The Latest Memorial Day Weekend Forecast
By Erica Grow on May 25, 2012, 9:26pm
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We are in a warm and unsettled pattern this holiday weekend, as a surface high sits to our south and a cold front approaches from the west. At the same time, an area of low pressure off the coast of North Carolina is threatening to become a tropical storm. Sound familiar? It's almost the identical setup that we had last week, with a weak cold front approaching from the Great Lakes region and Tropical Storm Alberto forming off the coast of the Carolinas. The models are in pretty good agreement about the overall weather pattern, but they are having a tough time nailing down the timing of precipitation in this scenario.
First of all, I'll address the forming of Tropical Storm Beryl. UPDATE: The NHC has officially named Subtropical Storm Beryl in its 11pm Advisory tonight (5/25), with winds sustained at 45mph. All the model data that I have seen pulls this storm inland, toward Georgia and Alabama, before it makes a northward turn late this week. So, the impact of this potential tropical system should not be upon us this weekend.
With all the lingering moisture from a soggy workweek, we'll have to deal with plentiful fog tonight. Dewpoints are in the 60s and there's no mechanism to drive the moisture away, with very light winds off the Long Island Sound keeping the moisture locked in place. Saturday will be rather sticky as the cold front approaches from the west. MOS data indicates that Td's will stay in the 60s, and surface obs show clear skies to our west. I think that means the sun will mix out our foggy layers by late morning on Saturday, but a scattering of cumulus clouds will quickly form and we'll see a few pop-up showers and storms as this weak cold front passes. Most of the energy (in the form of PVA) with this system is way up toward Vermont and New Hampshire, so I'm not concerned about severe weather, but NAM is predicting CAPE values around 1500, so I do think thunderstorms are likely in a few isolated spots.
Here's where the model data gets really tricky. It looks like the cold front stalls just to our south on the grids, and the mid-to-upper level flow turns zonal. The Euro predicts some heavy showers on Sunday, with a small vorticity max moving through Connecticut late in the day. But NAM and GFS barely have any Q value over us on Sunday; in fact, the NAM keeps us pretty dry on Monday, too. But the GFS shows the stalled cold front backing into Connecticut, bringing more showers on Monday and perhaps a thunderstorm, with a ridge at 500mb in place. Very confusing! It's hard to nail down when the showers will happen... but my gut says that Sunday will be drier than Monday.
I'll continue to keep you updated all weekend! :-)
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