MATTNOYES.NET - Weather Website & Blog

UPCOMING WEEKEND CARRIES TRICKS, BUT MANY AREAS WILL FIND CHUNKS OF ENJOYABLE WEATHER

FYI:  No Friday discussion.  I'll be hosting the Special Olympics of Massachusetts Southern Region School Day Games on Cape Cod.  This weekend, don't forget you can follow rain and thunderstorms by clicking on the radar imagery that covers your area out of the radar choices (thumbnail images) on the right side of this page.

Clear skies will become a bit polluted overnight as scattered clouds associated with the cold front that's been dropping south through Maine slowly move into Central and Southern New England.  The dry ambient atmosphere will evaporate these clouds as they move south, and no precipitation is expected.  The continued active west wind will become northwest or northerly behind the cold front and then decrease in intensity, but most of the night it'll stay active and that means low temperatures won't be nearly as cold as last night, with 30s confined to the deepest and most sheltered valleys of Northern and Central New England, where decoupling can occur.

Friday is another quiet day though not another cloudless one for southern areas like the last two have been.  Low level moisture pooling along the stalling and then decaying frontal boundary in Central and Southern New England will provide for fair weather cumulus clouds, with some increasing mid-level moisture during the afternoon, marked by the onset of cirrus clouds.  These cirrus come as mid-level warm advection takes place, evident by a steady rise of 500 mb temps through the day and night Friday, peaking as a warm tongue aloft at 18Z Saturday.  This warm tongue also corresponds with the 700 and 850 mb warm tongues, implying that Central and Southern areas still should be warm sectored, at least aloft, on Saturday, with the deepest warm advection occurring overnight Friday night.  It still makes sense, therefore, that the slug of steady precipitation should come during that time period, when warm advection is maximized and positive theta-e advection is underway at 850 mb.  The guidance is in good agreement on a vorticity lobe moving through New England around midday, but there appears to be some convective feedback issues going on here, and the tendency should be for the vorticity maximum to weaken and elongate while picking up speed in the quickening flow ahead of the more substantial approaching shortwave coming out of the Great Lakes.  Of course, it's the cyclonic vorticity advection ahead of this shortwave that will interact with the warm sector to generate late day Saturday thunder, and with so much warmth and moisture, severe thunder is a possibility.  Of course, this remains a gamble of a forecast given the NMM's insistence upon cool temperatures for all of New England with a refusal to push the warm front through.  I don't believe that scenario.  There continues to be increasing agreement on a more northerly track that would deliver the aforementioned Fri Night/Sat AM rain from west to east and tapering from S to N.  North of the low track, cool air will stay in place, but the warm front should make it into or through Central New England with a stiff southwest wind carrying the warmth far enough north, and the warm sector able to break out some sun for a few hours either side of midday Saturday in these areas.  Of course, any insolation would push surface temps back into the 70s and boost surface based instability for the strong thunder.  The upper low slows over New England on Sunday and the surface low slows but still pushes east of most of New England, slowly moving down the coast of ME.  This leaves Central and Eastern ME cloudy and cool on Sunday, too, but brings in occluded air with a downsloping component for everyone else, meaning temps should rebound with scattered afternoon showers/thunder beneath the cold pool, primarily in Northern/Western New England.  If the cold pool lingers long enough, which it looks like it will, scattered showers and thunder affect more of New England on Monday.

Matt

COOL AND PLEASANT MIDWEEK....TEMPERATURES, POLLEN COUNT AND FIRE DANGER TO CREEP BACK UP....WEEKEND CHALLENGES AHEAD

Hello all and welcome back - or perhaps I should wish a welcome back to myself after being absent from a post yesterday!  Was busy with on-air coverage of severe thunderstorms and figured I did (hopefully) a good enough job explaining my thoughts on the event the day prior that I could let that severe weather assessment ride and let you enjoy the storms via the radar links on the right side of the page - hopefully that's exactly what many of you did!

What a difference those storms brought in!  Large hail and damaging winds both were recorded, and the rain gladly lowered pollen levels for allergy sufferers in Southern New England.  Some really interesting perspective from the drier and decidedly more allergenic northern half of New England, where one of our devoted weather observers in New Boston, NH, David Weaver, reports not only that the showers developed too far south for him, but also that his monthly rainfall total will be less than .5" if he doesn't record rain by the end of the month!  That's remarkably dry for May, though it does seem as though we'll add soem drops to the rain collector on Saturday.

