10/23/2025

 Cool and unsettled.

The surface chart, radar and satellite

Surface chart shows the cold front well to the east with a series of shortwave troughs moving across the region keeping us cool And unsettled. Away from the great light there will be a chance for some light rain showers but these will be isolated. Downwind of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie we have those cooler winds moving across the warmer lakes Producing lake effect rain showers. On the radar we can see the upper level low that is spinning over the great lakes. This is responsible for all these troughs moving through that will keep us unsettled for the next couple of days.

Friday night and over the weekend high pressure will be approaching and setting up overhead. This will keep us cool but most of us look to stay completely dry. These cool but tranquil conditions last  for Monday and Tuesday. Then as we approach Halloween It will turn unsettled again. So if you have fall chores you will have a few days to finish them.

Wednesday we're going to be watching an area low pressure trying to develop South and east off the coast. As this develops Wednesday night and Thursday it is going to move north and east. If this tracks close enough to the coast It could bring rain to the northern Middle Atlantic, New England and eastern New York State. However it is very possible that this could track far enough south and east that our region sees little impact from it. Depending on the track there is a chance that this could bring some snow to the higher elevations of the Northeast. It's even possible there could be some snow in Appalachians. Depending on the exact track this could make for a very windy Thursday and Halloween. Over the last few days I have been talking about the end of October and first part of November looking to get quite cold. This storm very well could tap in to that cold air up over northern Canada and redirect it into the central and eastern United States. This could be the coldest start to November that we've seen in at least the last 5 or 6 years. I've been talking about this for a while now. So none of y'all should be surprised!

The drought

This week

Last week

The region saw a lot of variety in precipitation amounts. Areas that saw quite a bit of rain saw some improvements in their overall drought conditions. Looking at the maps we can see the improvements that happened in southwest Pennsylvania and northwest Vermont. Drought conditions expanded in areas that didn't see notable rain. Moderate drought expanded across southern Maryland, southern New Jersey ,Eastern Pennsylvania and northern New York State. Extreme and severe drought expanded across central and northern. Maine. The US drought monitor release today shows. 12% of the region in extreme drought, 24% in severe drought, 28% in moderate drought And 29% with abnormally dry conditions.

Tropical storm Melissa

The national hurricane center is showing Melissa has sustained winds of 45 mph, with a minimum central pressure of 1003MB.Tracking west northwest at around 2 mph.

On satellite we can see Melissa is being severely disrupted by strong windshear leaving her with a lopsided appearance with most of her conviction (thunderstorms) to the east of her center.

She is crawling over SSTs of 86°F-88°F with very warm water extending hundreds of  feet below the surface. Which is more than enough to support a hurricane.

Over the weekend, Melissa will drift and stay just south of the influence of that upper level high that has been causing all this wind shear. With the wind shear drastically weakening, Melissa will undoubtedly undergo rapid development becoming a major hurricane as she drifts near Jamaica. A category 5 is certainly possible.

image credit Tomer Burg

With her extremely slow forward motion She is going to be a huge rainmaker for that part of the Caribbean. She looks to bring a foot or more of rain to Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti

A dip in the jet stream is likely to force Melissa to turn with a possible landfall in eastern Cuba early next week. I've seen post on social media that are showing Melissa getting close to the Northeast as a hurricane. Possibly even making a direct impact. While anything is possible, The odds of this occurring are extremely and I mean extremely low. While the setup looks to keep Melissa's direct impacts away from the East Coast, a hit on southern Florida cannot be ruled out.

That's it. I made this a detailed forecast because I'm not sure if I'm going to release anything tomorrow. But who knows!