Clear Blue Skies Continue

Howdy friends, and Happy Wednesday to you all! I hope y’all have had some time to get out and enjoy that beautiful sunshine. Good news, clear blue skies continue for our Wednesday.

Beautiful sunrise this morning from Morgantown.

Picture Perfect Wednesday

Yesterday sure was a picture perfect day, but lucky for us, Wednesday will be much of the same.

Calm winds will be out of the southeast, which will help bring in some extra moisture. While temperatures will reach around 77º – 82º, dew point temperatures will reach around 52º – 54º, so just a tad bit more humid than yesterday, but still comfortable.

Dew point temperatures in the mid 50s tomorrow. (Pivotal Weather)

By the evening hours, temperatures will drop to around 57º – 60º for a low. Winds will remain calm, and skies should be partly cloudy. Not a bad evening for a drive with the windows down.

Showers and Storms Possible Late Thursday/Early Friday

Time to shake things up a little bit. We’ll start out Thursday under partly sunny skies, but very windy.

Winds will be primarily out of the south, and around 15-25 mph. Wind gusts may also get up to around 35 mph. This is all from that powerful Low Pressure centered over Nebraska.

Strong Low pressure system over the Great Plains. (Pivotal Weather)

Temperatures will be rather warm once again, in the area of 78º – 82ºF. While we will have increasing clouds throughout the afternoon, we should stay dry all the way through sunset on Thursday. The Storm Prediction Center has our area under a General Thunderstorm Risk (0 out of 5).

The NAM 3km model has the cold front sitting on the Mississippi River at 7 pm Thursday evening. We will have low-end Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) values, which indicates that the atmosphere won’t have much instability.

But…the winds will be roaring out of the south, which will provide plenty of wind shear (change in wind direction and wind speed with height). Additionally, these strong winds will help advect warm moisture into our area. These storms will be mostly weak since the environment will be a low CAPE-high shear event. With any storm though, lightning is a threat no matter what.

The NAM 3km hints at some pop up showers/storms ahead of the main line around 1 AM. If these do pop up ahead of the main line, they can help take some of the energy out of the atmosphere, thus weakening the main line when it gets to our area. This is a big *if*.

A few showers/storms may pop up before the main line around 1 AM. (Pivotal Weather)

Temperatures look to be around the 65º-69º range at 1 AM, with dew points around 60º. The main line will finally reach our area between 4 AM and 7 AM Friday Morning. Temperatures and dew points drop after the cold front passes.

If any storms are in this line, they will be brief. Rain showers should persist after the main line, but then clear up.

Friday Dries Out

Showers should be moving out of the area by noon, at the latest. The cold front associated with that line of storms will help clear up skies for the remainder of the day. Temperatures will hit 67º – 72º, a bit cooler than Wednesday and Thursday.

Low temperatures over night will be a bit coolers well, dropping down to around 44º – 47º.

That wraps up today’s forecast. Hope you have a great Wednesday and rest of the week! Make sure to look for the Afternoon Video Update on Facebook and the Afternoon Weather Story on Twitter/Instagram, only on @wxornotBG.