In the meantime, the air is fascinatingly dry.  No really - it's fascinating!  Morning balloon soundings indicate the convective temperature - the temperature the surface would have to reach to propel a parcel of air to the level of free convection (LFC) and generate non-dynamically induced lift - is running in the 70s and 80s for most of Central and Southern New England.  Though there's a weak surface trough from coastal ME to eastern MA, the surface convergence along it likely isn't enough to produce much lift, so quite literally wall-to-wall sunshine will continue in almost all areas through afternoon, with the best chance of some fair weather clouds (small ones - cumulus humilus), and not a very good one at that, found across the far North Country.

Expect clear skies for most areas tonight, and the low dewpoints combined with a slackening wind will mean falling temperatures.  Central, Western and Northern New England valleys will likely decouple and drop into the 30s, though dewpoints running in the 20s to around 30 may prohibit widespread frost and limit it to only the deeper valley communities.  Nonetheless, a light frost or even a light freeze is possible, and I'd encourage those with tender plants in these lower elevation spots to cover them for the night.

A cool start turns around in a hurry on Thursday with plenty of strong sun - only three weeks from the summer solstice, now - and an increasing westerly wind that will downslope and aid in mixing.  While this is the case for almost all of New England, the far North Country along the Canadian border, and northern ME, will find a moderate strength shortwave diving southeast over Quebec and ready to drive a surface cold front over the country line.  The result will be scattered showers and probably some embedded thunder given the cold pool aloft.  This is actually a pretty impressive shot of cold air, and though it's very diffuse later in the period, it actually *does* cool New England as a whole on Friday by only about 1 degree Celsius...but impressive for such a compact feature.

The Saturday system is one that will continue to be a challenge because both storm track and timing are up for grabs.  That means low confidence forecast but we can make this easier on ourselves by asking the following questions:  1) When and where is the greatest warm and moist advection, and therefore greatest isentropic lift, on the synoptic scale?  2) Are there any other forcing mechanisms to reckon with?  The answer to the first is Friday night into Saturday morning, and this is when I expect warm frontal rain.  The answer to the second is "yes," a cold front and associated vorticity maximum.  Storm track is still of concern, but no farther south than Central VT/NH/Srn ME seems to be indicated, which means we warm sector Central and Southern New England.  It may not be the cleanest warm sector, but even breaks of sun would get these spots into the 70s and primed for strong Saturday afternoon thunder with the cold front, while Northern New England may not verify with highs in the 40s like the Operational GFS is showing, but there's certainly ample evidence for a very cool day when taking into consideration the thoughts on the intense little shot of Northern cool air on Friday that will have to be reversed.

This all sweeps through by Sunday, with downsloping flow.  I still need to figure out why the statistical guidance is so dramatically far below the operational GFS guidance for Sunday...with the operational mid to upper 70s prog not even coming in as an outlier in the statistics!  Given forecasted 850 mb temp, drying column and downsloping flow along with semi-occluded air, I favored the warmer solution.

Matt

HIGH FIRE DANGER, CHOPPY SEAS FOR MEMORIAL DAY...SEVERE WEATHER THREAT TUESDAY AFTERNOON

I appreciate you checking in on this Memorial Day - a beautiful summer-like day for most of New England.  The weather map shows a double barreled high pressure off the Eastern Seaboard - one center just southeast of the Cape, and another just southeast of Cape Hatteras, NC.  To the west of New England, an area of low pressure is moving east from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  The pressure gradient is creating a large swath of gusty winds, with gusts as high as 35 to perhaps even 45 mph by day's end, especially along the South Coast.  This wind churns the seas and is the reason for small craft advisories, and is the reason I wouldn't encourage new boaters or small pleasure craft boaters to venture too far outside the bays, harbors, sounds and inlets today.  The wind has been a strong crosswind for the return leg of the Figawi race from Nantucket to Hyannis Port.  Inland, the active wind coupled with low relative humidity is the cause for the Red Flag Warning for explosive fire conditions from the NWS - largely because of the ventilation the active wind provides.

