Shark Girl sits under the sun at Canalside.

It won’t be a glitch-free holiday weekend. On balance, two of the three days will feature partial to abundant sunshine, with a more summery feel to Saturday and some midsummer warmth and increasing humidity make a brief return. The shower chances midweekend will dim the sun, but won’t add up to a washout.

The warming begins Friday with near total sunshine and a light southeast flow which will boost the afternoon high back to the lower 80s, with still-low humidity. The angle of the sun may be a little lower now that we’re into meteorological autumn but, rest assured, the UV index remains high whenever you see a blue sky. 

On Saturday, the flow veers to more southwesterly behind the departing ridge of cool high pressure.

Under a mostly to partly sunny sky, the dew points will rise to the low-mid 60s during the day, making for increasing but not oppressive humidity. The 8-15 knot breeze will bring 1-2 foot waves on Lake Erie and a lighter breeze will keep waves at 1 foot or less on Lake Ontario. The slow approach of a cold front will thicken the clouds and bring the chance for a few sparse-coverage lighter showers by Saturday night, with the highest chance on Sunday. Even during a mainly cloudy and somewhat cooler Sunday, models indicate showers will be light, strictly occasional, and with uneven coverage even if more widespread. The highest chance for more numerous showers will be in the southern tier. Winds will veer to northeast with cooler highs in the upper 60s north to the 70s in the southern tier, as the cold front drifts southward … not much of a day for boating. If your garden has gotten dry again, look to the hose …you’ll need it during the coming week. In general, rainfall will be inadequate over the next seven days for farmers and gardeners, with the greatest amounts falling in the Southern Tier and insignificant amounts on the Niagara Frontier.

Speaking of soil moisture, the updated Drought Monitor as of Tuesday still shows nearly all of Western New York to be abnormally dry, with smaller areas of moderate drought.

The seasonal outlook through November shows little change in these conditions.

In the West, the exceptionally vigorous monsoon season has brought about considerable improvement in parts of Arizona and New Mexico, but the megadrought continues unabated in nearly all of California. A worsening wildfire season seems all but inevitable. 

Back to our region, Labor Day is looking like we’ll have a fairly good finish to the weekend on the Niagara Frontier, with the cold front having slipped farther south. Under a partly sunny sky, an east-northeast flow of 10-15 knots will keep temperatures in the low-mid 70s, which is near seasonable. Wave heights will range from 1-2 feet on both lakes, with a few larger swells possible on Lake Ontario. In the Southern Tier, closer to the departing front, there may be a few morning showers and a little more cloud cover.

The dry ridge of high pressure behind the front will dominate the Great Lakes and northeast at least through next Friday. Temperatures will edge up to the upper 70s on Tuesday and return to the low 80s Wednesday-Friday. Summery weather is surely not done. The Climate Prediction Center/CPC also has high confidence our readings will run above average during the 6-10 day period.

Southern California continues to be gripped by what can be life-threatening heat. Excessive heat warnings are in effect for all but the immediate coastline through at least Tuesday. As an example, the National Weather Service forecast for densely populated Los Angeles suburb Glendale is 104-113 on Sunday, with no major relief through midweek.

The Atlantic hurricane basin is slowly awakening after an exceptionally quiet start to the season. This past month was only the third August with no named storms since 1950. Now, we have our first hurricane of the season, Danielle, well north in the Atlantic. It is no threat to land. Another disturbance approaching the northern Leeward Islands has a better chance of tropical development in the next few days on a west-northwest heading.

Carbon dioxide continues to rise

Although methane is a more potent greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide remains the most important such gas due to its far greater volume and longevity in the atmosphere. Human activities have caused CO2 to rise 50% since 1750, bringing the gas to 150% in volume compared to that time. (Earlier carbon measurements prior to instrument samples are by proxy, through paleoclimatology examinations of sediments and air bubbles in extracted ice cores.)

The window to meaningfully slow the rate of carbon dioxide increase so as to lessen the impacts of our warming climate is not yet closed, in the eyes of most climate scientists. But it is growing smaller with each passing year of inadequate global intervention.

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Shark Girl sits under the sun at Canalside.

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