Active Weather
New England begins the week clear. The National Weather Service public alert feed, read at about 1 AM Eastern this morning, lists no active land alerts in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, or Vermont. That is all six states with nothing in effect, which is the simplest kind of morning to report.
The Atlantic is empty. The National Hurricane Center's page, last updated at 5:01 AM Eastern today, shows no tropical cyclones anywhere in the Atlantic basin. The two named systems in play this morning are both in the Pacific and are covered in the Pacific brief.
The Storm Prediction Center's overnight outlook, issued at 7:40 PM Central Sunday, draws no severe thunderstorm risk area anywhere in the Northeast. Its daytime update for Monday issues later this morning.
Infrastructure
No wildfires, grid emergencies, water system disruptions, or open federal disaster declarations are reported for the six states.
The national wildfire preparedness level is 4 on a five-step scale, according to the National Interagency Fire Center situation report dated Sunday September 6 at 7:30 AM Mountain time. That report counts 75 uncontained large fires nationally, with 53,165 fires and 8,302,657 acres burned so far this year, running at 125 percent and 158 percent of the ten-year average. None of those fires are in New England, and the number matters here only as a measure of where the country's firefighting effort is committed, which is the Northern Rockies and the Northwest.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency's declarations page could not be read this run, so this brief reports no change either way on open declarations.
Public Health
No heat alerts, air quality alerts, or boil-water advisories are active across the six states.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Health Alert Network archive could not be read this run, so this brief makes no claim about national health advisories in either direction.
Watch Item
The one forward item worth naming is a small one. The Weather Prediction Center's excessive rainfall discussion, issued at 12:58 AM Eastern today, places northern New York and northern Vermont inside a marginal risk of excessive rainfall for the Thursday and Friday window. Marginal is the lowest of the four levels and means isolated flooding is possible, not expected. It is far enough out that the shape of it will change before it arrives.
The larger seasonal note is that September and October are when New England's hurricane exposure is real rather than theoretical. Storms that reach this far north have usually been tracked for a week, which is the useful feature of the hazard here: it gives more notice than nearly anything else a household faces.
With the basin empty and nothing to prepare against, this is the week to prepare with. Clear gutters and roof drains, run the sump pump to confirm it starts, cut back the branch that overhangs the roof, and find out whether the flashlights still hold a charge. All of that is easy on a clear Monday and close to impossible during a storm week.
Ocean temperatures off southern New England stay warm well into September, which is why swimming continues here after Labor Day while lifeguard coverage thins. If you swim this month, swim where someone is watching.
Explore Today
The work a household does before a storm has a name. Most of it takes a clear afternoon, which is what this week offers.
What a household covers on its own before outside help becomes routine. A good checklist to run against on a quiet day.
Enter your location and see which hazards apply to your address rather than to your region.