CHARLESTON, W.Va. – More of the same. That’s how meteorologists with the National Weather Service out of Charleston described the weather here in West Virginia heading into the weekend.
Despite nearly a week of rain soaked days and nights, that moisture is going to continue to fall Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
“The system that brought us all the very heavy rain a couple days ago has pushed way off to the west,” explained Meteorologist Jeff Hovis. “We’re still getting the winds straight off the Gulf of Mexico. There’s still a lot of moisture. It doesn’t seem to take much to wring it out.”
What Hovis and his co-workers are keeping an eye on is Sunday’s weather pattern which will finally switch from the west to the east.
“Generally there’s going to be so many clouds around that it’s not going to get real hot for severe thunderstorms. But with all the moisture around, we could have some strong thunderstorms with extremely heavy rain,” said Hovis.
So what comes next, Hovis admits, at this point, no one is really sure.
“Next week, right now, is kind of up in the air,” according to the meteorologist. “Some of the models are saying we could have dry periods. Other models indicate that we could have thunderstorms every day.”
The western half of the country has been suffering under severe heat and dry conditions for the past week. It was 108 degrees in Phoenix and 98 degrees in Dallas on Thursday. Hovis said once the rainy system that’s hanging over West Virginia moves on out, those hot temperatures will turn into just warm here in our region.
“I guess the one good thing you could say about all this rain we’ve had is, as wet as the ground is, even if that system moves east, there’s a lot of moisture, in the ground, that needs to evaporate before it can heat up,” said Hovis. “It shouldn’t get nearly as hot as it is out west.”
The Flash Flood Watch currently in place expires at midnight Friday. Depending on the amount of rain we see over the next few days, more watches and warnings could be issued.