The week ahead: Cool, relatively quiet through Turkey Day

While clouds and a chance of some rain showers may make things a little unpleasant for the first part of next week, we’re looking at some great weather by the time Thanksgiving Day rolls around.

November 16, 2012; 3:43 PM • by Weather Dan

After a busy couple weeks with the back-to-back coastal storms in the northeast, it’s nice to get a little break in the pattern for the holidays.

Our high temperatures are still a few degrees below the average high for mid-November, but we’re not in a bad spot at all. The 30-year average high for November 16 is 61 degrees; we’re on pace to reach at least 54 today. This is just one meteorologist’s opinion, but that certainly qualifies as seasonable to me.

The best news? It’s going to continue for a while. Relatively speaking, I suppose. We’re not going to get 80 and sunny in the near future. Sorry if I got your hopes up, there.

Much of the cloudclover that was hanging out around eastern Virginia over the last couple days finally cleared out yesterday evening. An area of low pressure had been creeping across eastern North Carolina over the last couple days. Now it’s moved out to sea and taken the low clouds and rain with it. A big ridge of high pressure is hanging out just north of the Great Lakes in Canada and will slowly work its way east over the next couple days. The clockwise flow around the high will funnel lots of cool air into Virginia; while this won’t make us absolutely frigid, it will keep things cool well into next week.

Like I said, that’s not a bad thing. The only real black mark on comes Sunday and Monday. Another low is projected by several of the models to spin up over the weekend off the Carolina coast. While it is projected to head out to sea rather than up the Eastern Seaboard, it will likely throw some moist ocean air into the cold air wedge that we’ll have hanging out over Virginia. The result: lots of low, thick clouds and a few scattered showers. The best chances for any rain will be later in the period, closer to Tuesday. However, most of the last several model runs have been keeping most of the precipitation in North Carolina and offshore. With any luck, we’ll stay dry through the entire period.

The GFS tends to run a few degrees cold, so hopefully we’ll see some improvement in the temperature forecast, especially for Thanksgiving Day. Anyone looking forward to a family football rivalry game should be very, very pleased.

November 16, 2012 3:43 PM 0