Rain Rain On It's Way

The above image shows our future in the next few hours. Rain is moving in from the west. Most of it will be light and much like yesterday, stay to the south of our area. Best chance for showers will be late tonight into early Tuesday. Tomorrow afternoon will be slow to clear, as the weak low pressure system slowly pulls away from our southern coast.



This next image is of our upper atmosphere on Wednesday. This model shows us the position of the jet steam about 5000 meters above ground level. All of that orange and yellow over southern New England indicates that the jet stream will have a strong northwesterly flow over our region, called a polar vortex. What this means is a large pool of cold air will form over our heads, creating quite the temperature difference between ground temps and upper air temps. What this means for us is a cool, cloudy day, where temps will only reach the lower 50's, possibly even colder if clouds set up early on in the day. You can also expect a pretty breezy day, as those jet steam winds are pretty strong overhead and create quite the mixing scenario!

After that, spring returns. Our good friend High Pressure returns and sets up a warm airflow direction for several days. Next weekend looks to be beautiful.

Weather Takes a Backseat

Weird weather day. Rain never progress past south shore. Unstable the next two days, but all signs point to a warm up next week.

Now, to the important matter, the NBA playoffs. I write this blog as the Celtics are up 68-64 late in the 3rd quarter of game 4.

My Celtics look great right now, but Miami is just a good match up for them. Loads of talent on this Heat team, but they don't have the right pieces. Dwayne Wade is a legit superstar. Top 3 player in the league, but if you want to look at how two teams with superstars have gone in different directions, just compare Cleveland versus Miami. After 2008, Cleveland re focused on defense, kept key roster guys like Varejo, Big Z and added key pieces like Jamison, Mo Williams and Leon Powe. Shaq was a bit of a miss, but they built around Lebron and realized that you create offense in this league by scoring in transition off of defensive stops. Lebron is almost unstopable in transition. The Heat? They never added any legit pieces around Wade. Jermaine O'Neal? He has been useless for 3 years now. Dorell Wright and Haslem are good players, but they needed another scorer besides Wade and I am sorry, Quentin Richardson just won't do it. The Heat focus their team too much around Wade. They have since their championship in 2006. Two teams, both with superstars but they could not be more different.

The Celtics will win this series today. Wade will stay in Miami because they have the cap room to get another great player (Bosh?) but Miami needs to shed its garbage players as well.

As for another series, I have been impressed with Oklahoma City all year. They are a very good team with lots of talent. And they are certainly no 8 seed. I love their matchup with the Lakers. 2-2 right now, and the Lakers probably pull it out in 7, but do not be surprised if the Thunder shock an increasingly vulnerable and injured LA team.

Dwayne Wade has just hit 3 3pointers in a row. Great player but it is all on him. I need to go play softball.

Interesting Post

My good friend Erin Burke turned me on to on of her University of Washington weather professor's blogs. He had an interesting post about the volcano eruption. Here is the link. Good stuff.

http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2010/04/eyjafjallajokull-iceland-volcano-and.html

How Bout Them Celtics!

The Ticket Stub! Celtics take the series in 5.

What Happened?

I think I just realized it was Tuesday. What a weekend I had. What's that you say? You want a recap done in one sentence intervals? Done (In no particular order)

Standing on my feet for a over 18 hours. Somehow avoiding to eat free Cliff product sales passing under my nose all weekend. Riding my undersized woman's bike to the expo center at 7 am on a rainy Saturday morning. Getting my jacket taken by some jerk. Talking to the most Canadian people in one day. Taking way to long to realize that Cliff's new protein product name "Roks" makes it sound like they are selling crack or slangin crack. Losing my bike lock keys and thus being unable to unlock my bike down at the Prudential Center. Being made fun of by Somerville bike shop guy for not registering my bike lock with the police or getting a bike license.(Fuck that guy) Drinking a bottle of wine in an alley. Getting 2.5 hours of sleep before a 12 hour shift. Being discriminated against by taxi drivers for living in Somerville. Learning that Cliff products are not widely distributed in Canada, making the Canadians slightly irritated, which is as angry as Canadians get aboot anything. Sleeping for 16 of the possible 24 hours on Monday. Somehow finding Katrina more drunk than me at 3am on Sunday morning. Didn't see any Bruins, Celtics or Red Sox games, except for innings 1-4 yesterday. Getting myself sick on Tuesday for body misuse.

Well, that's a pretty good run down. Oh right, the weather.

