Isolated tornado, strong winds and hail possible in the Triangle Wednesday
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- Much of North Carolina could see a Level 1 marginal severe storm risk Wednesday.
- Isolated storms could cause strong wind gusts, large hail and a brief tornado, NWS warned.
- Statewide drought persists with about 95% of North Carolina in severe or extreme drought.
Much of North Carolina, including the Triangle, could see severe storms headed into the afternoon and evening on Wednesday, April 29.
But if depends on if today’s clouds can scoot out of the way.
“We are not sure that we are definitely going to have thunderstorms with the cold front that’s coming through itself,” said Tom Green, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Raleigh office. “One of the things is the fact that it’s overcast right now. And so we have a lot of clouds, and so it’s going to depend on whether we end up getting the clouds to clear out at all that would end up giving the atmosphere some energy to end up developing the thunderstorms.”
The National Weather Service issued a Level 1 (or marginal) risk for severe storms for nearly all of North Carolina. The isolated storms could produce strong wind gusts, large hail and a brief tornado, according to an early morning briefing from the NWS.
In the Triangle, the those storms could appear between 7-11 p.m.
Unless there is a particularly heavy thunderstorm, it’s unlikely many people will see more than a quarter inch of rain, Green said.
Temperatures for the Triangle area is the mid-70s and low-to-mid-70s on Thursday, April 30.
Rain during a drought
About 95% of North Carolina is experiencing severe and extreme drought, and more than 60 water systems throughout the state have mandatory or voluntary water restrictions, as of Wednesday.
Most of the state is 6 inches below its average rainfall. The North Carolina State Climate Office tracks the precipitation deficit and as of August 2025 to Tuesday, April 28, Raleigh is 16.62 inches below average.
“We’re going to need many inches of rain to end up catching up. It could be 10 to 15 inches of rain, depending on where you are,” Green said. “And, again, certainly if we received 10 inches of rain in the day, that’s not going to work. We would still have flooding.”
The ground can only absorb so much rain, so the state needs multiple smaller showers and rain to help catch up from the drought.
Temperatures could drop into the weekend, with the next best chance of rain Friday night into Saturday, Green said.
