New England Weather This Week: A Nice Break

This week will start off with a reprieve from recent weather. Things will shift back to the unsettled side for the latter part of the week, though it won't be nearly to the extent as late last week.

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY

After spending the better part of a week under a cutoff area of low pressure, New England will finally flip the script and spend a few days under high pressure. This will bring drier days with warmer temperatures. For Memorial Day, a cold pool aloft will linger over New England for one more day. This will likely allow for puffy cloud development in the afternoon with maybe a few isolated showers as well, very similar to Sunday.

Below: HRRR showing high temperatures this afternoon:

High pressure will remain in control on Tuesday and Wednesday, resulting in dry weather and an offshore flow. This will help boost temperatures back to early summer levels for inland areas. The offshore flow will likely be weak enough to allow for a sea breeze to develop, keeping the coast a notch cooler.

The overall setup during this time will see high pressure and ridging over Canada and the northeast with an area of low pressure and troughing farther south and west in the United States. This setup will likely result in cooler and unsettled weather in the southern area of low pressure with warmer and dry weather in the northern area of high pressure. Eastern Maine will be the farthest removed from the trough to our southwest midweek, so they will be the warmest Tuesday and Wednesday (and Thursday).

Below: Forecast temperature departure from average on Tuesday, showing warmth over Canada and with cooler weather over the south and central United States. New England is caught in the middle, with Maine looking at the warmest temperatures:

An area of low pressure will likely begin to materialize over the Great Lakes on Wednesday. The high pressure over New England looks to keep the region dry, but the low may be close enough to increase clouds over the region compared to Tuesday. Any precipitation with this system is likely to hold off until Wednesday night at the earliest.

Below: Current weather map for Wednesday morning:

THURSDAY & FRIDAY

By Thursday, the area of high pressure will have moved offshore, making room for the slow-moving trough of low pressure to push into the region. This will bring back showers and cooler temperatures for Thursday. At this point, it looks like most in New England will see the bulk of showers from this system from Thursday afternoon (western areas) through Friday morning (eastern areas).

While this system will likely involve secondary low development across the Mid-Atlantic, it doesn't look nearly as strong as last week's nor'easter. At this point, it looks like a quarter inch or less of rain will fall across New England Thursday and Friday, though this could trend up depending on how everything ends up setting up.

Temperatures will be cooler on Thursday amid the thicker clouds and showers. Temperatures may be able to tick back up a bit for southern and central New England on Friday with less numerous showers. There's a higher chance for lingering showers on Friday across the northern tier of New England as the low crosses New England overhead. Overall, there remains uncertainty on just how the end of this week will play out as this is a relatively complex setup.

Below: Euro showing potential weather Friday afternoon:

WEEKEND

At this point, it looks like the weekend may be unsettled and cooler as the slow-moving upper-level low crosses to the north of New England. The weekend does not look washed out at this point, but plenty of clouds and some shower activity is likely. This shower activity may be enhanced along the system's cold front, which looks to sweep through Saturday into Sunday morning.With that, shower chances currently look higher on Saturday than Sunday.

Below: Current weather map for Saturday (May 31), showing an upper low crossing to New England's north, dragging a cold front across the region.

This unsettled, cloudy weather will likely help to keep temperatures down, but not nearly to the levels of last week and this past weekend. At this point, seasonable to slightly below average temperatures generally look to win out, which would indicate 60s to the north and low 70s to the south.