Big cool down likely to miss Carolinas

A big cool down is coming to parts of the eastern United States next week, but it looks as if the Charlotte region will be a bit too far south to experience a major change in the summer conditions.

Many of the places that were hit with temperatures in the upper 90s this week -- New York City, Philadelphia, Washington -- will have highs only in the mid 70s for much of next week.

A trough will establish itself over the East, dragging down cooler air from Canada. The bottom of the trough is expected to be somewhere near the Virginia-North Carolina border. Areas to the north of that will see a big change in temperatures -- a change that will be heralded by strong thunderstorms this weekend.

Farther to the south, in the Carolinas, there is expected to be a slight cool down next week. We'll have highs in the low 90s Monday, dropping back to the mid and upper 80s Tuesday through Thursday. While that isn't anything like the cooler weather in the Mid-Atlantic and New England, it will be a break from the heat and humidity of this week.

By the end of next week, temperatures will be back on the rise, as we head into July.  At this early point, it looks like July 4 week will be (no surprise) hot.

In the tropics ... that mass of showers and thunderstorms we talked about Thursday is getting better organized and could become a tropical depression later Friday. Most forecasters believe it is destined to become Tropical Storm Debby and hit somewhere along the Texas coast.

Emergency management officials in Texas are getting prepared. Debby likely won't be anything more than a tropical storm, but even that can mean big trouble. Tropical Storm Allison had only 50 mph winds when it struck the east Texas coast in 1991, but it dropped 40 inches of rain in some areas near Houston. That caused devastating floods that killed 23 people.