Posted: Thursday, August 27, 2020, 9:30 AM
With a warm and humid air mass in place, today will uncomfortably humid with heat index values in the low-90s this afternoon. A weak front over Lake Erie will provide the spark for scattered showers and thunderstorms this afternoon and evening.
While there is not a big threat for severe thunderstorms locally, any storm could be strong to severe. Damaging wind gusts and hail are the primary threats. With so much moisture in the air, storms today could also bring a heavy downpour.
Coverage of storms today will be hit-or-miss and the highest risk of severe storms locally will be mainly late in the afternoon into the evening.
The potential for showers and thunderstorms will continue into Friday. Again, any storm could get feisty and bring damaging wind gusts, hail, and heavy downpours.
Friday will not be quite as hot as today, but it will remain very humid with a tropical air mass pushing dew points into the 70s. Coverage of thunderstorms should be broader and odds of any one location getting in on a storm will be higher. Cloud cover on Friday will help keep the threat for severe storms from getting out of hand.
The remnants of Hurricane Laura will influence our weather Friday night and Saturday. The system will bring a plume of moisture into the lower Ohio Valley as a cold front approaches from the northwest. The main impact locally from all of this will be widespread rain – something we desperately need.
Showers and some occasional thunder are likely Friday night into Saturday. This could bring a good soaking rain to the area – something we could really use at this point. Some of the modeling suggests that the morning will be the soggiest period and we could see things improve late in the afternoon. I’ll have a better idea Friday on how this plays out, but it appears that there can be a drying period during the second half of the day.
With a very tropical air mass overhead Friday and Saturday, and storms or showers will be efficient rain producers. Those areas that happen to get under one of these will have the potential for flash flooding.
Cooler and much drier air will push in behind our Saturday cold front. The tropical humidity will be gone on Sunday and temperatures will be the mid-70s. Expect some very nice mild and comfortable weather at least through the first half of next week.
As always, updates will be posted here in TuscWeather as needed. You can also join me on Twitter where I post local weather updates throughout the day.
