Monday Afternoon Update:
The coastal storm to our south is taking shape tonight and will throw us some heavy rain at times, keep the breeze going and evening provide flooding and strong thunderstorms in a few spots!
Scattered rain, heavy at times, moves in overnight and into Tuesday morning. The majority of us should be dealing with on & off heavy rain for most of Tuesday morning. Flooding of low lying streets, yards & ditches is possible where the heavy rain sets up. A Flood Watch has been issued through the majority of Tuesday for our region as 1″ – 3″+ can be expected. In addition to the flooding threat, a few strong thunderstorms could set up, mainly to our south and along the Outer Banks, tonight and early Tuesday morning.
The breeze will also remain persistent, gusting to around 30+mph at the coastline. This could cause some ocean over wash along NC-12 in the Outer Banks tonight, tomorrow morning and maybe again tomorrow evening. The excessive high tides won’t make things any easier, either, with nuisance flooding in the typical prone spots is possible with the evening and morning high tide cycles.
Be sure to stay weather aware tonight and Tuesday morning!
-Steve
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We have given a large heads up about this coastal low that we have been tracking. We’ve really been talking about it since early last week. The reason that we’ve given such a long notice was because of the proximity of the developing low to the east coast. This morning the low had some strength but poor organization.
There were some gusts to 45mph near Wilmington. The center wasn’t focused on one small spot, but instead it was stretched out along a small line. There was also some cooler/drier air that was trying to wrap into the diffuse center. This feature is running out of real estate to get its act together. The latest forecast does have it becoming a tropical storm before landfall later today.
However, even the National Hurricane Center says that time is running out for tropical formation. Either way it should move inland and weaken later today. Then it will return/stay a broad area of low pressure.
The center of the storm will definitely stay to our southwest. However, we will get some scattered showers up this way as the high moisture content keeps streaming in.
However, by the evening a large rain band is forecast to move up from the south away from the center.
This heavy rain could continue into tomorrow morning. I’ll talk a little more about this in a bit. Either way the center of the low should move north and become a rain maker into tomorrow. The center will stay to our southwest.
So today we’ll have mostly cloudy skies with a few scattered showers. There won’t be too many, and they should be mostly light.
We’ll have northeast winds through the day running at 10-20mph. There will be some gusts to 30mph.
There may be a few gusts to 35mph near the shore. Winds will stay up through the evening and overnight.
High temps will be in the upper 70s this afternoon. It may feel cool with the breeze at times.
By tonight our Future Trak model and a couple others show a large rain band coming up from the south.
This band is forecast to slowly move north and grown into tomorrow morning.
If this sets up as forecast, then it could really disrupt the morning commute. Even if the rain is more moderate tomorrow morning, it will still be pushed around with strong gusty winds. Isolated tornadoes could form in this big rain band as well. This first band may slow down, or another band could form in the late morning. Either way there’s a good shot at rain through the early afternoon.
Later in the afternoon the rain should decrease as all of these features move north. Keep in mind that there is some dry air wrapping into the system. It’s possible that some of this dry air could limit the rain a bit. I think that’s one of the reasons why the rainfall forecast is different between the models.
We do really need some rain. So hopefully, we get a good amount. I’d say we are looking at a solid 0.5″ to 2.5″ of rainfall in the region. Rain will let up tomorrow evening into Wednesday. Winds will also decrease.
High temps will be in the 70s tomorrow. We’ll have a few more scattered showers Wednesday and Thursday. Then the showers should be pretty limited later this week. It will be muggy until about Thursday.
There will be some tidal flooding in our area, but it shouldn’t be too bad. I think we are basically looking at some low-end minor tidal flooding over the next 48 hours.
Having said that…There will probably be some ocean overwash along the Outer Banks. I think this will be more wave-driven than tide-driven. Waves will be up to 7 feet along the Outer Banks. A few 10 footers will be possible near the shore. The tide will be slightly higher in the evenings. Hence I think the overwash will be more likely then too.
In other news… Tropical Depression Gordon is out over the central Atlantic, but it is very weak.
It may regain some strength in a few days, but it should stay out to sea.
Across the water there has been some big problems with non-tropical flooding in Europe. The recent floods have been historic and deadly.
Some other less intense news… Some snow is expected over the Sierra Nevada mountain range soon. This is the earliest in about 20 years.
Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler