Lead Forecaster Daniel Crawley
Good Sunday afternoon everyone, this weekend has been a reminder that late winter type weather can still occur here in the Western Carolinas in late March. Temperatures this morning made it close to the freezing mark for a significant portion of the coverage area. Fortunately a breeze out of the west northwest prevented a big frost from occurring. That may change tonight as wind overall should be slacking off.
Looking at the afternoon water vapor image a significant trough is established across the Northeast US and one piece of short wave energy over South Central Canada will drop down into the trough Monday reinforcing the northwest flow across the Appalachians. Monday will be another below normal day temperature wise from the Carolinas northward.
Once we get to Tuesday some changes will begin as another strong upper level feature will exit the western part of the country and kick out into the plains states before moving to the north east. This will be our next storm system it impact the Carolinas.
Taking a closer look at the impacts here locally you can see by Tuesday there will be a surface boundary established as the trough is exiting the northeast US. Don’t be surprised if there’s a sharp temperature gradient showing up on Tuesday across the Carolinas along that boundary. By Wednesday the northwest flow be out of here and warmer, more moist air mass will take over the region ahead of the next trough.
Thursday will be our next chance of rain and possibly some thunderstorms as the next front moves in.
Any frontal passage this time of the year can carry a severe weather threat across the southeast. it appears that we could be dealing with another active period starting on Wednesday across the gulf coast region and then moving toward the Carolinas as we can in the Thursday. The storm prediction center has already highlighted the risk for the mimidweek
We still have a couple days to work with before narrowing down any potential severe weather threat on Thursday. Stay tuned!