Charleston Weather Blog

Forecast explanations, atmospheric science, and other cool weather-related stuff for Charleston, SC

Weekend forecast: Calming down and drying out

/ at 6:38 PM

After several days of periodic, road-flooding deluges, a break is in store for the weekend as a front pushes south of the area. While we could see a few lingering storms on Saturday, we should see a little more in the way of sunshine through broken cloud cover as well. After a mid-70s start, temperatures will head to about 90° in the afternoon. Heat indices will not be quite the factor that they have been thus far in July, either: it’ll feel around 95° or so. Certainly not cool by any objective measure, but it’s not 105°, either.

Drier air pushes into the area on Sunday, and despite highs in the low 90s once again, it’s just going to feel a lot better as dewpoints mix out to the mid-60s in the afternoon. (We’ve been dealing with mid-to-upper 70s dewpoints for the better part of several weeks now, so this will be nice!) The drier air will help promote generally sunny skies with little to no chance of any rain in the afternoon. It’ll be one of the better outdoors days in recent memory, and dewpoints in the mid-60s essentially remove the heat index from the equation.

Enjoy this, because as we depart July and head into August next week, we’re back into a pretty standard summertime pattern with warm temperatures, mid-70s dewpoints, and afternoon storms.

Friday & the weekend: Stormy start, but we salvage Sunday

/ at 10:18 PM

Another round of heavy rain appears to be in the cards for Friday as a front continues to move southward into the very muggy and moist airmass that continues to linger over our neck of the woods. Temperatures start in the mid-70s once again, only warming to the upper 80s thanks to cloud cover and storms which should get going by mid-morning as the seabreeze develops. As of this writing, there is no new Flood Watch, but one could be issued by the time some of you read this in the morning. It won’t rain all day in any one location — this rarely happens in the summer — but where it rains, a lot could fall atop increasingly saturated ground. Stay tuned for possible Flood Advisories during the day Friday.

One more round of storms appears likely on Saturday as the front moves by, with more heavy rain potentially in the cards. Once again, temperatures will be suppressed a bit by the clouds and rain, with highs peaking in the upper 80s. Sunday is emerging as the pick day of the weekend, as the front will be south of here with a little bit of drier air building in featuring mid-to-upper 60s dewpoints, which is quite a contrast from the mid-70s dewpoints that typically characterize summer around here. Cloud cover should be minimal, though a stray afternoon storm can’t be totally ruled out. With the sun back out, expect highs to peak in the low 90s, but the drier air means lows will get to fall a bit, with low 70s expected away from the coast.