Welcome to the weather blog - a regular Monday through Friday discussion of the weather! While the discussions usually will only come on days I'm working, I'll issue special updates when the weather warrants. I will always post to let you know when no discussion is expected if I'm away on vacation, etc. - if no update is here and no info is available, that likely means the server has temporarily gone on the fritz and I will update as soon as technically possible. You'll find a quick weather synopsis linked to the daily forecast at the top of the page, a general non-technical weather summary below, and when available (most days) a detailed technical meteorological discussion will follow by mid-afternoon. My email is contact@mattnoyes.net. This blog is for you, so I hope you enjoy it! -Matt Noyes
General Weather Summary:
A quick discussion in this unusually quiet weather pattern.
Winds have shifted to blow from the west, rather than the northwest, allowing cold air to retreat just slightly. This west wind will be the prevailing wind direction on Friday in advance of another approaching cold front from Southern Canada, and temperatures will warm with the combination of this new wind direction, relinquishing cold, and another dose of significant sunshine. Adding to most of New England's potential for warming will be a "downsloping" wind - a wind that slopes down the hills and mountains, compressed as it descends (owing to higher atmospheric pressure at lower altitudes) and undergoing both warming and drying as a result of that compression. The combination of slightly milder air, sunshine, and this downsloping flow will push some Southern New England locales over 60 degrees for the final day of the work week. Meanwhile, a cold front will be settling southward out of Quebec, representing yet another installment of cool and dry air from the sprawling Canadian high pressure cell. With such dry air already in place, the only areas that may see a shower with the passage of this front Friday afternoon would be north-facing mountainslopes of the North Country where air will be forced upward a bit more vigorously as the incoming wind shift encounters high terrain, but most of us will find only a period of clouds later Friday marking the passage of the front.
Behind the front, cool and dry air will take residence through the weekend, bringing beautiful spring weather through most of the weekend. By later Sunday, the dry air will break down gradually, but steadilly, resulting in thickening clouds and the likelihood for showers to develop later in the day. Rain will move across New England Sunday night into early Monday with one low pressure center passing to our north, and another to our south. There will be at least a pocket of mild air following this disturbance for a 24-48 hour window, but it will only come after the disturbance moves through, and is available only for a limited time before another shot of cool air comes in. What I'm getting at here is that Monday's high temperatures may range greatly, from 30s in Maine to 50s or maybe even 60s in Connecticut, depending upon how quickly this disturbance exits and the milder air moves in, with many areas likely to land in the 40s and 50s even after lingering rain ends early Monday, as clouds and an onshore flow may linger for awhile. By Tuesday, milder air will attempt to ride through New England, but this comes during a closing window as a new cold front steadily moves east, destined to bring a shot of cool air back for midweek.
Technical Discussion: None today.
Matt
Matt's Technical Meteorological Discussion: Updated Monday, March 26 at 1:15 PM
Clouds and precip come courtesy of isentropic lift coupled with leading vort max ahead of primary vort moving across Great Lakes. First vort max brought multiple CG lightning strikes even tho light rain for a time, then the boundary layer moistened. We're in a similar situation tho without the lightning for Nrn NewEng as I write, which makes sense given decreased llvl speed convergence and decreasing theta-e gradient. Still, as air becomes more saturated, elevated instability increases and Wrn NewEng may see thunder before the day is out. Farther south, slug of warm and moist advection has been less focused thus far but still will be sufficient to generate sct shra and then dynamic lift assoc with and ahead of main vort max this eve and tonight will be enuf to generate widespread shra, downpours and isolated tsra perhaps from Wrn MA to CT. Wind shift early Tue truly is a trof rather than a cold front at its leading edge, tho I suppose technically it's still a cold front, just with the temp gradient lagging far behind. The airmass change is lax in coming south because it must wait for the eastward movement of the high over Hudson Bay, which happens but not until later. This actually means the passage of the wind shift favors more warming than otherwise in Srn NewEng as winds turn from the northwest and downsloping kicks in, warming many locales of Srn NewEng into the 70s as this downsloping helps to break up deck enuf for sun. I know RH progs are very high, but that's similar to what we're seeing upstream in OH Valley today and tho clouds are numerous, sunshine is effective and temps have been soaring. We're likely to see the same result in Srn NewEng on Tue afternoon after morning fog and low clouds that will be stubborn, with deck hanging until late morning when wind shift kicks in a bit. Still, we're looking at a wind shift line/front that doesn't completely clear Srn NewEng, and a few extremely weak mesoscale waves of low pressure will develop along it. This slight lowering of pressure, along with the warming interior, is likely to favor a sea breeze for almost all Southern NewEng coastal locales, whereas BOS may not get over 56 or so degrees before the sea breeze initiates, while LWM hits 70. A bit trickier on the SCoast of CT where GON may go to 62 or so and then fall back, but stronger NW gradient flow in HVN argues for mid 70s! Weak vort max Tue afternoon/eve may spark a thunderstorm in CT with sfc based LIs approaching 0.
Wed thru Fri brings installment of fresh, clean, dry and cool Canadian air. High amplitude pattern flow suggests quick warming on Sat, and perhaps several degrees above normal, before rain event to end the weekend and cooler air to begin April.
Matt
