After a hot day to close the weekend on Sunday, and many towns recording another 90° day, it was quite the change out the door this morning. Temperatures fell by over 20° in some cities, giving today more of an early fall feel. Temperatures on the coast line with an onshore breeze were stuck in the 60s! The sunshine sure helped though, making it feel maybe not *quite* as chilly.
The fall like air is going to stick around for a while — most of the week really. The breeze we had today will settle down overnight, which, combined with clear skies and low humidity, will allow temperatures to really cool off again. A lot of us will probably wake up to numbers in the upper 40s! Tomorrow is a similar feel with temperatures in the lower 70s. Skies won’t be as bright tomorrow with a pretty good cirrus deck overhead, giving a more filtered sun look, and the wind won’t be quite as breezy as today.
The 70s will remain the story this week, but gradually making it to the upper 70s by Friday.
The other big headline is Hurricane Erin. Over the weekend, Erin reached category 5 status, before dropping back to a category 4 today. The track from the National Hurricane Center keeps the storm out to sea this week, passing between the East Coast and Bermuda. So while there’s no direct impact from Erin, there will be indirect impacts, especially by the end of the week and to kick off the weekend.
The biggest impact will be water/ocean conditions beginning Wednesday and continuing through Saturday. The waves/swells will increase day by day, likely peaking Friday as the storm makes its closest pass to the Cape. The rip current risk will stay high each day beginning tomorrow through Saturday for those heading to the beach this week. And finally, you’ll notice the wind, though we’re nowhere hurricane force wind — just a couple windy days. The strongest wind, as you might expect, will be on the Cape — closest to the storm.
The waves will really start to increase through the day on Thursday and Friday. The highest waves will be on Nantucket, the Vineyard, and the National Seashore side of Cape Cod. That’s where waves, especially Friday, could exceed 10 ft. While it won’t be quite as extreme in the protected areas of Nantucket Sound and Cape Cod Bay, the waves will still be pretty intense. I would suspect some ferry disruption in the ballpark of Thursday to Saturday. Of course, I don’t make those decisions, but it’s definitely something the ferry companies will be watching. So if you have plans to go to/from either of the Islands or P-Town later this week or Saturday, I’d at least mentally make a back up plan just in case.
