Friday Forecast

76 Comments

7:33AM

DAYS 1-5 (MAY 19-23)
Short on time so will add a discussion later today. Forecast update…
TODAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 70-77 South Coast, 78-85 elsewhere. Wind SW to W 10-20 MPH.
TONIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 47-54. Wind NW 5-15 MPH.
SATURDAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 66-73, coolest coastal areas. Wind light variable with sea breezes.
SUNDAY: Partly sunny. Lows 48-55, coolest interior valleys. Highs 66-82, coolest eastern coastal areas.
MONDAY: Mostly cloudy. Chanced of showers. Lows 55-62. Highs 65-72.
TUESDAY: Partly sunny. Lows 50-57. Highs 68-75.

DAYS 6-10 (MAY 24-28)
Wet weather early in the period followed by a drying trend. Temperatures below to near normal.

DAYS 11-15 (MAY 29-JUNE 2)
Dry weather to start the period then a risk of showers returns. Temperatures near normal.

76 thoughts on “Friday Forecast”

  2. Good morning and thank you TK.

    Nice thunderstorm last night. I watched Eric and he said that only a few showers would survive the trip to the coast. I looked at radar and saw the storms totally and completely dying. I went to bed and left all of the windows open. I was awakened by a huge crack of thunder and a gust of wind that went through the whole house knocking pictures off of
    tables. Wow! What a surprise. Those storms totally regenerated and were quite
    strong over the City. In fact there was a Severe Thunder Storm Warning for the city.

    What caused this? An area of stronger instability? More Lift? More Moisture?
    A combination or even something else.

    I did notice one thing. On radar there were light echoes all over Eastern MA that
    the main line was moving into. I don’t know if that was the remnants of the South
    Coast Sea Breeze front or not? And if so, did it provide extra moisture?

    Something happened. Looking for an explanation from TK and/or SAK.

    Many thanks

    BEAUTIFUL DAY so far!!!

    Eric predicted 88 for Boston. I heard 2 radio stations, one predicting 84 and the other
    predicting 82 more in line with TK’s thoughts.

    I am wondering if there is even the slightest chance Boston touches 90 today
    for an official HEAT WAVE?

    1. Did the same thing Dave: checked the weather, left all the windows open, got huge gusts of wind and then oh, that lightning! Was fierce for a bit. Very interesting.

      1. Agree! The thunder absolutely rocked the house and oh was it loud! Of course it always sounds louder at night anyway.
        Not sure why, perhaps that in general it is quieter at night so the sounds appear louder? I dunno. Just seems that it is louder at night for whatever reason, even if just perception.

  4. Logan is at 79 with dp 64. Below yesterday’s levels for sure.
    11 Degrees to go. Will the cooling take place before the temp can ascend to 90?
    It is supposed to. We shall see. 😀

    http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/sfc/90fwbg.gif

    This surface map is from 1030Z or about 6:30 this morning.

    It looks to me as if there “may” be ample time to drive Boston’s temp to 90.

    Hard to tell for sure with the surface map 3 hours old.

    Let me try Unysis

    http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat_sfc_map.gif

    This one is from 8:30 AM and shows not much difference. That front is a long
    way off.

  8. Logan to 84 at 11AM. Taking aim at 90 and an official heat wave, as are a number of towns.

    I’d expect at least a few pop-up showers/storms in CT, RI, and SE Mass today, but not the widespread severe weather we saw last night. Kudos to the HRRR for modeling last night’s storms very well, and kudos to the RGEM for once again being the warmest, and most accurate, of the temperature guidance today, for the third day in a row.

    1. I see dps dropping into the 50s W & NW of Worcester.
      Winds more NW there. Is it the actual front or winds behind a trough?

      Logan currently at 84 with dp of 61. Dp just dropped 2 Degrees in the last
      15 minutes or so.

      To me, the temp would be higher by now IF we were really going to make
      a run at 90.

