National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office

• Home
• Site Map
• News
• Organization
• Search for: NWS All NOAA 

000
FXUS62 KCAE 221712
AFDCAE

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Columbia SC
112 PM EDT Mon Apr 22 2024

.SYNOPSIS...
High pressure will settle in across the area through tonight
and Tuesday. A front coming through Wednesday could provide a
slight chance of light showers. Fair and cooler Thursday. Weak
surface high pressure will generally remain over, or near, our
vicinity Friday into next weekend, providing some gradual
moderation in temps.

&&

.NEAR TERM /THROUGH TONIGHT/...
This afternoon: Skies have finally begun clearing, with a good
amount of sun now being seen. Drier high pressure will be
building into the area. Temperatures will climb through the 50s
and will eventually top out in the mid 60s.

Tonight: Center of the surface high moves towards the area,
allowing for more ideal radiational cooling conditions. Skies
become mostly clear, winds light to calm, and dry airmass will
be in place. This will create an unseasonably cool night across
the Midlands and CSRA, with overnight lows possibly falling into
the upper 30s north to the lower 40s central and south. Do not
expect much in the way of frost due to the warmer soil
temperatures, along with overnight lows only briefly being in
the upper 30s in a few locations.

&&

.SHORT TERM /TUESDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY NIGHT/...
High pressure is forecast to continue traversing the forecast
area on Tuesday, with temperatures beginning to moderate towards
normal again. We should start the day off pretty chilly after a
night of near ideal radiational cooling conditions, but we`ll
warm into the low and mid 70s by the afternoon hours. Winds
shifting out of the southwest in the 1000-850 hPa layer will
help to increase warm advection and will lead to the temperature
moderation. Overnight, lows should be in the upper 40s. On
Wednesday, a shortwave trough is forecast by guidance to push
into the northeastern US by Wednesday night and early Thursday,
pushing a cold front towards us. Ahead of this, westerly and
southwesterly low-level flow is forecast to increase PWs to
>1.0" along and ahead of the front, especially across the
northern FA. This is where rain is most likely, as much of the
ensemble and operational suites are now indicating the potential
for light QPF in many areas ahead of the front. While the
synoptic forcing is weak, it looks like the front itself should
be enough to forecast some widely scattered showers by Wednesday
evening. LREF members have slowly increased rain chances each
run, now having 20-30% probabilities of measurable rainfall.
Thinking it is more likely than not that the rainfall stays
mainly isolated but there is a good enough chance to persist
in having a ~20% PoP in our northern counties. Temps should be
nice and warm again ahead of the front as warm advection
continues and we see some compressional heating ahead of the
front. Look for highs between 77F and 82F, with overnight lows
in the 50s.

&&

.LONG TERM /THURSDAY THROUGH MONDAY/...
High confidence in a low impact long term period. LREF members
agree with the operational guidance in showing general
troughiness enveloping the eastern CONUS by Thursday evening
behind Wednesday`s front. A relatively cool, Canadian high
pressure system is forecast to follow this into the area,
keeping us mainly dry with seasonal temps into the weekend. We
should see gradual, steady warming and moistening as we get into
late weekend/early next week. Guidance is confident and
consistent in showing rising 500 hPa heights and southeasterly
low-level flow around the low-level high pressure system. This
type of setup usually favors low rain chances and a slow warm
up, so not expecting highs to be significantly above normal
again until after this period ends. Generally dry and benign
weather is expected as well.

&&

.AVIATION /18Z MONDAY THROUGH SATURDAY/...
VFR expected through the period.

Scattered to broken vfr clouds around 4-5kft will remain through
the afternoon, then skies becoming clear by sunset. Mostly clear
skies remain through the remainder of the period. Airmass
remains dry enough overnight to inhibit any widespread fog, but
still can not completely rule out brief river fog near ags/ogb
late tonight.

Winds will remain northeasterly between 5 and 10 knots this
afternoon, then as high pressure settles over the region
tonight, winds will turn light and variable to calm.

EXTENDED AVIATION OUTLOOK...No significant impacts to aviation
expected through Friday.

&&

.CAE WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
SC...None.
GA...None.

&&

$$