A frontal boundary in the upper plains is creating a nasty Saturday, along with the only chance for severe weather today (though a very small threat). In the Southeast, convection is greatly influencing widely scattered rain showers while the Northeast remains dry today. The water vapor imagery below from this afternoon nicely picks up this path of moisture while the movement of dry air is seen in the Northeast.

High pressure will seize control of the Eastern US as this next week starts while various frontal systems will track along the northern states through the week. The upper Midwest will be scattered rain showers and thunderstorms in the first half of the week and then dampen the northeast in the latter half. The air temperatures will warm up a bit into the 80's for an early summer feel, along with hazy and humid conditions as these systems pass through your regions in the coming days...

Tomorrow, June 1st will the be first day of Meteorological Summer and the official start of the Atlantic Hurricane season. Though the Atlantic has been quiet, those who have been paying attention may have already known about Hurricane Amanda which reached Category 4 (The Eastern Pacific Hurricane season officially began on May 15).

Though tornadoes can occur year round, as we move out of Spring, we leave behind the most active period in which they form (the most active MONTH specifically being April). Even though there have been devastating tornadoes as are seen each year, the total number in 2014 is rather low if you look at the climatological data.

The above chart shows percentile amounts of tornadoes averaged through each year (the key tells how many in each percentile through May 30). Local storm reports so far this year have resulted in a calculated total of 368 tornadoes by the end of May 30 for this year, a number well below the 25th percentile amount of 495.

While any one tornado can be very dangerous and cause catastrophic amounts of damage, the numbers do show that this has been a rather slow year for them.


Enjoy your weekend.

- JL

On the weather side of today, the radar below shows who will be able to BBQ outside or not:

There's some scattered showers and thunderstorms in New England, much of it occurring in the afternoon when temps will be in the mid 80's, which is up to 10° warmer than yesterday. A line stretches down the center of the nation of precip alongside a front, where everything from ND and MN into TX will see some showers and probable thunderstorms, unfortunately spreading into the Southeast by the end of the day.

Speaking of TX, western TX and into NM will see severe thunderstorms with a chance of possible tornadoes. Last up is the Northwest into Washington which, nothing new, will see yet more showers.

Other than all that though, plenty of sunshine for the rest of the nation.


Oh, did I mention there's a hurricane already? Hurricane Amanda's off the coast of Mexico. It's the strongest May hurricane, nearing a category 5 coming in at 155 mph with 932mb. Unfortunately it's heading towards the Baja Peninsula which will cause no shortage of problems for Northern Mexico and possibly the SW US.

Lastly though and the most important, a big thank you to everyone that we honor for today.

-Mike Merin

Taking a look at the radar you wouldn't expect to see any precip across the NY metro area as usually storms generally move West to East, however when you look at the surface map along with it:

That low pressure means we'll be seeing northerly winds, and that precip will be coming right for us. In addition there will be a few more showers/storms popping up as it gets warmer, but we'll have a 30-50% chance of seeing precip across the NY metro area, more towards the North, less towards the East. Because of the northerly winds this will make for an interesting system with the main energy lingering in the upper atmosphere instead of being drawn up by the Great Lakes, and towards the eastern part of New England there will be more Northeasterly winds meaning more energy from the Atlantic.

This pattern should be gone by tonight, though because of the much warmer temperatures on Sunday (increasing by 5-10° on average) we can't rule out a chance of a pop-up shower and possible thunderstorm as you move north.

The even better news is that it moves to a 0% chance come Monday, maybe a 20% if you're in northern CT or north.

-Mike Merin

Most areas of the country are experiencing beautiful sunshine on this Sunday as the visible imagery shows below.

With the exception of a weak stationary front traversing eastward through the the southeast, there's a lot of stable air in the atmosphere over the country today. High pressure remains in control for most regions in the Eastern US and plenty more sunshine is expected to follow as the work week starts up... Conditions will change though into the middle of the week...

The above image shows the gfs model representation of surface pressure early Wednesday morning... High pressure has been pushed to the south and low pressure will enter through the Great Lakes providing a few days of scattered precipitation to the Northeast as we enter Memorial Day weekend.

Temperatures look to remain close to seasonable into the holiday weekend as high pressure will follow the rainy end to the work week, but we can't completely rule out a few showers along the coastline for the weekend just yet.

More details will follow in the coming days. Enjoy you Sunday!

- JL

A pretty standard mid-late Spring weekend for the country. Visible satellite imagery below shows the atmosphere in a quiet state on this Saturday.

The front that brought plenty of rain to the east coast yesterday has pushed on out and high pressure will settle in for the first half of the week. A few sprinkles could fall in the Northeast on Sunday but generally dry conditions. Temperatures throughout are on par for this time of year. The next area of "concern" shows up late Wednesday taking the path you would generally see an Alberta Clipper follow during the Winter. The model output below shows low pressure across the Great Lakes late Wednesday and will track east-southeast through to the end of the week.

This will bring out the umbrellas for sure but temperatures won't be affected too much, just a bit below average generally in the affected areas.


Enjoy the rest of your day!

- JL

Time to get a little taste of Summer.

Yesterday's highs for the NE were in the low-mid 60's and today they'll be approaching 80°, even higher towards central New England. While the lowest temperature across the US this morning was a mere 25° in Lake Yellowstone, WY and Alturas, CA, today's high will be an even 100° in the SW coastal plain of Texas.

The high temps will also come with another volley of showers and possible thunderstorms, especially in this afternoon. The good news is that they'll be very scattered, so we won't be too battered by it. The greatest chance of the heavier precip and thunderstorms seems to be from sundown tonight into just after midnight, though the chance still remains for more pop-up storms during the day with the higher temps.

Tomorrow's forecast for mother's day seems to be sunny for much of the Northeast, so enjoy it everyone.

-Mike Merin

Like good weather? Well then today and tomorrow are just for you. For the northeast today we'll have partly sunny skies, clearing way to mostly sunny skies by late-day, and tomorrow will hold even more sunshine than today.

The catch is that tomorrow night the clouds and rain will catch back up with us and will continue to be a scattered nuisance from Thursday all the way into mid-Sunday, with even a chance of a thunderstorm on Saturday. The good news though is that again, it's scattered so we'll be hovering between a 30% and 50% chance of rain from Thursday into Sunday.

Below is the precip map for Thursday alone; you can see the NY metro area in that hotspot for the more concentrated precip. Grtanted it's nowhere near what's in the center of the country, we'll have a chance of seeing up to half an inch nonetheless, possibly more if thunderstorms hit.

The 4-5 day aggregate precip amounts show us still well off of the heaviest precip but still in range of the scattered showers and thunderstorms.

Unfortunately the models are still predicting scattered precip for Mother's day, though there will still be partly sunny skies for us to enjoy when the showers don't hit us.

Let's hope those showers break up by the time they get here.

-Mike Merin