Area Forecast Discussion
Issued by NWS Raleigh/Durham, NC
Issued by NWS Raleigh/Durham, NC
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287 FXUS62 KRAH 071952 AFDRAH Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Raleigh NC 252 PM EST Fri Nov 7 2025 .SYNOPSIS... A warm front will continue to retreat northward and across NC this afternoon and evening. Another weak front will settle across the Carolinas Saturday and stall there through Saturday night. A much stronger, Arctic cold front will move across the region early Sunday night. && .NEAR TERM /THROUGH TONIGHT/... As of 138 PM Friday... Sfc analysis this afternoon depicted a wavy warm front draped across our central Coastal Plain west towards the western Piedmont. Embedded within a sly WAA regime, stratocu has blossomed across most of central NC while light rain has remained to our east near Cape Lookout. Expect the stratocu to persist through sunset with dry conditions through early tonight. Further upstream, a line of pre-frontal convection was draped across west-central TN northwest through western PA. This line of showers and storms will weaken early tonight as it crosses the southern Appalachians. While moisture and upper forcing will increase across central NC tonight, instability will be lacking. As such, expect any light rain that does make it across the mountains to dissipate out with eastward extent across central NC through Saturday morning. Still could see a few hundreds to maybe a tenth of an inch of rain in the western/southern Piedmont, with less amounts further east. Winds tonight should be relatively light but can`t rule out a diabatically-enhanced gust of 20 to 30 mph or so with the decaying rain. Otherwise, multi-layered cloudiness will accompany the decaying convection with warm overnight lows in the lower to mid 50s expected. && .SHORT TERM /SATURDAY THROUGH SUNDAY NIGHT/... As of 110 PM Friday... Overview: Aloft, the low over Hudson Bay will gradually drop swd across Ontario and the Great Lakes through Sun night. Meanwhile, a s/w will lift across the area early Sat. As another s/w swinging ewd across the OH Valley helps amplify the longwave trough to the west Sat night/early Sun, a srn stream disturbance will lift newd along the Southeast US/Carolina coast. By Monday morning, the low should be over the Great Lakes/OH Valley, with the trough axis extending swd to the Gulf. At the surface, the cold front approaching from the north-northwest Sat will slow in its progression as the parent low occludes over southeast Canada. The front should make it into the area becoming quasi-stationary and more W-E oriented during the day Sat as an area of low pressure tracking newd along the front approaches from the southwest. This low will help the front lift northward across the area as a warm front late Sat/Sat night as another, stronger low tracks ewd from the mid-MS Valley across the OH Valley. The lows may merge over the nrn mid-Atlantic/Northeast US on Sun, the trailing cold front finally pushing through the area from W-E Sun aft/eve. Arctic high pressure will build into the region in the wake of the front Sun night. Precipitation: The moisture associated with the initial cold front early Sat decreases as it moves into the area, so while there may be a stray shower early, largely expect Sat to be dry. As the warm front and surface low lift across the area Sat eve/night, chances for showers will increase a bit, mainly across the south and east (in the warm sector). There is some instability (NAM) Sat eve/night as the low lifts through, so have kept in mention for slight chance thunder, mainly south and east where the LLJ also strengthens as it progresses enewd across the region. There may be a lull in precipitation between the low and the fropa. There is still some uncertainty wrt convection along the cold front Sun aft/eve. The GFS continues be the most bullish with the instability, showing up to 1000 J/Kg of MLCAPE maximized over along and east of the I-95 corridor Sun aft/eve, and bulk shear of 40-50 kts in that area. There is a Marginal Risk from the SPC for that time and location. Temperatures: Headline up front, a drastic drop in temperatures is expected Sun night. Above to well above normal temperatures expected for Sat, Sat night, and Sun. Highs in the low to mid 70s Sat should increase a couple/few degrees for Sun. Lows Sat night, low/mid 50s to low 60s. Temperatures will quickly fall in the wake of the cold front Sun eve/night, with mid/upper 30s NW to mid 40s SE by daybreak Mon. While those lows are near normal for early Nov, they are about 15 degrees lower than Sat night lows. && .LONG TERM /MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY/... As of 250 PM Friday... Dry weather and mostly sunny skies will prevail through the extended period, with very cool conditions that warm back to seasonable by mid to late week. In the wake of Sunday night`s Arctic front, anomalously deep mid/upper troughing will extend across the Eastern US, and strong CAA will bring in sharply colder and drier air on Monday with high temperatures ranging from mid-40s to mid-50s. This is 10-15+ degrees below normal for this time of year. Dew points will drop into the teens and 20s throughout the day, and PW values will be less than a third of an inch. It will also be blustery with NW winds gusting to 15-25 mph. The big story of the period will be Monday night`s lows, which are expected to drop into the mid-20s to around 30, coolest in the outlying areas of the Piedmont and warmest in urban parts of the Triangle, eastern Sandhills, and central/southern Coastal Plain. Was hesitant to drop forecast lows much below NBM given the center of the surface high being displaced so far to our SW across the Gulf Coast, and a decent pressure gradient across the area between this high and a low over SE Canada. Still, given 1000-850 mb thicknesses bottoming out in the 1275-1285 m range, a freeze is likely across much if not all of central NC. Well below normal temperatures will continue on Tuesday with highs in the upper-40s to lower-50s, along with breezy westerly winds. The air mass will begin to modify on Tuesday night and Wednesday as the surface high starts to extend east into the Atlantic and we get SW low-level return flow. Forecast lows Tuesday night are in the lower- to-mid-30s, while forecast temperatures Wednesday are back close to normal (highs in the lower-60s, lows in the upper-30s to lower-40s). A weaker dry cold front may move through on Wednesday night/Thursday, but it won`t result in much change in air mass late week with temperatures remaining near normal. Will have to watch fire weather concerns mid to late week as we warm back up and remain dry and breezy, but this is too far out for high confidence so will just continue to monitor. && .AVIATION /18Z FRIDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY/... As of 115 PM Friday... Embedded within a WAA regime, stratocu has largely blossomed across central NC this afternoon. Low VFR ceilings should largely persist this afternoon before dissipating near or just after sunset. Multi- layered cloudiness will then accompany a broken line of convection that will largely decay across the southern Appalachians later tonight. Some residual light rain may reach KINT/KGSO or KRDU/KFAY through early tonight possibly inducing brief visibility restrictions and/or ceilings. There will also be a chance of low- level wind shear, as a 35-45 kt, swly low-level jet traverses the region atop a relatively stable near surface layer and inversion. Any brief restrictions should quickly lift to VFR by Saturday morning and persist through the end of the 24 hr TAF period. Outlook: There will be a chance of flight restrictions and perhaps scattered, elevated convection (showers with limited probability of thunder) late Sat into Sun morning, followed by yet another chance of frontal convection and post-frontal rain and related flight restrictions with the passage of a strong cold front late Sun and Sun night. Additionally, strong and gusty swly surface winds will result ahead of that cold front on Sun, followed by similarly strong and gusty nwly ones behind it Sun night and Mon. && .RAH WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... && $$ SYNOPSIS...MWS NEAR TERM...Luchetti SHORT TERM...10 LONG TERM...Danco AVIATION...Luchetti/MWS