Friday and the weekend: Stormy weather yields to quieter and cooler conditions for much of the holiday weekend
Hello everyone, Jared Smith here with your Charleston weather forecast for Friday, January 12th, 2024 and the upcoming weekend.
Friday will be another windy and stormy day across the Lowcountry, though not to the extent that Tuesday was.
We’ll start the day on the chilly side with lows in the low 40s when we wake up, but a warm front will lift north across the area during the morning, and you’ll definitely know when that’s through because temperatures will shoot up into the mid 60s within a couple hours of the aforementioned front moving by.
Winds will also subsequently kick up into the 15 to 25 mile an hour range with gusts approaching 30 to 40 mph along the coast and on elevated surfaces such as bridges and overpasses.
Tricky?
Yes.
Enough to blow over tractor-trailers?
Probably not.
Shower activity should begin to pick up with a warm front as well, generally starting around midday or so, and that’ll last into the evening.
It’s this shower activity that makes any severe weather forecast somewhat challenging, as it may very well tamp down on the unnecessary instability for isolated to scattered severe storms to develop.
There is once again an abundance, but surface-based instability looks like it will be at a premium.
There may still be enough, though, for a few storms to cause some sporadic damaging wind gusts, and the clockwise turning of winds in the first kilometer of the atmosphere is quite sufficient for storms to rotate as well, so there will be a low-end tornado threat.
However, barring more destabilization than currently forecast, widespread severe weather does not look to be a major concern.
Still though, keep an ear out for possible watches and warnings during the day on Friday, and make sure you know what you’re going to do in case a warning is issued as trends become established.
The severe threat will come to an end during the evening, with a cold front subsequently moving by overnight.
This will usher in another shot of cooler and drier air that’ll last about two-thirds of the Martin Luther King Jr.
holiday weekend.
Saturday will start in the mid-40s, but a persistent westerly breeze will be pumping cooler air into the area for much of the day.
This will keep highs tamped down to the mid-50s at best, despite partly cloudy skies.
Sunday starts out at, or just above, freezing in many spots away from the immediate coast.
Winds will be lighter though, and temperatures should ultimately top out a few degrees warmer than they did on Saturday, with upper 50s expected under mostly sunny skies.
Another storm system will push towards the area on Monday, bringing some shower chances to the area in the afternoon through Tuesday.
From there, we really cool off, expect below normal temperatures for much of the second half of next week.
And that was Charleston Weather Daily for January 12th, 2024.
I’m Jared Smith.
Visit chswx.com anytime for your latest Charleston weather conditions, alerts, and forecast updates.
Thanks for listening, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.