September 2014 – Right Weather Clients

Long-Range Forecast – September 29

September 29, 2014/0 Comments/in New Hampshire, Rhode Island /by fred@rightweather.net

A northeast wind will prevail for most of the rest of the workweek in Southern New England. That will keep it relatively cool during the day, and relatively mild at night because of cloud cover and the ocean temperature still in the 60s. There should be a roughly 10 degree temperature range from night to day Tuesday through Thursday.

Friday looks like a decent day with highs and lows close to normal for early October. A cold front will move through on Saturday bringing showers and possibly thunderstorms. Right now, it looks like the rain will be steadier in the morning than in the afternoon, but that timing could change. Sunday into Monday should be dry before another weak system moves through the Great Lakes and brings the possibility of showers in the middle of next week.

The active northern branch of the jet stream should carry another system through late next workweek. Once again, it does not look like a soaker, just the chance of showers. The pattern will stay active through Columbus Day weekend. Although it will be warmer than normal over the next two weeks, I don’t expect anything close to the summer-like warmth we had this weekend. Most of the “warmth” in the next two weeks may actually come at night when temperatures run several degrees above normal.

Long-Range Forecast – September 26

September 26, 2014/0 Comments/in New Hampshire, Rhode Island /by fred@rightweather.net

Thursday’s rain storm was close but not close enough for most of Southern New England. Cape Cod and Nantucket received 1-2″ of rain, but the totals were paltry for most areas west of the Cape Cod Canal, including all of Rhode Island. Dry and warm weather is likely through the weekend into early next week, and our next shot at rain is in the middle of next week as another storm develops along or off the Eastern Seaboard. The jury is out on how close the storm will come and whether we’ll get beneficial rain, but the potential exists for at least showers from Tuesday-Thursday of next week. In any event, the temperature will go from well above normal to near/below normal Tuesday through Thursday. It should moderate to near or above normal next weekend.

Another system will move through the Northeast late next weekend, and that one could bring showers.You may remember there was a moderate drought last fall before heavy rain in late November ended it. In general, the pattern looks fairly active in the Eastern United States in early October, and that should give us possible rain every few days. It does not look like it will be terribly cold at any point through the first 10 days of October.

Rain Likely on Thursday in RI and SE MA

September 23, 2014/0 Comments/in New Hampshire, Rhode Island /by fred@rightweather.net

A developing storm system that we have been watching closely over the past couple of days will likely come close enough to bring steady rain to Southeastern New England on Thursday. The storm is developing along the Southeastern United States coast and it will creep up the coast on Wednesday before arriving with rain late Wednesday night and Thursday.

Wednesday should be a decent day, with some sunshine followed by increasing clouds, and highs near 70 after a morning low temperature in the 40s. Clouds will thicken Wednesday night, and rain is possible, especially near the coast, by early Thursday morning. Lows will be in the 50s. Thursday looks rainy with highs only in the low 60s. There will be a 10-15 mph east-northeast breeze as the storm moves south of Block Island. Showers will likely continue Thursday night into early Friday before the storm drifts out to sea. Lows will be in the 50s Thursday night. If the storm tracks close enough to the coast, then more than a half-inch of rain is likely – a welcome soaking and about as much rain as many places have seen so far this month. Lighter showers are likely in Northern Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire.

After a murky start, the sky should brighten Friday afternoon. It will be seasonable with highs in the upper 60s to low 70s. The best chance of sunshine is away from the coast. It still looks like there will be plenty of sunshine and rather warm conditions this weekend. Both Saturday and Sunday should be mainly clear with highs in the upper 70s to low 80s inland, and low 70s near the coast. Lows will be in the 50s.

Long-Range Forecast – September 22

September 22, 2014/0 Comments/in New Hampshire, Rhode Island /by fred@rightweather.net

A few measly showers on Sunday brought the rain total for the month to just over a half-inch in the Providence area. If there is no rain for the rest of the month, which is possible, then this will be the second driest September on record, trailing only 1914 when there was 0.48″ for the month. It looks like there are two shots at rain during the rest of September. First, we’ll keep an eye on a system that develops along the Southeast Coast and drifts north late in the workweek. Right now, it looks like it stays just offshore, but the system that brought rain on Sunday also looked like it was going to stay away. These systems have a tendency to drift closer to the coast than what the models predict a few days out.

