Mild Weather Today With Breezy Sunshine, VERY Warm Weather This Weekend!

Good Morning, 

This morning's weather map is showing a large high pressure system with a center near Detroit (as of this writing), and it is going to promote dry weather across the Northeast and in the mid-Atlantic states for the next 24 hours...

But, there's a decent pressure gradient early today across New England, the eastern half of New York State and in New Jersey... Therefore, the breeze that managed to develop around midnight in the Tri-State Area is going to persist for a while this morning... In fact, westerly winds could gust as high as 25 or 30 mph for a while before they start to relax this afternoon... With a decent amount of sunshine, most temperatures will be in the upper 40s and lower 50s, and then they will wind up mostly in the 30s tonight...

We've been talking all week long about how the next wave of low pressure to emerge in the Eastern Region, a so-called "cutter", will be tracking well to the north and west of the I-95 corridor tomorrow and tomorrow night... But, a warm front associated with this feature will have some moisture overrunning it, and that will cause some light and spotty rain to occur here tomorrow — mostly in the afternoon and at night...

The timing is something else we had also mentioned yesterday, since it now is becoming more and more apparent that the zone of high pressure expected to drift across the Northeast later today and tonight will have enough dry air associated with it to 'fend off' the rain through at least midday tomorrow, if not a few hours longer... But the increasing cloud cover will prohibit the temperature from rising out of the mid 40s tomorrow, and then there will be very little change occurring tomorrow night after the warm front pushes through (the temperature actually could be within a couple of degrees of 50 at daybreak on Saturday!)

The warmer weekend we've been talking about is still on track... But, as the old saying goes: "The Devil is in the details" when it comes to pinning down precise temperatures each day... While all of the global models are in agreement that Sunday will be the warmer day of the two, let's face it: the numerical models do a much better job in mid-January when forecasting colder weather patterns, because these adhere to climatology... But, when you have to factor in a possible marine influence, especially on Saturday, and the cloud cover could vary quite a bit over a span of just 30 or 40 miles, it is obvious cases involving unusual warmth aren't as easy for the guidance to latch onto...

While Saturday's temperature was lowered by a few degrees in Tuesday afternoon's forecast package, it now is becoming more and more apparent (having seen these numbers come in higher for three consecutive model runs) that we should roll with temperatures no lower than the mid 50s, although it will be cooler near many of the south-facing shorelines...

On Sunday, it should be in the upper 50s, with some areas west of the City probably reaching 60 or 62 before all is said and done...

There will be a series of waves of low pressure early next week, which will be sliding across the eastern third of the nation... However, as we mentioned yesterday, the 'iron clad ridge' of high pressure located near the Atlantic coast is still going to take some time to get broken down... So, we should be allowing for some rain here on Monday as one of these ripples of energy moves along the spine of the Appalachians...

At this time, it appears as if we will be 'stepping down' into a chillier weather pattern next week, with another wave of low pressure moving in later on Tuesday or Tuesday night... That could bring with it areas of rain, or rain mixed with wet snow at times before some noticeably colder air starts to invade the region on Thursday.

Have a good day!!!

(I will be away at a weather conference next week.)