Amazing to Start, Wet to Finish This Week
After a few strong thunderstorms and brief downpours this afternoon, the atmosphere is settling down and a beautiful fall like air mass on the move. Skies will continue to clear overnight with lows in the Lwr 50's on average, with even a few upper 40's in NW valleys. Boston should hold in the upper 50's. Near record cold for Worcester and Hartford tonight. High pressure sliding in behind a front from Canada is providing these cooling light northerly winds which will make it feel more like September than August on Monday. Sunshine with highs in the mid 70's can be expected, with a breezy NW wind. It is not easy to get this cool this time of year with a sunny sky. Monday night will likely be even cooler with more widespread 40's overnight in surrounding suburbs and again approaching record low temps in spots. Ideal refreshing weather!
The cooler air is being supplied by a broad trough in place across the Northeast. This trough will begin to lift out this week, bring in in moderating temps, some upper level ridging and a flatter flow across New England which will slow the pattern down and help to create a boundary of unsettled weather towards the end of the week.
High pressure over us Tuesday will still provide for a sunny day with comfortable air still in place. Highs will climb back to near 80 with a sea breeze for the many eastern facing beaches. The high will slowly slide off the coast for the midweek with SE winds and some increasing humidity by Wednesday with temps still the 80 degree mark. Clouds should be increasing Wednesday with a warm front approaching by late in the day which could trigger a few showers. The main brunt of showers or storms will come on Thursday with a cold front which will push through. This front will stall over southern New England in the flat west upper flow, with another wave of low pressure to ride this front and provide another round of showers or storms Friday. Rain will be heavy at times with the potential for 1-2" of rain by the time this end by the weekend. This wave could linger into early Saturday morning, before finally pushing off the coast with cooler, drier air to return for the second half of the weekend by Sunday with seasonally cool temps again which could last into the week after. Cooler than normal temps will likely last through August 20th and beyond.
A trough in the east can be sometime good or bad when it comes to Hurricane season depending on it's position. A trough sometimes can help to steer storms away from the northeast. But sometimes, SW flow up the east coast would be bad news for us, as this could direct storms right into New England. This will be something we will have to watch out for in the coming 2 or 3 months. Is winter revealing it's hand? A trough pattern with colder than normal temps and an active storm track this winter? It's possible if the blocking continues!.
