An unusually potent storm system will affect the area on Tuesday, bringing strong, gusty non-thunderstorm winds, some tidal flooding in the morning, and a squall line in the afternoon and early evening that could bring a swath of damaging winds and maybe a few tornadoes on its leading edge.

After a rather warm Saturday — the warmest day of the young year so far with a high of 75° — temperatures return to normal on Sunday as cooler and drier air blows in behind a cold front. We start the day in the mid-40s, but the ongoing cool air advection will hold highs to around 60° in the afternoon despite partly cloudy to mostly sunny skies. It’ll be another breezy day; expect winds generally 10-15 MPH out of the west with gusts approaching 25-30 MPH once again.

A brief round of rain on Wednesday night will depart the area by daybreak Thursday, leaving behind a little bit cooler air as well as unfettered sunshine. We start the day in the upper 30s to around 40° before warming to the mid-50s in the afternoon — a few degrees below early January normals (60°). It’ll be a little breezy, with winds out of the north and northwest around 10-15 MPH, which will be a contributor to keeping high temperatures below normal despite all the sunshine.

A cold front coming through overnight will send temperatures even cooler for Friday. We start the day in the low 40s, but cold air will be blowing in throughout the day. This will keep temperatures suppressed to about the mid-50s in the afternoon despite mostly sunny skies. It’ll be a breezy day, too; winds will generally run 10-15 MPH with gusts to 25 MPH as daytime heating helps push mixing heights to about 5,000 feet. Cloud cover will generally be sparse with a fairly dry atmosphere in place, with maybe a few fair weather cumulus showing up from time to time.

Thursday will be a much cooler day than Wednesday was across the Lowcountry, where most stations made it into the 70s at some point during the day, as an initial round of cooler and drier air infiltrates the area ahead of a reinforcing front which will really chill us out for Friday into the weekend. Dewpoints fall into the mid-40s throughout the night, allowing temperatures to drop generally into the low 50s to start Thursday. We’ll top out in the low-to-mid-60s in the afternoon — still a touch above normal — as clouds gradually start to break up along with the cold front’s passage.

Unsettled weather arrives for Christmas as a complex and sprawling storm system begins to affect the area. We should see a few scattered showers in the morning through early afternoon, but expect shower coverage and intensity to tick up as we get further into the afternoon and evening hours. Temperatures on Christmas will run much warmer than climatology, though not into record territory. Expect lows in the mid-50s to yield to the low 70s in the afternoon before rain starts to kick in.

Water levels in Charleston Harbor look to reach flood stage (7′ MLLW) with the 6:30am high tide. This will put some salt water on some of the more vulnerable roads in Downtown Charleston, but no rain is expected to coincide, limiting the breadth of any flooding threat.

A warming trend continues for Friday as we head into Christmas weekend. We’ll get off to a warmer start — though it’ll still be in the mid-to-upper 30s — than we did on Thursday, which dipped back into the upper 20s. Temperatures Friday afternoon should once again head to the low-to-mid-60s with a mix of sunshine and high cloud cover as high pressure continues to be the main weather feature at the surface and aloft.

We have another chilly day ahead Thursday as we’ll once again start the day below freezing, though perhaps not to the degree we saw across the area Wednesday morning, when Charleston International Airport dropped to 27°, the coldest temperature this year and the coldest it’s been since December 28, 2022.

A warming trend will commence Thursday as highs head to the upper 50s under partly cloudy to mostly sunny skies as ridging moves overhead. While you’ll still want a jacket, it might not need to be as heavy!

A cold front will swing through overnight, yielding a much chillier start on Tuesday as temperatures dip down to around freezing away from the coast and downtown. Breezy northwest-to-north winds will make it feel even colder, too, with morning wind chills dipping to the mid-20s across the area. Cold advection will continue throughout the day, and despite full sunshine, northerly winds will likely keep temperatures from heading above 50° in most locations.

A fairly lousy and potentially high-impact weather day lies ahead for Sunday as a strengthening nor’easter moves along the coast. Wind and rain will begin to pick up early Sunday morning, with gusts near 45 MPH at times (and potentially even higher on bridges and overpasses). Rainfall could turn out to be quite significant, especially within any thunderstorms that can fire; before it’s over, many of us could see 3-5″ of rain with even higher amounts in some spots. Flooding is increasingly a concern as a result, especially with the potential for an 8′ water level around the 11:17am high tide coinciding with continued heavy rain. Finally, if surface-based instability can develop, a severe thunderstorm or two with locally damaging wind gusts and maybe even a tornado could be possible. All this to say that Sunday’s a good “stay inside” day.