Where’s the rain and where’s the heat?
Will the nice weather continue for my kids prom or friends wedding this month?
There are a lot of upcoming activities which will benefit from sunny, dry weather over the next few months. We’ve certainly been in a very dry pattern, which is good if you have outdoor plans but not so good if you want to limit the amount of water you use outside.
I’m always conflicted about these types of patterns. I love the sunshine and wonderfully dry, comfortable mornings, but there’s also this part of me that feels a bit of panic, wondering why won’t it rain more consistently.
In spite of a cloudy, cool and damp start, overall it continues to be a dry month. Check out the map below. This shows how much rain has fallen in the past 360 days. Notice the dry patches from the Maine coastline to the metro Boston area, and across far northwestern Maine.
Precipitation totals from the previous 360 days.
Summer Rainfall Pattern Is Showery
It’s unlikely that we’ll see a full day of rain from June until sometime this fall. Now, obviously we’ve had rainy days every month of the year, but odds favor more showery types of precipitation in summer and early fall.
Averages, of course, are made up of extremes. While it’s been dry across the northeast this spring, the mid-Atlantic region has been very wet. The Washington-Baltimore area has seen very few days of sunshine since the latter part of April. At Dulles Airport, for example, it has rained for all but two days since April 26, which is quite a miserable stretch.
So will it rain during the proms, weddings, graduations, outdoor parties and the like taking take place the rest of this month and into June? I can’t give you a specific forecast for the next six weeks, but I can tell you the overall pattern looks dry.
Dry Weather Continues Through May
According to the National Weather Service, New England has the greatest likelihood of experiencing drier than average weather through the end of May. This bodes well for outdoor plans, unless what little rain we do see occurs on the weekend.
8-14 day outlook through May 31.
If you’re wondering about heat and humidity, that may be coming sooner rather than later. The map below shows a strong temperature contrast between New England and the Mid-Atlantic region in the forecast for next week. We often transition from cool spring weather to hot and humid weather very quickly because the divide between those two air masses often resides precariously close to New England, and a small shift in the jet stream brings the heat north.
Canadian Model Temperature Forecast for May 26.
I’ll be watching the models to see if those summertime temperatures arrive for Memorial Day weekend or if cooler marine air will win out. Stay tuned.
You can follow Dave Epstein on Twitter @growingwisdom.
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