Beautiful today and tomorrow with temps in the low 70's. Cooler thereafter. Might rain on the weekend. That's all you get today.

One more thing. Watch the Celtics dominate tonight and take a 2-0 lead to Miami. We don't need Garnet to beat this Heat team. We match up well against them. I am already looking forward to Cleveland/ Boston round 2 that will probably go 7 games.

Flights in Northern Europe continue to be affected by the massive amounts of ash surging into the atmosphere at all levels. The image above shows the general directional flow of the ash the past few days. The jet stream is suppose to change direction over the next few days, giving some relief, but people trying to get into Boston for the marathon may not get here at all. Strange situation!

Dreary Weekend

This image says it all. A pretty yuck worthy Saturday is in store for us tomorrow. A very slow moving low pressure system sets up shop south of us tomorrow, keeping is in the cool onshore flow and in some pretty steady rain all day. Temps won't get out of the upper 30's even in the city.

Snow tomorrow night?? Pretty likely out west and in higher elevations. Up in New Hampshire, they could be talking significant snowfall. Down here, we might see some slushy accumulation on the cars or on grass.

Red Sox will probably call the game tomorrow. If you are downtown, come the the Marathon Expo and visit me at the Cliff booth!

I Hope You Brought a Jacket Today

Today is one of those rare days where the high temps are going to max out in the late morning hours, then fall off as the day progresses. A back door cold front is making its way towards us via the Gulf of Maine.

After that, expect it to get cool and raw around here for a few days. Rainfall should start tonight and be somewhat intermittent tomorrow. Saturday is a different story. Expect steady rain all day Saturday with temps only in the low 40's Yuck. The Red Sox game is definitely in jeopardy that day. Sunday looks a little better, but not by much. Expect heavier rain near the coast, as the low pressure system moves offshore and intensifies.

Marathon Monday still looks ok. We look to be stuck in our ever familiar cut off upper level low scenario lasting into early next week, but this time around will not bring us drenching rains like we saw a few weeks ago. Just instability, cooler temps and some clouds. This, in all likelihood, will be the forecast for Monday. Not sure about the wind direction and strength yet but I would expect an onshore flow, meaning a light wind in the face of the runners.

I will post more later as we get closer to the big day, specifically about what people should be wearing, both runners and spectators!

One quick note about the Celtics, I pick them to LOSE in round 1 to the Heat in 6 games. They never had it this season. Bad attitude and inconsistent play. It pains me to see such a talented team waste a season. Oh well. I still love them deep down, but I can't look them in the eyes right now. For shame, Celtics. For shame.

Save the Plants!!!

Got a little chilly last night! Only 39 in the city, but much cooler out west. Any of you peeps who jumped the gun on your spring planting season might have paid the price last night. Then again, only losers have plants. Cool people write weather blogs.

On a side note, the Twins opened up their new outdoor ballpark yesterday and the game time temp was 65. Not bad, but it won't last. Consider this, Minneapolis has an average high of 57 and an average low of 35 in the month of April. That is cold. And if the Twins someday make it to a November world series? How about an average low temp of 25 degrees. I am sure they love their new outdoor stadium up there, but mark my words, they will pay the price at some point. At least the field is heated.

Nice day today and tomorrow, with tomorrow being the pick of the week. Enjoy it now, a cold rain threatens our area(and our baseball team's games) this weekend, starting on Friday.

SUNday Indeed!

What a funny title! I know, my humor is amazing sometimes. I am sitting here in lovely Somerville, enjoying this fine spring day from my couch. Don't fret though, I will be heading outdoors soon enough to soak in some nice weather.

What a week it has been. We hit 90 degrees on Wednesday, setting a new record in Boston for that day. 90 degrees in April, one week after record setting rainfall. The atmosphere sure is active these days.

Climate Data for Boston, MA on Wednesday April 7th
High Temp 90
Departure from Normal 37!!!!!

We came back down to Earth on Thursday though, only hitting a high of 59 in Boston and on Thursday night, the city was a whopping 40 degrees cooler than the recorded temperature on Wednesday night! New England certainly is an interesting place for weather. Not many places see such a temperature swing in 24 hours.

Anyways, this weekend has been seasonable. The rain on Friday caught me a little by surprise. I was not expecting it to stick around all day, but it makes sense looking back, given that a pretty strong change in airmass was tracking though with the passing cold front, triggering some locally heavy rainfall. We actually ended up with just under an inch of rain, putting our annual total at 22 inches. I am very interested to see where we end up at the end of this year.

