Long-Range Forecast – August 15

Fred Campagna

10 years ago

We are halfway through August, and the month is running about 2° cooler than normal in Southeastern New England. It was dry for a while, but Wednesday’s rainfall more than made up for the deficit in many spots, including the Providence area.

The first Long-Range Forecast of the week highlighted the potential for warm weather late in August. Now, it looks like the warmth will not be too impressive in the Northeast, and there are signs that it could be near or even slightly below normal. The bottom-line is more 90° heat seems unlikely, and the high temperature for the year in Providence may wind up being a relatively low 91°, with only three days reaching 90. That’s a far cry from last year, but something we were expecting in the seasonal outlook.

Unsettled weather will not be far from Southern New England in the next couple of weeks. At this point, it looks like high pressure over the Northeast and Eastern Canada will keep the rain away most of the time. If there is going to be a warm-up, it looks like it will happen late in the month, but, there has been a recent computer model trend where the warmth is there in days 10-15, but as those days near, it disappears.

6-10 Day Precipitation outlook shows plenty of rain in the US, but not necessarily in New England

It looks warmer than normal in days 6-10, but it’s unclear if most of that warmth will come with above normal low temperatures

8-14 day precipitation outlooks is similar to 6-10 days

The pattern holds through the end of the month, with a chance for some warmth, but probably not extreme heat in the Northeast

The GFS model shows a similar pattern to what we’ve seen for most of the summer. High pressure moving in from Eastern Canada is not a recipe for extreme heat. This is late next weekend.

The ECMWF does not look exactly like the GFS, but it’s also not too warm. High pressure coming from the Upper Midwest would bring dry and seasonably warm weather to New England.

The first 5 days look cooler than normal at 5000 ft, and slightly cooler than normal at the surface

You can see some warmth building at 5000 ft. in days 5-10

Slightly warmer than normal weather is possible in days 10-15

Notice how the wet weather is concentrated in the Eastern United States, but, on many of these members the wet weather does not extend into Southern New England. It is close, however.