Afternoon showers and storms for the week ahead

Increasingly dry conditions around Mecklenburg county will begin easing this week thanks to a couple of stalling "cold" fronts. These weakening boundaries provide just enough lift to fire up convection resulting in precipitation. One such front is draped across the area this Sunday morning (the star is at the center of the county):

After morning lows in the mid-70s this afternoon's temperatures will top out in the low 90s under partly sunny skies. Short term models - which have difficulty with these stagnant midsummer conditions - indicate any showers or storms will hold off until near the dinner hour. Thanks to slightly lower dew points the heat index won't be overly oppressive today.

That won't be the case for the first half of the work week, however. Higher humidity and temperatures will drive the afternoon heat index into the triple digit range Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. That may prompt the National Weather Service to issue Heat Advisories for those days. A mitigating factor will be showers and storms which develop those afternoons thanks to that dissipating "cold" front. Another such boundary will enter the region late Thursday, tempering the heat as next weekend approaches.

This graphic shows potential rainfall totals over the next seven days.

Note the rainfall maximum associated with the remnants of Hurricane Beryl. The East Coast won't see that moisture. The precipitation totals for Mecklenburg county (at the yellow star) will be from the aforementioned stalling "cold" fronts. But with predictions of a very active Atlantic hurricane season it is entirely possible that tropical remnants will play a role in reversing the drought conditions here in Virginia as the year progresses.