Last Days of July Coming with no Surprises

SATURDAY- As we say goodbye to July 2008, we will have very typical weather for this summer to endure. Tomorrow will be one of those days here in SNE this summer where we start off with some sun and hazy skies and quickly shoot up to the mid 80's, before afternoon showers and thunderstorms develop and bring a nice dousing of rainfall to many areas. Tomorrow's threat for severe weather looks greatest in western New England, mainly west of Worcester where there could be some severe storms that dump heavy rain, possibly large hail, and strong winds. Frequent lightning is always a risk with thunderstorms, severe or not, so be aware tomorrow. The atmosphere isn't conducive for tornadoes tomorrow like early this past week, so we won't have to worry about that. We will likely see watches go up tomorrow late morning and continue to say 5-8PM.

Thereafter we dry out for Monday and Tuesday with seasonable temperatures in the mid 80's before we return to a more unsettled period for Wednesday and heading into the new month of August on Friday. Temperatures will be cooler into the 70's, but I think we avoid the heaviest of the rain here in SNE as most of the energy will be confined to central and northern New England where locally heavy rain is possible come Wednesday night into Thursday. It looks to be unsettled heading into next weekend though, so just be aware for making plans.

The tropics are very quiet tonight and will likely be quiet for a while as the winds have become unfavorable for any development near any sort of landmass. So, that's good news. Maybe the Red Sox will be able to salvage one game tomorrow at Fenway?

Sultry Saturday...

FRIDAY- It's the weekend again. It looks like we have got ourselves a pretty good weekend here in SNE. We won't be as hot as last weekend when we saw highs in the mid 90's, but tomorrow will be in the upper 80's with lots of humidity and abundant sunshine. Humidity will be on the rise tomorrow afternoon here in SNE. This will lead to a few showers Sunday afternoon and evening as a disturbance will kick off a few showers and thunderstorms. Most will be north of us for the evening hours. Temperatures will be in the seasonable level through Monday and Tuesday with highs in the low to perhaps mid 80's, right on target for this time of year and seasonable overnight lows in the low 60's outside of the city to upper 60's in the cities.

Our next threat at some rain looks to be about midweek next week with heavy rain and wind slated for Wednesday afternoon and night as an energetic packet of energy swings through SNE from the Great Lakes with an unusual potent little storm that could bring periods of heavy rain and embedded thunderstorms that could renew flooding? Let's hope not. Yesterday this looked to hit the PHI-NYC corridor, but today, it looks like its slated for the NYC to Portland, ME corridor with the heaviest right in the Springfield to Worcester to Boston corridor. We'll wait and see how this pans out. It's still a ways out there.

Finally Drying Out

THURSDAY- After seeing rain everyday since Sunday, SNE is going to finally dry out after tonight's rains move off the Cape and Islands around or after midnight. We have had a rainy couple of days around here in SNE. Many spots saw between 1-2" of rainfall yesterday, plus another 1-3" of rainfall today. That makes us a two day total of 2-5", with rainfall since Sunday of over six inches. It is about time we started to dry out and tomorrow we will. We had a waterspout in Barrington, RI yesterday with minimal damage, but today we saw a more pronounced severe outbreak in Epsom, NH where between 50-100 homes were damaged or destroyed by a possible tornado. The pictures coming out of this small NH town are simply unbelievable. It looks more like a small town in KS, rather than a small New England town. Tomorrow the NWS team will survey the damage to see whether or not this was a tornado or straight line winds. From eye witness testimonies, this seems to be a tornado, that of an EF-2 or possibly EF-3. The damage is pretty awful.

More rain comes back in on Sunday, but we will not see inches upon inches of rainfall. In fact, it looks like most of the energy with this storm system will be up in western and northern New England. SNE could be spared with just scattered thunderstorms and locally heavy rainfall, not widespread heavy rain and thunderstorms. The North Country could see another 1-2" of rain, locally heavier and locally less all due to where the cells set up shop.

We clear out again to start next week, before we watch a packet of energy come out of the Lower Great Lakes with a pulse of heavy rain and thunderstorms, some severe, shoot out towards to Mid Atlantic and Northeast. For now, it looks like most of this heavy rain and thunder will stay to the south of us, south of New York City, but the potential is there for more heavy rainfall, looking like it stays south of us this time. This has another 1-2" of rainfall associated with it, so if we can miss it, I don't think many will be all that devastated.

