A Glorious Week, Bit of a Wet Weekend, Then Repeat!
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A week of amazing weather is drawing to a close, and I hope you had a chance to enjoy some of it outdoors. Being the fickle mistress she is, Mother Nature is throwing us some wet weather for the upcoming weekend, then right back to great conditions next week. Figures. Well in any case, it could be worse. We won't be dealing with any tropical trouble!
Tonight just expect some patchy fog and low clouds to develop after midnight as more moist air flows into the region. Those low clouds may stick around a bit tomorrow morning, but we should bust back out into the sunshine for at least late-morning through mid-afternoon. As we head into the late afternoon, clouds should start thickening back up from south to north, and drizzle/spits of showers may break out along the South Coast and RI.
The highest chance for rain this weekend is Saturday night into Sunday morning. Looks like most of us will end up with 0.5 - 1" of total rainfall from this one, with the higher totals to the NW and the lower totals to the SE. Plan on sleeping in on Sunday, the weather will be perfect for it! But as we head toward midday the skies will start clearing out from west to east. Right now, I'd say plan on a damp tailgate at Foxboro, but a drier game with winds shifting to the northwest. The whole region should be dry by late afternoon/early evening.
Behind the front is a blast of cool air, which may end up being the chilliest of the season so far. Fitting, since it will be the first full day of Fall on Monday! The autumnal equinox is at 4:44pm EDT Sunday. So highs in the 50s to near 60 will be in tune with the upcoming season. Up north, a hard freeze may put an end to growing seasons and mosquitoes. That will all depend on the wind, and how active it stays overnight. But we'll update that probability as we get closer.
After that, all sunshine and a warming trend through next week. Big area of high pressure, part deux. Enjoy!
One last note - Saturday is the 75th Anniversary of the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1938. To this day, it remains the most destructive for many in New England. It occurred in a time with no satellites to monitor its progress over the ocean. All we had to go on were ship reports. We've not gotten so used to covering storms 2 weeks before they hit, forecast cones, updates from emergency representatives, etc. Imagine just waking up one day to find a monster, Category 3 hurricane crashing ashore at 50mph.
One thing to take away from this storm is the fact that it will happen again. Only when it does, there will be more wealth to swipe away, more homes to destroy, more people in its path. And chances are, we won't be ready for it. Think about how rare a storm like that hits New England. The last landfalling hurricane was Bob in 1991, over 20 years ago. And how rare it is for a 'Major' Category 3 storm to hit the U.S. coastline, period! We haven't had one since 2005.
Then you take into account the devastation from 'lesser' storms like Sandy (not even classified as tropical at landfall), Irene (a tropical storm at landfall), and others in recent memory. It doesn't take much to create misery. And if a storm the likes of '38 rolls through here, expect nothing short of chaos. Hopefully we'll take more steps in the years to come to mitigate such losses. But when 70-80% of trees get blown over by 120+mph winds, you'll have a mess on your hands either way.
If you're interested in the topic and want to learn more, Blue Hill Observatory is putting on a day of commemoration on Saturday. You can find all the details here, and there's huge list of some of the best Meteorologists in the business taking part.
