Rain fell on nine of the first twelve days of April. That pattern of storms moving through the area was brought to a swift end by the passage of a cold front yesterday. A new weather pattern, with a broad area of high pressure on the ground and an upper-level ridge building overhead as we head toward the weekend, will give most of us plenty of clear skies and warmer weather for the foreseeable future.
The jet stream is pretty zonal at the moment, meaning the winds are generally flowing from west to east. When that happens temperatures tend to stay close to normal and that is what we'll see today and tomorrow as the daily highs will hang out in the forced way northward, forming what is known as an omega block because the flow of the jet stream looks like that Greek letter. While the Weather Channel is acting like this is a rare occurrence, omega blocks happen frequently and are often responsible for prolonged periods of hot/cold weather.
This particular ridge will allow much warmer air to reach the east coast. We'll warm to the mid 60s on Friday and Saturday, at least the lower 70s on Sunday and probably the upper 70s on Monday. The middle of next week doesn't look quite as warm but our daily highs are likely to remain above normal in the 60s or 70s with little chance of rain for quite a while.
