Some areas have already managed to see a little light rain so far today! We’ve had a batch of light showers work through mainly northwest Alabama during the late morning and midday, and several locations in the Shoals saw enough rain to wet the pavement nicely, with dual-pol radar estimates ranging from 0.05″ to 0.10″ and that being backed up by rain gauge measurements across the area. Those showers have shifted over into areas of southern Tennessee and north Alabama off to the east of our viewing area, but additional spotty showers are already beginning to develop back in northeast Mississippi. The sun is breaking out behind this first round of showers, and after sitting in the lower 60s because of the clouds and showers, temperatures are now starting to climb rapidly into the upper 60s and lower 70s. Our area as a whole is not done with the rain for the rest of the day though, as we expect additional scattered showers and a few rumbles of thunder to develop ahead of the approaching cold front between now and about 10pm-Midnight tonight.
Between now and 6:00 or 7:00pm, scattered showers and a few rumbles of thunder will fill back in across the area as the cold front approaches. These will be spotty, and not everyone will see rain from these. However, if you do, you could have a short-lived downpour that may give you as much as a quarter to half inch of rain. These will shift out of the area by midnight and leave us with mostly cloudy skies through daybreak with morning lows staying generally in the low to mid 50s.
Clouds may be slow to clear out on Friday, and we can’t even rule out a lingering shower for the first part of the day. With a little afternoon sun, daytime highs will make a good attempt at either the upper 60s or lower 70s. Everyone looks to climb into the low to mid 70s on Saturday with mostly sunny skies. We may be a couple degrees cooler with a mix of sun and clouds on Sunday, but a sustained warming trend looks to start up next week as a big weather system organizes in the western United States. That gives us a southerly flow here, and we see temperatures warm into the mid 70s (maybe even the upper 70s in spots) toward the middle and latter part of next week. We look to stay dry through much of next week, with rain eventually approaching us toward next Friday or so.