A tropical disturbance expected in the Gulf of Mexico could bring rain to the Charlotte area by the end of the workweek, a National Weather Service meteorologist said Saturday.
Weather models are increasingly confident that precipitation will fall in Charlotte on Friday or Saturday, meteorologist Jake Wimberley of the NWS office in Greer, South Carolina, told The Charlotte Observer late Saturday afternoon.
Exactly how much rain will fall will become clear on Monday, Wimberley said.
Wimberley said the Charlotte area could see additional rain if the disturbance combines with a wet weather system from the Midwest.
There is a 60 percent chance the disturbance will strengthen into a tropical depression as it moves northward over the Gulf of Mexico by the end of the week, National Hurricane Center officials reported on X, formerly Twitter, at 2 p.m. Saturday.
The system is expected to strengthen into a storm over the northwestern Caribbean Sea in the coming days, according to the National Hurricane Center.
According to the NWS, a tropical depression brings winds of up to 38 mph (61 km/h).
“Regardless of development, this system is expected to produce heavy rainfall across portions of Central America over the next several days,” National Hurricane Center officials said on X.
However, Wimberley said, conduction models show no wind in the system.
Meanwhile, a tropical wave is expected to move off the African coast on Sunday or Monday and possibly form a tropical depression in the eastern or central tropical Atlantic, the Hurricane Center said Saturday. No further information was available yet on the storm’s expected track.
Weather forecast Charlotte
According to a weather report from the NWS, scattered showers and thunderstorms are possible through early Sunday in the Charlotte area, Upstate South Carolina, the mountains of the Carolinas and the foothills of North Carolina.
Fall starts Sunday, but according to the NWS Charlotte weather forecast at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, it won’t feel like it.
The NWS predicts highs of 88 degrees on Sunday, 81 degrees on Monday, 82 degrees on Tuesday, 83 degrees on Wednesday, and 80 degrees on Thursday.
Temperatures should cool down slightly after that, with highs expected of 24 degrees Celsius on Friday and 25 degrees Celsius on Saturday, the forecast showed.
According to the NWS, the chance of rain this week is just under 30%.
Although we have only seen 7 tropical cyclones in the Atlantic this year, 6 have made landfall! Another tropical system could develop in the Gulf of Mexico next week, likely adding another landfalling system to the list. Stay tuned! #ncwx #scwx #gawx #cltwx photo.twitter.com/bGJHA3zi98
— NWS GSP (@NWSGSP) September 20, 2024
