May 8, 2010

Hydromet Outlook through May 22nd:
A far more normal looking upper air pattern has become fixed over the Northeast this past week and will likely continue for the next two weeks as well. The storm track continues to located over or just to our north. This is expected to continue and will feature an absence of persistent northeast wind events and instead should,favor periods of southerly or southwest winds followed by northwest winds. Temperatures will start out a bit warmer than normal but trend toward normal to slightly below normal over the next two weeks. Precipitation is likely to be above normal for the first week then closer to normal there after.

As for precipitation, it appears that the next 5 to 8 days will feature two moderate precipitation opportunities. The first of which will affect the region tonight and Saturday in the form of showers and thunderstorms which could produce as much as an inch of rain where the heaviest convection occurs. A similar storm system is forecast to affect the region during the middle of next week. In both cases these systems will feature a southerly component to the wind flow followed by gusty northwest winds in its wake. For the week of the 18th, the region is forecast to be sandwiched between high pressure off the east coast and building high pressure in central Canada. Long range models are suggesting some potential for a coastal storm to develop and affect the northeast later that week but there is tremendous uncertainty at this time on the exact evolution. Hopefully we will have a more clear picture by next week's outlook.

Last updated: May 20, 2010