What a way to kick off September! We had sunshine today, seasonal temperatures, and no humidity! Temperatures ended up near 80° for many of us this afternoon which is right where we should be this time of year. The average high is 78° so Boston even ended up a little above average for highs today.
Of course just as important as the nice temperatures and the sun today was the fact that humidity was almost non-existent. Dew points crashed to the 40s yesterday evening and have been there ever since. When we have low dew points it allows temperatures to cool off easily at night. Tonight will be a good windows open night and to give the AC a rest. In fact, it might be considered chilly in some spots falling to the 40s.
Tomorrow looks outstanding once again. Humidity will stay low and the sun will make a comeback. The breeze we had today will back down tomorrow and turn onshore which means we’ll have a sea breeze tomorrow that cools the coast line. Inland spots will climb to the mid to upper 70s — so cooler than today, while coastal towns top out near 70 degrees.
That beautiful weather will stick with us into the start of the holiday weekend too. Friday and Saturday look outstanding! Sunday we’ll increase the heat and humidity and that could fuel a few storms Sunday late afternoon and evening. It’s not a washout but something to keep in the back of your mind that a few storms will push through the area. It looks like the wettest day of the holiday weekend will be Monday.
While there is a lot of good news weather-wise going into the holiday weekend, less encouraging is the new drought monitor that was issued this morning. Now it’s not all bad news. The good news is that it didn’t get worse. But it didn’t get better either. Where we did see improvement was in southeast Massachusetts after having two days last week where we saw several inches of rain. Most of us there fell from the extreme drought to severe drought. And around Plymouth Bay, even parts down to a moderate drought.
You might be wondering how after several inches of rain, how there’s still ANY drought? Well it’s not just about the rain gauge number. It accounts for how much is in the soil. As you can imagine, with several inches of rain in a short period of time, a lot of it just runs off into the rivers, lakes, and ocean and doesn’t provide any relief for the soil moisture (the drought).
Even with that improvement in SE MA, the state percentages (shown below) are the same as they were last week. That’s because we basically took the extreme drought locations in SE MA and moved it to the Route 2 corridor and northern Worcester County.
