Back To Home
The Story Behind the Weather - By Forecaster John Ensworth M.S. - 

The Discussion of Weather Events Daily for Philadelphia and Pennsylvania

 Last updated: 09/14/2003 02:20 PM

Aaaah, nice temperatures!  Tonight in the northwest, it might get downright COLD! Bur first, let's look at the departing cirrus with last nights front. 

The front is off the coast (as seen in the surface map below - valid 2pm Eastern time) and we have north winds behind it as the high in Canada creeps towards us. 

The front (ad advertised) passed with very little fanfare since there wasn't much cold air aloft as the front passed.  Philadelphia only officially recorded a trace of rain overnight. And the measurable rain all happened (as shown in the doppler radar rainfall totals graphic below) over the ocean far to our east. 

What is bringing us the off and on chance of rain over the weekend and into Monday is bubbles of cool air rippling along the front that is stalled to our south.  They will help lift moisture towards the state and help spotty showers to form.  No widespread heavy rains are expected through the middle of next week.  The closest approach of rain is shown in the next forecast map about (first) 36 hours and (second) 48 hours from now. 

Then the front to the west approaches bringing a bit more dry air briefly with a slight chance of showers.  Nothing to get the buckets out for.

Enjoy a cool, dry and fantastic weekend.  You've waited a LONG time for this one.  Don't waste it reading about weather online anymore!  See ya Monday. 

Meteorologist  John Ensworth

 

 

 

 

Surface Station sky cover color key:

Flight category definitions:
Category Ceiling   Visibility
Low Instrument Flight Rules
LIFR* (magenta circle)		 below 500 feet AGL and/or less than 1 mile
Instrument Flight Rules
IFR (red circle)		 500 to below 1,000 feet AGL and/or 1 mile to less than 3 miles
Marginal Visual Flight Rules
MVFR (blue circle)		 1,000 to 3,000 feet AGL and/or 3 to 5 miles
Visual Flight Rules
VFR+ (green circle)		 greater than 3,000 feet AGL and greater than 5 miles
*By definition, IFR is ceiling less than 1,000 feet AGL and/or visibility less than 3 miles while LIFR is a sub-category of IFR.
+By definition, VFR is ceiling greater than or equal to 1,000 feet AGL and visibility greater than or equal to 3 miles while MVFR is a sub-category of VFR.