#Philadelphia #weather #PAwx
Friday Forecast & Weekend Outlook
Posted Thursday 02/27/25 @ 5:30 PM — Today’s showers were just enough to keep the car washes busy. Total rainfall was as little as 0.03″ to 0.10″ just across the river in NJ.
Fast moving low pressure in western Canada will move eastward and will move north of our area on Saturday. This disturbance is just becoming visible on satellite water vapor imagery—
By 2 PM Friday, the GFS shows our area to be somewhat windy with partly sunny skies. Highs will have trouble just getting past 50º on Friday. The approaching low will be over the Great Lakes area—
A sharp cold front moves through Saturday and very cold temperatures move in for Sunday and Monday.
Posted Wednesday 02/26/25 @ 9:02 PM — After a mostly sunny day on Wednesday, we’ll see clouds move in for Thursday. Very light scattered showers will be with us by morning and continue into the afternoon.
As has been the case lately, we’ll see only 0.10″ of rain or less. The Philadelphia area has been in a “doughnut hole” of rain with most systems for the past 9 months or so. As mentioned in my forecast review, I don’t currently see a change in that pattern in the extended forecast range of 2 weeks.
For tomorrow, the new AI model from the ECMWF captures the pattern of the heavy rain bypassing our area—
[note note_color=”#bceaed” text_color=”#333333″ radius=”3″]Tue 9:31 PM —Forecast Review — We had much more sunshine than forecast today. The lack of showers was not a surprise, as the forecast for scattered amounts in the 0.01 to 0.02 range can often be model “noise”.
That said, I see a continuing lack of significant rainfall in our area. We went into the winter with a rainfall deficit and we have had only a few decent rainfalls over recent months. I don’t see much in the way of heavy rainfall in the extended model forecasts. A case in point— a week ago, the models suggested a decent rainfall for this Thursday. Current model forecasts are showing a minimal amount of rain on Thursday.
That trend towards lower rainfall amounts in the model forecasts has continued. The basic pattern has been for rain to move off to our northwest or out in the Atlantic. If this pattern continues, we’ll have some significant rainfall deficits by late Spring.
Here’s the latest total accumulated rainfall forecast for Thursday, based on the new AI model, the “ECMWF-AIFS-Single”—
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Tuesday Forecast
Posted Monday 02/24/25 @ 6:17 PM — The weak front that moves through on Tuesday is expected to bring plenty of clouds and mild temperatures despite the lack of sunshine. Some sprinkles are possible anywhere from 3 PM to 7 PM, but any precip will be extremely light, on the order of 0.01 to 0.02 inches of water.
It should be noted that the ECMWF and the new ECMWF “Single AI” model show no precip at all in Philadelphia and very light precip to the far northwest, near Allentown and Reading. Depending upon the models, the clouds may dissipate late afternoon or hang tight a bit longer.
Previously Posted Sun @ 4:38 PM — —A trend towards milder weather this week has been well-advertised. As we saw about two weeks ago, the AI models are forecasting highs to be somewhat higher than the operational models.
First, here’s what’s happening now, Sunday afternoon—
Monday will be windy and gusty in the afternoon, ahead of a weak front.
The low pressure system in Canada (L) will move rapidly eastward and a front will develop to our west associated with that northern system on Tuesday with clouds and some showers possible mid afternoon according to the GFS and NAM-NEST.
It will briefly colder Tuesday night, but temperatures partly rebound on Wednesday.
Here’s the NBM temperature meteogram, for Blue Bell, showing its high temperatures (TMAX)—
The new ECMWF-Single AI model shows these highs—
By Thursday afternoon, another stronger cold front is expected to move through with some rain—
A cool down for Friday and another cold weekend follows, but then a big warmup for the first week in March.
