A Look On The Bright Side Of Life
As Monty Python loved to sing, "Always look on the bright side of life"...Well, now we will finally be on the bright side of life...thanks to an atmospheric block! After a blocking pattern which lasted through much of the last half of the winter., the blocking continues but has shifted just enough to give New England a break for the next several days. Meanwhile much of the rest of the nation will continue to be in for quite a ride. More on this later. For now, we are enjoying a wonderful quiet weekend of outdoor weather!
High pressure sits over us today providing sunshine and warming temps into the 60's near 70 farther inland. With light winds, an afternoon sea breeze will kick in to keep temps in the 50's to near 60 at the beaches. A few high to mid level clouds will be sliding through during the afternoon for some filtered sunshine. The high will crest over us tonight with clearing skies, light winds and lows holding near 40. As the high slides just off shore for Sunday, more of a southerly wind will develop at the surface, which will allow highs to be a bit warmer climbing into the lwr 70's inland, with lwr 60's at the coast with more of a SE flow and plenty of sunshine.
Meanwhile, we will be tracking a batch of showers heading up the east coast which will be approaching Monday night through Tuesday. The ridge of high pressure off the coast will hold strong enough that the batch of showers will hit a wall and fall apart before pushing into the region. We will see the clouds increasing. I expect mostly cloudy skies to develop late Monday and continue through Tuesday. Best chance of a shower or two would be Monday night or Early Tuesday.
After that the ridge returns to the Northeast with increasing midweek sunshine. A more seasonal airmass will follow in to end the week. With high pressure anchored over Nova Scotia, a more persistent onshore east wind will push the marine air further inland. I expect highs in the Lwr -mid 60's inland and 50's at the beaches with sun & clouds Wed-Friday.
A huge weather maker will dig into the nation for the end of the week in the form of a cut-off upper low. This will steer in cooler than normal and wetter than normal conditions for the midwest through the Southeast for the first week of May. These upper lows become "cut-off " from the jetstream so they are slow to meander eastward. This type of pattern will lock in a colder pattern for the Midwest and southern states, but incredibly, it appears the ridging should hold on enough to give us fair weather into next weekend! The GFS is more progressive with the upper low sliding east and eventually affecting our weather by next weekend. The Euro has this low much slower to budge. The way these patterns work...I lean towards the slower scenario for now...which would mean days and days of dry pleasant weather with cooling sea breezes! Nice.
Of course, in these dry conditions there is an elevated risk of wildfires and the Pollen counts will be very high in the coming days. But for New England standards...it looks like our weather is on the brighter side for once!