Flooding July Rains

WEDNESDAY- I'm posting very late tonight, but I thought I'd break out the usual snowfall map for some pretty hefty rainfall totals that we will be seeing over the next couple of days. If you thought that we weren't able to get a half a foot of rain in July by anything other than a tropical cyclone, you were mistaken. All you need is a stalling out front and a whole heck of a lot of moisture riding up that front with a gusty southerly breeze. Today, Wednesday, will feature most of the storms in western New England and the Mid Atlantic. They will eventually migrate eastward by tomorrow night and especially Thursday. It will gradually weaken as it moves eastward saving metro Boston from inches upon inches of rain. You want to talk a lot of rain, then look into the western part of our area. Worcester on westward, including Hartford, will see a good 2-3" of rainfall, locally more in heavy slow moving thunderstorms. Where the mountains help to squeeze out every available drop of moisture, in the Berkshires and Green Mountains, expect a good 3" or more of rainfall with locally as much as 6" of rainfall. I wouldn't be surprised if someone in the Northeast from PA to western VT picked up locally 8-10" of rainfall in the next 48 hours.

As you move to Boston, we are dealing with a soaking 1-2" of rain with locally heavier and lower amounts. The Cape gets kind of jipped with this one as they will be left with less than one inch, but if we can get a batch of thunderstorms down there, you could easily see 1-2" with Boston as well. This is where we really could use the rain and hopefully we can get it down into SEMA. We should clear out by Friday with mostly sunny skies and temperatures back into the mid 80's after having 70's for Wednesday and Thursday, but with dewpoints in the upper 60's to low 70's at times. It's going to be a muggy, rainy, nasty couple of days. Check for basement flooding in the west.

Unsettled Times, Tropics Ignite- THREE Storms Active in Atlantic

SUNDAY- We were greeted with showers and storms to end off this weekend, one of the last ones of July. Severe storms cut across Boston and metrowest today with some wind damage and heavy rainfall. More storms moved through eastern Mass around midnight with frequent lightning and torrential heavy rains which prompted a Flood Advisory by the NWS. Some spots saw between 1" to as much of 3" locally. Tomorrow is going to be more of the same. Overall tomorrow is going to be another wet day and very humid as well. There will be dry periods, but on the overall picture, we will have bouts of heavy rain and thunderstorms. Again, some spots could stay mostly dry tomorrow but other spots could see another 1-2" of rainfall in heavy storms.

Tuesday we will dry out with a slight risk of an afternoon or evening thunderstorm before we get real wet around here on Wednesday and Thursday with heavy rains that could extent from Virginia to Maine and persist for a couple of days. Latest computer model guidance is suggesting that anywhere between 2-5" of rainfall is possible, heaviest in western New England. I don't think we will see this much rain, but a good widespread 1-2" soaking is possible out of this.

The tropics are active right now as well. We got Bertha that is still a strong Tropical Storm with winds around 60 mph. It is exiting stage right and heading towards Iceland. It is no threat to the US. Cristobal is looking healthy tonight after looking lackluster all day today. It has really blossomed nice convection tonight and winds are up to 50 mph. However, its not going to hit land and is already heading harmlessly out to sea. It is just a problem for shippers at this time.

The last one is Tropical Storm Dolly. She is formerly known as Invest 94 which developed this morning and is now in the western Carribean and heading towards the Yucatan. It's developing a northern LLC right now and will likely scrape the NE most point of the Yucatan which will do little to weaken this system. Once it heads into the GOM, it will set its eyes of extreme northern Mexico all the way up to Houston, TX. It will take about 2-3 days to travel westward over 80-85 degree water, which will no doubt fuel Dolly to a Hurricane by possibly this time tomorrow night. Currently, she has 50 mph winds, but could be nearing hurricane status by tomorrow night or Tuesday. We could easily be talking about a Cat 2 or major Cat 3 storm barreling across the GOM if this thing avoids weakening tomorrow. We have seen storms really explode in the GOM.

Did anyone say $170/barrel of crude oil (sweet)? CRAP!

