It’s become a familiar theme in New England over the last several days: dry weather great for outdoor plans, but an abundance of pollen, sunburns from prolonged sun exposure and high fire danger.
All of that is set to continue through much of this week, with a few breezy days only enhancing the drying of both landscape and body, making hydration important each day.
After a frosty start in some valleys of western, central and northern New England Monday morning, the dry air warms quickly under ample sunshine and only decorative, high-altitude cirrus clouds, reaching high temperatures around and over 75 degrees regionwide.
The breeze never completely quiets overnight Monday night under variable clouds, keeping temperatures in the 50s before warming quickly again Tuesday under a blend of sun and clouds, reaching the 80s for some by late day. Winds Tuesday afternoon will gust to 40 mph on Cape Cod and 30-35 mph elsewhere from the southwest ahead of an approaching cold front that will be producing a ribbon of rain and snow showers just north of the Canadian border Tuesday afternoon!
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When the cold front crosses New England Tuesday night from north to south, rain showers will gradually shrink as they move south, dropping nary more than a few hundredths of an inch of rain in some of southern New England by the time they arrive, hardly making a difference in either pollen count or brush fire danger.
As a result of the dry air and wind, the government has hoisted a fire weather watch Tuesday and Wednesday for the potential of explosive fire growth conditions.
That said, there will be a big difference in how the air feels between Tuesday and Wednesday, with Tuesday night’s cold front opening the door to a cooler northerly wind and lowering high temperatures by over 20 degrees for some on Wednesday as compared to Tuesday! It’s even possible some of the mountain summits see a few snow showers Wednesday!
New England steadily rebounds incrementally Thursday and Friday under sunshine with a room temperature feeling in the 60s before returning to near 70 degrees for the weekend.
From this early juncture, some showers look likely Sunday with an approaching, slow-moving cold front encountering increasingly moist air, though it’s still early to nail down the exact timing or amount of organization these showers or a period of rain would have.
Thereafter, we’re holding the forecast close to normal temperatures for this time of the year, but there are signals a northeasterly wind may take hold behind Sunday’s cold front – if that happens, we’ll need to lower the temperatures early next week in our 10-day forecast. So, the weather is straight-forward for now, but our team is watching the moving pieces farther out.