      I don’t think Logan makes it. Providence, However may just do it since
      they are currently at 88.

  9. Logan up to 86. With continued heating from the Strong May sun, who knows, it “could” still happen. Time will tell. I suppose it depends upon how far back the cooler
    air Lags behind the front. Many times there is a delay so the front goes through, but
    the temps go up until the cooler air is more firmly established.

    We shall see. 😀

  10. Taunton now at 89, Providence at 87, Hartford and Boston at 86 as of 12PM.

    NYC has hit 90 for an official 3-day heat wave.

    Off to the NW, Albany is down to 79.

    Taunton and PVD will hit it, I think BOS and BDL fall a degree or two short.

    1. Logan 88 now. Blue Hill 87

      These locations are at 90:

      Norwood
      Taunton
      Windsor Locks, Ct
      Providence, RI

  13. Boston dp has dropped to 57, so I “think” the front is through. It is just a matter of
    how much heating can take place before the cool air becomes firmly established.

    1. Surface as of 11:23 AM. It’s now a tad more than 2 hours later. I think it
      is through Boston.

    2. You could be correct JpDave. I literally was just going to come on and throw out there that the front was located central VT, NH and Maine because of a wind shift from W to NW at both Concord, NH and Portland, ME. Perhaps there are 2 fronts 🙂 🙂

  14. 51 up at Newport, Vt. This front means business, eventually. The cutoff seems to be
    arouond Sprinfield, Vt which is at 75 and just starting the descent.

  15. I wonder if the area to watch for something to pop is from just north-northeast of New London, CT running east northeastward to just north of New Bedford and then just north of the Cape Cod Bridges.

    On the Taunton NWS Radar, I think its picking up a convergence zone between the mostly W wind over land and a SW wind along the immediate south coast. So, there’s already a natural convergence there, and its pretty close to the highest heat available today and I wonder what might happen when the NW winds with the front hit it ?????

      1. Now it shows 89, but it touched 90 however briefly.

        Looks like the heating of the sun “just’ Barely overtook
        the cooling of the new cooler air mass. It will be catching up
        fairly soon. I suspect Boston’s temp will slowing drop off the next hour or 2 and then really start dropping shortly after that. 😀

  17. 2PM observation has 89 as the max at Logan so far, so no official heat wave yet, but they could easily add a degree in the next hour.

  18. Looking south, there are definitely building cumulus clouds.

    Some tall ones I’d estimate to be overhead the Plymouth area, westward perhaps towards Providence.

  19. Hmmm

    Still 90 at Logan with WSW wind and DP 55
    Bedford 88 with NW wind dp 54
    Fitchburg 88 with NW wind dp 55
    Athol just jumped from 82 to 84 with NW wind and dp 57.

    The “real” cool stuff is still a number of miles off.

    Once again temperatures have over achieved.

  22. Officially a heat wave in Boston; 90 degrees.

    The past 4 days (including today) will almost or entirely wipe out the negative month to date temperature departure, which had been at around -5F. Nearly all of the first 15 days of the month were at or below average, and we’ve wiped that out in 4 days. Much, much easier to do that than the other way around in today’s climate. Furthermore, I find it very interesting that a month in which the upper level pattern will have screamed “below normal” for most of the month (basically the whole first 15 days of the month plus much of the final 10), we will likely be very near normal for the month on temperatures.

    1. Thank you.

      Other than possible rounding issues, it sure looks like the data
      from the MesoWest site I have been posting is accurate. That is nice to know.
      I thought so, because yesterday it pegged Logan at 95 for the high, spot on.

      1. From what I can tell the MesoWest is definitely accurate to within a degree. I’m almost positive it gets data from the ASOS, but there’s some rounding method it uses that can create a small error, since the ASOS only reports publicly every hour (unless there’s a special ob). None of the official hourly observations have hit 90 in Boston. What probably happened was that the NWS dialed into the Logan ASOS and saw it had 90 as a max for today, or the FAA contract observer at the airport reported it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t know until 8:00 tonight, since that’s the next time 6-hourly max/min temperature data is reported.

