Warm today with rain and a little thunder moving in. Big chill arrives tonight!

It is a warm day out there for most of us across the Tennessee Valley, with temperatures out there climbing into the lower and even middle 60s! We've had a bit of sun at times, but clouds are thickening, and rain is not far at all away from the area. We even have a few thunderstorms back in north Mississippi, and west central Mississippi is in a Severe Thunderstorm Watch this afternoon.

Any threat of severe storms will stay well off to our southwest, but heavy rain and a few rumbles of thunder will overspread the area going through the late afternoon and evening. A widespread 0.75" to 1.5" of rain looks likely, and we can't rule out some isolated flooding issues when combining this rain with the heavy rain we saw back on Sunday alongside the snow across parts of the area. This activity is along a big arctic cold front that will be bringing much colder air back into the area. As we head into the late evening and overnight, there may be a very brief window where the rain may end as a little light sleet or light freezing drizzle. At most, we'd be talking about 0.01" to 0.05" of ice, not even enough for a Winter Weather Advisory, and barely even enough to measure. For the most part, that is no big deal. However, as temperatures drop into the lower 20s overnight, that may cause some slick spots... and even if it remains all rain, there may be locations with black ice overnight and into Thursday morning where any remnant rain water is able to freeze. Clouds clear with time going into Thursday, but with the strong northerly winds and the arctic air in place, many of us will struggle to make it to the freezing mark, and some of us may stay below freezing all day.

The chilly weather sticks with us through Friday, with afternoon highs once again struggling to reach freezing and morning lows down into the upper teens and lower 20s. We do moderate a little going into the weekend and early next week, but daytime highs only recover into the low to mid 40s, and morning lows remain between the upper teens and mid 20s all the way into the first part of next week.