Muggy weather sticking around
It may have been hot and sticky, but at least Tropical Storm Fay mostly left eastern Massachusetts alone this weekend.
Large surf and scattered showers and thunderstorms grazed eastern Massachusetts as the tropical system mainly stayed well to Boston’s west on Friday and Saturday. While that did lead to mostly indirect impacts for southeastern New England, parts of western Massachusetts saw some decent rainfall from the storm. The heaviest rain from Fay by far, though, fell in the New York City area and in coastal New Jersey.
Boston just saw an oppressively muggy Saturday, with dewpoints surging into the low 70s. Heat indices — the measure of the combination of heat and humidity and what it actually feels like on your skin — spiked into the mid 90s on
Saturday, and that was mostly thanks to the excessively high humidity values.
That same warm and sticky air mass will linger into the beginning of the work week across eastern Massachusetts. Temperatures are set to climb up into the mid 80s on both Monday and Tuesday in Boston, but both days will feature a chance for showers and thunderstorms. Severe storms don’t appear to be a big worry either day at this point, but Monday in particular could feature a few storms capable of producing some stronger winds.
The best weather of the week, though, will probably come on Wednesday and Thursday, when temperatures will be in the low 80s along the coast (warmer inland), but under sunny skies. That’s thanks to a weaker area of high pressure moving in from the west, although it’ll move out of the picture by Friday and Saturday.
Showers and storms move back into the picture for the end of the week along with warmer and muggier weather. Temperatures could approach 90 inland by Friday, although it’ll be cooler, as usual, along the coast.
Next week trends warmer and wetter, based on the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) 6-10 and 8-14 day outlook products.
In the meantime, typically warm summer weather appears to be in the offing for most of the week ahead, with a potential boost in temperatures next week. Muggy weather will also be a dominant feature of the forecast, especially early this week.
And hopefully, a cooling and drought-alleviating afternoon storm or two will slide through the region at the beginning or end of the week.
Early indications are, however, that next week may offer better rain chances for increasingly parched southeastern New England.