Drying Out Again Today; Better Chances of Rain This Week. Burn Ban Remains In Place

Good Sunday Afternoon. Happy late April on this gorgeous Sunday Afternoon. Some rain finally graced our area yesterday and most everyone received at least some rain. The problem is that the widespread totals above .25 of an inch were limited. This is a complex fire danger day. Most areas did not receive enough rainfall to listen up the duff of the wooded areas. While the surface dead leaves are wet this morning, dying air moving in later today will dry this layer back out. So fire danger remains elevated and the burn ban remains in place. Here are the rainfall totals from yesterday’s event across the area, courtesy of The National Weather Service Greenville Spartanburg.

There is hope though in the near term! Instead of looking weeks in advance to find rain chances, we only have to look a couple of days ahead.

The cold front will stall just to our south. Monday, a cold air damming event will develop, where northeast winds filter in and keep our temperatures cooler. So tonight, temps will fall back into the mid 40’s. Highs Monday will be about ten degrees cooler than yesterday, topping out in the low to mid 70’s. Night time temps should preclude any of the area from seeing any frost.

Monday Afternoon, back to the west, the southern stream is going to be ejecting a short wave east of the Rockies. This will move through the midwest up toward the Great Lakes Region, dragging a cold front across our area Tuesday Morning. While most of the energy moves North to the Great Lakes, there should be enough lift to provide some shower activity east of the Mountains Tuesday. I wouldn’t rule out a stray rumble thunder, but it will limited. Timeline should be between 6am and Noon Tuesday for the best rain chances.

At the same time Tuesday a new short wave will already be moving east with this active southern jet stream. This time as that frontal boundary from Tuesday sags south of the area, the bulk of the energy with this short wave will track right though or just north of our area. This means great chances for rain Wednesday but better chances of thunderstorms. With the front nearby wind shear will be rather elevated too. This could lead to organized clusters of storms that may produce some severe impacts, depending on the arrival time Wednesday.

Rain totals may approach 1 inch with Wednesday’s event while Tuesdays event will likely be limited to .25 inch or less.

From there the pattern dries out for Thursday and then additional showers may move in next weekend, and yes, it may be cold enough in the high mountains for one more snow event late next weekend. Another frost looks possible too across the foothills.