DAYS 1-5 (MAY 19-23)
Is there ever such thing as a “high confidence forecast” beyond a few days? It’s rare, if it exists at all. Yes you can look at a pattern and know with some confidence that there may be a storm threat, or some stretch of heat or cold, or various things like that, but as far as getting specific beyond a few days, it really can’t be done beyond “educated guessing”. I’m not going to cite anyone else’s forecasts but my own here. A few days ago I felt fairly confident that a place like Boston would fail to reach 80 yesterday, but have no problem today. Well, it turns out that they were one of the warm spots at 84 yesterday, but today if they even get close to 80 I’ll be wholly surprised. What I have talked about for days now is not to count out the influence of the ocean, and while it did not show itself to have much influence on Boston’s temperature yesterday, it’s very likely to do so the next 2 days. And this won’t be true for just Boston, but for all coastal areas, and even inland for some distance, as we are going to have a set-up with high pressure at the surface and aloft, but with the highest of the surface pressure to the northeast of New England, that opens the door for easy-developing onshore wind, since it’s already getting a bit of a push from air that naturally wants to flow away from high pressure. This will be another lesson for the reader / listener not to get numbers mentioned a few days in advance too solid in their minds, because there is always the chance that adjustments will be needed. Or at the very least one needs to keep in mind what the seasonal potentials are. Here in New England, especially near the coast, that should be easy to do in the spring. Yesterday, somebody asked me which day would be sunniest this week. My initial answer was Wednesday (today), although now it looks like Thursday ends up sunnier. Yes, even the sky condition can be that difficult to pin down exactly 24 hours in advance. What I did warn them about though was to expect the beach to be significantly cooler than their inland home if they were planning a visit to the coast. And we won’t even talk about the water temperature… 😉 Anyway, the same ridge of high pressure that is giving us this classic spring weather in New England this midweek will contribute to a slightly different kind of classic late spring weather late this week. With the upper level ridge axis to our west, and a northwesterly air flow aloft, this allows disturbances to drop out of Canada and come across the region. We’ll see two of them, one late Friday into Saturday, and another one on Sunday. While it remains fairly dry both dew point wise and in terms of rain threat into Friday (there may be a few showers around later Friday), we will see the humidity uptick itself to a somewhat noticeable 60-ish during the course of the weekend, and a few opportunities for passing showers on Saturday with the first disturbance. The second disturbance on Sunday will feature a fairly strong surface cold front dropping southward out of Canada, and this may trigger some thunderstorm activity along with the shower threat at some point that day or evening. We’ll have to fine-tune the timing and magnitude of that threat as we get closer to it.
TODAY: Partly cloudy. Highs 68-75 coast, 76-83 inland, but turning cooler from east to west midday on. Wind N under 10 MPH shifting to E 5-15 MPH.
TONIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 50-57. Wind E to variable under 10 MPH.
THURSDAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 69-76 coast, 77-84 inland, but turning cooler at least coastal areas afternoon. Wind variable to SE 5-15 MPH.
THURSDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 55-62. Wind SE to S up to 10 MPH.
FRIDAY: Partly sunny. Chance of a shower late in the day. Highs 68-75 South Coast, 76-83 elsewhere. Wind S 5-15 MPH.
FRIDAY NIGHT: Variably cloudy. Possible showers. Lows 53-60. Wind variable 5-15 MPH.
SATURDAY: Variably cloudy. Possible showers. More humid with dew point approaching 60. Highs 65-72, coolest coast. Wind variable 5-15 MPH.
SATURDAY NIGHT: Mostly cloudy. Chance of showers. Areas of fog forming. Lows 55-62. Dew point middle to upper 50s. Wind variable up to 10 MPH.
SUNDAY: Partly sunny. Chance of showers and thunderstorms, especially afternoon/evening. Moderately humid with dew point lower 60s. Highs 75-82. Wind SW 5-15 MPH, higher gusts, may shift to NW late.
DAYS 6-10 (MAY 24-28)
An area of high pressure from eastern Canada brings dry and cool weather May 24. Milder weather returns after this with a mostly dry pattern into the middle of next week and maybe a shower threat by the end of the period.
DAYS 11-15 (MAY 29 – JUNE 2)
Unsettled weather potential for part of the May 29-31 Memorial Day Weekend and maybe again by the end of the period as our region will likely be near a boundary between air masses.