Is reliable warmth finally coming?
The Middle Atlantic states and southern New England have had some days that were sunny with the promise of warmth. The table below shows that New York City has been warmer than average this April. Some of the warmest days are highlighted in orange. Cooler periods are highlighted in blue.
As you can see, there have been no long periods of warmth... spells during which a series of days would feature the true promise of summer. Then again, it has only been April. But the question now is: with May starting tomorrow, will we finally have some extended warmth? Or will we plod along with some May days feeling like March, if you will, while on other days the March in May marches away... which it can, if you may?
Looking at the next couple of weeks, truly chilly air will be confined to the northernmost parts of the Northeast. however, cool days will probably remain interspersed with warm times as a series of low pressure areas and fronts moves from the Midwest to the East Coast.
The following GFS forecast maps show this:
This map for tomorrow evening (Wednesday eve, May 1) shows wet weather coming through the Northeast region. The rainfall pattern thins out a bit around Ohio but becomes more widespread from the lower Ohio Valley to Texas.
Looking at Thursday night, it appears that the drying noted around Ohio on the previous map has moved through the Northeast, but that the next batch of rain is fast approaching. There is a break in the rain over Arkansas, but rain and thunderstorms would move through the heart of Texas.
Assuming the Arkansas dry zone advances into the Northeast later Friday night into Saturday, we see that the Texas rain area seems to expand to cover much more territory as it advances northeastward Saturday night. While the general impression I get is that while this will be a frequently damp setup, at least it will be mild to warm.
One way for you to assess how frequently it will rain at your location is to look at the hourly forecasts on AccuWeather.com. In our broadcasts, we used to add phrases like "but most of the time it will not be raining" to describe periods when we did not want people to think it would just keep raining. Unfortunately, the automated forecasts now produced do not have that extra information.
Skipping ahead to Mother's Day, the GFS suggests it will be dry in the Northeast at midday. However, showers could be common from Nebraska to the upper Great Lakes as well as from Texas through much of the Southeast (but not in most of Florida).
So, to answer the question about reliable warmth asked in the headline, the answer seems to be "not quite yet."
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