A very good Friday evening to you from Southern Connecticut Weather!

The past week has had some hints of fall-like weather, featuring crisp mornings, low humidity, and generally seasonable conditions, making for a refreshing break from the heat and humidity of the week before. However, summer has decided that it’s not ready to fade away just yet, and that makes this forecast a very hot and sticky one.

A strong upper level ridge looks to develop over the east over the next several days and into next week, resulting in generally calm weather and hot, humid conditions as a result of warm air from the south spreading north along the ridge. As there is no shortwave in the pipeline to release the moisture that builds up with heat, expect humidity to be rather high as well over the next week, with the only possible relief being a slim chance of some convection and thunderstorms on Thursday if some instability is present, which is suggested in the form of a cutoff shortwave on some guidance. I have painted a slight chance of thunderstorms into the forecast for Thursday to account for that. Given the heat and humidity, convection is certainly possible any day next week, but not enough confidence(<20%) to introduce it into the forecast.  

Here’s an image from the GFS model of the upper air longwave pattern. Notice the trough in the west, promoting cooler air and storminess, and the large ridge in the east, which allows warmer air to come up from the south and flood us with heat and humidity. The other image is a map of temperature departures for Wednesday, showing cooler air in the west where the trough can be found and warmer air across the rest of the country where the ridge is prevailing.

In general, a strong consensus on guidance throughout the next week, with the lone exception being the handling of Tropical Storm Erika. The European model disintegrates the storm before it comes anywhere close to our latitude, while the American model brings a wide areal coverage of clouds and scattered showers, but nothing remotely resembling a hurricane. The Canadian model, however, brings Tropical Storm Erika up the coastline late next week and brings a strong dose of rain and wind to the region. As of now, I am discounting the Canadian solution completely as the storm is relatively weak and does not have the necessary dynamics to move up the coast, not to mention it would encounter extremely strong resistance from the upper ridge as it tried to do so. Given that the Canadian is known for throwing out oddball solutions and has no support, combined with the factors above, I am tossing it for now, but will continue to keep an eye on the situation and will update if anything changes. I’m leaning towards no impact whatsoever and a dry forecast, but have written a chance of showers and thunderstorms into the forecast from Thursday into Friday to account for this and the possible convection described above.

Here's a look at Erika Thursday evening on the Canadian(left) and GFS models.

Here are the dailies:

Saturday: Sunny, with highs in the low to mid 80s.

Sunday: Sunny, with highs in the upper 80s.

Monday: Sunny, with highs in the upper 80s to lower 90s.

Tuesday: Sunny, with highs in the upper 80s to lower 90s.

Wednesday: Sunny, with highs in the upper 80s to lower 90s.

Thursday: A chance of showers and thunderstorms, otherwise, partly sunny, with highs in the upper 80s to mid 90s.(Note: If the CMC were to be correct and Erika were to come up the coast, temps would be much cooler). Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Friday: A chance of showers and thunderstorms, especially in the morning hours, otherwise, partly sunny, with highs in the mid 80s.

Have a great weekend, and thanks for reading Southern Connecticut Weather!
-SA

Good evening to you from Southern Connecticut Weather!

Well, it’s certainly been a while. As most of you know, I’ve been away for the better part of the summer in the Adirondacks with extremely limited access to the internet, and Tim has been recovering from losing his father in early July, and as a result, we have failed to keep this website as active as you and us would like. For that, we apologize. We thank you for staying loyal to us during our absence, and look forward to providing you with Connecticut’s leading weather coverage on a much more regular interval from here forward. As a reminder, our standard posting schedule, which we should be able to maintain from here on out, is two to three times weekly during the “off-season”(April-November), and daily during the winter season(November-April), with additional updates as needed during times of severe weather or impending snowstorm. Also, keep an eye out for a retouching of the website in the next few weeks; nothing major, but a reorganization to make finding our forecasts quicker and to remove some unnecessary clutter. 

With that out of the way, on to the weather.  After an impressive period of heat last week, the weather has broken the last several days, with near average late summer temperatures and a generally fair climate with lower humidity and little to no precipitation. The general theme for much of the week looks to remain the same, before warmer temperatures build back in as we approach the weekend. Let’s take a look at the dailies.

For tomorrow(Tuesday), we’re expecting to see our only significant chance of precipitation for the period as a frontal passage moves through overnight tonight into tomorrow, bringing some weak instability and a chance to set off some scattered showers and thunderstorms. While widespread severe storms are not expected, should the right conditions present themselves, as some guidance suggests it might, we could see a few isolated severe thunderstorms, with hail and strong winds being the primary hazards in any storms that do develop. Storms should move out by the afternoon in western areas, while eastern areas could see chances lingering into the evening and overnight hours. As far as temperatures go, we’re looking at slightly above normal highs in the low to mid 80s.

Wednesday through Friday will be near carbon copies of eachother, with mostly sunny to sunny skies across the state and high temperatures normal to slightly above normal in the lower 80s. No precipitation is expected throughout this period.

Moving towards the weekend, we begin to see warmer air build back in and humidity increase slightly, although remaining quite a bit below the uncomfortable levels of last week. We’ll generally see highs in the mid to perhaps upper 80s, along with mostly sunny skies, intermingled with perhaps a passing shower or two and perhaps a thunderstorm, especially towards the back end of the weekend. No widespread precipitation appears in the forecast for the weekend at this point however.

That just about wraps it up for this update, so thank you for reading and for your patience over the summer! Look for another update Wednesday or Thursday with a more detailed weekend forecast.

-SA