Here’s your Fourth of July weekend weather preview
High pressure will likely mean a sunny, dry weekend for New England.
It’s the second to last day of June, and that means the July Fourth long holiday weekend is close at hand. This year, Independence Day falls on a Monday so there’s no confusion as to which weekend folks will use as their long one. This also likely means traffic will be particularly heavy for the exodus on both Thursday and especially Friday afternoons this week.
Like so many days this month, the July Fourth weekend is shaping up to be a stellar one. Simply put, it appears that, not only will we be enjoying a lot of sunshine all weekend, including on Monday, but the humidity will be virtually unnoticeable, something that’s not often the case in early July.
There will be low levels of humidity across the northeast this weekend.
You can thank the big “H” on the weather map for the upcoming weather: High pressure typically brings sunny weather, but depending on where it comes from, it can be pleasantly warm or hazy hot and humid. This weekend, our high pressure system will be of Canadian origin and, therefore, it will be pleasantly warm without that tropical humidity.
The surface map for 8 a.m. on July 4, 2016.
If you are headed south of New York for the long weekend—perhaps to Washington, D.C. or Philadelphia—there could be showers on the Fourth and even some natural fireworks in the form of thunderstorms.
This area remains bone dry, in spite of the scattered showers Tuesday and Wednesday. One unknown downside of the dry weather could be with the fireworks. I don’t know exactly how these decisions are made, but if the fire danger becomes too high, setting off fireworks could be banned; it’s happened before. Much of the city of Portland, Maine, burned to the ground on July 4, 1866 from a careless person with fireworks. Regardless of the forecast, if you are using any flames this weekend, do be careful.
Portland, Maine on July 4, 1866.
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