Chantal A Carolina Rainmaker, Slightly Drier Here

Hope everyone enjoyed the 4th of July fireworks and the mostly dry weather.  The only tropical issue is a weak disturbance that NHC upgraded to Tropical Storm Chantal off the SE U.S. Coast  This pretty much gets us back up to last year when we had three early-season storms before going through a 6-week quiet spell in July & early August.  Chantal is a east-side weighted storm with SW shear blowing the T-Storms away from the center.

To me, it looks like the brunt of this storm will stay mainly off the NC coast.  The 1 PM NHC advisory buys into the model solution.

Clearly, the radar imagery shows most of the heavy rains east of Charleston heading toward the NC Coast.  Back closer to home, we have another upper low over the central Gulf that has brought down some slightly drier air/lower dew points.

Our dew point of 68 is 7 degrees lower and, if you stay in the shade, you'll feel less hot.  Today's storms have been along the Mississippi coast.

Unless there is an upper disturbance or a tropical system, we'll be hot & humid with spotty storms from now into September.  Stay tuned!