Tuesday Forecast

142 Comments

7:37AM

DAYS 1-5 (OCTOBER 2-6)
Not a whole lot of change from yesterday’s post. In the “dank tank” today but with most of the heavier rainfall holding off until late-day and early night as low pressure moves along a nearly stationary boundary over the region. All of it gets pushed away Wednesday as high pressure builds in, resulting in improved weather. Then the high moves offshore resulting in a warm-up for Thursday before a cold front brings in slightly cooler but fair weather for the end of the week. Forecast details…
TODAY: Cloudy. Patchy fog. Areas of drizzle and scattered showers. More numerous showers arriving from the west by late in the day. Highs
58-65 except 65-72 far southern areas. Wind NE to E 5-15 MPH except variable far southern areas.
TONIGHT: Cloudy with numerous showers in the evening, some heavy. Partial clearing overnight. Areas of fog. Lows 53-60. Wind light variable.
WEDNESDAY: Partly sunny. Highs 68-75. Wind W 5-15 MPH.
WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy. Patchy fog interior low elevations. Lows 52-58. Wind light variable.
THURSDAY: Partly cloudy. Chance of showers at night. Highs 72-78. Wind SW 10-20 MPH.
FRIDAY: Partly cloudy. Lows in the 50s. Highs in the 60s.
SATURDAY: Mostly sunny. Lows from the upper 40s to middle 50s. Highs in the 60s.

DAYS 6-10 (OCTOBER 7-11)
Looks like high pressure will be dominant surface and aloft with dry weather and above normal temperatures through the middle of this period then a trough from the west will try to knock the high down and bring some unsettled weather by later in the period.

DAYS 11-15 (OCTOBER 12-16)
A more changeable period of weather is expected as a flatter flow brings a series of low pressure waves across the region west to east. But high pressure will still be off the Atlantic Coast and the tropics may be active again so that may be another thing to keep an eye on toward the end of the period.

142 thoughts on “Tuesday Forecast”

    1. Interaction with tropics West induces big trough which in turn induces big ridge East.

      All interconnected.

  5. Good morning for the second time and I hope all is well for all.

    Drizzle continues in the City with 0.24 inch of rain/drizzle late yesterday and overnight.

    To use a combination of TK’s term and a JJ term, today is your classic
    DANKORAMA!

    2. Thank you, Vicki! It is a very interesting post, and I agree with it. Cliff Mass is a well known, very outspoken figure in the field of meteorology. There’s some differing opinions on him and his methods, but I have no doubt he’s a really smart guy, and on this particular issue he is far from alone in his thoughts. There’s little doubt it’s an outdated and overly simplistic scale. It doesn’t fit modern society. How to update it, however, is a real challenge.

      This conversation really began in earnest 10 years ago after Ike, intensified after Sandy, and now has come back to the forefront. My concern is that just as were discussing this 10 years ago and are discussing it now, that 10 or 20 years from now we’ll still just be discussing it, with no concrete alternatives.

      1. I visit Cliff’s blog occasionally (Mac’s cousin enjoys weather and lives in Seattle) and happened across this. How sad but correctly predictable that we will be discussing this in 10 or 20 years.

        Thank you for your input. I was not aware of the discussion (or had forgotten) before your post prior to Flo.

  8. Some musings and data on the Sea Surface temperatures using historical data
    from the Boston buoy, located 16 Nautical Miles due East of Boston.

    Here is a spreadsheet of Oct 2 readings from 1984 through 2017. (Note temperatures were missing for October on a few years. Still we have a 31 years for this sample)

    https://imgur.com/a/IH23bsd

    Note: Current Water Temperature (WTMP): 63.5 °F
    The Average for this date is: 58.3 F
    Therefore we are currently sitting at 5.2 F ABOVE AVERAGE.
    Definitive information from historical data. No guessing.

    Also worth noting that the standard deviation is 2.44 Degrees F.
    That means in 68% of the years the water temperature at Boston Buoy would
    be between +1 and -1 standard deviation or between 55.8 and 60.7
    95% of the time between +2 and -2 or 53.4 and 63.1
    99.7% of the time between +3 and -3 or 50.94 and 65.6

    Fun with stats and figures. 😀

      1. I grabbed the data from the online site and entered the
        daily value (around 9AM) for October 2 for each of the years
        and inserted the values into a spreadsheet as you can see.
        I also plotted the graph, simply done in Excel as were the
        averages and the standard deviation. In Excel there is a function
        STDEV()

        1. Really nice – thank you. I do not know Excel as well as I do Word and PPT, but I enjoy playing with its graphs and different functions.

