Robert's post....

Thunderstorms this Afternoon through early night time. Expect temperatures to climb into the upper 70s with clouds increasing as we go throughout the day.

Today's storm outbreak will not in any way be similar to the outbreak we saw two Sundays ago. This afternoon anywhere from 2:00 to 11:00 pm we should see a line of storms along the cold front passage. In this situation we have an elongated trough axis with the center of the axis well to our north into the upper Ohio valley. Due to the orientation and location of the axis we will be short on the helicity amounts (given the straight line hodograph) decreasing our chances of tornadoes to near zero. However, our 0-6 km shear will be reaching values to allow for multicell storms to a few isolated supercells to form. This time of the year when we have these types of storms you can almost always expect wind and hail to be our biggest players.

CAPE values could reach into the lower 1000s, high level clouds should not limit diurnal heating but low to mid level inhibition should limit most storms until the early evening hours.

Though the line may slow or break up along the Appalachians expect the line to reform and strengthen as it encounters lee troughing and forcing from the short wave.

Discussing with Matthew East we think that most likely we will see a severe thunderstorm watch box mid to late afternoon, given SPC's slight chance. If the line sets up we should see severe thunderstorm warnings up and down the line with long forewarning time.

As for the Masters a bulk or majority of the players should be able to get their first round in with just a few players including Tiger (1:42 tee time) having their back 9 affected by thunder or rain. This year I am going with Tim Clark as my pick to win the Masters. He tends to play well at Augusta with a second place finish in 2006. He actually has never won a PGA tour event but holds the most top 10 finishes(35) without ever winning a tour event. Also he is a NC State grad so I had to pick him.

Robert Elvington
robert.elvington@gmail.com

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Some severe weather possible today....

An end to our very warm pattern is at hand as a cold front approaches from the west. We will see showers and storms roll into the Carolinas as today unfolds, and for the Charlotte and Triad zones, the main window of opportunity for showers and storms will be from roughly mid-afternoon into this evening. For I-95 and points east, this activity will mainly be tonight.

I envision this being a scenario where we see a band, or broken band, of showers and storms roll through. Some storms will likely wind up being strong to severe, and while I can't completely rule out any mode of severe weather, I believe damaging winds will be our primary threat.

Hopefully most folks can manage a decent soaking to aid in the pollen. Some of the highest pollen counts in the short recording history of pollen levels have been recorded over the past few days. The reason for the extremely high pollen levels is a combination of the very warm weather and the lack of rain thus far in April. Normally, we see rain every few days this time of year, and that cleanses us of the pollen. That has not happened this year.

A wonderful, refreshing stretch of weather is on tap tomorrow through the weekend. Highs will be in the 60s tomorrow, upper 60s to lower 70s Saturday, and then mid 70s or so Sunday, all with lots of sun. That will be nice!

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Weather changes knocking on our door....

Many folks around our region saw a high yesterday near 90 degrees. Today, it will still be very warm with mid to upper 80s in most Piedmont locations. We will continue to see lots of sunshine, and it will be a bit breezy this afternoon.

However, changes are on the way. A cold front will move in here late tomorrow, and along with it will come some showers and storms from late tomorrow afternoon into tomorrow evening. Some storms could wind up producing some damaging winds, and we will watch that. It appears many spots will wind up with at least a half inch of rain....that will be good to knock back the tremendous amounts of tree pollen we have around.

Terrific weather then arrives for Friday and the weekend. Highs Friday and Saturday will be in the 60s in many Piedmont locations with 70s Sunday. All days will feature lots of sunshine. Lows will drop into the 30s in many spots Saturday and Sunday morning.

The weather stays quiet and generally sunny as we head through the first half of next work week as well.

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