Forecast Last Updated at Friday, September 5, 2008 at 12:48PM

Nice End To The Workweek; Fringe Hanna Effects Tonight-Saturday

Clouds will be increasing as the day wears on as we begin to feel some fringe effects from Tropical Storm Hanna. Some light rain may work westward into the foothills overnight through Saturday morning before skies clear up during the late afternoon. Sunday looks warm and dry.

Ray's Weather is a proud partner of The Asheville Tourists, the Single-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. Make sure to support The Tourists in game 2 of the SAL playoffs at Historic McCormick Field Friday evening - first pitch 7:05PM. Curious as to what is going on at McCormick Field? Make sure to keep an eye on our live webcam located atop the press box at historic McCormick Field. Go Tourists!

The calendar reads September, which means one thing in the mountains - the North Carolina Mountain State Fair is right around the corner. The annual event kicks off this Friday and lasts through September 14th. Make sure to check with AshevilleWeather.com before heading out to the fairgrounds.

The winning photos in the 2009 RWC Calendar Contest have been named. Thanks to everyone for 870 entries this year. Calendars should be available for sale by October 1.

Friday Hi: 84 Lo: 66 Good deal of daytime sunshine; More clouds rolling in at night with a few late-night showers possible; NE wind 5-10 mph

Saturday Hi: 85 Lo: 65 Rain showers into early afternoon; Clearing thereafter; Quite breezy with northerly wind 10-20 mph

Sunday Hi: 89 Lo: 64 Lots of sunshine; Nice weather

Monday Hi: 88 Lo: 65 Scattered clouds; Nice weather to begin the workweek

Tuesday Hi: 87 Lo: 63 Partly cloudy; A PM shower or t-storm around

Further Out

Wednesday - Quite a bit of cloudiness; Dry weather; High in the lower 80s; Low in the lower 60s
Thursday - Partly to mostly cloudy; Dry; High in the lower 80s; Low in the lower 60s

Forecast Discussion

All weather eyes in the Carolinas are on Hanna today. It is a large tropical storm about 325 miles south-southwest of Wilmington, NC, at midday and moving fairly quickly northwest at about 20 miles an hour. The warm waters of the Gulf Stream are helping Hanna along, and the system appears to be gradually organizing as it heads toward upper SC coast. Hanna will come ashore overnight tonight, and there is still a chance it could attain hurricane status by then. This is a large system, so the exact center position isn't that important; Hanna will likely bring tropical storm force winds to a large area of the coast from South Carolina northward through New England as it moves rapidly up the eastern seaboard.

The biggest impact from the storm here will be rain and not wind, although a few of the western rain bands from Hanna may get as far west as Hickory and Wilkesboro. Northerly breezes will also be increasing during Saturday. Rain amounts here locally should be a one-quarter inch or less in the far west, but will increase to probably a half-inch or so as you head toward I-77.

A cold front will push through on Tuesday with our next opportunity for a couple thundershowers. Dry weather is expected to return on Wednesday.

Elsewhere in the tropics, Hurricane Ike is about 425 miles north of the Leeward Islands, and moving west-southwest at about 15 miles an hour. Ike is a Category 3 hurricane with highest sustained winds of 120 mph. Ike will continue moving west-southwest, which will put it in the south-central Bahamas Sunday and Monday. On the present forecast track, it will be approaching Florida by Tuesday. Tropical Storm Josephine remains safely at sea and is no threat to land areas at this time.

Announcements

RaysWeather.Com continues to grow. We are an "information age" company using the web to broadcast the message but also as a tool for producing the message. RaysWeather.Com (what we call RWC) has evolved from "Ray's hobby in Beautiful Downtown Rutherwood" in 1999 to the most widely read media outlet in NW NC reaching 150,000 to 200,000 people per month and covering the weather from NC/VA line to Asheville and Wolf Laurel. We will continue to grow geographically as well--Burnsville and Waynesville were recently added; Black Mountain will be up and running very soon. The heart of the growth is good data, "local flavor", and THE most reliable forecast.

We recently added our 6th forecaster to the best forecast team ever assembled for this region. It's time for us to introduce "the crew"...

• Dr. Ray Russell is a Computer Science professor at Appalachian State University. His PhD is in Computer Science from Georgia Tech (1989); weather has been a long-time passion. He started posting a "snow forecast" on the university website back in the mid 1990's; this evolved into RaysWeather.Com in 2000. Ray lives in Boone and has taught at Appalachian State since 1991.
• Eric Anderson (RWC's Chief Meteorologist) received his degree in meteorology from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and is a 15-year veteran of NOAA with experience in forecasting, observation and analysis. A native of western North Carolina, Eric's former tenure in the National Weather Service gave him the opportunity to forecast for areas of the Mid-Atlantic region. His professional interests include upslope flow snow events in the southern Appalachians, as well as cold air damming in the Carolinas.
• Alan Simons, born in Fayetteville NC, has a Bachelor of Science in meteorology and almost 20 years of professional experience that includes forecasting for newspapers, websites, radio, aviation, and the military. He first became interested in weather in North Carolina, and RWC takes him back home after a variety of duty stations, from New York to Hawaii. Alan's been with the RWC team since 2003.
• Tim Kirby joined Ray's Weather Center in October 2004 and lives in his hometown of Fries, VA (pronounced Freeze). The folks from this small Grayson County town say "it's freeze in winter and fries in summer". He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology from NC State University. While at NC State, he was president of the NCSU Student Chapter of the American Meteorological Society. Before joining RWC, Tim worked for the National Weather Service for ten years in Raleigh, Chattanooga and Morristown, Tennessee. Tim has always loved the challenge of forecasting and owes his dedication to a childhood fascination of snow (no school!).
• Harold Alston is a N.C. native with Bachelor of Science degrees from both App State (Broadcast Communications) and UNC-Asheville (Meteorology). He has 30 years experience tracking and forecasting NC weather including 15 years experience for media outlets. Nailing down Appalachian wedges & wintry possibilities are his areas of expertise with a lifetime of N.C. weather experiences to reference.
• Jeff Cox, a native of Asheville, is the latest addition to the RWC team. He earned a Bachelor of Sciences in Atmospheric Sciences from UNC-Asheville. At UNC-A, he was the lead forecaster for the school's Weather Forecast Line, campus Radio Station, "The Blue Echo" and the campus newspaper, "The Blue Banner." Jeff has experience as a meteorologist in both television and radio. He spent over 2 years in Macon, GA, as the chief meteorologist at WGXA FOX-24. He also has experience as a radio broadcast meteorologist for The Weather Channel in Atlanta, Georgia.