Overall, the pattern will be warmer than normal for the rest of the month and early October. The dry and pleasant weather through the middle of this week is actually pretty close to normal (70°/50°) for this time of the year.

The next best chance of rain is in the middle of next week when a system may move out of the Southeastern United States and up the Appalachians. It’s 8-9 days away, but the European model has hinted at it for a few days. The GFS model keeps the Northeast dry through most of next week, too. Both the GFS and European have a cold front moving through the Northeast with showers sometime between October 3-5.

The tropics remain unusually quiet and there are no strong signs that anything significant will develop in the next two weeks.

Long-Range Forecast – September 18

September 18, 2014/0 Comments/in New Hampshire, Rhode Island /by fred@rightweather.net

This September is well on its way to being among the driest on record in Southern New England. There has only been 0.54″ of precipitation in the Providence area, and that’s just a hair above the record low total for the month – 0.48″ in 1914. Of course, there are still nearly two weeks left in the month, but, most of the time it looks like dry weather will continue.

Our next shot at some rain is late in the weekend, but it looks like an offshore storm and approaching cold front will not get together, and the weather will be mainly dry except for scattered showers Sunday night as the cold front passes.

Most or all of next week will be dry. A huge area of high pressure will set up shop in the Northeastern United States, and fair weather is likely from Monday into next weekend. It will be seasonably cool early in the week, and then get warmer than normal late in the week. Of course, 70° is warmer than normal in late September, so we’re not necessarily talking about a heat wave!

We will continue to watch the Gulf of Mexico and off the Southeast coast for anything tropical next week into the early October. Some models are hinting at developing tropical systems in the 10-15 day range.

Long-Range Forecast – September 15

September 15, 2014/0 Comments/in New Hampshire, Rhode Island /by fred@rightweather.net

The temperature is running 3° above normal in the Providence area at the midway point of the month. The very warm first week outweighed the much cooler second week. The average monthly temperature will continue drifting back to near normal as more cool weather is ahead for the next five days.

Aside from a few stray showers on Tuesday, there is not much rain in the forecast through the weekend. A stray shower may pop up on Thursday as a cold front moves through, but that should be the exception and not the rule. A very early frost cannot be ruled out in the interior countryside of SE MA and N RI late this week. The weather should warm up by late in the weekend.

A cold front will move through early next week. Once again, it does not look like more than scattered showers at this point. More dry weather is likely in the middle of next week. Looking way down the road, there is a chance that one of these fronts taps into some tropical moisture in the Gulf of Mexico and brings a more significant rainmaker up the East Coast. The timeframe for that possibility is in the last week of September.

Long-Range Forecast – September 11

September 11, 2014/0 Comments/in New Hampshire, Rhode Island /by fred@rightweather.net

The second week of September has not been as warm as the first, but it’s still running a bit warmer than normal, and the month is averaging 5.5° warmer than normal in the Providence area through the first 11 days. That’s not unexpected considering how we saw the pattern changing near the end of August.

While the temperature pattern has been fairly straightforward, the rain forecasts have been difficult. Basically, by Saturday, there will have been just 0.6″ of rain in the Providence area in the past month. There have been a few shower chances that did not materialize, including this evening as a front is moving through without generating rain. The phrase “when in a drought, forecast dry” is pinging around in my head as I look at the outlook for the next couple of weeks. Right now, it looks like a decent chance of 0.1-0.25″ of rain late Saturday afternoon and/or evening and on Tuesday – primarily in the morning. We’ll see if those odds decrease as the even nears – similar to what happened tonight. Other than that, rain seems unlikely in the next 10 days.

One thing we’ll be keeping an eye on is the potential for tropical or hybrid systems to develop near the Eastern Seaboard in the 10-20 day range. A tropical or hybrid system could infuse some moisture into a cold front and bring much needed rain.

