Steve signing in at 7:45 AM. Some clouds are moving in from the west, right now mainly high clouds. There are a few showers in eastern Tennessee that will gradually make it into our counties later today. More on that in a moment. Temperatures this morning range from 52° at Table Rock to 54° at Granite Falls and Brindletown to 56° at Old Fort, Marion and Hudson to 61° at Burke Weather Headquarters to 63° at Hickory Regional Airport. There has been a bit of patchy fog around the Morganton-Lenoir Airport so commuters on that section of US 64, exercise caution as visibilities could unexpectedly drop. In another hour or so, fog should be of no consequence to anyone in the counties. The low temperatures this morning are several degrees higher than in days past. This signals a change in the weather and well begin to notice it today. A frontal system to our west moves slowly in our direction as it weakens. Out ahead of it, showers are likely to develop over the southwest NC mountains this morning and slowly build over our mountains to the west and north, eventually over the I-40 corridor by mid to late afternoon. A few thunderstorms may also develop but severe potential is fairly limited so the worst we can expect would be cloud to ground lightning and brief heavy rain. Expect high temperatures today to be 5 to 8 degrees lower than yesterday in the low to mid 80s, primarily due to the increase in cloud cover. Isolated to scattered showers and storms could continue through the night but I think our next uptick in activity is more likely Saturday afternoon as whats left of the front moves directly into the counties. Showers and storms should redevelop and with slightly higher instability and wind shear values, one or two of the storms could be strong, possibly severe. Main threats if a severe storm develops tomorrow afternoon would be damaging winds and hail but widespread severe storms are unlikely. It looks like were undergoing a summertime pattern change already with the Bermuda high building over the southeast US. Not unusual even for this time of year but the change itself seems to have occurred in a matter or a week or two. The stubborn winter time pattern with the large East Coast troughs and the polar vortices seemed like it would never go away and now. . .it looks like it is gone. Possibly last weeks system with the severe storms and tornados to our south and west was the trigger. At any rate, it appears that fronts from now on are likely to have a hard time dislodging the strong Bermuda High that has set up over our area. Sunday through Tuesday are likely to feature typical summertime weather with daily chances of scattered thunderstorms first building in the mountains, then spilling into the I-40 corridor. Temperatures will reach the mid 80s daytime, low 60s overnight. Another frontal system makes a run toward us by mid week. The long-range models still dont agree on the timing of this system so we may not experience its impacts until late week, Thursday or so. However, Wednesday makes more sense at this point. Expect another, possibly better organized line of showers and thunderstorms sometime late Wednesday into Thursday. Once here, though, I dont see the front moving very far east of us. More likely it will stick around and eventually wash out like the system on Saturday, thanks to the strong influence of the Bermuda high to our south and east. That means, more scattered showers and storms throughout the latter part of next week. Temperatures may be slightly cooler in the upper 70s to around 80.
Posted on: Fri, 09 May 2014 12:10:25 +0000
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