Another beautiful weekend in the books across the Hudson Valley, as high pressure has settled in over the eastern US, and has locked the Hudson Valley and northeast into a warm and dry pattern once again.
Monday will start the same way that Sunday ended… with lots of sunshine and blue skies. Morning temperatures in the upper 30s and low 40s are likely, as the cold air mass from last week has moderated, and now a strong ridge of high pressure has settled in. That means Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday will look very similar to each other… with lots of sunshine, warm temperatures and dry conditions. Highs each day are expected to be in the mid to upper 70s across the Hudson Valley.
Our next shot at rain comes Wednesday night into Thursday, but the chances aren’t looking too promising. Most of the moisture is likely to stay to our north, and so maybe a tenth of an inch of precipitation could fall in the northern half of the Hudson Valley early on Thursday. We quickly dry out later on Thursday, with another batch of cooler autumn air moving back into the valley to close the work week.
Where is the rain?
The last couple months have been very dry across the Hudson Valley, leaving us in abnormally dry conditions across much of the region.
Abnormally dry conditions are the first stage of potential drought concerns across the valley, which could cause more issues as we move through the fall season. The last 60 days tell a dry tale, as rainfall totals around the Hudson Valley over 60 days are roughly between 1.5 and 3 inches of rainfall.
The real problem is that normally we would expect to see over 8 inches of rain during that span… making most of the Hudson Valley well short of average rainfall totals, with most places between 10% and 25% of average rainfall over the last 60 days.
You can see that the coastal areas from Maine down to Delaware are all between 10% and 25% of average rainfall amounts (red area), with the orange areas just slightly better, about 25% to 30% of average. So everyone is well below half of what is normally expected over the past 2 months. And it wasn’t exactly damp before that… so the brush and vegetation is quite dry and at elevated risks of fire. So make sure you use caution outside if your activities take you into the outdoors over the coming week or so.
The hope is that as we near the end of the month, we can see a pattern change, that bring more moisture to the Hudson Valley and northeast. The trouble is that the massive ridge of high pressure is projected to hold position for the next 2 weeks. We could see brief breaks, that could possibly bring brief chances at rain… but to be honest, the dry conditions look like they could continue through the end of October.
We’ll keep our eyes on the situation as we go… and let you know if we see increased chances for rain. Have a great start to your week!