Dueling Seasons

Despite the heavy snow this winter, record heat is producing a serious fire threat across portions of the northeast including New Jersey - shown above yesterday, where temperatures were in the upper 80's.

There is lots to talk about this morning, and I will try to maintain some order, rather than my usual routine of being all over the place. Lets start with yesterday and that line of thunderstorms that raced through Montreal around 8:45am. They dumped about 15mm of rain in just 15 minutes across portions of the island and south onto the south shore. It also produced reports of 1cm hail. Temperatures yesterday remained chilly all day in Montreal and along the US border as we remained in the cool sector. Just south of us more record heat was sending temperatures soaring into the 90's. Boston had a high of 91F, the earliest 90 degree day ever. They usually do not surpass 90 until June 5 on average. A cross section of the temperatures across the region from north to south at 3pm yesterday looked like this, Montreal 13C, Burlington 15C, Montpelier 25C, Springfield, VT 29C, Boston 32C and New York City 32C. I think you can see where the warm front was lying.

Today is very different in the region. A cold northeast wind has dropped temperatures down to 3C here in Montreal with drizzle. We can expect it to remain chilly for the next 36 hours with steady rain at times and the risk of thunderstorms as well. Winds will be gusty from the northeast at 30-50km/h. The air has chilled sufficiently enough in the western Ottawa Valley for freezing rain this morning. On the back side if our rainmaker, low pressure moving across the Ohio Valley, snow is falling in Wisconsin, northern Michigan and northwest Ontario. From 10-15cm of wet snow is forecast. Showers and thunderstorms will continue across our region into Friday before it slowly clears out with a risk of some flurries. The weekend looks sunny and seasonable.