Ready the umbrellas and keep an eye on the tropics

After weeks of very nice but very dry weather things have changed. A "cold" front which crossed the Appalachians Thursday afternoon has paused its forward progress this Friday morning. The boundary is draped over Virginia, keeping clouds and showers in the forecast for Mecklenburg County. A "wrinkle" in the front in the form of a surface low pressure center will persist over the Carolinas through the weekend. 

Thus the forecast looks quite a bit wetter than recent weeks. There will be enough breaks in the clouds today to permit the sun to peek through, warming temperatures into the low 80s and perhaps fueling some thunderstorms. Except for areas which experience storms today's overall rain totals will be rather light. 

That will change tonight, however. Both weekend days will be cloudy, humid, and cooler, with afternoon highs in the mid-70s. Here's the NWS Wakefield outlook for precipitation totals through Monday morning:

This rainfall will ease the drought situation somewhat, but more moisture will be needed to completely erase the dryness.

That moisture may well arrive early next week in the form of a tropical system. Here's this morning's National Hurricane Center outlook:

Hurricane Humberto will remain well offshore the East Coast. However, there is still uncertainty as to where the disturbance (likely to become Imelda) near the eastern tip of Cuba will track. Several models have it making landfall near the North and South Carolina border sometime Monday. Impacts on Mecklenburg County of such a track would be heavy rain and possible rotating thunderstorms. 

The forecast of this system will become clearer over the weekend. Sunday's blogpost will take a closer look at that and the potential impacts locally.