Chilly start to the week before temps moderate. Rain chances return to end the week.

The chilly weather of this early December continues across the Tennessee Valley with the latest cold front today only allowing temperatures to climb into the low to mid 40s despite peaks of sun at times. That naturally leads to cold temperatures overnight as well. Clouds will gradually decrease, but we still expect temperatures to drop into the mid 20s by daybreak across the Tennessee Valley. The good news is that this appears to be the coldest night of the next several across the area.

The trough over our area today bringing the cloud cover (and snow showers to the mountains of eastern Tennessee) starts shifting out of the way, and that allows high pressure to build back in during the week, before eventually shifting east as well and getting us back into a southerly low-level flow as the next storm system emerges into the Plains later in the week.

This sequence of events will set in motion a warming trend across the region as we head through the week. Tuesday will still be seasonably chilly, but several degrees milder than today. Then, we start warming for the second half of the week... even reaching the mid 60s by Friday!

As is often the case in the Tennessee Valley this time of year, a warming trend will usually lead to rain chances. We do look to stay dry through much of the week, but rain chances increase a good deal as we head into Friday night and especially Saturday as the next storm system ejects out of the Plains and approaches the area. The good news is that, despite the dynamic and potent nature of the storm system itself, we will not have the atmosphere needed for a severe weather risk, or even much in the way of thunderstorm chances for that matter. We do expect a good chance of showers as the front moves through Saturday though, and then we go back into cooler air late into the weekend and early next week.