PROLONGED RAIN EVENT COASTAL LOW FOR MID ATLANTIC COAST MAY 6–11

For those of you who have been following this developing scenario for last several days — I first talked about it in the three-week newsletter back on Sunday — here is the latest information from what I can gather.

The Thursday morning weather map shows HIGH pressure centered in the Great Lakes and LOW pressure in Oklahoma and southwest Missouri. The LOW pressure area in Missouri is going to be the main feature and it will track across southern Illinois, southern Indiana, and southern Kentucky on Friday. It will spread rain into the Middle Atlantic region on Friday with the rain first moving into West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania during the morning hours and spreading into central and eastern Virginia and North Carolina during the day.

The LOW pressure area will stall once it reaches Southern Ohio as a new LOW pressure area will “jump over the mountains “and reform along the coast of Virginia during the day on Saturday. Moderate to heavy rain will continue across central and eastern Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, northern Delaware, and far northern Virginia during the day on Saturday but the central and southern portions of Virginia and North Carolina will only see light rain or drizzle from time to time during the morning and midday hours on Saturday.

To the north strong Canadian HIGH pressure in New Brunswick, Canada and Maine will interact with the LOW pressure area to produce strong East or Northeast winds on the coast from New York City to Cape Hatteras on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Northeast surface winds will gust up to 40 mph along the coast this weekend from New York City to North Carolina.

Sunday, Mother’s Day, is going to be tricky because weather conditions will defer and depend upon your location. Sunday May 8 starts out cloudy throughout all of the Middle Atlantic region with rain and drizzle continuing from southern New Jersey through the Delmarva, southern Maryland, eastern Virginia, and eastern North Carolina.

But INLAND, it will be dry on Sunday morning, in central Virginia, central North Carolina, and western Maryland, West Virginia and western North Carolina.

During the Sunday the clouds will break up and there will be some sun in the interior and western portions of the Mid-Atlantic region by midday. However, again the coastal areas will stay overcast with occasional light rain and drizzle continuing as far inland as Interstate 95 on Sunday. The rain and drizzle on the coastal areas (Delmarva, Hampton Roads, and eastern North Carolina), will continue into Monday morning.

For the rest of next week, the coastal LOW pressure area will continue to linger in the western Atlantic Ocean. The actual surface LOW will drift southwest towards Georgia and Florida, BUT the interaction between this LOW pressure area and the HIGH pressure in southeast Canada will produce Easterly winds and a SURFACE Trough running from eastern Massachusetts to eastern North Carolina. This will keep the eastern half of the Mid-Atlantic region generally cloudy with intervals of rain and drizzle on Monday, May 8, through Thursday, May 12. In addition, the winds will stay out of the northeast for most of next week which means high tides than normal tides will pile up against the coast.

Coastal flooding will be an issue most of next week which will impact businesses and homes and organizations from southern New Jersey to North Carolina.

NEXT WEEK INLAND especially west of Interstate 95, will not see much rain and there will be intervals of clouds and sun for most of next week. Areas ven further west — such as western North Carolina, southwest Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley, western Maryland, and eastern West Virginia — should stay generally sunny most of next week.

But along the coast, this kind of weather pattern with the cloud cover, rain and drizzle, and the Northeast winds means that the eastern half of the Mid-Atlantic region will see temperatures much below normal for the middle of May. The interior will see at least some sunshine but the position of the Canadian HIGH pressure area in southeast Canada means temperatures will continue to run below normal.

ONE FINAL NOTE — the 12Z GFS model si NOT as wet along the coast as the 12z Euro British or Canadian Models. Thus many of the TV and smartphones apps do not have this kind of forecast along the NJ DEL MD VA NC coast.