All-in for autumn
After a glorious day, all attention for the end of the week will be on a cool autumnal air mass heading southward out of Canada. While not exactly bone-chattering just yet, this change in the weather should be enough to keep us in the 60s on back-to-back days for the first time since early June. And at night? The 40s! Some spots of interior New England will dial it back into the 30s, with patchy frost in the sheltered valleys of northern New England by Friday morning.
The timeline looks like this - a cold front will swoop in by early tomorrow morning, bringing clouds and a few showers. This won't be the monsoon-esque downpours we dealt with over the past week. More a few sprinkles and showers for the morning commute and kids at the bus stop. So umbrellas may be a good thing to keep handy to start your day. As we head into the lunch hour, clearing will already be moving in, probably as far south as the Pike. Showers will linger around the South Coast and Cape Cod until early afternoon, and by mid-afternoon everyone is into the drier and brighter conditions.
With that sun will come something else - a very brisk NNW wind which will keep temperatures in the 60s for most and will certainly add the distinctive feel of fall to the air. You'll want to pack a light jacket for the trip home, and once the sun dips below the horizon Thursday night all thoughts will be on the change of seasons. The only thing keeping us from dipping into the 30s Thursday night will be the wind, staying active enough to keep the lower levels of the atmosphere mixing. If we could manage a calm night, then it would be a lot colder. As it is, I'm expecting the chilliest morning since May 26th for Friday. Most towns will be in the low/mid40s, with temps closer to 50 for the Cape and Islands.
After that chilly start, a crisp and beautiful Friday will unfold. While we'll still hold in the 60s, there will be abundant sunshine and less wind than Thursday afternoon. So it's a full on pumpkin alert for you lovers of pumpkin coffee, muffins, ales, and the like. I know I'll be celebrating fall by eating the flavors of it!
The weekend should be off to a pleasant start on Saturday, although we'll already be looking west to our next weather-maker. A cold front will touch of storms as far east as perhaps Albany, NY on Saturday, but all we'll get are the high cirrus clouds floating out ahead of the action. Temperatures will be seasonable in the mid 70s. The cold front will move in Saturday night and into Sunday, bringing a few showers. Severe weather doesn't look to be a factor, but scattered rain may keep Sunday on the damp side. If it scoots out faster, we may be able to salvage a brighter afternoon. Stay tuned!
In the tropics, we now have Tropical Storm Gabrielle. It will bring heavy rain to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic as it slowly moves over the next few days. By Monday, it should take up residence as a tropical storm (or perhaps hurricane) near Bermuda. At this point, it looks to provide New England with some higher surf, but nothing more. Any impacts are quite a ways out, so we'll update you if anything changes. The latest the 'first' hurricane of an Atlantic season has formed (during the satellite era) is September 11th. So this may threaten that record!
