Wednesday Forecast

48 Comments

7:12AM

COMMENTARY
Warning! Quiet summer pattern ahead! Sorry, I don’t really do “drama” so I was just having a little fun and poking fun at media at the same time. But joking aside, I do want to give a shout out to the National Weather Service Boston for a spectacular job warning and informing those impacted by severe weather in southeastern New England, especially Cape Cod, between Monday night and Tuesday afternoon, as some big storms rolled through the area. There may be some significant damage and power outages, but there were no serious injuries and no lives were lost. Severe weather in a densely populated area during vacation time can have very bad results, and their warnings helped avoid that. Damage will be repaired. Lives can’t be replaced, and they very well may have saved some. Great job NWS!

DAYS 1-5 (JULY 24-28)
So, about that quiet weather. A final wave of low pressure is close enough for a few showers on Nantucket to start the day, otherwise we’ll see a clearing trend as drier air arrives from Canada. High pressure moves into the region by tonight and Thursday then hangs around through the weekend. We will see a gradual warm-up and very slow increase in humidity, which you won’t really notice until sometime over the weekend, but not reaching the levels of last weekend, just more typical for mid summer here in New England.
Forecast details…
TODAY: Early shower Nantucket otherwise clouds give way to sun. Highs 70-77 coast, 77-84 interior. Wind light variable with sea breezes.
TONIGHT: Mostly clear to partly cloudy. Patchy fog possible rural low elevations. Lows 56-63. Wind light variable.
THURSDAY: Mostly sunny to partly cloudy. Highs 78-85, coolest coast. Wind light N with coastal sea breezes.
THURSDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 58-65. Wind light variable.
FRIDAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 80-87, coolest coast. Wind light variable with coastal sea breezes.
FRIDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 60-67. Wind light S.
SATURDAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 83-90. Wind SW up to 10 MPH.
SATURDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 62-69. Wind light SW.
SUNDAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 85-92. Wind SW 5-15 MPH.

DAYS 6-10 (JULY 29-AUGUST 2)
Typical summer pattern to end July and start August, warm to hot, some humidity but not extreme, and a few opportunities for showers and thunderstorms, especially July 30-31 as an old frontal boundary gets close to the region before washing out. This pattern will be driven by a ridge of high pressure out West, a weaker one off the East Coast, and a northward-displaced jet stream with a weak mean trough in the Upper Midwest to Great Lakes.

DAYS 11-15 (AUGUST 3-7)
A stronger front may cross the region August 4 or August 5 as the trough in the Upper Midwest gets a shot of energy from a Canadian disturbance and makes a run into the Northeast. This may set up a more seasonable temperature pattern but also provide greater opportunity for another round of showers/storms later in the period.

48 thoughts on “Wednesday Forecast”

  1. Good morning and thank you TK.

    Pretty amazing few days. Great to have this forum during weather events.
    Thank you for all you do.

  2. Thank you, TK.

    Great writeup on NWS and I completely agree. I will call them – at whatever number I can find – and say thank you. I know it sounds silly, but ……well, I’m a silly person 😉

  3. Thanks TK !

    Will the NWS try to estimate how much area received straight line wind damage in addition to the tornado damage ? Thanks !

    A Lyndon State College alum, who was a few years ahead of me when I was a freshman, amongst the crew on duty at the NWS yesterday, kjc. 2nd the great job by all yesterday down at Norton.

    1. That is very interesting, Tom. You reminded me what Pete had to offer about your dish cleaning skills and I’ve been chuckling for a bit!!!

  5. There must be an enormous range for each category of tornado. Watching videos on instagram and FB, the damage on the Cape is far worse than both EF1s out this way a year ago.

  6. Thanks TK great writeup! As it was happening yesterday I was completely impressed by the NWS and the local mets. A big standing O to them!

  7. Thank you, TK, for all you do. You’re an excellent forecaster, writer, teacher, and moderator.

    A fairly short-lived burst of heat is hitting Europe right now. More records are being broken. In the article contained in the link you’ll see a map with different shades of red. France is once again being hit hardest by severe heat.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49083283

    1. The article also points to the ongoing drought. Frankly, this is a far more serious problem than the periodic bursts of heat this summer. As I’ve posted on this blog before, the past 18 months or so have been exceptionally dry in most of Western Europe. That is much more unusual than the heat. Drought is extremely unusual in the Netherlands. Yet, they’re (farmers, especially – Holland is a huge exporter of agricultural products) dealing with it now and have been for more than 18 months. By the way, there’s also an ongoing serious drought in Washington State. Its weather, the western half, is often very similar to the Netherlands.

  11. This photo has been floating around Face Book purported to be
    yesterday’s tornado taken by staff at the Cape Cod Beach Chair Company in Harwich.
    I STRONGLY suspect this is a file photo from who knows where/when. (I checked their website and there was no mention of this at all. hmmm)

    What do you think?

    https://imgur.com/a/JpMYZMV

    1. I vote file photo, 2 reasons : it looks like nighttime and the hill in the background. There aren’t any south of rte 6 from Yarmouth to Harwich.

