Hello everyone!

Enjoy the weather we have in the forecast today, it’s not weather that we’ll be seeing again for a while as a powerful heat wave invades beginning this weekend. Skies are mostly sunny this morning, with some residual clouds in upslope areas NW of the mountains and along the Midcoast. We’ll see mostly sunny skies continue as some of those morning clouds burn off.

Aloft, some cooler air is filtering into the area, which will help generate instability this afternoon as surface temps warm. This instability will fuel some pop up showers this afternoon as a weak disturbance passes by aloft. Some of these showers will become thunderstorms early this evening as they move southeast towards the coast. No severe weather is expected, though the strongest cells could produce gusty winds and small hail in addition to downpours and lightning. Shower activity will wane around and after sunset as daytime heating is lost.

Highs today will range from around 70 in the north to 85 in southern NH.

-Jack

Hello everyone!

It’s raining, hooray! After several long months with little moisture, the vegetation of Western Maine and New Hampshire is finally getting a drink this morning as a cold front siphons tropical moisture off a disturbance near North Carolina. That tropical disturbance poses no threat to us, or anyone, directly, but it is indirectly contributing to our rain today. Rain is ongoing this morning, and will continue to fall steadily for most areas through midday, tapering off later in northeastern areas. This afternoon, look for some breaks of sun in southwestern areas, which will result in warming temps and some developing weak instability. That instability will fuel pop up showers in Southern NH this evening, some of which could produce some thunder and gusty winds. Those storms will dissipate as they approach the Maine border around sunset.

Highs will be warmest, around 75, in the sunnier areas of SW NH, and coolest, around 60, in the cloudiest areas of NE ME.

-Jack

Hello everyone!

A storm system is approaching the area from the west this morning. High clouds spreading out ahead of that system will filter across the area from west to east today, slowly obscuring the sun. Despite the increasing clouds, dry weather will hold until after dark when showers will arrive in western NH. Highs will largely be determined by hours of sunshine seen, with the sunniest eastern locations seeing highs around 80 and the cloudiest western location seeing highs around 70. A sea breeze will bring cooler temps to the coastline this evening, with temps falling from around 75 early this afternoon to around 65 later in the evening.

-Jack

Hello everyone!

Today will feature absolutely stunning summer weather as Canadian high pressure crests over the area. Dew points will be low, and temps will be seasonably cool. Sunny skies this morning are in no danger of going anywhere until late tomorrow afternoon. Look for highs ranging from around 70 in the north to around 75 in the south, with cooler temps along the coastline.

Enjoy the beautiful weather, it won’t last long! Rain arrives tomorrow night, and will extend into Thursday before oppressive heat and humidity build for the weekend into early next week.

-Jack

Hello everyone!

Today will feature gradually clearing skies as low pressure drifts away to the east. As the sun comes out, temps will warm near the surface, but a large upper level trough will be delivering cool air aloft. These competing processes will set up a large vertical temperature gradient, where the air cools rapidly with height. Any time we get such a gradient, we look for instability to develop, and this afternoon will be no different. Expect pop up showers developing in the early afternoon, especially across the mountains of Western Maine. Some of these showers may develop enough to produce a rumble or two of thunder. Sadly, with limited moisture around, these showers won’t produce much in the way of rain, but a few large droplets could temporarily dampen outdoor activities this afternoon/evening. Highs will range from around 60 in the north to around 70 in the south.

-Jack

Hello everyone!

Today will feature scattered showers as a storm system to our southwest drifts in our direction. Radar imagery shows some showers already in progress across southwestern areas this morning, and the light/scattered nature of these showers is readily apparent in the absence of deep tropical moisture and strong dynamics aloft. Cloud cover will be abundant today due to that storm system, and as a result temps will generally be cool. The warmest temps will be found north and east of Augusta where a few hours of sunshine are expected this morning before clouds take over. Highs will range from 65 in these areas to 55 in the mountains of NH where the coldest temps will be found.

-Jack

Hello everyone!

Today’s fair weather will continue for the rest of the week as a weak cold front reinforces our already cool and dry airmass. Highs tomorrow will be pleasantly cool, ranging from the mid 60’s north to the low 70’s in interior southern areas. A few showers are possible in the far north this evening as a cold front moves through, but no widespread precipitation is expected. Mostly clear skies will continue to be the name of the game, aside from some brief cloudiness in the north tonight as that front moves through.

