Cloudy With Plenty of Dry This Weekend
Aside from some early morning showers and even a few rumbles of thunder on the Cape, we should see a steady drying trend today. However, any drying we do experience will be rather limited today as low clouds and even spotty drizzle hang tough, especially along the coastline. The culprit for the unsettled weather? Look no farther than the Cape and Islands. It is here that we have a stalled frontal boundary, and it is along this boundary that a wave of low pressure travelled this morning, with a few other weak waves of low pressure likely to travel along this front over the coming days.
With this morning's low lifting north and east of the region, we will dry out as mentioned with North winds wrapping in around the departing low. However thanks to abundant cloud cover temperatures will struggle to reach 60 degrees in most locations with the "Hot Spot" being far southeastern MA where proximity to a warm front will allow temperatures to reach a balmy 65-67 degrees. With average highs for this time of year being near 70 degrees, today will mark day two of temperatures running around 10 degrees below average for much of the region. Overnight low clouds and patchy fog will be likely.
The horizon does look brighter, however, as Sunday clouds will lift and thin somewhat, and with southwesterly winds across western portions of New England a few peeks of sun will be possible, which should boost temperatures well into the 60's. Farther east, however in the Boston-metro area winds will be stubborn and rather than turn to the south, they will turn easterly. This will limit the chances of the Greater Boston area seeing sunshine and will keep temperatures relatively cool in the lower to middle 60's. An isolated stray shower will also be possible, although I do expect the majority of the day to be dry..with Cloudy to Partly Cloudy skies.
Sunday night a low pressure center will pass east of the area into far northern and eastern New England. As this does so, dry air will wrap around the low, effectively drying out the lower-middle levels of the atmosphere as we head into Monday. As a result, I do expect the sun to make an appearance during the morning and last through the afternoon with partly sunny to mostly sunny skies. With southwesterly winds and sunshine, high temperatures will FINALLY make it out of the 60's with 70-72 degrees a good possibility for much of southern New England, including the coastline. Now that's more like it! Monday night will remain partly to mostly cloudy with some patchy morning fog likely as moisture returns ahead of an approaching disturbance.
This disturbance is currently dumping buckets of rain across much of central Texas and will slowly translate eastward as the upper-level steering flow is quite weak but directed up the coast. What this means for us is that rather than a continuation of Monday's nice weather, we instead get an increased flow of moisture and humidity up the coast. Expect increasing clouds Tuesday morning with showers likely by themidday & afternoon hours. I don't expect the rain to be as steady and heavy as this past Friday, although a good 0.25-0.5 inches is a possibility.
By Wednesday any morning showers should be lifting north and exiting. We'll likely see a return to at least partial sunshine by afternoon, although another low pressure center, this time to our west, may throw some clouds our way which will prevent us from having one of those cloudless, pristine fall days. Regardless, high temperatures will be noticeably warmer as short wave ridging will turn winds southwesterly both at the surface and aloft. High temperatures should be above average into the middle 70's! By Thursday the weather should improve further with plenty of sun and continued warm temperatures with highs once again well into the 70's. Not bad by October standards.
Friday looks to be another fine day with an upper level ridge in place on the east coast, before a cold front approaches sometime during the weekend.
In a nutshell, the next couple of days will be cloudy and dry but by the time we approach the middle of next week we'll see the sun return along with warm temperatures well into the 70's!
