Lead Forecaster Daniel Crawley
Good Thursday afternoon to everyone, a couple days ago we had a blog piece “Lazy Hazy Days of Late August” where we went into detail about how things may warm up here in the last week of the month. Confidence on that is increasing daily that we will see another warm spell coming up during this current forecast period and quite possibly into the early days of September. This isn’t unprecedented by any means but considering how we have seen cooler days in August compared to June and July, this could turn out to be a shock to the system as we get into late summer.
Currently a broad trough is spread out across the Southeast, that has resulted in a lot of moisture being pooled up to our south. The trough has also allowed showers and thunderstorms to build up along the higher terrain of Western North Carolina during the afternoons.
We are going to see a change in the synoptic pattern across the Southeast. This weekend will be a transition period as we expect showers and storms to continue each afternoon. Once as get to early next week, 500 mb heights will start to build across the Southeast. An upper trough may settle into the Southern and Central Plains pumping the Southeast ridge.
The flow may become stuck across the United States as another broad ridge will form over Canada blocking any kickers from moving in from the Pacific.
The end result all of this will be temperatures returning to above normal and staying around for a while. Global computer model ensembles are now suggesting a possible return to 90-degree heat by next week for the Carolinas…
Looking at precipitation over the next week, it does show positive anomalies for rainfall across the Western Carolinas and Southern Appalachian but that may be on the front end of the current forecast.