Weekend forecast: Warm and muggy, then turning unsettled as we head into Sunday and next week
Hello everyone! Jared Smith here with your Charleston weather forecast for Saturday, August 26th, 2023 and the upcoming weekend.
Our current spell of heat and humidity peaks on Saturday before we start a more unsettled period beginning Sunday.
Expect highs to top out in the mid 90s, with heat indices approaching 110 degrees on Saturday as warm southwesterly to southerly winds continue to pump in moisture.
The sea breeze should instigate some showers and storms in the afternoon, though not everyone will see a storm.
And while severe weather is not necessarily expected, some heavy rain is possible, and remember, lightning makes every thunderstorm dangerous.
So if a storm approaches, just head inside.
When thunder roars, go indoors.
Sunday begins a more active period as a cold front stalls out nearby and meanders for the better part of a week.
We should see more numerous thunderstorms in the afternoon, with a nearby front and advancing sea breeze along with a little more upper air help, courtesy of a trough digging down into the eastern US.
Winter will still be warm and muggy, as highs top out in the low 90s, with heat indices ranging from about 100 to 103, but it won’t be nearly as hot as Saturday was, thanks to the more numerous thunderstorms.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on the tropics this weekend as Tropical Storm Franklin, perhaps as it becomes a hurricane, moves northward between the eastern seaboard and Bermuda, bringing us some swells and an enhanced risk of rip currents.
No other impacts from Franklin are expected, though.
Additionally, it appears likely that a tropical cyclone will develop in the northwestern Caribbean this weekend and then head northward into the Gulf of Mexico.
Hurricane centers tag this one Inves 93L.
Folks along the Florida Gulf Coast will obviously need to pay close attention to this one.
Gulf systems can certainly have impacts on our weather here at home, and it increasingly looks like that, at a minimum, moisture from this storm will be drawn up our direction thanks to the trough over the eastern US, and interact with a stalled cold front nearby.
This will enhance the risk for flooding rainfall, particularly as we head into midweek.
Now it’s worth noting that it was already going to rain through Thursday anyway, thanks to the nearby front.
We’re just adding more juice to the atmosphere here.
We’ll also see a full moon coming up on Wednesday, and it’s going to be one of those that’s going to help create some coastal flooding.
Beyond that, though, it’ll be later this weekend before we can start to get a clear picture as to what, if any, additional impacts we might experience.
There’s still plenty of time to watch this and see how things evolve.
Stay tuned to forecast updates, but don’t obsess over them either.
Right now, this is something we’re not overly concerned about, but if that changes, I’ll let you know.
And that was Charleston Weather Daily for August 26th, 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 and chswx.social.
And don’t forget, I’ve got a new automated real-time feed of severe weather alerts on Mastodon 2 at alerts at chswx.social.
Thanks for listening, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.