If my meteorologist friends saw my response to last night's thunderstorm activity I would, no doubt, have my official "weather weenie" title suspended for at least 6 months. I was awoken by a loud crack of thunder (probably from lightning less than 1/2 mile away based on my mid-sleep calculations), realized there was a pretty good thunderstorm going on outside and proceeded to push a pillow over my ears and go back to sleep. This kind of behavior just doesn't fly among the card-carrying members of the underground weather nerd world. Not only would 95% of my friends have woken up to watch the storm, but they would also get fully dressed and drive to their favorite "T-storm vantage spot."
Well at least I'll have another chance tonight to "do the right thing" with more thunderstorms likely.
Tropical moisture continues to stream into the Northeast, the resulting convection has lit up the radar like a Christmas Tree overs southern New England and upstate New York. As of right now there is only minor shower and thunderstorm activity in Maine itself, but that will change through the afternoon and evening. There is a broad upper level low WAY to our west over Chicago that will slowly rotate northeast over the next 48 hours bringing it's associated warm front, occluded front and cold front through Maine this weekend.
Today: Mostly cloudy, humid and increasing shower and thunderstorm activity. This activity will be over western Maine and the mountains at first but slowly spread over the entire state. Any thunderstorms that do impact the state will have the ability to drop a TON of rain in a short period of time. The atmosphere is juiced with mucho water vapor and that vapor can be converted to heavy rain given the right thunderstorm. (Last night was a perfect example as Portland received 1.6" of rain in about an hour). This setup has prompted the National Weather Service to issue a Flash Flood Watch for tonight and tomorrow. A Flash Flood Watch basically means some areas could receive much more rain then the soil is able to absorb leading to rapid river rises and poor drainage flooding.
Tonight: A few small scale computer models are picking up on a large cluster of thunderstorms, currently over New York City, pushing through southern Maine around 9-11 PM this evening. It's always dangerous to trust computer models to handle thunderstorm life cycles correctly but I think there is a decent chance those storms stay intact at least as heavy rain showers, so plan on some downpours during the middle part of the evening over southern Maine, closer to midnight over central Maine. The remainder of the evening will feature clouds, fog and some pop up showers and thunderstorms.
Saturday: Still unsettled. It's not the TOTAL washout it once looked like due to the fact that the upper level low might be a BIT too far to the west to get the best moisture in here. Nonetheless I expect mostly cloudy skies with pop up showers and storms off and on through the day. Same drill with these storms, heavy rain is a good bet. I'm not going to say any part of the day is GOOD for outdoor activities but your best chance is likely late morning to early afternoon. Might even be a few peeks of sunshine across the interior during that time frame. The heating from the sun, however, will lead to more thunderstorms.
We should begin to wrap some dry air into the state by Saturday night (After midnight) and the showers will gradually shut off.
Sunday looks decent. We will call it partly sunny with an ISOLATED shower. I don't think there will be many around but with the cold front only 100 miles or so offshore, it would be negligent not to include the chance for some pop up activity.
Monday and Tuesday both look dry and pleasant...more showers on Wednesday.
Our midrange pattern still looks fairly "troughy" with a number of disturbances heading our way over the next 10 days.
Alright I'm out of here.
You know the drill...you can friend me on Facebook...but no Farmville, Lucky Slots or Mafia Wars requests.