Expect Charlotte flight delays as Elsa nears, FAA warns. Here’s the updated forecast.

Outer bands of rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Elsa should arrive in the Charlotte area on Thursday morning and stick around throughout the day, a National Weather Service meteorologist said Wednesday.

Charlotte’s airport should expect flight delays beginning on Wednesday as Elsa marches up the coast from Florida, the Federal Aviation Administration warned on Twitter on Wednesday morning.

Other major airports, including in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles should also anticipate delays, the FAA said.

Charlotte could see up to 2 inches of rain before Elsa moves from the region by mid- to late afternoon on Thursday, meteorologist Chris Horne of the NWS office in Greer, S.C., told The Charlotte Observer.

“Heavy showers” could close in on Charlotte by about 6 a.m., Horne said.

By then, he said, Elsa could be downgraded to a tropical depression. Charlotte would see the remnants of the former hurricane and tropical storm, he said.

Bouts of heavy rain are expected to form, dissipate and re-form along the Interstate 77 corridor over eight or nine hours, according to Horne. Showers could form and re-form anywhere east or west of the interstate, including in Mecklenburg and surrounding counties, he said.

Delays possible at CLT airport

Those “heavy” rains, combined with possible wind shear and delays at other airports, could mean delays at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, he said. “We would expect Charlotte airport operations to be affected by the remnant of Elsa,” he said.

At CLT, 114 incoming and outgoing flights had been delayed by 5 p.m. Wednesday, including a total of at least 81 on American Airlines and its subsidiary, PSA Airlines, according to the flight-tracking site FlightAware.com. at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday.

Most delays were unrelated to Elsa, however, American Airlines spokeswoman Whitney Zastrow told The Charlotte Observer.

“There weren’t any major impacts to flights out of CLT today due to Tropical Storm Elsa,” Zastrow said in an email. “For tomorrow and beyond, we’ll continue to monitor, but are not expecting significant impacts due to weather.”

Other good news: Elsa’s eye is expected to be well to the east of the Charlotte region, so no tropical storm-force winds are expected in the metro area and nearby counties, including Upstate South Carolina, Horne said.

“It will be breezy” in the Charlotte area, but nothing worse, Horne predicted.

At 5 p.m. Wednesday, Elsa was about 115 miles southwest of Brunswick, Ga., and weakening, according to the National Hurricane Center. Winds fell to 45 mph, from 65 mph late Wednesday morning.

“Continued weakening is expected through (Thursday) as Elsa moves overland,” according to a National Hurricane Center bulletin at 5 p.m. Wednesday .

The storm could dump up to 6 inches of rain across southeast Georgia and South Carolina’s Lowcountry, and up to 5 inches along parts of the North Carolina coast, hurricane center officials said in a bulletin at 8 a.m. Wednesday.

Charlotte has an 80% chance of rain and thunderstorms on Thursday, according to the NWS forecast at noon Wednesday. The storm will lower Thursday’s expected high to 79 degrees, before highs are forecast to rise again to 90 on Friday, 91 Saturday and 90 on Sunday.