CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Folks who spent the past week at Myrtle Beach forgot to take the weather with them.
“We’re stuck in a very weak, sluggish wind pattern,” said Meteorologist Ken Batty of the National Weather Service.”Folks heading down to the beaches in the Carolinas are not having as nice a weather conditions as we’re having up here in the Mountain State.”
The unusual weather pattern is giving West Virginia a taste of summer in the heart of spring, but it’s not the taste we dread.
“Our dew points have been the 50’s to 60,” Batty said. “That allows temperatures to cool off more rapidly in the evening.”
High temperatures around the state have been summer like. Yeager Airport recorded 90 degrees this week for the first time in 2015. Elkins had consistent highs in the upper 80’s this week which Batty said is very unusual for early May in the Tygart River valley. Still, he didn’t think record highs would be in jeopardy even headed into a warm weekend.
“A lot of the records were set in the Dust Bowl era of the 30’s and it gets pretty hard to beat some of them,” he said. “But yesterday, Elkins tied a record at 85 in the Tygart River Valley.”
Batty said West Virginia is presently situated between a storm off the east coast and an unsettled patter which has brought violent thunderstorms and tornadoes to the mid-west. Sluggish wind activity has left us in the middle. He said the pattern should hold through the weekend and more normal temperatures and weather are expected by Tuesday or Wednesday with highs in the 70s and an increased chance for rain.