The final weekend in August is here, and anyone with outdoor activities will find that Mother Nature will be cooperating nicely with your plans (unless your plans called for more rain).
Saturday will see bright sunshine mixing with high fair weather clouds. The airmass to start the day on Saturday will be warm and rather humid. But a steady NW breeze will gradually dry out the air mass, and humidity levels will fall through the day. Afternoon highs should top out in the low 80s, right about where we should be for late August (Poughkeepsie avg high 81°). Saturday night, temps will fall into the upper 50s and low 60s under mostly clear conditions. A fine late August night.
Sunday looks similar to Saturday in many ways… a mix of clouds and sunshine… comfortable humidity levels, and slightly cooler temperatures. Highs on Sunday project in the upper 70s around the Hudson Valley.
Looking at the week ahead… things look fairly quite here in the Hudson Valley. Some high clouds could push in from the south Monday & Tuesday due to the outflow from Hurricane Franklin. But a cold front from Canada swings through Wednesday that pushes everything off to our east, and brings a reinforcing shot of dry air and comfortable temperatures. Not much in the way of rain is expected, with maybe 0.25″ due to scattered showers with the front on Wednesday.
TROPICAL TALK…. we’re watching two areas of tropical disturbance in the Atlantic & Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane Franklin will push northward between Bermuda and North Carolina, and head NE out to sea. The biggest area of concern with Franklin would be for Bermuda, but the storm should pass west of Bermuda on its way out to sea. Then the next is likely to be Tropical Storm Idalia… which will develop in the Gulf of Mexico and push NE toward western coast and Panhandle of Florida. That system is likely to make landfall at some point around mid week. The concern with Idalia appears to be more around rain than wind. It remains to be seen how strong Idalia will get in terms of wind, but upwards of 5 inches of rain could fall in some areas. So that will be monitored.