A chilly stretch, more rain, then springtime warmth returns next week!

Boydton "won" the prize for lowest Mecklenburg County temperature this Wednesday morning, with a reading of 32º at a local observation site. Other sites registered morning lows above freezing, but folks there may have seen scattered frost anyway. That's due to the possible difference in temperatures between the official sensor height and the ground:

Today will warm into the upper 50s by mid-afternoon thanks to abundant April sunshine and lessening winds. That's still 10-15 degrees below the average high for this time of spring, but warmer weather is on the way. But first, the next round of rain is on the horizon.

Tonight clouds will roll in ahead of the next storm system, which will come in two parts. The first piece arrives during the day Thursday in the form of a springtime "Alberta Clipper." Tomorrow will start out partly sunny but the cloud cover will thicken throughout the day, with showers arriving just after supper. Temperatures will begin the day in the upper 30s before topping out in the mid-60s Thursday afternoon.

The second piece of the next storm system rolls in early Friday as a long wave trough, which will wind up creating a cutoff upper level low pressure center. That will result in more rain to end the work week followed by a cool and somewhat cloudy weekend. But by next week the 70s - and even the 80s! - will make a grand reappearance.