Forecast Last Updated at Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 7:09AM

Mostly Dry Through Friday; Sticky Weekend

Today and Friday feature plenty of sunshine and generally quiet and dry weather. Temperatures will be just a smidge below normal today, but heading back above-normal over the upcoming weekend. Scattered showers and thunderstorms return to the weekend forecast, mostly during the PM hours.

The 2009 Ray's Weather Calendar Photo Contest is underway. It will run through July 31 with winners to be chosen by the middle of August. "Hit me with your best shot!" See our photo contest page for details and "fire away".

Thursday Hi: 84 Lo: 56 Lots of sunshine; Nice weather to be outside; North wind 5-10 mph

Friday Hi: 86 Lo: 62 Mostly sunny; More nice weather; Light south wind

Saturday Hi: 86 Lo: 65 Partly cloudy; Risk for an afternoon thundershower; Light wind

Sunday Hi: 87 Lo: 65 Partly cloudy; A continued chance for PM thunder

Monday Hi: 86 Lo: 65 Partly sunny; Continuing to watch for scattered afternoon thunder

Further Out

Tuesday - Partly cloudy; Scattered PM showers & t-storms; High in the mid 80s; Low in the mid 60s
Wednesday - More of the same; PM thunder; High in the mid 80s; Low in the mid 60s

Forecast Discussion

A frontal system will pull up nearly stationary across the NC/SC Piedmont and Coastal Plain today. We'll be on the drier side of the front, so we're expecting plenty of sunshine and slightly cooler temperatures. Temperatures will begin to warm back up as early as Friday, and the upcoming weekend looks very warm and rather humid.

Another cold front will approach the state over the weekend. The front probably won't clear the state before at least Monday or Tuesday, so we'll reintroduce the chance for scattered (mostly PM) showers and thunderstorms during this entire period. You know the drill ---- it's hit or miss coverage and certainly no everyone will be getting rain on a daily basis.

The tropics are quieting down now. Hurricane Dolly made landfall yesterday as a category-two storm on South Padre Island. It's going be raining itself out over south Texas/northeastern Mexico today. A tropical wave in the far eastern Atlantic Ocean has a ways to travel before entering more favorable oceanic and atmospheric conditions that might enable further development.

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--Burnsville has just been added; Waynesville, you're next. 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.