            1. I used to use Access more than excel but it isn’t something I need and didn’t come with my MS pro product….odd that it didn’t

  11. Tom, sorry about your brief blackout this morning just when you were getting ready for school. That is why if I were in charge we all would be back on Standard Time (real time) all year long and our mornings would be considerably lighter, obviously. It’s too bad that the earth is such that we can’t have equal light mornings and evenings to please everybody. I now leave home in the dark and arrive work at 7:00 am in the dark. I don’t like coming home in the dark either but it is better than these dark mornings.

    Yes, I am looking forward to that first Sunday morning in November. Can’t come soon enough. 😀

    1. ** I will be coming home in the dark soon after we go back to Standard time. Currently when I arrive it is still plenty light out.

  12. Thank you, TK.

    On a business trip to New York City. Weather-wise New York is frequently further away from Boston than the 200 miles indicates on the map. Yesterday, it was warm and humid in New York. I mean sweaty warm, and I arrived late afternoon. And, I just checked the temperature in Boston right now and see that it’s 56F, while it’s 74F in NY. I experienced a similar difference back in February and April on trips here. These differences impact everything from the time that leaves come out in spring to foliage in fall to winter storms in winter.

  13. I rather have more light when I get home, than when I wake up in the morning. It lets me do things when I get home that I wouldn’t be if we had earlier morning sunrises.

    Anyways. I know we were very wet but does anyone know how many days we had fully cloudy days? it seemed like we were lucky to have 2 days of sunshine a week if we were lucky all month.

    thanks for all the stuff up above with the boston buoy data. Did you do any statistical tests on them to see if there were any outliers?

    1. Matt,

      No statistical tests. Just the data and nothing but the data.
      The temperatures over those 31 years for Oct 2 ranged from
      a low of 55 to a high of 62. All seems in order and there does not
      appear to be any outliers. Take a look.

  14. Widespread snow throughout Western Canada, and including the northern tier of Washington State, Idaho, Montana, and SD.

            1. I know I am only 4’9″ but am I that easy to miss? I didn’t think so. So easy to forget! 🙂

      3. Please don’t shoot the messenger just read & please for Tk just leave it at that I believe when Tk closed down the blog they both said they were done posting .

        1. Sorry SSK but from my view WHW is a family and there will never come a point when I am not concerned about family.

          1. I am answering your question so you will not be worried about them and hoping nobody will go on about it as Tk will not want that as it was when he shut this down for a few days . I hope they come back & nice to see you posting .

  16. NIGHTMARE!

    @ericfisher
    The FV-3 will be taking over for the current GFS model this winter. Right in time for blizzard season.

    @NWSEMC
    The acting NCEP directory has conditionally APPROVED implementation for the FV3-GFS as GFS v15. Implementation date is projected for late Jan.

    If the FV-3 GFS was right, we would have already had our first snow of the season 3 days ago 🙂

  17. If the GFS is correct, we are pushing or exceeding 80 in most of SNE pretty much every day next week with the exception of Monday.

    1. Hmmmm….That won’t fit into my plan to try out the new deck heater I just got so I can sit out all winter.

      1. Looks much cooler the following week (week of the 14th), again if the models are correct. TK has been cautioning about the performance of the models right now in the mid range.

        1. Thank you, Mark. I figure sooner or later I’ll be able to use it. I was a tad premature in purchasing it 🙂

          1. I believe Harvey mentioned yesterday 80+ for much of next week as well. Don’t take out your A/Cs just yet I guess.

            Maybe by Veteran’s Day it will be safe to remove them? 😉

            1. He mentioned at possibly reaching 80 Monday. He said nothing about the rest of the week.

  18. Looking back at September, it was one of the wettest (if not the wettest) I can recall since I moved to CT in the late 90’s. My rain gauge recorded a total of over 12″ on the month and if you told me this in advance, I would never imagine we could have gotten there without a landfalling tropical system, although the remnants of Florence did contribute to that total.

    Dating back to June 1, I have recorded nearly 30″ of rain. Almost 3/4 of the yearly average in 4 months. The drought discussions we were having back in the Spring are a fleeting memory!

