Hello everyone! Jared Smith here with your Charleston weather forecast for Sunday, July 23rd, 2023.

Another warm and muggy day is ahead on Sunday as temperatures once again head into the low 90s in the afternoon, with humidity driving heat indices to about 100 degrees.

We should stay rain-free for the first part of the day before showers and thunderstorms develop, generally by mid-afternoon.

Most of us should see some rain at some point as storms are expected to become numerous by evening.

Heavy rain and frequent lightning will be the main concerns, though the strongest storms will be capable of producing some strong downburst winds.

Bottom line, be ready to bring outdoor activities inside if storms approach.

And remember, if you can hear thunder, you can be struck.

When thunder roars, go indoors.

In the tropics, we have a first hurricane of 2023 in the Atlantic, as dawns strengthen to a Category 1 storm earlier on Saturday evening.

Now as of this recording on late Saturday evening, it’s well out in the middle of the North Atlantic and continues to move north-northeastwards around 12 mph.

It’s just about completed a loop in the North Atlantic over the last few days, but the next few days are probably its last.

It won’t be a hurricane for long, and dawn should be post-tropical by Monday.

Dawn is no threat to any land.

Meanwhile, the disturbance between the Lesser Antilles and the Cabo Verde Islands has lost a lot of its convection this evening, and chances for the disturbance to develop into a tropical cyclone over the next seven days has dipped to about 50%.

We’ll still watch it, but right now, no concerns of this disturbance for the Lowcountry.

And finally, a quick look back at a somewhat busy half hour of weather in northern Berkeley County on Saturday evening, as a storm moving east-southeast intersected the Lake Breeze and began to rotate, prompting a tornado warning.

This is a tough spot for forecasters, as the radar beam begins to get really elevated about 6,000 to 7,000 feet in this part of northern Berkeley County, but the rotation was prominent enough to warrant the warning.

Around 7pm, law enforcement had reported that a tornado was down, just outside of St.

Stephen, but other than that, no damage reports seem to have come in.

Photos of the storm, taken by Thomas Lambert and tweeted by WPDE chief meteorologist Ed Piotrowski out of Myrtle Beach, show a very ragged cloud appearing to be very close to the ground, but without video, it’s hard to know if it was rotating.

The photos also did not show any dust or debris being lofted, which is a typical sign of a tornado having developed.

In Skywarn classes, spotters are trained to look at the base of a funnel cloud to see if there are any signs of debris or dust being kicked up.

With that in mind, a tree line obscured the line of sight closer to the ground, so that analysis, too, is inconclusive.

The lack of damage reports as of this recording Saturday evening is a good sign, though, and let’s hope that continues to hold true.

To get a look at the storm photo and a radar capture of the rotation, check the forecast post link in the show notes below.

And that was Charleston Weather Daily for July 23rd, 2023.

I’m Jared Smith.

You can find Charleston weather forecasts online at chswx.com, on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at chswx, and on Mastodon at chswx at chswx.social.

Thanks for listening and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.