Rising To 5th Place
We're on "wet watch" as the month of June unfolds. With the 0.43" of rain that fell yesterday in Boston, the total for the month is a whopping 8.84". This boosts the city from 6th place into 5th place for the wettest June on record ahead of the 8.63" in 1859. The 4 wetter Junes are 13.20 " in 1982, 11.58" in 1998, 10.09" in 2006 and 9.13" in 1931. With today's predicted showers and storms, there is a high chance of popping into 4th place. Some of yesterday's storms packed a punch with strong winds to 50 mph, nasty cloud to ground lightning, gullywasher rains and some hail in spots. The atmosphere is less ripe for storms of this severity today but some of them will contain some local downpours. The action will commence earlier than yesterday with some showers destined to break out during midday especially north and west of Boston. A frontal boundary has settled into southern New England and will provide a focus axis for some of the showers which are already developing over NY early this morning. A weak upper level disturbance will transit eastward and spark the showery conditions. Consequently, as sunshine is dimmed by thickening clouds this morning and the wet weather arrives earlier, it will not be nearly as warm as yesterday when temperatures touched the range of 83-87 except at south-facing coastal locations. Today's highs will be mainly in the lower to middle 70s happening late this morning and midday with some cooling occurring this afternoon coincident with the showers. Both the afternoon and evening games will be vulnerable to showers so take along the rain gear! The wind will be light out of the east-northeast at 5-10 mph throughout the day into the evening. A second disturbance exiting the lower Ohio Valley and the Tennessee Valley this morning will shift east-northeastward and spill over southeastern MA part of tonight. This batch of wet weather will move offshore late tonight and early tomorrow morning so clearing will proceed from northwest to southeast later tonight with clearing taking place over Cape Cod tomorrow morning.
Looking ahead, a large zone of high pressure will build into the Northeast sponsoring fantastic weather tomorrow through Friday. The air will be pleasantly dry and the strong June sunshine will go to work and raise the temperatures to the middle 70s tomorrow, the upper 70s on Thursday and the lower 80s on Friday which is the first day of summer. Overnight lows tomorrow night and Thursday night will be in the upper 40s to lower 50s in many of the suburbs with upper 50s around the larger urban centers like Boston. It will become warmer over the weekend but a perturbation arriving from the upper Great Lakes will likely trigger some convection namely more showers and storms on Saturday. This should move away leaving a sunnier Sunday. Expect weekend highs in the lower 80s on Saturday with middle 80s on Sunday. Next week will turn out hot with highs nudging 90 on Monday and exceeding 90 on Tuesday except at south-facing coastal areas as the southwesterly wind becomes very busy. There will be a sprawling ridge of high pressure aloft building across the southern states and as it extends eastward and links up with a big ridge offshore, the big Bermuda heat pumper will take control.
Speaking of hot weather, there is an unprecedented heat wave unfolding in portions of Alaska as a giant ridge of high pressure surface and aloft is stuck over the state. Several all-time record high temperatures were established yesterday and some smashed the previous records by almost a half-dozen degrees! For example, McGrath, AK hit 94 as did Talkeetna. My family and I woke up in the beautiful Talkeetna Lodge 10 years ago this morning after having checked in there the previous afternoon. It has a panoramic view of the majestic Alaskan Range featuring Mt.McKinley (Denali). Fortunately upon arrival there, the entire range was in the clear. It was part of our 2+ week sojourn way up there in AK during these longest days of June when the sun in Fairbanks rises today at 2:58 am and sets at 12:47 tomorrow morning! By the way, Fairbanks is often colder than 40 below zero in the winter but it was actually warmer that Miami, FL part of yesterday! I highly recommend a trip to "The Last Frontier".
Todd Gutner posts his blog early this evening and I shall return early tomorrow morning.
Make it a great day!
