end of week forecast and a look at severe weather chances for the weekend

THURSDAY: A cold front moves through pre dawn, possibly triggering a few more light showers. But by late morning we clear out into sunny skies with lowering humidity and highs only in the mid-upper 80s. Winds will be light from the NW with occasional gusts around 15mph. Lows will drop into the 60s.

FRIDAY: Even nicer than Thursday with highs in the low-mid 80s under mostly sunny skies and continued low humidity. Winds will switch to the SE but remain light with peak gusts only around 15mph. No rain is anticipated for Friday so be sure to spend time outdoors. Lows will fall into the mid 60s to low 70s.

SATURDAY: A warm front will be lifting north through our area during the day on Saturday bringing showers and thunderstorms. High temperatures will be in the upper 80s to low 90s with very high humidity. Showers and thunderstorms may turn severe during the afternoon and evening (more on this below). Low temps will drop into the upper 70s and low 80s. There is a 60% chance of rain on Saturday.

evaluating saturdays severe weather risk:

Some of the model data shows a concerning look in terms of severe weather potential on Saturday. A warm front will be lifting north during the day and may stall somewhere nearby. Wherever this occurs will play a very important role in the risk level we receive. If the warm front lifts north in time, then the atmosphere will destabilize and be favorable for severe weather. If it stays south of us or is too slow to lift north, we wont have time to destabilize and the conditions will not favor severe weather. It is too early to know which one of these will occur, but the more reliable Euro model shows it to our north with a rather potent severe weather and flash flooding environment. 

As far as hazards go, the presence of a warm front increases wind shear on a local level. The high dew points means it wont take a lot of instability to produce severe weather. So, assuming the warm front lifts north of us, there will be a risk of damaging winds, tornadoes, and extremely heavy rainfall that could lead to localized flooding. Again this all depends on the exact track of the warm front. Also if we get any sun during the day, the threat will increase. Remember that if the warm front is too far south, we wont destabilize and there will be little to no severe weather. That is a totally reasonable outcome.

Given we are still 3 days out, there is obviously some uncertainty still and details will need to be ironed out over the coming days. Truthfully, there are some similarities in some of the model data to the tornado outbreak we had in early June. That said, there are some models that just have us rainy and no severe weather. I am NOT saying this will be like that, but I do encourage you to closely monitor the forecast as this has at least some potential to be impactful and we want to give you the earliest heads up possible. Some risk of severe weather may also materialize on Sunday, but confidence is low.

​We will have another full update like this sometime on Friday.

Senior Forecaster Jack