Cool Start, Then a Warmup for the Holiday Weekend

Friday Morning

A trough aloft with chilly air will help to spawn showers and thunderstorms across the Northeast during the first part of the weekend. Warmer air will show up across the Great Lakes tomorrow, the Appalachians and Middle Atlantic states Sunday, and New England on Monday. However, as a cold front approaches from the northwest on Monday, a few thunderstorms can break out from northeastern New York state through New England. Here is the video for today.

For Memorial Day, the weather is important. But, so is this:

With the coming of Memorial Day weekend, the traditional summer holiday season gets underway. From the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley to the smashing breakers on the Northeast coast, dry weather will be the rule, though showers will dot the Northeast through tomorrow. The Carolinas and Virginia will be sunny.

While we enjoy our holiday, we hope none of the atmosphere's battles will be waged at our expense. In the Plains and Gulf states, bayonets of lightning, cannon shots of thunder, volleys of hail, and oceans of rain from battleship gray clouds will affect the area as well as testify to the atmospheric wars waged across our country since before our time.

And so too have real wars, domestic and foreign, taking their grim toll of those whose best times seemed to be just out ahead and down the road. Those brave women and men won't walk in the warm winds with us this Memorial Day weekend, but their memory rides the currents. Others are still with us, but the are injured. For them and their families, the pain and hardships do not end with their return home.

Memorial Day weekend can make memories. At this one time of year, those memories close ranks with the dusty legions of hazy, time-dimmed recollections we have of those who kept freedom alive for us. Their spirit lives in each of us as we cherish the freedom that allows us to do as we please in America this holiday weekend. Silently, they march with us as we celebrate this land, its people, and all the things we hold dear in our own time, and for all time. We can only work to make our lives be a shining light to those who follow.

Elliot Abrams 5/14

On a cheery note, Sam the Dog waits to play ball. Sam is 15 years old this year but still moves pretty well when chasing a tennis ball. Sam has become deaf during the past year. One consolation is thunder no longer frightens him.