Lead Forecaster Daniel Crawley
Hope everyone is doing well on this Tuesday…
Let’s take a look at the synoptic weather pattern for Western North Carolina for the middle to late part of this week. We have been advertising the first 90’s of the year for the Western Piedmont and a few Foothill locations that still looks to be the case.
At 500 mb a sprawling ridge encompasses the entire southern tier of the United States. That will bring the hottest temperatures of the spring as some low 90’s look to be a near certain bet for Thursday and possibly Friday. With the Carolinas being on the Western edge of the heat ridge, some dynamics may slide in from the northwest, hence the slight storm chance for Thursday in the current 7-Day.
By Friday the ridge slides into the Southeast and off the East Coast thanks to a sharpening trough across the Northern Plains, that will help transport moisture from the Gulf of Mexico on southwest winds . Friday will be relatively dry but the action cranks up for the weekend.
There are some subtle timing issues on this trough but enough agreement is there showing the potential for an active weekend. You can clearly see on the loop below that moisture transport begins on Saturday and remains through the upcoming weekend.
A cold front will be coming into the East on Sunday, it will make a clean pass through the Mid-Atlantic and New England, however the front will slow down across the Carolinas and by next Monday morning the front could be in a damming configuration as a surface high slides into Pennsylvania.
Anytime in mid to late May, slow moving fronts that take on a damming configuration is recipe for numerous thunderstorm activity. We’ll keep an eye on the weekend to see just how active it may become. Stay tuned!