Meteorologist Kristy Steward's First Warning Forecast
Good Friday evening! It has been a rainy day, especially throughout this morning. Many areas saw 2” rain dumped rather quickly. That did cause some flash flood warnings to be issued. Over the past couple days, some locations across the Peninsulas and Eastern Shore have reported over 5” rain. The good news is that the bulk of this rain is over. The cold front is working its way through Hampton Roads now and will be cleared out of the region by Saturday morning. As this cold front is passing through, scattered showers will likely fire up along the front.
This weekend will be much nicer. Dry with plenty of sunshine and low humidity. High temperatures Saturday and Sunday will be in the low to mid 80s. One of the best Fourth of July’s you could ask for! Monday, the observed holiday, looks nice too. Still dry with lots of sunshine, just warmer near 90°.
High pressure over the Mid-Atlantic keeps our weather quiet the first half of next week with highs near 90. Wednesday night throughout Thursday is when we could be dealing with Elsa.
Elsa is currently a Category 1 hurricane with 80 MPH sustained winds in the Caribbean Sea about 500 miles east-southeast of Isla Beata, Dominican Republic. Elsa has weakened a bit since the last update, but is expected to strengthen again later Saturday. It is moving west-northwest at 29 MPH. Hurricane Elsa will track through the Caribbean Sea, impacting parts of the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica. Parts of those countries are in a Hurricane Warning. Elsa is then expected to lose a bit of strength and become a Tropical Storm as it moves through Cuba and the Florida Keys. Remaining a tropical storm, it is then forecast to track across Florida and ride up the east coast. That would put Elsa traveling through northeastern NC and southeastern VA late Wednesday night throughout all day Thursday. It's still a bit too early to tell where exactly Elsa will track locally and what side of its central rotation we'll be on, which will determine how strong our impacts from Elsa will be. Stay tuned for updates!
Meteorologist Kristy Steward
