Hello everyone, Jared Smith here with your Charleston weather forecast for Tuesday, August 29th, 2023, and an update on Tropical Storm Idalia and its forecast impacts on the Low Country.

We have one more day to get ready for Idalia.

Tuesday will be yet another warm and muggy day, with lows in the mid-70s yielding to highs around 90 and heat and disease in the upper 90s by afternoon.

From there, showers and thunderstorms should develop and be fairly numerous as Idalia’s moisture begins to work into the area.

Severe weather is not anticipated, but some spots could see some heavy rain ahead of some more heavy rain from Idalia proper on Wednesday.

The weather will gradually deteriorate through the day Wednesday, generally from southwest to northeast, before heading downhill a little faster as we get later into the afternoon and evening when the center really begins to make its approach.

Heavy rain, with generally 3-6 inches expected in the metro, will be the main player as is often the case with these tropical systems.

Freshwater flooding from heavy rainfall may be a big problem in the usual trouble spots.

We’ll also have to contend with the potential for tornadoes within rain bands beginning generally Wednesday afternoon into early Thursday morning, think 1-2am.

You’ll want to have a weather radio handy to ensure any tornado warning can wake you if one is indeed needed.

Onshore winds will drive water levels into major flood stage on Wednesday evening as well, with a full moon certainly not helping things at all, and of course there’s the heavy rain that might fall on top of it too, and that could cause fairly widespread flooding issues downtown and on the barrier islands.

As it stands with the 5pm Monday advisory, the center of the storm won’t be north of Charleston until around 2am on Thursday, keeping the strong onshore winds around well after high tide peaks Wednesday evening a little after 8.30pm.

And this may hinder drainage, so be ready for potential for travel issues to extend for quite a while on Wednesday night.

A storm surge watch is in effect for 2-4ft of possible inundation in tidal areas, and overall the total water forecast right now is around 8ft or major flood stage.

This is of course subject to change.

Winds will be another concern, particularly near the coast, where tropical storm force gusts will be most likely.

This includes downtown Charleston.

Further inland you go, the less the wind threat overall, but a few strong gusts just cannot be ruled out at any point during this event.

As of this recording Monday evening, the tropical storm watch just includes Berkeley and Charleston counties, but by the time you listen to this, it may have expanded even further inland, and could have even been upgraded to a warning.

The bottom line is this, stay close to forecast updates on Tuesday while finishing your preparations.

Be bringing in loose items from outside, make sure you have plenty of batteries and working flashlights, your phone’s charging bricks are energized, and you got things to eat that might not require power.

Terribly long duration power outages seem quite unlikely, though there have been some cases in recent years where people have been out of power for a day or two even with fairly weak brushes with these tropical cyclones.

After all, it just takes one misplaced limb to put you in the dark.

The good news is that after we get through all this, the weather will improve during the day Thursday.

A few showers, maybe some wind still hanging around, but that’ll all taper off during the day Thursday.

And Friday looks magnificent to ring in meteorological fall.

How do highs in the low 80s with plenty of sunshine and low humidity sound?

I’ll leave you with that positive thought.

And that was Charleston Weather Daily for August 29th, 2023.

I’m Jared Smith.

You can find Charleston Weather Forecasts online at chswx.com, on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at chswx, on Mastodon at chswx, at chswx.social, and on BlueSky at chswx.com.

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