As post-tropical storm Irma continues to move northwestward away from North Carolina and degrade, direct storm effects are now subsiding.

The wind advisory posted for the region was allowed to expire at 4 a.m. after winds peaked in the early morning hours.  Breezy conditions will continue throughout today with occasional showers.

A Hazardous Weather Outlook is posted for today and tonight for isolated thunderstorms which may be embedded within the remaining rain bands of Tropical Depression Irma moving north through the area.  Cloud-to-ground lightning and locally heavy rain are possible with these storms. A brief damaging wind gust or two could occur during the showers, even if thunder is not heard.

Overnight storm-related damages appear at this hour to have been relatively minor.  Numerous scattered reports of trees down affecting some roadways have been received by the 9-1-1 center since last evening until now.  It is not unlikely with the saturated soil for some additional trees to fall today.  Duke Energy reports 471 outages across the county with no other outages being noted or reported by any of the other providers.

Key local government and public safety leadership are scheduled to meet today via conference call at 3 p.m. for a final wrap-up and assessment.

The Rowan County Emergency Operations Center remains at an Operational Level 3 (established but unmanned) in order to provide operational readiness if needed.  The EOC will reduce to a Level 4 monitoring condition later today as the remainder of the depression moves out of the area.  No additional severe weather is forecast for the remainder of the week.

This will be the last update on this event unless conditions change.