Showers and clouds near a warm front will continue to migrate across the far North Country.  A shortwave slated for overnight tonight was gaining big billing in the 00Z model suite but has lost some of its definition in successive runs, perhaps somewhat a result of convective feedback initially, plus a flatter ejection in a slightly more pronounced shortwave ridge ahead of an impressive vorticity maximum slated for passage on Tuesday into Tuesday night.  The result for Monday night should be some showers for much of Central and Northern New England as convection that will develop in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes Monday afternoon will weaken while moving east.  Of course, the cold front associated with the area of low pressure moving east out of the Upper Great Lakes will draw closer, not making passage across New England until later Tuesday.  A stiff southwest wind will continue in advance of the front and though lots of clouds seem likely with mid-level debris from leftover/decayed convection, there should also be plenty of breaks of sunshine to get temps around 80 and this will boost instability and convective parameters.  The result will be a developing and intensifying line of thunderstorms across especially Central and Southern New England later Tuesday as impressive surface convergence coordinates with dynamic lift in the cyclonic vorticity advection ahead of the approaching strong vorticity maximum.  Though that energy center eventually passes across Northern New England, and not until Tuesday night, the vorticity advection combined with a ripe pre-frontal low level environment will be sufficient for convective initiation.  Winds are mostly unidirectional but increase with height - from 25-35 kts at 850 mb to 35-55 kts at 700 mb and 50-65+ kts at 500 mb!  LI (lifted index) will be -2 to -4 and surface based CAPE runs 1000+ J/kg, all of which indicates sufficient updrafts to carry this wind to the surface, so a late afternoon/evening severe thunderstorm event seems to be in the cards with at least line segments if not a bona fide squall line developing out of initiating clusters.  Some clusters are likely to remain ahead of the line, but helicity values are somewhat limited, so I don't think we're looking at a real supercell threat the way I see it now - more dry intrusion downburst type convection.  Hail only in the strongest cores given the extremely warm boundary layer, but torrential rain likely in most cells along with frequent cloud to ground lightning.

Though rain may linger the first part of Tuesday night in far Southern New England, the front keeps moving, and from there on out the rest of the week is pretty quiet with one shot of Canadian cool on Wednesday, then another temperature rebound Thursday before perhaps some cool advection on Friday behind a shortwave of little impact.

Have a good Memorial Day.
Matt

PHOENIX MARS LANDER TOUCHES DOWN ON MARS

The Phoenix Mars Lander touched down on the surface of the Red Planet on Sunday, making the first soft landing of a spacecraft since 1976.  A soft landing is one in which the craft settles onto the surface, rather than parachuting down and bumping or crashing into the surface.  This is a wonderful accomplishment for NASA and the United States, as it puts an interactive spacecraft on the Martian surface that will be able to measure its surroundings, focused especially on drilling below the surface of the planet to the arctic fields that lay beneath, chock full of subsurface water that may have life in it - or at least evidence that life once existed on Mars.

You can keep track of the Phoenix Mars Lander Mission through the official homepage from NASA, found by clicking here.  NASA also has put together a fun, interactive model of the Lander so we can all learn a bit more about what each part of the craft does - click here to access it.  As you surf around the NASA site, you'll find plenty of images and video that will fascinate you for the duration of the trip!

Matt

FINE WEATHER REGIONWIDE JUST IN TIME FOR THE HOLIDAY WEEKEND

The slow departure of the pesky upper level storm will mean gradual but very noticeable improvement in the weather across New England heading into and through the weekend.  A few sprinkles accompanied the north to south passage of a vorticity maximum Friday morning in Eastern New England, but these were relatively meaningless with regard to the amount of precipitation they produced.  Sunshine quickly re-emerged behind that band of clouds, and continued shining elsewhere, boosting temperatures quickly from a start that was in the 30s for some cooler valleys.  Deep mixing today thanks to so much dry air and a steep enough pressure gradient to crank up the winds, too, bringing the 30-40 knot winds at 850 mb down to the surface.  I was originally thinking 35 mph gusts, but a wind report of 19 mph sustained from David Majercik, our weather observer in Westfield, MA, in the early morning hours impressed me enough to boost the forecasted gusts to 40, and given the observations right now, looks like that'll verify - so many thanks for his daily observation that held more information than he probably assumed!

A few showers are still a good bet in Northern New England, where terrain will assist in lifting the air to initiate convective processes, but the vorticity maximum evident on satellite imagery dropping south out of the St. Lawrence River Valley will do most of that job on its own, which is why I carry a chance of showers not only for Northern New England, but also for Eastern New England.  Timing on the shortwave passage is mid to late afternoon in most Eastern areas, and coverage should be limited enough with north-south motion of showers quick enough that overall impact on the day is minimal, so still a great day.  Skies clear with loss of diurnal heating tonight.

