It was an incredibly warm February day in the Lowcountry, skipping ahead from a spring preview to an early summer preview as the high topped out around 84° at the airport. This high temperature obliterated the old daily record of 80° set in 2019, and was 22° above normal for February 7.
Record warmth will remain possible this weekend, especially on Sunday, before temperatures moderate (but remain above normal) as the pattern turns a little more unsettled for next week.
This weekend’s weather is looking pretty good in the wake of a front that will move by early Saturday. A few showers are possible late Friday into early Saturday, but they will clear the area well before sunrise.
With the front out of the way, we’ve got a nice day ahead on Saturday as lows around 50° warm to the upper 60s to around 70° in the afternoon with just a few clouds at times. Breezy conditions on Friday night will calm down by Saturday, too.
We’ll run a little cooler on Sunday as high pressure wedges into the area from the north, but we’ll still be well above normal for this point in the year. Expect mid-40s lows to warm to the mid-to-upper 60s in the afternoon with generally partly cloudy skies expected.
We’ll turn even warmer next week, with some of the warmest weather so far this year expected as highs soar well into the 70s across much of the area with no rain chances expected — a very, very far cry from how January went, which looks like it will go down as the coldest on average since 1988!
Snowmelt will accelerate this weekend with warmer temperatures and more sunshine each afternoon. We will still deal with freezing temperatures each morning, though, which brings the specter of black ice back to the forecast for a couple more days. Saturday morning looks particularly frigid, with clear skies, calm winds, and existing snowpack contributing to temperatures falling into the low 20s. Winds go southwesterly during the day Saturday, though, and temperatures will head to around 50° in the afternoon. With mostly sunny skies expected, we should get another solid day of melting.
Whatever’s left of the snowpack on Saturday probably won’t make it too far past Sunday. We start Sunday in the upper 20s, but once we head above freezing on Sunday morning, we’ll stay above for the foreseeable future. Temperatures will head to the mid-50s in the afternoon with a few more clouds in the mix. Despite a few more clouds, melting will continue apace. And with lows not expected to get below freezing overnight Sunday into Monday morning, the risk for black ice will come to an end.
The warming trend continues next week, especially starting Tuesday as highs return to the 60s for a few days for mid-week — a far cry from where we’ve been, that’s for sure!
We have a rainy day on tap for Saturday as a complex storm system sweeps across the eastern half of the country. We’ll start the day in the upper 30s to around 40°, but warm to around 60° in the afternoon as warm, humid air moves in ahead of the storm system’s cold front. We’ll stay in the rain for a fair bit of the day after daybreak, though there will be breaks at times as well.
Showers depart early in the day on Sunday, which will be the warmest day in the forecastable future as highs top out in the mid-60s ahead of the cold front. Said front should swing through by evening, and we’ll start to see a sharp change in the airmass after that as Arctic air spills into the region from the northwest. Lows on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day bottom out in the upper 20s, heading to only the low 40s despite plenty of sunshine.
After a day in which we received a trace of snow at the airport for the first time since the January 2018 winter storm, we will dry out on Saturday with low pressure moving away from the area. We start the day with showers tapering off in the early morning; these should be gone by mid-morning, though. Lows will bottom out in the 30s overnight but we’ll be warming up as the night goes on, and we should wake up to temperatures in the 40s Saturday morning. As low pressure departs, so does the cloud cover, and we should end up with a good bit of sunshine before it’s all said and done. Expect highs to reach around 50-51° or so — you’ll definitely still want the jackets.
Sunday starts out in frigid fashion once again with lows in the mid-20s expected. Highs will only reach about 50° despite plenty of sunshine as northerly winds continue to keep the airmass a little on the chilly side. The good news is that we should be largely dried out before Sunday morning’s freeze, so I’m currently not anticipating any traffic concerns. Stay warm and enjoy the weekend!
Expect largely quiet weather this weekend as high pressure generally maintains control over our weather. It’ll be chilly, though, even by January standards (especially Saturday). We start Saturday below freezing with lows around 30-31° in the metro, with wind chills dipping to the mid-20s around daybreak. As always this time of year, expect warmer low temperatures near the coast and even cooler temperatures in more rural, remote locations. High temperatures will only head to the low 50s in the afternoon despite plenty of sunshine. It’ll be pretty dry, too, with dewpoints mixing down to the upper teens in the height of the afternoon.
Sunday starts out on a similarly cold note, but we’ll start to see high pressure wane a little throughout the day ahead of the next storm system. Expect an uptick in cloud cover as Sunday goes on, but otherwise, winds turning a little more southerly will allow for temperatures to warm to the mid-to-upper 50s. Rain should hold off until after midnight, thankfully, so we’ll get the dry weekend intact.
The final weekend of 2024 will be unseasonably warm as we get into the warm sector of an approaching storm system that could bring some rough conditions on Sunday.
We’ve got a quiet weekend of weather ahead as high pressure remains generally in control. Notably, our starts will be a bit milder: expect Saturday to begin in the low to mid-40s, while Sunday starts in the mid-to-upper 40s as onshore winds help to take the edge off the chill a bit. Temperatures each afternoon head toward the mid-60s, and we can expect a mix of sun and clouds each day.
The only real issues with the weather this weekend come in the form of winds and tides. Saturday in particular will be a breezy day as high pressure butts up against a trough of low pressure that’ll be developing offshore. Winds stay elevated on Sunday, but won’t be quite as blustery.
The northeast winds along with the upcoming full moon will help drive water levels into flood stage in Charleston Harbor with the morning high tides. Saturday morning, we can expect a water level between 7.1-7.3′ mean lower low water with the 6:41am high tide, which is solidly within minor flood stage. We could approach moderate flooding with Sunday morning’s high tide, currently forecasted between 7.4-7.6′ MLLW around the 7:32am high tide. Moderate flooding begins at 7.5′, and this is the level when we start to see more widespread road closures downtown. If downtown’s in your plans early the next couple mornings, be ready to reroute around road closures. Otherwise, enjoy a nice weekend!
We are off to another frigid start on Saturday. Many spots in the metro will dip into the low 20s, with upper teens expected further inland. A Cold Weather Advisory is in effect for inland Berkeley and Dorchester counties, with the expected window of coldest air between 3-9am. Temperatures will moderate throughout the day, and we should get back above 50° once again, with highs topping out about in the low to mid-50s under sunny skies.
Temperatures will take another plunge toward freezing on Sunday morning, though we can expect lows to generally run some 10-12° above where they were on Saturday morning. This will mean that some spots inland will likely dip back into the low 30s once again, but much of the metro should stay just above freezing, especially the closer to the coast you are. We’ll see a few more clouds as high pressure starts to move offshore, and the resulting return flow will allow highs to peak in the mid-60s — much closer to normal for this point in December and some 20° warmer than we felt on Friday!
The warming trend continues for the first part of the week as the next storm system works into the area, with rain chances starting Tuesday and peaking Wednesday. The end of next week looks to close out below normal once more, though not to the advisory-level cold we’ve had recently.
We’ll add a little amplitude to the temperature rollercoaster as we get into the second half of the work week as one high pressure departs and another builds back in.
