Sunny Sunday; Showers return Tuesday
Good morning folks! While Hurricane Ida bears down on the Louisiana coastline, making landfall sometime Sunday evening, the trend for our region is improving with each model run. As of Saturday morning the track of Ida will brings its remnants west of our region sometime Wednesday, all but ensuring the heaviest rain stays west of our region, avoiding another possible flood and high water event across SW NC. This is not set in stone but the trend is our friend and we will continue to monitor this and update accordingly, although for now, we will continue to post a new discussion every other day. We do expect rain from the remnants of Ida but our region only looks to pick up 0.5 - 2" of rain from the southerly flow brought about by Ida's passing. Stepping back a second, we still expect Sunday to be a scorcher (much like today), while Monday's forecast changes slightly to include pop up showers and increasing cloud cover. This will help cool temps down a day sooner than previously forecasted, but we will still have to wait till Tuesday to see a return to the low 80's. More clouds than sun will be overhead today, alongside scattered shower chances that will take most of the day to develop, becoming widespread by Wednesday morning. Most of the rainfall associated with the remnants of Ida will occur on Wednesday and clear out by the pre dawn hours on Thursday, with a possible dry end to the work that should keep temps right around normal for early September.
We'll kick off the timeline on Sunday and we expect another round of sunshine and temps pushing to the mid 70's - upper 80's depending upon elevation, which is roughly 5 - 7 degrees above normal for late August. Overnight lows will settle into the upper 50's - mid 60's depending upon elevation and fog is possible but not dense and widespread like we have seen during the work week.
Monday kicks off a new work and school week with increasing cloud cover as Ida moves further inland, helping to cap temps to the low 70's - mid 80's depending upon elevation. Isolated showers are likely, mainly for the Highlands Plateau and coverage will remain isolated through the night; low temps in the low - mid 60's.
Tuesday brings about a slight uptick in shower coverage, but nothing that will surpass scattered coverage and this may take till the early - mid afternoon hours to develop. Temps only make it to the upper 60's - low 80's, which is right around normal for early September (maybe a degree or two higher in spots). Wednesday is likely to be a washout of day, but only in the sense it will rain most of the day as opposed to heavy rain totals. We expect totals to range from 0.5 - 1" in the interior portions of SW NC (Dillsboro, Sylva, Bryson City, Franklin, etc.), while the Highlands Plateau could pick up as high as 2" over a 36 hour period.
We'll stop here and circle back on Monday with a better timeline for the upcoming mid week rain event. ENJOY!