Partly sunny Mother's Day, unsettled next week

Past weather isn't that interesting, unless it's highly unusual, but I have to say this; yesterday was one of the most beautiful days in May we can have. I didn't want to come inside and stop gardening. I hope you got a chance to enjoy at least part of the day.

Today's weather
Happy Mother's day to all the Mom's out there, especially, of course my Mom. This afternoon will be a nice day and quite warm. The only issue that we have some high clouds that will block out the sun a bit. These clouds are caused by a cold front well to our west. There is not much moisture with this system, so I am not expecting just high clouds. You can see, on the image below, that the % of the sky covered by clouds is going to be quite high all day. These are only high clouds. The graph also shows temperatures hour by hour and other interesting weather variables. I will be using this graph quite often in my blog.

Next week
There will be a weather system moving northward from the Gulf of Mexico Tuesday into midday Wednesday. This system will give the area a period of rain. Right now, the rain looks most likely to fall Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday morning. The heaviest rain will occur overnight Tuesday. The models have the greatest rain totals in different places for this storm. If you look at the image here, you can see the differences quite clearly. The red/purple area represents rainfall of 1-3 inches or greater. The two maps are two different weather models. The GFS model has that heavy rain very close to New England. The NAM model has that same area much further to our west. Notice both models have the same pattern of rainfall, it's the exact location that is still in question. We are certainly going to get some rain, at least 1/2 of an inch, but whether we get many inches of rain is still up in the air. More on this prediction tomorrow and Tuesday.

Beyond Wednesday, the weather looks fantastic. Sunshine and mild temperatures will close out the week and take us into next weekend, which right now, looks great. All in all, the rain, while making for a dreary start to the new week, will get out of here in time to allow us to enjoy continually increasing amount of daylight the second part of next week.

We are approaching the day with the greatest amount of daylight very quickly. (June 21st) This week, the sun will rise just before 5:30am and set, for the first time since last summer, after 8:00pm. Officially, Wednesday is the day, in Boston, the sun sets later than 8:00pm. Those of you living in Worcester and points west, you enjoy an 8:00pm sunset tonight.

Gardening tip this week

Do you have a pole, house, road or neighbor you would like to block? In this video I show you how I used a variety of trees to help screen the road for this client. They loved it, I hope you do to.

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