Long-Range Forecast – September 8

September 8, 2014/0 Comments/in New Hampshire, Rhode Island /by fred@rightweather.net

The big-time heat of the first week of September faded quickly late in the weekend, and an overall cooler pattern will take hold in the next couple of weeks. The weather looks mainly dry in the next week except for scattered showers and thunderstorms Thursday night. Temperatures will generally be in the low 70s during the day, and 50s at night.

Next week should feature near to slightly below normal temperatures. It also looks mainly dry as high pressure hangs on along the Eastern Seaboard. The tropics could come to life a bit in the next couple of weeks. However, we do not expect any storms to be near the US coast in the next week-plus. The best chance of seeing something form is in Eastern Atlantic Ocean as tropical waves move off the African coast.

Long-Range Forecast – September 4

September 5, 2014/0 Comments/in New Hampshire, Rhode Island /by fred@rightweather.net

September is off to a very warm start in Southern New England. Through four days, the temperature is running about 8° warmer than normal. It will stay very warm into the weekend before a cold front bring showers and thunderstorms Saturday afternoon and/or night. The front will also yield cooler weather behind it, with highs much closer to normal (mid 70s) into the middle of next week.

It looks like the weather will be pleasant early next week. There will be a developing storm to keep an eye on off the Eastern Seaboard, but it should stay south and east of Southern New England through Tuesday.

A storm moving out of the Midwest has a better chance of bringing rain to Southern New England in the mid to late workweek. Some computer models are hinting at the potential for soaking rain with that one. It’s a bit early to say if it will be Wednesday or Thursday that features rain.

The outlook for the second week is for seasonable temperatures, with the chance of showers next weekend and then in the middle of the following week. After the late-summer fling of mid to upper 80s this week, I do not see anymore extremely warm weather

Fall Outlook / Tropics Update

September 1, 2014/0 Comments/in New Hampshire, Rhode Island /by fred@rightweather.net

Meteorological summer is in the books. It was slightly cooler than normal in most of Southeastern New England. June and July were near normal, but August was about 2° cooler than normal, and enough to offset any warmth in the first two months. The season was notable because of the lack of extreme heat – something we foresaw in our summer outlook. As usual, rainfall totals varied widely based on the localized nature of summer storms. Coastal Southeastern Massachusetts saw more rain than normal, but most of RI had a dry summer – which we also predicted in our summer outlook. So far, the hurricane season is running well below normal, as expected.

Fall Outlook

The warmer than normal weather that we’ll have in the first week of September is a sign of what we expect for at least the first half of the fall (Sep-Nov). It finally looks like a ridge is setting up along the Eastern Seaboard, and that should make September warmer than normal, and possibly the warmest month of the year – relative to normal. That’s not saying much since there has not been a month more than 0.6° warmer than normal this year in the Providence area.

At one point, it looked like an El Niño was near certain for the fall and winter. The latest update from NOAA has lowered the odds of an El Niño to about 65% for the fall and winter. It does not look like there will be a strong El Niño developing. Even though there has not been much warming in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, it has been a quiet hurricane season. We do not expect there to be much change in that regard for the rest of the season. Typically, the action picks up in September, peaking early in the month, and we expect increased activity relative to what’s happened so far, but not enough to make it a near or above normal season. The Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) is running ahead of last year’s anemic pace, and should not be as low by the end of the season. Last year the ACE in the Atlantic Basin was 30% of normal. This year, so far, it’s 58% of normal.

Here is the latest NOAA Seasonal Outlook:

7-12 Named Storms
3-6 Hurricanes
0-2 Major Hurricanes
Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) range of 40%-90% of the median.

Precipitation forecasts are always tricky, and the potential for a developing El Nino lends itself to wet weather in the Northeast. However, barring a tropical system, we do not expect September to be a very rainy month. Overall, we expect there to be near normal precipitation in Southern New England this fall.

A Peek at Winter

Looking ahead to winter, we are favoring an active winter in the Northeast. Our preliminary outlook is for near to below normal temperatures and above normal precipitation and snowfall. The JAMSTEC (Japanese) model is bullish on cold weather for the US this winter, the CFS (American) model paints a different picture, but has been trending colder. In my opinion, the JAMSTEC has a better track record than the CFS.

Archive for month: September, 2014

Fall Outlook

A Peek at Winter