A cold front will swing through early Thursday with high pressure to build in behind it. Temperatures will start in the low 60s, warming to the low-to-mid-80s in the afternoon with northwesterly winds around 10 MPH. The downslope flow will dry out the atmosphere pretty nicely, allowing for mostly sunny skies with maybe a few fair weather clouds. The drier air will make the 80s highs feel a little more comfortable, too. Overall, it’s a good day to try to get some sunshine in the midst of the daily grind.

Generally quiet weather will be the rule for the rest of the work week as dry high pressure builds in from the northwest, keeping temperatures near mid-May norms.

High pressure nudging in from the north will keep cloud cover in place and cool us off a bit for Tuesday after the third 90° day of the year on Monday. We’ll start the day in the upper 50s, warming to about the mid-70s given the expected cloud cover. A shower could get close to far southern Charleston County during the day, but most of us should stay rain-free.

I hope all of you out there who celebrated Mother’s Day today had a wonderful day. It ended up being a pretty good weekend weather-wise, with much of the moisture staying suppressed to the south. Monday, however, will bring more substantial rain chances as a cold front pushes south and eastward. We should stay quiet through the morning, though by early afternoon we should start to see showers and a few thunderstorms develop, first along the seabreeze and then becoming more widespread as the front moves by later in the day into the evening. There’s a risk for one or two thunderstorms to become severe, with damaging wind gusts the main concern, though widespread severe weather is not expected. We could see some brief periods of heavy rain, but with relatively quick storm motions expected, they won’t be hanging around long enough to cause any flooding issues. Temperatures will run on the warm side of normal for mid-May, with highs potentially reaching the upper 80s before thunderstorms kick in.

Showers and a few thunderstorms return to the weather picture this weekend as disturbances aloft ripple across the area. The good news is that it won’t rain all the time and that whatever rain we will get will help with the ongoing severe drought.

We’re back in the saddle here at @chswx HQ and looking at a quiet Friday before conditions turn unsettled once again this weekend as the front that’s helped to bring us today’s rain starts to wobble back northward.

We’re taking a look at the next seven days tonight as I’ll be taking a bit of a break over the next few days. A more regular posting schedule resumes Friday!

A rain-cooled day is on tap for Saturday — not quite peak air show weather, that’s for sure — as we may challenge a record cool high temperature. The coolest high temperature on record for May 2 is 63°, set in 1978; the NWS forecast for the airport currently calls for highs to reach about 64°. It’s gonna be close! As mentioned, some much needed rain will be falling throughout the day, with some rumbles of thunder possible with some elevated instability. No severe weather is anticipated, though. It’ll be generally on and off through late afternoon before tapering off in the evening. Many of us should see an additional inch to inch and a half of rain before it’s over — quite a nice sight given the ongoing severe drought.

After completing what should go down as the second-driest April on record (only by virtue of measurable rainfall over the past two days), we will get May off to a more unsettled start with some much-needed rain followed by a cool but sunny Sunday. We will also need to keep an eye on tides for possible coastal flooding concerns into the weekend.

We will close a bone-dry April out with a couple more chances for showers and thunderstorms as another cold front approaches the area with disturbances riding along it. One such disturbance fell apart as it reached the Lowcountry today, giving us another trace of rain at the airport. Officially, though, rainfall totals for the month of April remain at 0.01”, which currently ties 1972 as the driest April on record. With any luck, though, we should not end up there, though a top-five driest April on record certainly appears to be in the cards.

One of the driest Aprils on record will come to a somewhat unsettled end this week as the pattern starts to finally flip toward something a little more favorable for rain chances. We’ll run a little cooler, too, especially as we start May.