TROPICAL STORM CRISTOBAL FORMS

SATURDAY TROPICAL UPDATE- Tropical Depression 3 has just been upgraded at 2PM/July 19 to a tropical storm, taking on the named Cristobal. A weak storm, packing winds of only 40 mph, Cristobal will still pack quite the punch to areas along North Carolina's Outer Banks. This is the projected storm track that Cristobal should take and as you can see, it heads harmlessly out to sea south of New England. We are not expecting rapid development with this particular system. Cristobal may strengthen to have winds of around 50 mph once it heads well SE of Nantucket. Latest guidance takes this storm even futher east of where they were showing its expected track earlier, so this is quickly becoming of little concern other than for shipping interests along the East Coast. Even where Cristobal makes a direct hit over, conditions will be similar to a glorified wintertime Nor'easter with wind gusts of 40 mph and heavy rainfall. The Outer Banks could see between 2-5" of rainfall with this storm system, which I am sure many of them will take, as they are in one of the driest periods in history right now. They will take every drop of water that that can get.

So, once again, this does not pose much of a threat for us here in New England, other than shipping interests and more heavy surf at the beaches. But when Cristobal passes SE of New England, we will be dealing with a storm system of our own moving through that will lead to a stormy and wet Monday anyway, so there won't be too many people at the beaches anyway. That said, be safe if you head into the water early this week, it will be rough out there. You know the drill now though, after having Bertha out there for a week building up New England's surf along the coast. Interesting enough, Bertha is still out there and is currently a hurricane again with max winds of 75 mph as she heads towards Iceland of all places and could hit them as a strong tropical storm or even minimal Category 1 Hurricane believe it or not. Bertha is breaking all the records.

Severe thunderstorms are likely this afternoon here in SNE as we are under a SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH. These storms are developing in NNE as we speak and will be heading into SNE between 4-6PM, which has prompted the NWS to issue the watch until 9PM EDT for all of SNE, even the Cape. So if you see the NW sky darken this afternoon and hear thunder in the distance, head indoors and be safe. We got ourselves one more scorcha tomorrow with highs getting back to that 90-95 degree category with more severe weather tomorrow evening.

TD 3 Forms, High Heat Saturday, Unsettled Week Ahead

FRIDAY- We have got lots to talk about today. We have got ourselves a full plate to deal with. Tomorrow will be a very hot and humid day with heat indexes up to over 100 degrees! I am advertising heat up to the mid 90's tomorrow in much of SNE, while some spots will stay in the low 90's. Again, like today, there could be a random shower here in SNE. I was a bit surprised at the severe storms and torrential flooding rains in NNE today, and a few of those made it into SNE, giving Gloucester and Rockport a good storm as well as the Cape. A storm formed over Worcester County and moved east weakening as well, but tomorrow's storms will be few and far between. Most places will stay dry. I only give it about a 20 percent chance of any one town getting wet tomorrow. Then we are all fair game on Sunday and Sunday night especially when most will get wet with some showers and thunderstorms.

Then all eyes have to be moved to the south as the frontal system on Sunday could be the focal point and track for a developing tropical cyclone developing off the GA/SC coast tonight that just got named to TROPICAL DEPRESSION #3. Latest indications are that this could reach tropical storm status within the next couple of days and graze the NC Outer Banks and head up the coast. If anything, this will wring out all the water out of the air early next week, namely Monday and we could get a good soaking, whether or not we get the gusty winds from the TC, will have to be determined and ironed out in the next 36-48 hours. At the very least, next week looks to be quite unsettled.

That said, be safe tomorrow with the high heat and humidity. By now, you know the drill. Keep hydrated, wear cool clothes, and limit your time outdoors during the peak heat hours, 10AM-4PM. Have a good weekend and I'll have updates tomorrow on TD 3.

HIGH HEAT

THURSDAY- We have got ourselves some high heat on the way for tomorrow and Saturday. Don't let the low to mid 90's fool you though. That may seem hot, but just wait until you figure in the humidity with dewpoints of 70-75 later tomorrow and Saturday. We could be talking about real feel temperatures of 100-105 degrees. It will be really uncomfortable to be outside and for the sensitive groups, it could get downright dangerous. I would suggest that if you have to get your jog in the next couple of days or have to work outside, try and do it before 10AM or after 7PM. If you have to be outside tomorrow, be sure to have on lots of sunscreen and have bottled water with you at all times. It is very easy to get dehydrated and it is really important to wear a hat and light clothing if at all possible.

