While Wednesday was hot, July 4th could be wet with severe weather possible

There’s a chance of showers and a Level 1 severe threat for the holiday, WRAL meteorologist Mike Maze said Wednesday evening. The chances of showers will be greater during the early afternoon with the possibility of damaging wind gusts, heavy rain and lightning certainly possible.

“I know that’s bad timing, but we could really use the rain,” Maze said.

Wednesday was warm but not as warm as it could have been. Maze said due to the lower dew points, the temperatures stayed out of the 100s.

“We were talking about how it doesn’t feel as bad as it could have (Wednesday),” Maze said. “If our dew points were in the 70s, we would have easily been talking about a heat index value here in the Triangle in the 100s. That’s not the case (Wednesday). But the dew points will jump up for (Thursday) and into the weekend.”

There will continue to be a chance of some pop-up showers into Wednesday night but the real question will be what happens Thursday. There will continue to be around a 50 percent chance of showers through Monday morning. With that, at least, will come cooler temperatures for next week.

“(Thursday’s) highs will be dictated by when the thunderstorms begin to develop,” Maze said. “I think that will happen around 1-2-3 p.m. On FutureCast, they are widespread by 3 o’clock (Thursday) afternoon.

“Localized flooding can’t be ruled out, a damaging wind gust and into (Thursday) evening thunderstorms will tend to die down. So, at 9 p.m., your chance of getting wet isn’t great compared to earlier in the day.”

The rain chances will continue each day until Tuesday, when we finally clear out and, eventually, see the temperatures rise again