A very slow-moving weather pattern across North America and the North Atlantic Ocean has been benefitting New England much of this week, and while the benefits only increase through Saturday, it looks like this same slow motion weather progression will mean an extended period of showers next week.
For now, each day has been progressively milder, with cooling sea breezes kicking up in an otherwise light prevailing wind and our First Alert Team expects more of the same Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with even our coastal communities a bit warmer each day before sea breezes kick up each late morning through afternoon.
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By Saturday, inland communities will likely rise all the way into the 70s under a fair sky and light southwest wind! All of this dry weather continues to elevate both the pollen count and brush fire danger across New England, with the ongoing drought in central and eastern Vermont into western New Hampshire not improving and even expanding a bit in the newest national drought update, released by the government and university consortium on this Thursday morning.
Well to the west of New England, a persistent jet stream trough – a dip in the jet stream – has been churning a sluggish storm system east with recurring areas of rain and thunder from the Mississippi River Valley and Midwest into the Tennessee Valley. The jet stream is the fast river of air that flows high in the sky, steering storm systems and separating cool air to the north from warmth to the south, so to have a large jet stream trough means disturbances continue collecting in the same location, along with relatively cool air.
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This jet stream trough will set up over the eastern United States starting Saturday, opening the door here in New England to arriving rain middle to late morning Sunday, with showers continuing through the remainder of Sunday…but also sticking around, off and on, through all of next week! Until the jet stream trough breaks down and allows storminess to move away – which may not happen even into next weekend at the end of our exclusive 10-day forecast – the chance of showers remains elevated. This certainly doesn’t mean it’ll rain nonstop and, in fact, it’s possible we don’t see very heavy rainfall totals when it’s all added up, but the chance of showers looks rather high on any given day next week into next weekend, and with a northeast breeze, temperatures will struggle to warm up to the 60s, so expect mostly 50s all of next week, especially near the immediate coast.
