Working in a field ripe with "you guess for a living" (cliche-for-the-win) jokes, I hate a weather setup that forces a forecast with a little bit of everything.
Due to the instability ahead of an approaching cold front, today will feature fog, cloudy skies, breaks of sun, mostly dry weather but also isolated pop up showers and thunderstorms. Throw in some snow and sleet and you've got a classic "50% chance of weather" forecast.
Today: Seriously...a little of everything. Morning fog will be slow to lift along the coastline and many spots will be socked in until late morning. Those areas that do burn off the fog will find mostly cloudy conditions are layered above as clouds stream in from Canada. The strong cold front that represents our main weather feature won't actually move through until this evening, BUT the air mass is fairly unstable so there will be scattered pop up shower and thunderstorm activity through the day. The BEST chance will be over western Maine and the mountains, but the interior won't be totally immune. As far as sunshine goes, it will be very limited but there may be a few sunny breaks from late morning to early afternoon, especially over southern Maine. Temperatures will stay in the 70s with high humidity. So what does this mean for outdoor plans? I'd go for it but you may get clipped with a passing shower.
Tonight: The cold front pushes through and showers and thunderstorms become more numerous. It looks like one line of thunderstorms will move through during the early evening (6-7 PM) and then a second line will move through around midnight. The first round could produce some very heavy downpours and damaging wind gusts. In fact the Storm Prediction Center has placed us in an "Elevated Risk" for severe thunderstorms through tomorrow morning. While I do think there will be some strong thunderstorms, my experience has been that it's hard to keep severe weather going in the face of a strong onshore flow with stable marine air (which we have going on today). Either way, some of the storms will likely wake people up late tonight/early tomorrow morning.
Sunday: The front continues the eastward push. Showers will be likely during the morning hours but clearing will take place from west to east starting around mid morning. Western and southern Maine should be sunny by noon. Meanwhile the front stalls over Downeast Maine (stop me if you've heard this one before), leading to longer shower activity and a generally cloudy day there.
Monday: A big ridge of high pressure builds in from the west and brings us beautiful, if fall-like, weather. High temperatures will struggle to break 70 in many spots under mostly sunny skies. Dew points will be very low so the air will have a crisp quality to it.
Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday: Sunny. Really, that's it. High pressure continues to dominate, temperatures slowly ramp from the low 70s to mid 70s by later in the week.
You kids stay off my rocks!: The swells from Tropical Storm Leslie (WAY out there, don't worry) combined with a stiff south wind will produce some dangerous surf today through Monday morning. The National Weather Service has issued a "High Surf Advisory" all the way along the coastline of Maine. (I've included a graphic on our weather front page). Wave heights will reach 6-10 FT and the rip current will be VERY dangerous. The largest point of concern on a non-beach day like today is people going out on the rocks and jetties to get a better look. I get it, you want to get a cool picture for Facebook...but seriously, stay back off the immediate coastline and use the zoom feature of your camera. Often times "wave hunters" are the ones injured in these situations. Ok that's all the "dad" I'll throw at you for now.
The Weatherman Is Not a Moron-NY TIMES: Great article if you have the time read it...it goes into depth about the field of meteorology and the inherent pitfalls.