Thereafter, we get into some storms on Sunday that will likely continue into early next week before we start to see some clearing later next week, but temperatures still look to be very warm through the period as summer is really settling in here in New England. Enjoy it now because this really sultry weather day in and day out is really going to become less and less as we head through the next 4-5 weeks. Enjoy it now if this is your type of weather.

The tropics are busy, but nothing looks too important at this time, so no worries, yet.

Classic Summer Weather in New England

TUESDAY- You don't get more of a summery looking forecast here in SNE. We are quickly coming upon the dog days of summer and the next several will feel every bit of the mid summer feel you can get. The humidity is on the way up, up, up. We have been enjoying the past couple of days with dewpoints in the upper 50's to low 60's. That will soon be a thing of the past because we will notice an increase in the humidity tomorrow with dewpoints getting back into that 'sticky' range, into the mid 60's. The Cape by days end will likely see dewpoints getting to around 70 degrees. That is downright tropical and makes you sweat nearly as soon as you head out the door. The heat really gets turned on Thursday and then especially Friday and Saturday as temperatures will soar over 90 degrees.

Thursday will likely be around 90 degrees, but be just shy of 90 in Boston, Logan Airport proper. This will likely keep this from going down in the record books as an official heatwave because Sunday could be another day where the coast will only get to 86-89 degrees. But, inland locations will likely see official heatwaves. Places like Bedford, Nashua, Norwood, and Taunton will likely see at least a three day stretch of 90+ this week.

We really cool things off on Monday with highs in the 70's and the threat of some scattered showers, but that is so far out into the future, we won't be worrying about that quite yet. The tropics remain active, but not overly so. The same entities remain in place that we talked about yesterday, but will very little change. Bertha is still a TS, but could regain hurricane strength tomorrow and Invest 94 is still very haggard and will likely not develop into anything in the near future. Other than that, we are all quiet, which is a good thing, IMO.

High Heat On the Way....

MONDAY- Today's cloudy and muggy weather will be a thing of the past once we get to tomorrow and through the rest of the week and towards the weekend. Tomorrow will be the last real tolerable day of the week with temperatures in the low to mid 80's with fairly low humidity. Wednesday we will see some more humidity with increasing temperatures coming up towards 90 degrees before we are in the 90's for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We could be talking low 90's on Thursday, mid 90's on Friday, and mid to upper 90's on Saturday with high humidity. Even Sunday could come close to 90 degrees, making it possible that Boston could see its second 4-day heatwave of the year. You will notice that the overnight lows won't be that low as well. We are talking about lows only making to around 70 degrees in suburbia and low to mid 70's in urban centers. If you don't have air conditioning, you may want to contact your local mayor's office and see whether or not cooling centers will be opening in time for this extreme heat and humidity. Real feel temperatures during this peak of the heat will be coming up over 100 degrees, most likely. It's nothing to fool around with.

In the tropics, Bertha is still hanging around, giving Bermuda some wind and rain with max winds of 70 mph ATTM. As it heads NE away from Bermuda, it could go back to a Category 1 Hurricane. This will allow for the surf to build up along our beaches, but that is the most we will see with this one. Rip currents could be dangerous as well, so just a word to the wise. We are still watching that area of disturbed weather east of the Windward Islands as well as it has developed a tropical low pressure system and all we need is some convection to form around the area of low pressure and we will be talking about TD 3. This could happen in the next day or two.

Bertha Whanes; Cristobal Looms

TROPICAL UPDATE 7/13- We have got ourselves busy in the tropical weather center these days. Right now we have three (3) areas of concern in the Atlantic at this time. First, we have got ourselves Bertha. Yesterday, she remained stationary southeast of Bermuda and basically suffocated itself. We saw drastic loss of cloud coverage and a general decaying system. We saw it drop from Category 1 Hurricane status to a moderate Tropical Storm with max winds of 65 mph at the 11AM EDT hour. It will gradually head northeast, not affecting Bermuda other than some large swells and breakers along the beaches. It will head northeast and gradually decay and get caught into a frontal system and gradually turn extratropical as it heads east back over the North Atlantic and into the graveyard.

