Blog: Cooler temperatures to end the week

Posted: May 24, 2023 / 06:07 AM EDT

Updated: May 24, 2023 / 06:07 AM EDT

We will once again see a cooler than average day today as a northeast wind continues. The good news is the wind should not be as strong today but it’ll still be enough to keep us in the low 70s.

Tonight, a cool front drops in from the north. This will result in an extra shot of cool air for Thursday and part of Friday with highs in the mid to upper 60s along the coast and close to 70 inland. It will be a little breezier on Thursday and Friday too.

May has been quite the cool month overall with temperatures about 2 degrees below average across the month. We’ve only seen 6 days of above average temperatures! Quite remarkable for May, but remember April was quite warm.

This is the time of the year when we expect to see our first 90 degree day. So far, we have not seen any temps of 90 or higher at the Norfolk Airport where the official climate data records are kept. In 2022 and 2021, we saw our first 90 degree day in May. In 2020 it took until June.

Heading into the remainder of the week, the focus of our forecast will shift from the cooler temperatures to rain chances. We should stay dry through Thursday and Friday for the majority of our area, but into the weekend rain chances will increase.

Over the past few days there has been high uncertainty on the timing and overall coverage of rain for the weekend. We expect an area of low pressure to develop along the southeast coast near SC later this week. This low will help to bring breezy conditions back into our area with some gusts to 30 mph.

In terms of rain chances – I would expect some showers in the southern OBX as early as Friday. Saturday expect some showers there too. A few showers could sneak into our area on Saturday, especially later in the day but as of right now Sunday looks to have the higher rain chances. Like I said earlier, there’s been a decent amount of uncertainy with this system, so stay tuned as timing and rainfall chances could be adjusted some as new data comes in.

Sunday into Monday expect scattered showers with some isolated downpours. It won’t rain constantly, but we’ll have to contend with some showers. Temperatures should be a little warmer in the mid 70s.