The weather on Sunday turned out to be a real gift for fathers in the region, yielding a lot more clear skies than anticipated going into the weekend. We could have a rough start this week with possible severe weather, and another chance of rain mid-week. A tropical system forming over the Gulf of Mexico bears watching this coming weekend.

Rest of today – humid and warm with high temperatures in the low to mid-80s. Mostly sunny to start. All the ingredients for possibly severe thunderstorms will be in place this afternoon and evening. A flash flood watch is in effect for most of the area west of Long Island. The Storm Prediction Center has placed some of the region west of the Hudson River under an enhanced risk of experiencing severe weather with the city itself in a slight risk area.

A vigorous cold front will move east towards NYC today. As we can feel, the airmass ahead of the front is saturated and warm. The more sun we get before the front approaches, the greater the destabilization in the atmosphere. The cold front will line up with the flow of the jet stream, which will favor line segments and training of storm cells repeatedly hitting the same areas (flash flood warning is in place because of this).

Timing of the leading edge of the storms appears to be around 5pm. Any storms or substantial cloud cover ahead of this would decrease the severe potential. Primary threat along this leading line of storms would be damaging wind gusts with a small chance for hail and a couple isolated tornadoes.

Behind this leading line of storms, we could see a slight break around 8PM, but then more rounds of moderate to heavy rains that could lead to flash flooding.

Tuesday – severe weather and rain should dissipate fairly quickly after midnight. Decreasing clouds in the wake of the cold front though high temperatures remain similar to today due to the influence of southwest winds.

Wednesday – mostly sunny with high temperatures in the low-80s. A chance for rain in the afternoon, but much milder and less widespread than today.

Thursday – mostly sunny again, with highs in the low-80s again.

Potential Tropical Storm in the Gulf

Two possible tropical systems are churning, one east of the Windward Islands and the other crossing over the Yucatan into the Gulf of Mexico. The latter system may have a tangible impact in terms of bringing tropical moisture to the area this coming weekend.