Hello everyone, Jared Smith here with your Charleston weather forecast for Friday, December 15th, 2023, as well as the upcoming weekend, which is looking quite unsettled.

Friday will be a good day to bring in loose Christmas decorations and inflatables for a few days, as it’ll be the last reasonably quiet weather day ahead of a coastal storm which will begin to have impacts later Saturday, and especially on Sunday.

It’ll get off to a chilly start, expect lows in the mid-30s with wind chills possibly dipping into the upper 20s in the morning, as a persistent northeasterly breeze around 10 mph or so hangs around overnight.

Temperatures will warm to around 60 degrees in the afternoon under mostly sunny skies, and we’ll keep that 10 mph breeze around for much of the day as well.

There will be a small risk for some minor coastal flooding with a 928am high tide.

The water level is forecast to peak right around 7 feet in Charleston Harbor around that time, enough to put some salt water on the most vulnerable roads on the peninsula, including parts of Lockwood as well as the intersection of Fishburn and Haygood.

Now we’ll start to see the weather head downhill on Saturday.

Northeasterly winds will kick up a little bit more, especially as we get into the afternoon, and a few showers will be possible well ahead of low pressure organizing in the Gulf as well.

Peaking at the evening guidance package, it looks like we should get much of Saturday morning in rain-free, with shower chances gradually increasing through the afternoon into the evening.

Winds will also be heading towards sustained speeds of 20-25 mph at times, with gusts 30-40 mph possible, especially near the coast and on bridges and overpasses.

Temperatures will be noticeably warmer, peaking in the mid-60s given the influx of warm and moist air.

These winds will continue to kick up overnight Saturday into Sunday as rain overspreads the area most likely after midnight, as the low moves north-northeastward, roughly parallel to the coast.

Gusts of 40 mph, possibly even higher, are expected, especially near the coast.

I wouldn’t be shocked to see some readings of 50 mph or more on Sunday at some of the coastal weather stations.

Guidance is increasingly coming into alignment on the track of the storm, but timing is still very much an open question at this point.

Overall, it appears the heaviest rain should fall Sunday morning as a band of rain on the northeast side of the low moves through.

Moderate coastal flooding is also expected around the 11-17am high tide, and if winds come in even stronger, water levels near major flood stage won’t be out of the question.

So expect some road closures in downtown Charleston, and possibly along Longpoint Road and Mt.

Pleasant.

After the bulk of the rain moves through, expect showers to continue on and off for much of Sunday afternoon with some wraparound moisture near the center of the low affecting the area.

The low then starts to move away late Sunday, and by Monday, showers will be ending as northwesterly winds dry out the atmospheric column.

We’ll then turn quite cool for next week, with below normal temperatures looking probable for much of the week.

As always, stay tuned to Forecast Updates as we head into the weekend for additional fine tuning on timing and impacts of this weekend’s coastal storm.

And that was Charleston Weather Daily for December 15th, 2023.

I’m Jared Smith.

You can find Charleston weather forecasts online at chswx.com, on Mastodon 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.