ROANOKE, Va. – The eye wall of Hurricane Sally continues to lash the Alabama Gulf Coast and Florida Panhandle Wednesday morning, with reports of 12-18″ of rain already. More is on the way, as the storm crawls at 2 mph. Life-threatening flooding and extreme wind are both ongoing and expected to continue in these areas throughout the day Wednesday.
Here at home, we continue to see the haze brought on my wildfire smoke out west. This isn’t a concern to air quality or your health, but is something you will continue to notice.
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This will keep our afternoon temperatures around 70-75° after a chilly start to the day. Clouds from Sally increase later on and especially at night, as the storm weakens over the Southeast.
Moisture will ride into the area Thursday and could bring on some heavy rain in Southside as soon as Thursday morning.
Periods of rain will continue to develop Thursday as the remnants of Sally to our south team up with a cold front just to our north.
Rain from Sally tapers off as we head into Friday morning. The higher rain totals will be closer to the storm, so for us that means areas south of U.S. 460. The farther north you go, the lesser rain totals will be.
The front that meets up with Sally will push the storm east. Behind it, the air turns much cooler. We’re talking highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s this weekend, which is more typical of mid-October.
This should make for really nice weather during the final weekend of the Sunflower Festival in Buchanan.
Heading into next week, we expect more of the same with a possible warm-up by midweek.