It’s still fall in Charlotte — even if it doesn’t feel like it. But cold is coming.
This week, Charlotte could approach or surpass record-high temperatures for the time of the year. But a more seasonal winter-like chill is forecast to blanket the region, a National Weather Service meteorologist said Tuesday.
And parched conditions are expected to last all week in the Charlotte area, with only a trace amount of rain forecast, meteorologist Patrick Moore of the NWS office in Greer, South Carolina, told The Charlotte Observer.
Already, Gaston, Cleveland, Burke and 11 other Western North Carolina counties are under an outdoor burning ban issued by the N.C. Forest Service. Wildfires have raged since the weekend in parts of the mountains.
Charlotte was expected to reach 80 on Tuesday, two degrees off the record high for Nov. 7, set last year, Moore said.
Wednesday’s forecast high of 81 would topple the Nov. 8 record of 79 degrees recorded in 2020, he said.
And temperatures are likely to remain hot on Thursday, with a predicted high of 81, just a degree off the record set in 2005, according to Moore.
“The normal high in Charlotte this time of the year is in the mid-60s,” he said.
A large ridge of high pressure over the Southeast will keep temperatures warm until a cold air mass pushes the system to the east on Friday.
Highs are predicted to drop from 68 Friday to 60 Saturday, 57 Sunday and 60 on Monday, according to the NWS forecast at noon Tuesday.
The best chance of rain would be late Friday and early Saturday, at 50%, according to the forecast. Only a tenth or 2/10ths of an inch are expected, Moore said.
This story was originally published November 7, 2023 at 2:28 PM.