Forecast Last Updated at Sunday, September 7, 2008 at 7:05AM

Pleasant/Warm Sunday

Hanna is exiting the US up the New England Coast today. High pressure will take control of our weather providing a nice but seasonally warm day. Monday will be warm as well, but with more humidity, we will have the chance for a late afternoon or evening thundershower. A front moves through Tuesday stalling to our south/east Wednesday. We can expect showers and thundershower by Tuesday afternoon, and the chance for showers lingers into Wednesday. Wednesday and Thursday will be noticeably cooler. Ike will be the weather story this week; see details in the discussion section below.

The winning photos in the 2009 RWC Calendar Contest have been named. Thanks to everyone for 870 entries this year. Calendars should be available for sale by October 1.

Sunday Hi: 79 Lo: 56 Scattered clouds; Pleasant; West wind 5-15 mph becoming light at night

Monday Hi: 79 Lo: 61 Partly cloudy; A late afternoon or evening t-shower possible; Wind becoming SE 5-15 mph

Tuesday Hi: 76 Lo: 60 Cloudy; Showers & t-showers mostly in the PM; South wind 5-10 mph becoming NW at night

Wednesday Hi: 73 Lo: 61 Mostly cloudy; Continued risk for showers

Thursday Hi: 74 Lo: 62 Mostly cloudy; Slight chance for a PM shower

Further Out

Friday - Mostly cloudy; Chance for a PM t-shower; High in the mid 70s; Low in the upper 50s
Saturday - Mostly cloudy; Scattered PM t-showers; High in the mid 70s; Low near 60 degrees

Forecast Discussion

It's been busy in the weather office since mid August, and there's no relief in sight. We will not have any direct effects from the tropics this week; however, Ike will loom large in the Caribbean and Gulf.

High pressure will be in control today. Expect seasonally warm weather with partly cloudy skies. As the high slides east, we'll see an increase in moisture from the south tomorrow sparking a few thundershowers late Monday and Monday evening.

A front will pass through our area Tuesday with showers and thundershowers especially in the afternoon. That front will stall Wednesday in the Southeast in a logjam produced by Ike in the Gulf, and high pressure centered in New England will wedge into the Southern Appalachians. Chances for showers will linger into Wednesday. Temperatures Wednesday and Thursday will be noticeably cooler with lots of clouds. Thursday, we'll have just the slight chance of a shower. Chances for mostly PM thundershowers will increase Friday and Saturday as the wedge breaks down. Skies will remain mostly cloudy Thursday through Saturday as tropical moisture is pumped into the Southeast.

Hanna exits the US today moving up the New England Coast. It will be in the Canadian Maritimes tonight. It still is packing tropical storm force winds.

Ike is the big deal this week. Ike is a Category 4 hurricane located between Hispaniola and the Bahamas today. It's moving west at 15 mph. Ike will mess up Cuba tonight through Tuesday, then make it into the Gulf Wednesday. Ike will weaken somewhat over Cuba but then regain major hurricane strength in the Gulf. Then what? Currently it appears that Texas and Louisiana Coast "won't like Ike" by late Friday or Saturday. Buy gas early this week; this looks like a big deal for the oil country.

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 and Waynesville were recently added; Black Mountain will be up and running very soon. 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.