I’ll be off the grid through Friday so my next update will be Saturday morning. If you’re looking for forecast info more detailed than what I have here, head on over to weather.us and type in your town for a full rundown of the forecast from the next few hours to the next two weeks. If you’re confused by what you see on that page, check out this video tutorial explaining how to use it and where to find different info.

-Jack

Hello everyone!

After a one-day bout of heat and humidity, a cold front will be responsible for returning the area to seasonable conditions today. Northwesterly winds are already cooling and drying the air across the region, a trend that will continue through the rest of the day. A few leftover clouds from the front are noted on satellite imagery across southern areas this morning, while areas typically impacted by upsloping are also seeing clouds. As the day goes on, the southern clouds will clear out, but continued upsloping will be responsible for keeping overcast skies along and northwest of the mountain peaks. We’ll also have a classic upslope/downslope pattern for temperatures, which will range from the low 60’s in the north to the upper 70’s along the coast. The aforementioned northwesterly breezes will keep any sea breeze circulations at bay today, with mild temps extending all the way to the shorelines.

-Jack

Hello everyone!

As far as summertime goes, today will feature some fairly active weather as a cold front approaches from the north. We’ll deal with oppressive heat and humidity for much of the first half of the day, before strong to potentially severe thunderstorms develop later in the afternoon. Because of the active weather, this blog entry might be a little longer than usual, but I’ll try to stick to just the info you need to know.

A warm front is crossing the area this morning, and some showers are being observed ahead of it, mostly in northeastern areas. A couple of thunderstorm cells are noted along the front this morning, crossing the NH/ME border north of Bethel as of 6:50 AM. These cells are moving towards Augusta, and will bring a brief period of heavy rain and thunder to areas between Bethel and Augusta, such as Rumford.

Behind the warm front, west-southwesterly winds will develop and strengthen this morning. Near the coast, the influence of the cool Gulf of Maine will bend these winds to a more southwesterly direction, which will offer relief from the heat for Midcoast areas especially. For the rest of the area, especially SW of a Brunswick – Lewiston – Bethel line, those WSW winds will be downsloping off the hills of Southern NH. This downsloping will help to mix very warm temps down from aloft, and will also contribute to developing patchy sunshine. The result will be temps soaring into the low-mid 90’s in the favored SW warm spots, while areas farther north and east see highs in the low to mid 80’s. Meanwhile, these winds will also be transporting very moist air in our direction, and dew points will rise accordingly. The mugginess combined with the high temperatures will result in heat indexes approaching or exceeding 100 degrees. Heat advisories have been issued as a result for southwestern areas.

This heat will help fuel thunderstorm activity once the cold front begins to approach this afternoon. Look for storms to develop in two waves, one along a pre-frontal trough, and one along the front itself. The pre-frontal storms will get going in the mountains early this afternoon, before moving southeast towards the coast. Storms along the front itself won’t arrive in the mountains until early this evening, before moving towards the coast around sundown. Storms will pose primarily a damaging wind threat in terms of severe weather, while flash flooding and frequent lightning will be dangerous with any storms, even non-severe ones.

Storms will weaken after dark, and skies will clear from north to south by tomorrow morning.

It’s a little bit of a shameless plug, I know, but if you’re interested in following along with the storms like us weather people do, the company I work for has some great (free!) tools to do just that over at our site weather.us.

Watch the clouds with satellite imagery from the newest weather satellite, launched just last year.

Watch showers and thunderstorms with the highest resolution radar imagery available.

Watch lightning activity with our lightning analysis product. If you click the map to zoom in, you can even select individual strikes for a street level map of where the strike hit as well as other information about that particular strike’s intensity. The map doesn’t auto-update, but you can easily find the latest data by pressing the white refresh button at the very top left of the map.

-Jack

Hello everyone!

The warming trend begun yesterday will continue today for areas away from the coastline. Winds will have more of an onshore component today, which will keep temperatures a bit cooler. Inland, look for highs ranging through the 80’s with some low 90’s possible in the typical SW ME/NH warm spots. Along the coast, temps will initially rise into the low 70’s this morning before the sea breeze kicks in and temps fall back down into the 60’s. Skies will be mainly sunny across the area with just a few high clouds here and there. A late day pop up shower is possible in the mountains, but otherwise dry conditions will continue.

-Jack