Get ready for periods of heavy rain tonight into Tuesday as Fred, which made landfall earlier near Cape San Blas, FL, continues its northward trek through Alabama and Georgia tonight into Tuesday. Deep tropical moisture will be the name of the game, and models show a feeder band-like feature off of the Atlantic coming up through the area early Tuesday morning. There’s a chance that the band could be moving through the area during the morning rush, so that’s certainly a trend to watch closely. We should see a lull followed by another renewed round of showers and thunderstorms as daytime heating takes hold. All in all, NWS is forecasting another 1-3” of rain (with locally higher amounts) before it’s all said and done Tuesday night.

Given the eastward nudge in Fred’s track over the last day, we’ll be keeping an additional eye out in case conditions become marginally favorable for severe weather closer to the Lowcountry. Right now, it looks like the bulk of the severe risk will stay to our west and northwest, cutting through Georgia into the Upstate. Still, shear profiles suggest that there could be a small window for severe storms late tonight into tomorrow. It may not be the worst idea to have your weather radios in the on and alerting position overnight, just to be safe. It’s important to note that this is not another Elsa: the center of circulation is much further to the west this go-around, and that in turn keeps the more favorable tornado parameters west.

Temperatures will predictably remain suppressed in the mid-80s given the prevalent cloud cover and rainfall. This remains a few degrees below normal for August.

Our soggy summer rolls on with the return of widespread showers and thunderstorms for the first part of the week, particularly as Tropical Storm Fred makes landfall along the Florida Gulf Coast sometime tomorrow and moves northward through western GA into TN. While we won’t see direct impacts from Fred, we are certainly going to be within a plume of deep tropical moisture for the next several days, and this will lead to heavy downpours as a result. Models certainly suggest Tuesday as the wettest day as Fred lumbers up the AL/GA line. A few more inches of rain will certainly be possible, especially in isolated spots where the heaviest downpours occur. We’ll need to keep a close eye out for flooding issues, especially if heavy rain occurs near high tide downtown. The rainfall will keep temperatures in the mid-80s through Wednesday.

As we get into Thursday, Fred’s remnants will be out of the way and we look to begin to return to a somewhat more normal afternoon thunderstorm pattern heading into the weekend. Temperatures will respond by heading back to around 90° each afternoon before thunderstorms fire up.

We in #chswx continue to track two tropical systems in the Atlantic basin, Fred and Grace. Fred has opened up into a tropical wave for the time being, and is thus not currently a tropical cyclone, but is expected to reorganize into one and approach the Florida Panhandle as a tropical storm. Grace, meanwhile, is bringing very heavy rain to the Lesser Antilles this evening as it generally follows in Fred’s footsteps. The good news is that there are no immediate tropical threats for the Lowcountry and the rest of the Carolinas.

Pro tip: Mow the lawn Saturday morning, because we could start to see some showers and storms enter the picture in the afternoon as high pressure begins to weaken across the area. It’ll still be warm, but temperatures will be limited to the upper 80s by more pervasive cloud cover.

Why mow Saturday? Because Sunday is going to be a lot tougher to get that mowing in, and it doesn’t get better getting into next week. Showers and thunderstorms look to become a little more widespread Sunday, with on-and-off storms possible for a good bit of the day. As usual in summer, it won’t rain all the time, but when it does, a brief downpour or two could drop a decent amount of rain.

As we get into next week, a continued feed of tropical moisture and a stalled front will interact will keep scattered to widespread showers and thunderstorms in the forecast, particularly in the afternoons.