Finally, some spring temperatures (for a little bit at least)
Behind a strong cold front, our highs dip into the 60s for much of the week.
A strong cold front brought a good coverage of showers and some storms across our area on Sunday. The majority of the storms were towards the Coastal Plain, and we had one severe thunderstorm in Halifax and Warren counties. Otherwise, we just saw brief strong wind gusts and some heavy downpours. Cooler air will be in place for a good portion of this week thanks to that front, but it will also be very dry.
Make sure to check out the latest “Week of Weather” video with Elizabeth and me on YouTube! We walk through our temperature change for this week and why the dry conditions are a concern for our area.
I’ll also give you a breakdown of everything here. Highs today will only make it into the mid 60s behind the front that passed overnight. We’ll have some stubborn cloud cover, but we should see some slow clearing.
Highs will stay in the 60s for a good portion of the week. In fact, with a reinforcing shot of cold air, we’ll even dip into the low-mid 60s Wednesday.
We’ll have to watch Wednesday morning. If temperatures get cold enough, we may see frost/freeze alerts issued for our area.
An upper-level ridge then builds over the southern US, and this will allow our temperatures to climb into next weekend. Highs will jump to around 80° by Sunday. Those above-average temperatures will likely be here to stay in the coming week.
With high pressure in place for a good portion of the week, rain chances will stay slim to none over the next week. This is not good for our drought conditions. With last week’s drought monitor update, we saw parts of the mountains be added to an extreme drought, and nearly 90% of the state is under a severe drought.
We need about 8-11” of rain over the next month to break that drought, and there’s a less than 2% chance of that happening. Drier weather also means that our fire concerns will stick around this week. A burn ban remains in place across the state.