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On The Hunt For Raindrops

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2015 Drought Monitor(1)

How in the world can we be dry after record snow? That's probably the most popular response to the U.S. Drought Monitor placing New England in the 'abnormally dry' category. It's hard to fathom that we could be buried up to the roof tops with snow in March, then be turning the sprinklers on to keep the grass green in May. From one extreme to the other, you get a better idea of what 'average' really is. It's the middle ground between the swings of weather that can be so frequent, especially in this part of the country.

Where did all the snow go? The water cycle is where its at! Just because it dumped dendrites a few months ago doesn't mean that moisture sticks around. It melts, it sublimates, it becomes water vapor around us or flows out of our rivers and streams into the ocean. Over time, that water is gone. Plus, there have been a couple other interesting factors. The first being that the snow was 'dry' for the most part, and didn't hold a whole lot of moisture. Even in the nonstop month of February, the liquid equivalent of all that snow (64.8" of it in Boston) was 3.37". That's just an average February's worth of moisture. The other factor involved is May's warmth. We've had two straight weeks of above average temps and lots of sunshine, which is helping to dry out some of the lawns and gardens.

2015 Calendar May

Are we in a drought? No. California is in a drought. Up until recently, Oklahoma and Texas were in drought. We're just a little parched after a lack of our typical spring showers. It has been a pretty impressive dry spell in the short term, though. Through Friday, both Windsor Locks, CT and New York, NY had gone 3 weeks without any measurable rainfall. Something like that might be expected in September, but not in April/early May. In New York its the longest dry stretch since 2001 and in Windsor Locks its the longest since 1995 (also the 10th longest dry streak ever recorded).

3weeks

NWS precipitation analysis over the past 3 weeks. Only rainfall in Southern New England has been from the few pop-up showers and storms that we had on Tuesday. Source: Weatherbell

You can easily see the 'rain hole' across Southern New England over the past few weeks. Driest of all is the Cape/Islands which have picked up less than an inch over the last 30 days. Deficits are increasing but not quite alarming at this point. However, if this keeps on for a while longer, it will start to become a larger issue. Brush fires have already been cropping up from time to time whenever we have gusty days, and that risk doesn't appear to be going anywhere for the rest of this month. The nice thing about New England is that we can quickly pick up some good soaking rains with one storm and wipe out a dry spell. There isn't a storm like that on the maps right now, but hopefully we can stir up a more active pattern toward the very end of the month before the real summer heat starts to kick in and bake the landscape.

2015 RPM 4KM

There are two chances for some raindrops in the short-term. First up is late Friday night into Saturday. We  have a warm front starting to approach from the west, and some clusters of showers/storms rotating down along its axis of instability. It looks like the highest probability of some good rain with this will stay to the west of the Boston area, with WMass/CT standing the best chance at 0.25" of rain or more. Most of this swings down after midnight up until 10am on Saturday morning. There could be a few embedded rumbles in those showers, but not expecting anything too noisy or severe.

If we can get enough sunny breaks on Saturday, temps could jump into the 70s and we may generate just enough instability for some late day showers/storms to pop. Again, the highest risk looks to be more toward CT/WMass and RI...with some action possibly surviving into the eastern end of MA (especially south of the Pike). The risk looks fairly low, but it's something we'll have to keep an eye on throughout the day. Southerly winds off the ocean should keep the air mass fairly stable near the South Coast and Cape, so the window where these showers/storms could form is pretty small (near the Pike and points south up to that stable air layer).

2015 Future Storm(1)

Then the next chance for some rain appears to be Tuesday as a cold front moves in from the west. There are still some questions as to how well we'll be able to wash out the marine layer that will be in place ahead of the front. If winds can veer around more to the south/southwest, we could stir up a thunderstorm or two to go with those showers. If winds stay more southeasterly, I'd just expect a band of showers moving through and then more dry air.

wpc

The WPC is predicting <0.50" of rain through next week across eastern New England. Some towns may be lucky to pick up 0.25" during this time frame. Source: Weatherbell

All told, I doubt anyone in eastern New England is going to end up with more than 0.5" of rain between Saturday and Tuesday. Not exactly the good soaking we'd like to both keep things green and wash away the pollen dump that's covered everything in a yellow film. After that front clears on Tuesday, we're back into a sunny and dry pattern Wednesday through Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend. So chances are we'll be running a 5-9" rain deficit across the area since March 1st by the time May comes to an end.

ridge

Another ridge looks to be building in as we head into Memorial Day Weekend. Great for BBQs, but not so much for some beneficial rain. Source: WSI Energycast

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