New England weather this week: Beautifully calm (mostly)

New England will spend much of this week in a trough, but building high pressure at the surface and drier air will bring a mostly pleasant week. There will be a couple quick rain chances within the trough, but nothing anywhere near impactful. This setup will keep temperatures hovering near seasonable, if not slightly lower than average, levels.

MONDAY

Overall, Monday will be a pleasant and quiet, but cooler day for New England. With trough overhead of the region, temperatures aloft will remain rather cold for the time of year. This cooler air, when combined with daytime heating at the surface, will likely trigger increasing clouds with scattered showers and storms. These showers and storms will rotate into New England from the northwest. They will be scattered, so not everyone will see one. Highs will be in the 70s region-wide.

HRRR showing potential weather later this afternoon:

Photo byHRRR/Tropical Tidbits

TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY

Tuesday and Wednesday will basically be copies of each other. The aforementioned surface high pressure builds into New England from the west despite cool temperatures and troughing aloft. The drier air toward the surface will keep the region dry with the troughing aloft just producing some afternoon clouds without any organized low pressure system. Highs both days will be right at seasonable levels, in the low to mid 80s. The general northwest flow will keep humidity in check as well.

Photo byNew England Storm Center

THURSDAY

A more organized system may develop within the trough for Thursday. This may lead to a day similar to Monday with more scattered showers and storms cropping up in the afternoon and evening hours on an otherwise pleasant day. These showers and storms may knock temperatures down a notch from Wednesday and Thursday. The greatest chance for showers will be across northern New England, closer to the system.

Photo byNew England Storm Center

FRIDAY

The Thursday system looks to depart for Friday with surface high pressure taking back over once again. This should lead to Friday being more similar to Tuesday and Wednesday with partial sunshine and overall dry conditions along with seasonable temperatures. There may be some isolated showers left across parts of northern New England, most likely in the higher terrain.

WEEKEND

The weekend is where things start to become more uncertain, and possibly unsettled. This weekend will present the next chance for more widespread precipitation as a more organized frontal system pushes east from the Great Lakes. While this system is definitely coming, there remains a large spread in the timing of when it will push through.

Weather map for Saturday morning showing the frontal system pushing east from the Great Lakes:

Photo byWeather Prediction Center

The early trends have been toward it coming through late in the weekend or early next week. Despite this, some unsettled weather could arrive as early as Saturday afternoon, especially for western areas. For now, the highest chances for scattered showers and storms is for Sunday. A washout is currently not expected with this system. Temperatures are looking to remain near seasonable levels, but humidity may begin to increase ahead of the system as a more southerly flow develops.

WATCHING THE TROPICS

A tropical wave approaching the Antillean Islands will likely become Tropical Storm Ernesto on Tuesday. This storm will likely strengthen into a hurricane as it bends northwest toward Bermuda. The overall steering flow around this storm will likely keep it offshore of the United States. The trough over New England and the timing of the incoming frontal system this weekend will play key roles in steering the storm out to sea. Where exactly the storm turns around midweek will play a significant role in whether Bermuda is hit or not.

Photo byNational Hurricane Center