Spring begins on a bright, but chilly note

It won’t necessarily feel spring-like today, but at least we’ll have the sunshine!

Vernal equinox explainer (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

ROANOKE, Va. – Happy Saturday and welcome to the first day of spring! The new season officially began at 5:37 a.m. with the vernal (or spring) equinox.

The sun’s rays are pointed directly at the equator today and we’ll have nearly equal daytime and nighttime. If you want a sneak peek at the kind of weather we can expect locally during the new season, Meteorologist Delaney Wearden has a great write-up here.

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We’ll start the new season with below-average temperatures for late March. Look for the 30s in the morning, 40s at lunchtime and 50s in the afternoon. The chilly air will be accompanied by abundant sunshine, with only a few high clouds in the mix from time to time.

Saturday planner (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

The reason we’re so sunny today? We’ll have a high pressure system directly north of us, which causes the air to sink and makes it very difficult for clouds to develop.

The high should be strong enough to keep any clouds and precipitation associated with a storm system off the Southeast U.S. coastline at bay.

Future Tracker Saturday 4 p.m. (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

Sunday appears to have a similar set-up, although the high will be in a more favorable location for temperatures. Many locations rise to the low 60s tomorrow afternoon.

The coastal low will once again send clouds and showers into Georgia and the Carolinas.

Future Tracker Sunday 3 p.m. (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

The warm-up will continue into the new work week, as we’ll see highs peak in the low to mid 60s Monday through Wednesday. That’s about 3 to 5 degrees above-average for late March.

Afternoon high temperature trend (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

The dry weather doesn’t last forever, though. We expect a more active storm track and a few opportunities for showers later in the week.

If I had to pick the wettest day, I would go with Thursday. We’ve pegged rain chances at 60 percent then.

Precipitation trends over the next seven days (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

The models have the rain exiting early in the day Friday and we would have a chance to dry out by the start of next weekend.