A dream July 4th weekend is forecast for fireworks shows and the Jersey beaches
Precipitation chances are near 0 through Sunday -- and the water is warm.
The atmosphere’s behavior lately has been about as random and unpredictable as that of a grumpy boss on Monday morning after a holiday weekend.
Yet, just in time for the July Fourth celebrations, the weather is going to take a dramatically benign turn.
If you’re heading to the Shore, expect company on the Atlantic City Expressway and Garden State Parkway: Not a drop of rain is in the three-day forecasts, and water temperatures have been in the August-like 70s.
The nighttime skies should be wide-open for fireworks through the region.
And for something completely different in Philly, July 4 is forecast to be the second consecutive officially clear day of the month. If that happened, that would represent double the number of clear days for all of June.
Highs are expected be a shade under 90 degrees Thursday — a day of some astronomical significance — and in the 80s during the weekend on the mainland and at the Shore.
About the only possible blemish would be a land breeze that could result in cooling the surf by blowing away warm surface waters, said Dave Dombek, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc., but that’s nowhere near a done deal.
Otherwise, precipitation probabilities are near zero Friday through Sunday across the region, almost as if the atmosphere forgot it was July Fourth weekend, when nature’s fireworks are a staple of the season.
“It looks pretty decent,” said Mike Lee, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly.
Philly is getting a break from rain and extreme heat
If you’ve been away this week, don’t worry about the grass or the outdoor plants. The ground has turned to marsh in much of the region after vigorous rounds of rains that began Monday night.
Officially, Philadelphia picked up more than 1.5 inches of rain Monday and Tuesday, which was more than fell in the first 29 days of a gloomy but dry June.
Significantly higher amounts were measured outside the city as the atmosphere became as saturated as it ever gets around here.
The rains doused the month’s second serious hot spell, and no encores are in the weekly forecast even though the region is entering what climatologically is the warmest period of the year.
Happy Aphelion Day: The Earth is as far from the sun as it gets
Thursday will be a day to celebrate an astronomical triumph of the counterintuitive.
At 3:55 p.m. Philly time, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory, the Earth will be about 94.1 million miles from the sun, as far away as it gets from our star in its annual orbit. Naturally, the closest approach is in January.
In terms of the seasons, distance from the sun is way less important than the tilt.
But, like the rest of us, the Earth slows down a bit in July. The farther from the sun, the slower the orbital speed, and the Earth will downshift to 67,757 mph, about 3.7% slower than January’s pace.