Thursday's forecast: One more somewhat less humid day before the pump turns back on for the weekend
Hello everyone, Jared Smith here with your Charleston weather forecast for Thursday, August 24th, 2023, as well as a look at Friday and the weekend.
Well Wednesday turned out to be a really, really nice day across the Lowcountry, as a cold front pushed southwest of the area, sending dewpoints down to the 50s in a few spots for the first time since June.
While it won’t be quite as dry on Thursday, we will still continue a decent respite from the heat and humidity.
Dewpoints top out in the upper 60s and highs top out in the low 90s, yielding heat indices around 95 degrees in the afternoon.
It won’t be quite as nice as it was on Wednesday, but it’ll certainly be nicer than what’s coming for the weekend, because the heat pump is kicking back in on Friday.
Winds will go southerly, and that’ll send dewpoints back to the low 70s, while mostly sunny skies, complements of the massive ridge that is centered across the middle of the country, will help drive temperatures into the mid 90s.
And heat indices will head towards 105 degrees as a result.
It turned even hotter on Saturday, with air temperatures topping out perhaps in the upper 90s, and heat indices approaching the 110 degree advisory threshold.
Sunday will be another hot and humid day, with highs in the mid 90s, though scattered showers and thunderstorms will be possible in the afternoon and evening hours, as the ridge begins to retreat, giving way to a trough in the northeast.
And finally, a quick look at the tropics.
Tropical Storm Franklin is the only named storm on the board as of this recording Wednesday evening.
It’s moving north-northeast, away from Hispaniola after producing some very heavy rain and flash flooding there, and is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane over the weekend as it moves north-to-north-northwest, essentially threading the needle between the east coast of the U.S.
and Bermuda.
Direct impacts from Franklin are not expected in the Lowcountry, though we may see swells from the storm kick up some surf in the risk for rip currents.
The hurricane center has three other areas of interest as of the 8pm Tropical Weather Outlook.
One, the remnants of Tropical Storm Emily, is likely to redevelop in the central Atlantic, but it only poses a threat to shipping traffic.
The second, roughly around 18 degrees north and 37 degrees west, has a medium chance of developing over the next several days as it moves northwestward into the central Atlantic.
Finally, a third area could spring up in the northwestern Caribbean Sea and head northward into the Gulf of Mexico over the next few days.
Right now, the hurricane center gives that 20% odds of developing in the next seven days.
None of these areas pose any risk to the Lowcountry right now, but as always, we’ll keep watch, especially with anything trying to get going in the Gulf.
And that was Charleston Weather Daily for August 24th, 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.
And don’t forget, I’ve got a new automated real-time feed of severe weather alerts on Mastodon too, at alerts at chswx.social.
Thanks for listening, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.