Marine Weather and Tide Forecast for Petersburg, VA

KEY MESSAGES
1) Remaining hot and dry, with well above normal temperatures continuing through Wednesday. Rain chances increase Wednesday night ahead of an approaching cold front. Best rain chances late Wednesday remains over northern portions of the area.

2) An increasingly unsettled and cooler pattern looks to evolve for the late week period with more uncertainty in temperatures over the Memorial Day Weekend.

DISCUSSION
As of 315 PM EDT Monday...

KEY MESSAGE 1...Remaining hot and dry, with well above normal temperatures continuing through Wednesday. Rain chances increase Wednesday night ahead of an approaching cold front. Best rain chances late Wednesday remains over northern portions of the area.

Building ridging and minimal low-level moisture should lock in a summer-like heat and continued dry conditions for the first half of the week. Temperatures are currently in the lower 90s across the area with some upper 80s along the coast. Widespread lower to mid 90s are expected through Wednesday. Temperatures will be similar each day, perhaps increasing a degree or so each day, culminating with the warmest day of the week on Wednesday. The strong mixing and dry antecedent conditions will continue to allow early morning dewpoints to mix out by afternoon, and fall back into the upper 50s to low 60s each day. This will keep heat indices close to actual air temps, as well as dry conditions into Wednesday afternoon.

Then Wednesday afternoon, a cold front will approach the area and showers and storms could develop from the pre-frontal trough. The latest models continue to show any convection only reaching north and west portions of the area, likely staying out of the RIC metro.
SPC has included northern portions of the area, including RIC metro, in a Marginal Risk (level 1 of 5) with the potential of damaging winds and large hail. The risk of severe storms looks to be marginal with the concern of storms dissipating before reaching the area, but nonetheless, still possible.

KEY MESSAGE 2...An increasingly unsettled and cooler pattern looks to evolve for the late week period with more uncertainty in temperatures over the Memorial Day Weekend.

A shortwave trough is progged to lift across the upper Midwest into eastern Canada Wednesday into Thursday. This will serve to dampen to SE ridge, while also allowing cool high pressure to settle over the Great Lakes and SE Canada. The cold front will push south of the area Thursday and Friday, leaving a CAD wedge setup with highs in the 60s to 70s with cloudy, drizzly conditions. Then on Saturday, the wedge airmass will erode, pushing a warm front back through the area with temperatures return back to near normal. Some additional isolated to scattered showers and a few storms are possible Sat/Sun, but by no means does the holiday weekend look to be a washout.
Rainfall totals for the week do not look like the drought buster we need, with ensemble guidance showing a mean of only 0.50-1.00" for the week. Will note that with recent systems, the ensembles were quite bullish with precip totals and widely over-estimated multiple days out. Gradual warming is expected as we head into early next week, as mid-level ridging rebuilds east of the Rockies early next week.

AVIATION /19Z MONDAY THROUGH SATURDAY/
As of 150 PM EDT Monday...

VFR conditions prevail through the 18z/18 TAF period as high pressure remains dominant offshore. SCT-BKN cumulus clouds have developed over the southeast, but otherwise SKC skies across the area. SW winds are currently ~10 kt, with gusts up to 20 kt at RIC and SBY this afternoon. Winds will become more southerly overnight, remaining ~10 kt.

Outlook: VFR conditions expected through midweek, as high pressure remains in control. South/southwest winds each afternoon may gust to 15-20 kt each day through Wednesday. The next chance of rain and possible degraded flight conditions isn't expected until late Wednesday or Thursday.

MARINE
As of 240 AM EDT Monday...

Key Messages:

- Mainly Sub-SCA conditions are expected across the local waters through at least mid-week with primarily southerly winds.

- A front moves through late week, bringing the next chance at SCA conditions.

Expansive high pressure remains parked across the western Atlantic and extends across the Southeast. Winds remain out of the SW at generally 10 to 15 kt across the local waters. Seas are 2-3 ft across the coastal waters and 1 ft or less in the Bay and rivers (1- 2 ft at the mouth of the Bay). Through mid-week, high pressure will remain parked across the western Atlantic in a typical summertime Bermuda High configuration. Winds remain primarily SSW around 10 to 15 kt outside of the daily mid to late-afternoon nearshore seabreeze. The afternoon breeze will likely bring additional localized gusts of 15-20 kt to the lower Chesapeake Bay and nearshore ocean waters each afternoon before winds veer back offshore and diminish through the overnight. These surges will be relatively brief and likely will not require any SCAs. Expect generally benign marine conditions to prevail through at least midweek. The next cold front looks to cross the waters some time early Thursday morning with increasing NE winds late week. At this time, in-house wind probs suggest that even behind the front, only brief marginal SCA conditions are possible and conditions may stay under SCA criteria through next weekend. Whether or not the aforementioned front actually moves through or stalls across the area will play an important role in the wind regime late week into the weekend.

CLIMATE
As of 145 AM Monday...

Record High Temps for 5/18 - 5/20

Record Record Record High/Year High/Year High/Year Location 5/18 5/19 5/20 -------- ---- ----- ------ Richmond 95 (1962) 97 (1962) 97 (2022)
Norfolk 95 (1877) 96 (1880) 98 (1996)
Salisbury 96 (1911) 97 (2011) 98 (1911)
Eliz. City 93 (1987) 95 (1996) 98 (1996)

Record High Min Temps for 5/18- 5/20

Record Record Record High High High Min T/Year Min T/Year Min T/Year Location 5/18 5/19 5/20 -------- ---- ----- ------ Richmond 72 (2015) 71 (1997) 71 (2018)
Norfolk 75 (1995) 72 (2017) 73 (1996)
Salisbury 71 (1953) 70 (1929) 70 (2018)
Eliz. City 73 (1995) 72 (2018) 73 (2018)

AKQ WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES
MD...None.
NC...None.
VA...None.
MARINE...None.