Hail, lightning, downpours will make Charlotte a soggy mess next week. What to know.
Better break out those galoshes and rain ponchos.
With eyes on the hurricane season’s first tropical wave coming over the eastern Atlantic, the Charlotte region can expect a deluge of severe weather beginning Monday.
Strong showers and thunderstorms from the southwest could bring “torrential downpours,” damaging winds, frequent lightning, and gusty winds, according to a National Weather Service hazardous weather alert Sunday.
Large hail and “localized flooding will be possible with any showers and thunderstorms that repeatedly affect the same locations,” throughout Monday, according to the alert.
Heavy rainfall may continue through Tuesday, into Wednesday and possibly throughout the work week. The NWS warns the flooding threat will increase if “persistent, heavy rainfall develops as expected.”
“It’s definitely going to be an unsettled pattern with multiple rounds of rain,” Christiaan Patterson, of the NWS, told The Charlotte Observer on Sunday. “Confidence is higher for (Monday) and Tuesday — (the system) is going to bring a lot of rain.”
Patterson added that any outdoor activities Monday evening may have to be paused. She encouraged people to get indoors if there’s lightning.
Charlotte has a 40% chance of showers Monday, with the prospect climbing to 70% late Monday and Tuesday. Patterson said to expect two to four inches of widespread rainfall between Monday and Tuesday, going into Wednesday.
The region has a 70% chance of showers Tuesday evening and a 70% to 80% Wednesday into Wednesday evening. There’s a 70% chance of showers Thursday, and a 60% chance of showers Friday, according to the NWS Charlotte forecast at 3 p.m. Sunday.
Keeping an eye on the Atlantic
A storm off the African coast is expected to strengthen into a tropical depression as it treks across the Atlantic Ocean this week — and could veer northwest toward the Carolinas, a National Hurricane Center map showed Sunday afternoon.
At 2 p.m., showers and thunderstorms were organizing into a storm several hundred miles southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands and are forecast to become a tropical depression or tropical storm over the next day or two, National Hurricane Center officials said in the tropical weather outlook.
Hurricane Center officials forecast the system to move westward at 15 to 20 mph and upped the chance of the storm intensifying to 90% through 48 hours.
Tropical depressions pack winds of up to 38 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
This story was originally published June 18, 2023 at 5:00 PM.
