East Vs. West
Are you ready for a 3-D day? Like it or not, expect dull, dreary and drizmal weather today over much of the region. Maximum temperatures of 40-45 will be 15 up to 20 degrees below the average for April 23! Now that is cold but it could be worse. Over the weekend, Embarass, MN shivered as clear, calm conditions over a deep snowpack produced premium radiational cooling and a minimum of 14 degrees below zero! Can you believe it? It has been amazingly harsh from the northern Mississippi Valley westward into the Rockies this month. In fact, there were more record low temperatures last week than any other week over the past 13 years! There were 3,098 cold-related records! The ground is still covered with snow over a large area out there and some of it is deep. Check this out. April 2013 is the snowiest month ever on record for both Rapid City, SD and Duluth, MN with total snowfall of 39.5" and 50.2" respectively so far! Nobody is talking global warming in that part of our nation!
If you want some sunshine, head west young man but if you want mist and rain, hang out in eastern MA today. It's east versus west as two different kinds of weather exists. Far western portions of CT and MA and much of VT will feature some sunshine this morning before clouds overspread that area. It will stay dry out there but turn wet in southeastern New England this morning. Light showers, sprinkles and spritzes have already overspread most of Cape Cod and patches of mist are migrating over other parts of extreme eastern MA as of 8am. A moist conduit is set up over the western Atlantic and the only land area that it is skimming over is Cape Cod presently. As the steering currents back to more south-southwesterly, the rain will shift north and even northwestward as the day progresses. It will penetrate to a point inland then stall as it runs into a drying ridge of high pressure in western New England and NY state. Consequently, on the western fringe of the ribbon of rain, only sprinkles, spotty mist and a few spotty showers will yield a slight wetting of the ground with up to perhaps a tenth of an inch of rain in eastern Worcester County. Farther east, the amounts should increase to a third up to possibly a half-inch along the I-95 corridor from southern ME to the North Shore through Boston to Providence. Over southeastern MA, a half-inch up to an inch is possible with the greatest amounts 1-2"+ over Cape Cod. A wave of low pressure developing just off the coast of NC this morning will intensify a bit as it tracks northeastward to be centered just south of Nantucket tomorrow morning. With strong high pressure anchored in the Maritimes, the pressure gradient will be tightening between the 2 systems resulting in a northeasterly wind ramping up to 15-35 mph today and tonight. There could be some brief spikes to 45 mph. over Cape Cod late in the day. It looks like the storm will be proceding more slowly on the approach to New England due to the blocking to the north-northeast. Thus the damp weather may linger into tomorrow morning in the form of some residual mist. Eventually, the storm will be booted by an approaching cold frontal boundary and upper level trough of low pressure coming from the Great Lakes and the Midwest. With this happening, I am projecting a delay of the clearing tomorrow until around late morning to midday in eastern sections. With the return of sunshine in the afternoon and a wind shift to more southerly, the temperatures could shoot quickly into the 60s. That frontal boundary will pass through tomorrow night with a broken band of showers and perhaps spotty thunder.
Looking ahead, drier air takes over on Thursday so sunshine will rule and warm the air up to the middle 60s but a sea breeze is likely to drop the temperatures through the 50s in the afternoon along the coast. The next weather maker will be a potent upper air disturbance that will trigger scattered showers and boomers over mainly northern New England Thursday night into Friday. A few of these could stray or form over northern MA as well. Beyond that, high pressure takes control over the upcoming final weekend of April. It will be mainly sunny to partly cloudy with highs in the middle 60s except along the coast where ocean breezes will keep it in the 50s for the most part. Long range guidance is hinting at a weather block developing next week. It is too premature to be confident of that pattern right now but I will speculate that we have a shot at being on the sunny side of that block.
Todd Gutner posts his latest blog early this evening and I shall return early tomorrow morning.
Make it a great day!
