the month.

“It's really been feast or famine this time of year,” Leonardi said. “There will be an inch of rain in one area and nothing in another area a little bit away.”

Temperatures for July are fairly normal overall with highs in the lower 80s and lows in the lower 60s.

Rob McLafferty, 911 coordinator for Butler County, said, “We obviously monitor the weather. We get alerts from the National Weather Service.”

McLafferty said the 911 staff members are experts in storm management and have authorization to call in additional staff if needed.Also keeping an eye on the horizon for storms is Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy, whose electric companies West Penn Power and Penn Power collectively serve about 84,000 customers in Butler County.“FirstEnergy has an in-house team of meteorologists tracking weather conditions that are most likely to disrupt service to our customers,” said spokeswoman Lauren Siburkis.“High winds and heavy rain pose some of the biggest threats to our system during the summer months because the combined elements can cause significant tree-related damage to our electric system that is beyond our control,” she said.Siburkis added FirstEnergy's preparation for severe weather includes equipment upgrades, maintenance, inspections and tree-trimming work throughout the year to reinforce the electric system against severe weather and extreme heat.“We've also installed new automated technology across our service territory to prevent and limit the length of outages due to reasons out of our control, like storms,” she said. “Despite our proactive efforts to minimize the damages caused by severe weather, outages can still occur.”

Siburkis said that in the aftermath of severe weather, FirstEnergy's main priority is clearing hazards, such as downed power lines, downed trees and debris blocking the roads, and assessing the damage so that line crews can access the site of an outage and begin to safely make repairs.“Our crews follow a formal restoration process after a major storm, during which they typically address outages that restore the largest number of customers before moving to more isolated problems,” she said.Once Butler County weathers any thunderstorms that may pop up Thursday, residents should be in for a pleasant weekend.Leonardi said, “The weekend is looking pretty good. Friday and Saturday should be dry and cooler with highs in the upper 70s.”Any chance of rain will occur north of Interstate 80 over the weekend.“Overall, there's a pretty stretch of weather coming up,” he said.