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Potential for severe weather, tornadoes in Charlotte area Wednesday
Widespread rain and thunderstorms are possible across the Carolinas and Charlotte area Wednesday afternoon and evening. Some could even see tornadoes.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. â A strong storm system that’s produced widespread severe weather and tornadoes in Texas and part of Louisiana and Mississippi is now marching east with the threat of more severe storms in the Carolinas Wednesday.
Rain moved into western North Carolina early Wednesday, with showers across the mountains and foothills by 8 a.m. Forecaster Larry Sprinkle said heavy rain will move into the Charlotte area around 9 a.m. and will last through early afternoon.
“For lunchtime today (Wednesday), be aware of heavy rain across the Charlotte metro area,” Sprinkle said.
Thunderstorms will be possible in the Carolinas through late Wednesday afternoon. Some of these storms could be severe, with the highest risk of tornadoes being south and east of Charlotte.
By 4 p.m., Sprinkle said we’ll see our highest risk of tornadoes in the Charlotte area. This includes Charlotte, Gastonia, Hickory, Lincolnton, Monroe, Salisbury, Statesville and Wadesboro in North Carolina, as well as the South Carolina cities and towns of Chester, Fort Mill, Lancaster and Rock Hill.
“Late afternoon to early evening, the potential for tornado development is certainly there across the region,” Sprinkle said.
Timing
The window is loosely open from late morning until the early evening. Right now, the best opportunity for severe storms and tornadoes for the Charlotte area will be from noon Wednesday until around 6 p.m.
Tornado threat
A 5% chance is much lower than the 10-15% chance areas out west have had, but it only takes one to make the difference. There will be a lot of wind shear to the atmosphere that allows for storms to rotate. The worst scenario would be isolated rotating thunderstorms (supercells) that are typically stronger and have better chances to produce tornadoes.
Wind threat
The wind threat is at 15%, which means that roughly 1 out of every 6 thunderstorms could produce damaging wind gusts exceeding 58 mph. Regardless of any thunderstorms, this approaching front will drive up the winds.
Winds will be gusting from 20-35 mph for most of the area. These winds will be even higher in the mountains. We can blame the low-level jet on this. This jet stream is about a mile up and it will be blasting some very warm and unstable winds aloft. This will also add that twist to the atmosphere mentioned above.
Flooding Threat
This threat diminishes compared to the threats over the last couple of days, but these strong thunderstorms could produce a lot of rain that would lead to some localized and urban flooding. Up to 2 inches of rain is possible for some locations in the Charlotte area.