WEATHER BLOG: Hot Holiday
The overall feeling is that warming aloft should limit coverage of showers and thunderstorms to a rather small fraction of the area Friday and over the weekend. But there will continue to be plenty of moisture in the air so we would not want to totally rule out a thunderstorm on any given day.
There hasn't been very much in the way of shower and thunderstorm activity along the I-95 corridor during the past 12-24 hours. But, for the third consecutive night, folks in Northern Virginia (especially in Prince William County) were hit with some torrential downpours. In Maryland, the regional radar mosaic last night indicated that Frederick County had some locally heavy pockets of rain.
With a continuous stream of mild and moist air flowing northward Thursday, we can certainly envision how more places will get a few showers and a thunderstorm or two, any of which could contain a drenching downpour -- that may also cause some minor flooding issues.
Temperatures are still expected to undergo an upward trend over the next few days, since there will also be some sunny intervals. Couple the presence of some sunshine with surface winds that will be veering away from the ocean Friday and Saturday and more toward the west, and we're eventually going to see those temperatures peak in the lower 90s. But a couple of showers and a thunderstorm may also be scattered about the region, especially in the mountains and higher terrain of western Maryland on both Friday and Saturday.
By and large, this upcoming Memorial Day holiday weekend will feel "a lot like summer has arrived," and a vast majority of the time will be ideal for outdoor activities.
