Dear Tom,
Our family vacations every summer on Cape Cod, and we usually enjoy the sun,
ocean and beaches. But the weather there has been awful the last half of
June: fog, clouds, rain, chilly temperatures. Any thoughts on what has been
happening?
Ron Szafranski, Wheaton
Dear Ron,
Blame it on a large, stubbornly persistent atmospheric feature known in
weather circles as a "cutoff upper low." It consists of a huge (a few
hundred miles in diameter) nearly stationary pool of very cold air aloft
that has become isolated from prevailing upper wind patterns.
The weather beneath such systems is cloudy, rainy and chilly, and Cape Cod
was caught in that pattern while an unusually persistent cutoff upper low
sat just off the New England Coast. Now, though, it's gone and a more
typical summer weather regime has settled across New England: pleasant
temperatures, plenty of sun, but some showers too.
Our family vacations every summer on Cape Cod, and we usually enjoy the sun,
ocean and beaches. But the weather there has been awful the last half of
June: fog, clouds, rain, chilly temperatures. Any thoughts on what has been
happening?
Ron Szafranski, Wheaton
Dear Ron,
Blame it on a large, stubbornly persistent atmospheric feature known in
weather circles as a "cutoff upper low." It consists of a huge (a few
hundred miles in diameter) nearly stationary pool of very cold air aloft
that has become isolated from prevailing upper wind patterns.
The weather beneath such systems is cloudy, rainy and chilly, and Cape Cod
was caught in that pattern while an unusually persistent cutoff upper low
sat just off the New England Coast. Now, though, it's gone and a more
typical summer weather regime has settled across New England: pleasant
temperatures, plenty of sun, but some showers too.
