Omega Block
After a beautiful weekend especially yesterday, there will be little change in the overall governing weather pattern over the next 10 days. The control is created by an Omega Block. This setup essentially guarantees that high pressure will dominate the Northeast for days and days to come. There might be some subtle changes along the way but, basically, we're placed in the dry side of the block so that means no rain through next weekend. In the past, we have been caught lots of times on the wet, cold side of a block and I would refer to it as a "Wheel Of Misfortune". So can we call this a "Wheel Of Fortune"? It depends upon your point of view. We really need the rain badly. The fire danger will be rising and the lawns, gardens and vegetation need to be watered. In 2013, 3 of the 4 months have a precipitation deficit. Total melted precipitation was -2.28" for January, +2.01" for February, -1.00" for March and -2.14" for April. A broken band of showers over eastern NY this morning will never make it into our region. The rain will dry up and all we will see is the varying amounts of high and mid-level cloudiness.
Daytime high temperatures and overnight low temperatures will not waver much through this week. Along the coast, there will be a daily sea breeze to keep the numbers in check in the upper 50s to lower 60s while more than about 3-5 miles from the ocean, it will be warmer in the range of 66-71. There is a chance that Friday could be cooler as a backdoor cold front surges in from the Northeast late Thursday. As a result, a pool of chilly air is likely to flow in from the Maritimes yielding highs near or slightly over 50 along the coast with upper 50s to lower 60s well inland on Friday. Once this second cell of high pressure builds over and slightly south of the area this coming weekend, a warmup will commence so that inland areas will rise back to the middle to upper 60s on Saturday and lower to middle 70s next Sunday then middle to upper 70s a week from today except along the coast where a sea breeze will keep it a few to several degrees lower.
Over the next week, the amount of clouds will vary from day-to-day and place-toplace. The intensity of the sunshine will also vary according to the thickness of the clouds. Addtiionally, a deck of low clouds could roll in from out over the ocean at midweek. If that does verify, we could be playing games with that through Friday in determining how much burn off would occur each day. It looks like the low cloudiness would disappear at the end of the week with the warmer air taking over next weekend.
While all of this is happening in our region in the days ahead, much more dramatic changes will unfold in the middle of this nation. A warmup to 75-85 in those areas in the next couple days could be followed by a ribbon of heavy snow on Thursday into Friday from northwestern IA, southeastern MN, western WI and northwestern MI. Some of those places could receive 1 to 2 feet of snow! Speaking of snow, on this date in 1987, we were digging out of a colossal record-breaking late season snowfall that started during the late afternoon of April 28. Boston received 4" with amounts ranging up to 8" in the western and northwestern suburbs up to more than a foot in portions of Middlesex County and Worcester County. Some other specific totals were 9" North Andover, 17" Worcester, 21" Ashburnham and 25" in Princeton. There were numerous power outages and considerable tree damage.
Todd Gutner will post an updated blog this evening and I shall return early tomorrow morning.
Make it a great day!
