Weather Update - Friday January 31, 2025 - CCN

Happy Fri-YAY and welcome to the CCN Daily Weather Update for the final day of January 2025.

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Our climate statistics for Thursday, January 29 at my weather station in Whiteville shows that we had a high temperature of 66.7°F at 2:55 PM, and the low was 36.2°F at 6:24 AM. There was no precipitation today. You can check out the conditions in Whiteville in real-time by clicking on this link — https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KNCWHITE8

Here’s today’s Bottom Line

Today is going to feel quite springlike with breezy conditions and unseasonably warm temperatures. The biggest issue for today will be the wind — winds could gust as high as 40 mph across the county this afternoon. This is because a strong low-level jet stream setting up over the eastern Carolinas ahead of a cold front. This will coincide with the peak heating of the day. If you’re headed to Wilmington or Southport or Shallotte, winds will be a little less and temperatures will be about 8-10 degrees cooler thanks to the cold shelf waters.

Speaking of those temperatures… I put a 78 on the graphic for today, but there’s a very good chance that your dashboard display or backyard thermometer will show 80+ this afternoon, especially with these robust southerly winds.

I’m going with partly sunny skies on the whole for today. We’ll start off with plenty of sunshine, but clouds should be increasing through the afternoon ahead of this front.

Rain chances arrive late this evening with the frontal passage. Attached here are future radar models, and both the NAM3k and HRRR are in nice agreement with timing of the event.

In examining the suite of high-res modeling, I see that there is some very modest elevated instability around midnight, and the low-level jet reaching 65 knots (about 75 mph) at 2,000-3,000 feet above the ground. These showers may “bring down” some of these wind gusts. I don’t think we’re going to see any severe-rated wind gusts (58 mph or higher), nor do I expect any thunder, but as the showers move through we may see some 40-50 mph wind gusts.

There may be some moderate to heavy rainfall with this frontal passage. Fortunately the line will be moving fairly quickly across the county, so while we may experience quite the downpour, there’s not really a flooding threat or anything like that. It’ll be a quick hit.

The window for rain slams shut after about 3 AM as the line pushes to the east and off the coast. We may have some lingering clouds first thing Saturday morning… a secondary front drops south across the area by the afternoon ushering in cooler, drier air into the area.

Decent radiational cooling Saturday night allows our temps to drop to around 40. Some of the outlying areas will fall to the upper 30s, but we’ll stay above freezing.

Expecting mostly sunny skies on Sunday, but that could change a bit as guidance suggests a coastal trough becomes established. Remember, the shelf waters are cold this time of year and they’ll have something to say about our temps. A northeast wind flow keeps us just a touch cooler on Sunday, but still a good 5-7 degrees above normal.

A big-time warming trend takes place the first half of next week. High pressure overhead with sinking air means our temps jump deep into the 70s. I put a pair of 75s on the chart for Monday and Tuesday, but some of the MOS says that 80 degrees is not out of the realm of possibility on Tuesday. A little cooler on Wednesday as a dry backdoor front drops south.

Looking farther out into the future, I’m going to tell you to enjoy the springlike warmth. I believe we’ll have above-normal temperatures lasting through the first 10 days of February. After that there are indications of a pretty significant cool-down around the middle of February. I don’t think it’ll be to the magnitude we saw throughout the month of January (the coldest January since 1988)… but I think we’ll see a period of time toward the middle of the month where we have highs in the 40s/50s and lows in the 20s. I have attached the 500-mb height departure from normal for February 15, 2025 (GFS model).

That “bubble” of blues, greens, and the purple indicates “heights” at the 500-millibar level running much lower than normal. Translated to language that normal people understand: “Yall it’s gonna be kinda cold again.” One thing that stands out when we see such a “bubble” is that it tends to lead to an active weather pattern. I’m not saying ANYTHING at this point — it is way too early to even begin to consider specifics on this — but we know what happened the last time we had such a deep trough over the eastern seaboard and the potential for an active weather pattern….

Anyway, let’s get out of the realm of speculation and focus on the here-and-now. In that regard, here is your Freedom Insurance Today-plus-Five forecast for Columbus County.