As expected, Monday didn’t last long in the “warmest day of 2023” category. We got to 94° this afternoon, the first 90° reading of the year. We missed the record high by one degree and a late-90s boy band by four. After that, the first really good round of summer thunderstorms rolled through the area, producing some impressive wind gusts particularly around the harbor, including a 75 MPH gust at the tide gauge near Waterfront Park! All in all, it’s been an eventful day of weather. Thankfully, we turn quieter and a little cooler for the second half of the work week as a cold front moves by and high pressure builds in from the north.
Monday was the warmest day of 2023 so far with a high of 89°, but that distinction will be short-lived as the first 90°+ temperatures of the season look likely on Tuesday ahead of a cold front. Mix in some humidity, and it’ll feel a little more like the mid-90s in the peak of afternoon heating, it looks like.
The rest of the work week will continue with plenty of sunshine and below-normal temperatures. We’ll start in the upper 40s to around 50° on Wednesday before temperatures only get up to around the mid-70s despite nearly unfettered sunshine. It will feel quite nice outside, but you’ll still want to mind the breeze that could push 20 MPH at times with higher gusts.
Tuesday looks fantastic by most objective measures — lows in the low 50s followed by mid-70s in the afternoon with plenty of sunshine. The only fly in the ointment remains the elevated wind gusts that will come along with peak heating in the afternoon thanks to deep mixing of the near-surface air that will tap into some elevated winds aloft. That’s about it, though — will be another pretty day with temperatures that at the end of this month I suspect we’ll wish we had back.
We should get much of, if not all of, Tuesday in rain-free before the pattern changes to something more unsettled to finish up the work week. We start Tuesday in the mid-50s; cloud cover and continued northeast flow will inhibit temperatures from rising much higher than the mid-70s in the afternoon. Some of the higher-resolution guidance has some isolated to scattered showers breaking out later in the afternoon into the evening hours as high pressure loses its grip on the area, but not everyone will see rain.
Quiet weather continues through the end of the work week. Wednesday will run quite a bit warmer than the past couple days as stacked high pressure settles in right over the Carolinas. Surface high pressure will slip into the Atlantic during the day Wednesday, turning winds a little more southerly and allowing temperatures to rise well into the mid-80s. The aforementioned high pressure will keep cloud cover to an absolute minimum, much like we saw on Tuesday.
Tuesday will be one of those meteorologically brilliant days that will undoubtedly make all of us wish it was the weekend instead. We start the day in fairly crisp fashion with lows bottoming out in the upper 40s to around 50°. High pressure will sit atop the area, and this combined with a very dry airmass will keep the sky unmarred by cloud cover. Temperatures will respond nicely, warming about 30° to the low 80s in the afternoon. Winds will be a little lighter, starting out of the north and swinging around to the northwest, west, and finally south by sunset.
Tuesday will be one of the better weather days we’ve had in a while around here, just an all-around gorgeous spring day. We’ll start the day in the mid-to-upper 40s and warm nicely into the low 70s in the afternoon under sunny skies. Dewpoints around 40° will yield a really comfortable day, too — not too dry, not too humid. Yes, it’s a workday, but with some of y’all on spring break, I hope you get to take advantage of this! Before you know it, we’ll be sweating buckets by merely stepping outdoors.
