Saturday Forecast

76 Comments

2:26AM

DAYS 1-5 (MAY 13-17)
A cool weekend with a significant rainstorm for tonight and Sunday as low pressure intensifies off the Mid Atlantic Coast, moves northeastward, to just east of New England, then does a small loop before moving away Monday, which will also be somewhat unsettled. Then, the pattern completely changes as high pressure builds along the East Coast and initiates a warming trend toward the middle of next week.
TODAY: Filtered sun possible mainly southeastern NH and northeastern MA for a while this morning otherwise a thickening overcast. Rain may reach central MA, CT, and possibly RI by late afternoon. Highs 50-55 South Coast, 55-60 elsewhere. Wind E up to 10 MPH.
TONIGHT: Overcast. Rain overspreading all areas, becoming heavy at times late. Lows 40-45. Wind NE 5-15 MPH, higher gusts toward dawn.
SUNDAY: Overcast. Rain, heaviest in RI, eastern MA, and southeastern NH during the first half of the morning, then tapering to lighter rain/drizzle. Areas of fog. Highs 45-52. Wind NE 10-20 MPH, higher gusts, especially coastal areas of eastern and southeastern MA where gusts of over 30 MPH are most likely.
SUNDAY NIGHT: Cloudy. Periodic rain and drizzle. Areas of fog. Lows 38-45. Wind NE to N 10-20 MPH, higher gusts favoring eastern coastal areas.
MONDAY: Mostly cloudy. Spotty light showers. Highs 48-55. Wind N 10-20 MPH, higher gusts.
TUESDAY: Partly sunny. Lows in the 40s. Highs in the 60s.
WEDNESDAY: Mostly sunny. Lows in the 50s. Highs in the 70s.

DAYS 6-10 (MAY 18-22)
High pressure will be in control through the weekend of May 20-21 with warmest weather May 18 and 21 while May 19-20 are a little cooler due to a weak front from the north and an area of surface high pressure over southeastern Canada. A few isolated showers and thunderstorms may occur later on May 18. A cold front approaching from the west may bring a shower threat by May 22, which will be a warm day as well.

DAYS 11-15 (MAY 23-27)
Another unsettled period of weather is expected but this time it should be a mild stretch and not like the recent/current very cool pattern.

76 thoughts on “Saturday Forecast”

  1. TK thank you. I should think that no part of New England would be under a drought warning by the beginning of next week.

      1. Drought officially over and certainly no chance of any fire danger for the remainder of the spring.

        1. The 0-4 category over parts of CT still qualifies as “minor drought” even though the wording is “abnormally dry”, so as he was referring to New England in its entirety, it is not officially over with regards to the region, but it will be.

    1. The further north and east you the better chance. Boston has about a 40% chance the rain holds off until 9PM.

      1. That works. If they finish the fire pit, that will leave plenty of time foe a fire !!

        Thank you both.

  6. Good morning and thank you TK.

    It appears that most of the models have settled down. No more dire predictions
    of 3-5 inches of rain. The general consensus among the GFS, NAMS and Euro is
    about 1.5 inches give or take a tenth or so. The CMC and RGEM have 2+ inches.

    The HRRR seems pretty juicy, but that is just looking downstream where 18 hour totals are 2 inches.

    I suppose 2 inches is still on the table. Time will tell.

    The rain is already in Western MA and CT. In fact it covers about 1/3 of CT already.
    Temp here is 48 with DP 42, so I don’t think there is a ton of dry air for it to overcome
    at least at the surface.

    https://radblast.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/radar/WUNIDS_map?station=BOX&brand=wui&num=10&delay=15&type=N0R&frame=0&scale=1.000&noclutter=0&showstorms=0&mapx=400&mapy=240&centerx=400&centery=240&transx=0&transy=0&showlabels=1&severe=0&rainsnow=0&lightning=Hide&smooth=0&rand=24911308&lat=0&lon=0&label=you

    2. Not a surface issue. It’s a traffic issue. Too much blocking to allow precip to overspread the area swiftly. It’s going to be a while before onset.

      1. Yes, I understand that. Even so, I still think it gets in here
        sooner than we think. 😀

        1. Well, maybe not. From NWS

          — Changed Discussion —
          715 am update…

          The main change to the forecast was to delay the onset of rain
          today. Despite rain moving into western CT and the western half
          of Long Island early this morning, mid level dry air across
          southern New England will result in dry weather persisting
          through the morning in all but our far western zones. We do
          expect some showers to develop across western MA/northern CT
          this afternoon, but even in these locations expect the solid
          shield of moderate to heavy rain to hold off until early evening.
          Along the coastal plain, probably just a few sprinkles until
          after 5 or 6 pm despite an abundance of clouds.

          1. As the low moves NE on Sunday, heaviest rain moves with it.
            Have forecasted QPF amounts of 1-2 inches, with bullseye of 2.5
            inches possible across E coastal Mass through 8 PM Sunday.
            Showers will linger into Sunday evening as the low slows down
            as it moves into the western Gulf of Maine.