Today will continue to be pleasant, with a high temp topping out around 69 degrees and plenty of sunshine to boot.

This upcoming week will feature a dry, cool pattern. As I mentioned before, typically after a very rainy pattern like the one we had in late March, the atmosphere tends to balance itself out. Except for Friday, we have been in a pretty dry pattern since our last big rainfall and all signs point to it continuing at least through Friday of this week. A blocking high pressure system will dominate our weather this week, giving us dry conditions but also shifting our winds to the cooler northwest direction, keeping us in the 50's mid to late week.

No rain is a good thing though. And for my friends running Boston a week from Monday, long range forecasts look good, with no real break in sight from our dry seasonable weather. In general though, it is still way too early to be confident in a solid forecast for Marathon Monday, but it looks good right now.

Have a great Sunday!

Crazy Week!

Sorry peeps. I have been neglectful of my little weather blog this week. April is a busy month for me, but I promise to pay more attention!

I will be adding some posts about our record heat this past week, our surprise rainfall today and the all important Boston Marathon forecast soon enough. Check back soon!

90 degrees??

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. Mine was excellent with the best day being Sunday and celebrating Easter with my family and some great weather! Both sisters are getting nice and fat with babies. I am hoping one of their kids becomes a weather nerd like myself.

On the way over, my dad (driving Katrina and I because her car is nearing its death) took us by some spots that I was interested in seeing because of all of our recent rain. Most impressive was Jamaica Pond. I have never seen it so high. The water has overflown the banks on the shallower side and also completely submerged the island located in the middle of the pond! Both my dad and my grandfather, longtime residents of JP, said they have never seen the water so high. Just another example of how impressive our March rainfall really was.

Now onto our week ahead. Typically, after a stretch of unseasonably warm weather in early spring, we see a drastic fall of in temperatures, back to normal levels. This has not been the case so far as we are in our 3rd straight day of 70 + degree weather. Not only will that trend continue, but we are going to be talking about downright HOT conditions on Wednesday.

The image above is no fabrication. On Tuesday, a warm front will lift Northward over the region and bring a reinforcing shot of warm air for us on Wednesday and on Thursday. Areas to our south could easily see 90 degrees! While we will be hot here, 90 is pushing the limit as we should top out in the mid 80's. This warm air will be very dry however and as crazy as this sounds, given our ridiculous rain levels this spring, the threat of brush fires does exist with the dry, warm down sloping winds and very low dew points expected.

Thursday will be another warm one, albeit not as warm as Wednesday, before we come crashing back to reality on Friday. Looks like a storm might affect us in some manner. Hopefully not with too much rain.

Regardless, enjoy this fine stretch of weather! Take a look at all of the trees and flowers "budding" six weeks earlier than expected. And definitely break out the shorts on Wednesday, the perfect day to use some sick time and get outdoors.

What a Weekend

Our ridge of high pressure has parked itself right over southern New England today and we have finally escaped the effects of our early week storm. Wednesday and part of Thursday were "transition days" but with high pressure in control, expect very pleasant weather and some pretty warm temps!

High's today should range from the low 60's along the coast to the low 70's inland. Tomorrow will be even better, as our high moves off shore and shifts our wind direction from south east to southwest and really warms us up. Inland areas will easily see temps in the 80's but as always with these early season warm ups, coastal areas will be battling the sea breeze which will keep temps in the lower 70's. Still beautiful anyway you cut it.

Those of you getting in your last long runs before Boston in 2+ weeks will have EXCELLENT running conditions. Definitely shorts weather, even early in the morning. Make sure to start putting on sun screen too as our sun is getting stronger everyday.

April Astronomy Report

Phases of the Moon

Last Quarter Moon
April 6 5:37 am EDT

New Moon
April 14 8:29 am EDT

First Quarter Moon
April 21 2:20 pm EDT

Full Moon
April 28 8:18 am EDT


Evening Planets (after sunset)

* Mercury, W
* Venus, W
* Mars, SW
* Saturn, SE

Visible at Midnight

* Mars, W
* Saturn, S

Morning Planets (before sunrise)

* Saturn, W
* Neptune, E
* Jupiter, E
* Uranus, E

Comets

There are no comets brighter than magnitude 8 observable from Northern Hemisphere sites in April .

Meteors

The Lyrid meteors peak on the morning of April 22 - though the shower shows some activity starting as early as the 16th and continuing into the 25th. Conditions should be good, with no moonlight to interfere; expect to see 15-20 meteors per hour at the peak.