This morning while walking the dogs, I noticed how dark it stayed so close to sunrise. With virtually clear skies the past week, it’s been getting lighter well before sunrise, not today however. Thick clouds, especially lower ones, block out a lot of light. Combine this with the lowering maximum angle of the sun and its weakening strength and you have gloomy mornings.

Temperatures are only in the 50s in most areas this afternoon making it one of the coolest days we have seen since last spring. I don’t expect any rainfall this evening as showers remain off the coast well east and south of the region.

You can see on the latest radar loop from mid-afternoon how the showers are not making any progress northward.

This pattern is going to be apparent again tomorrow as a persistent wind off the water keeps clouds and damp conditions going through mid-week. While we might see a few showers or some drizzle during this time, I am not expecting significant rainfall tomorrow. The wettest part of the day will be the morning when showers will be quite numerous, but not heavy. If you ended up with a tenth of an inch of rainfall, that would be a lot.

Thursday shows some improvement with more sunshine and pleasant afternoon temperatures. Friday is looking a bit better with mostly sunny skies for the nicest day of the work week since Monday. After a few days of cloudy and rather dank weather, the sun will be a welcome change.

Saturday is going to prove to be a forecasting challenge. Many of the models have a good chance of showers or even a steady rain. I am not yet convinced of this scenario. You’ve perhaps heard or read the saying drought begets drought. When an area is in a drought situation it becomes harder to break the pattern.

The map below is an accumulated precipitation forecast from the latest American model, the GFS. The map is a prediction of how much rain may fall through Saturday evening. Notice most of southern New England is forecast to see half an inch to an inch of rain. Right now, southern and central Maine remains on the northern fringe of any rainfall, so I might have to remove showers from the forecast if this trend continues. The bottom line on Saturday is plan for showers, but don’t be surprised if we miss them again.

Sunday will be the best day of the weekend and even if we do see some rain Saturday, I expect abundant sunshine for Sunday with pleasant temperature readings. The pattern we are in now is much cooler than over the weekend and while we could nudge 70F this weekend, I don’t see any exceedingly warm weather to start October.

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