Our second area of concern is east of the Windward Islands at this time. An area of convection has developed into an organized area of low pressure overnight and is continuing to strengthen and organize some more today. The NHC has classified this system as Invest 94, meaning that tropical cyclone formation is quickly becoming likely. Winds with I-94 are now 30 mph, just a few mph shy of reaching tropical depression status. If it were to develop as most computer models are forecasting, it would be our third named storm of the season and would take on the name Cristobal. Forecast tracks with this system are all over the place right now as outlined in the image above, so we will have to wait and see how this area of disturbed weather develops over the next 24-48 hours to have a better handle on things.

Our last area of disturbed weather is about 120 miles southeast of Charleston, SC. It is a developing area of low pressure along an old frontal boundary that is slowing up and stalling just off the Southeast Coast. An area of low pressure is slowly developing here and tropical cyclone formation does not look likely at this time, but it is worth watching nonetheless. Anytime you have a low pressure system developing over 80 degree water this time of year, you always have to be weary. It's hurricane season. This does not have any classification at this time, so just throw its existence into the back of your mind. Needless to say, most cyclones that do develop in this area usually travel northeast away from the mainland, so they are of little threat to the East Coast anyway. Just something to think about.

That's all for today. A quick update on the forecast calls for showers tomorrow afternoon with a few thunderstorms too. Nothing at this point looks like it will reach severe criteria, but there are always a few that do become severe, so just beware. After that, we clear our and really start to heat things up. We are talking low to mid 80's with low humidity on Tuesday before the humidity pumps back into SNE and the temperatures soar late week. We could be talking about low to mid 90's here on Friday and Saturday, maybe even beyond. Western New England from CT on SE down the I-95 corridor including NYC, PHI, BAL, and DC could be in line for a 5-8 day stretch of temperatures into the 90-100 degree range with high humidity. Electricity will be at a premium this week, that's for sure.

Perfect Sunday for Late Weekend Cookouts

SATURDAY- Tomorrow will be a perfectly good day for a cookout here in SNE. We will be ahead of our next storm system that will not affect us until really late tomorrow night and Monday. Tomorrow will be a day that features more humidity and higher temperatures, mid and upper 80's. Clouds will start to develop later in the day and lower overnight and rain and thunder will commence for a general washout of a day on Monday. We will see tropical dewpoints into the 70's. We won't see inches of rain, but it will be a damp and cloudy day not worthy of the beach. It will have all the feel of a Monday. However, just wait a little bit and we will have days of sun and warmth Tuesday onward. By the end of the week, temperatures could be getting back into the 90's.

Hang in there.

Hope Everyone had a Good Fourth...Tropics are Heating Up!

SATURDAY- Hey guys. I hope everyone had a good Fourth of July holiday yesterday. For the most part the weather cooperated with cloudy skies, but it was mainly dry. It was a little cool along the coast with temperatures in the 60's, but hey, we'll take what we can get. Today was the first day in a while without substantial thundershowers and was nice. It was mainly cloudy here in SNE, but hey, a day without pouring rain is a good one in my book, nowadays. Tomorrow will be similar to today, but with higher temperatures. Tomorrow should be about 5-10 degrees warmer than this afternoon, but the coast will still likely stay a little cooler with a feeble wind off the ocean. That front will waver up from NYC a little bit which will get the South Coast and the Cape a little wet. A few of those showers may make it into Boston by later tomorrow afternoon as well. Then we get into a hot and hazy and stormy stretch for Monday through Wednesday and even Thursday could be a hot day, as the humidity decreases. We are talking about highs pushing 90 degrees on Monday with afternoon thunder.

By Tuesday and Wednesday we are well into the 90's and will see highs in the mid 90's here in SNE with afternoon thunderstorms still possible. It could get so hot that the atmosphere forms a cap on Tuesday that would limit thunderstorm growth, but on Wednesday there will be a cool front that goes through the area that will trigger thunderstorms, locally severe, about the area. This will lead to one more hot day in Thursday before we start to cool down later in the week.

