It sure has been cool and occasionally rainy over the last few days! Today’s high only made it to 77° at the airport, which barring an unforecasted heating episode will be a new record low maximum temperature for the date. The previous record low max for June 14 was 78° set in 1939. This cool pattern is thanks to an upper low aloft and a wedge of high pressure at the surface. Moisture riding atop the wedge is keeping cloud cover and the occasional showers around, and this will continue for a couple more days before the pattern turns more summer-like by the end of the week.

Periods of heavy rain will continue for much of Monday before winding down in the evening. Once again, temperatures will run well below normal (upper 70s) thanks to cloud cover and rain-cooled air. While we’ll have less rain on Tuesday, we will have one more day of cool temperatures with continued cloud cover and northerly winds on the back side of a coastal low. Before it’s all said and done, another 1-3″ of rain may have fallen across the area in what has been a wet year — we have a 6.2″ surplus of rain at the airport.

As we get into mid-week, we’ll begin to see the upper low finally take leave of the area, allowing the surface low to go with it. Showers will continue to be in the forecast, but temperatures will moderate into the lower 80s. By the end of the week and into the weekend, expect temperatures to head back into the upper 80s and lower 90s with the typical afternoon thunderstorm regime we all know and love during summers in Charleston.

June in Charleston is typically characterized by afternoon thunderstorms and highs in the upper 80s, and this week will not disappoint in either department. We’re caught between Atlantic high pressure and the broad circulation of Tropical Storm Cristobal, putting us within a corridor of deep moisture which will help drive scattered showers and thunderstorms each afternoon to start the week. All the while, a stalled frontal boundary will be hanging around to our north, meandering for the next several days and acting as another focal point for showers and storms. As we get into the weekend, another front approaches. As we so often see in the warm season, though, the front looks to have a hard time getting through the area, keeping us in the soup with scattered afternoon thunderstorms through Sunday.

It’s June 1, and that means that the Atlantic hurricane season has once again officially started. (Don’t tell Arthur and Bertha that they were early to the party.)

Through November 30, we’ll be keeping a weary eye on the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and Atlantic Ocean for possible tropical mischief. It could be a busy year for tracking storms, too. Let’s dig in.

Monday and Tuesday sure won’t feel like June in the wake of a cold front that came through earlier today. Cool high pressure will wedge into the area, and the resulting onshore flow will keep temperatures rather pleasant and cloud cover reasonably low to start the new work week. We’ll begin a warming trend on Wednesday with a return to the 90s by Thursday. Next rain chances arrive by this weekend.

In case you missed it — and you’ll be forgiven if you did — we had our first landfalling tropical cyclone of the 2020 hurricane season on Wednesday. Tropical Storm Bertha, which was classified as such when it was 30 miles southeast of Charleston, came ashore around 9:30am with maximum sustained winds (primarily offshore) of 50 MPH. Bertha was not a major wind-maker on land, but dropped enough rain at low tide to cause flooding in downtown Charleston. Its heavy rain spread inland, adding to rain totals on what has been a soggy second half of the month already. Charleston Airport set a new rainfall record on Wednesday, as well; 2.08″ broke the record of 2″ set in 1977.

We’re getting a rainy start to our Tuesday as showers spread northward ahead of a low pressure system that is hugging the Florida coast. While some of these showers could be heavy at times, flooding is not expected to become an issue during the day on Tuesday. The worst weather is poised to arrive later tonight and into Wednesday as the center of the low makes its closest approach. Let’s get a look at what that means…

UPDATED at 6:30 PM: The National Weather Service in Charleston has confirmed a tornado on Johns Island yesterday. The tornado went a little over 3/4 of a mile along Chisholm Road, downing trees and power lines before dissipating over Church Creek. The storm survey team also found straight-line wind damage along Maybank Highway between Angel Oak Road and Oak Grove Road.

Some much-needed rain is in the forecast for much of the upcoming week as a cold front with an accompanying upper low moves through the area. Said upper low will then stall out over the Southeast into the end of the week, keeping thunderstorm chances around and temperatures a little below normal. As the upper low shifts away from the area toward Friday and the weekend, we’ll see rain chances decrease and temperatures approach the 90° mark. Overall, expect around an inch of rain before the week is over, with locally heavier amounts possible in thunderstorms — a healthy amount of rain, but not all at once, thankfully.

High pressure will be in firm control of our weather this week, keeping rain-free conditions and partly to mostly sunny skies in play. We’ll start the week with temperatures continuing to run below normal as one more front gets through the area early Monday. From Wednesday on, a warming trend will begin as high pressure sets up offshore, bringing warmer air in from the south and allowing temperatures to head up to the mid-80s by the weekend. A few scattered PM showers and storms will be possible Saturday and Sunday, but no washout is in store. Enjoy it (six feet away from others)!

A relatively mild winter has one last trick up its sleeve as an unusually chilly airmass has descended from the Arctic onto the eastern half of the country. This brought Central Park in New York City only its second May 9 snow on record (first was in 1977) and has helped send numerous low temperatures to record levels all the way into Alabama and Mississippi.