Our highs so far have been just a little bit warmer than yesterday, but warm is certainly not the word i’d use to describe today or the last couple of days – with us topping out only in the lower 50s, it’s only downhill from here as far as the upcoming highs are concerned. Most of us are still dry as of the writing of this update Saturday afternoon, but tonight? Big changes. Let’s take a look.
Through the PM hours of our Saturday we’ll see clouds build and build and this mid-level moisture is just a sign of the times – around and after Sunset we will see those high rain chances we’ve been discussing settle right back in leading to good sleeping weather, as I like to call it, being the story for all of Saturday night and into Sunday morning. Lows will be firmly above freezing tonight, but this rain is associated with a cold front and we really take a plummet with those temperatures into Sunday… and I can say confidently it’s quite a sharp contrast! By midday Sunday we’re drying out and even clearing out as far as cloud cover is concerned with highs in the 40s, and with those winds out of the north 10-15mph, it’s going to feel positively like Winter, so by all means enjoy the day but stay warm and keep the coats on. Sunday night we’ll see 20s… so pets, plants, pipes: bring them inside, keep them warm as we chill down. The first half of Monday looks dry, with our highs that day reaching mid to upper 40s… but Monday PM/Tuesday AM is round 2.
I want to show you two different model outputs from the aforementioned timeframe, because this timeframe is what we’ve been watching for the prospect of some wintry mix across the area (as of right now, more likely in Southern Tennessee). Both the GFS and ECMWF, two different models that have different ways of calculating forecasts, have a similar picture, that picture being that we in the Tennessee Valley are just a little too warm for any meaningful wintry precipitation. Trends suggest we could see some flakes mixed in with that big mass of precipitation in S TN as it moves through Tuesday, but I remain unconvinced that this will be anything of societal impact for us here – that sort of impact seems to be relegated to KY and into the Midwest right now. Most of us will just see big, broad batch of cold rain, again through the overnight… so more good sleeping weather, if you ask me!
We’ll pick up, on the whole, 1-2″ of rain over the next week which is a nice soaker, but certainly not too overwhelming. The better shot at seeing higher totals is towards North Alabama and especially into the Huntsville metro, but frankly I suspect most of us will hover around the 1.5″ of rainfall accumulation when all is said and done between the next couple of systems.
Long term we could see a 3rd round of rain late-week towards the Weekend, but Weds/Thurs? We dry out and have a nice couple of days, but take note of the rather frequent freezing overnight temperatures as we head into this first full week of December, so be sure not to let your plant/pipe/pet guard down when it comes to enacting those freezing weather plans over the next week. Again, not expecting huge impacts with that sporadic mix of rain and flurries into Tuesday, but we’ll let you know if that changes!
