A prominent on-shore flow will keep temperatures cool for the eastern half of New Jersey today, as our chance for unsettled weather continues through Tuesday.

Here are your weather headlines for Monday, May 18, 2015...

Half Warm, Half Cool

After a warm and humid weekend, accompanied by strong thunderstorms on Saturday and popcorn showers on Sunday, we continue an unsettled weather pattern early this week. A scary-sounding "backdoor cold front” has swept through New Jersey, which sets the scene for an on-shore flow today, bringing winds from the east (from the ocean). That's going to set up a wide temperature gradient across the state this afternoon.

HRRR forecast model surface temperatures for Monday afternoon. (College of DuPage Meteorology)
HRRR forecast model surface temperatures for Monday afternoon. (College of DuPage Meteorology)
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As you might guess (and as we’ve seen a couple times already this spring), an ocean breeze will keep locations closer to the ocean quite a bit cooler than inland areas. So not just for the immediate coast, but for the entire eastern tier of New Jersey counties (Bergen, Hudson, Essex, Union, Middlesex, Monmouth, and Ocean counties in particular), temperatures will be a bit on the cool side today, with afternoon temperatures only in the mid to upper 60s. (We have likely already hit our daily “high temperature” in those spots.) Atlantic and Cape May counties could make it to about 70 degrees. But that will still be a far cry from locations along the Delaware River, where temperatures should soar to near 80 degrees this afternoon.

Additionally, for the third day in a row, we can’t rule out some scattered showers and thunderstorms popping up this afternoon. The best chances for that happening would be in the “warm sector” where temperatures do rise well into the 70s. The rain chances are far from a sure bet today - just keep an eye on the sky later on, in case a downpour is headed your way.

Tuesday Cold Front

New Jersey will experience one more warm, humid day in this stretch, on Tuesday. Then an approaching cold front will deliver one more round of showers and storms, and eventually some cooler temperatures.

There’s still a bit of uncertainty about the exact timing of this storms on Tuesday. In fact, there’s some question as to whether they’ll even happen at all... The models have dried up these showers and thunderstorms significantly since last week. But I certainly wouldn’t rule them out, with the abundant moisture in the atmosphere right now and the warm temperatures expected tomorrow. In any case, our rain chances will come to an abrupt end by about 2 a.m. Wednesday morning, and then temperatures will start to trend downward thanks to a brisk northwest wind.

Wednesday won’t really be that cool, with highs around 70° (compared to 80° or so on Tuesday). That’s pretty comfortable, although the brisk wind will continue for a bit on Wednesday too.

Memorial Day Weekend

There are few weather forecasts throughout the year more pivotal than for Memorial Day Weekend. So we’ll be keeping a close eye on it, now that the countdown is on!

Frankly, I like what I see so far. A big dome of high pressure looks to build over New Jersey from Thursday through early Sunday. That will keep any storm chances low to non-existent, winds light, and temperatures pleasant and near-normal in the lower to mid 70s. For now, Friday looks good, Saturday looks good, and most of Sunday looks good. However, there does look to be some rain coming very late Sunday night into Memorial Day Monday. We’ll have better resolution on that rain chance later in the week.

(By the way, that lovely forecast means the weather looks great for our live broadcast from Battleship New Jersey on Friday, as New Jersey 101.5 honors all veterans for Memorial Day. Wake up early and join us live!)

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