Nice Stretch Ahead
It was nothing short of a dramatic transformation from Tuesday's highs in the lower to middle 40s to yesterday's lower to middle 70s. It's the extremes that make the average which is near 60 for this time of the month of April. Once the clearing took place at mid-morning, we were off to the races with a rapid rise in temperatures. Like yesterday, clearing will be taking place this morning but the temperature swing will be less explosive due to the fact that a cold frontal boundary moved eastward across the region this morning. There is cooler air advecting into New England no 70s will be felt on this Thursday. Nevertheless, after a few showers cross southeastern MA through 9-10 am, it will turn out to be completely sunny southeastward with highs in the range of 63-66. The primary band of clouds should depart southeastern MA and Cape Cod by late morning. There is a secondary band of clouds entering VT and western MA this morning but most signs suggest that much of it will vanish as it progresses eastward. Meantime, the wind, briefly gusty to 30 mph right after the frontal passage, will simmer down to 10-20 mph later this morning into the afternoon. The weather will be just fine for the 6:35pm Red Sox/Astros game at Fenway Park. The sky will be clear and the wind will be light with the temperature falling from 60 at first pitch to about 55 at the final out. For your viewing pleasure, the big Full Pink Moon will rise at 7:47pm and light up the sky and the countryside tonight. It will cool off to about 46 in Boston to as low as 36 in some outlying lowland locations. Friday will start sunny but instability clouds will be forming and building into a few scattered showers and possible thunder. The potent but compact upper level disturbance responsible for this action will exit tomorrow afternoon leaving the region in a ridge of high pressure. This system will become locked into the Northeast and will govern our weather for several days. There may be some minor perturbations passing every now and then but they will only be capable of creating some patchy clouds through the middle of next week. Most of the moisture streaming into the eastern portion of the nation will dry up as it runs into the stationary ridge of high pressure here in the Northeast. After tomorrow's cooler conditions near 60, the ensuing several days will warm up to the range of the middle 60s to lower 70s except along the coast on many of those days when sea breezes will check the highs in the 50s.
April ends next Tuesday and the month has averaged slightly above the mean in terms of temperature but the rainfall is well below the average. We need some wet weather for the lawns and gardens, etc. but widespread beneficial rains are not in the works through next week. While April's weather has been benign around here, it has been wild and nasty out west with numerous snowstorms in the Rockies and Plains. Some locations recorded the snowiest of any month ever and that happening in April! Two examples are Duluth, MN which has received almost 51 inches and Rapid City, SD which has received almost 40"! Farther east in MO, IA, IL, WI and MI, record monthly rainfall of 7.5-10" resulted in major flooding. Twenty river gauges in the area even recorded record flooding. Some cities out there have recorded the lowest temperatures ever so late in the season. Thousands of cold-related records were set last week alone and many of those temperatures were subzero! On the other hand, this cold, wintry pattern, thankfully, has not been favorable for many severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. The national tornado count so far in April is only 64 and if it remains below 100 for the rest of the month, it will be the first time that this has happened in 20 years! This contrasts to the record-smashing count of 758 tornaodes in April 2011. Compare those stats to 187 which is the average number for April over the past decade. With that in mind, I think that we have had a great April here in New England.
Todd Gutner posts his blog early this evening and I shall return early tomorrow morning.
Make it a great day!
