Meteorological Smorgasbord: Cold, Cold and Colder…With Rain In-Between

Lead Forecaster Daniel Crawley

Good Tuesday to everyone, the weather right now all across the United States is providing just about anything you want. Warmth, cold, wet, dry and anything in between. And over the next week or so we will see more drastic changes.

Looking back at yesterday the weather seemed more like September than it did early November. A lot of areas reached the lower 80’s on Monday afternoon breaking records at several of the official weather reporting stations across the Western Carolinas.

Changes are already underway as you wake up on Tuesday morning, much drier and cooler air is moving into North Carolina ending the absurd warmth. Strong high pressure over the Great Lakes is shifting winds over to the northeast…

You can see here in the video below that dewpoints will tumble down into the 30’s by Tuesday afternoon and continue to advect into the region through Wednesday morning. This means Tuesday high temperatures will be 10-15 degrees below what we experienced on Monday. With cold, dry air in place Wednesday morning lows are going be quite chilly getting back down into the upper 30’s (Mountains) and Lower 40’s (Piedmont).

Wednesday will be another nice day overall (mostly sunny, 60’s) with a northeast breeze. Once we get to Wednesday night and especially Thursday the next player on the field will start to impact the weather locally. Current Sub-Tropical Storm Nicole in combination with high pressure to the north will begin to pull in some low-level moisture, mainly in the form of clouds. Sky cover will go downhill pretty quick and the northeast winds will increase as Nicole makes landfall across Florida on Thursday.

By late Thursday night, easterly winds shift to southeast through a large part of the atmosphere. That along with the hybrid nature of Nicole will allow moisture to quickly invade the region overnight Thursday and into Friday (Veteran’s Day). As of this time Veteran’s Day looks to be quite wet. There is still a little debate as to where the heaviest moisture sets up but regardless it will be a cold, rainy day as northeast winds persist.

Cold Blast Coming For The Weekend And Next Week…

A strong trough will lift Nicole out of the region by Saturday and on the heels of that is a stark reminder that it is November. Some of the coldest weather of the fall season is expected by Sunday and Monday.

Some really cold air will be centered in the Eastern US, this will send temperatures below normal for multiple days…

Pacific North American ridging will persist through a large part of the next week (outside the current 7-Day forecast period) so additional shortwaves will help usher cold air into the Central and Eastern United States.

Numerical guidance is pretty locked in to the upcoming synoptic pattern after this weekend.

All in all, a wild pattern going on during the next week plus with a little bit of everything…