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:
The summer airmass in place across the entirety of the Eastern United States will take at least a couple of days to be beaten back, ensuring deep summer heat and humidity across New England through Wednesday and lingering through the day on Thursday. The weekend, however, is looking bright and comfortable!
Patchy fog and low altitude clouds began the day for a few New England communities, with haze a much more common morning observation, owing to the presence of plenty of moisture in the lower atmosphere. This moisture can be measured by dewpoint temperature in the world of meteorology, a measure of the amount of moisture in the airmass, and the higher the dewpoint, the more humid our air is - dewpoints in the 50s typically are comfortable, in the 60s is typicallly sticky, and above 70 degree dewpoints usually brings an oppressively humid feeling. Tuesday, dewpoint temperatures will be in the middle and upper 60s for most spots Tuesday, resulting in a sticky feeling for one and all. As mentioned yesterday, this summer air comes into New England courtesy of a building high pressure center off the East Coast, centered near the island of Bermuda and therefore referred to as a "Bermuda High." These high pressure cells historically provide the warmest air to New England as the clockwise flow of air around their center promotes a southwest flow of wind into New England, carrying deep summer warmth out of the nation's Midsection and into the Northeast. This southwest wind has been active for the past two days, ushering in a warmer airmass along with the aforementioned higher dewpoint temperatures. Through the haze, plenty of sunshine will still be offering its input to our Tuesday afternoon, and temperatures will respond to the aid of the sun, jumping into the lower and middle 90s for most spots, excluding Northern and Eastern Maine, where a few additional clouds will produce periodic showers and thunder associated with an upper level disturbance moving through and will help to keep temperatures in the 80s. Elsewhere across New England, conditions aloft aren't favorable for widespread thunderstorms, but morning weather balloon soundings indicate at least a few thunderstorms are possible from Northwest Connecticut through Western Massachusetts and Vermont, as well as the mountains of Northern New England. Though I think any Tuesday storms that develop will be isolated in coverage, anything that does develop could grow quite strong with the fuel of heat and moisture. As for temperatures, the hottest spots will be found from Concord and Manchester, New Hampshire, southward into the Boston Metropolitan area. In these locales, "downslope flow" will aid in warming the atmosphere. Those who read regularly will remember that "downslope flow" is the flow of air when the wind blows that air over a hill or mountain, and it comes sloping down the other side of the terrain. Upon descent, the air encounters increasing atmospheric pressure, and is warmed/dried on its journey. A west-southwest wind would be the perfect direction for warming air Tuesday afternoon east of the Worcester Hills, White Mountains and Green Mountains.
After another uncomfortably warm and muggy night Tuesday night with patches of fog and low altitude clouds, indications are that Wednesday's airmass may be even hotter than Tuesday, allowing temperatures to climb into the middle or perhaps even upper 90s, though the wind direction may not be quite as perfect for downsloping as we see Tuesday afternoon. The difference between Tuesday and Wednesday, however, is that Wednesday will bring a jet stream disturbance directly over New England during the afternoon, and this will spark scattered thunderstorms. With so much heat and humidity packed into the atmosphere, it won't be hard to create severe (damaging) thunderstorms with strong damaging wind, and of course a combination of heavy rain and frequent lightning. Given the warmth of the atmosphere, hail is less likely to be a widespread concern but certainly could still result in the stronger thunderstorms. These storms would persist into Wednesday evening, and scattered storms would last through the overnight in Northern New England Wednesday night, in advance of a southward sagging cold front settling into the North Country from Southern Canada.
It's the same front that brings showers and storms to the North Wednesday night that will bring a day of scattered showers and thunder to most of New England on Thursday. Because of the slow speed at which the front will move through, a humid airmass is likely to persist through the day on Thursday as temperatures climb into the 80s even with more clouds than sun. The front will be marked by a wind shift and an accompanying round of thunder, which will herald in much drier, much more comfortable air for Friday. That fantastic feeling air is likely to remain with New Englanders through the upcoming weekend, as a chunk of below normal temperatures settles overhead for Friday through Sunday!
Thereafter, we have exhausted our chance of much above normal temperatures, at least for now. Instead, I would expect temperatures to run below normal for the first 10 days of July, with occasional bouts of severe weather as strong jet stream disturbances continuously reinforce cool air over New England.
Enjoy your Tuesday.
Matt
