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Searching For Sunshine In An Uncharacteristic September

BOSTON (CBS) -  I love summer. People are happy. I head outside with my son all morning before work hanging in parks and city pools. Food is tasty. Skin doesn't flake off from the dry air. The garden is humming. All good stuff. But when it comes down to it fall is the GOAT season. Every year I salivate at the thought of September. Apple picking, cool crisp nights, lots of sunshine, fairs and festivals. Generally the best weather of the whole year, so long as a hurricane doesn't decide to slide up the coast at us.

But this year, frankly, September has been a dud. And I'm bitter about it.

month

We're sitting at the fourth warmest September on record as of this writing in Boston, but where you'll find a lot of that damage is at night. Crisp nights? Hah! We haven't had one yet this month. A muggy warm sunny summer day is one thing. Constant humidity in September is obnoxious. The non-stop muggies and unwelcome amount of cloud cover this month has kept our nights from taking on that early autumn feel. I think our AC has been on 90-percent of the nights so far this month just to keep the furniture from getting wet. We're well ahead of the record pace for warmest overnight lows. You can also thank the lack of cool nights for what should be another late foliage season, about 1-2 weeks later than average.

It's been a tropical swamp in the east with many locations seeing their warmest low temps on record. Source: Weathermodels.com

Temperatures are starting to cool off back toward 'averages' for this time of year as we head down the home stretch. Outside of this weekend though, I'm not doing cartwheels. Next week looks very unsettled yet again with more bouts of muggy conditions and clouds/rain. Pretty much all week long. COME ON.

An active and redundant pattern next week brings more unsettled September weather

Okay - so is there an end in sight? I think so. We're definitely looking at a pattern shift taking shape after months of stagnant conditions. The Pacific is reshuffling and it is expected to lead to a huge ridge over the western U.S. and a downstream deep trough over the Midwest as we move toward the close of the month. Part of this reshuffling is what leads to our very unsettled week. It's almost an 'inside runner' type of pattern we get in winter sometimes with bursts a very cool air coming down behind storms (into the Midwest) but pushes of mild and wet weather on the East Coast.

A pattern that could bring much cooler and drier weather to New England to start October

The million dollar question is whether or not that trough axis will push east and deliver drier conditions to New England, or if it'll repeat itself for a while and keep the storm track through/to the west of us as we start October. For now, the signal is for us to at least go to seasonal norms, if not a touch cooler than average, starting next weekend. My crockpot is waiting.

 

Source: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/814day/

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