The story of this week will be the continuation of an unsettled weather pattern from this past weekend. Today, we will see a chance for some severe thunderstorms, and more rain chances lurk for us during the rest of this week, even extending into the weekend. Temperatures during this time will vary between normal and below normal depending on the extent of cloud cover and rain.
Rest of today – warm, humid, with a high in the mid-80s. Chances for severe thunderstorms increasing late in the afternoon. The Storm Prediction Center has placed our area in an enhanced risk for severe thunderstorms, with primary threats being damaging “hurricane force” wind gusts, as well as heavy rain. Some large hail and an isolated tornado are not out of the question. High resolution rapid refresh model simulated radar suggests the best timing of when the storms hit NYC will be around 6PM during the evening rush hour. This will make for a messy road home.
As you can feel already, the air is quite saturated (fog earlier this morning confirms this), this moisture-laden air will be one ingredient fueling storm growth later especially as temperatures warm with cloud-free skies allowing solar heating to quickly destabilize this air mass. At the surface, a cold front slowly approaching from the north and west will serve as the trigger that provides the lift necessary for storms to initiate late this afternoon. Aloft, the presence of a mid-level shortwave trough upstream of us will help prime the atmosphere, increasing lapse rates and instability aloft, while providing some additional divergence and lifting for storms. Lastly, late in the day, we will be in the right entrance region of a 300 mb jet streak, another favorable ingredient for divergence and synoptic lift. Winds at all levels above the surface will be fairly strong, producing a shear profile that favors strong winds. However, any discrete storms that form ahead of the main squall line could contain strong rotating updrafts favoring large hail and tornadoes. As usually, best chances for severe weather exist north and west of the city, away from the stabilizing influence of the marine layer near the coast. Storms will likely weaken as they hit NYC precisely due to this.
Wednesday – will be significantly cooler behind the cold front with high temperatures only in the mid-60s. Rain chances continue as the frontal boundary stalls and becomes stationary just to our south, in a similar arrangement to what took place over the weekend. This pattern looks to lock in for the rest of the week, bringing multiple chances for rain with it.
Thursday – a drier day mostly, with some slight chance for showers in the morning, then mostly cloudy with high temperatures rebounding into the upper-70s. Rain moves back in again overnight going into Friday.
Friday – cooler again with temperatures dipping into the mid-60s. Mostly cloudy with more chances for rain during the day as the stationary front mentioned above pushes back north as a warm front.