I thought I would talk about TROPICAL STORM BERTHA as well. I promised that I would give you the latest after the Fourth about the possible development of a cluster of convection near the African coast a few days ago. Well I am here to tell you that it has indeed developed and is strengthening and will continue to strengthen as it heads towards land. Right now it is a moderate tropical storm with max winds of 50 mph and steady pressure of 1000 mb. This is expected to strengthen though in the next few days and we could see this storm approaching hurricane status by later Tuesday and Tuesday afternoon with winds coming up over 75 mph. With the placement of our Bermuda High pressure system staying in place, this is a good setup for a storm to be steered north of the Bahamas and curve towards the Carolinas or even make a swipe at the Northeast and New England. This is starting to nerve forecasters in our area and with good reason as this is turning into a good setup for a New England strike and it's been a long time. We are due.

We will talk more about Bertha in the days to come as it sure will start to make BIG headlines on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX in the coming days. By midweek, this should be lead stories across all of our media outlets if it is still a threat to the US, which is what it should be if current forecasts hold true.

That's all for now. Weather should be fine for outdoor BBQ's for Sunday afternoon.

Unsettled Forecast into the Holiday Weekend

WEDNESDAY - We have ourselves some really weird weather going on here in SNE. Every single day for what seems like the past month we have been fair game for showers and thunderstorms here in the SNE area. Every single day there is the threat of some severe weather and we got it today. Yesterday's severe weather was more confined to areas further west of the city out past Worcester and into CT, but today we were ground zero here in eastern SNE. Boston got pounded with storms between 2-3PM this afternoon with ponding on major roadways in and out of Boston that were flooded to the point where motorists had to leave their stranded cars. There are unofficial reports of nearly golfball sized hail just north of Norwood, MA this afternoon with a cell that moved from the southern part of the I-495 belt and moved northeastward slowly up past Weston/Waltham and up towards Medford and Stoneham and eventually hit towns like Lynn, Saugus, Reading, and exited off of Rockport, MA this afternoon. There were severe storms all over SNE this afternoon, with the most concentrated area from Worcester eastward to Boston and down on the South Shore to the North Shore and even parts of southern/central NH and ME.

After today's severe weather, we have another substantial shot at severe weather tomorrow afternoon, later in the afternoon this time, say starting in western New England after 2-3PM and not getting into eastern New England until after 4-6PM. This will allow temperatures to really get warm here in SNE. Some parts of our area will get into the low 90's, Boston is fair game for this type of heat, with 80's out in Worcester. This will be all the fuel needed for a cold front to spark off a line of severe thunderstorms tomorrow afternoon as it charges through our area. These storms will get stalled on the front that makes it just past Long Island, but kind of stays there all day on the Fourth.

This leaves us with a tricky Independence Day forecast. Right now I would say that if you are off of the South Coast and the Cape then you will likely stay dry for the entire Fourth and into fireworks time. But areas near that stalled front could be threatened by some showers and thunderstorms. It all depends on how far north that front is. If its further north, we could get showers and thunderstorms possibly up to Boston and its suburbs. However, right now, I would go with a low chance of precipitation on the South Coast and Cape Cod with basically a slight to zero chance north of the Pike, including Boston. This could turn out to be our driest day of the next bunch because after that, the front will come back north and we will be back into the pit of showers and thunderstorms every afternoon, after suffering through sweltering mornings and early afternoons where you can almost see the humidity. It seems the Summer of 2008 has picked its theme for SNE and we better get used to the threat of thunderstorms and severe weather almost every afternoon. It is in the forecast for the next week.

Also, interesting to note, in the tropics, there is something to watch that came off the coast of Africa that just caught the attention of some forecasters that it could form into our second named storm of the season, which is noteworthy since we are still a little over a month into Cape Verde season, where we see depressions develop off the African coast. This one could defy the odds and develop, so we will have to wait and see, but it is so far away from the lower 48 at this time, it is still 1.5 to 2 weeks away from posing any type of threat to landmass. So just throw it in the back of your mind and just check up on it in a few days to see if it developed. It's no big deal at this time.

That said, I hope you all have a good Fourth holiday and I will likely post again following the holiday and have an update as to when this stubburn showery pattern may finally come to an end and to see if we have something to be worried about in the tropics. Yeah, and the Rays are in first by 3.5 games on the Fourth!?