Spring time

This weather is terrible.  You know it, I know it.  Also, my apologies on the lack of blog recently, took some time off.

Today:  Cloudy with drizzle and rain showers, highs in the 50s.

Tonight:  More rain and drizzle, lows around 50 south, 40s north.

Tomorrow:  More of the same, showers and drizzle, highs in the mid 50s to near 60 south, low 50s north.

Tomorrow night:  Cloudy with the chance of showers, lows near 50 south, 40s north.

Friday:  Continued cloudy, chance of showers, a bit warmer, highs in the low 60s.

Discussion:

I'm like the rest of you, I'm ready for some sunshine.  However, Mother Nature is not quite done giving us a healthy dose of New England Springlike weather.  The weather feature that is responsible for all of this is a large low pressure system across the Eastern US.  This is a "cut-off" low pressure system.  This means that is a removed from the overall flow of air around the Earth.  It has no driving force to move it, so it is just sitting there, spinning.  It will continue to rotate showers and cool air into New England through the rest of the work week.

It is gradually losing strength though.  Over the next couple of days, temperatures will be slowly warming and the amount of precipitation we will see will be lessened.  Instead of the low actually moving away, it will essentially start to fill in.  The basic dynamics of the atmosphere function as follows:  "Air moves from high pressure areas to low pressure areas."  Normally low pressure systems can "stay alive" by steadily moving, slowing down the process of filling in.  However, when a low gets cut off, it doesn't have the luxury of staying ahead of the air trying to fill up the low spot in the atmosphere.

So much of the same through the day on Friday.  Conditions should improve on Saturday and I expect to see some sunshine.  This however will likely lead to more rain.  A moist layer at the surface and a quick heating from the sun will lead to instability.  This should produce some downpours and a few thunderstorms on Saturday afternoon.  Sunday is going to be the best day, can't rule out an isolated shower or two, but with high pressure build in, it should inhibit lift in the atmosphere.

We just need to make it through a couple more days and then we should be rewarded with a few days of pleasant conditions here in New England.

Thanks for reading!

-Jon K.