July 12, 2011: Sunny, Seasonable Weather Returns

As a cold front started to move through the region, today brought some of the hottest temperatures of this summer so far, with temperatures reaching the lower 90s inland, mid to upper 90s across most of the immediate NYC area, and the upper 80s to mid 90s across most of Long Island and southern Connecticut. In fact, some high temperature records were broken today, such as Newark where the official high was 99 degrees.

While the humidity will be much lower tomorrow, the temperatures will not cool down as quickly, with some lower 90s expected in the immediate NYC area and parts of Long Island tomorrow. By Thursday, however, as a high pressure moves into the region, temperatures will cool down into the upper 70s to mid 80s from the area with mainly sunny skies lasting through next weekend before the heat returns.

Tomorrow's Outlook:

The cold front will already have cleared the area by tomorrow afternoon, with a WNW/northwest wind returning along with lower humidity, but the temperatures won't cool down as quickly. 850 mb temperatures are still expected to be near 16 degrees celsius, bringing temperatures into the mid to upper 80s from NYC and further west with a few lower 90s in the immediate NYC area. With a WNW/NW wind expected, Long Island and southern Connecticut will warm up as well, with widespread mid to upper 80s along with a few lower 90s in parts of Long Island. Mostly sunny skies are expected with no rainfall.

Thursday - Sunday: Sunny, Mild

A high pressure will move into the region on Thursday, bringing mainly sunny skies and seasonably mild temperatures, reaching the upper 70s to lower 80s in Long Island and southern Connecticut, and the lower to mid 80s from NYC and further west. Over the weekend, slightly more cloud cover is expected with slightly warmer temperatures from NYC and further west, reaching the mid to upper 80s, but with a south/SSE wind expected, Long Island and southern Connecticut will continue to see slightly cooler temperatures. An isolated shower or storm may be possible over the weekend, but at this time the risk of rain is very low and was not mentioned in the 5-Day Forecast.

Longer Range:

Next weekend, another massive ridge will build in the central US, a region where excessive heat has been quite frequent so far this summer. As we have seen so far this summer, the worst of the heat will stay to the west of the region, and the heat will spread into the region in a moderated form around early next week, but temperatures will still warm up, likely reaching the 90s again in parts of the area on Monday and Tuesday.

A cold front is expected to approach the region around Tuesday, but what happens afterwards is more uncertain. The latest models take the storm well into Canada, north enough to fail to bring any significant cool down into the region. As a result, some models, most notably the ECMWF, show heat lasting and intensifying through the rest of next week. The models have shown many heat potentials in the longer range before backing away as they approach the shorter range this summer, and it is very possible that the same happens in this case, which would likely bring a scenario where we see a hot start to next week followed by a cool down and another surge of heat, potentially stronger, by late next week. The set up currently indicated by the models is more supportive of stronger and longer lasting heat than the last several potentials, however, and the hot scenario cannot be ruled out completely and will be watched in case it becomes more likely. Stay tuned for more information on the longer range.