DC: Drought Continues

Now

Mostly sunny, warm. With Thursday's rain focused mainly to the north and west of the Beltway (only a trace at National), the month just ended finished out in the top 5 of driest Septembers in Washington. As Dan details below, this first week of October is getting off to a dry start as well.

As high pressure centered over extreme eastern Canada slides slowly off the coast, a more easterly wind has brought in a little more humidity, a few more clouds, and very slightly cooler temperatures this afternoon in the metro area. By mid afternoon, temperatures at local reporting stations were generally in the mid 70s and dewpoints were in the comfortable mid 50s.

24-hour precipitation ending Friday morning from NWS Precipitation Analysis shows amounts up to 0.5" (dark blue) across much of Montgomery and Fairfax Counties with a few higher amounts, but much less across DC and to the south and east.

Tonight and Tomorrow

Warm, becoming a little more humid. Under scattered to broken clouds, lows tonight will range from the upper 50s in the city to the low and mid 50s in the 'burbs. There is a chance of some fog in low lying areas. Tomorrow will be mostly sunny with highs 76-80° and a little more humidity.

For the outlook through the rest of the week and into the Columbus Day weekend, scroll on down to Dan's post below.

Tropical Topics

Melissa developed near the Cape Verde Islands on Friday, briefly became a tropical storm over the weekend and quickly dissipated. Neither the remnants of Karen nor Melissa are expected to redevelop.

The only other significant area of interest in the Atlantic is over the Bahamas, Florida, and the adjacent Atlantic. Some slow subtropical development is considered possible for this system in the next couple of days.

Making Lemonade Out of Lemons

For an idea about what to do with all this excess sunshine (although the temperatures are a bit warm), check out the article about the rechargeable jacket in the Sept. 24 New Yorker (article not available online). The Solar JKT from fashion designer Zegna of Italy comes with solar panels on the collar for recharging an iPod (spellcheck suggests "Izod", probably not compatible with Zegna) or cell phone.