Forecast Last Updated at Sunday, October 12, 2008 at 1:36PM

Some Sunshine For Sunday; New Week Looking Nice

After waking up to some cloud cover this morning, mostly sunny skies are expected to reign supreme this afternoon. High pressure settles in for the new work week. As a result, plenty of sunshine and mild temperatures will be the going trend for the next few days. Our next cold front arrives on Thursday with a shower chance moving in Thursday night into Friday morning. Behind the front, much cooler weather arrives for next weekend.

I'm getting lots of questions about fall color. Mast General Store maintains a weekly fall color report for Western North Carolina in our Outdoor Living Section.

OctoberFest is this weekend at Sugar Mountain Resort; here is our Hour-by-Hour Forecast for the event.

The winning photos in the 2009 RWC Calendar Contest have been named. Thanks to everyone for 870 entries this year. Calendars should be available for sale by October 20.

Sunday Hi: 70 Lo: 46 Mostly sunny skies; East wind 5-15 mph with higher gusts

Monday Hi: 73 Lo: 46 Plenty of sunshine for Columbus Day; Warmer; Light east wind

Tuesday Hi: 77 Lo: 51 Lots of sun; Well above average for mid-October; Light wind

Wednesday Hi: 74 Lo: 53 Mostly clear; Continued warm

Thursday Hi: 71 Lo: 55 A few extra clouds; An evening and overnight shower possible

Further Out

Friday - AM clouds with clearing for the afternoon; Cooler; High in the mid 60s; Low in the upper 40s
Saturday - A mix of sun and clouds; A cool October weekend; High near 60 degrees; Low in the lower 40s

Forecast Discussion

After waking up to a few leftover clouds this morning, full sunshine has taken over this afternoon and will continue for the rest of the day. If you must find something to complain about, it will be a bit breezy with gusts nearing 20 mph at times. Some of the highest elevations will top 20 mph - we have already recorded wind gusts atop Sugar Mountain at 30 mph.

High pressure settles into the region for Monday and Tuesday allowing for plenty of sunshine and temperatures well above average. If you can sneak out of the office and get in a round of 18, Monday through Wednesday are the days to do it. For some of you, the Columbus Day holiday will make that easy. For others, a little creativity might be in order, but it'll be worth it!

Our next weather maker arrives Thursday in the form of a cold front. You'll see extra clouds on Thursday with a shower or two likely Thursday night into Friday morning. Following the front's passage on Friday, much cooler air will invade the region. For comparison, highs on Tuesday will be in the mid 70s - by next weekend, many of us will be lucky if we see the 60 degree mark for afternoon highs.

Have a great rest of the weekend!

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.