Dry today. Showers and storms Thursday. Warming for the weekend.
Clouds are on the increase, but it's still another nice and seasonably warm day across the Tennessee Valley. A great day to drive with the windows down, with a southerly breeze and temperatures in the mid 70s today. Weather changes are on the horizon though.
Clouds will continue to thicken as we head through the rest of this afternoon and into the evening as moisture increases. The increased cloud cover, rising dewpoints, and southerly wind all mean that we won't cool quite as much or nearly as quickly tonight, with overnight lows staying in the 60s. During the early morning hours, between midnight and daybreak, we look to see a few showers develop across the area. These will be mostly light and spotty in nature, but don't be surprised at a little rain early in the morning hours.
As we head toward the late morning and midday hours, the cold front will begin moving into the area. A broken band of scattered showers and thunderstorms will develop just ahead of the front and move through the area during the midday to late afternoon hours. A few of the storms may produce gusty winds or heavy rain, but we are not expecting any organized severe weather. Based on the current timing projections, it looks like this is clear of the area by 4:00 or 5:00.
The cold front clears the area by the evening hours, and a temporary shot of cooler and drier air moves in. Overnight lows Thursday night drop back into the upper 40s, and daytime highs on Friday look to stay in the upper 60s to lower 70s. High pressure shifts across and then east of the area through the weekend. This means that winds become more southerly, which means another warm up is ahead. We warm back into the mid 70s for Saturday, and into the upper 70s and maybe near 80 by Sunday and the start of next week. Showers return early next week with one of two weather systems we will be watching. The second one, slated for next Wednesday or so, may have an increasing chance of thunderstorms, but there is WAY too much model consistency right now to try to guess whether strong to severe storms may or may not be a concern. We are in our fall severe weather season though, and we will be watching carefully in the days ahead.