Perverse precipitation pattern persists
I need to start working weekends, and taking the middle of the week off. Maybe you've noticed. Most of our rain this month has fallen on or around the weekends, while the workweek has remained mostly sunny.
It's uncanny. And worse - the forecast for this week is shaping up along much the same lines. Rainy today and early tomorrow, then clearing for mid-week, and clouding up for more rain this weekend. Who wrote this script?
You can look it up:
* Fri-Sun, April 11-13: 0.18 inch rain
* Mon-Fri, April 14-18: Trace
* Sat-Mon, April 19-21: 1.97 inches rain
* Tues- Fri, April 22-25: no rain
* Sat-Sun, April 26-27: 0.49 inch rain
There may be some science behind the idea, too. In summer at least, there's evidence that human activity - particulate air pollution, which peaks during the workweek - can cause weekly cycles in rainfall in the southeastern U.S. Here's more.
And there's plenty more rain expected today. Showers and thunderstorms are likely after 2 p.m. this afternoon, perhaps extending into Tuesday morning as low-pressure pulls cool, damp air in off the ocean today, and drags a cold front across the area tonight.
Then things start to dry out for the middle of the week. The sun should be out by tomorrow afternoon. Clear skies by Tuesday night could produce lows in the 30s, and a patchy late frost by Wednesday morning west of the I-95 corridor.
The sunshine should persist through the rest of the week, with daytime highs crowding 80 degrees again by Friday (sounds just like last week, doesn't it?) But then clouds and moisture and showers move back into the region - you guessed it - for the weekend.
The good news, of course, is that we are gradually making up the rainfall deficit that had been accumulating since last May.
Since Jan. 1, BWI has recorded 11.38 inches of precipitation. That's less than 2 inches below the long-term average for the period, and we're likely to erase a good bit of that shortfall before the rain ends tomorrow morning.
And, while it may not have seemed like it late Saturday afternoon (as the north wind turned cold and dropped temperatures here at Calvert & Centre streets from nearly 80 degrees at 4 p.m., to just 65 degrees by 7:30 p.m.), April has been unusually mild - the 6th warmest April at BWI in the past 30 years, averaging 56.2 degrees.
One more day of this cool, dank, marine weather, though, and maybe April won't be quite such a standout.
