Western & Central Mass Weather Outlook For The Month Of September

It looks like the month of September may end up drier than average and warmer than average as it seems we are now in a different weather pattern than what we’ve seen all summer long. The upper level weather pattern for the month of September appears to feature a big upper level ridge that looks to entrench itself over northern New England and southern Canada. This will help to drive the warmth that much of the southern and central United States has seen all Summer long eastward into New England. At the surface, it appears that while there will be occasional frontal passages, they will be much less frequent than what’s occurred all summer long. In fact, it seems as if high pressure will be in control more often than any storminess. I have hopes that the relative frequent nature of high pressure systems building over the region will help to prevent any tropical storms or hurricane from affecting our area. That said, this is not a guarantee and the wrong upper level trough at the wrong time could pull any tropical system towards our area – so we watch, of course. Temperature: I’m forecasting temperatures that look to be between 1 and 2 degrees above average. The warmest weather of the month looks to occur during next week with daytime high temperatures of 85 to 90 Degrees common. These temperatures look to “cool” back to near average during the middle part of September before possibly warming back up to a little above average near the end of September. Rainfall: I’m forecasting below average rainfall for the month of September. In fact, the next week or so looks bone dry with no rainfall expected at all. The next chance of any rainfall may not occur until the very end of next week and next weekend and even that may be fairly meager. Beyond this, we may head into another spell of no rainfall at all for much of the week of September 11. In terms of amounts, my thinking is for rain totals in the neighborhood of between 2 and 3 inches across the region. This is about 1 to 2 inches below average. I want to point out though that this rainfall forecast would be blown out of the water should we see a tropical storm/hurricane affect our area. As I said, I think any tropical systems should be suppressed to our south, but this is not at all a guarantee.