The last weekend of summer is starting off with some very pleasant weather but it could be rainy by late Sunday. A high pressure system off the New England coast will provide lots of sunshine today and this afternoon's high will be right around the mid-September normal of 75 degrees. Saturday should be a couple of degrees warmer as the wind starts coming out of the southeast. With those southeasterly winds the humidity will climb and we could see a few clouds by the evening.
Although Tropical Storm Julia is forecast to weaken and remain south of Cape Hatteras through early next week, the storm will still affect our weather here in New York. Moisture from the storm will make its way north by Sunday and do battle with a slow moving cold front that is arriving from the Midwest. That clash will result in a good chance of showers or thunderstorms from Sunday afternoon through Monday. While the rain is not great for the Brooklyn Book Festival it will provide some much needed relief for the drought conditions covering much of the Northeast.
The incursion of air from TS Julia should warm us to the lower 80s on Sunday and to about 80 on Monday. No cooling is expected after the front ushers in a new air mass. Instead it looks like we will have warm, dry weather all next week. Tuesday could reach the mid 80s we should see highs in the low 80s under most sunny skies for several days after that.
While next week will be warm our chances of hitting 90 degrees are almost certainly over until next year. Wednesday's high of 91 was the 22nd time we hit at least 90 this year. That's five days greater than average and the most since 2010. Still that's barely halfway to the record of 39 days that happened in both in 1991 and 1993. All those 90-degree days, and almost no particularly cool days, gave Central Park its 7th warmest summer since records began in 1869.
