Wednesday has turned out to be another great one with sunshine arriving by the afternoon after a morning of stubborn cloud coverage. Temperatures did not take long to jump up into the 60s and low 70s and we’ll coast through that for the rest of the day. Wind has been stout out of the SSW with sustained speeds to 25 mph with gusts into the 30-mph range.
Thursday will bring the best chance for rain this week. Coming with the rain will be rounds of thunderstorms promising strong wind gusts and heavy rain. We’ll start the day without incident and with clear skies for the early morning hours. The sky will cloud up quickly after sunrise as the warm front delivers the first shot of rain to us in the late morning and early afternoon hours. This will be a widespread rain event with some heavy showers mixed in.
From the mid-afternoon to the early evening rain rates lower and clouds hang tough. Some clearing will try to occur, and the less we get the better. If we wind up with afternoon sunshine after the morning round of rain, we will have a better chance concerning severe storms later in the evening. From the mid-evening through the late evening, rain returns as widespread light to moderate with thunderstorms mixed in.
Some of these storms will be capable of producing damaging wind gusts. There is a small chance for a few storms to produce an isolated tornado as well. Large hail should not be a major problem, but small to moderate hail is possible. You can count on getting heavy rainfall if one of these storms passes overhead. Obviously, lightning will be included. The Storm Prediction Center has Most our entire viewing area under a “slight” risk (2 out of 5) for The Thursday evening event. This generally means that scattered severe storms are expected, with damaging wind and an isolated tornado or two possible.
Storms look to leave the state as we move into the early morning hours of Friday. Other than a few light drizzle showers with morning cloud coverage, Friday will be a better day with sunshine returning to the forecast by the afternoon.
