Quiet weather is still in place early this Thursday morning across the Tennessee Valley with high pressure still firmly entrenched across the Southeast. Temperatures are mostly between the mid to upper 30s and the lower 40s this morning, although the sheltered valley areas around Pulaski, Lewisburg, and Hohenwald have slipped down just below freezing, making sure to keep us humble this morning! LOL
Expect another day with plenty of sunshine and even warmer temperatures than yesterday! Daytime highs will climb into the upper 60s and lower 70s this afternoon. Another change will be a stronger southerly wind, possibly gusting as high as 15 to 20 mph at times, as high pressure shifts off to the east with time today. That gusty south wind and increasing cloud cover will keep us from dropping out of the upper 40s to lower 50s overnight tonight.
Thursday will start mostly cloudy mild and windy, with a south wind that may gust as high as 20-25 mph through the day. Clouds may hang tough and keep us in the 50s on into the midday, but we expect a few breaks of sunshine that allow us up toward the mid 60s during the afternoon. A few showers will be possible at any time during the day, although they become a bit more likely into the afternoon. By evening, a cold front approaches, and things brings a quick-moving band of heavier downpours and a few thunderstorms to the area. We don’t expect any severe storms, but one or two storms may have gusty winds over 30 mph. The Baron Futurecast model has this all out of here before midnight, but the HRRR model (the final three images above) don’t even bring the main band of activity into the area until 10pm to midnight tomorrow night. We’ll be working to fine tune the details on the timing as we go through the day today, but the main message is that showers are possible tomorrow, and then a band of rain and a few thunderstorms are likely tomorrow evening into the early overnight.
The cold front moves through Thursday night, and that temporarily drops us back to the upper 50s to near 60 for daytime highs Friday into Saturday. It’s a quick rebound after that though! High pressure shifts off the East Coast by Sunday with a stronger southerly wind starting to take shape. We’re into the upper 60s to near 70 by Sunday afternoon, and everyone is into the low to mid 70s for the first half of next week! With the stronger southerly wind, moisture comes north from the Gulf of Mexico, and as disturbances come out of the Plains, we may start to see a few spotty showers as early as late Monday night or Tuesday.
It’s toward the middle of next week (most likely around Wednesday into Wednesday evening as of how it looks at the moment) that we will be watching for a bigger storm system to move out of the Plains and into the Mississippi, Tennessee, and Ohio Valleys. At first glance, it certainly has the “look” on the large scale for a system that may have the threat of strong thunderstorms, but it’s just too far out in time and there are too many model inconsistencies for us to really raise the flag on whether this may be a threat of severe weather or not. It’s certainly the time of year when we have to watch systems like this though! Many things could change between now and then; so, no reason to worry or panic. This is just a general tap on the shoulder to let you know there is a system next week that we need to pay attention to, and you need to check in every so often over the next few days as we work to iron out the details of what to expect. Other than that, no reason to do anything other than go about your business as usual. Just be sure to stay in touch with fresh and updated weather information over the next several days.
