Another chilly day is in store across the area on this Friday. We’ll have a few clouds this morning, but still plenty of sunshine through the day. Daytime highs look to only make the upper 40s to lower 50s across the area. Winds will still be gusty out of the northwest, but not quite as strong as yesterday. Still, sustained northwest winds of 10-15 mph with gusts of 20 to 25 mph can be expected. Those winds calm down overnight after remaining breezy into the early evening. That calming wind overnight, along with mostly clear to partly cloudy skies and dry air will allow temperatures to drop into the lower 30s areawide overnight, and we can’t rule out some isolated upper 20s in our naturally colder spots. With lighter winds tonight, we have a much better chance of light frost across the area. If you still have any sensitive plants outside, be sure to cover them or bring them in overnight.
Things start to change a bit as we head into the weekend. We will still be in the low to mid 30s each morning, but high pressure will be shifting to our south on Saturday and our southeast by Sunday. That gives us a bit more of a westerly wind Saturday, and a southerly Gulf flow by Sunday. Temperatures will begin to warm. Amid partly sunny skies, we will be in the mid to upper 50s on Saturday, in the mid 60s on Sunday, and we will be near 70 for Monday. A frontal system looks to bring showers to the area Monday afternoon into especially Monday night. We can’t 100% rule out a rumble of thunder, but that would be isolated at most, and no severe storms are expected. The front moves through but stalls near the area as we head through next week. We’ll ease back into the 50s temporarily on Tuesday before the front waffles back north toward us as a warm front Wednesday into Thursday as a second low pressure and stronger disturbance ride along the frontal boundary and bring us a more widespread shot at locally heavy rainfall and thunderstorms Wednesday night into parts of Thursday.
Unfortunately, the timing of that system likely means impacts to travel across the area Wednesday and Thursday on Thanksgiving itself. Locally heavy rainfall and thunderstorms will be the main travel impacts across the Southeast. We will be watching to see if a threat of strong storms materializes with the system, but there is way too much uncertainty to try to highlight whether there may be a severe storm risk in our area. The Storm Prediction Center has not outlined a risk area yet, but they do mention a “non-zero” risk of severe storms next Thursday across the “Gulf States”, but it is uncertain whether or not that would extend far enough north to include any part of our coverage area. Keep checking back in through the weekend into the start of next week as we iron out those details. IF we DO happen to end up with a risk of strong storms, we WILL be staffed to provide live coverage as needed, and yes, that includes on Thanksgiving day itself if necessary!
Behind that system, it looks like much cooler air may come southward in time for the weekend right after Thanksgiving as we end November and begin December. Nothing looks outrageously cold at this point, but we could easily see highs in the lower 40s and overnight lows down into the 20s by next weekend if the latest data is close to correct.
