Check mitchellweather.com for the most up to date weather information in the High Country.

Printer Friendly View
Bakersville , NC

Forecast Last Updated at Wednesday, August 20, 2008 at 11:57AM

All about Fay

Fay was born in Canada (1907) and moved to the US when she was three. She became a Hollywood star playing the role of Ann Darrow in King Kong (1933). Oopps... that's Fay Wray. You want to know about Tropical Storm Fay. It will remain well to our south until early next week. In the mean time, our weather will be relatively pleasant. Expect sun and warm temperatures today. Clouds will increase tonight; we can expect mostly cloudy skies Thursday through the rest of the 7-day forecast. Any rain will be limited spotty/light rain on the east side of the Appalachians (near the Blue Ridge), late tonight through Monday. Direct effects from Fay will be possible beginning Tuesday of next week. (See details in the discussion section below.)

Music on the Mountain is this Saturday at the Fairgrounds near Boone. Sam Bush headlines a long list of great acts. Fay's delay to our south will keep the weather mostly dry for this great event. See our hourly forecast for the event.

Voting in the 2009 Ray's Weather Center Calendar Photo Contest ends today. Please go to 2009 Ray's Weather Center Calendar Photo Contest page and vote for your favorite photos. Winners will be announced by September 1.

Wednesday

Hi: 84 Lo: 58

Daytime sun; Warm; More clouds at night; Maybe a light shower or drizzle near the Blue Ridge after midnight; ESE wind 5-10 mph 		Thursday

Hi: 80 Lo: 59

More clouds; Chance of a stray shower near the Blue Ridge; SE wind 5-15 mph 		Friday

Hi: 78 Lo: 60

Mostly cloudy; Chance of a stray shower near the Blue Ridge; SE wind 5-10 mph 		Saturday

Hi: 80 Lo: 59

Mostly cloudy; Chance of a stray shower near the Blue Ridge 		Sunday

Hi: 82 Lo: 60

Partly cloudy; Chance of a stray shower near the Blue Ridge

Further Out

Monday - Scattered clouds; Chance of a stray shower; High in the lower 80s; Low near 60 degrees
Tuesday - Mostly cloudy; Showers & t-showers; High in the upper 70s; Low near 60 degrees

Forecast Discussion

Since our forecast for the next week is "all about Fay", that's where we'll start. The center of Tropical Storm Fay is about 15 miles north of Cape Canaveral, FL and crawling slowly N. Maximum sustained wind are 50 mph. Yesterday, Fay held together remarkably well as "a fish out of water," but radar images indicate it is starting to lose the battle with land. The forecast is for Fay to continue to hug the Florida coast today, then turn back toward the west-northwest on Thursday, toward Tallahassee. There are a couple opportunities for Fay to strengthen. One would be if it manages to get east of Florida today into the warm Atlantic waters. The other would be if Fay manages to get over the northeastern Gulf of Mexico on it's trek back to the northwest. Both of these are "a long shot." The most likely scenario is that Fay continues to gradually weaken over land. Early next week, we expect Fay to move north into Alabama; from there, it should get picked up by a front moving across the country resulting in its remnants moving our direction Tuesday and Wednesday.

So, what will be the impacts for us? A moist southeasterly will increase clouds especially along the eastern escarpment of the Appalachians beginning tonight. We'll have lots of clouds late tonight through the rest of the 7-day forecast. Any rain will be light, spotty, and with best chances at night or early morning on the east side of the Appalachians. Tuesday and Wednesday, we may get direct effects of Fay in the form of tropical showers and thundershowers as the remnant low moves through.

High pressure is anchored in New England. That's the feature blocking Fay from a northward advance until early next. Sunday and Monday, a front will move across the Ohio Valley and be located near us Monday and Tuesday providing a path for Fay's remnants to move on a track toward northeast.

Announcements

RaysWeather.Com continues to grow. We are an "information age" company using the web to broadcast the message but also as a tool for producing the message. RaysWeather.Com (what we call RWC) has evolved from "Ray's hobby in Beautiful Downtown Rutherwood" in 1999 to the most widely read media outlet in NW NC reaching 150,000 to 200,000 people per month and covering the weather from NC/VA line to Asheville and Wolf Laurel. We will continue to grow geographically as well--Roaring Gap and Waynesville were recently added; Black Mountain will be up and running very soon. The heart of the growth is good data, "local flavor", and THE most reliable forecast.

We recently added our 6th forecaster to the best forecast team ever assembled for this region. It's time for us to introduce "the crew"...

  • Dr. Ray Russell is a Computer Science professor at Appalachian State University. His PhD is in Computer Science from Georgia Tech (1989); weather has been a long-time passion. He started posting a "snow forecast" on the university website back in the mid 1990's; this evolved into RaysWeather.Com in 2000. Ray lives in Boone and has taught at Appalachian State since 1991.
  • Eric Anderson (RWC's Chief Meteorologist) received his degree in meteorology from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and is a 15-year veteran of NOAA with experience in forecasting, observation and analysis. A native of western North Carolina, Eric's former tenure in the National Weather Service gave him the opportunity to forecast for areas of the Mid-Atlantic region. His professional interests include upslope flow snow events in the southern Appalachians, as well as cold air damming in the Carolinas.
  • Alan Simons, born in Fayetteville NC, has a Bachelor of Science in meteorology and almost 20 years of professional experience that includes forecasting for newspapers, websites, radio, aviation, and the military. He first became interested in weather in North Carolina, and RWC takes him back home after a variety of duty stations, from New York to Hawaii. Alan's been with the RWC team since 2003.
  • Tim Kirby joined Ray's Weather Center in October 2004 and lives in his hometown of Fries, VA (pronounced Freeze). The folks from this small Grayson County town say "it's freeze in winter and fries in summer". He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology from NC State University. While at NC State, he was president of the NCSU Student Chapter of the American Meteorological Society. Before joining RWC, Tim worked for the National Weather Service for ten years in Raleigh, Chattanooga and Morristown, Tennessee. Tim has always loved the challenge of forecasting and owes his dedication to a childhood fascination of snow (no school!).
  • Harold Alston is a N.C. native with Bachelor of Science degrees from both App State (Broadcast Communications) and UNC-Asheville (Meteorology). He has 30 years experience tracking and forecasting NC weather including 15 years experience for media outlets. Nailing down Appalachian wedges & wintry possibilities are his areas of expertise with a lifetime of N.C. weather experiences to reference.
  • Jeff Cox, a native of Asheville, is the latest addition to the RWC team. He earned a Bachelor of Sciences in Atmospheric Sciences from UNC-Asheville. At UNC-A, he was the lead forecaster for the school's Weather Forecast Line, campus Radio Station, "The Blue Echo" and the campus newspaper, "The Blue Banner." Jeff has experience as a meteorologist in both television and radio. He spent over 2 years in Macon, GA, as the chief meteorologist at WGXA FOX-24. He also has experience as a radio broadcast meteorologist for The Weather Channel in Atlanta, Georgia.