Corey Davis, climatologist with the State Climate Office of North Carolina, We were talking a week ago about this rain event that was coming in and we were talking an inch or more of rain across the Carolinas looked really promising the week I think we got some farmers excited and then what happened this past week?
Well, Mike, I kind of hate to talk about a bad forecast. But as a climatologist, I think it is important to look back and try to understand the reasons why that rain event that was supposed to happen last Saturday and Sunday. Yeah, really never materialized.
So there were a few real factors at play here. One of those is that we had been fairly cool for most of last week and that also been having a fairly dry air mass in place. So it ended up taking a lot more moisture than we thought to really saturate that air mask before we got any measurable precipitation that the ground in most places only solid just a few hundredths of an inch. But really, that was one big factor just that the air was so dry leading into that event that even as that moisture came in, it just took so long for the air to get saturated.
So what do you spy with your little eye as we move forward now is there a chance of any rain coming in the near future?
There is and it looks like maybe a better chance than we have last week at least with less complications in the forecast. First off, we’re gonna warm up quite a bit today and especially tomorrow and Sunday. We’ve seen those cool nights down in the 20s the last couple days but we’ll be up with highs in the 60s today and then the low 70s tomorrow and Sunday. And then finally by Sunday, especially late in the day in Sunday night, we’ll see a better chance of rain as a cold front moves in from the west. Right now. It looks like a pretty widespread event areas in the mountains in North Carolina could see upwards of two inches. Aside from that we’re looking at at least half inch to an inch and then as that event that system moves out on early Monday, we will start to cool down again pretty seasonable Highs in the low 50s. By early next week and Mike we just talked about it. That’s our typical kind of Christmas level weather. Not always a lot of moisture there, but at least those highs in the low to mid 50s.