Same ol same ol…..warm & dry. This pattern has been in place for 2 months now–the *dry* portion of this pattern has essentially been in place since last summer! That’s why many cities & towns are still dealing with an extreme drought. Short-term summer droughts happen in New England but the long term drought is rare for us. Boston YEARLY rainfall sits at 19.36″ (some perspective…Baton Rouge LA picked up 19.24″ in 3 DAYS this past weekend!) which is the least amount of rain this far into a year since 1995! For the year, many cities and towns are running rainfall deficits around 8″ and while this drought will end at some point, you don’t want 8″ of rain from a summer storm. At this stage in the game, it will probably have come from leftover moisture from a hurricane of tropical storm—-not wanting or wishing for either–just the table scraps from a tropical system.
The tropics are beginning to show signs of life with Tropical Storm Fiona located about 1200 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands this evening (staying in the Atlantic for days) and other tropical waves jumping off Africa in the coming days but nothing threatening the United States. For us, our next chance of rain will come from a cool front early next week. These fronts are hardly loaded with moisture to end a drought but we’ll take what we can get from it. The front is also the first in several weeks to feature crisp, cool dry air from Canada! This front won’t end summer but it will but a touch of fall into the air middle of next week–especially during the morning hours.
Until then, it’s much the same…..sunshine, warm temps (80s) and slowly building humidity into and through the weekend. Bad for the drought but great for summer vacation plans.
~JR