Saturday brings one final vorticity lobe and the pool of cold air will be weakening, but still comparable in 500 mb temperature to what was seen in Western New York, where a few showers were recorded yesterday, so I have to believe that a few isolated showers will develop in Maine - and possibly along the MA coastal plain - again.  These should be so few and far between that they warrant only a mention.  Temperatures will continue rising even though a northwest wind prevails, largely because of the input of sunshine.  We're approaching our strongest sun angle of the year in less than a month, and it will do its job on Saturday, even though a cooler airmass is technically in place.  High pressure builds over the Ohio Valley, dropping south from Hudson Bay, through Sunday, and the warmth that's been across the Central US begins wrapping north.  As mentioned earlier this week, that warmth takes an indirect path to New England, which is why the warmup is so gradual for us, but it does make inroads.  By Memorial Day, a southwest wind is freshening and warmth keeps coming ahead of a shortwave that will induce low pressure development in Southern Quebec, and fire up an active cold front near the Canadian border on Monday.  This should spark a round of North Country thunder, and it's possible that with a northwest flow aloft these will carry southward a bit late on Memorial Day - especially with increasing instability - but right now I'm not too worry about that.  Tuesday brings a southward settling of the front with sharply cooler air in the North Country, and probably maximized warmth just ahead of the front south before strong afternoon thunder is possible.

Matt

UPPER LEVEL STORM MIGRATES OVER NEW ENGLAND AS IT PREPARES TO MAKE AN EXIT

The upper level storm that's been so pesky, and a regular part of the forecast for days, is finally on the move.  As it migrates east, a significant lobe of vorticity is swinging through New England and will continue to carry the upper level cold pool with it, setting up the temperature difference from surface to high altitudes that we call instability - and these favorable conditions for vertical cloud growth and convective processes are already resulting in plenty of showers, evident on radar imagery.  Throughout the day, you'll be able to monitor developing showers and even some thunderstorms on the radar imagery linked through the small thumbnail images on the right side of the screen - clicking on them brings up a larger window with your local radar.  CAPE values climb to between 100 and 300 J/kg, which, given the weak winds through deep layers of the atmosphere under the upper low, isn't enough for severe thunderstorm gusts and I have no concerns for potential damage.  Hailstones, however, seem fairly likely with an extremely low wet bulb zero, meaning saturation of the air will cool temperatures to or below the freezing mark only a few thousand feet up in the sky, and this allows hailstones to develop in heavier updrafts, so multiple reports of hail seem possible this afternoon.  Some hail may reach warning criteria of 3/4 of an inch, but I'd venture that very little damage potential exists with no crops growing yet that could be flattened, and no damage to vehicles or other structures from marginal hail.

The combination of diminished diurnal instability after sunset, along with anticyclonic vorticity advection and drier air moving in, will mean convective activity dies rather quickly this evening.  Cool and dry advection will continue overnight, and this will mean skies gradually clear during the overnight.  An active breeze for most spots out of the northwest means we don't decouple in many areas, but the air moving through is plenty cool and has a history of producing lows in the 30s over Southern Canada when the skies have partially cleared, so I'd expect our cooler locales in Northern and Western New England to bottom out in the 30s while the rest of the area hangs in the 40s.  In the cooler spots, some fog is likely thanks to the ample boundary layer moisture trapped in valleys where dry advection isn't so active.

The upper level cold pool will be moving east on Friday, meaning the threat for showers diminishes.  Nonetheless, one more vorticity maximum will swing from north to south during the day, moving across Maine and Eastern MA and providing enough dynamic forcing for scattered showers and a potential thunderstorm in ME...and maybe a shower in far Eastern MA, too, though the northwest wind will be downsloping and fighting against that.  All the while, the pattern evolution discussed here yesterday and earlier this week will be underway, meaning ridging will be building east and that will bring warming both aloft and at the surface.  The boundary layer warming, though, will be rather indirect, with a north and northwest flow prevailing.  This simply means rather than blasting warmth into New England, it's a slow progression of warmer air, mostly coming in aloft first, but making it to the ground thanks to deep mixing in a dry atmosphere.  Some cirrus debris seems likely this weekend with the northwest flow aloft still bringing a series of weak vorticity maximums overhead, and these shortwave disturbances may touch off a few rounds of thunder in Northern ME Saturday and Sunday nights as the disturbances aloft interact with the leading edge of the deeper warmth.  By Memorial Day, a stronger one of these shortwaves spawns a surface low pressure center in Southern Quebec that will drag a cold front southward across New England with afternoon and late day thunderstorms for at least some or perhaps most of New England, and cooler temperatures settling into at least Northern New England.

