For the Phillies and foliage, the weather is taking an ideal turn

With two tropical cyclones making radical turns away from the East Coast, the weather in our region is taking a benign turn expected to last at least through the Phillies’ first two playoff games in South Philly on Saturday and next Monday.

And after a cooldown this week, it’s even possible that if a Game 5 is necessary at Citizens Bank Park in the division series, it may be played in conditions more appropriate to late May or early June.

The caveat is that forecasting weather that far in advance is even more problematic than predicting who’s going to advance to the World Series, but for now the computer models aren’t seeing anything in the way of rain or drama well into next week.

“No rain is in sight,” said Dan Pydynowski, supervisor of forecasting operations at AccuWeather Inc. After a September in which precipitation in Philadelphia has been about 40% of normal, a “prolonged stretch” of rainless days is likely, he added.

September dry runs aren’t unusual, and long-term rain averages have been bumped up by occasional visits from tropical storms and their remnants, notably absent this season.

The storms now churning in the Atlantic should have no impacts on the region, save for stirring up some rip currents at the Shore, forecasters say.

Rather than double trouble, the proximity of a major hurricane to a developing tropical storm off the Southeast coast evidently is turning out to be quite the opposite for the Eastern United States.

Hurricane Humberto, with top winds of 140 mph Monday afternoon, was making a sharp right turn on its way to the far North Atlantic.

Its circulation, in tandem with a system moving off the U.S. coast, was going to force Tropical Storm Imelda — about 220 miles off the South Florida coast at 2 p.m. Monday — to follow Humberto’s lead and turn to the east-northeast.

No further threats are imminent in the Atlantic, nor in the Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico, where “the water is insanely warm,” said Pydynowski, but no disturbances are in sight that could mine the warmth.

Rains last week helped to douse deficits in South Jersey, according to data from the Middle Atlantic River Forecast center, but officially at Philadelphia International Airport only 1.79 inches was measured in September; the normal is about 4.4 inches.

No rain is in the National Weather Service’s extended outlook through Monday. AccuWeather’s Pydynowski said that it is possible that “some moisture in the southeast tries to work its way northward” next week, but that remains a remote possibility.

In the meantime, the sequence of sunny days should be good for the annual foliage show, which appears to be running ahead of schedule, according to Thursday’s weekly update from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

However, the agency advised that the general dryness in the state also is going to lead to more premature leaf fall and perhaps a shorter peak-color season.

“All the dryness has been stressing the trees. A lot of trees have been turning or dropping their leaves early,” said Pydynowski.

Expect leaf flurries on Wednesday, when northeast winds are likely to gust to 20 mph in the wake of a cool front that will make it feel like October. After a forecast high of 80 degrees on Tuesday, the afternoons will be about 10 degrees cooler the rest of the workweek.

However, a warm-up just in time for the Phillies game should arrive Saturday. Highs are expected to reach the upper 70s, Pydynowski said, and with expected light winds and clear skies.

Temperatures in the Oct. 6-12 period are favored to average above normal in the eastern two-thirds of the nation, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center said in its Monday update.

If a Game 5 in Philadelphia would be required to settle the division series, it would be played on Oct. 11. That’s the day after the anniversary of the earliest measurable snowfall in Philadelphia — 2.1 inches on Oct. 10, 1979.

An encore appears unlikely.