Heavy Rain Expected On Thursday Morning Across Western & Central Mass

For This Afternoon: A quite sunny afternoon is expected across the entire region as an area of high pressure very briefly builds into the area. Temperatures this afternoon will be between 75 and 80 Degrees. Winds this afternoon will be west at 10 to 20 mph. Tonight: That high pressure system will continue to control our weather for the first half of tonight before an area of low pressure moves in from the southwest. Skies this evening will be partly cloudy with skies becoming cloudy after midnight. Rain, which will be heavy at times is expected to overspread the entire area between about 4 am and 6 am Thursday morning. Low temperatures tonight will be between 55 and 60 Degrees. Winds tonight will be west at 5 to 10 mph before midnight and southeast at 5 to 10 mph after midnight. Thursday: Heavy rain with a chance for thunderstorms is expected throughout Thursday morning as that low pressure system tracks across Southern New England. This heavy rain is expected to come to an end by about 12-2 pm Thursday afternoon. Overall it appears that total rainfall amounts on Thursday morning will average between 1 and 2 inches with localized amounts of up to 3 inches in any heavier rain bands. It should be pointed out that most of this heavy rain will fall within about a 4 to 6 hour time window Thursday morning and thus urban flooding, street flooding and poor drainage flooding looks very likely. Given the very dry conditions of late, I think that the flash flood threat is low, but it’s something that is going to be watched closely. Conditions are expected to dry out by late Thursday afternoon with even some sunshine possible. High temperatures on Thursday will be between 65 and 70 Degrees. Winds on Thursday will be east at 10 to 20 mph in the morning and south at 10 to 20 mph with gusts to 30 mph in the afternoon. Friday: A sunny to partly sunny day is expected on Friday with high temperatures between 75 and 80 Degrees. This Weekend: There continues to be a lot of uncertainty with this weekend’s weather and this uncertainty continues to hinge on the exact track and strength of an area of low pressure that is expected to move either near or across Southern New England on Saturday afternoon and Saturday night. Some of the weather forecast guidance seems to be trending towards a more glancing blow with that low pressure system moving to our southeast. Should this occur, it would mean a little bit of light rain Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening. At this point though, I’m not going to really change the overall forecast as I don’t want to take rain off of the table and then have to forecast it again should guidance be incorrect. My latest forecast is for that low pressure system to track near the Cape and Nantucket on Saturday night and then move away on Sunday. This means that Saturday, I think, should start out dry, but rain is possible during late Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening. High temperatures Saturday will be near 70 Degrees. Low temperatures Saturday night will be near 55 Degrees. Sunday looks like it could feature a mixture of sunshine and clouds with high temperatures near 75 Degrees. Given all of the graduations and other events planned for this weekend, the weather is something that I’ll be keeping a close eye on and will have more updates over the next couple of days.