This Week's Temperature Surge!
By Erica Grow on June 17, 2012, 10:24pm
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The unseasonably cool, but absolutely gorgeous weather we enjoyed this weekend will soon be replaced by hot and humid conditions. Just as we officially change seasons, from spring to summer on Wednesday evening, there might be a need for Excessive Heat messages from the local NWS offices in the New York City and Boston areas!
I expect that we will see nearly a 20-degree rise in high temperatures from today (Father's Day) until Thursday. Today's high in Bridgeport was 68 degrees and in Hartford, it was 76. You do the math!
The weather was fairly cool last week due to a quasi-stationary 500mb trough that lingers a few hundred miles out over the Atlantic Ocean. This trough is part of an Omega blocking pattern over the entire United States. The ridge, with hot and dry air, is currently over the Plains states and eastern Rockies. In the meantime, the trough gave us cooler than average temperatures this weekend. The Omega is starting to break down, and as the trough loses steam, the cloud cover goes away, which is one of the reasons we had lots of sunshine this weekend. Now, as model consensus pushes the weakening trough southward by Tuesday, it will allow the ridge to push into New England.
So, we have a weakening Omega block, finally on the move, pushing into Connecticut this week. What does that mean for our weather? I think it means that we'll get a taste of the weather they're experiencing out West right now, but not the full-throttle of heat and humidity.
On Wednesday, both NAM and GFS are predicting 850mb temps in the upper teens, and a strong wind flow out of the west. In April, when we don't have leaves on the trees yet, this pattern will certainly lead to widespread 90-degree readings in our state. (Remember the record high of 92 degrees in Hartford on April 16th of this year?) Now that the trees are fully leafed out, and vegetation is lush and healthy, the exact same conditions will not lead to the exact same high temperatures. That's why I'm keeping the forecast high under 90 degrees for Wednesday on my Inland 8-Day.
Thursday is the day I think we'll reach 90+, for a few reasons. First, the temperatures from Wednesday will not abate too much; lows will dip into the 60s for most of us, but some of the daytime heat will be trapped a few hundred feet above the surface in a temperature inversion. Then on Thursday, as the sun rises, that heat will quickly mix down to the surface. I expect you'll see a much warmer 8am temperature on Thursday than on Wednesday! With a warmer start, and 850mb temps on the GFS predicted to get up to around +20C, along with continued dry conditions (little to no evaporational cooling due to surface moisture), we should get above 90 degrees inland.
Have a great week! Keep checking back to wxedge.com for heat safety tips and forecast updates!
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