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Ringing in the New Year with Another Cold Front

National Weather Service
Strong cold front moving in from the west Thursday and Friday

Temperatures will be on the rise across the Palmetto State, after a numbingly cold Christmas weekend. However, as South Carolina approaches the final holiday weekend of 2020, another strong cold front is expected to carve through the region.

High pressure will continue to dominate the Southeast for the first part of the week with winds becoming more east-southeasterly across much of the state through Thursday. This will introduce above average temperatures across most of the state especially for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day when temperatures are expected to climb into the 60s for parts of the Upstate and 70s for the Midlands and out towards the Atlantic Coast.

A low pressure system is forecast to strengthen and deepen along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana and pull northeast dragging a strong cold front with it which will enter into the Southeast overnight New Year’s Eve and into New Year’s Day and continue eastward through Saturday.

While the temperatures may be pleasant to welcome 2021, the weather may bring some problems in the form of showers and thunderstorms, some of which could be strong ahead of the cold front. Parts of New England through the Deep South can anticipate scattered showers and thunderstorms as the strong cold front approaches from the west. This cold front is forecast to move through the Southeast Thursday and overnight into Friday as it approaches the Palmetto State. The cold front is then forecast to continue eastward across South Carolina New Year’s Day before exiting out into the Atlantic during the overnight into Saturday.

The Storm Prediction Center has issued a severe weather outlook for Friday which encompasses most of the Midlands and western Pee Dee and LowCountry for the possibility of strong storms developing ahead of the strong cold front. Some of the same areas that were impacted by the last strong cold front, which went through Christmas Eve, could be affected again with scattered storms possibly producing damaging winds and heavy rainfall.

Temperatures are expected to lower back to near seasonal by the end of the weekend with highs mainly in the 50s across the state for Sunday along with mostly sunny skies and drier conditions.