WASHINGTON — Say “goodbye” to the San Diego-type weather that most of us got used to and enjoyed this past week and “hello” to rain showers and muggy conditions.
Honestly, it really is not going to be all that bad but unfortunately, we are watching this all come together just in time for one of the last weekend’s leading up to the end of summer.
That nice air mass that treated us so graciously during this past week has now retreated back to Canada. Southerly flow continues to transport moisture into our area today bringing a little bit more of the muggy conditions that we are so used to during the summer months here in D.C. However, due to the extra cloud cover, temperatures have been held down into the mid 70s to lower 80s for daytime highs. This will be the case continuing through the weekend as well.
A frontal system has stalled out along the coast today. It will gradually move north and west inland, towards southeastern Virginia Friday night but it will still remain south and east of the D.C. area through the weekend.
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Moisture that continues to move in will override the cooler air in place which will result in periods of rain showers across our region through at least Sunday.
Considering our easterly winds Friday and through the weekend, clouds will be here to stay with maybe a few peaks of sunshine from time to time. Ugh, I know, not the best weekend we have had so far but I guess we were due for a rainy one. We are not looking at high amounts of total rainfall across the region but I believe areas closer to the front will see slightly higher rain amounts.
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This is the Quantitative Precipitation Forecast for Friday Morning – Monday Morning. While the heaviest rain (in red) sets up along the Virginia Beach and North Carolina Coast, the Eastern Shore could see up to 2.00" of rain accumulation by Monday morning. (WJLA/Lauryn Ricketts)
Generally we are thinking around 1 inch of rain accumulation across the WTOP listening area with higher amounts around the Chesapeake Bay and eastward. If you are headed to the area beaches this weekend, it looks like things could get a little on the wet side with periods of rain.
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Also, if you are staying at the beaches for the first week of August or just doing some boating along the eastern seaboard, make sure you keep a watchful eye on Tropical Storm Bertha. While I don’t foresee Bertha coming close to the east coast (due to our trough that will keep us wet this weekend — thank you?), Bertha will continue to curve and push out into the Atlantic after it moves through the Lesser Antilles Islands and Puerto Rico the first half of this weekend. However, that doesn’t mean that some of the area beaches couldn’t see some impact on the surf!
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Tropical Storm Bertha continues to push out to sea which could bring some strong surf and big waves to area beach through the weekend and into the beginning of next week. (WJLA/Lauryn Ricketts)
So all in all, it is not going to be a wash out. There are going to be periods of rain from Friday night through Sunday so just take the rain gear out with you. There could also be a few periods of sunshine too but don’t let that fool you, the chance of rain showers with perhaps an isolated thunderstorm will be with us all weekend.
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