We have a few more chilly days in store this week, especially on Friday, as another shot of cool air works its way through the area. (At least it won’t rain!)

A warmer day is on tap Thursday as we sit between one Arctic-sourced high pressure system moving away and another approaching the area that’ll chill us right back out for Friday. We start the day in the upper 30s to around 40°, which will run much warmer than we ran on Wednesday morning after lows in the 20s for much of the area (and even some upper teens in northern Berkeley County!). Temperatures will top out in the low 60s in the afternoon as gusty southwest to westerly winds (perhaps approaching 30 MPH at times) ahead of the next front keep us a little warmer. We should see the front come through with little fanfare other than an uptick in cloud cover, especially in the first part of the day.

We’ll add a little amplitude to the temperature rollercoaster as we get into the second half of the work week as one high pressure departs and another builds back in.

A shot of cold air will drive temperatures back below freezing for Tuesday morning, with some upper 20s likely inland. The metro area should stay closer to the low 30s, but tomato, tomahto — it’s just gonna be cold. A decent northerly breeze will drive wind chills down into the mid-20s, too. Make sure you’ve got pets and plants in a safe and warm place overnight. Temperatures will struggle to the upper 40s at best in the afternoon despite plenty of sunshine, indicative of just how frigid of an airmass we’ve got to work with on Tuesday. Bundle up!

Seemingly on cue for climatological winter, temperatures will remain below normal pretty much all week, with a couple reinforcing shots of cool air to keep us honest interspersed throughout. We stay mostly rain-free, with the possible exception of later Saturday night into Sunday as another front with a few showers looks to move by.

Bring in your pets and sensitive plants (or cover them if you can’t bring them in) as the first freeze of the season is expected tonight into Saturday morning to close out climatological fall and welcome in climatological winter on December 1. Temperatures will fall into the low 30s across much of the metro by morning, and a Freeze Warning is in effect for the entire Tri-County area as a result. Despite several days of cold air ahead, including even colder air next week, this will be the only Freeze Warning of the season as the growing season will come to an end on December 1, regardless of how far to the east freezing temperatures penetrate. Frost and freeze alerts resume on March 1, 2025.

After that very chilly start, we’re warming to only the mid-50s in the afternoon despite mostly sunny skies. Northerly winds 5-10 MPH will keep temperatures feeling like the mid-40s through early afternoon.

Winds go calm overnight Saturday into Sunday morning, and we’ll see another very chilly morning as a result, with the potential for widespread frost particularly inland. Lows should bottom out in the low 30s once more. (If it doesn’t freeze again, it’ll be close.) Highs will recover a bit to the upper 50s on Sunday afternoon, but that’s still well below normal for the first of December.

We have another shot of even colder air in store for early next week, with lows in the 20s across the metro possible Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. Tuesday may not even get out of the 40s! Colder-than-normal temperatures and rain-free conditions look to continue through next Friday.

We won’t have the best weather on Thanksgiving Day, unfortunately, as a strong cold front moves through the area. It’ll bring with it some gusty winds and eventually some showers and even a few thunderstorms as we get into the afternoon and evening hours. It’ll be a warm and humid day by late November standards, with lows in the upper 50s to around 60° yielding to the mid-70s in the afternoon. This could help provide sufficient instability within a fairly well-sheared airmass to produce a strong to severe thunderstorm or two as the front approaches, with damaging straight-line wind gusts the main concern. The timing for storms appears to be generally between about 2pm-9pm, progressing west-to-east. It’s possible not everyone will see a storm or even any rain, but we just need to keep an eye on the storms that do fire to make sure they behave.

We have quite the weather rollercoaster in store for the Thanksgiving 2024 holiday period. First, Wednesday will run much warmer than normal despite a frontal passage Tuesday night; expect lows in the mid-50s to yield to highs in the low 70s under partly cloudy skies as the front lingers just to the south. We’ll stay rain-free on Wednesday, though showers will be approaching from the west with another, stronger frontal system.

Tuesday begins an occasionally unsettled period of weather that’ll last through early Black Friday as a series of fronts moves through the area. The first one, poised to move through Tuesday evening, won’t be terribly strong; it’ll kick up some cloud cover and maybe a few showers as well out ahead of it, but it won’t really affect the airmass all that much. We’ll start Tuesday in the low 50s, warming to the low to mid-70s in the afternoon. Dewpoints will surge back into the 60s for a brief period, but those will begin to fall by evening as the front moves by.

The week ahead will look a bit like last week: starting warm, a mid-week front, and a chilly round of weather for Friday and the weekend (that, in fact, will run even cooler than we did these past few days).

First, though, we’re back in the 70s on Monday as high pressure at the surface starts to move offshore. This makes for a seasonably warm day, starting in the mid-40s and warming to the low 70s in the afternoon. We turn warmer on Tuesday ahead of what should be a dry, fairly weak front, with a start in the mid-50s yielding to highs in the mid-70s in the afternoon under mostly cloudy skies. The front only acts to knock temperatures down a couple degrees, so Wednesday remains warmer than normal with lows in the low 50s yielding to highs in the low 70s in the afternoon.

Thanksgiving Day will be mostly dry, though a stronger front approaching from the west will bring rain chances into the area in the evening through the overnight. It’ll be a warm day, with lows in the mid-to-upper 50s warming to the mid-70s in the afternoon ahead of the rain. Once this front gets through, though, we’ll feel a noticeable change as another shot of cool air moves in. Black Friday’s highs should only peak in the low 60s — some 15° cooler than Thanksgiving — as rain and clouds depart. We’ll stay quite cool heading into the weekend, with perhaps some frost concerns each night as lows on Saturday and Sunday bottom out in the mid-30s, while highs only peak around the mid-50s each day.