Some peace and quiet this weekend

(Note at 6:15 p.m. ... I wrote the blog entry below early Friday afternoon, hours before a severe thunderstorm roared across Charlotte. At my house in east Mecklenburg, 2/3 of an inch of rain fell in 25 minutes, and 1-inch hail also came down.

Yet most of the area did not get this storm. And the rest of what is written here still looks correct ... storm activity Saturday and Sunday should be minimal. Widespread storm activity shouldn't return until Sunday evening or night).

There haven't been many weekends since spring when we didn't have thunderstorms threatening on at least one day, but we're looking at a clean slate this weekend.

Well, for the part of the weekend most people are interested in, at least.

Weak high pressure is expected to cover the majority of the Carolinas on Saturday and Sunday, and the atmosphere will have a sufficient cap to inhibit thunderstorms. A "cap," to put it simply, is a layer of warm air at mid or upper levels of the atmosphere. It tends to prevent warm air at the surface from climbing and forming clouds.

No clouds, no thunderstorms.

That appears to be the case this weekend. And since a weak front is crossing the region today, the humidity levels might be a bit lower Saturday and possibly Sunday. So the forecast is for high temperatures around 90 degrees, and any thunderstorm activity will be limited to the mountains.

The pattern figures to change a bit by late Sunday, when another of those weak upper-level disturbances is expected to cross the region. That means showers and thunderstorms could be in the region late Sunday night and early Monday morning.

Next week's forecast appears to be typical summer -- daily highs somewhere in the vicinity of 90, and a chance of afternoon and evening thunderstorms.

Texas update: Earlier this week, I mentioned the severe drought in south central Texas. That night, some heavy thunderstorms hit the Austin and San Antonio areas. The international airport in San Antonio got about 1.5 inches of rain, and 2 inches fell at the Camp Mabry airport in Austin.

It's turned dry again, so maybe I'll need to write about them next week.

Summer in Alaska: Alaska's weather is absolutely amazing. High temperatures Saturday and Sunday in Fairbanks are expected to reach 80 degrees. That's in a city where it falls to 40 degrees below zero in January.

And Barrow, along the Arctic Ocean, is forecast to reach 50 degrees both days under partly sunny skies. The temperature swing in that state can exceed 140 degrees between winter and summer in places.