The party is over as they say. Our stretch of mild and sunny weather is coming to a screeching halt and after the chill sets in, clouds and rain will follow. Temperatures have been falling all night and are now (8AM) at their chilliest readings of the day.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but even with the rain of a few days ago, parts of the areas could still use some rain and at least it’s coming during the workweek. I’ll cut to the forecast for the upcoming weekend briefly and say as of now it looks dry, sunny and seasonable.

Colder Air
A cold front has passed off the coast and is allowing chilly air to filter into the region. Highs today won’t get out of the lower 50s, but will remain in the 40s across the mountains. Winds will be coming from the northwest and be gusty at times adding to the chill of the day.

Sunshine will pop out between the clouds and there is just a small risk of a sprinkle or shower. There could even be a few snow flurries in the highest elevations of northern Vermont, New Hampshire and western Maine. Freeze warnings are posted for the coastline where there hasn’t even been a frost in many places.

The atmosphere then undergoes a big shift beginning Tuesday with a 3-4 day period of damp and cool weather including steady rain and perhaps some wind. The big picture has a coastal storm (nor’easter) slowly moving up the coastline from Tuesday through Friday. The exact configuration of the storm, the track and the strength will determine who sees the most rain and wind.

This storm will take a lot of leaves down in areas where the color has already peaked. There will still be good color next weekend in places, but after 4 days of wet weather the landscape will look different in many places.

The map below for Tuesday night shows a storm (low pressure, L) developing off the coast of New Jersey. The storm isn’t particularly strong, but will bring a long duration of east /northeasterly winds to the area.

This next map is for three days later on Friday. Notice the storm has only moved a few hundred miles and is still off the coast of Maine. If this was winter, we’d be looking at a very long period of snow.

These types of set-ups are what can give us our longest duration snowstorms in a winter.
Tides are at a lower point in the monthly cycle so I am not overly concerned about coastal flooding, but there could be some beach erosion from several days of an easterly flow of air.

Temperatures during this period won’t change a lot day to day remaining mostly in the 40s at night and 50s during the day.
Rainfall predictions are consistent in that a general 1-3 inch rainfall will occur across New England. However, the models disagree on where the heaviest rainfall will occur. The GFS has the heaviest rain over parts of central and western Maine while other models have the rainfall further east and north.

With a storm system slowly moving along the coastline for 3 or more days, it’s almost a guarantee we will see some periods of steady rain, but the exact timing of the heaviest rain still needs to be refined.
Have a good week.

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