Matt

TWO DAYS OF SHOWERS, THUNDER AND HAILSTONES BEFORE IMPROVING HOLIDAY WEEKEND WEATHER

Let's start out by considering the big picture today.  Across North America, the 500 mb (about 22,000 feet in altitude) chart shows two strong upper lows and resultant troughs - one on the west coast, and one meandering southeast along the Ontario/Quebec Provincial line, en route to Northern New England.  The size of each of these upper lows is rather impressive, and this is creating a narrow ridge over the Central United States.  Of course, that ridge carries ample heat with it, a product of the searing Southwest U.S. heat of the past few days, now displaced by the falling heights and strong storm over the Western U.S. that has brought a change from 90s to mountain snow in the Rocky Mountain states.  In time, the longwave pattern across the Lower 48 will stabilize as the Eastern Canada upper low continues its eastward migration that is already evident in satellite imagery today, and ends up east of Nova Scotia with a trough-ridge-trough pattern setting up as we head into the weekend.

With the approach of the upper low and its associated mid and upper level cold pool, scattered convection has continued developing this afternoon (can be monitored via the radar links at right by clicking on the thumbnail imagery for your area) and with the cold pool aloft, some hail is possible in the deeper convection, though the heart of the cold remains to our northwest.  Cloud to ground lightning strikes are likely in the healthier cells, but parameters for severe convection are rather dull.  Wind is unidirectional and while 850 mb wind is 25-30 kts, 700 mb winds are weak and surface instability is about 300 J/kg.

Convection dies out overnight with loss of diurnal heating but upper low moves directly overhead and this means not much clearing of the skies.  Any breaks of sun on Thu are self-destructive with the cold pool overhead and this should mean numerous afternoon showers and embedded thunder with hailers as plenty of cold air aloft will be available regionwide, but especially in Central and Northern NewEng.  By Friday, upper low pulls out and there's still another lobe of vorticity that needs to swing through, and this may spark a few more showers upon passage.  The ridge builds in for the weekend but we remain on the cusp, which means we hold northwest flow aloft - a favorable flow for shortwaves from Canada that will spark thunderstorms along the edge of warm advection, which should be across Northern Maine Saturday and Sunday, meaning some thunderstorm complexes are possible there.  Otherwise, cirrus debris from the passage of vorts above dry air, and a gradual warming by about 5 degrees per day until a late day cold frontal passage with possible thunder on Memorial Day, when highs in Central and Southern New England should touch 80 as the air over Nebraska yesterday moves through with assistance from downsloping.

Matt

RAIN INCHES NORTH...AND SHOWERS POP UP IN NORTH COUNTRY...

Limited on time for today, so I'll have to be rather succinct.

First, the rain will encompass most of Southern New England by evening, but is painstakingly slow to move north.  This is a northward deviation from thinking yesterday, when I'd thought perhaps just the South Coast would get into the mix.  Still looks like mostly Southern half of CT, most of RI, but almost all of SE MA, and for a few hours around 8-10 PM EDT, probably Boston and immediate North Shore with light rain or sprinkles.  Bubble of high pressure analyzed as 1002 mb and weakening SE of Cape Cod has left a wake of dry air, which inhibits northward progression of the rainfall, but moist advection in the mid-levels is overcoming the shallow dry dome.  Quick moving surface low will mean rainfall stays progressive, as well, pushing east by midnight.  Some fog possible in areas that receive rain, but with low Tds in most areas, fog will be patchy.

Wednesday and Thursday forecast remain unchanged as upper level lows (two of them) that have been dumbbelling in Eastern Canada in a Fujiwara interaction get their acts figured out, with the easternmost vortex weakening and partially absorbed into the newly dominant western vortex that settles south over New England for both Wed and Thu, and its associated cold pool aloft means scattered convection both days.  Showers and thunder likely to organize into a gusty line (dare I say squall line...surface based instability is a bit lacking, but some gusty convection looks likely) over NY State later Wednesday ahead of a sfc cold front that will be pushing east thru New England Wednesday night, but plenty of scattered convection ahead of it Wed afternoon with diurnal heating.  Low enough convective temperatures to get cumulus popping by late morning and yielding precip not long after.  Some thunder may produce hail in the higher terrain of Northern New England, tho for most areas the boundary layer and lowest several thousand feet of atmosphere will be too warm to support much of it, except in the heartier cells.  Better chance on Thursday with colder air in place thru a deeper chunk of atmosphere.

