Weather for New England and the Northeast

Area Forecast Discussion, National Weather Service Gray ME 237 PM EDT Fri Aug 28 2026

**What Has Changed**

No significant changes since the previous forecast cycle.

**Key Messages**

1. A cold front will cross this afternoon and evening, bringing scattered showers and gusty thunderstorms. High pressure brings fair weather with lower humidity over the weekend.

2. A cold front crosses Sunday night followed by a couple of disturbances around mid week bringing multiple chances for rain.

**Key Message 1 Description**

Radar and GOES satellite imagery this afternoon shows developing showers and thunderstorms across the region, with storms becoming more widespread as the approaching cold front interacts with daytime instability. Temperatures have warmed into the lower 80s in many locations, with dew points well into the 60s south of the mountains.

The latest Storm Prediction Center analysis shows around 1000 J/kg of MLCAPE across portions of interior western Maine. MLCAPE, or Mixed Layer Convective Available Potential Energy, is a measure of how much energy is available to fuel thunderstorms. Higher values generally support stronger storms. Atmospheric instability is also present, with mid-level lapse rates around 6 degrees Celsius per kilometer, equivalent to about 17 degrees Fahrenheit per mile. This describes how quickly temperatures decrease with height and helps determine how easily thunderstorms can develop.

Effective bulk wind shear is modest at around 25 knots, or about 29 mph. Wind shear describes how much wind speed and direction change with height, and stronger shear can help thunderstorms organize and persist. These conditions may allow some stronger thunderstorms to continue through early this evening, mainly across interior western Maine.

Any storms could produce locally strong to damaging wind gusts and possibly hail. Showers and thunderstorms should diminish this evening as the cold front moves through.

A much drier air mass will move in behind the front tonight. Low temperatures will fall into the lower to middle 40s across some interior valleys, with 50s elsewhere.

High pressure will build across New England this weekend, bringing generally tranquil weather with lower humidity, warm afternoons, and cool nights. Highs Saturday will reach the upper 70s to near 80 degrees south of the mountains. Sunday will be around 5 degrees warmer. Overnight lows both nights will generally be in the 40s and 50s.

**Key Message 2 Description**

An upper-level trough moving through the Canadian Maritimes will send another cold front across northern New England Sunday night. This front will bring chances for showers and thunderstorms, mainly from the mountains through central Maine and areas farther north late Sunday.

The latest forecast guidance favors mostly dry conditions Monday as high pressure builds in from the north. The cold front is expected to settle across southern New England as a stationary front, meaning the boundary will move very little.

A compact upper-level low over the Canadian Prairies Tuesday will slowly move east during the second half of next week. This system will attempt to push the stationary front northward as a warm front late Tuesday.

Forecast models disagree on how far north the rain will reach Tuesday. Some solutions keep most of New Hampshire, except perhaps the far southern portion of the state, mostly dry. The latest National Blend of Models expands the chance of precipitation, around 30 to 50 percent, northeastward across the area through Tuesday afternoon. This appears reasonable given the differences among the forecast models.

There is also considerable disagreement among the models concerning how quickly the upper-level low will move east and whether a smaller disturbance will cross the region Wednesday and Thursday. Because of this uncertainty, precipitation chances are broadly in the 50 to 60 percent range Wednesday through Thursday.

This does not mean it will rain continuously during that entire period. Instead, several rounds of showers and possibly thunderstorms may move through at different times.

Overall, the weather pattern supports the possibility of some beneficial rainfall from the middle through the end of the work week.