Thursday's forecast: Record warmth possible ahead of storms returning for Friday and the weekend
Hello everyone, Jared Smith here with your Charleston weather forecast for Thursday, September 7th, 2023, with a peek into the weekend as well.
Record warmth is possible Thursday as highs head back into the mid-90s in the afternoon under partly cloudy skies.
The record high of 95 degrees, last set in 2019, is certainly in jeopardy of at least being tied.
Mix in a little humidity and it’ll feel closer to 99 to 100 degrees.
Not the worst we’ve felt by any stretch, but certainly not what we want in the time of pumpkin spice.
We should get the day in rain-free, though we’ll want to keep an eye out on some mid-level energy moving our direction, which could be enough to spawn a couple showers near I-95 very late in the day or perhaps overnight.
Scattered storm chances return to the area for Friday as a front stalls out nearby and the aforementioned mid-level energy cuts off and drifts across Georgia and the Carolinas.
Temperatures Friday top out in the low 90s after a mid-70s start, with heat index values peaking around 96 to 97.
As the mid-level low pirouettes across the area on Saturday atop the stalled front, showers and storms should become a little more numerous, but certainly not a washout either.
Highs Saturday peak only in the mid-80s given expected cloud cover and storms.
Rain chances head down slightly on Sunday as the low shears out and moves away, but we should still see a decent scattering of storms in the afternoon as highs head to the upper 80s.
In the tropics, Lee is now a hurricane and remains forecast to become quite a strong one by the weekend.
As of the 5pm advisory, it had max winds of 75mph, was located in the central Atlantic at 14.9 degrees north latitude and 46.4 degrees west longitude, and was moving west-northwest at 14mph.
This motion looks to continue into the weekend as the storm intensifies well into Category 4 territory.
Record speeds should start to slow down by Monday as steering becomes a little weaker, and it’s from here that longer range guidance strongly suggests we should begin to see a northerly turn.
Where this turn happens, though, remains one of several questions that we’ll be trying to answer as we get into the weekend.
That being said, we have plenty of time to keep an eye on Lee, and it doesn’t currently pose an imminent threat to us here at home.
If that changes, I’ll let you know.
And that was Charleston Weather Daily for September 7th, 2023.
I’m Jared Smith.
You can find Charleston weather forecasts online at chswx.com, on Mastodon at chswx at chswx.social, on Instagram and Facebook at chswx, and on BlueSky at chswx.com.
Thanks for listening, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.