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After a spectacular Sunday with bone dry humidity, a dark blue sky and a mild high of 76, Monday is bringing a bit more warmth and humidity, with more unsettled conditions developing later in the day. Inland high temps should get into the low 80s on a south-southeast flow, though the Lake Ontario shoreline will be cooler with readings in the low-to-mid 70s. With a warm front lifting north of us and a cold front still well to our west, any coverage for late day showers and possible thunderstorms will be sparse and spotty.
Monday night will be much milder, with an unseasonably-mild low in the mid 60s on an increasing downslope southerly breeze. Much of the overnight period will be rain free, with only moderate humidity. By Tuesday morning, a low pressure system’s trailing cold front will begin to approach us from the west, increasing coverage for showers and thunderstorms.
In modeled detail, shower and thunderstorm coverage and intensity will begin to pick up early in the day and peak in the mid-morning into the afternoon.
The rainfall coverage and eventual passage of the cold front will hold daytime highs to 69-72. The front will be passed by late afternoon, as the convection begins to move off to the east of our region.
At this time, there are no indications any of the thunderstorms will approach severe criteria.
Wednesday looks like one of the dry days this week. We’ll be under the influence of weak high pressure, bringing limited sunshine, low humidity, and a fairly seasonable high of 70-73.
A minor disturbance reaching our region Wednesday night will likely produce some scattered showers, thinning out again on Thursday, as seen in the European model.
Only a few stray light showers will be possible on Thursday under a partly sunny sky and mostly dry conditions, with a high around or a bit above 70.
Friday will bring more weak high pressure, allowing for a mix of clouds and sun, and a high temperature edging up through the low 70s. By Friday night, however, a trough of low pressure extending into Western New York from a storm system to our south will bring the chance for just a few scattered showers in the European ECMWF model, while the American GFS keeps us essentially dry. The positioning of the trough keeps this limited chance for scattered showers with us on Saturday.
On the other hand, actual modeling of shower activity looks unimpressive for Saturday. The GFS shows nearly nothing, and the ECMWF keeps spotty activity mostly confined to Saturday morning. At this early point, Saturday does not take on the look of a truly wet day, though the abundant cloud cover may keep high temps only in the upper 60s.
Sunday brings a ridge of drying high pressure toward us from the West as the low pressure center pulls off to the East. That would seem to suggest the best chance for a few spotty showers to be in the morning, before the ridge moves in. A cool northerly flow behind the low and ahead of the high will again keep temperatures in the upper 60s, a little “cool for the pool.” By Monday, the high will take over, bringing more abundant sunshine and temperatures back into the 70s.
The Climate Prediction Center still favors a tendency for regional temperatures to run below average much of the time during their 6-10 day outlook.
The GFS extended range upper air pattern ensemble does, however, favor warmer ridging returning to the East by late in that period.
The ECMWF ensemble shows more inconsistent ups and downs during the same timespan, with the Canadian ensemble leaning toward the GFS, but slower in its arrival of the returning warmth.
June 6th marks the 78th anniversary of the largest amphibious invasion in history, the D-Day invasion into Nazi-occupied Normandy during World War II. With that anniversary comes a remembrance of the most critical weather forecast made in history. A landing made across the English Channel could not be attempted during truly stormy conditions, for it would have been doomed with many thousands lost to drowning, and most amphibious vehicles sinking or being swamped.
Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower had 2 meteorologist groups from whose forecasts he could choose. The American group was headed by Colonel Irving Krick, a California Institute of Technology professor, whose methodology relied heavily upon a study of past patterns much more than current observations. Krick’s methods, since discredited as mostly unsound science as a mode for day to day forecasting, were overridden by Ike, who chose to go with the more scientifically based forecast of the British group, headed by Group Captain James Stagg.
How Ike and his staff knew to go with the British mets is something of a mystery to me. Krick had predicted near ideal conditions for the 5th based on his unproven methodology. In fact, the 5th would have been a complete disaster for the landings. The Brits had timed cold fronts and storminess from actual weather stations in Newfoundland, weather ships and recon flights, and predicted the 5th landings must be postponed until the 6th, when some modest improvement would arrive behind a front. The decision for Ike to go on the 6th was agonizing, because seas would still be rather rough. As it was, a few hundred infantrymen were lost to drowning, and much equipment never made it onshore.
Eisenhower and his staff knew a postponement past the 6th would have meant holding off for several weeks until the next full moon in the lunar cycle. All the while, the Nazis lacked the meteorological expertise and data the Allies possessed, and their Luftwaffe meteorologists had predicted impossible landing conditions for weeks to come, not knowing of the window spotted by Stagg’s group. That poor forecasting helped lower their readiness levels. General Rommel even headed home to visit his wife, based on such information.
On a personal note, with all the horrors of that day, I’m grateful Ike made his choice as he did. My dad, drafted at age 33 (and known as “Pops” in his younger platoon) landed on Omaha Beach as a medic with the 29th Infantry Division, who were in the first wave with the more battle seasoned 1st Infantry Division. An inaccurate forecast for the invasion would have meant either failure on a horrific scale, or a postponement giving the Germans time to reinforce their defenses even more with the advantage of almost inevitable eventual leaks of the Allies’ plans during those weeks.
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