For the third straight day, all of southern New England is under a red flag warning for very high fire risk. While it won't be nearly as windy today as it was yesterday, it will remain breezy with very low humidity and continued dry conditions. As expected, several New brush fires cropped up on Saturday, including a fast spreading one in Lynn, MA that has now burned over 200 acres in the popular Lynn Woods Reservation.
Tonight is the big night...a round of showers will move through the entire region. A frontal system will pass to the north of the region, first lifting its warm front across New England followed by its cold front tonight. The result will be a batch of widespread light rain as the fronts make their way through. With warm air advection happening with the warm front, this will be an all rain event for a vast majority. Only the northern reaches of Maine may start as a bit of wet snow before switching over to rain.
Forcing will be weak with this system and meager moisture ahead of it will keep rain totals on the lower end. Guidance has continued to back off on rainfall amounts, which weren't exactly high to begin with. The best chance for a quarter inch will be south of the Mass Pike, with amounts dropping off moving north. Amounts will vary, but a tenth to quarter of an inch across the entire region is continuing to look likely. This will provide some temporary relief to the fire situation, but will not make a dent in drought conditions.
Showers will move into western New England this evening and steadily push northeast throughout the night, reaching northern Maine by daybreak Monday. A majority of New England will be drying out by mid to late morning. With the very dry conditions in place, it will take time for the atmosphere to become saturated enough for showers to actually reach the ground, which is a big factor in keeping rainfall amounts low. This evening, the radar will likely look more impressive with rainfall than what's actually reaching the ground.
Below: HRRR showing potential weather this evening (1st image) and early Monday morning (2nd image):
Monday will likely be the warmest day of the week by a long shot as cold air will lag behind the departing moisture and cold front. A strong westerly flow will allow for downsloping and temperatures climbing into the mid 50s north to mid 60s south. It will once again be breezy on Monday, which will, unfortunately, only help to dry out the ground after the meager rainfall.
Another cold front will drop into New England Monday evening and push through the region overnight, clearing southern New England by Tuesday morning. This cold front will be much stronger than Monday's front. This will usher in a much cooler air mass for Tuesday through Thursday. Highs for most of New England will be in the low 40s to low 50s. As of now, Wednesday is looking to be the coldest day as the cold air mass will be overhead. Most will fail to climb out of the 40s, with northern areas not getting close to that mark.
Despite the stronger nature of this cold front, Monday's cold front will have dried the atmosphere for southern and central New England, so very little to no showers activity will occur in these areas. The northern third of New England will likely see some scattered rain and snow showers develop, but amounts will be very light with little by way of measurable precipitation.
This front will kick the winds right back up. Tuesday will be the windiest day of the week, with sustained winds of 15-25mph and gusts of 35-45mph region-wide. This will really help add to the chill in the air, making it feel like mid-November. With a dry frontal passage, it will also make for another day of very high fire risk for southern New England. Yet another red flag warning may have to be posted for Tuesday, depending on tonight's rainfall.
Below: Euro showing expected wind gusts Tuesday afternoon:
New England's next system will move through Thursday and Friday. Guidance has continued to trend drier with this system, which is disappointing, but certainly not unexpected. As of now, it looks like energy from a trough will be suppressed to the south of New England due to ridging to the north. This will keep meaningful precipitation to the south as well, though some showers do remain in the picture. With recent trends heading toward a drier solution, it's becoming less likely that this will bring beneficial rainfall.
Below: GFS showing the trough moving south of New England. The Euro has the trough even farther south with ridging remaining over New England. We're using the GFS as there remains a spread in guidance in just where this thing will go:
After Thursday, quite a bit of uncertainty remains. This stems from the uncertainty around the trough. The general idea is that the trough may retrograde back toward New England while a ridge builds to the west. The uncertainty comes from the question of which feature will dominate. As of now, trends are for the ridging to the west to win out, leading to drier weather to end next week, though we'll be watching the trends all week.
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