It’s a big day across Massachusetts today including Patriot’s Day and the reenactment of the Battle of Lexington & Concord, the Sox game, Bruins game, and of course the running of the 127th Boston Marathon. All things considered it’s pretty decent forecast for the runners. There will be a lot of clouds today, drizzle/mist in the morning hours and a few scattered showers this afternoon. With the clouds around, temperatures aren’t going to move much today, starting about 50° and most of us only climbing to the upper 50s. There will be an east wind at 5-12 mph. Which, being an on shore wind will keep the coast a touch cooler, and for runners is a head wind for essentially the entire course. It’s not a strong headwind, but a headwind regardless.
Spectators on the course will probably want to take a rain jacket especially for all of the charity runners you’re going to cheer on as the later start time in Hopkinton will really increase the likelihood of rain showers moving through during the afternoon. The same applies to those heading to Fenway for the Sox game. We’ll have mist and drizzle to start with light, scattered showers for the mid to late innings of the game, and of course anything after the game.
The timing of the rain is unfortunate with all of the outdoor events today, but we do actually need some rain around here. Both Boston and Worcester are running almost two inches below average for rain for the month. And you know the saying! April showers bring May flowers. So the rain is welcomed.
The other nice part of the rain is a little relief from the pollen and allergies. What we could actually use is a day of a soaking, steady rain to really wash out the atmosphere and wash out all of the pollen spores. That is not in the cards today, but we’ll take what we can get, even if it’s just a little step down in the pollen counts. As sunshine comes back for the rest of the week, those numbers will spike once again.
While it’s not the 70s and 80s we had last week (even 90s for a few of us) the week ahead is a mild one with high temperatures topping out close to, if not above average the entire week.
