Lead Forecaster Daniel Crawley
Good Wednesday evening to everyone, let’s hone in on the important holiday weekend and the weather expected here across the Western Carolinas.
First off, looking at the water vapor loop (click to watch!) you can see that a large part of the country is experiencing calm weather for this most important travel day.
There is a developing upper low that is diving south through the Rockies and heading toward the Four Corners and West Texas over the next 24-plus hours. This upper low is taking the scenic route and has caused some fluctuations in the timing of the important weather features this weekend.
Let’s get into the forecast details for the weekend. This upper low is going to force precipitation into the Southeast US in two different surges. The first is on Friday and then another late Saturday and bleeding over into the morning hours of Sunday.
Below is a video loop of 700mb moisture from tonight through Friday night. As you can see, Thanksgiving Day itself is going to be nice, high’s will be in the 60’s with clouds increasing late.
Moisture will rapidly approach the region from the west by around daybreak or just prior on Friday. What once looked like a pretty decent first round of precip has trended weaker and further south for Black Friday. It does not mean we totally avoid the rain but amounts will not be nearly as much. Best rain chances may lie along US 74.
As you can see by Friday evening drier air pushes back in temporarily.
With the Friday feature being weaker and the upper low itself trending slower we may now end up have a relatively nice break for most of the daytime on Saturday. We have bumped up high temps for Saturday to reflect the change.
Our upper low finally decides to take off to the northeast and will drag a ribbon of moisture through the region for Saturday night and the early part of Sunday. We have also made changes to the forecast to reflect that trend as well.
The expectation is for the two separate waves of moisture to yield a solid rain event for the region through Sunday night. A few locations, especially north of Interstate 40 could end up with amounts around 0.50- 0.75 inches but as you drift southward those amounts should increase to over 1 inch of liquid.
