Linking Extremes
BOSTON (CBS) - The weather is shifting from one extreme to another over the course of only 5 days.
Check: Interactive Radar | Current Conditions | Weather Blogs
After record-breaking snows and unusually low high temperatures in parts of the Northeast last Saturday, the temperatures will nudge 90 degrees this Thursday and rise above 90 Friday through the weekend. It will be Boston's first heat wave since July 13-15.
Just the thought of it tempts me to check out some flights to Anchorage, Alaska or Shannon, Ireland. Does anybody want to join me? It's a more soothing climate there for us heat haters this time of the year. Plus, June is a fantastic time to visit Alaska because of the almost endless daylight. Oh well, daydream time is over. Guess I'll just have to spend this afternoon installing the noisy air conditioners instead. Close the windows in your home and store this morning's cool air inside. You can conserve energy and cut costs by delaying the start of the fans and air conditioning from Thursday to later Friday.
Transitioning from one air mass to the next usually involves some tricky weather. Already, we are seeing some thin feathery cloudiness appearing this morning. The sky will feature varying amounts of this cirrus cloudiness through the day with the thickest most likely later in the afternoon associated with the approach of the warm frontal boundary from the west. There is a bundle of rain in PA and southwestern NY early this morning. Most of this initial batch of moisture will slide southeastward and only clip western and southern CT during the afternoon. Meantime, additional showers and heavy boomers will be triggered across the Great Lakes and those will travel across NY later today and arrive in eastern MA just prior to daybreak.
The action is destined to impact a portion of the morning commute with the threat of stronger storms in places to disrupt the late afternoon homebound commute. In between, there should be a break when the clouds break for some sunshine tomorrow leading to a warmup into the 70s as the air becomes muggier.
Presently, it appears that the warm front will pass through by late tomorrow morning with a weakening cold front settling into the area late in the day to generate the potential nasty boomers. The cold frontal boundary will pretty much dissolve tomorrow night as high pressure at the surface and aloft builds over the Mid-Atlantic region. This will create a southwesterly breeze which will continue to pump the hazy, hot and humid weather into New England through most of the weekend. That wind direction will act as a natural air conditioner for south-facing coastal areas from the RI coast, Cape Cod, outer Cape Ann and down the ME coast. Temperatures in these places will be restricted from rising higher than 75-80 except 65-75 on the ME coast. The rest of the region will swelter in the heat of 90-94 degrees. Boston's previous day at 90 degrees was on August 31 and the previous day over 90 was on August 3 at 92. The city's record highs for the last 2 days of May and the first 2 days of June are 96 degrees for all 4 days. It is unlikely that those records will be broken but there is an outside shot of having close to a tie on one of the days. The humidity will become high to almost oppressive as dewpoints climb to the range of 65-70.
The next weather maker will be an approaching cold frontal boundary which will ignite a nearly solid band of showers and boomers marching across NY into northwestern New England late Saturday. This action will slowly shift southeastward across the rest of New England by later Sunday into Monday. Plan on a wet start next week followed by some refreshing air and sunshine taking control on Tuesday and Wednesday. Temperatures will be back closer to the average for early June on those days with highs of 71-76.
Yesterday, severe storms belted parts of the central Plains. Mankato, KS received 5" diameter hailstones! Today, there is the potential for more severe weather including a few tornadoes from western TX northward across western OK into KS and NE eastward into MO, southern IA to northern IL, northern IN, northern OH, southern MI and northwestern PA.
Todd Gutner will post his blog early this evening and I shall return early tomorrow morning.
Make it a great day!
You can follow Barry on Twitter at @BarryWBZ.
