Cloudcover saves the day

It looks like the clouds that rolled in prevented us from seeing severe weather problems this afternoon. Instead, we saw an area of light to moderate rain shift through parts of Cleveland, Gaston, York, Mecklenburg, and Union counties. The severe weather problems are occurring to our south and east, where the sun remained out longer today.

Lots of heat coming early in the week. Mid to even upper 90s a good bet beginning Monday and lasting through at least mid-week. No relief in sight until a cold front nears us late in the week and next weekend and gives us good shower and thunderstorm chances.

Tropics....
The tropical wave out in the Atlantic has lost most of its shower and thunderstorm activity today, so it looks like any development will be very slow to occur.

The wave in the Caribbean is still experiencing hostile upper level winds, so no immediate development is likely there as well. However, if that tropical wave gets into the Gulf next week, it could possibly develop into something. So, we will keep watching all of this....

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So far, so good....

Mid level vortex (disturbance) moving across western North Carolina as I am typing this. If you look at a regional radar loop, the vortex can clearly be seen dropping from western North Carolina into western South Carolina in a southeastward fashion.

I am really beginning to think that the worst severe weather threat will be just east of the viewing area. However, let's not let our guard dows just yet. But, I just wanted to make a quick post and say that things at this point look a little less favorable for severe weather over our area than it looked this morning....

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Severe Weather Threat Today....

We are indeed seeing a good amount of sunshine this morning. An upper level disturbance is approaching us from the west as well. The short-range computer models had a wide array of solutions in the handling of the disturbance last night, but things seem to be coming together a bit better now.

It looks like we will see showers and storms fire around the area as the afternoon progresses, especially from mid-afternoon on. The disturbance moving in is actually a relatively strong one, considering the time of year. Decent wind fields will be in place, and the atmosphere should be pretty moist and unstable. So, all in all, I think the probability of some severe weather occurring somewhere around our area is fairly high.

By the way, here is the disturbance I am talking about. This is the 500mb chart from the 6z run of the NAM valid at 2pm today. Notice the area near the Tennessee/North Carolina state line. That is a lobe of vorticity. In simpler terms, we just call that an upper level disturbance.



The 700mb winds are stronger today than what we have seen recently, so the storms should actually move along at a decent clip. So, hopefully flooding won't be a big issue, but we could certainly still use all of the rain we can get.

So, all in all, things seem to be pointing to some active weather this afternoon into parts of the evening hours. Stay tuned to News 14 Carolina for all of the latest weather information. Tara will hold down the fort through a good chuck of the afternoon, and I will be on the air by 4-5pm...

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