Good morning everybody, Happy August to you all, and here’s hoping for you heat lovers that we actually get some heat up in here before Summer decides to retreat south for a while. I’m not holding my breath, to be honest, but this is certainly the month to get some 90 degree temps if we’re going to see them this warm season.

Having said that we’ve got a pretty good day coming up, and humidity will be on the increase. Early morning fog should soon be burning off where it formed. Again, high temps are going to be on either side of 80 degrees for the next few days, with low 80s the rule next week. No real hot weather is in sight at the moment.

Because there is no cap in the upper levels of the atmosphere (which means there is no warmer air above cooler air in the mid-levels to put an immediate halt to rising air, which causes showers/thunderstorms), we could see some showers and even a thunderstorm this afternoon. There were a couple of light showers that moved through Western Mass earlier this morning, that mostly dried out, or are out of the area now.

Luckily, there the gradient of warm air at the surface to cold air aloft (a/k/a “the lapse rate”) is not very steep, so no severe weather is expected.

Then we turn to the weekend. It’s still a tricky forecast, because of the unknowns associated with how an approaching warm front from our southeast will interact with a low moving up its boundary. Certainly it seems like southeastern New England is going to get into showers, and even steady rain tomorrow evening. I think Western Mass is going to see showers at times, but how far to the northwest the main rain shield is going to push is just not known right now.

Whatever the northwestern extent is of this rain shield, it will start to pull away off the coast on Sunday, leaving us with a mostly cloudy day, with breaks of sunshine, and possible showers, or even an isolated thunderstorm.

As a low pressure system sweeps across Quebec, Canada from west to east, it will drag its attendant cold front through our area sometime Monday, resulting in more showers and thunderstorms, before we dry out mid-week, with highs in the low to mid 80s.

Have a great day, and a great weekend!