Parade of Warmth This Week
Awesome weather for the St. Patrick's day Parades in South Boston, Scituate and Abington. Bright sunshine with SW winds 10-20 mph will push temps into the 60's nearing 70 this afternoon. With High pressure parked off the coast, This will direct even warmer air into Northern and Central New England, so places like SNH and Northern & Western MA will climb to 70-75 degrees. Records will be broken from Concord, NH to Worcester MA... with Boston's record of 70 degrees in 2011 in jeopardy as well. The cool spot will be the Cape & Islands and along the south coast with SW seabreezes, Highs temps will only be in the 50's. Low clouds are stuck in the Pioneer Valley and CT this morning. These clouds do not seem to be making much eastward progress. So a gorgeous day overall! Across the northern ski areas...an amazing day of spring skiing...but the meltdown is on. Most are trying to hang onto the man-made snow. Many small mountains are throwing in the towel on the season this weekend. Larger mountains hope to have another week or two...if they can survive the warm air this week!
Monday will start out with warming SW winds and a little sunshine in the morning. Winds will be shifting back to the ENE by afternoon which will make for a big cool down in the afternoon along the coast. Temps will warm into the 60's by midday, before temps drop into the 50's and even 40's at the coast by the end of the day. Clouds will be on the increase during the afternoon along with this backdoor front with brighter and warmer conditions inland. Also clouds from the Ohio Valley will be approaching from the west too
The front will remain stalled over us Monday night into Tuesday morning with clouds and patchy fog drizzle and a stray shower as marine airmass settles in. SW winds will redevelop on Tuesday, but low clouds could become trapped for cloudy skies on the first day of Spring. Any afternoon brightening will spike the temps into the Lwr 70's, but clouds will keep temps in the 60's and 50's on the Cape.
The upper level ridge will flex it's muscle for the middle part of the week with record breaking warmth becoming established on the Eastern seaboard. Record Highs on Wednesday are in the Lwr 80's so we will fall short but highs will climb well into the 70's nearing 80. Cooler cooler breezes will persist at the south coast, while inland the feel of summer will be in place through Thursday with a mix of sun and clouds. Thursday appears to provide our best chance of reaching 80.
Another backdoor front may settle in by Friday, providing slightly cooler and less summery air with a chance of a shower. A powerful storm slamming through California and the SW providing inches of flooding rain, mudslides and heavy snow in feet for area mountains will be heading eastward. It will become cut off from the jetstream and get pushed south through to the Carolinas by a more energized northern stream.
Yesterday, it looked like we would feel more direct effects from this low with rain & wind. Today, it does not. What we can expect is a front a front to push through on Saturday with showers and the possibility of some gusty winds. Building high pressure from Canada behind this front with breezy NW winds into Sunday will drop our temps like a rock into the 30's and 40's for the second half of the weekend.
