A very warm Election Day

 

Today’s Northeast weather discussion…

 

High pressure is slipping east, allowing a southwest flow to bring in Balmy temperatures for today, so it will be excellent to go and vote.

The surface chart shows the cold front over the Plains moving into the Midwest. As this approaches our region, it is going to be much weaker.

Today will be breezy, ahead of the moisture starved cold front, with rain chances going up for western Pennsylvania this evening, rain will become a little heavier tonight into the overnight, but coverage will be spotty. The rain will make it into western New York State early tomorrow morning, but again coverage will be isolated.  The weak cold front will push across New York State and Pennsylvania tomorrow morning and afternoon, making it into New England and the Middle Atlantic late in the day on Wednesday, again rain will be isolated to widely scattered.  The cooler air coming in behind the front will be slow to make it in, so Wednesday will still be fairly mild. There could be a few lingering showers for eastern parts of the region Thursday morning.

Thursday through Saturday, high pressure overhead will provide more sun and dry conditions, with temperatures cooling off to around seasonal. So, all in all, not all that bad for the first part of November.

Sunday, high pressure will shift off the Coast, which will allow a cold front to approach. This front will move through on Sunday into Monday, bringing a chance for scattered showers; some of these showers could briefly become locally heavy. Then high pressure builds back in for Tuesday and sticking around for a few days.

This back-and-forth temperature pattern is going to be with us for the foreseeable future.  There will be rain chances, but I don’t see any big soaking rain events. So don’t hold your breath looking for drought relief.

 

  Rafael

 

He is continuing to organize, the favorable conditions should allow him to become a hurricane later today, before impacting the Cayman Islands late this evening, and then western Cuba.  Once in the Gulf conditions do become much more hostile, but he should still be a hurricane when he gets into the Gulf on Thursday, he will move over the Gulf Stream, these waters are warm enough, that he could become a Category 2 hurricane, But the higher wind shear, dry air and cooler water north of the stream should weaken him fairly quickly.  So, if he makes it to the northern Gulf Coast, the best he looks to be is a tropical storm. Most of the guidance has him moving toward Louisiana and maybe Texas, but some do turn him west before reaching the northern Gulf Coast.

Between the high pressure in the Atlantic and Rafael to the west, Florida will be quiet windy, for the next couple of days, rain doesn't look to pose a flood threat. The flood threat becomes a bit higher for Georgia into parts of the western Southeast.