“Air you can wear” certainly is a fitting description for how it feels today with the excessive humidity that’s returned. The cold front that’s been approaching over the last few days is overhead, and a few light showers spilled over the mountains to the I-81 corridor early this morning from some heavier activity over Ohio and PA last night. Most of the afternoon will remain dry with some clearing, so it will get hotter with highs in the upper 80s. The next wave of rain and storms will reload over Ohio and WV and roll in this evening (6-8 PM from west to east). The bulk of the wet and stormy weather will roll through overnight, so don’t be surprised if you hear a few rumbles of thunder when you’re heading to bed. The good news: other than a bit of localized heavy rain, severe storms aren’t expected.
With how slowly the front will be dropping south, some isolated showers will likely linger into the commute early Friday morning. It will dry out by lunchtime, with the cloud cover breaking up as well. Slightly cooler air will arrive from the north, keeping temperatures in the low 80s. Unfortunately, the front won’t drop far enough south to give us much of a break from the humidity, especially with the front set to bounce back toward us over the weekend. The trends from the last few days have held, and rain chances continue to increase on Saturday and Saturday night. While the day will start dry, scattered showers and storms are likely to develop through the second half of the day and continue through the night. Once again, severe storms aren’t expected, but there will be plenty of rain to go around, so plan accordingly.
A few showers can’t be ruled out on Sunday, but it does appear the back half of the weekend will be drier. We won’t get any relief from the warmth and humidity as the rain exits, with southerly flow setting up around a ridge of high pressure for Monday and Tuesday. The start of next week will be dry, but our temperatures will creep back up toward 90 degrees with a heat index well into the 90s given how humid it will be. At some point late next week, showers and storms will be possible with a new cold front swinging in, but the arrival time of this rainfall keeps getting pushed back, so we’ll see how it develops…