ROANOKE, Va. – There are currently wildfires in 13 states. Without beating a dead horse, the smoke from these wildfires continues to get blown eastward toward our area. While not as bad as Wednesday, the haze will likely be a bit thicker Friday than it was Thursday.
Therefore, the air quality is still expected to be in the ‘Moderate’ category, which means that those who are extra sensitive to changes in air quality should limit time outdoors.
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Even still, temperatures will reach seasonable levels Friday afternoon. We’ll see more clouds develop too as compared to Thursday.
A southerly wind will help pick the humidity back up by Saturday. We’ll start cloudy but break out into more sun by the afternoon. That should help spark some scattered thunderstorms, most of which will be east of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Expect similar temperatures Saturday to what we see Friday afternoon. Sunday will likely be hotter, thanks to a west/southwest wind coming down the mountains.
Meanwhile, a front to the north will come closer. This will spark some showers and storms (some of which may move in Monday morning).
Just how far south that front goes will determine our storm chances by Tuesday. The trend especially later in the week is for a large dome of high pressure to sit over the Plains. We’ll feed off of that and get hotter late in the week into the weekend, and the Climate Prediction Center trends (see below) show just that.
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