  8. There is a crap ton of dry air in the middle of the atmosphere. If you were in a plane right now above eastern MA about 10,000 feet you’d see a deck of stratus below and plenty of high clouds above you but it’d be bone dry where you were flying.

    Once that is overcome, it’ll rain nicely. But that’s going to take time once it starts raining into that air later today.

  9. The vast majority of MA/CT/RI and probably southeastern NH will probably see 1 to 2 inches of rain, but a few heavier amounts may occur. Some of this will depend on how significant the back-lash rain is on Monday. Very similar to ending up with a foot and a half of snow that really only looks like 10 inches because most of it fell in a few hours then settled, and we just added several inches to it slowly over the following 24 hours. Just can’t do the visual on rain since it sinks into the soil or goes down the drain. 😛

  10. Looking at radar’s first glance, it would appear the rain gets here in earnest by mid-afternoon easily. Thank you dry air!

    1. Keep an eye on a loop there and you will see it appear to make very little progress during the next 6 hours.

    1. Yup. The GFS op runs that were showing the butt ton of rain we’re not in agreement with the ensemble. Members were all over the place.

  13. GFS continues to show some pretty good instability for storms Thurs. Long way off but something to watch.

      1. I suppose. I am not much for doing that sort of thing.
        I take it for what it is and don’t look for what isn’t there. 😀

            1. Both 9 and 4 year old saw it instantly. 4 year old says it is creeper…whatever that is. 9 year old says it is papa.

              Nice photo, JPD

              2. Vicki. Doesn’t it look a bit like Santa? I’m sure the kids will wish it was 😀 And if you have a second look, you can make out a second face toward the right lower quadrant of the picture though not nearly as clearly defined.

    1. It sure does. We drove down a couple of nights a week during summers between high school years and well beyond

  17. Leading edge of rain shield just making it into Hartford. Should finally arrive in Boston around 8 pm.

    1. That won’t last for too much longer. You’ll be flipping the switch to AC in 72-96 hours.

    2. I recall many turning it on in June 2011….I may be off a year. I also recall turning it on when we were at Humarock for a week in June 1982

      I had mine on briefly when working the other day. Today I am in livinvroom so am running FP on and off. I love doing that

  20. An indication of that warmth on the 12z GFS showing enough instability for thunderstorms next Thursday.

  21. Never seen the word thunderbumpers before but this is what NWS for Taunton has for Thurs.
    The airmass
    destabilizes at this time with Totals 50-54 and CAPE near or a
    little above 1000 J/Kg. Expect scattered afternoon
    showers/thunderbumpers Thursday, primarily in the interior.

    1. Elliot from AccuWeather has used “thunderbumpers” for years.

      The instability may be there but the moisture probably won’t be. Isolated at best right now is my thinking.

  23. Very nice, Vicki. Looks like a welcoming place to relax. Love to sit out around a fire.

    1. Thank you very much. I also love to sit out. Now to see if we can have. Whw meet and greet here or perhaps it is too far

  24. Based on the radar. It looks like the heavy rain is to our west and really moving east but more like NNE. It seems western mass might get more rain than eastern mass.

    3. Keep in mind the level the radar beam is at, and also that a system is not a solid, but a fluid. The heaviest rain will be southern and eastern areas.

  25. A lot of those radar echoes to the west are bright banding echoes due to the radar hitting snow/ice. Still, the RAP and HRRR are placing the heaviest totals over central MA as opposed to eastern/southeastern areas, with a bit of a dry slot along the I95 corridor. I do wonder if that bright banding impacts the RAP/HRRR precip forecasts, since as far as I know they assimilate real-time radar data. They “see” those high reflectivity values and think it’s raining more than it is.

    As it is, with this storm, it doesn’t look like many if any places will come in above 2″ for rainfall. Mostly 1-2″ totals, and wouldn’t be surprised if many are on the lower half of the range, especially if the backlash doesn’t materialize. A win for the Euro over the GFS on this one.

  26. There is a lot of orange and red echoes over western mass But as tk mentioned above, it has to do with the radar beam.
    Although Pittsfield is reporting heavy rain.
    This might be wishful thinking but I wonder if there will be any sleet with those red echoes ( assuming the radar is accurate(

    1. Well I should mention that in my weather channel app it says heavy rain for current conditions in Pittsfield. But Nws weather.government site says light rain. so those echoes are not as strong as shown and also what tk said

  27. No rain here yet I’m surprised . Got the marshfield job in with no weather issues as expected and got it done in 5 hrs.

    2. Shouldn’t have been surprising. Was aiming for 7PM-9PM eastern areas for first rain.

  29. 0.20 rain so far. If it were not in 40s I’d swear we are having snow mixed in. Rain is doing that floating up thing that snow is more apt to do

    1. Those were drizzle drops mixed in, or busted up raindrops after having hit a surface. If there had been snow mixed in it would have been too wet to float upward, especially without any wind.

      1. That makes perfect sense. I knew it couldn’t be snow but didn’t recall noticing that with rain. Drizzle drops. I love that term

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