5/8/12 A very unsettled weather pattern remains for May

Someone told me yesterday, "Why can't the weather be like it was back in March?"  Remember the stretch of sunshine and warmth.

 May is looking very cool and wet for New England and the pattern does not seem to change in the next 2 weeks. With the exception of this weekend where dry air and some sun will make for a beautiful May weekend.

A main area of low pressure will remain over the Northeast US for much of this week bringing clouds and rain showers into New England. Another area of low pressure over Minnesota (1), will join with this low and keep the clouds and rain around for Wednesday into Thursday. And a 2nd low, over Texas, will track across the south and then up the east coast and bring a chance for heavy rain especially along Eastern Mass Thursday into Friday morning.  High pressure over Montana will move in later Friday into the weekend to bring sunshine and gradually warmer temperatures.

Rainfall forecast up to 6 PM today. Heavy showers will fall across NH and VT, where eastern MA will see roughly 1/4" and the cape only a light shower.  The rain will be around through Friday morning however.

Heavy rain will fall Wednesday into Thursday across Cape Cod where up to 3" of rain could fall total. Boston will likely see up to an inch of rain.

(had to revert for older graphics for today for time)

5/6/12 Lack of posts.. and Wet wet wet...

First of all I would like to apologize for the lack of posts this past week. A new job has limited the time to prepare a forecast properly.

To make a good forecast for this blog, usually takes a minimum of 1 hour and sometimes up to 2 hours PLUS, depending on what is going on. 

So what is going on?   Briefly, the pattern that had been persistent from last Fall, through the winter into early April has shifted and we are now in a flow in which the storm track tends to be directly over us, or even to the south of New England.

It is something I like to refer to as the "roller coaster effect"

You can think of the jet stream as a roller coaster track, with the storms going along. New England just happens to be in the dip of the track so everything just pours into the region, the wet and the cool weather. 

A weak front will help usher in some drier air today on Sunday, but with a lot of moisture in the ground from days of rain, the sun will help produce some clouds before there is enough drier air to overtake the moisture.  The weak stationary front to the south will be a focus for the storm track later this week as mid week looks wet.