Temperatures topped out close to 80° today in the Lowcountry, and we should meet or even slightly exceed that for Thursday despite a little more cloud cover ahead of Friday’s cold front. We start the day quite mild for mid-February (mid-50s) before soaring to around 80° in the afternoon. Certainly a short-sleeve day for a majority of the day; you’ll shed that light jacket quite early on, methinks.

The weather takes a turn for the unsettled starting tomorrow as a cold front approaches the area from the west. We get one more day in the 70s ahead of this front, but plenty of showers are expected within a solid moisture feed from the Gulf, with the better rain chances arriving in the afternoon. A few thunderstorms can’t be ruled out if instability can materialize particularly later in the afternoon and into the evening, and the wind fields are such that a few stronger storms are possible.

A deep trough coming along with the front will slow down and cut off into an upper low. This is going to help keep the weather quite unsettled into the weekend, particularly Saturday as low pressure develops off the coast. Temperatures will drop into the 50s on Saturday and won’t rise terribly much as the upper low pivots overhead and showers stay in the picture. We stay quite chilly on Sunday as low pressure begins to move northeast, and showers will remain likely for much of the day. Highs top out in the upper 50s.

All in all, this is a weekend best experienced indoors. At least there’s going to be a reasonably super football game on Sunday.

Thursday will be another warm day across the Lowcountry. We’ll start the day with mid-50s and some patches of fog. Heading into the afternoon, highs will top out in the mid-to-upper 70s once again despite more cloud cover than we saw on Wednesday. South winds will be a touch on the breezy side as well. We should get the day in rain-free across much of the area. There’s a small chance that a shower or two could brush the coast in the afternoon, but the bulk of the rain stays away until overnight Thursday into Friday.

Showers overnight will continue into Friday morning before tapering off in the afternoon. We could see some peeks of sun before Friday’s all said and done, which would be helpful given that highs are only expected to top out in the low 50s. We stay chilly heading into Saturday, with lows in the upper 20s expected across the metro in the morning before temperatures only rebound into the low 50s despite mostly sunny skies. We turn warmer Sunday with highs in the low 60s, but shower chances return in the afternoon as a coastal trough/front sharpens. Overall, if you can deal with some chilly air, Saturday is your best outdoors day, though Sunday morning into early afternoon should be pretty good as well.

After a record high downtown (77°, breaking the record of 76° set in 1916 and tied in 1950) and just falling short at the airport (81°), temperatures are turning significantly cooler across the area as a wedge front sinks southward tonight. This will result in mostly cloudy conditions for Thursday, with highs running almost 20° below where they did today. Expect some showers to creep back into the area later in the day, with better rain chances settling in overnight into Friday. (Let’s just hope we don’t get caught in a temporal loop on this Groundhog Day.)

Cool weather will kick off Friday and the weekend as we sit under the influence of high pressure for a couple days before it shuffles back offshore later Saturday into Sunday. Expect lows in the mid-30s on Friday before warming just into the mid-50s despite plenty of sunshine; this is due to a trough axis in the mid-levels passing by to the north. We’ll see this feature give way to more zonal (west-to-east) flow as we get into Saturday, which will start around freezing but will rebound into the low 60s as high pressure begins to move east of the area. Temperatures — and dewpoints — then climb quickly on Sunday ahead of a storm system that’ll kick off rain showers in the afternoon, with the best chances for rain arriving late Sunday into Monday. Highs on Sunday should top out in the mid-to-upper 60s, foretelling a fairly warm end to January with highs next week approaching the 70° mark to close out the first month of 2023.

Showers and maybe a thunderstorm will be accompanying a cold front tonight into tomorrow morning. There could be some brief pockets of heavy rain and gusty winds, but no severe weather is expected.

The front will get through around daybreak or so Friday morning. Persistent cloud cover and cold air moving in will limit highs to the low 60s. Showers become possible once again later into the evening hours as low pressure develops to our northeast; any rain, if it does end up falling, should be relatively light.

As low pressure departs, skies will clear and temperatures will tumble. Expect to wake up to mid-30s on Saturday morning, with highs struggling to 50° in the afternoon despite full sunshine. Subfreezing temperatures are expected Sunday morning, with a few spots well inland perhaps dipping into the upper 20s. Full sunshine and some shortwave ridging aloft will help temperatures start to rebound a little in the afternoon, with highs in the mid-50s expected. We’ll return to the low 60s for Monday, and will be back in the 70s by Wednesday, so this cold spell won’t have much staying power — good news for warm weather fans, and not so much fun for the cool-inclined amongst us. But so it goes in the “cool season” during a La Niña year here in the Lowcountry.

Friday and the weekend will feature quiet and comfortable weather for early January as cooler and drier air behind a cold front continues to filter in. Temperatures will still be running a click or two above normal, with highs in the low-to-mid-60s each day and lows generally in the low-to-mid-40s. Sunday looks to be the warmest of the three days as another cold front draws closer to the area, which could bring some rain chances late into Monday. Overall, our mild start to 2023 largely continues, and that ain’t bad.

After a high of 62° today — the first time since December 17 that we’ve crossed the 60° threshold — we will be back into the 60s tomorrow across the metro, with temperatures running a few degrees warmer than they did today. Most notably, those of us east of Highway 17-A will remain above freezing into tomorrow morning for the first time since December 23. Those of you along and inland of 17-A will want to take freezing weather precautions for just one more night as lows dip below 32° for a time, with a few upper 20s possible in more sheltered locations. However, many of us will not need to drip faucets or take other precautions tonight (though bringing your pets in is always a good idea this time of year).

A very potent cold front will be coming through early Friday, bringing strong, gusty winds, dangerous wind chills, and several mornings in a row of pipe-busting cold for the Christmas holiday weekend.