The weather word of today is “better”. Everything with the forecast is better today, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. We’re still not talking about one of those straight sunshine, low humidity, comfortable temperature days. But what we do have on tap is better than anything else we’ve had this week. And just about all of those improvements can be tied back to the humidity. As our slow moving storm exits, it’s wrapping in drier air.
You’ll notice the drop in humidity today but it’s not great. We’re basically falling from the “near-tropical” stuff to plain muggy air. The drier air is actually being wrapped in at higher levels of the atmosphere. The graphs below are a basic representation of what are called “soundings”. They look at all levels of the atmosphere and give us plenty of data off the surface. Two of those are temperature and dew point. Dew point of course the humidity.
To get clouds and rain, the temperature and dew point need to be very close together, not just at the surface, but through most of the atmosphere. That is represented in the first image. The second image is the drier air that’s moving in. While you notice a little improvement near the surface and our humidity falling from tropical to muggy, look how much drier it is at the mid levels of the atmosphere. That drier air makes it a lot harder for clouds to form, let alone rain and storms.
So yes, that means more sunshine will be out there today than what we’ve seen for this week so far. Don’t expect crystal clear blue skies but a partly cloudy sky. That will be the case today, tomorrow, and Saturday.
It’ll be a nice way to end the month after clouds have dominated for most of it. Granted we still have a few days to go, but it’ll likely go down as the second cloudiest June on record for the city of Boston. Cloud cover records only go back to 1952 unlike temperature records that go back to the 1800s, but still, it’s been a cloudy June. Boston has had overcast skies for more than half the month, on average it’s about a third.
While the drier air will help punch out some of the clouds, it will also really cut down on our rain chances the next couple of days. I don’t think any single day is 100% completely dry, but rain chances will become incredibly isolated Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Any shower chance these days is only like a 10-20%. So get outside and enjoy some of these nice summer days as we kick off the holiday weekend! It does look like rain and storm chances will climb back up by Sunday.
The humidity will stay muggy the next few days but not tropical where it was. As the rain chances return Sunday, so will the higher dew points and tropical like air. Until then it’s more of the standard summer humidity today with temperatures around 80°, and again that rogue shower chance.
If today is a 20% chance of a shower, then tomorrow is 10%. Friday will also be a touch warmer by a degree or two across the area.
The holiday weekend forecast is split 50/50 with the nicer weather here at the start of the long holiday weekend versus the second half of it. Saturday will be mostly dry with just an isolated shower. A better chance of showers and storms return for Sunday.
