Final Monday Weather Update For Western & Central Mass

This will be the final weather update for today. I want to begin this by saying that forecasting the weather can be EXTREMELY DIFFICULT and it can both humble you to your core and frustrate you to no end. Today’s lack of thunderstorm development in the face of what looked like very potent environmental conditions confounds and humbles me. So, why do I think this occurred? While we had plenty of heat and humidity as well as forcing from the front and plenty of shear to sustain storms, I think that two factors may have inhibited the thunderstorm growth. First is that it appears that there may have been a slight inversion, which is a layer of warmer air just above us at about 5,000 Feet. This may have created a cap in the atmosphere, which led to thunderstorms not being able to grow much past that cap and just dying off. The second reason may have been a layer of dry air located at about 10,000 to 15,000 feet above the surface, which could have dried the atmosphere out enough to prohibit robust thunderstorm development. Really, none of this was detected in the various weather guidance and the only way that we could’ve detected this would’ve been with a weather balloon launch this afternoon. Unfortunately, for real-time upper air data, we have to rely on early morning weather balloon data, which many times can mask what may occur later in the day. Even though as meteorologists, we have a lot of data that we can look at and that’s available to make a forecast, there’s still A LOT that isn’t available and that lack of data can sometimes make your forecast go sideways, like today. So, I do apologize for not even coming close to getting today’s forecast correct. I beat myself up pretty bad when I don’t get a forecast right and I try to figure out where I went wrong. The explanation I just gave you is what I figured probably occurred in the atmosphere today. Fortunately, we still have some much drier air that’ll work into the area Tonight under clearing skies after midnight. Low temperatures will be near 60 Degrees. A much less humid day with dew point temperatures in the 50s under lots of sunshine is expected on Tuesday. High temperatures will be between 80 and 85 Degrees. Wednesday also looks sunny with low humidity and high temperatures near 85 Degrees. Thursday looks partly sunny with a little more humidity and there may be some scattered showers and maybe a thunderstorm during the afternoon. High temperatures will be near 85 Degrees. Friday also looks partly sunny and there should be some scattered showers around. High temperatures will be between 80 and 85 Degrees. This Coming Weekend looks nice with lots of sunshine on both Saturday and Sunday. High temperatures both days will be near 85 Degrees. It’ll be a little humid this weekend, but nothing compared to what we just had.