Waning Days Of July
The weekend was split with beautiful weather on Saturday and changeable conditions yesterday. An upper level disturbance traversed the region and triggered some downpours in spots such as Concord, Burlington, Northboro, Shrewsbury and Worcester where more than one inch fell in about 30-40 minutes. This resulted in flooded streets and highways. Additional rounds of showers and boomers will soak various locations today. Some of the heaviest rain should materialize during portions of the commute this morning with scattered activity lingering into the afternoon as a rather potent low pressure system migrates from NY into New England. There is a slight risk of some strong to perhaps severe storms in a few places. The wind will be blowing out of the south-southwest at 10-20 mph with some gusts to 30 mph mainly over southeastern MA and Cape Cod where the fewest showers will occur. While splashes and breaks of sunshine are probable, it really will not be a great beach day with the threat of showers and boomers at any time. The air will be very muggy in the morning with slightly lower humidity in the afternoon.
It has been a remarkable summer so far and one of the nicest in my opinion in many years. There have been several spells of gorgeous weather featuring warm air and low humidity. On the flip side, there have been some relatively brief episodes of oppressive humidity but the number of days at 90 degrees or higher is well below the average of 10 through July. There have only been 4 so far- all this month and there will not be any this week to conclude July. That is in sharp contrast to last year when July contained 12 days over 90 with none in August. The average number for August is 3 days and I am predicting 2 or 3 for next month but not 7 days as what happened in 2010 when a whopping 25 days occurred for the season! High temperatures most of this week will be in the upper 70s to lower 80s which is slightly below average for the last few days of July. Overnight lows will drop to the lower 60s in the urban centers to the upper and middle 50s in outlying suburban locations as the week progresses. After breezy weather today and tomorrow morning, there will be light winds supporting an onshore breeze at the coast Wednesday through Saturday.
Thanks to this recurring pattern this summer, there have been NO heat waves so far and that is most unusual. Are you as happy about that as I am? Clearly, that means that we are saving money on our electric bills for sure. With this eastern trough of low pressure in place and strong high pressure over the Atlantic, we will be watching for a potential retrogression of features suggesting that a stalled frontal boundary offshore might drift westward and produce at least some high cloudiness in eastern New England especially down over Cape Cod by midweek. Meantime, some short waves pivoting around the upper low to the west will create batches of instability clouds and a risk of scattered showers Wednesday and Thursday primarily over NY into the mountains of northwestern New England. Looking ahead, the http://www.pmc.org/ is happening this weekend and WBZ is proud to be a presenting sponsor. It is too premature to be confident of the forecast just yet as that front offshore bears watching. Long shot is that it might throw some rain into southeastern MA but hopefully that will not happen and we'll be just fine for that great fundraiser.
Happy 250th Anniversary Newburyport! This is a stunning pre-sunrise picture of the waterfront taken there yesterday morning before the clouds and rain rolled in. The city is celebrating http://yankeehomecoming.com/ all this week. There are all kinds of terrific activities planned including the Road Race on Tuesday evening and I might just run that one this year! See you there!
You can watch Danielle Niles on WBZ News through 9 o'clock this morning and Eric Fisher follows on the 5, 6 and 11pm shows.
Make it a great week!
