Thursday's forecast: Cooler, but still unsettled with a coastal flooding risk in the evening
Hello everyone, Jared Smith here with your Charleston weather forecast for Thursday, May 18th, 2023.
Now, after a hail of a day on Wednesday in which quarter-sized stones were observed downtown and flooding rains arrived thereafter, we look to stay unsettled for much of Thursday.
Rain should be hanging around for a good bit of the day, and it may turn heavy at times, and thunderstorms will be possible once again, but we’re not expecting a repeat of Wednesday’s ruckus.
However, another inch or so of rain is possible with locally heavier amounts and stronger thunderstorms, and this may once again cause some isolated flooding concerns, so we’re going to want to keep an eye on that throughout the day.
And then as we head into the evening, we want to keep a close eye on the tide gauge.
Moderate coastal flooding is in the forecast for the evening high tide.
Looks like that’s going to peak out around 7.5 to 7.7 feet roughly around a little after 8 o’clock, and that should be enough on its own to close some roads.
Plenty of salt water there, and you don’t want to drive through salt water.
Now, one thing that we also want to watch is, will there be heavy rain in the area?
And that certainly is not out of the question, and that would make that situation much worse.
Right now, the going forecast is that the rain is mostly to our southwest as the front pushes in, and we’ll see how that ultimately turns out.
Some of the high-resolution models are trying to develop low pressure pretty close to the coast, and that in turn driving a heavier rain band into the area, so we’ll see if that actually pans out.
I need to see some more run-to-run consistency on this before I start sounding the alarm a little more loudly there.
But overall, the main point for Thursday is keep up with forecast updates, especially if downtown is in your plans Thursday night, as it may be tough to get around.
Now, we start to dry out a little bit on Friday, although afternoon storms are certainly not off the table, but we’ll get back into the 80s as the wedge kind of starts to break down.
We’ll say rain-free on Saturday, get into the mid-80s under partly cloudy skies, and then showers and storms return to the forecast on Sunday, especially in the evening, out ahead of another cold front.
So once again, the elusive rain-free weekend in 2023 remains elusive.
This has been Charleston Weather Daily for May 18, 2023.
I’m Jared Smith.
You can find Charleston weather forecasts online at chswx.com, on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at chswx, and in the Fediverse at chswx at chswx.social.
Thanks for listening, and we’ll talk to you again tomorrow.