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John Homenuk

Please stop using basic weather apps to make decisions

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The sun is shining on a beautiful summer day. Temperatures are in the 90’s, the sky is hazy and the air is humid. You’re enjoying spending time outside with family and friends near the pool. In a matter of 5 minutes, all of this changes. Torrential rain is falling, lightning flashes and thunder cracks, debris flies as high winds gusty. This time, everyone stays safe as you hurry indoors. The conversation once everyone gets inside is always the same:

“That storm came out of nowhere, I had no idea it was supposed to rain like that today!”

Your weather apps probably didn’t tell you so, either.

Stories like these are all too common. While they can generally be taken lightly in the “kids at the pool” scenario, the story has a different ending when the thunderstorms are more severe; or if you are a contractor, or if your landscaping company has employees caught out in the storm, or if you make decisions for a sports team — and just put thousands of people at risk.

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500mb Vort
Miguel Pierre

Monday Musings: Pleasant, warm weather continues today, more showers & t-storms possible by Tuesday

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We know it’s the Monday blues for many of you. It was a beautiful, pleasantly warm weekend that we just didn’t want to end either.  For the most part, today will continue our stretch of pleasant, warm weather with more sunshine and temperatures rising into lower to middle 80s again this afternoon. Southerly winds will keep areas over Long Island and other south-facing shores possibly in the 70s.

A storm system slowly approaching from the Great Lakes will begin to cause some clouds to increase and thicken later this afternoon. There is a slight chance of some scattered showers and thunderstorms in parts of the region late this afternoon or this evening with a weakening cold front or pre-frontal trough approaching from the west. But most of this activity should remain well north and west of NYC.

Dew points will remain low and this should generally prevent any showers from making it through the region during the daytime hours. Instead, showers should remain focused near areas of better lift for precipitation, over Eastern Pennsylvania and Western New Jersey. Some weak shortwave energy moving over the region could lead to more scattered showers and thunderstorms later tonight and early Tuesday morning.

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Miguel Pierre

Friday overview: Pleasant, warm weather through the weekend

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Good news for beautiful weather lovers! High pressure to the north will provide the region with pleasant, warm weather today. Some more clouds may show this some weak passing with a weak upper-level disturbance passing through region. But overall expect sunshine to dominate today with temperatures reach in the lower to middle 80s this afternoon.

Now here’s some better news! This weekend will be gorgeous for most outdoor plans, as high pressure remains in control. High temperatures for much of the region, will be in the lower to middle 80s each day through Sunday. But if you are heading down to shores or beaches this weekend, temperatures will likely be a little cooler with a persistent light onshore flow, each day. Here are a few other highlights today for the region:

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John Homenuk

Wednesday Overview: Pleasant, bigger storms west and south

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An extremely pleasant summer day is expected to unfold today, with plenty of sun and dry conditions throughout the area. This will come as welcome news to many, especially those in Southern NJ who experienced yesterdays strong and severe thunderstorms. The same cannot be said for areas to our west, over the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley. There, a severe weather outbreak is anticipated and the Storm Prediction Center has issued a Moderate Risk for severe thunderstorms today and tonight.

That same disturbance will approach our area through Thursday morning, but luckily the intense dynamics and atmospheric instability will track well south of the area — as we have been discussing for a few days now. This means we’ll be able to avoid big time thunderstorms. Heavy rain may still move through parts of New Jersey. Here are the highlights:

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