Return Of Rain To The Area
Updated Tuesday forecast to explain temperature difficulty forecast over ENC.
We had a nice afternoon after several hours of rain overnight. High temperatures reached the upper 50s with the help of an abundance of sun this afternoon. Expect temperatures to fall overnight into the mid to upper 40s over inland areas. Overnight rainfall totals across the area ranged from 0.10″-1.50″ with the higher amounts south of highway 264.
Conditions Monday night will begin to change as another, more significant, system moves northeastward just west of the mountains which will bring us more rain starting in the early morning hours of Tuesday. Models continue to show strong ascent in the mid to lower levels of the atmosphere over ENC coupled with a very moist environment (PWs of 1.85″) will lead to some heavy rainfall for some in the area.
High temperature forecast for Tuesday is a little tricky as we see decent cold air damming over North Carolina. This will create a tight gradient of temperatures directly over ENC.
As you can see the strength of this CAD will determine how much air gets transported southward over North Carolina. There may be enough cold air to reach parts of ENC tomorrow. Depending on where this gradient between the colder air mass and the warmer airmass along the coast, this casts some uncertainty as to temperature forecast for several areas. The further west you are from the coast, the colder the air temperature. To the east and the temperatures would be in the low to mid 60s. To the west temperatures stay at or below 50. I don’t plan to change my initial 7 day forecast posted in a recent post due to the uncertainty but caution that the actual high temperature could depart from my forecast +/- 5F.
I expect all the rain to have moved offshore by late Tuesday night with clearing for Wednesday. Temperatures take a tumble by the end of the week which I will cover in my next forecast update.