3/26- Watching a weekend washout!

Good Wednesday everyone-

A wind advisory remains in effect today for very strong wind and temps in the 30s, however, looking forward, this is this winter's last hurrah it appears. Temps will moderate not just today but moving forward as well with nearly all days in the 50s and maybe even approaching 60 on Friday. Unfortunately, a rather odd late season coastal storm develops Saturday afternoon...and washes out Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday. At this time, several inches of rain are possible (1-2 perhaps) and that is enough to ruin everyone's day! Also, it is important to note that one model, the GFS, changes the precip over to several inches of snow on Saturday night, but that is unlikely at this time as it is the only one to indicate this, but we should not throw it out as this model has been one of the more accurate ones recently. Because of the warm temps, however, it does not seem like a logical solution, so I will forecast predominantly rain at this time.

Stay warm today everyone, but take solace in the fact that this may well be it!

On another note, the weather channel predicted an average hurricane season in 2014 last night featuring 11 named storms. This is below average in the modern era. I agree with this forecast, as an El Nino is developing, which frequently cools the Atlantic and produces high wind shear over the region. The last such occurance was 2009.

If anyone is interested, this years name list in the Atlantic basin was last used in 2008- Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gonzalo (replacing Gustav), Hanna (which hit CT in 2008), Isiah (replacing Ike), Josephine, Kyle, Laura, Marco, Nana, Omar, Paulette (replacing Paloma), Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky, and Wilfred. We'll see how far we get!

Today in weather history- March 26, 2004- The first hurricane to ever form in the South Atlantic actually hits Brazil as a category 2 hurricane and does significant damage to the Catarina region. To this day, it is the only recorded hurricane in the history of the South Atlantic and is referred to as 'Cyclone Catarina' and has a very unique place in the record books!