Winter Set To Finally Arrive Across NC. Severe Weather Risks Lead The New Year’s Weather Parade First Though.

Good Tuesday Morning. High pressure off of the Florida Coastline will keep our area in southwesterly flow over the next several days. A warm front will lift through the area and will allow for clouds to increase, especially in counties along the South Carolina and Georgia Boarders. No rain is in the forecast today, however higher humidity values should assist firefighters working to contain the wildfire in Roseborough. We have maintained a moderate fire danger rating for today though across the area, largely due to increasing winds this afternoon. Sustained winds of 10 – 20mph with gusts to 30mph look likely across the foothills and western piedmont today. The mountain ridgetops will get winds sustained 25 – 35mph with gusts to 40mph. Let’s call high temperatures today to be at or just above 70°. Even in the mountains temps should get into the low to mid 60’s this afternoon.

Rain showers will develop overnight ahead of that approaching frontal boundary as the parent low traverses The Great Lakes Region. Showers and cloud cover will expand as the night becomes morning. With winds continuing into tonight expect it to be a warm Wednesday Morning across the area, albeit pretty damp. With winds and rain showers combining we will bump The Lake James Electric Power Outage Forecast up to isolated power outages for Wednesday. Widely scattered showers will be likely across the area through the day Wednesday. It will be warm again with temps in the low 70’s. Wednesday Evening a line of strong to severe thunderstorms should be marking time across Central and East Tennessee. With generous moisture being advected into the area ahead of the front it stands to reason that these storms could hold together into portions of Western North Carolina. The Storm Predictions Center has issued a Day 2 Marginal Risk for most of our coverage area that covers us Wednesday Night. The atmosphere looks like it may even support a low end tornado risk. The main risk will be damaging wind gusts though.

By Thursday, the frontal system should move down and stall near the Upstate of SC. We will keep an eye on that for Rutherford and Cleveland Counties. Ahead of that backing cold front, the atmosphere may remain unstable and conducive to more severe weather Thursday Afternoon.

That should set the stage for a decent New Year’s Eve. Isolated to widely scattered showers will be possible with mostly cloudy conditions. It will remain warm with temps remaining in the upper 60’s to around 70°. New Year’s Eve night it looks like heavy rain showers will redevelop across the region. New Year’s Day looks fairly wet though right now, with numerous rain showers across the region.

Sometime between Saturday Night and Sunday Night another, much stronger, cold front will sweep across the area. Low pressure will deepen as it moves from The Tennessee Valley into the Northeast. This low pressure could drop as low as 991mb as it reaches the northeast. In the lee of the mountains, another mesoscale low pressure system may develop. Even without that mesoscale low the dynamics will be in place to support scattered severe thunderstorms. The Storm Prediction’s Center has already placed portions of Western North Carolina in a day 5 slight risk ( 2 out of 5 ). What that means is there is 15% risk of severe weather including, wind, hail, and tornadoes within any 25 miles of any given point within the yellow shaded area. On any given day with thunderstorms in the area, there is a 0.10% chance of seeing severe weather of any kind. This is a 14.90% risk increase.

This week and into early next week should be a very beneficial rainfall for everyone, with most areas receiving 1 – 3 inches. There will be some locally higher amounts, especially in and near the Blue Ridge.

Snow should arrive in the mountains Sunday Night into Monday, with a couple of inches possible.

Elsewhere, snow is not expected though. It will get chilly. Look at how quick the high temperatures are projected to tumble on this model blend. Get those jackets ready. Some models are even cooler than this. Still no good snow chances in the distance.