The Last 80-Degree Day Until Spring '13; Weather Changes on the Way

Another interesting sequence of events unfolded yesterday across the Tri-State Area, as a front managed to slowly drag itself across the Northeast during the afternoon... While clouds were fairly persistent, only managing to break for sunshine in parts of the Tri-State Area during the middle and later stages of the afternoon, the showers and isolated thunderstorms that occurred produced very little rain in many places - except for some northern suburbs...

As of this writing, a flood advisory remained in effect for the Pascack Brook in Bergen County, and flood waters on some of the parkways in Westchester County were just beginning to recede... More than an inch of rain fell during a thunderstorm late yesterday afternoon in White Plains, but both LaGuardia Airport and Central Park only recorded a trace of rain yesterday... This surely belongs in the "Hit or Miss" files!

We should have patchy dense fog for a while this morning, especially in those northern suburbs that were hit the hardest by heavy rainfall yesterday afternoon... However, with drier air filtering into the region today on light west and northwesterly winds, the temperature should wind up very close to 80 this afternoon...

We've certainly been talking about this possibility (reaching 80) the past couple of days, but the cloud cover, southerly winds and persistent fog have been limiting factors on daytime temperatures... However, with a good deal of sunshine returning for the first time in quite a while, it finally looks like we'll be in that neighborhood...

Dry weather tonight and during the start of the upcoming weekend will be accompanied by a wind that will be turning more towards the southwest... Therefore, we still feel that most places will have no trouble reaching the lower or middle 70s tomorrow, before a couple of showers associated with our next front arrive at some point during the afternoon...

That front will have a profound impact on how the rest of the weekend will turn out -- because as a low pressure system starts to develop along it late tomorrow/tomorrow night in the southern Appalachians, there should be an area of steady rain developing in an area north of where this body of low pressure will be tracking...

So, using the European global model as an example of what kind of rain we're anticipating, this form of guidance is calling for a paltry 0.02" of rain in Central Park late tomorrow as the front moves through, but then an additional 0.44" prints out during the day on Sunday... Because the actua track of this wave should make areas south of the City more susceptible to 'getting wet for a lengthier period of time', we expect that rainfall totals on Sunday will range anywhere from around a tenth of an inch in parts of the Hudson Valley and across interior sections of Connecticut, to between 0.25" and 0.50" elsewhere across the Tri-State Area, including the City, its adjacent suburbs and all points located farther south...

There doesn't seem to be any kind of flooding threat Sunday or Sunday night across the region, but after the kind of warmth we'll be experiencing today, Sunday will seem like a raw, damp and downright CHILLY kind of day, with most temperatures failing to get out of the mid 50s...

By Monday, there should be some sunshine returning, and most temperatures will return to the lower and middle 60s, which is still just a bit below normal for this time of year... Tuesday is looking fabulous, but we will have to be on the lookout for another round of showers during midweek as the next front arrives...

Have a good day !!!