I felt obligated to put a scattered light shower in for Friday even though, as described yesterday, I really have doubts.  Nonetheless, what we also examined here together yesterday is that there is a vort max with warm advection in the mid-levels, and that's a favorable scenario for clouds and perhaps some precip, so given the guidance's persistence on this, broke down and put a drop in the forecast!  :)

Love the look of the weekend.  As mentioned here yesterday, gradually building temps and dry air, but that will make for high fire danger on a weekend lots of fires normally would be going.

Matt

COOL AIR THIS WEEK WITH STUBBORN UPPER LEVEL STORM...THEN WARMTH IN TIME FOR MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

Convection (vertical development of clouds) has been taking off this afternoon beneath the cold pool associated with the upper level storm that's parked along the US/Canadian border.  This upper level low will be the main feature through the forecast period as it meanders across Eastern Canada and flexes its muscle in the skies of New England from time to time.  One flex came with a shortwave pinwheeling around the center of the low Sunday afternoon and evening with an area of rain and an associated surface cold front, while the remaining shortwaves are mostly driving surface troughs rather than fronts.  One such trough is crossing New England and helping to focus convection this afternoon that already was destined to develop in favorable steep low and mid-level lapse rates and with the aid of dynamic forcing owing to the midday shortwave, not to mention orographic assistance in the favored terrain with the fast westerly flow.  The combination of a dry adiabatic lapse rate in the lower levels and a downsloping wind continues to propel wind speeds higher until the pressure gradient slackens as the trough pulls away, then as the diurnal mixing dies down, that will also help to quiet the wind somewhat.

Nonetheless, Monday night brings a rather active breeze, which will help to keep temperatures above the dewpoints that sit in the 30s and 20s, though some valleys in Northern and Western New England that get a lighter breeze will drop into the 30s, as will somewhat elevated terrain, thanks to the steep lapse rate.  Tuesday actually brings a break without any discernible shortwave here in New England, so even though it's still cold aloft, the dry slot evident on the north and northwest side of the cyclone today should also rotate overhead, and I'm thinking most spots escape with a dry day.  There will be a dampened, flattened, progressive shortwave moving east-northeast out of the Ohio Valley later Tuesday, though it looks as though the cyclonic vorticity advection would stay south of New England, for the most part, meaning only the South Coast may get a graze with some showers Tuesday evening, but even that seems to be a rather limited possibility.

Both Wednesday and Thursday feature a morphing of the upper low from an elongated cyclone, stretched west to east over Eastern Canada, to a more round and symmetric cyclone that settles over Northern New England both days.  The combination of the cold pool overhead and the proximity of shortwaves rotating like spokes on a wheel around this low will mean scattered convection comes back into the forecast both days, and probably one more shot of reinforcing cool air.

By Friday, the upper low is finally ready to start lifting out.  Strong anticyclonic vorticity advection in the morning should preclude any precipitation early, and though a weak vorticity maximum rotates around the back of the departing low in the afternoon, and does come through during a time of warm advection (implying at least cirrus clouds are likely, if not a more substantial mid-level deck), right now it looks like enough dry air and a downsloping flow would be in place to keep any showers quite limited, and for now I'll keep the forecast dry.  As ridging slowly but surely replaces the upper level low, expect fair weather to move in just in time for the Memorial Day weekend!  Temperatures will rise rather quickly aloft, with the deep southwestern US heat (as of this writing, SW US temps are heading for 110 daytime highs) filtering north and northeast with the ridge, but at the surface, the center of high pressure will move to our west, then our southwest, meaning a northerly flow prevails.  This may drive fire danger up as it implies a dry and increasingly mild (though not hot) flow as warmth wraps out of the Western US, into Central and Eastern Canada, then southward into New England.

Matt

THUNDERSTORMS DEVELOPING ACROSS NEW ENGLAND, HAIL REPORTS IN MAINE...FULL DISCUSSION OUT AROUND MID-AFTERNOON

Hail reports are coming in with the stronger storms developing across Maine this afternoon, and may come back from other parts of New England, too.  Meanwhile, a steadier rain has been falling in Northern Vermont.  You can follow the rain, showers and thunderstorms by utilizing the radar links on the right side of this page, by clicking on the thumbnail images of the local radar closest to you.

My full weather discussion for today should be posted here by middle to late afternoon.

Matt