Cool Dry Weekend...Quiet Weather Overall
High altitude clouds will be streaming through New England today with filtered sunshine. Winds have shifted back to the SW which will allow temps to be a bit warmer and not as blustery as yesterday. Partly to mostly sunny skies develop this afternoon in SNE, with a few more clouds across the north. Highs will climb to 48 to 52.
An Arctic front will approach tonight and bring a period of clouds along with it. These clouds will be mostly streaming up the east coast along with a low pushing northeastward. The Arctic front will help to keep this low off the coast, but thickening clouds overnight with a few morning clouds at the coast Saturday morning can be expected. As the front pushed off the coast, it will take the clouds along with it for increasing sunshine through the late morning and afternoon with building high pressure sliding east through the weekend form the midwest.
Cold Canadian air will slide in briefly from James bay behind this front and will supply a colder airmass for the weekend. Highs will be in the upper 30's & Lwr 40's Saturday, Mid 40's Cape. Clear and cold Saturday night in the teens in valley, and 20-25 elsewhere. Sunday will have 100% of the sunshine but the cold dome of air will be slow to retreat. Temps will run slightly below the norm of 43 and mostly be in the upper 30's to near 40. A weekend for dressing for December weather. Still this will marvelous weather considering what the weather can be this time of year.
Up in the evening sky we will have a full cold moon tonight. A halo around the moon will form later tonight as the high clouds increase towards dawn. You may have heard talk about viewing the total lunar eclipse. This will be very tough. I expect clouds at dawn tomorrow to make viewing limited. But lets say there is a thinner overcast and we can see the moon. What are the chances? Still not good. The prenumbral begins at 6:34 AM. This is the time the Earth shadow start to project onto the very edge of the moon. The moon will quickly begin to set at 7:00 AM just as the Sun begins to rise. So there is a bout 30 minutes of viewing of an event that takes about 6 hours to totally complete. Good luck. I'll say it right now...It's not going to be worth the effort. The best place for viewing will be Alaska and Canada. Here is more information about the total lunar eclipse if you are interested.
The cold Arctic air will be quickly lifting out by Monday allowing temps to climb back into the 40's nearing 50 with plenty of sunshine. It looks like a quiet weekend ahead with temperatures not very cold for this time of year. A brief cool shot is possible by midweek.
