A Photographic Day in New England
By mid-September, you're noticing changes. Getting darker a little earlier. The rays of sun sitting lower in the sky. And the constant changing of air masses. Today, we got to experience all three. And the lower sun angle, along with pop-up showers, helped to produce some great photographic opportunities. Check out some of the ones that came into our inbox or via twitter (@ericfisher)
From top to bottom: A rainbow over Westborough from Arlene; a shelf cloud over Hull from Stephanie; a waterspout over Peconic Bay (Long Island Sound) via Christina Borley, and a shelf cloud over Marshfield from Jeff Simpson.
The shelf clouds were produced by cold air aloft diving down out of the showers and condensing at the leading edge. Beautiful shots! The waterspout traveled over a good portion of Long Island Sound, also produced by cold air aloft. The chilly air on top of the relatively warm LI Sound helped to raise instability and spin it up (this spout actually happened *behind* the cold front) Thanks for sending these in!
Now to the forecast, which includes a pretty enjoyable fall weekend across New England. The main weather feature on the map for Saturday will be an upper-level disturbance, which will be slow to pull out into Canada. Pieces of vorticity will dumb-bell around this low, and may help spark a couple of showers on Saturday. (Track the upper-low on Water Vapor imagery here)
One round may pop up early in the morning, and another round may sprout during the max daytime heating hours of the afternoon. The vort-max, along with a cold pool of air aloft, will also promote plenty of afternoon cumulus clouds. They'll be thicker the farther north you go, with more sunshine the farther south you go. Neither one of these factors should be a big deal for outdoor plans, and most towns will stay dry.
850mb Temps - Much cooler air pouring in for the start of the weekend! Possible frost Saturday night in the ADKS.
No issues at all on Sunday, with high pressure overhead. While the morning will be quite chilly, the rest of the day should be spectacular with abundant sunshine and seasonable temperatures. Most towns will make it into the low 70s. You'll notice a few changes by the afternoon though, as cirrus clouds begin to filter in overhead. Always a sign of change! They will be in advance of our next cold front, which will move through on Monday with showers and a reinforcing blast of cool air.
Near and dear to my heart (and arteries) is the annual food pilgrimage known as The Big E in West Springfield. If you're like me and can't get enough pie, the weather will cooperate nicely for the opening weekend! Apparently the new foods on the menu this year include deep fried strawberry shortcake, a chocolate 'Baconana', and a New England craft beer tent. You may want to schedule in a long run in the park for Monday morning.
After Monday we're looking at a great Tuesday and Wednesday, and then will watch high pressure across eastern Canada. Right now it appears that well be at the risk of a backdoor cold front, which will keep things cool here while rain starts to move over our neighbors to the west. By late Thursday or Friday, well expect that next round of rain to arrive.
Thinking fall foliage? Yankee Magazine has a great leaf-peeping tracker this year. There's not much color yet since temperatures have been relatively warm for the most part and frosty nights haven't started to crop up for most...but a good site to bookmark.
And a final note tonight - tremendous flooding continues in Colorado. In Denver, they were in extreme drought and saw only a touch more than 10" of rain *all* of last year. Around Boulder, they've received over 14" of rain just this week. Below is a striking graphic from Climate Central to display how unbelievable this amount of rain is for this part of the country. Some towns have been cut off, with floodwater taking out entire roads. Many of been evacuated, and the National Weather Service referred to the event as a 'Biblical Flood.' You can read more on what's happening in Colorado from our CBS affiliate in Denver here.
