Break In The Action Sunday
The heavy rain that was spread over the region yesterday has moved out of hour area. There are still some pockets of light showers in the area but I do not expect any flooding risk from these showers. Flooding yesterday was a problem for a lot of counties mainly in the southern sections of ENC. Pender County took the brunt of the flooding receiving several inches of rain over a short time period. The city of Hampstead, NC received greater than 5″ of rain which left the city almost completely under water. Some of the images I’ve seen show flood waters up to the door handles of several cars and most impressively resulted in a large sinkhole.
As for Sunday, some scattered showers could occur across much of the northern portions of the area with the exception of the far northeastern sections. The frontal boundary has shifted very slowly southward with a east-west orientation. We will see some mid-level shortwave impulses travel along this weak frontal boundary which will generate heavier showers along the most extreme sections of ENC with the best chance along the NC/SC border. Some drying has filtered into the northern sections of ENC which will keep conditions dry in this area with a spread of the dry air southward through the course of the day. We could see some breaks in the clouds which could lead to higher than forecast temperatures though it is hard to say who will see the breaks so I will keep the forecast temperature from yesterday in place.
An upper-level through will dig southeastward out of Canada to the Great Lakes region. The nearly washed out surface front to the south will slowly start to retreat northward in response which could lead to a chance of scattered showers across the east early Monday. Given how weak this front will be I wouldn’t expect a widespread coverage issue. As the trough digs southeastward, surface cold front will approach the eastern CONUS early Tuesday afternoon. Southwesterly flow ahead of the front will increase rain chances of Tuesday but how strong the front will be during this time frame will determine how much rain we could expect across ENC. It doesn’t appear to be a major rain event like we saw on Saturday but could be enough to ruin some outdoor plans.
The cold front will work offshore Tuesday night and stalling just to the south of the region by Thursday. I believe the front will be far enough south that we shouldn’t feel the effects of it in ENC. Conditions should remain mostly dry through the remainder of the work week with the exception of some sea breeze convection close to the coast.