Spared The Worst

Saturday June 27, 2009 07:30 AM

This past week an upper level low pressure and its surface reflection were parked south and east of Cape Cod for days on end.

Such a position put us on the northern flank of the storm and right in the path of the northeast winds wrapping around the poleward side of the storm center. Consequently, we were stuck with a persistent onshore wind, lots of low cloudiness and plenty of rain and drizzle - all because of the jet stream.

Looking ahead to the remainder of this weekend and into the first half of next week, a similar upper level jet stream configuration will evolve over New England.

However, this go around, the center of the upper level storm will be located to the north and west of Cape Cod (notice in this computer model output the center of the counterclockwise spin is located over western New England.)

While this overall pattern won't allow for perfect summer weather, the position of the upper level storm means that Cape Cod will be on the warmer and drier southerly side of the upper level low.

In terms of sensible, day-to-day weather, the results will be noticeably different from last week. Though a few episodes of showers and thunderstorms are possible from time to time, we won't be dealing with perpetual showers, fog, mist and cold temperatures. Instead, temperatures will be near seasonable levels and sunshine should be more common than clouds.