Yesterday we had a special weather feature that moved through the region. It’s actually not too rare, but we don’t get too many of them here locally. The MCV is a Mesoscale Convective Vortex. In English it’s a mid-sized/mid-level rotating storm that is organized and can produce severe weather. It’s like a rotating pocket of mid (or upper) level energy. The air is typically cooler aloft in this pocket, and that makes it unstable.
So yesterday I noticed an MCV forming around Raleigh, NC. It was drifting to the east/northeast. You can actually see a ring structure on the radar below.
I talked about it in a Facebook live before noon, and then meteorologist Steve Fundaro talked about it during the noon show. I was concerned because it was moving into an area of higher instability. By nature MCV’s have some broad rotation. This can get translated and focused down to the surface and create a tornado. Sure enough around 12:30pm a tornado had formed over Nash county and Edgecombe counties, NC. It stayed on the ground for about 16 miles. At the high end it formed into an EF-3, and did some damage. This is the first EF-3 recorded in North Carolina in July.
As the system moved up our way the rotation had become more broad. There were a few tornado warnings, but I have not see any official reports of a tornado. In fact, so far there has been only one wind-damage report, and that was over the north end of the Outer Banks. There have mostly been flash flooding and strong wind reports.
The system did put down some heavy downpours for a time. I was driving up to Newport News right in the middle of one of those downpours. It was not fun!
The rain totals in the heavier showers were 1-2″. Most locations had about a half an inch to an inch and a half.
My weather watcher (Scott in Yorktown) had 0.46″ of rainfall.
The MCV then moved out to sea in the evening. At the surface there was a cool front that had stalled out just to our north. There was also ample moisture in the atmosphere. I mentioned both of those in yesterday’s weather blog alluding to the possible flooding. I will say that there were a lot of clouds, but it literally felt like a steam bath before and after the rain.
Today the front is still in the region, but the mid-level feature is long-gone.
Plus, it’s still pretty humid. This means that we’ll have a few showers and storms popping up this afternoon, but the coverage should be a lot less than Wednesday.
The front may lift just a bit north, but it won’t move much. Because of this winds will be variable at 5-10mph. High temps will be in the upper 80s to near 90.
However, the heat index will be in the mid 90s. There may be a few showers and storms overnight. Lows will be in the 70s, and it will be muggy.
Tomorrow a cool front will move in from the northwest. There may be a few showers or storms in the morning well ahead of it. Regardless, there will be a few showers and storms in the afternoon as the front moves in. There could be a couple of strong storms as they come through.
We’ll be partly cloudy for a while, and winds will be out of the southwest. So high temps will push up to the mid 90s. The heat index will be near 100 degrees. Some of the storms will cool things down later in the day. Winds will turn out of the northwest by the mid-afternoon.
The good news is that this front should sink to our south over the weekend. High temps will be knocked down to the mid-upper 80s. Also the humidity will drop to moderate levels.
There may be some isolated showers or storms on Saturday, but Sunday looks good at this time.
We’ll stay mild early next week, but the mugginess will increase. We’ll probably heat up quite a bit for the second half of next week.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Don is still churning in the middle of the Atlantic. Luckily it is still on a forecast loop that will keep it out to sea.
It will eventually move over cooler water and become extra-tropical. It will still bring us some nice ocean swells that are good for surfers, but this is creating a moderate threat for rip currents at the local beaches.
There is actually a new tropical disturbance in the eastern Atlantic. It is moving west. It has a low chance of formation for the next 2-4 days.
Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler