Hello everyone, Jared Smith here with your Charleston weather forecast for Friday, May 19th, 2023 and the upcoming weekend.

So Thursday was a pretty active weather day across the area, with flooding rain to start the day followed by major saltwater flooding to finish the day.

The high tide Thursday evening reached 8.08 feet mean low or low water, or a little over two feet of inundation.

That makes that the highest tide so far in 2023 and the first major coastal flooding event of the year.

Typically speaking we see most of our major coastal flooding events in the fall, and in fact this is the first major coastal flooding event in the month of May since 1934 and only the second ever in the month of May on record since records began in 1922.

So we’ll continue to contend with the risk for storms on Friday as a low pressure system skirts up the coast.

Looks like Friday morning’s commute could be on the wet side when the low makes its closest approach.

Showers and a few thunderstorms will be possible for much of the day, though it should be tapering off with time.

And we should see some peaks of sun later in the day.

Highs will run a little warmer in the low 80s after starting in the mid 60s.

And finally we may be dealing with one more round of coastal flooding, albeit on the minor side, thankfully nothing like we saw on Thursday night.

High tide generally topping around 7, 7.1 feet around 8.56 just before 9pm, so an hour or two before and after that high tide we may have a little bit of salt water on the roads, maybe some closures especially in those vulnerable spots around Lake Fishburn and Haygood and Lockwood Drive, but certainly not to the widespread extent that we saw tonight downtown as well as on the beaches and on the barrier islands.

That gets us to the weekend.

Saturday remains the pick day of the weekend as we sit in between storm systems.

Lows will start out in the mid 60s and highs top out in the mid 80s under partly cloudy skies.

Now we could see an isolated shower or storm later in the day as the front begins to get closer but most of us should get the day in rain free.

Unsettled weather will make a return though on Sunday as showers and a few thunderstorms will certainly be possible ahead of yet another cold front.

Temperatures will start out on the mild side in the upper 60s before topping out in the low to mid 80s in the afternoon, likely governed a bit by some showers and thunderstorms.

Bottom line, outdoorsy stuff on Saturday, indoorsy stuff on Sunday as we continue the search for that elusive rain free weekend in 2023.

This has been Charleston Weather Daily for May 19th, 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 tomorrow.