        Either way… it’s hot out!

        1. Yes and the data refreshes every 3 minutes.
          It’s a really cool site. SAK originally informed us of
          a MesoWest site, but this one is slightly different
          unless it has been updated since I was last using it.

          1. When first loaded, the surface weather map defaults to show only stations that are part of the National Weather Service (NWS) and Remote Automated Weather Stations (RAWS) networks

  24. 72 at Pittsfield MA so the much cooler air is about 120-140 miles to the West and NW
    of Boston.

  25. Is this correct? Seems high.

    Station 44013 (LLNR 420) – BOSTON 16 NM East of Boston, MA Image indicating link to RSS feed of recent meteorological observations for station 44013
    Boston Approach Lighted Buoy BF NOAA 44013

    Conditions at 44013 as of
    (3:50 pm EDT)
    1950 GMT on 05/19/2017:
    Unit of Measure: Time Zone: Select
    Click on the graph icon in the table below to see a time series plot of the last five days of that observation.


    Water Temperature (WTMP): 56.8 °F

    We have had a decent land breeze for the better part of 4 days now.
    Yet, it is still that high?

    Did someone dump a ton of hot water off the coast?

    I am LIKING that temperature. NICE.

  27. If, in fact that Logan hit 90 today then I will brag that I called it days ago when we started overachieving. I asked TK yesterday and he did not think they would make it, as did the TV mets. I just had the feeling. The earliest heat wave for May is 2-4, 2001. I remember being sick with a virus for that. Not fun at all while everyone else enjoying summery temps. 🙂

    1. The other 2 May heatwaves were during the “climate change” years of the late 1920s and early 1930s…

      4-day heatwave May 28-31 in 1929
      3-day heatwave May 28-30 in 1931

      There were a whole lot of warm records in the 1920s and 1930s that are not often talked about. They should be given as much weight as recent warm events.

      1. It seems that our climate events of today are not as unprecedented as we are led to believe. This 21st century is not unique at all. Thanks TK for those stats! 🙂

  28. TK, not sure if you’ll see this but I wanted to comment on new header photo and the beautiful blue background color. They’re perfectly coordinated and look so good together (on the desktop version). Nice work!

    I also have question, for yourself or whoever might have time to explain. Yesterday both JPDave and WxWatcher said temperatures could go higher if dew points stayed low enough, and with enough sunshine. Trying to understand this. I associate lower dew points with cooler weather (like tonight!), and higher humidity with hazy, hot and humid misery. Is it because increased moisture in the air would ‘absorb’ or block some of that sunshine? Just trying to make sense of it all.

    1. its like deserts that can have a “mild” morning in the 60s and yet have a high afternoon temp over 100F. Drier air tends to cool and warm more quickly than air that has more moisture in it.

  29. Was down in Eastham mid afternoon through evening and had 2 heavier showers pass just a few miles to the south. Some beautiful cumulus were around.

    Very warm on the Cape with the wnw flow.

    Fresh water pond we swam in was about 55F or so.

    Amazing experience on the bay side. High tide, water temp within 10 ft of shore had to be at least 75F. I couldn’t get past my knees at the lake and immediately jumped in the bay. My guess is that low tide the last 3 days which has been 11am to noon allowed a miles worth of sand flats to get very warm in the blazing sun / warm airmass and that heated up the shallow incoming tide. The warmth of the water was the talk on the beach. It was awesome !!!

    1. Wow! Nice feature of the bay side. You nailed it and those tides go way out at low tide. We used to frequent the bay side beaches in Eastham in the Summer.
      It was like bath water compared to the open ocean side Like Coast Guard or Nauset.

  32. I am somewhat surprised to see the temperature as high as it is for this hour today.
    Expected much cooler. It is 62 here in JP.

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