Forecast Last Updated at Thursday, August 21, 2008 at 7:28PM

More Clouds, But Little Rainfall

A moist, easterly wind flow off the Atlantic Ocean will generate more cloudiness over the next few days, but rain chances will remain pretty low and mainly confined to areas east of Asheville. Temperatures will also be just a little bit cooler than recent days as well. No direct impacts from Tropical Storm Fay are expected before sometime next week.

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 ended August 20. Winners will be announced by September 1.

Thursday Hi: 83 Lo: 64 Partly cloudy to mostly cloudy tonight with a risk for a passing shower; SE wind 10-15 mph

Friday Hi: 79 Lo: 66 More clouds than sun; A risk for mostly nighttime showers or light rain; SE wind 10-15 mph

Saturday Hi: 82 Lo: 66 A mix of sun and clouds; Risk for a shower, mostly at night; SE wind 10-15 mph

Sunday Hi: 84 Lo: 66 Partly cloudy; Still can't rule out a shower, mainly at night

Monday Hi: 84 Lo: 66 Partly cloudy; Slight chance for a shower

Further Out

Tuesday - More clouds than sun; Improving shower and t-shower chances; High in the lower 80s; Low in the mid 60s
Wednesday - Mostly cloudy; Showers likely & perhaps a thunderstorm; High in the lower 80s; Low in the mid 60s

Forecast Discussion

The pressure difference between Tropical Storm Fay, now moving back to the west and back across Florida, and a dome of high pressure over the Northeast, is generating an easterly upslope low-level wind flow in the Carolinas. This wind flow will serve to moisten things up and generate more cloudiness over the region, as well as suppress temperatures over the next few days. There may even be just enough moisture to generate a shower or two, mainly during the nighttime hours.

Meanwhile, our old friend Tropical Storm Fay has been pounding the Sunshine State with as much as two feet of rain. Fay has started drifting westward as expected as high pressure (mentioned above) prevents any significant northward motion toward us. We expect no direct effects from Fay during the next few days. Ultimately, a cold front scheduled to enter our area by next Tuesday and Wednesday may pick up the remnants of Fay and finally give us some desperately needed rainfall by the time we reach our extended forecast period. We have to continue to play the waiting game with Fay.

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 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.