Friday will be cloudy, breezy, and cool with a few showers, but a nice warming trend will ensue this weekend through early next week.

Here are your weather headlines for Friday, May 1, 2015...

Cloudy, Breezy, Cool, and Showery

New Jersey will begin the month of May on the fringes of a storm system sliding through the mid-Atlantic and out to sea. That will keep us in a cool air mass, with a sea breeze along the coast today. Expect mostly cloudy to overcast skies today with easterly winds up to about 20 mph, which will likely make it feel a bit grey and dreary at times. High temperatures will barely make it to 60°, and we’ll probably be stuck in the mid 50s right along the coast again today.

As for our rain chances today? They’re pretty low. Cape May looks to get clipped by rain as the aforementioned storm system kicks eastward, but that should be about it for raindrops today.

First Weekend of May

Skies will clear late tonight, which will allow temperatures to fall into the lower to mid 40s by Saturday morning - certainly a crisp, cool start to the weekend. But I think we’ll all enjoy the warming trend that will start this weekend and continue into early next week.

High temperatures on Saturday should be about 10+ degrees warmer than Friday. Our forecast for Saturday is 65° to 70°, right around normal for early May. I'm torn about whether to characterize Saturday’s skies as “partly sunny” or “mostly sunny” - in either case, we’ll have a pleasant mix of blue skies and fair-weather clouds. Also for Saturday, I can’t rule out a chance for a stray afternoon shower or thunderstorm. At the moment, that rain chance seems to be most likely in northwestern New Jersey, but it really looks like just a slight chance of convective rain. So most of New Jersey will have a nice, dry start to the weekend.

And the second half of the weekend looks even better. Sunday will feature plenty of sunshine, as a light southwest breeze carries in warmer air. High temperatures on Sunday should bump into the mid 70s for most of the state.

Even Warmer Next Week

The warm air keeps funneling in for Monday and Tuesday, with high temperatures expected to make a run for 80° or better. Picture-perfect mostly sunny skies on Monday will become partly sunny for Tuesday. Eventually, the warming will be halted Tuesday afternoon as clouds and rain moves through. As that rain tapers off Wednesday morning, we’ll return to pleasant springtime weather for the second half of next week.

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