News

After opening day, Apple Festival weather looks good

Set up at the North Carolina Apple Festival.

By Bill Moss, Published: August 30, 2017

Blame Hurricane Harvey if we have a damp opening day of the North Carolina Apple Festival. After that, the forecast improves dramatically — with near perfect conditions the last two days.

Sunday should be really nice and there’s almost no chance that it will rain on our parade or on the Tour d’Apple bicycle event on Labor Day.
Moving slowly from southwest Louisiana on Wednesday morning, Harvey is expected to travel toward Nashville, Tenn., reaching central to west Tennessee on Thursday night. We’re within range of the big weather system’s eastern edge, said Doug Outlaw, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Greer, S.C. The biggest rain is forecast Thursday and Thursday night, with up to 2½ inches possible.
“It’s certainly looking like Friday is going to be on the wet side, unfortunately,” Outlaw said. “Starting with Friday morning, yeah, 70 percent chance of rain all across Henderson (County) and that continues through much of the day. It’ll start to decrease as the remnants of Harvey start to move to the north of us. So by sunset Friday the chance of rain will decrease to about 50 percent and continue to decrease, below 40 percent.”
Then good weather comes behind it.
Saturday will dawn with only a 20 percent chance of rain, increasing to 50 percent Saturday afternoon, then dropping back.
“Saturday night there’s almost no chance of rain,” Outlaw said. Ditto Sunday.
“There’s less than a 20 percent chance on Sunday afternoon and no chance at all on Sunday night and Monday night. So it’s probably not going to rain at all on Labor Day.”
We won’t have any of those scorching hot days, either, that often come with Apple Festival weekend.
Highs should be 74 on Friday, 75 on Saturday, 78 on Sunday and 80 on Monday for the King Apple Parade.