Temps continue to warm. Rain chances return. Strong to severe storms early next week?

Temperatures are wasting absolutely no time warming up on this Wednesday! Several areas are already in the mid 50s across the Tennessee Valley as of the Noon hour. Skies are mostly sunny, with just a few mid/high clouds moving through, and temperatures will continue to warm a few more degrees as we head into the afternoon.

Daytime highs look to top out most areawide in the mid to upper 50s, with a few spots south of the Tennessee River likely not being too far from 60 degrees! A few clouds move in late afternoon and evening, and then clouds thicken up into the overnight. This and a breezy south wind keep our temperatures from dropping out of the 40s tonight.

Temperatures continue to warm from here, and we will be in the upper 50s to near 60 degrees for Thursday and Friday, and into the low to mid 60s over the weekend as we ring in the new year. A few showers will be possible Thursday, before the next weather system brings a good chance of showers and a few rumbles of thunder to the area Friday, through Friday night, with showers lingering into Saturday. We get a break in the rain Sunday before the next storm system ejects out early next week. Temperatures, meanwhile, look to be near or into the lower 70s by Monday as that system approaches.

The Storm Prediction Center has already placed a large portion of our viewing area in a risk for possibly seeing severe storms Monday-Monday night. The main timeframe for our local area is overnight Monday night into early Tuesday morning. We're a bit too far out for exact details for timing, greatest threat areas, or the magnitude of the risk, but this does look like a situation where both damaging straight-line winds and some level of a tornado threat would be possible. Take time over the next few days to review your safety plans and make sure you have multiple reliable ways of getting warnings, including methods that will wake you out of your sleep since this will be an overnight threat. We will be fine tuning the details of this potential for severe storms over the next few days as data continues to work out the specifics.