Hello everyone, Jared Smith here with your Charleston weather forecast for Wednesday, January 17th, 2024.

Wednesday is going to be a very chilly day across the Lowcountry, a decent preview of what’s to come over the weekend.

We start the day in the upper 20s across much of the metro area, with wind chills dipping into the low 20s as cold air blows in from the northwest.

This pattern sticks around throughout the day, so even with full sunshine, the high will only get to the mid 40s or so.

Temperatures will fall back below freezing and into the 20s, perhaps for several hours, overnight Wednesday into Thursday morning.

You want to keep a faucet on a drip and make sure pets and plants are protected as it looks to be a decently long duration freeze, maybe 8, maybe 10 hours or even longer in some spots.

But if there’s one good bit of news about Thursday morning, it’s that wind chill will be negligible, and once the sun comes up, temperatures will warm into the 50s and 60s.

Few showers will be possible later Thursday into early Friday, but rainfall shouldn’t be significant.

Friday will start in the mid 40s, the only day in the next five that will be above freezing throughout the day.

Temperatures will head to around 60 degrees in the afternoon as a cold front moves through the area, and from there, temperatures will plummet around sunset as the colder and drier Arctic air begins to move in, setting the stage for a very cold weekend.

We start Saturday in the upper 20s with even lower wind chills, and despite full sunshine, temperatures will only rise into the low 40s.

It gets even colder Saturday night into Sunday morning, though.

A dangerous hard freeze appears likely as temperatures fall into the low 20s across the metro area, downtown included, by Sunday morning.

A freeze potentially lasting 10 to 12 hours will be plenty to bust uninsulated pipes, so make sure you’ve got the drip going Saturday night, your pets are inside, and your plants are protected.

The good news is is that after Monday morning, the cold snap abates, and we’re back in the 60s on Tuesday.

And it’s looking like that warmer-than-normal temperatures should continue through the end of the month, too.

So think warm thoughts, we’ll get through this together.

And that was Charleston Weather Daily for January 17th, 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.