Cool sunshine carries into weekend, rain chances lurk next week
Highs will struggle to clear 70° around the Metro over the next several days.
Happy Friday Eve! Temperatures continue to descend down a comfortably cool staircase over the next several days as highs struggle to clear 70° around the Metro through the weekend. The cool stretch ahead won’t be due to a lack of sunshine; northerly breezes will be to blame for the mercury falling about five degrees below normal for late October. While the days will be on the cooler side, the nights will be downright chilly. Lows will dip into the 30s and lower 40s across the board, with patchy frost and freeze on the table for elevations above 3000′. Some mountain towns may even find themselves in the 20s as we wake up Friday and Saturday.
The sunshine has been nice, but what we could really use is some rain. The meager showers we saw on Sunday and Tuesday were not enough to keep the drought from worsening across the Carolinas this week, but there is hope on the horizon. Medium-range models continue to show a train of rainmaking systems making its way through the Southeast between Sunday night and Wednesday afternoon next week. While it’s still too early to know if this will be the drought-denting rain we so desperately need, confidence continues to increase that we’ll see measurable rainfall within this timeframe.
Tropical Storm Melissa has slowed down to a crawl as it swirls through the central Caribbean this Thursday morning. Core winds have been steady at 50 mph over the past 48 hours, but the National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecasts Melissa as a major hurricane by the end of the weekend as it slugs northwestward. Heavy rain and strong winds are in the forecast for much of the northwestern Caribbean, including Jamaica, Cuba, and Hispaniola, over the coming days. Long-range guidance continues to push Melissa northeast over the open Atlantic next week after its extended stay in the tropics, but this continues to be a system to watch over the coming days.
Today: Plentiful sunshine. Breezy. High: 75°. Wind: NW 5-15. Gusts: 20+
Tonight: Mostly clear. Chilly. Low: 47°. Wind: N 5-10.
Friday: Cool sunshine continues. High: 73°. Wind: N 5-10.
Friday Night: Another chilly night. Mountain freeze likely. Low: 53°. Wind: NE 5-10.
Saturday: Mostly sunny. Even cooler. High: 80°. Wind: NE 5-10.
