Weather with Bill Evans

Good Day On This Friday April 16, 2021 Low pressure will meander along the southern New England coast today, then slowly move east into the Atlantic tonight through Sunday. Weak high pressure will build into the area Saturday and remain into early next week. A cold front approaches and moves across going into Wednesday, followed by another high pressure area for next Thursday. A closed upper low tracks across the region through this afternoon as surface low pressure moves along the southern New England coast. And with an occluded front across southern New England providing lift the steadiest precipitation remains across southeastern Connecticut. The precipitation was mainly light rain, however, with low level colder air wrapping into the west side of the low the precipitation was changing over to light snow. The snow will remain light with no deep cold air and no snow growth in the ideal zone. And with temperatures near to above freezing, little accumulation is expected, less than an inch. And the higher amounts will be across the higher elevations. Areas outside of the best lift will see light rain, more scattered and showery in nature. A chilly airmass remains with temperatures as much as 10 degrees below seasonal normals. This evening with upper low and surface low begin to slowly track east into the western Atlantic. As this happens the precipitation gradually ends across the area, possibly transitioning back to light snow across southeastern Connecticut before ending. Height slowly rise through tonight and into Saturday as deep cyclonic flow remains. There is some low level moisture and a few sprinkle cannot be completely ruled out across the lower Hudson Valley Saturday afternoon as the cyclonic flow remains. Temperature modify Saturday as the core of the cold air moves east with the nearly stacked low. Weak ridging begins to build to the west Saturday night as the closed upper low continues to slowly track east of the New England coast. With the upper and lower level lows moving farther eastward into the Atlantic and closer to the Canadian Maritimes for the remainder of this weekend, weak high pressure at the surface will start to build in. The weakening pressure gradient will allow for winds to become lighter Saturday night through Sunday night. Aloft, though, the flow transitions to more zonal with periodic shortwaves with positive vorticity advection moving across. This will continue into early next week with a stronger shortwave moving across Monday into Monday night. The rest of the weekend is still expected to be mainly dry. The forecast has a slight chance of rain showers Sunday afternoon into early Sunday evening with a greater chance for rain showers Monday afternoon into early Monday evening with that stronger shortwave moving across. Diurnal instability with daytime warming will help initiate the shower activity both days. Some brief ridging aloft takes place thereafter Tuesday into Tuesday night before a deeper trough and surface cold front approach Wednesday into Wednesday night. Outside of a possible shower Tuesday afternoon into Tuesday night, mainly dry conditions are expected. A greater chance for rain showers is in the forecast for Wednesday with the cold front expected to move across. GFS model shows some weak surfaced based instability so there could be a rumble of thunder but left out of forecast for now due to the event being almost a week away and higher uncertainty. Temperatures are forecast to be near normal values for the max temperatures Sunday (upper 50s to lower 60s), followed by values getting more above normal for Monday (mainly low to mid 60s) and Tuesday (mainly low to upper 60s). A return to near normal highs is forecast for Wednesday followed by slightly below normal highs for next Thursday. .MARINE... Wind speeds and gusts across the ocean waters early this morning have been a few knots lower than forecast, and gusts wind speeds have been adjusted through early this morning. Low pressure will be moving along the southern New England coast today and with an increasing pressure gradient force, especially across the eastern portion of the forecast area, wind gusts will be increasing to 25 to 30 kt across the forecast waters. This will continue into late tonight as the low begins to track east this evening. A SCA was now posted for the western Long Island Sound, New York Harbor, and the southern bays until late tonight, and remaining on the other forecast waters. With gusty winds to SCA levels now expected through tonight on the ocean waters, and elevated seas into Saturday, the SCA was extended through tonight west of Moriches Inlet, and through midday Saturday east of Moriches Inlet. After midday Saturday mainly below SCA level wind gusts are forecast through Tuesday night. Another exception is Tuesday into Tuesday night with an increase in pressure gradient ahead of the next approaching cold front with some 25 kt gusts possible. Seas are forecast to remain below 5 feet midday Saturday through Tuesday night.