    1. It’s regional and in some cases local.

      At my house in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston, my rain gauge
      recorded 6.54 inches for the month of September.

      Still an excessive amount of rain that fell on 12 days of the month, but hardly
      the 12+ inches you received.

    2. I will, however, comment on Storm Fisher.

      Will there be any modifiers depending on the storm intensity/type???

      For instance could it be:

      Fisher Price(less)
      Fisher Cat
      Fisher man
      Fisher or cut bait

    3. Thank you, Mark.

      No Victoria…..darn. But two I can relate to. One we darn well better get to and the second I doubt we will reach.

  20. It won’t surprise me if we are through a third of that list by Thanksgiving ….

    The western half of the arctic …. wow ….. is crazy warm. Big ridge, (perhaps a by product of all the western Pacific Ocean Typhoons) sitting over an ice less western Arctic, causing the western Arctic ocean to not begin to freeze up.

    So much heat from the arctic ocean will be going towards the atmosphere at a later date in autumn than average, that I can only imagine the jet stream patterns we’ll be seeing later in October and throughout November.

    In the short term, this big arctic ridge is pushing all the cold air out of the arctic and into Canada, with pieces that will be drawn south into the central Plains and inter-mountain west, offering snow storm(s) potential out there, while one low after the other travels to our west, with warm sectors and cold frontal shower passages.

  23. Eric Fisher had an interesting discussion on FB.

    September 2018 was fourth warmest on record with 1983 first but not by a whole lot.

    September 2018 was the fourth warmest record month for the year and three of those months were consecutive.

    September 2018 set the record for the warmest nights just ahead of 1983.

    And a comment I found interesting is that we have only had one October (1947) with four consecutive 80 degree days. There have been six with three consecutive 80 degrees in October.

    https://imgur.com/a/J1D0Nfc

    1. Great info by Eric! I still really wish that Boston’s thermometer was reading properly. I’m going to ask the source in person on October 20.

      1. I find that October 1947 stat interesting as well considering that was still decades before GW. Our earth was still nice and cool then.

  24. what ever happens next week I do not think the 80s are going to be widespread like some are saying, I think the 70s will be a good bet I also do not think it will be that humid either.

    1. I believe you will be correct. Best shot at 80 is valley areas Sunday (October 7) and again Tuesday (October 9). Wednesday (Oct 10) may still be warm depending on the timing of a front to the north but again this is all speculation beyond 3 or 4 days out. Most of the other days we may have northerly or easterly winds at the surface, so a very warm looking upper pattern but a surface high to the north that doesn’t allow “heat” and humidity in here.

      My favored medium range model today is the ECMWF.

      1. “Plenty” implies more than 2, but you’re the expert so I’ll defer to your judgment.

        Indeed, as you pointed out in your post above the difference in temperature between Boston and NYC is significant in spring and fall. I travel several times a year to New York, and usually in spring or fall, and it’s a tale of two cities meteorologically and in every other way. New York is my favorite large city with Paris a close second; Boston is my favorite medium-sized city with Amsterdam and Prague close seconds; My favorite small city is Quebec City, followed by Utrecht and Bruges.

        1. Never heard of: Utrecht and Bruges

          I see that Utrecht is in the Netherlands
          and Bruges is in the Flemish region of Belgium.

          Thank you for the geography lesson.

  27. There are some nasty dewpoints from CT, RI, SE MA/Cape southward. YUCK!!!

    TK – Will those make it up to Boston later? Hope NOT!!!

  28. Thanks, TK.

    Don’t know if anyone has posted this yet – but south of here, Pittsburgh area has tornado warning and another one I believe just north of NYC area.

  30. Tornado Watch up for my county until 12am! Confirmed tornado according to Ryan Hanrahan happened near New Castle, NY in Westchester county NY

    1. Been heavy overcast here all day. I hope your area stays settled. My business associate is in Old Saybrook CT and I’m hoping these bad storms stay away from there also.

      Please Be safe JJ

  33. Pitch black with heavy rain and lots of thunder and lightning here in Manchester, CT.

    Tornado Warning now for southern Fairfield County. Radar indicated tornado and ping pong size hail headed towards Norwalk and Westport.

  34. Complete Monsoon here! Driving wind blown rain and frequent cloud to ground lightning. Severe T-storm warning just went up for this cell.

