Lead Forecaster Daniel Crawley
Good Sunday evening to everyone, it was an active weather day across parts of the Western Carolinas. We had scattered thunderstorms, some of them that were severe especially along interstate 40 this afternoon. There were a lot of reports of dime to quarter size hail from Mcdowell County eastward to parts of Catawba county this afternoon.
Looking at the water vapor image tonight there are two significant upper features across the United States. The one across Wisconsin and Minnesota was the driver to today’s thunderstorms in North Carolina, a second feature back over the plains is producing severe weather and will move east over the next few days.
Below is a loop of the 500 mb features for the upcoming week. Today’s weather feature moves out, Monday should be a nice day and quite warm but the feature over the Plains will be moving in on Tuesday and that will be our next chance of showers and thunderstorms.
Current short range guidance indicates that we could see scattered coverage of storms again on Tuesday and possibly on Wednesday. At this time of the year any of these features could produce severe weather on an isolated to scattered nature. Main threats would be large hail and some damaging winds with storm activity this upcoming week.
We may have a brief drying spell on Thursday before a third feature may impact the region just in time for parts of next weekend.
Just be vigilant as we go through the week and check the forecast daily for any changes in timing or severity of weather this upcoming week. Again as of this time it appears Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday are the best chances for scattered thunderstorms.
Make sure and have multiple ways of receiving weather information on active weather days. One good source is the foothills weather app, download it today for Apple and Android users.
