Dry Week Ahead

April showers lasted one day into May with an entertaining thunder and lightning display last night. A big high pressure system over northern Ontario is slowly making its influence felt over New York. A bit of moisture and clouds are still with us, so far keeping the afternoon cooler than expected. Once that moisture is pushed away temperatures are expected to jump to around 70.

The high pressure system is big. It pretty much covers all of Canada east of the Rockies. What that means for us is clear skies and near normal temperatures, highs in the mid-60s, lows in the upper-40s, for the rest of this week and likely into early next week. Count 'em that's at least seven days without rain. Nine days if you trust the Weather Channel's forecast. Speaking of the Weather Channel, today is their 25th birthday!

Gothamist mentioned on Monday how this is Air Quality Awareness Week. The American Lung Association has taken advantage of that timing and released their 2007 State of the Air report. The results are not pretty for the five boroughs: The Bronx has the cleanest air, getting a C for ozone pollution and an F for particulates. Kings and New York counties weren't graded on ozone but both got an F for particulates. Queens also checks in with an F for particulates but got a D on ozone days. Richmond County received and F in both categories and blamed it on New Jersey. At least for today and tomorrow particulate and ozone levels look to stay low.

Lightning over Manhattan photo from annavanilla on Flickr.