Forecast Last Updated at Friday, May 25, 2012 at 11:35AM

False Start

It's been an unusually warm spring overall. Summer has been disqualified for jumping the starter's gun. Memorial Day is the traditional beginning of the summer season, it has felt like summer for several weeks. The holiday weekend will be consistent with the early start start to summer--more like July than late May. Temperatures will be above normal through Monday. We have the risk of isolated afternoon thunderstorms Saturday through Monday (especially Saturday). The real headline event this weekend is the likely development of a second May tropical storm off the Southeast Coast; see details on this in the Forecast Discussion section below.

Friday Hi: 80 Lo: 58 Plenty of sunshine; Warmer; Light wind

Saturday Hi: 82 Lo: 60 Scattered clouds; Very warm; Isolated afternoon t-storms; East wind 5-10 mph

Sunday Hi: 80 Lo: 61 Partly cloudy & warm; An isolated PM t-shower possible; SE wind 5-10 mph

Monday Hi: 79 Lo: 61 Scattered clouds after a mostly cloudy start; Stray PM thundershower; The "Start of Summer"? It's been summer for a while.

Tuesday Hi: 78 Lo: 61 Partly to mostly cloudy; Warm but not as warm; Showers and t-showers especially in the PM

Further Out

Wednesday - Partly cloudy; Warm; Cannot rule out afternoon t-showers; High in the upper 70s; Low in the mid 50s
Thursday - Partly cloudy; Warm; Cannot rule out afternoon t-showers; High in the upper 70s; Low in the mid 50s

Forecast Discussion

It's a far more interesting weather map than normal in late May... 1) A warm ridge of high pressure is sliding northeast out of Texas this weekend. 2) A cold front is zipping across the Great Lakes and northern New England. 3) Low pressure is developing off the Southeast U. S. Coast.

Today through Monday. Warm air out of Texas will have increasing control today and Saturday. Expect warm temperatures--about the warmest we have seen in this warm spring, more typical of July than May. A stray late-day thundershower is possible Saturday through Monday (especially Saturday). Expect more clouds Sunday night into Monday because of a moist easterly flow around the low off the Southeast Coast.

The low off the Southeast Coast is about to steal the headlines. It is projected to move slowly NE Saturday developing into May's second tropical system (Beryl), then reverse course and move back to the southwest in response to the front moving through New England. From there, computer guidance has it running into the Southeast Coast somewhere between Charleston and Jacksonville FL Saturday night and Sunday. This would be an incredibly rare event in terms of geography and time of year. No May has ever had two Atlantic tropical storms dating back to the 1880s. And it appears that the last time north Florida/Georgia has been hit by a tropical system from the northeast was October 1906. In what would be a real circus trick, Beryl could turn back to the northeast, move back into Western Atlantic next week and restrengthen.

The anticipated Beryl would have indirect effects on our weather as tropical moisture is lifted north as a front from the west slowly Tuesday through Thursday. Computer guidance gives two very different scenarios: 1) the front makes it through Tuesday night producing a stormy Tuesday afternoon but a dry Wednesday and Thursday, or 2) the front hangs up to our west leaving us in warm/moist air producing 2-3 days with lots of clouds, humid conditions, and showers/thundershowers especially in the afternoons. The common element of the two scenarios is Tuesday afternoon/evening thundershowers. The jury is still deliberating Wednesday and Thursday.

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