Forecast Last Updated at Tuesday, July 8, 2008 at 6:59PM

More Showers/T-storms Wednesday & Thursday

Expect a generally quite overnight after any evening showers and thunderstorms dissipate. Wednesday into Thursday look like an active weather days as a front moves across the region. We may return to relative lull in the shower and storm activity by Friday.

The MusicFest 'n Sugar Grove is this weekend. Doc Watson, The Kruger Brothers, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and Cadillac Sky along with many more groups will make for a great weekend of music in the High Country. Check here for our hourly Festival Forecast.

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".

Tuesday Hi: 79 Lo: 64 Some clouds & patchy fog overnight; Slight chance for a shower or t-shower; SW wind 5-15 mph

Wednesday Hi: 77 Lo: 65 Mostly cloudy; Good chance of t-showers; NW wind 5-15 mph

Thursday Hi: 78 Lo: 59 Mostly to partly cloudy; Scattered t-showers possible; Light & variable wind

Friday Hi: 79 Lo: 59 Partly cloudy; An isolated t-shower possible

Saturday Hi: 79 Lo: 63 Lots of clouds; Scattered PM t-showers

Further Out

Sunday - Partly to mostly cloudy; You guessed it... Scattered PM t-showers; High in the upper 70s; Low in the mid 60s
Monday - Partly cloudy; Scattered PM t-showers possible; High near 80 degrees; Low in the mid 60s

Forecast Discussion

The Southeast is covered with humid, tropical air resulting in lots of clouds and scattered thundershowers re-firing with daytime heating. Expect a continued chance for a shower or storm overnight.

Wednesday, a front will move our way passing through late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning. It will provide a better trigger for thundershower activity.

Scattered thundershowers cannot be ruled out any day this week (and into early next week). It now appears that the front will stall just to our south Friday and will carry the focus of thundershower activity just to our south as well. So, less thundershower coverage is expected by Friday as relatively drier air edges into our region.

The next front will approach Sunday. With it, humidity will increase again, and along with the humidity, scattered mostly PM thundershowers will return Saturday through Monday.

Hurricane Bertha strengthened to a level that was unexpected (Cat 3), but has since weakened to a Category 1 storm. Bertha will go where expected--probably only a "fish storm" (the only threatened land mass is Bermuda). The issue of note is the rare formation of a Cape Verde storms as we have been saying since last week. The storm is about 900 miles SW of Bermuda Tuesday evening with max sustained winds of 85 mph. As the storm gains latitude, it will continue to weaken; the storm should be east of Bermuda by Saturday. Again, absolutely NO threat the the United States.

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 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.