Forecast Last Updated at Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 12:14PM

Clouds Moving In; Showers Return Tonight

The area of high pressure that contributed to Tuesday's beautiful sunshine will lose its reign over the Carolinas as the day progresses, as it shifts eastward off the Atlantic seaboard. Looking off to the west, plenty of clouds and moisture sit ahead of our next cold front that will begin to impact the region later tonight and through the day on Thursday.

Wednesday Hi: 64 Lo: 51 Increasing clouds through the afternoon; A stray shower can't be ruled out; SW wind 5-15 mph

Thursday Hi: 56 Lo: 53 Cloudy; Showers & T-showers; West wind 5-15 mph, becoming south at night

Friday Hi: 62 Lo: 43 AM Showers possible; Clearing expected by the afternoon; NW winds 5-15 mph with gusts over 20 mph at times

Saturday Hi: 65 Lo: 49 Partly cloudy; Slight chance of a shower or T-shower by late evening

Sunday Hi: 61 Lo: 45 Plenty of clouds; A shower or two possible

Further Out

Monday - Partly cloudy; An afternoon or evening shower possible; High in the lower 60s; Low in the mid 40s
Tuesday - Mostly cloudy; Showers likely; High in the lower 60s; Low in the upper 40s

Forecast Discussion

High pressure that brought us sunshine on Tuesday will continue to slide east of the region and out of the picture. Coming into the picture is a cold front off to the west, currently positioned from the Great Lakes region south to Texas. Ahead of this front is plenty of moisture streaming in from the Gulf of Mexico thanks to a strong southerly flow ahead of the front. As the day progresses, it will be that strong southerly flow that will both boost our temperatures and increase cloud cover. With the exception of points south and west of Asheville, I think much of the RWC forecast area will escape with a dry Wednesday, however, the chance for a stray shower through the afternoon is there, so keep a eye to the sky just to be on the safe side.

As the aforementioned cold front moves eastward, it will slow down considerably, taking its time to reach western and northwestern North Carolina. Look for showers to overtake the region by Thursday morning with shower chances lasting for much of the day. It appears that the highest of rainfall totals will be for folks outside the high country. Temperatures will be held down quiet a bit on Thursday thanks to the extra cloud cover, making Thursday the coolest day expected over the next week.

This cold front is forecast to move east of the RWC forecast area by Friday afternoon, however, as we mentioned above, this is a slow moving front. The ultimate fate of this front will also determine any chances for showers and storms on Friday. If our front moves east of the region by the afternoon on Friday, we can pretty much eliminate shower and storm chances Friday afternoon. However, if this front lags behind, we could actually see a few stronger storms on Friday afternoon. This is something we will continue to watch closely. Until then, we'll run with the idea that our front will push on east and leave us with only a shower chance early Friday morning followed by gradual clearing for Friday afternoon. This, of course, is subject to change.

Looking ahead to the weekend, it appears that Saturday will be the better pick of the two with more clouds and a few showers possible on Sunday. Following our cold front passage on Friday, a northwest flow will take over for the weekend. Combine that with a fast moving cold front for Sunday, and you've got plenty of clouds and showers in the forecast to round out the weekend. Thanks to the northwest flow and expected cloud cover, this weekend's temperature forecast will remain several degrees below the seasonal average.

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Announcements

RaysWeather.Com continues to grow. We are an "information age" company using the web to broadcast the message but also as a tool for producing the message. RaysWeather.Com (what we call RWC) has evolved from "Ray's hobby in Beautiful Downtown Rutherwood" in 1999 to the most widely read media outlet in NW NC reaching 150,000 to 200,000 people per month and covering the weather from NC/VA line to Asheville and Wolf Laurel. We will continue to grow geographically as well--Roaring Gap has just been added; Waynesville, you're next. The heart of the growth is good data, "local flavor", and THE most reliable forecast.

We recently added our 6th forecaster to the best forecast team ever assembled for this region. It's time for us to introduce "the crew"...

• Dr. Ray Russell is a Computer Science professor at Appalachian State University. His PhD is in Computer Science from Georgia Tech (1989); weather has been a long-time passion. He started posting a "snow forecast" on the university website back in the mid 1990's; this evolved into RaysWeather.Com in 2000. Ray lives in Boone and has taught at Appalachian State since 1991.
• Eric Anderson (RWC's Chief Meteorologist) received his degree in meteorology from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and is a 15-year veteran of NOAA with experience in forecasting, observation and analysis. A native of western North Carolina, Eric's former tenure in the National Weather Service gave him the opportunity to forecast for areas of the Mid-Atlantic region. His professional interests include upslope flow snow events in the southern Appalachians, as well as cold air damming in the Carolinas.
• Alan Simons, born in Fayetteville NC, has a Bachelor of Science in meteorology and almost 20 years of professional experience that includes forecasting for newspapers, websites, radio, aviation, and the military. He first became interested in weather in North Carolina, and RWC takes him back home after a variety of duty stations, from New York to Hawaii. Alan's been with the RWC team since 2003.
• Tim Kirby joined Ray's Weather Center in October 2004 and lives in his hometown of Fries, VA (pronounced Freeze). The folks from this small Grayson County town say "it's freeze in winter and fries in summer". He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology from NC State University. While at NC State, he was president of the NCSU Student Chapter of the American Meteorological Society. Before joining RWC, Tim worked for the National Weather Service for ten years in Raleigh, Chattanooga and Morristown, Tennessee. Tim has always loved the challenge of forecasting and owes his dedication to a childhood fascination of snow (no school!).
• Harold Alston is a N.C. native with Bachelor of Science degrees from both App State (Broadcast Communications) and UNC-Asheville (Meteorology). He has 30 years experience tracking and forecasting NC weather including 15 years experience for media outlets. Nailing down Appalachian wedges & wintry possibilities are his areas of expertise with a lifetime of N.C. weather experiences to reference.
• Jeff Cox, a native of Asheville, is the latest addition to the RWC team. He earned a Bachelor of Sciences in Atmospheric Sciences from UNC-Asheville. At UNC-A, he was the lead forecaster for the school's Weather Forecast Line, campus Radio Station, "The Blue Echo" and the campus newspaper, "The Blue Banner." Jeff has experience as a meteorologist in both television and radio. He spent over 2 years in Macon, GA, as the chief meteorologist at WGXA FOX-24. He also has experience as a radio broadcast meteorologist for The Weather Channel in Atlanta, Georgia.

So now you know who's behind the forecast. It's not magic--just lots of hard work by many people. In addition to meteorology, keeping RWC going requires office mangement, programming, computer system's administration, ad sales, and graphic design. We'll introduce you to the rest of the team soon.