Another tranquil morning prevails across much of the Eastern U.S. today -- since a high
pressure system is still the dominant feature along the coastal plain... And, with a decent amount
of sunshine for a while this morning expected to mix with high and mid level clouds this afternoon,
light winds out of the south and southwest which we're expecting this afternoon should nudge
most temperatures into the lower-80s... In most cases, actual high temperatures this afternoon will
be pretty close to what verified yesterday... Tonight, a cool front which is currently causing some
shower activity in the Great Lakes region will waste no time pressing into the Northeast... We've
been talking about this boundary all week, and there were some timing-related 'tweaks' done with
our forecasts over the past 48 hours... But, the big 'take-away points' that we want to get across
are:
-- This front will be moving so quickly that it won't have a lot of time to gather much moisture as it
reaches areas east of the Appalachians late tonight... So, there will probably be a couple of widely
separated showers occurring across the region... Quantitative rainfall amounts will average less
than a tenth of an inch, with some places only getting a trace of rain...
-- Any lingering clouds tomorrow morning should break for a decent amount of sunshine...
-- While tomorrow and Sunday should be progressively 'cooler', most daytime temperatures will
still be in the 70s, and not very far from typical levels for mid-September (normal high
temperatures now are mostly in the mid-70s)...
The next ridge of high pressure building into the region Saturday night and Sunday morning will
be sinking to the south on Sunday afternoon (and, it looks as if Sunday will be the "sunniest" of
the two days this weekend)... Monday will probably start off sunny, but clouds will tend to increase
as the day wears on... The global models seems to be in agreement that there will be two, separate
areas of low pressure to watch early next week: one will be associated with a vigorous upper-air
disturbance that should be diving into the Great Lakes region, while the other is a piece of energy
that will be coming together along the Gulf Coast on Monday afternoon... With these two features
showing signs of "phasing" in the eastern third of the nation on Tuesday and Tuesday night (that
sounds like some of the typical "East Coast winter storm dialogue" that we'll be using in the not
too distant future), we do have a good chance of getting some rain around here on Tuesday and
Tuesday night... At this point, we expect rain-free weather to resume during the middle of next
week... Have a good weekend!!!
