Is it too much to ask for a few days in a row of sunshine and quiet weather? I guess so. Overall, our weather is going to be quiet for the next few days. However, there are a lot of extra details that are sneaking into the forecast that are worth noting. The first thing to mention is some smoke and haze coming out of Canada and pushing into our region. This has been a problem for areas to our west over the last couple of days. It is from a large amount of wildfires up there that will probably continue to burn for a while much like last year.
This morning we woke up to a thin to medium layer of haze over our heads. The sun tried to peak through, but it looked like an orangish ball on the tower cams.
The wildfire smoke is overhead today, but we should be fine at the surface. Some locations in the Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes region won’t be so lucky.
It should mostly be aloft here. So our air quality should be fine locally today.
However, tomorrow the smoke may lower a bit. So we may have some smokiness at the surface. Our model shows that happening more inland compared to the beach.
When you start seeing 3’s and 4’s then you may begin to smell the smoke a bit. Air quality could me moderate for some.
This could affect folks with severe allergies, asthma, and other breathing issues. Check back for updates.
Otherwise, we’ll have some pretty nice weather today. We have high pressure building into the region with a cool front falling apart to our south.
We’ll have lots of sunshine (besides the overhead haze) through the day. We’ve lost the strong northerly breeze that we had yesterday. Winds will be variable at 5-10mph. This will allow temps to warm to the low-mid 80s.
That is a heck of a temperature rise. Dress in layers. One of the reasons for the big temperature rise is that we have some very dry air in place. Dew points are in the 50s.
Tomorrow we’ll have similar weather. We’ll have fair skies, some haze in the region, and high temps in the 80s. However, tomorrow we’ll have more of a southerly breeze. So high temps will probably be more in the mid-upper 80s.
By Thursday the moisture will start to return at the surface and aloft. Dew points will climb into the 60s.
We’ll have partly cloudy skies through the day with high temps in the upper 80s. During that time there may be an area of low pressure forming just to our south/southwest.
There may be a few showers over parts of North Carolina in the afternoon, but they should stay south of Virginia. As we go into Friday then the models split as to what that area of low pressure will do.
The NAM model brings in some rain by Thursday evening, and then it has a good amount of rain on Friday. That’s as far out as that one goes. The latest GFS model has some rain from late Thursday into early Friday afternoon, but it pushes the low out by late Friday afternoon giving us a dry Friday night and Saturday.
It then has a cold front coming in on Sunday with some more scattered showers.
The Euro model, on the other hand, has the low forming to our southwest on Thursday, but it then quickly rolls it east and offshore. So it doesn’t have rain on Friday nor Saturday.
For now I have some scattered rain showers on Friday with a mix of sun and clouds with highs in the 80s. However, I’m lowering the rain chances for Saturday. I haven’t gone totally dry yet. We’ll see. Again high temps will be in the 80s. We’ll sort out the weekend more in tomorrow’s forecast.
It’s possible that we’ll hit 90 on Saturday. We’ll see. Either way it will be much more humid. Dew points may be near 70.
I do want to mention that there is a very low chance that the low will form some subtropical or tropical characteristics.
I think it will stay weak regardless, but perhaps it will strengthen a bit when it pushes offshore. I’ll have more updates on all of this in tomorrow’s weather blog.
Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler
