Steve signing in at 8:08 AM. Clear skies this morning with temperatures ranging from 43° at Table Rock and 44° at Old Fort, Nebo and Brindletown to 46° at Granite Falls, 48° at Hudson, 51.3° at Burke Weather HQ in Valdese and 55° at Hickory. Expect a sunny and warm day today with southerly winds in the afternoon and temperatures rising quickly to the mid 80s. A line of thunderstorms may try to make a run at us after dark but it will probably weaken quite a bit as it crosses the mountains; there is a slight chance of a shower or thunderstorm after dark, but tonight overall should be mostly cloudy and milder with temperatures around 60° Monday morning. Satellite images this morning show a huge low pressure system winding up over southeastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle. Bands of thunderstorms are breaking out ahead of this system as far away as central Mississippi and Arkansas, as well as central Oklahoma, central Kansas into eastern Nebraska and Iowa. In addition to posing a major tornado threat to the middle of the United States, this low pressure system will be a player in our weather through at least Wednesday of this week. In addition, a back door cold front is sinking southward through northern and central Virginia this morning. This front will continue to drift southward today and possibly stall out over North Carolina Monday. This looks like another player in our weather later Monday into Tuesday as there are indications it could settle along the I-40 corridor. In short, we are likely to have a period of stormy and wet weather beginning Monday and continuing into Wednesday. Starting out on Monday, the weather shouldnt pose too much of a problem but around noontime, increasingly unstable air surges into western North Carolina where it could potentially run into that wedge front. Southerly to south-westerly winds aloft collide with easterly surface winds drawing low-level moisture off the Atlantic Ocean. This could set the stage for an outbreak of severe thunderstorms and some of these could fire up in our three-county area as we approach late afternoon Monday, continuing into the overnight. I am reminded a little bit of April 9, 2011 when we had a major hail event over western NC into the SC midlands. Because of the backing flow off the ocean, though, there could be a greater potential for isolated tornados with this system, in addition to damaging winds and hail. The best chances right now for severe weather appear to be from 3 PM until midnight Monday. Actually, it looks like the back-door front or wedge sags south of us early Tuesday morning, temporarily easing the threat of severe storms until Tuesday afternoon when it appears to retreat northward as the storm system to our west gets closer. Ahead of this system, another line of intense thunderstorms develops and these storms could bring us more severe weather Tuesday afternoon into early evening with hail, damaging wind and isolated tornados again a threat. In addition by late Tuesday into Wednesday, street and stream flooding could pose additional problems. It looks like the front could move east of our area later Wednesday afternoon, bringing an end to the severe storm threat, with gradual clearing and cooler weather in store for Thursday into the early weekend. The timing on the severe weather events I mentioned above could change as this is a large, slow-moving dynamic system and were potentially dealing with a wedge boundary, a low-confidence weather phenomenon in many cases, but right now this is the best scenario I can come up with. Needless to say, were facing a multi-faceted weather threat beginning Monday and continuing into late Wednesday and I encourage all of you to stay tuned to us here at Burke Weather as well as your local news and weather outlets for the latest updates on this potentially volatile weather situation.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Apr 2014 12:37:26 +0000
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