      1. That’s not a hill, it is a bit of a rise in the terrain. 🙂
        And there is plenty of that around there. In fact the restaurant
        in Harwich where we were headed today, is situated on a hill
        certainly as high as what is depicted in the photo.

        I don’t know how dark it was during the storm.

        But given what I stated, I agree with you 100%. Why do people do this shit?

  12. On a completely different note: Just completed binge watching the
    series “DARK” on Netflix. A very complex,deep and intriguing show to say the last.

    This show is a must for any Sci-Fi fans out there.

    It is German and dubbed in English. Not spectacular dubbing, but tolerable.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_(TV_series)

    1. Thanks for the tip JPD, I shall pass it along to my husband. He is always looking for a good Sci-Fi series.

  15. Ch. 7 put up a list of Cape tornadoes in past years. I noticed Katama Airpark in Edgartown on 12/18/1951. I won’t dispute the year but the month can’t be correct. Can it???

  16. As Vicki noted, Santa will arrive 5 months from now. The chestnuts are growing rapidly now in the Public Garden. In 4 weeks they’ll start dropping to the ground. The red-winged blackbirds have for all intents and purposes halted their singing. You’ll hear an occasional chirp, but their spring and early summer banter is over. They’ll depart in 5 weeks or so, as well as hummingbirds.

    Article on global warming:

    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49086783

  18. Just returned from a ride to Dennisport and Harwich, motivated by my in-laws having owned a cottage off of Lower County Road. They just sold it last week after 20 years of ownership, but I still had to see how the area fared.

    Took exit 9 onto rte 134 southbound. At the exit, there was an occasional small branch down and a few leaves and twigs down, but not much really.

    Heading south on rte 134, once we got to where they just built a bridge, going over rte 134 for the main Cape bike path, we started to see larger branches, an occasional tree down and the side of the road more covered with leaves and twigs.

    Crossing the intersection of 134 and 28, the amount of down trees, large trees, increased quickly. It was easy to see the straight line wind damage occurred btwn rte 28 and the south facing beaches. Lower county road was a mess. It was easy to see it was straight line wind damage in Dennisport, no trees were snapped, it was the classic root system ripped up from the ground. Usually in a circular shape, the diameters of that grassy, dirt, root systems had to be anywhere between 2 and 5 feet across.

    After stopping at the road that my inlaws house was on, (their house did well, 2 and 3 houses away had trees fallen on them) I got back onto Lower County Road, headed toward Harwich.

    I had to take a left at Sundae School, as the road was blocked by tree and electric crews working.

    I got back onto rte 28 and headed east toward Chatham and took a left up Rte 124 in Harwich. I wanted to go up that road, as I heard it saw a lot of damage.

    Paralleling rte 124 northbound, to the right, I could see in the woods a path of trees that were snapped at the top. I couldn’t pull over, so I took a right onto a side street and sure enough, came into a hundred yards or so of area that the tree damage was extensive. It’s here, I’m pretty sure I crossed the northern path of the 2nd tornado.

    Then, turned around and headed home.

    Kudos to all the men and women out there cleaning up and restoring the power. So tons of electrical crews and tons of tree companies doing an amazing job.

    1. Tom. This was riveting. Thank you. It is wonderful your in-laws home was spared. Just tragic for many more. I feel it is nothing short of a miracle that with the population on the cape swelled beyond capacity that there were no injuries or deaths.

  19. When you see tornado damage up close it is something. I remember taking a ride last May through the towns of Oxford and Southbury that and EF1 tornado struck and couldn’t believe the damage with trees and power lines all over the place. There was one house in Oxford where there were trees that came down and house was surrounded by them.

  20. I been extremely busy as of late, but I was happy I didn’t go to cape cod like I planned lol.
    Any way, despite all the stuff going on I been enjoying what I can of New England while I can. I won’t be able to get to the Cape before I leave.

    Anyways TK question what do you think about Hurricane season down in the USVI. Could we expect activity to increase end of August/September? Probably can’t answer this question but worth a shot to put down some of my Mothers nerves. 🙂

    On other news a scientific primary source on point source pollution as we call it in Environmental science. It is bringing some questions though in the field but I in general agree with it but question some of its sources.

    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00227-019-3538-9#Sec1

    1. I think overall the season will be fairly quiet and won’t match NHC’s prediction. But even a quiet season is one you should not let your guard down. All it takes is one storm…

      Andrew, 1992. Quiet season, devastating storm.

  21. Regarding that photo…

    Not even close to being legit. It’s a combo of 2 photos taken several years ago, hundreds of miles from Cape Cod. The storm has almost no lightning with it, and like many of our tornadoes, they don’t look like elephant trunks under a high based super cell.

    THIS is an actual photo of tornado #1 taken at Parkers River… https://scontent.fbed1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/67683738_10157474655412265_1169838491727560704_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&_nc_oc=AQnwdRKMRvYBP2EwPROeXwFpb29nAMq3VjLzy2hmIVcYiUB_Cs7UG0koxhVq2dR_hSs&_nc_ht=scontent.fbed1-2.fna&oh=6317616bae63211827c896a17cfaef58&oe=5DA0C27A

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