Good evening folks, Meteorologist Christopher Cawley here with your weather update for Thursday November 14, 2024.
Some beneficial rain showers came to the area today thanks to a passing frontal system. Not a drought-buster by any means, but helpful nonetheless. This system will strengthen as it clears the coast, and combined with high pressure building in from the northwest, create rather breezy conditions during the day on Friday.
Clouds will probably be slow to pull out of here Friday but I believe by the afternoon the sun will shine brightly across Columbus County. The weather should be fine for the Wolfpack game… albeit a little bit on the chilly side (perfect for football).
High pressure really takes charge through the weekend and into next week with gradually warming temperatures. Our next weather system looks to arrive by mid-week next week in the form of another cold front. Ever-so-slight threat for frost late Saturday night, especially north and west of Whiteville, as temps dip into the upper 30s. Of note, the average “first freeze” for the Whiteville area is around November 5th, so we’re running much warmer than normal on the whole, and long-range GEFS modeling doesn’t suggest any freeze threat through the end of the month. Take that for what it’s worth — any forecast model beyond day 8-10 is, at best, pure speculation.
Tropics: Tropical Storm Sara will continue to drift slowly along the northern coast of Honduras through Sunday. There may be some strengthening but I think Sara’s close proximity to land will keep her from becoming a hurricane. Sara is then expected to turn northwest and drift over the Yucatan Peninsula and it is likely that she dissipates into a remnant low while crossing the land mass. The NHC forecast calls for this… but some of the longer-term global models suggest a bit of restrengthening could occur once/if the center moves into the southern Gulf. *IF* she survives the trip over the Yucatan, the global models suggest a north and then northeast turn in the Gulf, possibly targeting the Florida coast later next week. That remains to be seen; odds are that Sara meets her demise crossing the Yucatan.
