High pressure will remain in control tonight and tomorrow before pushing offshore on Thursday as a weak cold front approaches. With that cold front comes a chance of showers and thunderstorms especially Friday PM. Tomorrow will be warmer than today and Thursday will feature a return of the humidity. Given that it is late August my eyes continue to be focused on tropical weather in the Atlantic.
General Overview
No doubt about it today was one of the top days of the year. Low humidity, bright sunshine and max temps in the low 80's made for a comfortable day and a great afternoon to be outside. So who is to blame for such wonderful weather? High pressure centered over the Mid Atlantic is. The source region for our air mass in a configuration like this is Southern Canada.
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| WPC Surface Analysis 2 PM Tuesday |
Tonight that high will begin to slide offshore a bit. Our winds will remain out of the west tonight and tomorrow before taking on a southwest component tomorrow night (they were out of the northwest yesterday and last night). That slight offshore shift of the high will allow for max temps in the mid to upper 80's tomorrow.
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| NWS NDFD 2 m max temps Wednesday (image Weatherbell) |
Not back to school or fall sports yet and thinking of heading to the beach? Get up and get gone. Surf zone forecast looks great for all Southern New England beaches with low rip current risk.
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| NWS Boston Surf Zone forecast Wednesday |
By tomorrow evening look at the high pressure moving offshore.
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| WPC Surface Forecast Wednesday 8 PM |
The resulting southwest flow leads to a return of dew points in the 60's on Thursday. There should be a few more clouds on Thursday so temperatures max around 85. Friday we watch the approach of the cold front and the chance of afternoon showers and thunderstorms. I don't think we see anything like Sunday night/Monday morning. For those who were sleeping *pun intended* a EF-1 tornado with 100 mph winds tore through Concord around 345 AM Monday. Here is some damage.
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| NWS Boston storm survey Concord, MA |
This became the first tornado since June 23, 2015 to hit Massachusetts when a pair of weak twisters impacted Westminster and Wrentham. Some 230 years ago a tornado hit Sturbridge on this date proving that late summer is still tornado season in Southern New England.
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| 1786 Sturbridge tornado via NWS Boston |
Tropical Outlook
The tropics remain active. Gaston (far right) is nearing Hurricane strength while the middle disturbance continues to slowly organize.
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| NOAA Atlantic Wide View Rainbow Infrared Satellite image 645 PM |
Gaston is on its way to be a powerful open ocean "fish" storm. In five days the middle system should end up near the Bahama's. Where it goes from there is a good question. How strong it gets is also a good question.
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| NHC Atlantic 5 day tropical disturbance map |
As I stated yesterday I believe the storm organizes enough to become named Hermine and it could possibly become a hurricane in the warm water near the Bahama's. Then will it turn into Florida and the Gulf of Mexico or will it carry north towards the northeast? Or does it weakly carry out to sea? I think a track towards Florida and the Eastern Gulf of Mexico before moving north is most likely because of an upper ridge in the Southeast.
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| NCEP/NOAA relative measures of predictability Tuesday August 30 |
This chart shows a decent probability of a ridge near the SE coast in a week. Now where this sets up exactly will determine the eventual track of this disturbance. No need to panic I'll keep an eye on it. We have time!
Five years ago today I was tracking a Hurricane in the Bahama's by the
name of Irene.
-Zack Green
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