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.