Sunny, dry weather to start Labor Day weekend in the Philadelphia area
For many of us, the long weekend is here, and Mother Nature plans on delivering award-winning conditions as we say goodbye to August and hello to September in the Philadelphia region.
We start Friday with morning low temps in the 50s and daytime highs in the mid-upper 70s to near 80 degrees. We'll have scattered cloud cover around the region through the first half of the day as we wait for a very weak cold front to sweep through the region this afternoon. A few sprinkles will be possible ahead of this front, but most of the region will not get any rain today.
Slightly cooler air arrives behind the cold front tonight to send temperatures into the upper 40s to middle 50s.
This trend will be pretty much the same through the entire holiday weekend. No rainfall is forecast for the entire four days.
It's pretty rare to have these kinds of conditions for Labor Day weekend. In fact, when we look at morning lows in the 50s for Aug. 30 through Sept. 1, that has only happened nine times in the history of record keeping in Philadelphia, according to stats that go back go back 150 years.
The last time it occurred was in 1987, when the low temps were 56, 57 and 56, respectively from Aug. 30 to Sept. 1.
As we look ahead to next week, the relatively mild pattern continues for the kiddos going back to school on Tuesday, with highs in the low 80s. The next chance of rain doesn't look to be until next Thursday as a weather system moves in from the south. It could be interesting for the Eagles-Cowboys game.
We need the rain, though. The newest drought monitor has a few added areas in "abnormally dry" conditions. Not a big deal now, but with little rain in sight, it will need to be monitored.
The tropics are relatively quiet as well with only one area of interest from the National Hurricane Center, giving it a 20% chance of development over the next seven days. That cluster of storms is just off the western coast of Africa, so even if it develops, it will take quite some time to get to this side of the Atlantic.
Here's your 7-day forecast:
Friday: Sun, cloud mix. High 80, Low 63.
Saturday: Refreshing. High 76, Low 55.
Sunday: Nice and sunny. High 79, Low 57.
Monday: Beautiful. High 80, Low 58.
Tuesday: Great back to school. High 80, Low 60.
Wednesday: Staying nice. High 80, Low 60.
Thursday: Chance of showers. High 79, Low 60.