Gold Medal Weather Week, Fay or Not

Landscapers, construction workers and kids still off for the summer take note. This next to last week of August will be a dandy and worthy of a Gold Medal.
Michael Phelps may have won 8 golds in Beijing, but our splendid outdoor weather (it hasn’t rained in days in many areas) still has another 4 to as many as 7 days to run.

We can thank Canada for this weekend’s niceties and Tropical Storm soon to be Hurricane Fay for adding her dry and hot touch for this week.

It has been a slow evolution with Tropical Storm Fay this weekend and now here on Monday. And let me be frank with you, the European model has barely flinched with its forecast of Fay Flourishing in Florida and staying at bay there all week long.

What this means locally is a hot and dry week with Summerfest 2008 figuring to be a dandy on the South Charleston Mound. If we are to get a late week or weekend thundershower (long shot) it will in all probability not be directly related to Fay.

Daytime highs will match 90 everyday downtown, while mustering upper 80s at the local airports (where the official numbers are kept).

In time this week, Fay should spin some tropical showers into coastal South Carolina from Hilton and Kiawah Islands north to Myrtle Beach. I also expect the surf to get very choppy beginning Wednesday thru at least Friday. So a half and half vacation week at South Carolina beaches with Monday thru Wednesday featuring a dazzling tropical sky and tropical onshore breezes, followed by some late week ocean showers migrating onshore.

But Fay is likely to be caught in a weak wind zone at cloud level, which means she will sit and spin and not move very far northward. I feel very good in saying we will not get any rain from Fay here in our region, though sometime by the weekend, the higher humidity from Fay’s environment may cause a garden variety thundershower.

More to come as I decipher the new info, but for now, load up with a glass of lemonade and the sun block as you plan your week ahead.

By the way, Ragweed will also flourish in the warmth and dryness of this week, so hay fever sufferers, take your antihistamine.