Thanksgiving Day Forecast
Hope everyone has had a great day so far. High temperatures today reached upper 50s to lower 60s across the east with sunny skies and calm winds. Tonight, low temperatures drop into the lower 40s with continued southerly flow and increasing cloud cover.
As for Thanksgiving day, models have been back and forth with the amount of moisture available for potential precipitation. As it stands as of Wednesday night, there is a slight chance of showers somewhere in ENC. Models show less than 0.10″ so it should be very light rain if it were to occur. Winds will be out of the south at 5 mph and will shift north-northeast Thursday night with the passage of the cold front. Highs Thursday will be warmer than Wednesday with areas seeing temperatures reaching the upper 60s to near 70.
After the passage of the first cold front on Thursday night, some moisture availability does indicate that there is also a slight chance of some rain over the area on Friday, albeit light, so we can’t rule out that possibility.
Precipitation Chances Early Next Week
Rainfall should reach the western portion of the state on Tuesday morning bringing some relief to the fires and hopefully making some kind of dent into the dry conditions currently impacting the area. North Carolina drought monitor now shows the western half of the state under some degree of drought with the dark red areas being in the exceptional drought classification.
While some relief is gladly welcoming its hard to determine exactly how much rain this system will produce. Some models have robust moisture filtering into the southeastern states which would increase rainfall amounts greatly. The speed of the system will also affect the total rainfall potential. The GFS and Euro are showing total rainfall forecast greater than 1″ with some areas receiving 2″ or more. It’s hard to pin down the specifics this far out into the future but it would appear some relief could be in store for the southeast.
As for us in the east, we will be seeing some rainfall from the same system but like the forecast west of here it will all depend on amount of moisture and speed of the system. We still have a couple of days to monitor this setup and should have a better idea on details in the coming days.
Tropical Storm Otto
30 minutes since the completion of this post, Otto has been upgraded back to a category 1 hurricane.
Hurricane Otto
7:00 AM EST on November 24, 2016
Location 11 N -82.9 W
Winds: 105 mph Gust: 105 mph
Pressure: 976 mb
Category: 2
Moving: W at 8 mph
Tropical Storm Otto weakened since my last update with maximum sustained winds dropping 5 mph taking it from hurricane to tropical storm classification. Shear right now is a limiting factor with regard to strength at this time though the models are calling for lesser shear in the near forecast. Whether that verifies we won’t know until it happens so we cannot rule out the possibility of Otto becoming a hurricane again before making landfall.
The NHC forecast still calls for Otto to be a category 1 hurricane at landfall so hurricane warnings remain posted for these coastal locations. The winds of Otto are only about 5 mph from hurricane classification so this is to be treated as a hurricane if you are in the path of this storm.
In case I don’t get an opportunity to post tomorrow, I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!