Saturday will be the peak of this stretch of hot weather as temperatures head to the mid-90s in the afternoon (though not quite as high as forecast earlier this week…good thing, too). Heat indices will get close to 109-110° in the afternoon. There’s no heat advisory as of this writing, and if trends continue, we’ll probably fall just short of criteria. Still, these kinds of heat indices still increase the risk for heat illness, so be getting plenty of water if you’re going to be exerting yourself outside in the afternoon. We should see a few storms fire along the seabreeze in the afternoon, which will bring some relief to a few of y’all.

More widespread showers and storms are expected Sunday (though not a complete washout, either) as a front sags southward and stalls out nearby. It’ll be another warm and humid day with air temperatures topping out in the low 90s and heat indices 100-103° before thunderstorms fire off and cool things down somewhat. The unsettled weather will continue into next week as the front hangs around and plays a big role in our weather.

Tropics: Watching the area in the Caribbean closely

The tropical outlook map remains quite busy, but there are two spots that are most relevant to our weather conversation. The first is Tropical Storm Franklin, which is expected to strengthen this weekend while moving between Bermuda and the Eastern Seaboard. It is not expected to have direct impacts here in the Lowcountry, but swell from Franklin will increase the rip current risk as we head into the weekend and early next week.

The other spot worth our attention is, of course, the clump of thunderstorms south of the Yucatan Peninsula in the Caribbean. It’s been tagged as Invest 93L, which will trigger the regular production of spaghetti model plots, etc. At 8PM, NHC gave it a 50% chance to develop in the next two days and an 80% chance in seven days.

While we’ll need the storm to form up before we can put more stock into the model prognostications — many of the model initializations to this point have been too far west in relation to where the center is actually forming — the general consensus is for the storm to organize into a tropical cyclone over the weekend as it heads into the Gulf of Mexico. From there, it will head north, likely toward Florida’s Gulf Coast.

What is becoming a little more clear is that the moisture from this system will, at a minimum, interact with the stalled front across the Lowcountry next week. This could kick up the risk for heavy rain and flooding, especially mid-week. (For what it’s worth, the forecast was already looking quite unsettled!) Beyond that, though, it’s hard to say what additional impacts could result as those would be rather track-dependent.

Right now, the best thing you can do is peek at forecast updates from time to time. It’s also not a bad time to take a peek at your hurricane kit and refresh it if needed. After all, regardless of what this does or does not do, we’re headed into peak hurricane season, and it’s just a good idea to have some level of readiness before a storm approaches. It just makes it easier in case one does, after all.

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