A Brief Break From Heat & Humidity
Can you feel it? The dewpoints have finally dropped behind a front which has pushed off the coast of New England. Light NE winds are following in behind the front supplying a cooler than normal flow in off the water. The front will remain stalled off the coast today through tomorrow as a steady stream of clouds moving from south to north will keep clouds around today through Saturday. Meanwhile, across the north farther away from the stalled front, there is high pressure and brighter skies will prevail. This dry air will help for partly sunny skies even across SNE today. Highs today will be cool with NE winds keeping temps in the Lwr 70s at the beaches, while inland away from the cool onshore wind, temps will climb into the 70's to near 80 by this afternoon.
To our south there is a sizeable batch of rain and thunderstorms affecting the mid-Atlantic states. It looks like it will be heading right towards us. Clouds will stream up ahead in advance of these showers later today and tonight. Most of these showers will be directed inland (west), or fall apart as they approach New England in the dry air in place. Still, it is hard to completely rule out a few passing light showers or sprinkles later tonight or early Saturday with low temps holding in the mid 60's
The front remains stalled south of New England Saturday. Light winds from NE will be shifting to SE by afternoon. Clouds will remain in place across the south with brighter skies in the north closer to the high. While most will spend the days in the 70's to near 80 Saturday, cooler at the beaches. Northern New England will see a bit more sun and warming winds. The lakes and mountains should be in for a nice summer treat with temps near 85 and fairly low humidity. With high pressure settling over the region, the weather will be mostly dry for the weekend, but some low clouds will be trapped across SNE closer to the stalled front, including the Cape & islands. As the high slides south of us over the course of the weekend, skies will increase with sunshine, winds will shift to the SW by Sunday and temps will be climbing back into the 80's with a more humid feel.
Remember the upper level ride which helped to set the stage for our recent heat wave? After a brief departure this week, the western Atlantic ridge will flex it's muscle once again heading into next week. It will return again and give us several days of sunshine, high heat and humidity...especially in the Monday to Thursday timeframe. Temps will once again range form 90-95 degrees with a heat index of 95-100+ with a flat hot flow to the Jetstream. There is a risk for the periodic pop up t'storm in the afternoon hours, but the pattern does not appear to have many triggers to initiate the convection. Very Quiet and HOT!
After this next round of heat, this could be it for July and dare I say beyond? It looks like a small trough may try to set up in the northeast for the middle to end of the month which would help to suppress the heat. Also there signals that cooler air from Canada may start to play more of a role in our overall pattern across the eastern US heading into August too. So we will see. This could be the worst of the summer heat coming up...if we are lucky.
