Weather roller coaster continues into June for Northeast

The unseasonably chilly conditions that settled in for the start of June will gradually ease over much of the northeastern United States, with some areas expected to experience a taste of late July by the middle of the week, but cool air will offer some resistance for one part of the region.

A temperature teeter-totter, ranging from levels that felt like winter to midsummer, made for a wild weather roller coaster ride in May, and forecasters say the trend will continue into at least the first week of June.

Just a week after some areas endured sweltering 90-degree heat, people across parts of New England, neighboring areas of the St. Lawrence River Valley of Canada and portions the Appalachians woke up to temperatures in the 20s and 30s F on June 1. Temperatures plunged to the frosty low levels for the date as winds diminished and the sky became clear Sunday night and Monday morning.

Even though temperatures did not shatter records across a wide swath of the region, several notable temperatures more typical of early March were recorded, and many locations approached or tied long-standing daily record lows. Frost and freeze advisories were issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) ahead of the cold for interior locations of New England.

In nearby areas of Canada, the temperature dipped to the freezing mark at Quebec City on Monday morning, tying the daily record low of 32 F last set back in 1946.

A bit farther south, Saranac Lake, New York, was gripped by bitter cold and a low temperature of 26 degrees, which is 4 degrees above the daily record low of 22 set in 1905. The temperature bottomed out at the freezing mark at Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, on Monday morning, tying the old record daily low of 32 that had not been experienced since 1945.

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Hartford, Connecticut, not only set a daily record low of 37 degrees on Monday morning but also tied the coldest temperature ever recorded in June, which was last hit on June 3, 1986, and previously on June 6, 1964. Yet, some locations are not out of the woods yet for frosty conditions.

Temperatures plummeted to 35 in Bangor, Maine, tying the old record low for June 1 that was last set back in 1945, according to the NWS.

"There was a frost and freeze in northern New England and southeastern Canada early Tuesday morning, but not farther to the south and west due to a breeze stirring and perhaps patchy cloud cover," Brett Anderson, AccuWeather's top Canada weather expert, said, adding that temperatures near the freezing mark are not too unusual for areas this far north during early June.

Temperatures are forecast to rebound substantially from Maine to Virginia and Ohio during the first half of this week. Following high temperatures in the middle 60s around Boston on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, the city is forecast to climb to near 80 Wednesday and the middle 80s on Thursday. Normal highs for early June are in the low 70s in Boston.

However, the highest temperatures of the turnaround will be felt from the the Ohio Valley to the central Appalachians and lower part of the mid-Atlantic.

Temperatures started the day Monday near the 40-degree mark in Pittsburgh, but are projected to climb into the middle 80s during Wednesday afternoon. Temperatures typically rise into the middle 70s during this time of the year.

Washington, D.C., which has not hit 90 F yet this year, is forecast to surge to 94 on Wednesday and could even challenge the record of 99 set in 1925. New York City is another location where 90-degree temperatures could be reached for the first time this year at midweek. The high could climb to 10-15 degrees above the normal mid-70s during the first week of June. The warmest it has been at the Big Apple thus far in 2020 was 84 on May 15.

The region will be on the edge of a building dome of heat, this time centered over the middle of the U.S. as opposed to the smaller heat dome that gripped southeastern Canada last week.

"This heat dome will shift eastward for a brief time but fail to poke into New England before a new wave of cooler air slices southeastward from Canada," AccuWeather Lead Long-Range Meteorologist Paul Pastelok said.

During that shuffle from warm to cool weather, thunderstorms are expected to erupt and could turn severe over portions of the Ohio Valley, central Appalachians and the mid-Atlantic regions at midweek.

Complexes of thunderstorms often form and ride along the edge of a dome of heat and are often called "ring of fire" storms.

The biggest fallback in temperature will be over northern New York state and New England during the latter part of the week. High temperatures are likely to trend back into the 60s and 70s. It is possible that even cooler air carves more of a niche in New England later this weekend to early next week for a time.

Farther to the southwest, the push of air from Canada will have more of a stabilizing influence on temperatures with a slight fallback forecast from the central Great Lakes to the mid-Atlantic coast with highs mainly in the 80s and the 70s over the mountains. Greater cooling is possible along the immediate mid-Atlantic coast later in the weekend to early next week.

How the cool and hot contrast zone sets up next week may depend on a developing weather trouble maker in the Gulf of Mexico.

"The extent of hot and cool conditions in the Northeast in the long range may depend on the track and strength of a tropical system that has the potential to make landfall along the Gulf coast of the U.S. next week," Pastelok said.

A strong tropical system could indirectly cause the jet stream to amplify after becoming less buckled later this week, which could cause the temperature contrast zone to set up farther to the west, over the Ohio Valley or farther to the east off the mid-Atlantic coast.

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