It’s a beautiful morning with dry air, partly sunny skies and light northwest winds.  Low pressure is lifting into Maine and taking the widespread showers and thunderstorms along with it… overall–a nice start!

While it’s not going to be a “washout” today… I do expect weather changes as we head through the day.  The storm center currently lifting into Maine will get stuck in northern New England, keeping the weather a bit unsettled, even all the way down here.  Clouds will begin to fill-in through the morning with partly to mostly cloudy skies expected for this afternoon.  There will probably be a few scattered showers, too.  They should be brief, and spotty, with lots of dry time in between.  If you’re planning on an outdoor activity today… keep an eye out for an isolated thunderstorm–lightning, small hail and brief, heavy downpours are possible in any t’storms that develop.  Temperatures are still running cooler than average with highs climbing into the low to mid 70s.

If you’re gearing up for a vacation week around the 4th of July… we’re looking at a trend towards warmer-than-normal temperatures for much of the nation.  Here’s the temperature anomaly forecast from the Climate Prediction Center for July 3-9.

Temperature Outlook July 3-9

It looks we won’t have to wait until next week to get into the warmer than normal temperatures… by Thursday, Friday and especially this weekend, both temperatures and humidity will be on the rise in southern New England with afternoon highs well into the 80s to near 90.  In terms of precipitation around the 4th of July week… it’s looking like a “normal” to perhaps slightly drier than normal stretch could be in store for much of New England.

Precipitation Outlook July 3-9