Warm week ahead, but cold snap is in sight

You'll be able to keep shorts and T-shirts in your wardrobe this week, but keep the cold weather clothes handy. It looks as if the start of November might usher in the chilliest air so far this season.

Our current dry spell -- the longest streak of rain-free days in Charlotte since early October 2013 -- figures to continue a few more days this week, and possibly all the way to Halloween.

Along with the dry weather this week will be unseasonably warm temperatures. The average high at this time of year in Charlotte is 69 degrees, but we'll be well above that for the next several days.

Fans attending Sunday's Carolina Panthers' game against Seattle will see 72-degree temperatures at kickoff, and the high will be somewhere in the mid 70s. You can add a few degrees to that for Monday and Tuesday, and Charlotte's readings each day will be pushing 80 degrees.

Tuesday might be the final 80-degree day of the year for Charlotte, because a weak cold front will arrive Wednesday and drop temperatures back to seasonal levels by Thursday. The forecast for Halloween (Friday) is for mostly sunny skies and high temperatures in the upper 60s, but some of the computer models are predicting rain.  We'll see.

The models agree, however, in a definite turn to colder weather next weekend, and that will continue into the first week of November.

In its afternoon forecast Saturday, the National Weather Service office in Raleigh said temperatures next Saturday might stay in the 50s. There's a similar forecast from the Weather Service's office in Greer, S.C.

That means morning lows next Sunday and on Monday, Nov. 3, probably will tumble into the lower 30s in the Charlotte area, which would bring frost and freezing conditions to most of the region. And that would end the growing season.

Rain is the big question mark.  We're in need of precipitation, although most parents probably would prefer that it come sometime other than Halloween.