For those enjoying an extended holiday weekend, Sunday very likely will be remembered as the worst of the four days.
Although the air continues to be warm and humid, a new surge of more humid air approaching from the south, in concert with a storm system slowly approaching from the west, will trigger multiple showers.
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Eastern New England starts Sunday without rain, but the rain already is advancing east through the Berkshires, Green Mountains, Litchfield Hills and Western New England, and will continue filling in from west to east for the remainder of New England Sunday morning to midday, arriving last to eastern ME and Cape Cod during the afternoon.
Once the showers arrive, expect passing periods of rain through the evening and overnight Sunday night, with the increasing moisture also raising the chance of thunderstorms, particularly by the overnight period. At ground level, we’ll see the passage of a warm front – the leading edge to that new, more humid air – on Sunday and this sets up a humid couple of days for the holiday.
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Because the approaching storm is rather weak and slow-moving, it will take a couple of days for the storm center to slowly traverse Northern New England from west to east, and the attendant cold front trailing to the south of the system will only slowly trudge from northwest to southeast across Central and Southern New England Monday into Tuesday.
The result should be morning showers Monday perhaps waning briefly, but new scattered showers and thunderstorms during the afternoon, with those fueled by temperatures around or over 80 degrees where sun breaks out growing strongest – and this is likely to be across the interior, where storms will last into the evening.
Because the slow-moving cold front still won’t be past Central, Southern and Eastern New England on Tuesday, our Independence Day does hold an elevated chance of showers and thunder.
That said, there are a few worthwhile points that add some optimism:
- the storm will be significantly weakened by then, meaning most of the showers and thunderstorms will be scattered, and likely occurring during the midday through afternoon
- the breaks of sun will still push temperatures well into the 80s with humidity for Southern New England (not likely so warm in Northern New England), so there will still be a decidedly summery feeling, and
- current indications are most storms should dwindle during the evening, meaning if all goes as planned, more towns would have fireworks than not.
We do see Independence Day as a turning point in the weather pattern – not only might we find improvement by evening, but a better and drier weather pattern sets up with highs in the 80s and only isolated storms at worst Wednesday through Friday, before the chance of scattered thunder rises again next weekend, in our exclusive First Alert 10-day forecast.