  35. Is this unusual? No.

    It’s about the contrast and the available energy/lift, etc. Not to mention it was still summer under 2 weeks ago.

    Nobody needs to be reminded of Oct 3 1979……………now that was an event.

        1. Ohhh. Thanks. I was thinking there was something I was missing….along with the other stuff I miss 🙂

          1. Nope. Nobody said or asked if it was unusual. Just info offering. This pattern reminds me of October 1979.

      1. I recall tornado warnings in late November back in maybe 2008…daughter was expecting one of her girls so I guessed at year

      2. Very interesting to watch the video of that WVIT telecast from 1979 and the meteorologist’s recap of what happened. That storm was actually moving from S to N ahead of a cold front that was moving in from an unusual direction – the southwest. Northern CT was caught in narrow wedge of warm, humid unstable air between a warm front and the approaching cold front. Squall line formed ahead of the front. Must have been some tremendous instability and dynamics at play there!

        1. I was fascinated by the video. I had a dear friend in suffield and spent tons of time there. It is a beautiful area

          But I’m still trying to understand why it would be unusual. Is it because it is late in the season or because there hasn’t been a lot of sun or….. ??

  37. Rain has let up here in Manchester CT but still thundering with lightning.

    Flash flood warnings have now been hoisted for portions of Hartford and Tolland Counties. Flash flooding has been reported in New Britain.

    And looks like plenty more rain from the west still to come….

    1. The pattern that early to mid autumn was pretty dynamic and then the winter was DRY & COLD. That is one of my potential analogs for the coming winter, El Nino / MJO (or lack thereof) dependent.

  39. Lower Fairfield county now under a severe thunderstorm warning. Before they were under a tornado warning and looking at some of the radar signatures I would not be surprised if somewhere between New Cannan and Norwalk a tornado occurred.

  40. One thing that stands out in my mind about the day of the Windsor Locks tornado is how DARK and threatening it was. We had pretty good thunderstorms here too, almost mid-summer quality. Right after that torrential lightning filled storm, a sharp clearing line moved in and it was one of the clearest bluest skies to end the day I have ever seen.

    1. It was incredibly dark….near pitch black here as well when the storms moved through here around 5:30PM. Must be the late afternoon time period coupled with the lower fall sun angle that accentuates the darkness even more.

  41. We had one rather brilliant bolt of lightning and that was it. But based on the storms around New England I’m happy with that.

  45. The area that had that possible tornado now under a severe thunderstorm warning. One two punch happening in lower Fairfield county this evening.

    1. Sure is a ton of lightning with that and the purple areas on the radar…sorry for the lack of technical description.

      You are so right with one two punch 🙁

  46. Lower Fairfield County in CT has been the spot for the severe weather this evening. Tornado Watch dropped for my county

  47. Thankfully this is over water right now and hopefully stays that way. Tweet from meteorologist Ryan Hanrahan
    Really impressive supercell over Long Island Sound heading toward Long Island.

  48. Indeed JJ, the Norwalk/Westport area just got crushed again!

    Normally I don’t pull the word “crush” out until the winter when I see a NAM run drop 20-30″ of snow but I had to make an exception here 🙂 I am quite impressed by the storms today.

  49. Mark that radar image on that supercell in Long Island Sound was impressive when looking at it few minutes ago. Folks on the western part of Long Island should be keeping an eye on that one and see if it holds coming across the sound.

  50. I almost forgot…

    October 2, 1978

    Bleepin’ Bucky Dent!!!!!

    The exclamation points represent the # of Yankee runs scored that awful day. 🙁

  51. Tweet from Ryan Hanrahan on the area where that possible tornado happened in lower Fairfield County.
    If there was a tornado it was likely here in New Canaan. More than 70 knots of gate-to-gate shear over Rt 124 near the intersection with Farm Rd.

  52. We keep having brilliant flashes of lightning spaced really far apart in Sutton. I’m not even sure where they are coming from.

      1. I just came here to say it was from south. It has to be lighting up like crazy down that way.

        What is elevated convection?

          1. That’s a good description. Basically the “base” of the storm sits somewhere at mid levels.

            1. Thanks. The explanation was good but it’s late and my mind stopped working a couple of hours ago so I like yours better. Much easier to understand

              It is pretty cool

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