Our weather pattern over the next few days looks unsettled. It's not a washout, that's for sure, but it won't make you want to run outside and prance around in the great outdoors. As a southerner sitting on a wraparound porch might say, "It ain't bad, but it ain't good neither" (I know, terribly snobby-Northeast-biased of me...but if the shoe fits)
A warm front is situated to our south this morning, leaving Maine in the highly unstable region just to the north of the boundary. The hot, humid air and strong thunderstorms will remain confined to the Mid Atlantic through today and the weekend, but sufficient instability will be in place over Maine to produce scattered showers and thunderstorms. A pattern like this is a tough to predict on a "day-part" level. Meaning: I can tell you there will be a chance of showers on a given day, but narrowing those showers down to a finite time window is very difficult given the pop up nature of the convection. I'll take my best shot at it, but just keep this in mind when you are caught in a rain shower thinking "I'm going to strangle that slim-suit-wearing, thick-rimmed-glasses Buddy Holly weather boy."
Today: A gloomy morning, especially across coastal and southern Maine. Look for mostly cloudy conditions with showers most likely over the Midcoast and down into York and Cumberland counties. Nothing all that heavy as far as rainfall, but enough to be a morning inconvenience. Not nearly as wet over northern and western Maine, where the clouds are breaking up. MOST of the state will get in on some sunshine between 11 am and 3 PM this afternoon as the first round of showers pushes offshore. I say MOST because the coastline could be stubborn to clear out completely with an east wind off the water (never good for sun). Unfortunately the early afternoon sunshine will produce instability in the atmosphere and lead to pop up thunderstorms this afternoon. Those thunderstorms should stay mainly in the mountains of western Maine and into central New Hampshire. Meanwhile northern Maine should finish the day with mostly sunny skies.
Tonight: A few showers and thunderstorms will remain over western Maine this evening but most areas will be partly cloudy and calm. Look for mild overnight lows in the 60s with high humidity. That combination will likely lead to widespread fog by the early morning hours.
Saturday: We should get off to a dry start on Saturday, although there won't be a ton of sunshine to be had. I'll call it "partly sunny" through the first half of the day with a mixture of sun and mid level clouds, but instability will build for the afternoon. As a result look for quite a few thunderstorms to develop over the mountains and foothills of western Maine and into New Hampshire by the afternoon. They will be pop up in variety but hold the threat for some heavy downpours as there is plenty of moisture to work with in the atmosphere. Closer to the coastline the shower threat will be much less, and some areas over the Midcoast and Downeast Maine will escape Saturday totally dry.
Sunday: There isn't much of a change in the overall setup for Sunday so I expect a repeat of Saturday. There might be a SLIGHT reduction in afternoon thunderstorm coverage, but still the chance, particularly over western Maine.
Monday and Tuesday look dry and fairly pleasant but I don't like our overall mid range pattern. It's not AWFUL but it's not as beautiful as the past month or so. Instead of 4 nice days/a cold front/4 more nice days...we will be a more active pattern that includes 2-3 days of shower and thunderstorm activity.