Hello everyone!

Today’s primary weather feature of interest will be a cold front moving through the area this afternoon. Ahead of the front, winds will be very light and out of the WNW. This means that humidity leftover from yesterday will linger especially near the coast. Warm temps will also linger, especially in the south where sunshine will be most widespread in the early part of the day. Look for highs here to top out in the low to mid 80s while the mountains remain confined to the mid 70s under thicker cloud cover and occasional showers.

Another concern today will be continued poor air quality from wildfire smoke. Rather astonishingly, New England retains the “worst air quality in the country” award this morning if you discount a handful of stations directly in the path of the largest fire over in California. Air quality is slowly improving as the sun comes up and disperses the smoke through a deeper layer of the atmosphere, but folks sensitive to the smoke (you know who you are by now) should take it easy outside especially for the next few hours. The cleanest air today will be found behind the front in the north.

A wave passing along the front will bring a round of strong thunderstorms to southern New England this evening. We’ll be on the northern edge of this wave so any thunder should be confined to southern NH and any severe weather to the south of the MA border. That said, rain may fall heavily at times starting late afternoon in NH and early evening over in ME. This system will be moving pretty quickly so flooding concerns aren’t too high, but the usual suspects could see some wet basements and slow drainage.

-Jack