ROANOKE, Va. – Wednesday morning is the coolest morning in about four months, as temperatures start in the low to mid 40s (some upper 30s too!). Sunshine and a few clouds come to the rescue, bringing temperatures back into the 60s to near 70° by the afternoon.
A calm wind, dry air and a mostly clear sky allow temperatures to back down into the low to mid 40s first thing Thursday morning.
We’ll see an increase in clouds Thursday ahead of Hurricane Ian’s remnants. Ian will make landfall as a major hurricane Wednesday near Port Charlotte-Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida.
From there, it will slowly drift north and back over land. We start Friday off dry and cloudy, but rain will likely spread south to north later in the day and into the night.
This rain becomes heavy at times starting early Saturday morning, as we’re dealing with tropical moisture riding up our terrain.
Nothing will be around to steer this storm out of here. While it weakens, it still will direct enough moisture and rising air to produce rainy/showery weather at times from Sunday through perhaps next Tuesday morning.
As you can imagine, this will lead to a lot of rain - on the order of 1 to 4 inches over a multiday span. Localized flooding will be a possibility for those of us on the upper-end of that scale.
As far as severe weather (damaging wind gusts and/or tornadoes) is concerned, that threat is low. We’ll be much cooler this time around than storms from the past few years.
Nonetheless, it’s important that you stay with our weather team for updates as we track this storm and its impact on our local weather.