Weather Outside Your Window: Much of Northeast to remain dry through 1st week of August

By Mary Gilbert, AccuWeather meteorologist

Updated Aug. 3, 2021 9:13 PM EDT

A much more quiet start to August has unfolded and will continue a bit longer for the northeastern United States after severe thunderstorms rocked the region in the final days of July.

This extended quiet pattern will be good news for residents still cleaning up after at least 10 tornadoes tore through parts of the Northeast on July 29, including an EF3 tornado that injured several people in a Philadelphia suburb.

"A dip in the jet stream has managed to push more comfortable air into place across a good portion of the Great Lakes into the Northeast and even southward to the Tennessee Valley and Middle Atlantic," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Matt Rinde said.

On this image, captured on Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021, a shield of clouds associated with a storm over the southern Atlantic coast can be seen extending into part of the Northeast. However, the clouds were having trouble producing rain in the Northeast due to a vast amount of dry air in place. (CIRA at Colorado State/GOES-East)

Cities along the Interstate 95 corridor like Philadelphia, New York City and Boston spent at least a few days of last week reaching high temperatures in the upper 80s F to lower 90s F. Now, as this more comfortable air settles into place, high temperatures in the upper 70s to lower 80s will be much more common across the region early this week.

For early August, average high temperatures sat in the lower to middle 80s across the Northeast into Tuesday evening. For quite a few locations, not even wet weather will threatened to ruin an ideal summer day.

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By midweek, a slight change in the overall pattern will begin to tick temperatures up a few notches across interior areas of the Northeast.

"This pattern will slowly ebb through the week with northerly winds slowly turning to the south," Rinde explained. "By week's end this will lead to increasing temperatures and humidity."

Wednesday will likely be the first day cities like Syracuse, New York, and Pittsburgh are able to achieve high temperatures within a degree or two of normal.

The gradual uptick of temperatures will continue for many across the Northeast for Thursday and Friday as well. However, some areas closer to the coast may miss out on this warmup later in the week.

AccuWeather forecasters say surges of moisture are set to overspread the coastal Northeast starting on Wednesday.

One such surge is expected to spread drenching rain into southeastern New England for a time Wednesday night. That rain may skirt the New York City area.

Another rainy spell is possible along the East Coast Thursday into Friday, Rinde said.

Rinde also noted that the location and intensity of any storms from Wednesday to Friday would depend on exactly what tracks a storms in the Southeast take as they generally move northeastward.

Cloudy and perhaps wet weather will work to suppress temperatures for affected areas. New York City may struggle to even climb into the low 80s by the end of the week if wet weather moves in as scheduled.

July was an abnormally soggy month across much of the Northeast. While the wettest days occurred during the first half of the month for many, a few notable events to end July also sent rainfall totals soaring.

More than a handful of reporting stations across the Northeast recorded rainfall totals that were double the average value for July. New York City, for example, recorded 11.09 inches of rainfall for the month, which was 241 percent of normal. A normal rainfall amount for the city's Central Park location during July is 4.60 inches.

Boston was the big winner, or loser depending on your point of view, in terms of above-average rainfall in July.

The city ended up with an impressive 10.07 inches of rainfall, making July of 2021 the second-wettest July on record. The wettest July on record for Boston occurred exactly 100 years ago in 1921 when the city recorded 11.69 inches of rainfall. Boston typically averages just over 3 inches of rain for the entire month of July.

Over the course of this weekend and next week, the persistent dip in the jet stream is forecast to back off. As this happens, the door will be opened for much warmer and more humid conditions not only in the Northeast but also the Midwest.