The hottest weather thus far in 2022 looks to arrive on Thursday. We’ll start the day in the upper 60s and warm well into the mid-90s in the afternoon. The record high of 96°, set in 1996, will be challenged under partly cloudy to mostly sunny skies. Heat indices could run close to 100° in the afternoon, so be sure to hydrate and take breaks accordingly.

As a series of mid-level disturbances ripple through the area, there will be a chance for showers and thunderstorms to fire off and move through in the late afternoon and evening hours. IF storms can fire — and this is a big IF — they could be on the strong to severe side. The thermodynamics certainly look good for storms to produce damaging wind gusts and large hail, but it remains to be seen if they can get going thanks to a strong cap on the atmosphere. Gonna be a game of wait, see, and watch the satellite and radar in the meantime.

A cold front will sink south of the area very early Tuesday morning, ushering in a slightly cooler and drier airmass for the next couple days before the heat pump really kicks up starting Thursday.

Of course, by “slightly cooler and drier” I mean “it won’t be 90° with a dewpoint in the mid-60s in the afternoon,” so keep that in mind as you set expectations for what Tuesday will feel like. But, indeed, it should feel a little better than Monday did. With a slightly drier airmass, the afternoon cumulus field should be a little bit more scattered, allowing for more sunshine. Highs top out in the mid-to-upper 80s thanks to northeasterly flow developing across the area, coolest at the immediate coast.

The northeasterly winds combined with the recent full moon at perigee should further enhance the risk for tidal flooding with the evening high tide (peaks a little after 10 PM), with another round of moderate flooding likely between 7 and midnight. Be ready for some sporadic road closures once again as a result.

As foretold earlier, we’ll get one more day of comfortable warmth on Wednesday before a warm front lifts north and the heat pump turns on for Thursday and Friday. Expect highs in the mid-90s for the first time this year away from the coast then, with heat indices perhaps creeping into the upper 90s. Summer’s just about here, folks, whether we want it or not!

After a rather gorgeous — if not a touch windy — stretch of weather across the Lowcountry, rain chances return to the forecast for Thursday afternoon and evening as coastal low pressure drifts closer to the area. We’ll start to see an increase in cloud cover overnight into tomorrow morning, but the best rain chances should hold off until the afternoon. We may be contending with some showers for the evening drive, so be alert to that possibility. Temperatures will still run on the cool side as breezy north and northeast winds continue across the area; with the cloud cover and approaching rainfall, we shouldn’t see highs much warmer than the mid-70s.

Mother’s Day in the Lowcountry looks pretty outstanding, weather-wise, if not a touch chilly for this point in the year. A reinforcing cold front will come through overnight, helping to drop tomorrow morning’s lows to the mid-50s. Highs will only reach the low 70s despite mostly sunny skies as a trough lingers aloft. This is well below normal for this time of year — the normal high for May 8 is 82°!

We’ll continue this run of below-normal temperatures for a couple more days. Lows could bottom out in the upper 40s in spots on Monday morning before a warming trend begins. Even still, expect temperatures to run right at or just a touch below normal for much of next week. We have all summer to head back into the 90s each day, after all, so let’s get some more spring in while we still can.

Thursday looks to be the hottest day of 2022 thus far, with highs in the low 90s expected away from the coast. (It’ll be in the low to mid-80s at the beaches, making for a good getaway if you can get away with it.) Despite a cold front stalled nearby, expect a little too much dry air aloft to get much in the way of thunderstorm formation in the afternoon (though you can never totally, 100% rule out a stray storm in this kind of regime).

We stay hot heading into Friday, with another day touching 90° anticipated. We should see some more thunderstorms, though, especially as the front begins to work into the area in the afternoon and overnight into Saturday. The front will kick the summer-like weather out for a few days at least starting Sunday, with highs around 80° making for what looks to be quite a nice weather day to round out the weekend!

After Monday became the warmest day so far in 2022 with a high of 87°, Tuesday should come right back and at least match that with another round of warm and muggy weather. We’ll start the day in the mid-to-upper 60s away from the coast. (I wouldn’t be surprised to see temperatures not get below 70° in some spots at the beaches.) Temperatures will warm to the mid-80s under partly cloudy skies ahead of the seabreeze.

With high pressure still in play across the Lowcountry, afternoon shower and storm chances in the Charleston metro should stay at a minimum, but won’t be zero (as Daniel Island found out today with an absolute gullywasher). There will be a better chance of rain along and inland of I-95 where storms will have an easier time getting going thanks to surface temperatures approaching 90°. These storms should fall apart, though, as they move eastward toward the coast in the evening as sinking and cooler air behind the seabreeze circulation will help tamp out convection.

We continue to get warmer as the week goes on, with Thursday looking quite probably like our first 90° day of the year. A cold front could make Friday and the weekend a little unsettled, but will also restore some order to temperatures, bringing them back to early May norms by the end of the weekend.

Thursday continues where today left off, with a seasonably cool morning followed by a comfortably warm afternoon in the upper 70s, right where we should be at this point in April. Humidity will be low once again as dewpoints mix out into the low 40s, yielding relative humidity values approaching 25% during the peak of the afternoon. It’ll be another good day for an outdoor lunch or evening walk as a result — just make sure you’ve got some sunscreen!

We have an even warmer day on tap for Tuesday before storms move in late in the afternoon into the evening ahead of a cold front. We’ll start the day in the low 60s before temperatures head to the mid-80s away from the cooler coastline. The warmest it’s been so far this year is 86° on February 23rd and again on February 25; we should tie this tomorrow. (The daily record high of 92°, set in 1989, is safe.)

We’ll be watching a cold front move into the area throughout the day Tuesday. Scattered showers and thunderstorms are expected to develop ahead of this front, with brief periods of heavy rain and gusty winds the main concern. There’s a low risk that a storm could produce a damaging wind gust or two, but severe weather doesn’t look to be a big concern with tomorrow’s front.

Rain should clear the area with the front by daybreak Wednesday, leaving behind cooler, drier air and overall pleasant weather for the next couple days. High pressure shifts offshore thereafter, and a warming trend will commence heading into the weekend. We could be in the mid-80s again by Sunday with a slight storm chance to go with it. Overall, though, quiet weather remains the rule as we head into the second half of the week.

We have another warm — and even slightly muggy — day ahead of weather as temperatures head back into the low 80s once again. Onshore flow will help keep dewpoints somewhat elevated, putting a touch of muggy into the air, but it’s nothing terribly out of the ordinary for this point in the year. We may contend with some patches of fog in the morning, but these should mix out shortly after sunrise.

One potential fly in the ointment to this forecast is something we saw this morning and could repeat itself tomorrow: the risk for a very isolated shower. The convection-allowing models have a few areas of low-end reflectivity coming ashore between 8am-12pm. This is likely the model depicting a somewhat more agitated cumulus field within an area of low-level convergence on the periphery of the surface high. However, I bring it up because this morning’s cumulus field did, in fact, toss some raindrops on me as I was doing my morning walk. So, we’ll see. All that said, though, if you see a raindrop or two tomorrow, don’t be totally surprised, then go buy a lottery ticket. It might be your lucky day.

After another cool day by mid-April standards, we return to the 70s on Thursday as surface high pressure shifts offshore and we begin to see ridging start to build in aloft. We’ll have a few more clouds than we’ve seen in previous days with a little more available moisture, but they will be benign and non-precipitating.